Greetings, tobiisagoodboy94 here. Haven't been here for quite some time, well let's see how long I'll write this.
This chapter is mostly a compact introduction to the story setting, so not too much focus. First contact on Harvests gonna be a bit different from what we know.
So let's go
Halo/ Mass Effect
Colonial War
Prelude
„Alright you maggots, listen up." The Sergeants voice rang over the country sides, the man was surely used to doing this, as his sharp voice made every present recruits snap to attention immediatly.
"My name is Staff Sergeant Johnson, but you will only address me with Sergeant, Sir or Great Lord Johnson our all savior. I will train you maggots and I will be your platoon Sergeant for the duration of your training. You may be volunteers and this may only be a colonial militia. But don't be mistaken, I will train you, I will make you cry, I will make you bleed, I will make you hate me and at the same time make you love so that you can only come if you think of my beautiful face. I don't care what you will do once your training is over and once I can go back my beloved Marine Corps, but the day this training ends you will be as skilled, but mostly likely not as good looking, as a Marine private." A few men grinned a little bit over Johnsons speech, well he could give them something for that.
"Alright ladies, since we are all so happy here, you will run, I repeat run, to the armory. In two minutes I will drive there with my Warthog and god help those poor souls who'll be there after me. Now go, double time." The armory was nearly half a mile away, so each recruit ran as fast as possible, nearly falling over each other.
Johnson on the other hand was now strolling towards his Warthog, which stood only a few meters away, but before he reached it, somebody intercepted him, a government worker from the colonial government.
"Staff Sergeant, Sir. I have an urgent message from the governor." Johnson didn't like this, personal messenger always meant secret information and secret informantions always meant extra work.
"Give it to me, boy." He snatched the datapad out of the young boys hands and quickly read through the text.
"In four weeks ? These eggheads want a militia team on their ship ? These men won't even have fired a real shot in four weeks, can't they just take police officers." The Sergeant didn't like this, an egghead ship was inbound to Harvest, they wanted to look at an anomaly that had popped up recently and they wanted to have military protection from the militia.
"No sir. They requested militia troops and won't accept police officers." The worker said and Johnson only sighed, as sat down behind the Warthogs steering wheal.
"I'll se what I can do, but I won't promise anything."
5 weeks later
The Keplar was no military vessel, that was for sure. The rooms were wide and well equipped, nothing like the quarters he knew from military ships. Every of his men had his own rooms here and there was still a lot space. The Keplar was a privately funded and operated research ship, which services the UNSC used from time to time. Except for its small civilian crew, everyone else on board was an egghead, over two dozen researchers. Their leader was just as crazy as he was brilliant, a quantum physicist, who was sure that the anomaly was of alien origin, which is why he had requested a military escort. But the Marines, the Army and the CMA had all denied him any support, so the militia had to be the one doing this.
A whole platoon, 36 men and Johnson as their commander, were on board, but the Sergeant did not really understand what they were supposed to do. The Keplar was completely unarmed and unarmoured, any possible alien just needed to cough at her to kill them all.
And even if anybody tried to board the ship, the militia wouldn't be able to do anything, they had had no real combat training and only a few hours on the shooting range, just enough to teach them not to kill each other and themselves.
"Sergeant, how great to see you. Ready to write history ?" the chief researchers asked him and he couldn't care less, those eggheads didn't even allow him to smoke on the ship.
The anomaly was some strange looking planetoid, at the edge of Harvests system, which some off the eggheads claimed was made by aliens.
"Ship's approaching the planetoid, all crew be ready for eventual turbulence." The captains voice came out of the ships speakers and again, Johnson couldn't care less. He was supposed to train militia men to fight Innies and afterwards go fight Innies himself, again.
"Alert, alert ! All personal to their stations immediately." Alright, about this Johnson cared now and he ran towards the bridge.
"The planetoid is breaking apart." The Captain explained as Johnson stormed on the ships small bridge, the eggheads seemed to going crazy, but all the Captain could think about was maneuvering the ships out of this mess.
"That dam rock started to break apart once we approached it and all scanners went nuts, those readings can't be true." The older man explained, between barking orders to what crew he had.
"Those readings are true, Captain. There is something inside that rock and its powering up." The head researcher explained, as he worked on a nearby console.
"There's something inside, that's powering up ? More than enough reason to get out of here." Johnson agreed to the Captain and the maneuver engines were using full power to move the ship away, but it was still painfully slow and a few of the larger chunks of rock only missed the a a few hundred feet.
"I'm getting more data on the object. These readings are going against anything we know." The researchers mumbled, but right now they were the only ones caring about it.
Four weeks later
They had been lucky to not been hit by any debris and now the ship was standing guard at the object. Sergeant Johnson had demanded that a ship was send to the next CMA facility directly. With its advanced sensors the Keplar was now working as a listening post, looking for any strange, well more strange than what they already saw, occurences around the object.
The militia men had nicknamed it the "Big stick" and it was fitting, it was a large metal structure, which had a slight similarity to a key, a round, flat torso with some sort of blue, glowing orb in the middle and two "arms stretching into one direction.
The readings from the object were still crazy, so Johnson didn't want to risk anything with it, unless it was guarded by at least half a dozen warships.
"Danger, dangerous level of energy output." The synthetic voice of the dumb AI, which helped the crew of the ship, shouted through the speakers, as Johnson bursted into the bridge again.
"What the hell happened ?" he asked, loudly, as walked towards the eggheads, because he could literally smell that it was their fault.
"The head scientist sen and unauthorized drone towards the object, which powered up and shoot it away." The captain and explained and Johnson was a bit puzzled.
"Shoot it away ? Like a mass driver ? Is that thing some sort of funky, alien MAC gun ?" the researchers shook their head, of course soldiers would only think of weapons.
"No, the speed, with which the drone was catapulted away was far beyond a simple mass driver, it broke any law of physics we know. Several million, if not billion, if not trillion times the speed of light, we couldn't really measure it."
Johnson was no scientist, but he had a basic understanding what the speed of light was.
"Sweet mother mercy. If that drone hits a ship, hell a planet, there'd be nothing left of either of them." He mumbled and this time the scientists agreed.
"No more interaction with this thing, I don't want any alien planet getting cracked open by our drones. We'll keep our distance and wait for the ships to arrive. If we're lucky they can take this thing out." The scientists were enraged now.
"Are you crazy, this is an alien artifact, with amazing technology and you want to destroy it ? Are you mental ?" Johnson didn't like civies talking like that and gave them a look, which stopped any complaining.
"What I see is massive mass driver, which could turn around and fire a rock at Harvest, which would go through the planet like its butter and most likely through a few million more planets, which would be unlucky enough to be in the way. We'll take it out of order and then you can research what remains." 'If something remains' he added in his head, there would be nothing left to haul to the lab, if they had to use the big guys.
"CMA will be here in a week, until then no more research, no more drones or I'll put a bullet between the eyes of the one who dares to defies this order."
A week later, the small CMA battlegroup reached the system, two light frigates and an old destroyer. Not as much as Johnson had wished for, but both the UNSC and the CMA fleets were spread thin. There were still dozens of rebel cells operating all over UEG space and combined the navies had only about 2 000 ship to cover about 800 worlds. So this battlegroup was already massive by CMA standards, who had already lost most of their ships to the UNSC, after the scandals concerning rebel infiltration and missing equipment.
The Heracles, the destroyer and 'flagship' of this small fleet was nearest to the object, as it suddenly powered up again and a second later, she disappeared in a fire ball.
"Something collided with the Heracles, all hands lost. Oh my god, there are more coming in." the XO on the 'Echons' bridge explained, nearly screaming. The Echons was an old light frigate, CMA had lost most of its new ships already, and now, out of nowhere, half a dozen ships of appeared around the object.
"Battlestation, I repeat, battlestations. Power up the MAC gun and warm up the Archer pods, this was an obvious act of aggression, whoever they are, they just killed hundreds of our people." The Echons captain ordered and the bridge turned into an organized mess, just like the Keplars bridge, but not because they got ready for battle.
"What do you mean these ships came through the object ? Are you telling me that one of their ships collided with the Heracles ? " Johnson tried to understand what the scientists were telling him.
"This was an accident, not an act of aggression. You need to tell the CMA to stand down." The scientists tried to tell him, but it was already too late.
Through the bridges windows, they saw how both frigates unleashed dozens of Archer rockets, all of them racing towards the enemy ships, which were only a few hundred miles away from them.
But the alien ships had a point defense system and it was better than everything Johnson had ever seen before, within a second, nearly all rockets exploded, before hitting anything and those few, which made it through, only hit some sort of barrier.
"They're returning fire", the Captain cried out, as the aliens returned the favour. Several projectiles, fired by some sort of mass drivers, raced towards the ships, with an abnormal speed. The frigates had not much armour, 30 cm plates at best, so the damage they took was immense. One had its whole right side torn open, while the other was punctured like a swiss cheese, after the ships had fired two dozen rounds in a short time.
"Nuclear alert !" they really had brought the big guys, Johnson thought, as both frigates fired half a dozen ten mega-tonne warhead, all of their nuclear ordonance, at the enemy. This time it didn't matter if they were intercepted shortly before, the nuclear explosions still swallowed three of the enemy ships, leaving nothing but burning wreckage.
But the battle was over now, the remaining aliens now fired non stop, until the frigates were nothing but dead, torn apart metal and then they turned towards the Keplar.
"Get us out of here, now, spin up the slip-space engine and go. What the ?" Johnson orders came too late, suddenly the ships disappeared and only a moment later reappeared, right next to the ship.
"An in-system jump. No slips-pace ruptures detected, how ?" the scientist mumbled, but Johnson already knew what was gonna happen, as he barked into his radio
"This is Staff Sergeant Avery Johnson. All men prepare for enemy boarding parties, this is not a drill." He was right, a single small round from the alien ships only narrowly missed the fusion engine and took out both the sub-light and the slipspace engine, they were dead in the water.
Sirens screamed to through the ship, they still had power, but no engines and no ship to ship weapons.
The militia men were already spreading through the ship, forming six man teams, to cover as many corridors as possible.
Johnson stayed with one team in reserve, to coordinate the defense as good as possible. Several strange objects from the alien ship had broken through the ships hull, propably carrying boarding parties, so the men had formed defensive perimeters around the bridge and the fusion plant.
Marc Bradley and his team were covering one of the three corridors leading to the bridge, they had thrown some chairs and metal crates in front of them, to form some makeshift cover and barricades.
They were six man, five armed with Assault rifle and Bradley himself armed with a brand-new battle rifle, hardly enough to stop any properly trained opponent.
Marc himself was only eighteen years old and his father had nearly torn of his head when he found out that his son had joined the militia, while his grandpa, a former CMA Marine, had threatened to disown his grandchild for joining a UNSC sponsored formation.
Now they aimed their guns to where an enemy to come from and then, after a few minutes, one came. It looked strange, humanoid, but with legs more fitting a bird and a strange head or better helmet shape.
But none of the militia men took their time to look at it properly, they rather fired a few dozen rounds at it, surprising and seemingly killing it, after half of the round had been stopped by some sort of shield. The others aliens, coming around the corner, directly took what cover they could find and returned fire, with some sort of blue projectiles.
One of the militia men went down directly, as his head was torn of his torso, after one of the projectiles had penetrated his neck. But the others didn't care right now, Bradley aimed carefully and delivered a headshot to one of the aliens. It's shields collapsed and the round turned its head in a blue mess. So their blood was blue, interesting.
The aliens had now lost two of theirs and their fire got far more accurate, within a minute every militiamen, except for Bradley was dead. But he still returned fire, he only stopped when he was hit by some sort of different projectile, which through him back several feet and knocked him out.
It took the aliens only a few minutes to overwhelm the few defenders, losing ten of theirs, 6 of which could be credited to Johnson, who still broke one of the aliens arms, even after he had lost his gun and got a stun round to the chest, and for whom three of the aliens had been necessary to restrain. Now he, Bradley and half a dozen more surviving militia men, plus the whole crew were captured.
If the battle in space had been one-sided, than the battle for Harvest itself was just a joke. The remaining militia men and police officers had only been able to resist for like ten minutes, until the might of the aliens had overwhelmed them. 300 000 humans were now in the aliens hands, but a freighter had escaped via emergency slip-space. The UEG would know of this and they would come to fight back.
Eight weeks later
The alien occupation had been less worse than expected. Communication was still limited to basic sign language, but the aliens didn't seem to be that horrible. The militia men were still captured by them, by they had even let the police continue their work. Since Harvest was a major farming colony, food was no problem, but the aliens didn't even try to eat anything they produced.
Nothing indicated an occupation, except for a few patrol or a lonely alien vehicle driving through the city. The aliens had only a small garrison on the ground and after taking out the colonies single mass driver , which was actually meant as a garbage disposer, the aliens had simply left the population alone. But they had nearly freaked out once they found out about the colonies smart farming AI, but after it had tricked them into believe that they had turned it off, they had been rather relaxed.
This was about to change, since the largest fleet of spaceships in human history was approaching the colony. Fourty warships, lead by a massive Valiant-class super-heavy cruiser and under the command of the arguably best tactician humanity had to offer, were on their way to liberate the world and save the people.
" We dropped out of slip-space, 300 000 miles away from Harvest, first sensor readings indicate that the aliens are still in the system. We are between the planet and the alien object t, just like you wanted to Vice-Admiral." Cole had taken every precaution necessary, half of his fleet would guard the object, to prevent any alien reinforcements to arrive, while he would lead the other units to liberate the planet. Johnson had sent a data package, containing all data about the short battle, to the ship that escaped, so Cole knew everything he cloud about the enemy.
Nuclear weapons were effective against the aliens, but using these weapons near the planet could damage the colony, so they had to use carefully aimed MAC round, since stray shoots could wipe out a whole city, if they were unlucky.
Johnson was still rebellious, as one of the aliens, who looked like strange dinosaurs, lead him away from his men. They propably knew that he was a 'high-ranking officer', a description which would normally be a heavy insult for the NCO, otherwise they would have not accepted the fact that Johnson head-butted the poor trooper which escorted him.
They sat him down on a table, in a small room and a few seconds later, the Sergeants chin nearly hit the desk in front of him. Another alien, a completely different species, approached him, blue skinned, with strange tentacle hair but still amazingly looking by human standards.
"Hello good-looking. Are you trying to use the battalions hookers to get information out of me, well I could live with that." He didn't expect an answer, so his surprise was even larger, as the alien replied in clean, but slightly synthetic English, she must be using a translator.
"No Staff Sergeant, that is not our plan and I am no hooker. My name is Nerez Benzia and I'm a diplomat and envoy of the Citadel. I'm here, because we need your help."
Johnson was not a person who would stay shocked for long, so he replied, with his usual wit
"Well, good looking, how could an old leather neck like me help a young girl like you ?" the alien grinned widely about this, before she said.
"My species, the Asari, can get over one thousand of your years old. I myself am 750 years old." Ok now Johnson was surprised and couldn't hide it, 750 years, god dammit.
"We just finished the translation of your language, that VI of yours was very helpful in that. An hour ago a large fleet of your UNSC, that's the name of your military, right, appeared. It's lead by a ship we can only describe as a super-dreadnought and it has blocked our acsess to the Mass Relay. From what we have seen of your technology until now, we can only assume that the ships we have will not be sufficient to stop them." She explained and now it was Johnsons turn to grin widely.
"So you're asking me to tell them to not crush you, well that can be arranged." But the Asari now also grinned, which slightly confused the Sergeant,
"No I'm asking you to tell your fleet to stay down. Two of our fleets are waiting on the other end of the Mass relay to intervene if needed. One hundred ships, against your ships and your tech. What I'm offering you is a chance to prevent any unnecessary blood shed."
"Vice-Admiral, we're getting hailed by Harvest. UNSC identification codes and priority signal." the Everests AI, Messner, alarmed Cole, who ordered him to put it through.
"This is Staff Sergeant Avery Johnson, UNSC Marine Corps. I'm here with an alien ambassador and she informed me that, in case you attack, they will bring in reinforcements numbering over a hundred ships. They offer a cease fire." The bridge crew looked at Cole, disbelief in their faces. Was this true ? Or was it a trap.
"This is sounds all nice and peachy Staff Sergeant. But how can I know that there isn't an alien soldier pointing a weapon at your head, forcing you to lie to me ? Or better, how do I know that the aliens aren't gonna open fire once we step down." Cole replied and for a few moments there was silence.
"They offer to land the ships that still guard Harvest and retreat out of all settlements. They'll release all prisoners and retreat to some camps outside the population centers." Sergeant Johnson was a small legend within the UNSC, Cole couldn't imagine a man like that letting himself get used by the aliens.
"Alright Sergeant. Your alien friends have one hour, then I'll send my Marines and they'll fire on any alien that is not at least trying to leave Utgard." Protocol would have demanded from Cole to send these aliens to hell, but with a chance like this, a chance to solve this peacefully, he simply couldn't let this chance pass.
"Copy that, they will leave." The connection was now terminated and Cole started to bark order around.
"I want the Aachens Pelicans ready, tell them to send down every man they can. And add a few Longswords for air space coverage. Tell them to keep an eye on those alien ships down there and have the fleet reunite near the object. The Everest will be enough to keep an eye on their ships." Both Messner and the members of the bridge crew gave him a short salute and raced to fulfill their orders.
On board the Aachen, which was an Orion-class carrier, one of the most powerful classes of warships the UNSC had, heavily armed and equipped with automated miniature factory and chemical processors, these ships were both capital warships, fleet support ships and carriers at the same time. They were slightly smaller than the massive super-cruiser and lacked some of its armament and especially its immense armor.
All of its flight decks were now busy, deck crews preparing Longswords and Pelican, groups of Marines gathering to get on board. Ten minutes before the end of Coles deadline, dozens of these aircraft left the carrier, forming a loose formation of nearly a hundred small ships, racing for harvest and its capital. Johnson and Bradley were now standing on top of the parliament building of Utgard, watching as the sky filled with countless human jets and dropships.
Only one alien was still in the city or not busy getting out of it, Nerez the Asari, would stay as an envoy.
"Haven't seen this many military hardware since Eridanus Not bad, right boy ?" Bradley only nodded in agreement, it was something uplifting to see this demonstration of human strength.
"I know this is a bit out of place Sergeant, but I wanted apply for the military and I wanted to ask you for a recommendation." Johnson started to laugh, as he took a Sweet Williams cigar out and lit it
"Depends for which branch you want to apply boy. "He said, still with a wide grin, as he took a deep breath of smoke.
"Marines, sir. Officers." Bradley replied and again Johnson laughed, before he replied
"Not bad boy, not bad. But let me tell you one thing, if you bring shame to my beloved corps, not even a five star general can protect you from me." Bradley was still intimidated by the NCO, not really knowing if this was a yes or a no.
"Relax boy. I'll se what I can do for you. You did a good job on the Keplar, killing on these freaks, with a headshot no less. Now take this and relax, it's gonna put some hair on your chest." Johnson finally broke the uneasy silence and offered one of his cigars to the young man. Marc was no smoker, but he would never say no to a good cigar
He lit it and took a deep breath, making the Sergeant laugh even more.
"Well, maybe we really can make a Marine out of you boy. Ever heard about Corbulo Academy ?"
Prelude done, let's see how this goes on.
A few words about the story:
I will try to stay true to what information there is about the Halo universe, for example that the Valiant-class is nearly two times the size of a small turian dreadnougth. Neither the UNSC, nor the Citadel are gonna stomb each other with super tech. So please no "But the colour of the standard Marines BDU underpants is light green, not green mimimi" or "Rofl XD the UNSC should be crushing those fuckers, lol.".
On the other hand critique and reviews are always welcome.
tobiisagoodboy94 out.