Chapter 2: The March of Death

Alright everyone I am back and better than ever for writing I had a very nice reviewer named (818carlos) help me do some serious digging in the lore are and have found some neat stuff for instance the tier 2 U.E.F. pillar tank its main gun can literally fire a 152MM out of its guns because its shells are HV-AP/HE round feed through a gauss cannon system as well as a UEF tech 1 Mech Marine's Tomcat Machine Gun fire a 70 MM rapid fire HE round and the Gunther tech 2 Cybran artillery fires a 120 MM EMP round the TML-4 Cybran tactical missile launcher has a prototype cycling system which is what allows it to refire incredibly fast but enough about the tech and such all I have to say is that sup com has been nerfed to allow for an actual fight here (speaking of which this will be my first actual battle field war to describe so please bear with me and I will try and make transitions smooth and distinguished

PLANET HARVEST

+3 DAYS AFTER ACU DEPLOYMENT

Cybran A.I. Implant Codename: Gideon serial number: Gamma 13-745/2

Urgent Notice Long range scanners have detected space borne objects enter geosynchronous orbit above planet several alerts and power spikes detected Alert power diverted to weapons ship deploying (Error 404 Entry not found in data banks) to surface of planet and are deploying troops

Assessment alert Supreme Commander Reven ASAP of looming threat of unknown hostiles

ACU AI: "Alert commander incoming hostiles detected of unknown origin several messages have been sent in unknown language as well as power spikes believed to be weapons systems and shuttle deployments have been launched Flayer SAMs and Corsair Fighter/bomber groups have been readied to engage any threats that attempt to land near the base Mavors are loading but not cycling to fire and have their barrels collapsed still for max protection (this is because a Mavors barrel extends past the shield bubbles and can be struck buy bombers occasionally) and all units are awaiting further orders".

ACU Pilot Reven: "Confirmed prep all TML-4 sites to lock onto and fire at any large ships that break orbit and enter the atmosphere while the Gunthers hit the nearest drop zones to the base then have the Quantum Hangers (used in the air craft carriers to store large number of planes in basically a pocket dimension) release all available Corsair class fighter/bombers launch and engage all targets of opportunity then send out some Mantis assault bots to engage any forces to test their fire power and if they engage an opponent that they can't take head on deploy the Pillars Tanks to that area and regulate Mantis units as support and repair duty so that we can maintain strength on the front and not strain our factories trying to replace our units and get me a comm line to those ships but I want you to do the talking till we know what we are dealing with I will tell you what to say though."

ACU A.I.: "confirmed beginning deployment now."

ACU Pilot Reven: "Hey Gideon do we have any nukes built in the silos yet."

ACU A.I.: "Yes we do why planning to give the aliens a warm welcome."

ACU Pilot Reven: "Yeah something like that and are any of those ships in range of them."

ACU A.I.: "Yes one of the Large ships some kind of carrier I would guess."

ACU Pilot Reven: "Good set a missile trajectory and make sure that the Radar Absorbing Paint that command issued us for Operation Overlord is applied as well as the standard cloaking fields we have no ideas what their scanners are capable of so that we can make sure they won't see them coming then be ready to launch them and when they hit orbit have them stand by and wait for launch codes to begin full burn towards that carrier. Also send the comm line through the most recently established F.O.B."

ACU A.I.: "Aye sir."

POV Change

Fleet Master Des'Letra was extremely happy he had been promoted to one of the highest ranks in the Sangheili Military and was in charge of the Assault Carrier Omission of Guilt one of the toughest of the ships in the Covenant Fleet and all because he was assigned to a routine patrol mission and found some odd structures on a glassed planet and now he has been tasked to find out if they where humans or something else and either exterminate them or get them to join the Covenant.

Suddenly his Comms Operator spoke up and said "Sir we have a communication coming from the planet originating from the center of the unknowns base we believe the unknowns are trying to communicate should I patch it through."

"Yes patch them through it is time to see who we are dealing with do they have holo projection capabilities or is it just audio."

"The transmission seems capable of 3D holo projection Fleet Master." The Comms Officer says

"Okay send the transmission to my holo projector silence on the bridge."

Suddenly the holo Projector sprang to life as an odd looking icon came up and began what would best be described as looking around (think of QAI for anyone who has played SupCom if not here is this link to a picture of him he normally looks around and pulses but this is a non motion picture user/stylesrj/media/New%20DYOS/13QAI_ .html randomly found that link FYI author gets credit) and suddenly it spoke "Hello unknown contacts I am Cybran A.I. Implant Codename: Gideon and I greet you on Behalf of the Cybran Nation and her allies."

I was stunned to say the least not only did this new group have holo projectors but A.I.s as well still we had no clue who they where so we had to tread carefully till we did "Hello I am Fleet Master Des'Letra and I am here on behalf of the Covenant a mighty coalition of alien species now to business may we ask what your species name is and how you got to this planet."

"We arrived on this planet by means unknown to us one moment we were on our home planet fighting and suddenly nukes hit our position and we woke up on this planet and began base building operations as for what species we are we are Known as Cybran-Humans because we are humans with A.I.s intertwined with our brains."

Upon hearing this I growl and the crew goes stiff as a begin saying "Well then human show us your face so that I may see what you actually look like." And suddenly the holo projector changes to show a human with brown hair with no facial hair and a small scar in his left eyebrow (think Ivan Brackmen for the facial structure) and odd glowing lines running across the side of his face "Ah so finally we meet human know this the Hierarchs have decreed your race an abomination to the will of the gods and you shall be exterminated from the planet surrender now and we will kill you quickly along with the rest of your misbegotten kind."

Silence reigns for a few moments on the bridge as they wait for the humans response and what happened next shocked all of the Sangheili a thunderous laughing sound came over the comms as this primitive had the audacity to mock them openly when he was sure to be destroyed " I believe I will take my chances Fleet Master but as always I am a Cybran and what kind of gentlemen would I be if I did not give you a warm welcome Gideon send our friend their gifts and on that note I bid you far well Fleet Master I wish you luck in surviving this miserable attempt to destroy me." Stated the human with a smug smile and at that moment the holo-projector cut off.

"How dare he launch the landing craft and fighters I want every soldier able to hold a gun sent down there to kill him and whoever brings me his head shall be allowed to take one of my daughters as their wives (in their culture the Sangheili treat women as property to be bartered with for status or wealth) and I will personally promote them to my honor guard." To say I was pissed was an understatement this human dares mock me and thinks I won't kill him he will regret it I thought.

"Yes Fleet Master all shuttles have been deployed and are on route to various landing zones near the base wait what was that?" Said the Comms Officer

Suddenly a giant piece of metal hit and a massive shock wave the ship's shields and caused it to rattle but other than that there was no effect as the Comms Operator franticly tried to find out what was going on then they all noticed that one of the Assault Carriers had just become a new sun as almost all at once dozens of nukes hit the armor of the Assault Carrier. It was a direct hit to the armor because the shields where down while releasing transports and had turned the 5,346M Assault Carrier in to a floating pile of scrap in seconds while several new suns blossomed from the area fortunately the rest of the covenant fleet was EMP (Electro Magnetic Pulse) proof so the ships where still able to operate while shuttles had been disabled but still made it off the ship with several thousand warriors it was still a massive blow to the morale and amount of troops on the deployment

Now I was beyond livid at this human and his arrogance and his cowardice had enraged all of the ships command crew but I needed to know what happened "WHAT JUST HAPPENED COMMS WAS THERE ANY WARNING OPS DID OUR SCANNERS PICK ANYTHING UP HOW DID THOSE FORUNNERS DAMNED BOMBS SLIP PAST US?" I asked my command crew rapidly "Also tell The Innocence Lost not to move into glassing position until after the base is secure by our troop and then reduce it to ash."

POV Change (takes place after the talks before the explosion)

"Alright Gideon let's see how those missiles stack up against them we have at least 5 Silos worth of Cybran EMP Flux Nukes floating up there right now so send all of them at the Carrier that is in range and detonate them when they contact with the hull or the shield have them fire on minimum burn to keep them undetected by the aliens." I stated to my A.I. companion

"Already on it they were in route the second that talks went south but I was waiting to detonate them till you gave the order they should hit right about now." Stated the A.I. as there was suddenly a new series of suns born in the sky for several minutes "Sir I have detected the Corvette moving into position over our newly established F.O.B. (Forward Operating Base) its still in orbit and right now I don't think the nukes would work again and the Mavor needs it to be inside the same gravity well that its fired from to be effective." He said while continuing to survey the situation in orbit. "Check your tactical map on the left console screen we have several hostile transports descending from orbit bring up estimated landing zones now"

"Okay thanks Gideon for that" I say while looking to my left to see a large number of bulbous purple shuttles descending into the atmosphere. "Damn those are some ugly looking ships Gideon what say we send them to hell where they belong?"

"Most of the shuttles seam clustered around that area I have started to fire the TML-4 silos at the first wave of the shuttles but they will not have the power needed to dent the armor on that Corvette we would need nukes or the Mavors or maybe even the Novax Satellite grid to damage it. But once they get in range I will set the Flayer SAM sites and Gunthers on suppression"

"Wait you mean they are not even heading to our main base what do you think this means do you think they just want to cut off our outposts and steal our tech or do you think it is something else? Maybe they think since that's where the transmission came from I am there." I asked honestly confused. "Also go ahead and set the Mavors to fire on that Corvette on my orders once it's in range I want to see what they can do to that ship's armor."

"Reven I believe it may have to do with the fact that the Stealth fields around that base have not been set up yet as we focused on setting up the Flayer SAMs and Triad point defense to secure the area as well as factories and other emplacements." Stated the A.I. after thinking for a few seconds

"That very well may be it but wont firing either the Mavors or the Novax system require us to uncloak our main base?" I asked calmly

"Yes it will but at the same time it should allow us to kill the Corvette outright and then we only have to deal with the last Assault Carrier and by that point most of our Liberator Nuke Silos will have rearmed themselves with several missiles which will cause more than enough damage to drive it off if not outright destroy it plus our special project should be finished in less than two days." stated the A.I. confidently

"Alright then that is the plan for now then launch half of our current Corsair fleet to engage the hostile drop ships and fighters and set the Flayers to fire pattern Hive (1 rocket per target across multiple targets 2 if it was a larger ship) then have another quarter of the Corsairs engage in bombing runs on the landing zones and get the Gunthers prepped to fire on any concentrated pockets."

POV Change

Fel'Fusame was never nervous when fighting the humans previously but right now he feared for his life they had been in orbit waiting to deploy when out of nowhere the Assault Carrier he was stationed on just minutes before had exploded with all remaining hands lost they were told to immediately deploy to attack the base on the surface and thankfully they would have support from a Corvette to hold air superiority over the base area from orbit till glassing was ready after they finished clearing the base right now they had just entered the atmosphere and were being hit by missile fire and fighters that had come out of nowhere on the radar and started dog fighting with the Banshees and seemed to be doing a good job at it cause they had witnessed the hostile fighters get 3 to 1 kill rates and then take fuel rods and not even show a scratch (this is because of the structural integrity fields which will be explained in the bottom A/N as best I can) and just keep on flying but when the end came for them it was swift and unexpected as they just exploded and fell from the sky in a flying pile of scrap.

Suddenly a light changed from red to green and everyone stood up and checked each other's equipment and while this was going on a Sangheili Major walked in from the cockpit of the phantom and called everyone to attention for our briefing. "Alright listen up my fellow warriors of the Covenant we are about to land in a hot zone that has contested air superiority so this may get bumpy. Now as you all know this planet has been fought on before and we lost many brothers in arms here before now this is our objective." Right then a holo panel lit up and showed a massive factory complex with dozens of rows of tanks and other vehicles inside as well as landed fighters and other various things surrounded by think grey walls with AA and defensive emplacements scattered around in key locations. "Our objective is to completely destroy everything in this base and kill the Human Commander whoever collects his head shall be greatly rewarded by the Fleet Master and he seemed very generous from what I heard from the command crew."

"Alright be ready for touch down soon we will be landing as part of the second wave in a pre established area so get out and get your orders I am not waiting around for a fighter to strafe me." Stated the Phantom Pilot shocking me out of my thoughts about all this new news.

Soon the Phantom touched down in a small open dusty field surrounded by low rising hills and opened its doors we all jumped out and started to assemble when suddenly several loud whistle sounds where heard as several people screamed "Incoming." Which made every one jump for whatever cover they could find in the dirt and glass that was the surface of this planet as suddenly several areas where hit by massive artillery shells that blew several people apart and left nothing but blood and the limbs of those caught in the blast area others were ripped apart or electrocuted by the massive EMP released by the shells which disabled all of their equipment nearby (EMP has deferent effect in/out of atmosphere and because of what the Cybran EMP was designed to take out which are EMP hardened structures and tanks it would fry people by shutting off the neurons in the brain and equipment with ease) and I was thrown off my feet and into a disabled Ghost where darkness took over and I blacked out.

A/N time every one okay first Structural Integrity Fields due to the problems of tanks becoming disabled but still workable without being destroyed out right such as treads gun barrels and other items on tanks cause the development of a Nanite system that was then applied into the metal and the way it works is if something is hit by a shell it takes the damage and spreads it over the entire area of the Nanite surface weakening the entire tank evenly over the entire tank so that tanks that would have lost treads cannons even entire sides could survive being hit and the tank would still be mobile and able to shoot but when the system reached breaking point the entire system would overload all at once and cause the vehicle to in essence "self-destruct" and turn into a ball of scrap that could be re harvested later by engineers to be turned into mass to be used in other projects

Also I have another story idea of a mass effect/prototype story that I will think about posting also I am posting a weekly poll whatever poll wins that week will be added to a tally to determine what story will be worked on the most and what story will be set on the back burner

Thanks to everyone that reads this hope you enjoyed it please review or PM me I would love to hear thoughts