If you haven't read the first two universes collide stories, then you better get started

Seasons greetings from the general: here's my Christmas gift to you readers, the thrilling conclusion to the cliffhanger at the end of universes collide 2. Please remember to read and review.

Disclaimer: I don't own Halo or any other videogame or TV show in this fic

chapter 1: business as usual

September 28, 2555

location: the twelve colonies system, planet Caprica

Samuel T Anders and what was left of his resistance group flee through the woods, a Cylon hunter-killer party dead on their tracks. Their base at an old high school had been overrun 12 hours earlier and Anders lost most of his people. They were down to about forty armed defectives and quite a few wounded.

"Anders" one of his men said to get his attention, "movement up ahead, doesn't sound like toasters".

"Skin jobs" Anders muttered "spread out".

The Cylons had the ability to create human looking forms of themselves, but not a lot and they didn't vary. The Cylons didn't usually send skin jobs for infantry work, that was handled by their more robotic centurions. But Anders could clearly see some of the approaching hostiles, dressed in full combat gear, colonial marine combat gear... could it be. Sure enough his suspicions were confirmed by the sound of a familiar voice.

"You got a Samuel T Anders over there?" The voice asked, the voice of Helo, a pilot he'd met several months earlier, which could mean only one thing. He stood up and waved his squad over. Leading them was Kara Thrace, who Anders had entered into a relationship with during her brief stint on Caprica several months earlier. She went over tho him and gave him a hug.

"Told you I'd be back" she said "we've got marines and Raptors. Where's the rest of your group?"

"Cylons ambushed us earlier today, what you see is what we got" Anders said.

But their reunion was cut short as another familiar face, the Cylon Sharon who defected from the Cylons and had helped out Anders before screamed "incoming!". Sure enough, the Cylons had triangulated their position and were launching mortars. A few people were injured and Thrace could hear the familiar clanking sound of approaching Cylon centurions.

"They've got us surrounded" Helo said "we're cut off".

Thrace handed Sharon a gun and started falling back to a moldering structure that would offer them some protection. A couple more resistance members were hit as they dove over the wall for cover, med techs began treating them. Kara stuck her rifle through a hole in the wall and started laying down a suppressing fire. Helo was using a small hand held radio to contact someone, Anders had never seen the design before.

"We're pinned down, rescue would be appreciated" he screamed into the small device.

"We told you not to go alone" another voice came through "stand by, they're on the way".

They? Anders wondered.

"Give me the rifle" Kara said and in seconds, another marine produced an odd looking rifle from his pack. It was blue and it looked like two fish staked upon one another, with a grip going between them. Karat hit something on the top and a beam of light appeared, connecting the two tips of the rifle. She pointed it through the hole and a whine emitted from the gun as she fired what appeared to be bolts of energy at the Cylons, causing tremendous damage.

"Kara, what the frack is that!?" Anders said in surprise.

"Some new toys we picked up" Thrace replied "along with some friends".

Suddenly a green blur hurled over Anders' head and smacked into a centurion. The figure looked like a centurion itself, it was tall and covered in green armor plates. But unlike a Cylon, it had a great gold visor for an eye instead of the red Cylon one. It hefted some kind of weapon that fired bullets instead of the energy bolts that Kara's used. Another figure landed in the ruin next to Anders, identical to the one that crunched a centurion but this one carried a long barrel weapon with a rectangular scope affixed on the top. Several more figures appeared but these wore black body armor and their faces were obscured by matching helmets, they carried weapons similar to the one the green robots were using. They started firing as did the one next to Anders.

"Linda, where the frack is Kelly?" Kara asked as she continued to fire her rifle.

"She's flanking with blue-four and five" the armored thing next to Anders replied, in a female voice. He looked out again and caught sight of another green blur taking out the mortar positions. Others were also exploding but Anders couldn't identify the source.

"We're clear" Helo said.

"Lets double time to the LZ" said Thrace as she grabbed Anders by the collar and pulled him out of his daze. They ran with the armored giants in the lead and the one who took out the mortars in the back, surrounding them were the black armored figures he overheard Helo call "helljumpers". Eventually the group reached a clearing where several Raptors and other strange craft were parked, guarded by more of these "helljumpers". Kara led Anders over to one, they were larger that the Raptor and had short stubby wings and four engines, two mounted on the wings and two on the tail. Kara had him climb up the ramp into the back and the green giants, Helo and Sharon got in with him. One of the giants and Kara went through a door at the back that presumably contained the cockpit. Before the back ramp closed, Anders saw two ripples in mid air that suddenly appeared as human figures wearing green armor and giant gold faceplates. They sat down in the seats and Anders felt a lurch as the dropship lifted off the dirt with the others like it and the Raptors. Anders stood up and went through the open door into the cockpit and saw one of the green giants was seated in a chair above him on his left and Kara was in the one directly beneath it. Anders found a handhold and grabbed it as the dropship skyrocketed through the atmosphere and into space.

"Where the hell is he?" Kara said under her breath "Kelly, do a scan".

"I'm not... hang on. Three baseships, they've got him" the armored giant behind Kara said.

"Looks like its going to be a rough landing" she said to Anders after realizing he was there "you might want to sit down".

Anders had no intention of missing what came next, as the convoy of Raptors and strange dropships which he learned were called 'pelicans' came around Caprica, he spotted three of the newer Cylon baseships in a heated battle with something that made Anders' jaw drop. A Battlestar, but it wasn't the kind that Kara served on, Galactica was old from what Anders had been told. This Battlestar was one of the newer ones Anders had only caught glimpses at before, Mercury class. Brazened on one of its flightpods was the ship's name, Pegasus. They were holding their own against the baseships, missiles and guns blazing. Their Vipers were engaging their Cylon counterparts in a fierce dogfight. Suddenly, one of the baseships exploded, which surprised Kara and Anders, even Kelly.

--

In the CIC of Pegasus, its CO Commander Lee Adama watched the DRADIS screen as one of the Cylon baseships winked away, destroyed, but not by Pegasus' weapons.

"What the frack was that?" His XO, Major Kendra Shaw said from her position across from him

"I don't care if the toasters blew up one of their own ships" Lee said "we need to leave". He picked up the phone and issued the recall order to the fighters while Shaw ordered the FTL drive be spooled up.

--

"Kara you got two minutes before we jump" Lee said over the radio "get aboard, now".

"Wilko, actual" Kara said as she pitched the dropship down through Pegasus' flack barrier, the other pelicans and Raptors following her suicidal move. The Cylon raiders began to try and swarm them as they made their approach and the vipers started shooting a hole through them. One raider looked like it was on a ballistic trajectory with their pelican and Anders could see it had the same kind of red eye that the centurions had. The raider stopped short of ramming them and its eye focused on everyone in the cockpit. Anders could feel something tug at his soul as the eye hovered there for a few seconds. The raider veered away as did the rest of them, which gave them a clear path to the flight pod. They weaved through the explosions and made it into the hangar pod with the rest of their group and the Pegasus airwing. The pelican settled into a hover before touching down on the landing deck with the rest of the SAR team.

"Stand by for jump" Kara warned as the familiar bright flash of light and the warping of space appeared outside the pod. The Battlestar jumped and the space outside was tranquil and calm. Kara got out of her seat as did the armored giant called Kelly. Anders had enough of this situation so he pulled a gun on Kelly. He herd several gun bolts being snapped behind him as the rest of the green armored figures snapped their weapons up and pointed them at Anders.

"Kara, what the frack are these things? Where did you get these ships, let alone the Battlestar?" he barked.

"Show him" Kara said to Kelly. She nodded and reached up, twisted her head sideways and pulled off what Anders thought was its head, but turned out to be a helmet. Anders lowered his weapon as a human face stared back at him, she had pail skin and a mane of brown hair. There was also a look of sadness in her eyes, as if she'd lost something dear to her. Anders had seen that look many times among the various resistance members who lost family and spouses to the Cylons.

"Who are they?" he asked "where did you find them?"

"Earth" Kara replied "we found Earth. I've been there".

"Ok, then could you tell me what the frack that is?" he said as he pointed his gun in the general direction of the object floating right in front of the pelican.