A Hiigarian Heavy Cruiser, the Interpolation was flanked by an 'enslaved' CUS Frigate, FFG/X-BRH "The Corner of A Circular Room", the frigate began firing her weapons at the Interpolation. Instead of the particle weaponry the other CUS ships fired, it fired projectile rounds. And her design looked older. The rounds exploded close to the Interpolation's hull, showering her with shrapnel (not that it could do any damage) and a green paste. Reports came over the ship's comm saying
"This green, paste! It's taking my squad over. Oh Hiigaria! It's just like the Beast!" then a hiss of static.
The Interpolation's captain was surprised. His eyes wide open in shock, but he quickly regained his composure. He gave orders to seal all bulkheads, the heavy blast doors slammed down, but that did nothing to stop the spread of the green nanite paste, and the forward march of the 'enslaved'. Lt. Major Kiara Soban and her squad of warrior kiith ducked around a corner, an enslaved officer walked past, then three enslaved marines followed. Kiara made hand signals that roughly translated into:
"Move cautiously, keep away from the light, fire only when necessary. Go! Go! Go!"
The squad moved forward. A marine tripped on a cable, he fell with a thump onto the metal floor, a passing enslaved officer heard the noise and began to investigate, she cocked her handgun and crept closer to where the squad was hiding. She raised her sidearm, she entered the dim hallway and looked around. Her eyes switching to light amplification mode, one of the many 'gifts' being enslaved brings. The officer saw the marines, she pulled the trigger.
The Shadow of The Day fired her antimatter beams at individual targets. One beam found an 'enslaved' MRA Heavy Frigate, the beam sliced it cleanly in half, both halves drifted away from each other venting air and leaking plasma. Another beam gutted a UNSC Destroyer. A third engulfed a squadron of Seraphs and Longswords, and the fourth missed completely, creating a crated a third the size of Garden. Then another enslaved ship jumped in. High Admiral Kazimir recognized the ship, it was the CUS VNG-LHmk2BlkA (HABR) 1712 "Lord Hood", she was commanded by Rear Admiral Allan Gregor. The ships maneuvered, attempting to gain the upper hand. They were locked in heated battle, a close shot broke the Lord Hood's sensor mast.
Kazimir rose from his command seat and took both plasma pistol shaped controllers, each had a variety of buttons and sliders, there were also two firing studs on each controller, Kazimir pressed a button, maneuvering controls were then redirected to him. He tilted both to the left and the ship rolled to avoid incoming fire, he tilted the left one forward and the right controller backward, the ship turned to face the Lord Hood. Kazimir slid three sliders on a controller forward and the ship lurched. Kazimir said
"WEPSCOM! Fire all broadsides!"
The turrets on the port side of the ship turned to track the Lord Hood, which was maneuvering to get a shot at her engines, the rear beam cannon opened fire on her engines, cutting them clean off. With the Lord Hood disabled, the Shadow of the Day opened fire her port weapons emplacements belching magnetically accelerated particles, tungsten slugs, missiles, plasma charge torpedoes, laser light and antimatter beams. Explosions ripped all across the Lord Hood's disfigured form, her weapons draining the last of the energy left in their capacitors, the first salvo from the Shadow of the Day hit home, vaporizing armor and electronics alike. The Lord Hood's left prong was ripped apart, pieces of it adding to the damage done. The PPC mounted as the Lord Hood's main cannon detonated, sending energy all throughout the ship. Her electronics were almost fried, stunning her for a few seconds. The explosion also exposed one of her three tertiary reactors. The armor surrounding the containment field was visible. An antimatter beam broke the armor and the containment field alike, the fusion reaction went out of control, triggering a chain reaction, her tertiary reactors detonated, setting off the secondary antimatter reactors, and finally breaking the containment field around the point singularity reactor. The singularity collapsed inward, letting off a wave of pure energy. All of thin happened in less than a microsecond. The flash was so bright that it temporarily burned the Lord Hood's final moment of existence into the retinas of anyone who was watching. The DACON AIs of the CUS and MRA fleets increased power to their shields tenfold, some of the battleships activated their SR Jump units to spare the Hiigarian and UNSC-New Covenant Fleets from the wave of energy. The energy washed over the ship's shields making them flare as bright as the sun, but they held up, the energy passed them and they beheld a beautiful yet deadly sight. A micro-nebula had formed from the vaporized material, and in the center of it was a small black hole. It was sucking wisps of gas, emitting X-Ray and infrared radiation. Thus illuminating the nebula. What looked like lightning flashed through some of the clouds and wisps of gas nearing the black hole. Kazimir cursed
"Damn! Shit!" then he shouted "Engineering! How much time do we have till the black hole engulfs us all! WEPRECOM (WEaPons REconfiguration COMmand)! Can you reconfigure the beams to emit Hawking radiation?"
The comm came on-line, the WEPRECOM Team Leader replied
"Yes sir! But it'll take me 'n 'our to make it work without an AI t' help!" He said in his rather strange accent.
Her eyes switching to light amplification mode, one of the many 'gifts' being enslaved brings. The officer saw the marines, she pulled the trigger. The handgun clicked! The clip was empty. The marine she was about to fire at raised his rifle. Then his eyes widened, the trigger was pulled back further, as he was about to shoot he whispered just loud enough for the officer to hear
"I'm sorry, Karina"
Tears began to well up in his eyes, the enslaved officer hung her head down in defeat. Then three muffled coughs came from the barrel of the rifle he was holding, three bullets sleeted through the air and hit the officer's forehead, bits of brain matter, shards of bone and a spray of blood shot out of the back of her head, all of which were streaked with green. The marine fell against the wall, sobbing. Kiara walked over to him, she patted him on the shoulder saying "Don't worry, that's what she wanted you to do. End her suffering, all the pain she was going through." the marine looked up at her, his eyes red. He nodded then he stood up again.
This night, walk the dead
In a solitary style
And crash the cemetery gates.
In the dress your husband hates
Way down, mark the grave
Where the search lights find us
Drinking by the mausoleum door
And they found you on the bathroom floor
He loved her, now there was an emptiness in his chest, he thought that there was no one left to live for.
I miss you, I miss you so far
And the collision of your kiss that made it so hard
All of his memories regarding her flashed before his eyes, when they first met, their first kiss during the ball, when they signed up in the navy, when he gave her an engagement ring. Up to the time he shot her.
Back home, off the run
Singing songs that make you slit your wrists
It isn't that much fun, staring down a loaded gun
So I won't stop dying, won't stop lying (are you there at all?)
If you want I'll keep on crying (do you care at all?)
Did you get what you deserve? (are you there at all?)
Is this what you always want me for?
Then he heard a voice call out, her voice, she said "I love you, keep fighting for my sake, for your sake, for the people. I'll miss you."
I miss you, I miss you so far
And the collision of your kiss that made it so hard
Way down, way down
Way down, way down
Way down, way down
Way down, way down
I miss you, I miss you so far
And the collision of your kiss that made it so hard
When will I miss you, when will I miss you so far
And the collision of your kiss that made it so hard
Made it so hard
Way down, way down
Way down, way down
Way down, way down
Way down, way down
Way down.
Merin S'jet thought it was the end, especially when the wave of energy came surging toward her, that is until the massive bulk of a CUS Dreadnought blocked her vision, the massive ship's shields taking the brunt of the energy wave for the Mothership. The wave passed them and Merin stood there, shocked and awed, she recovered and hailed the Shadow of the Day.
"This is the Mothership hailing the Shadow of the Day. Please respond!"
A million questions ran through her head, Why did they save us? How did that ship move so quickly? Am I still alive? Were the most important questions. A screen flashed to life in front of her, the screen was taken up by the CUS Emblem, then the emblem shrunk and moved to a corner of the screen, a bar at the bottom read: High Admiral and President of the Confederacy of United Suns, Kazimir McDougal. However, she was surprised not only of the fact that he looked human, but also looked not a day above twenty. He looks rather... dashing. Merin thought, he had what appeared to be two irises, the inner one yellow and the other one an ice blue, and his black hair had streaks of royal purple. It must be contact lenses and hair dye. She thought again, the man spoke
"Yes. Now why are you hailing us?" He said "And why in hell did you attack us in the first place?"
She chose her words carefully, as battle reports and visual feeds showed that they could completely annihilate their fleet in a massed alpha strike if they wanted to. Merin took a deep breath.
"I am hailing you to ask this, why did you save us? We did fire upon you. And the answer to your query is that it must have been one of the rounds from the UNSC ships, a glancing blow was enough to make one of our cruisers list to port and misfire. I guess I have screwed up." she said.
Kazimir nodded
"Well I propose a cease fire, as we have a more pressing matter on hand" The camera panned to show an enslaved CUS-FFG/X-IBR 1245/2 "Crystal" Class Experimental Infiltration Blockade Running Frigate dive headfirst into the event horizon of the black hole, Kazimir added "Say, can you modulate your jump drives and weapons to emit Hawking Radiation, I'll beam data to you."
Merin said "I accept the cease fire." The data on Hawking Radiation showed up "And yes, I think we can do this." Then the screen split into three, one of the thirds was of course Kazimir, another was a symbol that looked vaguely familiar (The Mark of Shame), and was replaced by a scaly four mandibled creature that was surprised to be talking to humans, and another was a giant bird of prey holding a lightning bolt in one claw and a planet in the other claw. It too was replaced by another human, only Kazimir didn't look surprised to be talking to more humans. The four mandibled creature spoke first
"Humans, we need to flee this accursed black hole." It said "And yes human, we can modify our weapons to emit this 'Hawking Radiation' you speak of. And I apologize for melting your ships into slag."
The other Human, Admiral Bourne's Second In Command Kaden Stone spoke up
"Then we must all work together for this to work!"
Merin replied "Our jump drives cannot function within gravity wells." she added "So my fleet must stay here and fix this."
The alien spoke "No, we will not allow you to perish to this black hole." it added "You will live to fight another day."
Kazimir and Kaden nodded. "We'll also stay here." a Sentinel flew in beside Kazimir and said "Creator, the Flood are present! We must destroy them at once!"
Kazimir was shocked, so was Stone and the four mandibled creature. "It seems that they were not destroyed after all, even after our ancestors triggered the Halo Array."
Meanwhile, in a galaxy far, far away. The remnants of the evil Galactic Empire. Now under the iron fist of Empress Domina (Her real name being Elizabeth Steiner (Mechwarrior Fans should get the hint)), rebuilds in thee outer rim of the galaxy, and beyond. Their new fleet consisting of millions of ships ranging from Frigate to Dreadnought class prepare to begin their first assault. The First Imperial Battlegroup, under the command of Domina herself pave the way to the defeat of the New Republic.
The Super Star Destroyer "Infinitude" begins her shakedown cycle. The rest of the fleet, thousands of Star Destroyers guard the Infinitude as she warms her hyperdrive. The rest of the ships do the same. And the battlegroup accelerates into hyperspace. Their first target: Kamino, to secure the cloning facilities to expand their armada.
Domina stood on the bridge, her jet black robes ruffling as she moves. She looked out of the transparisteel viewport, watching the stars blur into starlines, then into the mottled red of hyperspace. An engineer reported
"Empress! The mass jump has caused a graviton wave to make our hyperdrives malfunction! We're completely off-course! We are emerging near a black hole."
An officer reported
"Empress! There are ships of unknown classification clustered near the black hole! They seem to be emitting a form of radiation that seems to be decaying the black hole." his eyes widened in surprise, the fleet now completely exited from hyperspace. "By the Empress! Those ships are massive! The largest ship dwarfs our flagship by 3.562 Kilometers."
Domina said "Interesting. We'll see their combat strength soon enough. To see if we are worthy in joining us in the path of conquest. All ships fire at will!"
Another officer objected "I urge not to ma'am, I am detecting massive energy spikes coming from some of those ships. And those are just reactors. We also don't know where we are, so we can't call for reinforcements!"
Domina stopped for a second, considering what he had just said. Then she reached out with the Force and slowly crushed his spine. Saying
"And so the better. We will crush them with impunity!"
The officer's neck contorted at an odd angle, a snap was heard, the body fell to the metal floor with a thump.
"Daala! You will now take his place. What you have seen is the price of insubordination!" the Empress said. The female officer replied "I will not fail you.", Daala motioned for the guards to dispose of the body..
Kazimir looked at the TACMAP (TACtical MAP). There were hundreds. No, thousands of ships emerging from slipspace!
"Whoa! he said.
His SCANCOM officer reported, breaking Kazimir from his reverie "I'm picking up energy spikes all across the new fleet. They're powering weapons and shields! They're attacking!" she almost shouted the last sentence.
Kazimir cursed "Shit!"
The New Covenant Fleet Master and the UNSC Admiral cursed at the same time "Damn!"
Kazimir then said "So now it's a three sided battle, the black hole on one side, the Flood on the other and these arrowhead shaped ships on another."
Glowing rectangular fields of energy materialized around the Confederates' ships. Their weapons began to warm. Those were picked up on the Imperials' Sensors. Beads of sweat began to form on everybody's foreheads. No one wanting to fire the opening shot. The Confederate fleet turned to bear their main cannons on the Imperials. The tension increased, and the Imperials opened fire. A tidal wave of turbolaser bolts rushed forward, only to be intercepted by the advanced point defense grids the CUS employed. Then hundreds of beams lanced through the void, bright enough to leave a temporary after image. The Shadow of the Day and some of her escorts broke free and used their SR Jump Units to get behind the enemy. An antimatter beam, courtesy of the Shadow of the Day bisected a Star Destroyer.
Kazimir barked "All support craft! Fire FROSCH guns and LANCET beams. Aim the LANCET beams at the globes on top of the towers.", the AIs across the fleet coordinated so that not one globe was hit twice. The support craft fired simultaneously, the concentrated tachyon burst tearing through the electronics of the sensor/shield globes, taking them out with one hit! That left a small but significant fraction of their fleet blind and naked. MAC rounds completely ignored shielding and armor, severely damaging or destroying the Star Destroyers, then the FROSCH bolts arrived, stunning the enemy ships long enough for the rest to finish them off. Superheated plasma washed over their deflector shields, only mildly scorching the hull underneath. The particle weaponry the CUS employed was extremely effective against deflectors and hull alike. CUS Frigate fired upon a Star Destroyer, the first three shots taking the shields off-line. Then the rest of the bolts leaving deep gashes where they struck, the edges orange hot. The only real damage the Imperials did was against the UNSC, but they were paying it back in their own blood.
Fifteen Imperial Troop Transports got through the powerful point defense systems and fighter screens, as they were tied up with the TIE Fighters. They landed in the main hangar bay of the Shadow of the Day, their ramps dropped. Dozens of Stormtroopers walked out, shooting their blasters at any personnel and equipment. To their surprise it was remarkably empty. An R2 unit locked the main doors, leaving only one of the secondary doors open. The Sith Warriors they brought along with them readied their lightsabers and double-sabers. The secondary door slid open, a small cylinder rolled across the floor, the Stormtroopers near it looked at it and realized what it was, just as one was about to kick it away, it exploded! Superheated plasma burnt away armor and flesh alike. Then in the confusion, the main doors opened. Revealing a squad of five CRUSADERS (They're like SPARTANS, only with better armor and training. Each one has their personal AI. They were derived from the SPARTAN II-III projects actually, as mentioned in Chapter 1.), a rectangular energy shield was being emitted from their left, or sometimes right forearms. They formed a wall with the shields, free hands holding their ARR7D rifles. Snickers were heard amongst the Stormtroopers, some of the Sith joining in. One threw a Thermal Detonator as part of a dare into the formation. One of them picked it up and threw it back at the thrower with enough force to shatter his chest plate and send him back further into the line. It exploded and the CRUSADERS blurred into action, they covered the distance between them in less than a second, a CRUSADER, by the designation of Kelly-058 gave an uppercut to a Stormtrooper, his head losing connection with his neck. Then she activated the telescoping mono-molecular blade attached as bayonet under the grenade launcher. It sliced clean through a Stormtrooper even before he knew what was happening. One of the snipers present in the Stormtrooper squad shot Kelly in the head, and was shocked to find a shimmering energy field enveloping her. She turned and shot a rail-round into his skull, spreading his head across the wall a hundred meters behind him. A Sith warrior lunged at Fred, the CRUSADER/SPARTAN Team's Hand to Hand and melee weapons specialist. Fred drew an odd looking sword, it was two pronged, and thus it looked like a giant fork. Energy crackled around the blade and in a flash of light, the blade was surrounded by energy. Fred blocked the blow, then he parried. The lights dimmed and changed their color to red, Kazimir had ordered all non-essential systems to be deactivated or put into stand-by mode. Fred was blocking and dodging blows, This robed guy is good. He thought, whenever his blade struck the blade of the light saber, a small thunderclap was heard. They were weaving bands and ribbons of light across the darkness.
Kelly took several blaster shots to the chest, and her shields dropped by ten percent, then by fifty. She took cover behind one of the crates scattered around the bay, and to her luck. It read "SERAPH Class Invisibility Cloaks Mk. X15, AEGIS Class Overshields Mk. X11" she tore the crate open and broke the casing of a SERAPH. The energy enveloped her and she became invisible, it did not give away the user's position while moving and lasted much longer than the previous Mk 10-14s, one Stormtrooper looked around the crate and reported
"Sir! I can't find that armored droid or soldier! I did not see it-" he stopped, and fell to the floor. His neck broken, another Stormtrooper was shot in the stomach, his entrails now decorating the floor around him. Another lost his head, bits of armor, bone and brain matter on display around where he was standing.
A barrage of blaster shots brought Kelly's shields down to ten. She was pissed, very pissed. She then retreated, only to get a running start. Kelly soon reached 125 Km/H, two and a half tons of angry CRUSADER bore down on a Stormtrooper, she reached out with a fist and connected with his chest. The armor shattered like glass, her fist shattering bone, ripping flesh and smashing his heart in. The trooper flew against into a wall and left a very unsightly mess there. The Crusader's' radios clicked on
"Blue Team, I'm sending two marine squads to your position. Along with a Cobra Class MBT. Have fun!"
The doors opened again, and two squads of twelve stepped out, their navy-blue armor had a startling resemblance to MJOLNIR MKV Powered Armor. They wielded particle rifles, which looked like a Steyr Aug crossed with a Barrett and a AR15. The marines spread out and opened fire, the deadly particle bolts seared and ripped Stormtrooper armor and the soft flesh beneath it apart, Stormtroopers fell like flies, the remaining Stormtroopers turned to face the new threat, and again a shimmering energy field enveloped dissipated the energy. Three blaster shots downed one of the marines shields. Then one bolt hit him square in the chest, making a portion of his chest plate red hot. Another bolt hit it and blew through the armor, searing through flesh and bone.
AN: Should I remove the song part, that was courtesy of my female cousin. Anyway, review please!
