A/N; So, something short and important before the next chapter, it details events for... well i'll let you read and find out. i know this is very short compared to the last chapters but it is important or otherwise the next chapter wont make sense. i'll make it up to you i promise as the next chapter will be a long one... i think.

I would like to point out however that im working this weekend and that i go down to see my grandparents next week, but i'll be working on the story still.

Philip Walters was promoted to full Lieutenant and awarded the Legion of Honour, after serving for several tours as the XO of a Corvette he was promoted to Commander; this however wasn't done without protest from several high ranking officials in the Navy. His first Command would be the UNSC Destroyer Sevenfold, one of the new Inheritance Class Destroyers.

Armed with a single bow energy projector and two Heavy MACs capable of firing three 600 ton slugs at 30,000 meters per second, each, 30 M42 Archer missile pods, 20 AAA Helix Guns and 10 70mm point defence cannons made the Sevenfold one of the most deadly ships in space, protected by advanced shielding and two meters of Titanium-A3 Battle plate made it able to take as much as she gave. His first tour of duty as the Commander of the Sevenfold will be under the Infinity and Admiral Lasky in late summer of 2587.

Over the course of the next year and four months The Office of Naval Intelligence sent multiple prowlers to scout out dozens of systems in search of the forces that attacked the Gorgon and her escorts, no evidence was found in any system until August 14th 2587 when the ONI prowler Midnight arrived in the Shanxi-Theta system to find the Colony of Shanxi orbited by nearly seven Hundred ships, granted most were Corvette profiles or Frigate profiles with four Cruisers mixed in with the large fleet. Under cloak the Midnight surveyed the planet to find that an unknown group of aliens had captured the planet relatively intact as the UNSC thought it was destroyed by the Covenant at the start of the war.

The colonists had either been killed or enslaved and the Capital city along with the orbital tethers had been occupied by the enemy forces. The Midnight returned to the newly rebuilt HIGHCOM facility in New Alexandria on Reach to report their findings. Afterwards NAVCOM immediately started organising a fleet led by Admiral Lasky on board the Infinity. The fleet would compose of nearly 600 ships of the line, the largest fleet in recorded Human history.

Admiral Lasky personally visited the Forerunner remnants on Trevelyan to ask for help from the Warrior-Servants that had survived, led by the last organic Promethean; the Grammarian. He agreed to send some picket Cruisers and four Dreadnought class vessels along with some of his most trusted Warrior-Servants. The total amount of ships participating in the battle would be 630 warships.

The Ground assault would be led by Major General Nicolas Strauss. The fleet rendezvoused at an old abandoned ONI 'deep space' observation outpost located on a moon of a gas giant at the very edge of pre-war UNSC space.

The Citadel Council spent the time organising a fleet of two hundred ships from the Asari Republics, Salarian Union and Turian Hierarchy, the latter of which supplying the bulk of military forces, the amount of ships being organised hadn't been seen since the Krogan Rebellions. The Salarian STG and Council Spectres spent the time working to find the location of the relay needed to get into the Orion arm easily; the Council even tasked archaeologists to scour through Prothean ruins for information on Relay locations. Eventually the efforts paid off when a newly appointed Spectre, Saren Arterius, discovers the information from a Batarian Freighter Captain that he caught smuggling resources from a previously unknown location.

The fleet would be led by General Septimus Oraka with General Desolas Arterius leading the planetary assault, the fleet was organised over Palaven before deploying, they arrived at the location without incident and were preparing to leave to attack the Batarian menace to end it once and for all.