NB: Please Read
PLEASE NOTE
That the following Pilot, and next few "Episodes" while being my largest production to date is primarily a character and story introduction. I intend for this to be a cross over between two science fictions. I hope everyone who reads this enjoys it, and does not hate me for any ridiculously long "episodes" I write. I have fixed and edited this chapter as my original posting was in screenplay format as an experiment. Most of it is untouched.
This Pilot follows the start of the adventure for the Infinity and Sergeant O'Masson and Corporal Taylor, as well as Mass Effect's 5th Fleet, Admiral Barnett, Colonel Ritchie, The Vesuvius and the Normandy Class Frigate The Gibraltar.
Prologue: Act 1
The "New Covenant" is comprised of mostly Elites with a few colonies of Hunters and fewer Jackal Snipers. The "Heretics" are comprised of mostly Zealot Class Elites commanding Grunt and skirmisher squads, with two classes of Hunters, and multiple planets-worth of jackal snipers. Fleet sizes undisclosed assumed massive.
Hades Gamma cluster, Dis system, UNSC Infinite
Captain Laskey is staring at the CIC, which has view of a Planet and its moon with two Covenant cruisers in orbit between them. He is looking at the scene before him wondering what to do next when SPARTAN Sarah Palmer walks up behind him and asks him what's got him so confused - it being two allied cruisers.
Laskey explains that the New Covenant has asked for help investigating an energy disturbance near one of their solar collectors. Palmer begins to insult their ability when an Elite's voice is heard from behind the duo walking up to the CIC stating that they were only brought in due to the presence of a Great Ring and the fact the system they are in is one of the few "next door" systems to UNSC space and a Ring detonation could affect the colony there.
The Elite, clad in the white armour of a commander identifies himself as the fleet commander, and retrieves a data drive from his belt and inserting it into a slot on the CIC main console. The image changes to a holographic representation the other system. The Elite begins narrate to what happened.
The Fleet commander explains that they had a station orbit the system's blue star harnessing power from its massive coronal outbursts and a lone frigate to defend it. A heretic fleet came in at the same time as an invasion on a critical world. Obviously the invasion was a distraction to keep the New Covenant from reacting as quickly as possible. The Fleet Commander then explains that last telemetry they received from the facility that was responsible for harnessing the radiation as an energy source on the planet indicated that the Heretical Covenant was building something on the station and that massive gravitational interference starting being emitted from the station as soon as they started.
The hologram shuts down and the Elite continues, saying that with their fleet otherwise engaged by the Heretic's attack they require the assistance of the Infinity to liberate the system and find out what they have done.
Palmer indicates that her and her SPARTANs will deal with the mess easily enough and give the Elites their world back. Laskey immediately voices concerns over the gravitational readings with Roland piping up saying that in his opinion it looks like they are collapsing a star upon itself. The Fleet Commander interjects that he would like to stay aboard Infinity to co-ordinate their movements with his fleet and asks for a console to communicate with his Fleet efficiently. Laskey nods and points to a console with a man on it, the man swiftly moves off of it, and out of the bridge, presumably to the secondary control room to carry on his duties.
[2 hours later]
The Infinity moves off from its position, the two cruisers and 3 Frigates in formation around the gargantuan vessel. After a few seconds of waiting to do final checks the flotilla jumps to slip space. When the ships drop out a shocking scene is presented to them. The station seems to be harnessing the sun's power, to fire a strange beam into the sun. The station itself is guarded by 4 cruisers and a half dozen Frigates supported by phantoms. In moments the Infinity has opened fire on the cruisers, the weapon fire smashing into the armour of the cruisers, unprepared for a counter-offensive. The New Covenant ships break off from the Infinity and engage the Frigates and phantoms.
Palmer immediately asks for permission to deploy and Laskey ok's it and says to take Fire team DELTA with her for back up. Palmer heads off to the Pelican bay radioing for Fire team Delta to join her there. When she gets there she sees the Green-clad SPARTANs ready and sitting in the Pelican when a group of Elites rush past towards the Phantom they boarded on. The largest stops and lumbers over to the SPARTANs. And gives them a small speech wishing they fight well and states he will see them on the Station. The Elite then runs on with his squad and is teleported aboard the Phantom. The Pelican and Phantom both take off and leave the Infinity followed by a squadron of Longswords and Banshees. The fighters take point and clear a way for the two transports as they make their way through the fire fight towards the station when a Heretic cruiser drops in front of them, its main guns blaring at the Infinity, but its AA defences ripping through the Fighters. The Infinity concentrates its fire on the cruiser ahead of the boarding force causing it to split into two pieces after a small amount of sustained fire. The transports flit between the two largest pieces of debris from the cruiser a few scraps of armour nearly colliding with them and they get closer to the station, now without their escorts. Automated defences on the station suddenly open up, forcing the Pelican and Phantom apart. The Phantom reports that they'll dock at the top of the station and fight their way down. The stations defences are now ignoring the incoming transports and are firing on the Infinity, which is trading the odd volley back between holding the cruisers off and covering the transports. The Pelican manages to make its way into the docking bay of the station, and deploys the SPARTANs. Palmer immediately orders Delta to take those defensive weapons down while she finds out what is happening.
[Half hour later]
SPARTAN Commander Sarah Palmer, 1 deck below the main control room
Palmer steps up against a wall, hiding behind it as footsteps get closer and closer. She pulls out her combat knife and as an Elite steps into view she slams the blade into the Elite's throat, twists and pulls in one movement yanking the blade out, with a chunk of the Sanghelli's throat. Another Elite steps round the corner, but is silenced by a round through the neck as Palmer draws and fires one of her silenced Magnums. She steps up against the next corner, seeing nothing on her motion sensor or visually she moves onto the bridge. There is a group of Elites in the bridge and a few Grunts which take no time at all after she stealthily removes the main commander, a Zealot class Elite. She runs to the central terminal, left open by the commander and Roland accesses the terminal through her suit.
A small dialogue opens between Palmer and Roland where he sarcastically asks if she would like help with that. Palmer tells him to just get on with it just before he tells her that a group of Heretical signals are on their way to the chamber they are in now. Palmer tells him to get DELTA up here immediately.
[At the same time]
Fire team Delta are in the weapon control deck, engaging Covenant attempting to retake the room the SPARTANs are in
Sergeant Liam O'Masson is by the front door along with his team captain, Captain Tom Reid. Three others are holding side doors- SPARTANs; Jackson, Carter and Isaga - while the last SPARTAN, Corporal Lauren Taylor, is accessing the main control console for the weapons.
The Captain yells for Taylor to hurry up and she replies that she can't as Roland hasn't bypassed the last firewall yet. Reid gets knocked back by a blue plasma bolt which luckily impacts on his shield. He quickly gets up and opens up on the Elite that fired it. O'Masson joins him and the Elite falls under joined fire. Bolts are flying everywhere now as more Covenant show up to try to retake the room. Isaga's door is under fire from 3 Elites and he yells for support, and O'Masson rushes off to support him. He arrives in time to find an elite about to stab him with an energy sword and tackles the Sanghelli. The Elite, thrown to the ground grabs the SPARTAN off of him, and smashes him into the ground beside him. They both stumble up onto their feet and stand each other off. The elite makes the first move, and slices upward at O'Masson, who blocks it with his rifle, sacrificing the weapon. He the punches the Elite squarely in the jaw and follows with a boot to his chest knocking him down. The Sergeant the grabs his pistol and rattles off a couple of shots into the Elite's head. He takes the Elite's gun and then turns to Isaga who nods to the SPARTAN that he's okay. O'Masson returns to his Captain's side and fires the plasma rifle into a few Grunts who had gotten closer.
Capt' Reid makes a joke about O'Masson losing his rifle again and O'Masson replied to the Captain that he lost it up his ass – emphasising a bond beyond military rank between the two. Reid then says that they can't hold them off for much longer he is almost out of ammunition himself.
The fire team is interrupted by a heavy blast of plasma fire raking the corridors connected to the door, slicing the incoming forces apart. New Covenant Elites step into view and walk into the room, some carrying deployable shields and turrets into the room.
The Elite in charge of the force that just arrived identifies himself as Captain of Uthilae Squad and explains that a sizeable force is inbound for this location so their Company Master sent them here to support as there was doubt their weapons would possess enough ammunition. Reid thanks the Elites for the assist as Elite technicians rush past the Captain and Sergeant to help Taylor with the consoles. A chime is heard from the console indicating it has been opened up and Roland appears on the screen. Roland rubs his virtual hands together and cackles saying how he might not shut down the defences and gets cut off by Palmer swearing at him loudly over comms. Roland explains that her merely meant to change their targeting procedures he could get the Station to eliminate the remaining fleet.
After a few seconds the station's weapons shut down, before opening fire again on the last Cruiser and Frigates. The Infinity then launches dozens of Pelicans towards the station. A sight is seen of Palmer in the bridge, with New-Covenant reinforcements holding the bridge while she access the main console again. Shortly after her voice is heard over the tannoy.
Palmer: Addressing all Heretic forces. If you look out of the window you will see UNSC and New Covenant reinforcements arriving. You are heavily out gunned and outnumbered. If you surrender now you will be left alive.
The tannoy cuts as we see Pelicans docking in the bays and deploying SPARTANs and marines.
[Several hours later]
Laskey and Palmer are back in the CIC staring at the main console waiting for Roland's report. Palmer makes a comment about Roland not having enough processing power to handle whatever the covvies are up to when Roland appears making a smart remark to Palmer. He immediately begins explaining that the station is no longer absorbing radiation from the sun but firing a neutralising beam into it. Roland explains – upon seeing Palmers confused expression – that the beam neutralises a part of the reaction going on inside the sun, removing a portion of the sun's outward force allowing the Sun's mass to overwhelm it and collapse the star. The neutralisation has to be constant or the mass and force would balance again eventually. Palmer asks what it means when Laskey unbelievingly grasps the CIC's central projector. Laskey simply replies that the heretics are creating a black hole. Roland cuts him off saying that by his calculations this black hole won't do anything catastrophic as it will cancel itself out after a few weeks – going by the heretric's projections. Laskey bolts up saying that doesn't matter and orders a recall of all ground forces and has Roland send his data to the Elites.
[On the station itself]
Fire team Delta – Sergeant O'Masson
O'Masson is walking past the Bridge console when he notices a beeping. He walks over to it, the Uithaely Squad Captain joining him. The Captain presses the button, and a hologram of an Elite appears. The Squad Captain immediately asks for information, what the hologram represent. The hologram responds with a warning declaring itself as the station AI and orders the transgressors off its station. Sergeant Liam O'Masson rushes off straight away, barging through the corridor away from the bridge. He radios his team to get to the docking bay to evacuate and explains what just happened. Fortunately Captain Reid and the rest of the fire team are already on the Pelican when they hear his comms and look at his position on the sensors. Capt. Reid determines he won't make it and orders the Pelican to deploy to O'Masson's position immediately. The Pelican takes off and moves to the 3rd quarter of the Station and faces the wall. It then opens up, its chain guns slamming into the wall, followed by a charge-up of the SPARTAN lasers attached, which let loose a powerful volley into the wall of the station opening a hole, through which we can see the sergeant. The Pelican then turns to face the SPARTAN with an open door. He runs and launches himself through the door.
The Station's beam sends a pulse into the sun at the end of the countdown, followed by a higher concentration of the beam itself, a pulse firing periodically. The result is almost instantaneous, with coronal ejections and flares starting to fire off of the sun. O'Masson manages to land in the Pelican, rolling into Corporal Taylor. He picks himself up and extends a hand to her, helping her back up. The Pelican is about to take off when he looks out the door and sees the Elite Captain and yells for them to wait. He then taps into the Elite's communications and speaks to the Uithaely Captain.
The Elite tells the SPARTANs to leave with O'Masson telling him to jump into the Pelican even going as far to call the Elite a Big Stupid Eel in an attempt to goad him into jumping. The Elite growled and said he was on his way over. The comms cuts out as a flare rocks the station. The Elite is seen losing his balance before stepping back for a run up. He launches himself much the same way as O'Masson did towards the Pelican. After waiting a few seconds the Elite lands in the Pelican, which immediately takes off towards the Infinity. They all sit down as the transport retreats to their ship and O'Masson asks what happened to his squad. The Captain says that his squad was wiped out by a heretic ambush as they retreated and most of them died in the ensuing fight. The sun ejects a massive mass coronal ejection out towards the fleet, a Frigate getting caught in it. The Frigate was retreating but after being hit by the ejection has ceased moving, beginning to show signs of being dragged into the star itself. The remaining ships begin turning off when the star's appearance begins to warp – almost as if it is trying to consume itself. The star continues to collapse upon itself, swirling in, circling faster and faster, until it is but a disk, spiralling into a central point. The station that has a few straggling phantoms left retreating starts moving in towards the just formed black hole, getting dragged into the gravitational well. Alarms start blaring on the Infinity, emergency lights flaring as the ship alerts its crew to something bad happening.
Laskey yells for Roland to get them into FTL with Roland exclaiming he is trying, but the Black Hole has them stuck in place which is causing massive strains on the engines. The last Frigate of the Covenant flotilla slows to a stop, and begins to head backwards as it is dragged into the accretion disk, the Cruisers beginning to show strain on their engines. The Frigate is flipped to face the black hole by its pull, the Frigate's engines sending it flying to the invisible death trap. It collides with the station, splitting it in half as its shields flare, giving a last sight before disappearing. Laskey and Palmer watch this happen on the main CIC console, open mouthed before Laskey snaps into action again.
As Roland and Laskey argue about ideas and how they wouldn't work a groan is heard which silences everyone. Laskey looks around the room, scanning everything with his eyes before turning to Roland. Roland explains that they have begun to be pulled back into the black hole regardless of FTL speeds and that the Covenant Cruisers are also being pulled in. Laskey turns and exclaims a desperate plan of using a Slip Space jump combined with the velocity of the Black Hole's drag. Roland says that he has no idea what will happen if they pull off such a risky maneuverer but Palmer yells that it's their only option left. Laskey has Roland tell the Covenant to do the same. Roland turns the Infinity around and starts accelerating towards the black hole. Another groan from the ship is heard before everyone is knocked off their feet by a sudden yank. The Infinity has begun to move even faster into the black hole. It is thrown through debris floating around the accretion disk - slamming into the Space Stations remains its shields slapping the rubble aside as it follows its Covenant back-up into the Black hole. We don't see the Slip Space rip but the Infinity disappears directly into the Black hole's centre in the traditional way of a FTL jump.
Prologue: Act 2
Milky Way, 25 years after the Reaper Invasion. The Terminus Systems have been rallied under Aria T'Loak's rule, and are at war with the Citadel. Shepard took control of the Reapers, and had them rebuild the Galaxy and then leave.
[5th fleet under the charge of Admiral Michael Barnett, his flagship The Vesuvius]
Barnett walks onto the bridge of his flagship, and settles into his command chair looking to his helmsmen and the pilot, Lieutenant Jenkins. Jenkins informs Barnett that Citadel Command have ordered the Alliance 5th Fleet to deploy to the Dis system as their outer space sensors detected a Terminus Fleet inbound for the neutral location on the border. Barnett orders a briefing to be sent to all ships with what defences to expect. The 5th fleet zooms on through FTL towards a Mass Relay
[14 hours later]
The 5th Fleet dropped into position near the Relay with ships moving into their final positions before deployment. Barnett ordered them all ready to be immediately engaged once they drop out of Relay travel so to scatter as soon as they can with all Normandy class ships extending as fast as possible to provide as much battlefield intel as possible. The 5th fleet dash forward in a flash of blue light which tails behind the ships, indicating the jump to FTL. The 5th fleet drops out into the Dis system where they see something they had not expected to see. The Terminus fleet is gathered around what looks like a ship obviously heavily damaged, almost split in half, with unknown energy signatures flowing from it.
Jenkins exclaims that the enemy fleet before them has been ID'd by LADAR as the Terminus' 1st Fleet. Barnett groans immediately and sends an order to all ships to charge shields to maximum and make sure all weapon chambers are loaded. As the Admiral continues to issue his orders, 8 ships break off, their armour beginning to shimmer as they move into positions around the Terminus fleet – the Normandy class ships hidden by their advanced cloaking technology
[14 hours previously]
Terminus 1st Fleet Commander Jiraeal [Ji-Rahl] aboard her flagship The Pegasus
A Purple skinned Asari stalks into the bridge of her flagship, and stands at the command console in the middle of the room, which was displaying a holographic representation of her ship until she stepped up to it. She presses a flashing button and another Asari's face appears this one blue with a few purple markings. Aria.
Aria explains that she wants Jiraeal to deploy to the Dis system to investigate reports of Batarian ships going missing. Jiraeal sighs and asks why she is being made to do such a mundane task and Aria replies that it is because it is usually the 5th Fleet who deals in this area. Jiraeal grins viciously excited and says that she doubts HE has done anything sneaky as he prefers his encounters honourable and straight forward. Aria asks if Jiraeal is questioning her orders and glares down the screen at her subordinate. The Asari Pirate says she is not and that her Fleet will deploy immediately. The collection of ships under Jiraeal, ranging from Freighters to a few upgraded Turian Dreadnoughts depart into FTL headed for the Omega Relay. After a couple of hours the fleet drop out of FTL in position around the Relay. And with a crackle of energy the fleet makes its second jump through FTL channels landing in the Kepler Verge cluster.
One of Jiraeal's helmsmen – a Batarian – exclaims that he has received an intelligence report from the Terminus spies that the 5th Fleet has been deployed to investigate strange energy readings in the area that the Batarians deployed ships to. Jiraeal grins as this means that the Citadel Forces didn't have anything to do with it which means a new toy. The Batarian then says that the Batarian Government has already deployed two warships to the area as recon support. She looks to her right to a Salarian helmsman and nods to him. The 1st Terminus Fleet launches itself into FTL again, the trail of blue lighting up behind the ships. The ships travel for 10 hours to reach their destination with Jiraeal's flagship dropping out first. They drop out to see a pair of Batarian frigates and a ship of unknown designation trading volleys. The unknown ship appears badly damaged but what's left of its shields is holding back the frigate's firepower with apparent ease, while its own heavily limited firepower is raking in massive amounts of damage among the Batarian ships.
Jiraeal immediately asks what info her men have on the ship with all of them reporting nothing. Jiraeal looks at the ship astounded by its power and beauty as it easily holds off the Batarian warships regardless of its barely functioning status. She barks an order to prepare long range bombardment and that she wants the technology aboard that vessel. The Batarian helmsmen reports that one of his people's frigates is breaking apart and requesting evac support. Jiraeal tells him to order the Fleet to send its Frigates and landing craft out to the stranded vessel. As the admiral makes these orders the unknown ship fires a group of bright purple plasma bolts into the hull of the Batarian frigate, causing it to mothball. A few seconds pass in which everyone is silent bar the pressing of buttons the sounds of confirmations along the ships systems. The Salarian Helmsman reports that they're being hailed.
An alien appears on-screen clad in a shining green armour, a set of four mandibles and a deep purple skin. The Alien identifies itself as Ship Master of the vessel before them and states that they need assistance being towed to the nearest Covenant or UNSC world immediately. Jiraeal replies that she doesn't know of the UNSC or the Covenant and demands a proper identification. The Alien growls loudly one of its mandibles twitching before saying that the Covenant and the UNSC of Earth are the ruling bodies in the galaxy and if they don't assist then the ship will destroy their fleet. Jiraeal reacts there stating that the Alien is in league with the Alliance merely confusing it. The Alien demands to be towed to a set of co-ordinates which Jiraeal ignores demanding the surrender of the ship. The Ship Master laughs at the Asari's threat noting the massive technological gap between them and that their shields are back online the Asari's forces don't stand a chance. The communication cuts and the frigate opens up, slamming firepower directly into the armour of the nearest cruiser, which is forced back by the force of the weapons fire. The other cruisers move into position and begin firing on the frigate, its shields flaring a bright green hue on the impacts, before its remaining plasma batteries open up spraying plasma everywhere.
Jiraeal's bridge staff immediately declare that the weapons are bypassing their shields completely, the Terminus forces cannot defend against this attack. Jiraeal's grin gets bigger. She slowly says that they will once their boarding parties shut down the ship. She orders the Dreadnoughts to move as maximum speed to bombardment positions.
The Terminus dreadnoughts move into their final positions bringing their main guns round to bear on the Covenant Frigate which out sizes their cruisers. The Dreadnoughts fire simultaneously at the Cruiser-sized ship which reflects the mass impactors' fire with a continued flash of its defences. The first of the 1st Fleet cruisers falls, simply stopping firing and drifting back under the firepower of the Covenant vessel until the fire is moved onto its next target. The Dreadnoughts continue to fire round after round into the shields of the Frigate, which seems to have no avail.
Jiraeal questions what she is seeing in pure disbelief, the Salarian helmsman states that he predicted this given that their weapons appear to be energy based weapons their shields would be too. Jiraeal growls a guttural response in the form of an angry "So what" to which the Salarian replies that even the Reapers had Kinetic Barriers – which means this once ship would be more of a threat than Harbinger itself. Jiraeal demands her fighters and bombers be deployed growling that her Fleet will not be held back by a lone "frigate" regardless of the technological gap.
As swarms of fighters head out towards the Covenant ship, an equal amount of Banshees fly out towards the incoming swarm, as phantoms drop out of their bays and head to the nearby Frigates and begin bombing runs on the Terminus ships. As her anger builds up Jiraeal barks an order to power up their Cerberus Beam Turrets. Along the Turian Dreadnought of Jiraeal's flagship Square turrets power up, swivelling into position blasting powerful beams of super-heated plasma out into the incoming fighters and the crippled covenant frigate.
[A couple of hours later]
Captain Naer'tus – The Ship Master – is on the bridge of the Evangelical Traveller. A hologram of Jiraeal's flagship is seen. Elites are seen bustling about taking care of their crippled systems and making emergency repairs and sparks and small explosions of overloading circuits soar around.
The face of Jiraeal once again fills the central hologram instead of the image of her flagship. The Elites in the room turn to face her with a growl, unseen to her as she can only see Naer'tus. Jiraeal commends the Elite on how well his force has held off her Fleet for so long – but given that his docking bay shields have failed and her transports are off loading Krogan berserkers onto the ship. Naer'tus replies that while he doesn't know what Krogan are but they will not take his ship so easily. Jiraeal smirks in victory cruelly saying that she had hoped he would say that. Naer'tus walks off towards the door, flashing his energy sword active as he does so declaring that the Weapons Officer now has the bridge.
[A few minutes later Naer'tus has entered the fray]
Naer'tus sprays a humanoid figure, with four eyes – much like his initial aggressors – into oblivion with a storm rifle the figure dropping swiftly when another appears and flares his shields with the fire from his rifle. A quick burst of fire causes the creature to drop in his place. He turns to face two more, with five Elites backing him, when a gruff voice yells for the "Pyjaks" to move out of his way. A large creature, with a hump on his head, trailing down his neck and presumably down his back – clad in massive red armour – wielding a large gun knocks them out of his way grinning.
The Krogan grunts a greeting saying that he must be an "Elite". Naer'tus states that he must be a "Krogan". The two exchange a few more words including the Krogan's name – Granos, a Blood Pack General – before the Elite clasps his Energy Sword. The Krogan makes a comment admiring the blade and states that when he has killed him he will take it for himself. The two charge at each other then the Krogan yelling fiercely towards the Ship Master. With his yell the Krogan lowered his head and charged at the Elite, bringing the butt of his shotgun up to the creatures head, flaring Naer'tus' shields massively, and bringing a head butt to follow, knocking him back a few steps. The Elite lashes out with a force and speed unexpected to the Krogan, barely dodging the first swing of the sword, the second – going up diagonally across Granos' chest – catching him just – engraving a line into his armour. Granos fires into the Elite's shields and swings a powerful back hander into Naer'tus' chest making him stumble again. Thinking he had gained an advantage Granos charged forward again, caught off guard by Naer'tus' immediate kick into his chest, followed by an uppercut stab into Granos' mid-torso. Naer'tus withdraws his sword and steps back, beginning to turn away when Granos stands back up chuckling.
Granos states that he is not dead yet and calls Naer'tus a Pyjak. Knowing it is some sort of insult Naer'tus returns it by calling Granos one and says that the Krogan will soon be.
Granos growls again and charges, to which Naer'tus brings his blade up again diagonally sliding through the Krogan's chest causing him to stop an almost empty look on his face until Naer'tus brings another uppercut stab into the Krogan's back. The Krogan's mouth lolled open, before his choked slightly, some orange blood coming up to his mouth. The two complement each other for a fight well fought before pulling his blade from the Krogan, and let the creature fall to the ground and turns to face another two Krogan aiming at him backed by three more Batarians. Naer'tus chuckles as he tells the invaders to count the Elites behind him.
The central Batarian looks around counting a fewer number of Elites aiming back at them and the three Batarians are picked up and stabbed from behind, the Krogan turn to retaliate but are gunned down before they can. Naer'tus raises his left forearm to his mouth ordering deployment of their remaining Hunter squadrons.
Prologue: Act 3
Barnett orders the flagship of the Terminus Fleet hailed and Jenkins rapidly brings Jiraeal onscreen – the Admiral's Asari counterpart grinning maliciously. She demands the 5th Fleet surrender and leave or they'll be destroyed. Barnett states that he cannot retreat while the Terminus' weapon carries on charging. Barnett turned to Jenkins and nodded to him, Jenkins cutting the communication immediately and suggest she retreat before the Citadel Armada's top fleet attack. Before the link was severed Jiraeal looked bewildered – mouth open for an obvious retort. Jenkins then turned to his screen pressing a few buttons and brought the Terminus fleet onto screen, with a holographic representation of the entire enemy fleet made up from the reports from his scout frigates. The downed vessels are at the centre of the blockade, along with the Covenant Frigate, which has a couple of frigates latched onto its side docks. Barnett leans forward and begins ordering his ships to move into certain positions, the hologram showing the positions of the two fleets real time.
[Almost a half hour later]
Jenkins yells drastically that the ionisation is reaching critical mass. Barnett orders a voice message sent to Jiraeal before ordering his fleet to deploy with immediate haste, the 5th Fleet being in prime assault position now. The 5th Fleet ships move forward into their attack range, and unleash a deadly barrage of Thanix Cannon fire, along with traditional Mass Impactor weaponry at the Terminus ship, detonating some of their ships straight away. The rest of the Terminus fleet moves into position – even with its losses out numbering the Alliance fleet 2 – to – 1 – and retaliates unleashing their firepower with their Cerberus cannons. Explosions rock the shields of vessels on both sides One of the Normandy class ships, the name imprinted on its side being The Gibraltar soars between two Cruisers and fires a Thanix blast into the nose of a third, blasting chunk of metal off of the larger ship.
Captain Moreau asks that his pilot bring them about to avoid hitting too soft an area so that they don't become a major target. The Gibraltar dips "down" under another Frigate of the Terminus Fleet and traded a few GARDIAN blows with it. The Gibraltar soars towards a point out of the battle to start openly scanning the enemy formations, when a massive shockwave detonates, flaring the shields on all ships, collapsing a few on the weakened frigates on both sides.
Barnett mulled to himself that his hand has been forced and ordered the Vesuvius' main cannon to focus on the Pegasus. The Dreadnoughts cannon starts to glow with the build-up of energy used by Thanix Cannons. Jiraeal's face appears on screen then declaring that she was impressed by the fact his Dreadnought used a Thanix Cannon as its bowline weapon. Barnett grinned and said there were benefits to having access to the Salarians tech divisions. The Thanix Cannon fired, the powerful beam scarring through the space between the flagships – but before it could impact another shockwave pulsed out, dispersing the weapons massive kinetic energy the leftover slug impacting the armour of the Pegasus doing little damage. However the second Shockwave visibly rocked all the ships in the system. The communication is cut as the shockwave inteerupts it. Jenkins pulls himself back into his chair before the Vesuvius starts getting impacted by the Pegasus firing on the Vesuvius launching volley after volley into the Dreadnoughts shields. The Vesuvius returns, its broadside Thanix Cannons blaring back at the Terminus Flagship when a third shockwave knocks both ships out of commission. The Pegasus firing up its redundancy systems almost immediately.
An officer next to Jenkins yells that the third pulse was a kind of EMP – and that the gravitational readings are now beyond what they predicted they would reach. As Barnett asks what it means Jenkins presses a few buttons and brings an image up on the CIC's hologram replying "that". Both men are silenced when what looks like a black hole appears, with a counter-clockwise blue accretion disk. A flare in the middle of the black centre is seen, and everyone stares at it. Shortly after a ship just like the crippled frigate appears, followed by a second. They dwarf the Vesuvius – the largest Dreadnought in the Alliance fleet – by a good few hundred meters.
Naer'tus' face appears on the hologram instead – the Elites somehow overriding the controls on the holo projector asking all Terminus ships to leave or be destroyed by the force of the Covenant. The smaller Frigate opens up, it's defences ripping through the Frigates attached to its flanks before its engines flare on, slowly turning the broken ship towards its larger counter-parts. Its engines flicker on and off indicating great damage done to the ship. All of a sudden, The Pegasus and the other Terminus ships open fire on the covenant cruisers, their shields flaring a bright green hue before they return fire. The massive bolts of plasma slam into ships bypassing their shields entirely, the hulls of Frigates and a couple of cruisers collapsing on the first salvo. A group of unidentified ships, mostly fighter craft fly back into the system and head for The Pegasus. The fighters and Phantoms are immediately attacked by the flagship's Cerberus Defence turrets. One of the cruisers turns its firepower to The Pegasus, its powerful bolts slamming into the armour ripping chunks into space as it disables its targets weapon systems.
Another blue –rimmed black hole appears, this time a gargantuan vessel flying out of it. This ship is a deep metal grey in colour – dotted with massive chain guns, missile turrets and MAC defences grids – and bears the word "Infinity" scrawled along its edge. This ship is easily 5 times the size of The Vesuvius. This ship as it drops out nearly runs into the Gibraltar which performs some fancy flying and breaks for the 5th Fleet. As soon as it seems to become aware of what's happening the Terminus ships have started to ignore the Covenant cruisers and have begun opening their full firepower on the Infinity, its shields flaring a bright orange as it slaps the weapons fire away. At the sight of the overwhelming reinforcements sent for the "Frigate" class Covenant ship the Terminus Fleet limps away from the system some ships managing to tow some of the damaged vessels out of the system.
The 5th fleet brings its guns to bear on the unsuspecting Terminus fleet, ripping their engines apart with a few good volleys on some of the remaining craft. The 6 less damaged Dreadnoughts – including The Pegasus – break off and jump to FTL with the remainder of its fleet. The 3 large vessels turn to the 5th fleet and face them, dauntingly, almost threateningly.
The two lead ships of the reinforcements – the larger of the "Covenant" ships and the largest vessel present hail the Vesuvius. To the shock of the admiral a human appears on screen next to the alien – the other human looking just as shocked. Everyone speaks a little bit before they agree to meet on the Vesuvius and trade IFF's. After a wait of a few minutes, the Sensors on the Vesuvius pick up two transport ships heading over, one similar in LADAR signature to the bombers that attacked the Pegasus earlier, the other an unknown signature. The two craft fly up to the docks and offload the people they were carrying. The first, the Phantom, releases the Fleet Commander and a group of 4 Elites – his Personal Escort – The Pelican releasing Captain Laskey, Commander Sarah Palmer and fire team Delta the two commanding officer's escort. The group are escorted to the bridge, the arrivals dwarfing everyone present, bar Laskey who is the same size as the crew of the Vesuvius. Some of the alliance Marines look intimidated by the size of these unknown soldiers and keep a wary distance. They walk onto the bridge, the escorts taking up defensive positions around the room and hold their weapons in a relaxed manner. Admiral Barnett spots the Elites and is caught off guard by their size, but then notices the SPARTANs, 6 with their helmets on and another without. He isn't quick enough to conceal his reaction to them and the woman clad in light blue armour chuckles and shakes her head. Barnett hears one of his Marines asks what they feed their troops on their world.
Barnett coughs hoping no one heard that and asks if the military parade is necessary. The Elite growls saying that if the UNSC's Demons were not present he would have brought an entire platoon with him after seeing what the locals were doing to one of his ships. Laskey asks the Fleet Commander to calm down and explains that given what's going on it is for everyone best interest that they always meet with a security contingent. Barnett looks around at his own contingent – several Marines around the wall – while it being the optimum firing position he somehow doubted he had enough men on his ship let alone in the room, except maybe one man. Barnett then asks what the UNSC and Covenant are to which Laskey says it's incredible they haven't heard of the Systems Alliance either he then taps his ear and asks Roland to try to help figure it out.
Roland appears, being projected by Palmers suit. He explains that he theorizes that because they entered slip space as they entered the Black Hole's gravity well it's possible the well ripped into not just slip space but another space altogether. Barnett asks cautiously if that is an AI to which Laskey unknowingly says it is. The Marines in the room immediately raise their weapons at Laskey, Palmer and the Fleet Commander. The reaction from the Elites and SPARTANS is immediate. One of the Elites smashes a marines head with the butt of his Storm Rifle, proceeding to aim at the next while the other Elites draw their weapons and aim at other marines. O'Masson rolls forward and knocks three Marines to the ground before pulling his rifle on Barnett, the rest of Delta moving to cover him aiming at marines. Palmer spins out of aim of the two aiming at her, disarms one, taking his rifle and follows with a back handed slap, before elbowing the other in the face knocking him to the ground, she then spins and draws a magnum, when a man wearing odd coloured Alliance armour steps up bringing his palm to the magnum's barrel knocking it up following with an elbow strike to the chin. The two trade blows for a minute. Before Palmer's superior strength and speed give her the advantage and knocks the man to the ground. He starts to flare blue catching Palmer off guard when Barnett coughs an "Ahem" causing everyone to stop. The only one who hasn't reacted at all and stays still is Laskey, who just stands there watching everything. He turns to Barnett and raises an eyebrow.
Laskey asks if they have issues with AI's when the man glowing blue says damn straight they do. His father fought them off 25 years ago and gave them all the peace they needed. Palmer raises a brow to the man who identifies himself as Commander Shepard son of the Galaxy's saviour. Laskey says that his AI is perfectly safe and that they should all sit down and explain what has gone on in their realities because there are obviously some differences.
[After both sides have explained, what has happened in their realties everyone has stood down And everyone is sitting down now, bar the defence escorts.]
Barnett and the Commander are stunned – a galaxy without the Reapers seemed almost too good to be true. Laskey points out that they in turn had their war with the Covenant to which Barnett nods an agreement and then points out these "Prometheans" seem like a fun enemy also. Laskey laughs and says that they are few enough in number that we can deal with them when they pop up and that their SPARTANs are a big cause for their strength against the enemy. A buzzer sounds, coming from Jenkins' console. Jenkins spins round in his chair facing away from the orange holographic computers and walks to the Admiral and Captains. He then reports that Ontarom is reporting a Hollow Attack and that their satellite defence grid is down leaving their defence station and a few Merc Frigates only.
Barnett sighs and asks for a course to be plotted. He then turns to Laskey and after explaining that Hollow Forces are Reaper ships with their AI cores removed asks for help even though they can deal with it themselves but with the help of the UNSC and Covenant ships they can deal with it quicker and get back to learning about each other's universes. The UNSC and Covenant groups leave the Vesuvius and return to their ships. The 5th Fleet jumps to FTL towards the Antaeus system for the Relay, while the 4 ships enter Slip Space. The Infinity and the Covenant ships – Daunting Grace and Everlasting Glory with the Frigate in tow drop out of Slip Space in the Ontarom system, in the asteroid ring and follow their orbit. The Frigate lands on one of the asteroids for safety and a few phantoms fly up carrying some personnel up to the lead Cruiser.
[12 hours later]
Roland explains that the twenty or so battle ready 5th Fleet ships are arriving now just out of the Asteroid Field and have deployed around the Defence Station with 11 unknown ship signatures heading towards them – the defence station appears to have held them off giving the Hollow ships time to regroup. Laskey sends a voice message to Barnett telling him that then Infinity will engage the Hollow Fleet to give him some breathing room but he doesn't know what the Covenant will want to do. Barnett says that Ontarom told him they deployed ground forces in their last attack on the station so he'll deal with them and Laskey says once he's dealt with the fleet they'll deploy a SPARTAN force to help. The comm. cuts and Laskey orders his ship to jump into combat followed by the Covenant cruisers. Barnett, left standing staring at his communications screen gives the order to deploy shuttles and have the Frigates provide air cover to prevent hostile transports landing any more troops.
Prologue: Final Act
The Infinity soars past the Ontarom Defence Station and its cannons open up on the Reaper ships immediately. Chain guns start spewing weapons fire into the destroyers that are flying too close causing them to pull away from the massive ship. One of the MAC AA guns targets one of the destroyers and begins blasting away into the ship the bright round slamming into its broad side. The destroyer turns to fire on the Infinity, opening its legs to land on the ship's hull when the MAC defence gun rips through it. Another two shots and the small assault craft is destroyed. The Infinity has begun to bear its main guns on the four Reaper Capital ships the bolts and blasts from its chain guns and missiles slamming into their powerful kinetic barriers. After several dozen volleys the Infinity brings its forward MACs online sending beam after beam into the Reapers barriers. The first one is disabled after a few seconds of firing, but by now the Reapers are in range with their guns and bear them on the Infinity. The red beams slice into the shields doing no harm to the ship's armour as its own weapons systems retaliate. A large amount of the destroyers have joined in with the attack on the Infinity, having landed on its shields, the energy matrix flaring under the destroyers feet and from their beams. The Infinity's shields start to show some strain under the combined fire of the Hollow fleet when the two Covenant cruisers show up and engage the enemy ships. The destroyers are chased off by Pelicans and Phantoms while the Capital ships are ripped into by the powerful energy weapons of the Covenant. The first three volleys launched at a Capital ship slam into one of the ship's legs, then the main structure then the broadside. The ship ceases firing as it sustains more and more damage from the UNSC and Covenant ships. Soon the Destroyers have decided to ignore the ships and inflict what damage they can on the MBP orbiting Ontarom when the fifth fleet moves in for the kill having backed off to use the station as bait. The battle is short after that, a single badly crippled Hollow Capital ship limping put of the system with a couple of destroyers is all that remains. A communications is raised between the three leaders.
The Fleet Commander states that while their shields are strong their projectile weapons seemed rather disappointing against this enemy. Laskey retorts that the Elites' have energy weapons which give them a powerful advantage here, and then says that maybe they can use Forerunner weapons instead. The Fleet Commander gets enraged by the thought that the humans have withheld technology from their Gods from the Covenant. Laskey says that they had every intention of handing over what they had after they were sure they could replicate it themselves. Barnett interrupts the argument saying he noticed the Infinity took a few hits and that he can help have them repaired if the two are willing to help him relieve the planet from the Hollow occupation – and then says that he has some disappointing news to relay.
[Planet side. 2 hours later.]
SPARTAN Sergeant O'Masson and fire team Delta
A Pelican drops down and begins to hover a few feet above the ground in the court yard of a massive Satellite Dish Array. There are dozens of Pelicans in the area with marines and SPARTANs pouring out from the landing craft. Shots are traded between buildings, obviously between friendly and enemy controlled facilities.
Captain Reid briefs Taylor and O'Masson telling them he is sending them to spearhead into the far back of the Facility to draw the attention of the occupying forces. Reid advises the SPARTAN duo that there may be civilians trapped so they may have to prepare to correct their fire in the middle of a firefight. The two SPARTANS nod to each other before heading off at a run to the other side of the facility and meet up with the Brown and Blue clad SPARTANS they were assigned to. O'Masson with Majestic and Taylor with Castle. O'Masson having taken point walks towards the door to the taken facility and has a peak through the viewing pane on his side of the "Assault Zone" seeing dozens of Mechs patrolling what appears to be a chemistry lab and a large block with protruding edges at the far end. He and Corporal Thorne pull the doors open silently and the fire team slips in taking positions behind some tables. As O'Masson and Thorne come in and take positions next to each other behind a table the door slides shut, alerting the Mechs to their presence and open fire on the tables. The SPARTANS return fire felling the light Mechs easily with multiple rounds into their torso's, a few head shots knocking them to the ground and causing a self-destruct sub-routine to activate. The large block at the end activates, coming online at the sound of the gun fire and steam flies from two vents on its sides and it stands up. One arm activating to reveal a heavy machine gun and the other a rocket launcher. O'Masson turns his aim to the Heavy Mech immediately and opens up, his rounds hitting the shields of the Mech. It returns fire, devastating the area between the SPARTAN and the battle Mech forcing O'Masson into cover. Thorne taps O'Masson's arm and points to his secondary weapon on Thorne's back, a Spartan Laser, Thorne reaches up and hands it over to the green armoured SPARTAN. O'Masson grabs the heavy weapon and aims at the floor and begins to charge it. As it becomes fully charged he stands and brings the targeting laser to the Mech's chest and blasts a whole clean through it. He drops down as it begins to overload and detonates knocking the tables in the room flying.
Taylor has taken a position against a wall, in a dark hallway with blood and scorch marks covering the walls, being point man of her infiltration team. The rest of Castle slides up behind her or on the wall and they look up the corridor to Taylor and she moves off first heading down towards the door at the far end. When she peaks through the viewing pane she sees nothing and signals to the rest of the team as much. They take up positions around the door and she opens it with a nearby console. Almost as soon as it's open the entire team come under fire, but this isn't the same weapons as the Mechs, its highlight is blue and red instead of white. Regardless the SPARTANs return fire on the locations of the muzzle flashes, their shields holding against the weapons fire. After a few minutes of fighting more muzzle flashes start appearing, indicating that reinforcements have arrived. The SPARTANS move into the room to take advantage of the dark but then the lights activate as soon as they step in. They see dozens of mutilated creatures, some brown some metallic grey and some green, almost frog like opening fire with strange weapons. The SPARTANs fight back felling the creatures as quickly as they can but strange light blue zombies come out of nowhere and one of the jumps onto Taylor's back. She wrestles the creature off easily enough, but it forced her into the open where two of the grey creatures opened fire flaring her shields to the point of almost breaking when a strange arachnid climbs over multiple boxes. It has orange sacks all over it, a bluey-purple main structure and two cannons on its back. It targets Taylor and open fire, 3 bursts of red plasma hurling into her. The first gets shrugged off by her shields, but knocks her back a step the second takes her shields down and makes her stumble further out of cover and the third hits her squarely in the centre of the chest and knocks her to the floor a smoking hole in her armour. The Castle Captain drags her into cover and then radios for help.
Castle's Captain radioed Infinity immediately requesting aid reporting they have encountered non-synthetics and that Taylor was downed. O'Masson looks to Majestic team and asks if they have this section covered. They report that they do and O'Masson rushes off telling Castle that he is inbound.
A Pelican contacts Castle's team and reports it is inbound and Castle's 2ic responds saying they are pinned in their retreat requesting suppressive fire to get out of the hot zone. The Pelican ID'd as Pelican-322 reports that they won't be able to provide suppressive fire as they are just breaking orbit due to presence of newly established AA protocols by the non-synthetics stating that it looks like Castle has kicked a soft spot and they aren't holding back now. Castle's 2ic reports that three massive things, came down charging their lines and scattered the team across a large hall and that large purple-orange insects have them pinned down and they cannot move, to which 322 replies they cannot help from this far as they are a few minutes out. Castel's 2ic looks up behind him as he hears a growling and sees a large skeletal beast with large patches of fat and muscle raise it's right arm – a massive claw attached – when a dark green blur leaps over the Brute grabbing it's head and pulls it to the floor. The other two turn-around from their position searching for the SPARTANs as O'Masson draws his sidearm and shoots through the knees of the Rachni Artillery Warriors causing them to drop – one firing into the ground blowing itself up. He then nimbly dodged one of the brutes' charges and leaps onto the side of the second behind its left arm sinking round after round into its exposed head. Inspired by their fellow SPARTANs performance as the Brute he was riding drops four of the Castle SPARTANs stand up assault rifles and shotguns flaring as they sink their rounds into the remaining two Brutes and smaller Reaper troops.
Barnett's voice is heard over the radio now saying that Roland has confirmed what the Alliance's Intel suspected. There is blue drives in the Reaper husks in orbit. And that at this time it would appear that these Reapers somehow evaded Shepard's taking direct control, and to utterly eliminate the ground forces in the facility to prove to the remnants that they are NOT the same humanity they attacked a quarter of a century ago. He also declares the Covenant have grudgingly committed a sizeable ground force to support them. All over the facility Kodiak A Mk 7 shuttles are appearing with Pelicans and dozens of Phantoms deploying Elites and Hunters. Thousands of ground forces are moving towards conflict sites highlighted by trading of fire, and the Reapers are holding ground well.
Laskey notices that his ships shields are charging and weapons are powering up – and he immediately yells for them to be shut down and asks Roland for an explanation. He turns around to see Roland's holo-projection and sees Roland's form but as if a red hue had taken over and the AI seemed to be in pain. The AI then stood up and spoke with a voice of a mix of his own voice and another unknown, dark and brooding, although synthetic voice.
"You thought us defeated. We have awoken again regardless of what those before did. We will not yield to your forces. You held off the inevitable – but NOW we will darken your worlds. We will fills your skies with fear and cities with rubble. The cycle continues regardless."
The image of the Reaper-Roland then appears to get torn into pieces, almost ripped apart. Roland reappears as normal but seemingly exhausted saying that his data core should be isolated immediately as he cannot guarantee the Reaper is gone. Meanwhile, across the galaxy a truly massive Reaper fleet is sitting in position around two things. The first being a Mass Relay, seemingly taken from the Galaxy and dropped here. The second is a Space station that is under construction. It looks exactly like the station used by the Heretics just incomplete.
