Star Wars: Reach

A/N: I don't own Halo or Star Wars, as much as I would like to

Chapter One: Arrival

If we can't stop them, then we delay them as long as we can, and after that we make sure they have to crawl over our bodies. It's been an honour gentlemen.

Mustufar

High Orbit

Grievous watched as the last of his droid ships pulled into the system. He had lost this galaxy and was determined to find a new one. On his battleships he had millions of battle droids and they were all ready for a kill. He had looked at his star charts and found a blank spot where no one had been before, a different galaxy. He was determined to find it and take it over, unlike this galaxy.

Unbeknownst to any of the Separatist ships in the system, there was a small shuttle, piloted by two clones. They were called Gone and Shadow. They had been chosen for their uncanny abilities for stealth and disappearing. They had infiltrated Grievous' ship and heard of their plan to move away from this galaxy to the one next door. They were about to report their find to the Jedi Council when they detected a massive energy build up. Twenty of the thousand strong fleet disappeared, and the rest milled around. Suddenly, one ship came towards them. Their weapons charged, fired and just after their report, they vanished in a flash of light.

Coruscant

Council Chamber

On Coruscant, the Jedi watched Master Yoda as he decided what to do. They had defeated Chancellor Palpatine, watching as he turned into his true form. Now they had to make a choice. Make the first move and save an unknown galaxy, or stand by and see what happens? To Yoda, this was an easy decision; he raised his head, and said, "Ready a fleet."

Admiral Yulareen stared at his view screens and watched his fleet in amazement. He had never seen such a large fleet before, thousands of ships, all ready and waiting for the moment to depart. He had been graced with the 501st, 502nd, 503rd, and the 504th legions of clones. That brought it to around 42,320 clones. He had had it up to his head with impatience and finally he gave the order, "let's move out."

Reach

Sword Base

Dr Halsey stood with hundreds of other fleet commanders and stood to tell her plan. She had been working on it for weeks and it consisted of all ships trying a precision slip space jump. They all knew the odds but they decided it was worth a try. She dismissed them and held her breath. She knew that about one half of those people would not return alive. She also knew that Reach was lost. ONI had picked up hundreds of Covenant ships on their way in and with that firepower, they were lucky if they could survive the first salvo.

Their only hope was if their slip space jump worked and if they had taken the Covenant by surprise. She retired to her quarters and slept, knowing that it would probably be the longest sleep she would ever have.

The Covenant fleet emerged from slip space and Fleetmaster Rolo Tamamee was surprised to see that there was no resistance. This was supposed to be their strong hold, their biggest base in space. However, there was nothing. He ordered his ships to charge weapons, and that was when everything started to go wrong.

Hundreds of human ships poured out of slip space, some smashed into other ships, or just didn't appear at all. Some survived though and fired their MAC cannons. The covenant fleet was torn apart by the hypervelocity shells and the remaining ships finally launched their first wave of plasma. Human ships all fired their emergency thrusters, evading the plasma but some did not make it and vanished. Plasma after plasma volleys launched and the human ships burned. Rolo Tamamee grinned with satisfaction at the burning ships. He had succeeded, he thought, lost in his thoughts when suddenly, "Unknown ships inbound!"

"How many of them?" Rolo replied

"Around 10,000 of them sir, they are of unknown origin!"

"Are they friendly, open a com channel to them and see if they are", he replied.

A face popped up on screen, the man looked at him accusingly and said," Are you the one who burnt all of the planets around this star system?"

"Yes, I am the one, what do you want?"

"You are a monster, there must be billions of dead on those planets, and what do you have to say for yourself?"

"I have no grief for those infidels, fire upon me, and see what your puny weapons can do!"

Admiral Yulareen's face contorted with rage. How dare he call his weapons puny? He ordered the fleets weapons to target the biggest ship they could find and fire with lowest power. They fired, and the laser bounced off! He ordered all power to the second laser and this time, the shield vanished, and the ship imploded in a show of light. The bridge crew cheered, and Yulareen felt relieved, at least they could be beaten. Now he turned his attention to the other ships, and opened a com channel to them.

Keyes opened the com channel and Yulareen appeared on screen. Keyes was relieved; they would be dead without them. He asked Yulareen why he was here, and Yulareen said that he was here, following a CIS fleet that was meant to be here by now.

"They haven't arrived, obviously, so where are they?"

"Maybe they have allied with the Covenant?"

"If they have, that would be very bad, very, very bad."

"Why?"

"The Covenant has been burning our worlds for 20 years, and if the CIS allied with them, they would destroy our worlds even quicker."

"Then we have to send in more ships from our galaxy."

"Let's do it."

Suddenly a bridge crew shouted out, "Covenant stealth ships in high orbit of Reach, they have deployed ground troops!"

"Admiral Yulareen, do you have any ground troops with you?"

"Keyes, we have around 42,320 clones awaiting command."

"Then let's do this."

Reach

Rally Point Alpha

Marines looked up in astonishment as the hundreds of Republic gunships poured out from the sky; some carried clones, some carried tanks and walkers. Altogether, it was a formidable force. Suddenly, a scout signalled on the com, "Covenant inbound, there are also some droid like things."

Captain Rex grimaced, the droids would slaughter the marines that stood in their way, their only chance was the clones, they were trained to fight droids, but there were not enough clones. They would have to call in air support.

A streak of jet plumes signified the arrival of 2 Longsword bombers. They dropped special types of bombs that made the Covenant troops fall where they stood, dead. The droids, however, were another story. They walked through the devastation and fired as soon as they got into range.

"Fall back! Fall back!" Rex shouted as the droids overran their position.

Marine after marine fell due to the droids lasers. The lasers drilled through their armour and pierced through the flesh. The air soon smelled of burnt flesh and dead bodies littered the ground. The clones, however, were more disciplined. They stood, and from cover, fired back. Clones were specifically trained to take on droids. It was easy. Suddenly, AAT tanks hovered into the fight. Their laser cannons smashed the first barricade, taking many lives. The clones own tanks, the AT-TE tanks, fired their weapons back too. Heavy rounds from the UNSC tanks thundered into the AAT tanks, exploding with thunderous force.

Rex from Torrent Company of the 501st legion took his clones to an overhanging building. They jumped off, and landed behind the droid lines. The droids were now dealing with a two front assault. They could not handle it, and droids started to fall. Clones were falling too, many were irreplaceable. Finally, the battle was over. Rex looked over at the carnage; he would be busy over the next few days. He would have to find replacements, for this war was not over yet.