Disclaimer: Both Halo and Star Wars franchises do not belong to me. The Halo series belongs to Bungie, or 343 Industries which Bungie created to take care of the Halo franchise. Star Wars belongs to Lucasarts in turn. Any other Franchise I will add to this story will also not be made by me, and I will acknowledge them in turn.

Confiteor - I confess


They were spread out across the Beta Centauri, in asteroids or abandoned space stations or even huge colony ships, never stopping, always moving.

The Centauri Insurrection were, as many within ONI would zealously say, the most annoying sons of bitches they had ever encountered, partly due to the rebels own methodology. Instead of sabotaging UNSC factories, or pillaging Federation ships, or even ruthlessly accumulating power through the guise of an Insurrectionist group, the Centauri Rebels were concentrated entirely on ONI personnel and operations and ignored none but the most high profile targets, the NB Yards as a recent example. There were unique in that they were effective, as they had former UNSC and ONI personnel onboard, and not simply destroying everything that had the ONI logo attached.

They would use their extensive information network to figure out ONI operations, prowler assignments, strike force movements, operative names, etc. and send the necessary forces to either kill anyone they could find, or seriously fuck shit up. The traitors involved with the Insurgents would tell them everything they knew, and offered their skills to cause as much damage as possible to ONI. Making them even more unique is that, unlike certain others, they legitimately had no idea what they were dealing with. Where they would know what to steal, who to bribe, and most importantly, who to kill, the Centauri Insurgents destroyed just enough material, that were just important enough, loudly enough, to be considered a pain in the ass. They saw plans, and ship movements, and operatives being placed across the galaxy, but had no greater understanding on their motives, on the why. This did not mean they were stupid, the complete opposite in fact. It meant that they were late to the party, so to speak.

In a sense, they were both effective and ineffective. They would set their sights on something that looked like it could inconvenience ONI and destroy it. More often than not, this would, in fact, inconvenience ONI, but not considerably. The traitors from ONI that now walked with the insurgents weren't particularly important, barring several special cases, and so weren't involved with higher level decision making. In more practical terms, if they found a room filled with weapons, computers, and information pertaining to ONI, and were told that something inside the room was important to ONI, they would steal the weapons, destroy the computers, take the information and leave. ONI would suffer a loss true, but they didn't destroy the AI core hidden inside the doorknob. If they had known where to hit, they would be an incredibly dangerous threat to ONI.

So they had to go, the Centauri Insurrection were highlighted for Operation BASIC because of the potential threat they presented. Phase two of BERMUDA, Operation BASIC, would neuter the threat that they posed to ONI, while using them as a scapegoat to justify further militarization. Phase three, the actual militarization stage, would go smoothly without them destroying their military installations.

There was still the fact that Lesley was going off to explain to anyone that would listen that it wasn't her fault, or some other such thing. They couldn't stop her from doing that. They could, however, take away as much of her power base as they could.


December 19, 2584

Alpha Centauri

Beta Centauri Insurgent Orbital Platform Base, codename Honcho

13 minutes after the destruction of New Babel

It was hidden in deep space, in between the stars and planets, at roughly 14 AU, or 2 Billion kilometers, away from the farthest planet in the Alpha Centauri system, making it the farthest base away from the NB fiasco, and the most isolated, since the Alpha Centauri system, in the year 2584, still didn't have any colonies yet.

Honcho, as it was endearingly named by the insurgents, was the Centauri base of operations. It typically held Lesley and the rest of her commanders, serving as their homes from where they could safely lead their Insurrection in whatever way they deemed fit.

Since it was where the great Rear Admiral Lesley typically stayed, it was the most protected of the three Centauri bases. It was the only base to use energy shield technology, scavenged of the many ship wrecks that resulted from the Pacification war. It, like the others, had an early warning system emplaced to detect slipspace transitions, but also possessed a slipspace inhibitor field, stopping ships from transiting anywhere near the space station unless those inside the station wanted them too. It held the largest defending contingent of frigates of the three bases, and had the defenses from it's previous life still intact.

Honcho was originally a Federation Orbital Defense Platform that had protected the Tala system, specifically the Unggoy homeworld of Bahalo. It was one of the 7 ODPs that severely damaged the repurposed Faith in the Covenant during the siege of Bahalo. The rest of the ODPs were subsequently destroyed or damaged beyond use.

Once the ground siege began, Insurgents would look over the wreckage and take what they could while avoiding either the sanghelli, who did not have the time or force of arms to take care of the wreckages, or the jirilhanae, who would occasionally take potshots at orbiting ships with ground based defenses. Eventually, enough pieces were recovered that the Honcho would be built. It would boast the plasma torpedos, energy projectors, and other weapons that it originally had, even the precision plasma lance that was based of the plasma torpedo system. The innies that built them would eventually become the foundation of the Centauri Insurgency.

13 Necropolis Battlecruisers appeared one hundred thousand kilometers away from the space station. It's sensors were precise enough to have detected the slipstream jump, and to know that the Battlecruisers were Necropoli. They knew that their ships were not fast enough to outrun them, and that the UNSC wouldn't show mercy to them, so they decided to die fighting.

They deployed all their frigates, 15 of them, and centered them around the space station. They then activated their slipspace inhibition field, which was recovered when a former ONI operative resigned, for lack of a better term. This resulted in the Necropoli being unable to slip in and destroy the space station with a well placed hit and run assault. They dug in, called for reinforcements from their asteroid base.

The Necropoli did not stay motionless for long. One Necropoli entered slipspace, and tested just how far the inhibitor could go. It reappeared 20 thousand kilometers away from the base, and accidentally activated the Shiva mine cluster spread across the 20 thousand mark. The resulting nuclear explosion ripped the fragile ship apart, and ignited it's munition stores, creating an even larger explosion which scattered it's parts all across the system. Honcho then proceeded to fire it's plasma lance, which managed to rip one of the Necropoli in half.

The Necropoli then disappeared all at once in a bright flash of light before Honcho could redirect it's weapon at them. They all reappeared at once in a circular formation facing the station 30,000 kilometers away and fired their MAC guns all at once, depleting their respective charges as 132 MAC rounds spiraled towards the station. It took the rounds 5 seconds to cross the distance, and the sheer weight of firepower meant that the energy shield posed no significant resistance as the rounds shredded both the frigates, and tore the space station apart.

Even with the inhibition field deactivated, the Necropoli fired another barrage of MAC rounds 7 seconds later, turning everything within the kill zone into metal confetti. They proceeded to go through the wreckage a few second later.

Honcho was secured.


December 19, 2584

Beta Centauri System

Centauri Insurgent Asteroid Base, codename Bastards.

10 minutes after the destruction of New Babel

Bastards on the other hand, was the second most heavily defended base, due to the fact that it was built right on a fucking asteroid, and hidden in an asteroid belt, so it would be a pain to find in any case. It failed to be the most heavily defended base due to the fewer number of protectors, 10 frigates to be precise, and It's purpose was to house the Centauri's rapid response groups, the CCS Battlecruisers, to deploy anywhere within Centauri space as quickly as possible. Which, considering the distance between Bastards and Honcho, could be less than 4 minutes. When under attack, they would use the Battlecruisers as capable hit and run vessels, typically cutting invaders in half, and send the rest fleeing. Additionally, the second largest concentration of the defending ships, roughly 10 frigates or so, were defending the Bastards, so it counted, along with it's natural protection, counted as the most heavily defended base next to Honcho.

It was so named because of a fairly amusing incident concerning the original architects of the asteroid base, around the year 2560. They had left as survivors of a Covenant force that had destroyed a settlement of theirs years ago, near the end of the Great War. They had met up with the most successful Insurgent group they could find, which was coincidentally the opponents of what would become the Centauri Insurgents, and offered to assist them with creating an asteroid base, in return for helping them kill some admiral or other, who had left them to die against the Covenant. Said insurgents agreed, and allowed them to build the habitat.

After the asteroid was built, the Centauri assaulted the base, killed their rivals, and somehow cornered the architects for the asteroid. When asked who they were and why they were here, they answered that they were the ones to create the base. The Centauri were were impressed enough that they asked them to join the group. They agreed, on the condition that the one who had betrayed them would die. Whereupon they were informed that the man was already dead, for at least 6 years they said. The next word they said, which was, presumably, either to the now dead Insurgents, or to the Admiral himself, became the name for the asteroid that the Centauri took from their rivals.

Ok, so it wasn't really amusing at all, the original Centauri were a strange bunch.

When 3 Necropolis Battlecruisers appeared 120 thousand kilometers away from Honcho One, the entire facility went on red alert. The frigates were deployed throughout the asteroid belt to defend the station, and Shiva nukes spread throughout the asteroid belt were activated. Unlike Honcho, it was felt the need to track down a slipspace suppression device wasn't worth the effort, considering an asteroid field would quite effectively, and violently, stop anyone stupid enough to try, and that an inhibitor field might attract attention, as the devices were typically known to do. Honcho had the excuse of being in deep space, and as such, the radiation coming off the inhibitor field would blend into the background easily, Bastards had no such excuse.

The Necropoli stayed still for a few second until a flash of light appeared in front of one of the Necropoli. Half a second later, another flash of light appeared right in the middle of the asteroid belt. A full second after that, the Bastards sensors went wild from the recorded radiation.

2 seconds after that, the NOVA bomb exploded.

The bomb reduced the entire asteroid, and the nearby defenders, into piles of rubble and dust. Every asteroid within the significant area of the explosion, which could be measured in the thousands of kilometers, were reduced to millions of shards of melted rock. Bastards itself simply disappeared, taking everyone inside to a fiery, radioactive, and painless death. The frigates that had surrounded the asteroid were in no better shape, the farther ones reduced to a few hundred metric tons of fused metal, while those closer to the blast were simply gone, with no traces of their remains left.

The explosion served to agitate the Shiva nukes nearby, and not a few of them exploded as well, taking some of the frigates with them. The explosion from both the NOVA bomb and the Shiva nukes crushed whatever frigates had survived the explosions. The result was an asteroid belt missing a huge portion of it's asteroids, while the rest had all crushed together from the force of the explosion, or in some cases, fused completely together from the heat and pressure exerted by numerous nuclear detonations.

Bastards was secured.


December 19, 2584

Beta Centauri System

Centauri Insurgent Mobile Base, codename Convoy

15 minutes after the destruction of New Babel

The Convoy, as the Insurrectionists called it, wasn't a base per se, it was more along the lines of 'group of ships that served as the last bastion', or something like that. It consisted of 18 Phoenix-class colony ships, which the UNSC had 'misplaced' over the years. They were all, through varying degrees, modified for combat, with Archer missile pods, MAC guns and point defense guns on each one. A fair majority were Echelon-II, or even Echelon-III in some cases, which meant they were also fairly technologically superior. They were largely crewed by those unwilling to live under the UEG, for various reasons, and, despite having so much weaponry, several of the ships were still entirely dedicated to housing entire civilian populations.

The ships themselves were arrayed evenly in a loose, spherical formation and layered according to importance. The civilians were clustered onto 4 ships, which were in the direct center of the formation. The supplies for the fleet were, in turn, distributed among both the 4 ships, and 3 more ships which were in the next layer of defense, in between the civilian ships and the mainline military ships. Ammunition and fuel were largely left behind on other bases and strongholds, but the second inner layer of 3 ships also held enough ammunition for the rest of the fleet. These ships, those that held the ammunition and civilians, were the normal, unaltered versions of the Phoenix types. The Echelon-IIs were scattered in the third and second defensive line, 3 ships and 4 ships respectively, while the Echelon-IIIs were at the outer defensive line to maximize the advantage of their shield technology.

As it was, they had the best chance of survival, when compared to the other two. Like Honcho, they were heavily armed, but also considerably mobile. Like Bastards, they would see a NOVA bomb coming, unlike Bastards, there wasn't an asteroid field in the way, so they could escape whenever they wanted to. The sheer number of ships would also mean that at least some of them would escape, though the formation was created to insure that the civilians would be the most protected. Still, when their sensors claimed that a group a 28 Necropolis Battlecruisers, the largest group of Necropoli to have faced any opponent since the climax of the Pacification War, were coming towards them, it was only natural that they would have accidentally shat in their pants.

Knowing they did not have the means or the ability to fight, they did the only thing that they could do that offered a chance of survival, and something the rest of the Centauri Rebels failed to do. Run as far away as they could and as fast as their slipspace engines could take them. Fortunately, plans for such a scenario had been planned beforehand, but strictly as a worse case scenario, second only to the possibility of tripping inside a NOVA bomb minefield, or facing an entire UNSC fleet, or both.

Still, they weren't quite ready when a force of 15 Necropoli appeared in front of them and began firing their MAC guns within the first few seconds of engagement. The defensive shield around the inner core fights back, buying the rest enough time to activate their slipspace drives and escape, even as their defenders are shredded by the force of arms against them. The 4 ships of the outer line are annihilated, despite taking several Necropoli with them.

The Necropoli proceeded to chase after them, tracking their presence in slipspace. However, their advanced engines would prove to be their downfall. Given the same amount of time for both the Insurgents, and the UNSC ships to move, though the Insurgents would not have fled nearly as far to escape the Necropoli, they fled shortly enough that the Necropoli overshot them, their AI pilots managing to minimize the distance to miliseconds in slipspace. Which was, for the remnants of the Insurgents, more than enough for them to gain their bearings and disperse again. Despite continued attempts at tracking them down, they were largely unsuccessful.

All in all, BERMUDA's first operation went as smoothly as could be hoped. All of their main bases were destroyed, and a good majority of their fleet had been wiped out, both by the assault on New Babel, and the surprise assault against their bases. True, Convoy managed to escape with a good portion of their civilian population and supplies, but that only meant that the Centauri's could be relied upon to attack UNSC forces sometime in the future, further degrading the public persona of the Insurgents, and allowing the UNSC to create more ships. Or not, in which case they would merely stay the fuck out of the way.

BASIC succeeded in what it was set out to do, BERMUDA was cleared to begin phase three.


SI Center Enclave

Module 07

November 17, 2584

Clones

When the Spartan-II program first went online, flash clones replaced the children that ONI had abducted, to minimize awareness that children would be trained to become the perfect little soldiers that the UNSC needed them to be. Presumably, to eliminate the insurgent threat present in the outer colonies. The modifications done on those kids were insane, carbide ceramic ossification, muscular enhancement injections, catalytic thyroid implants, and a dozen other modifications to fight, what? A rebellion against the government? Considering the sheer amount of overkill that they pumped into them, it was a miracle no one asked any deeper questions. Which was a sign, she supposed, of just how bad things were back then.

Not that the fact the Covenant would arrive at roughly the same time the Spartans were at the height of their prowess. Nope, just a coincidence ma'am move along.

Nonetheless, the reasons they didn't use actual, stable, clones was because they didn't have funding to do so. Because the Spartan-II program, while ambitious, did not seem to be the answer to the rebellion. That a group of around 70 or so men and women would end the insurrection, more or less. That...wasn't a problem now. Back then, they had been given the funds to create and field a battle group. Now, she could get enough funding to create anything short of an SI Center without question.

So they no longer had to commit the same crime of forcing children to fight their wars, not anymore. Now they were guilty of creating children to fight their wars now. Her sense of irony was positively tickled.

Of course, a good portion of the Spartan-II modifications had been altered, with the new technology filling in the gaps of their knowledge, and making things safer for everyone involved. Then there were those...profoundly disturbing genetic modifications from Heaven's Gate, but Section VIII had said that they didn't include the extreme variants, and only added the ones that increased intelligence, muscle strength and reflexes, a form of advanced skin armor, and other things which they swore wouldn't be dangerous or overly addicting.

Oh yes, the addiction. She had blown a gasket when they had tole her about that one. Apparently, the extreme genetic modifications the mutagen forced onto it's victims also had the side effect of imbuing them with an addiction for more when the 'Adam' in their body ran dry, their body incapable of managing the modifications without it. Of course, extensive analysis of the 'Adam' mutagen had revealed that the addiction could be removed, but with the loss of effectiveness the mutations caused. It was suggested that they keep the addiction in place, to insure obedience from the Spartan-IVs. After she had hit the bastard on the head with her clipboard, they eventually found a compromise.

They could minimize the genetic instabilities to a certain point, but stabilizing it would mean a loss of overall effectiveness and genetic adaptability that 'Adam' was useful for. The spartans could last much longer without adam now, half a year at maximum, but the damage inflicted when the threshold was passed would be raised exponentially. Since this meant that they would also last longer on the field, ONI approved. Considering the human SIVs, it was the least she could do.

As she looked at the clones as they filed in, followed by their Sanghelli brethren, thoughts of redemption entered her mind, and she wondered if she would ever be forgiven. She smiled bitterly at that, and kept it aside for now. They were both around the same number, the clones themselves were numerous, 245 children, culled from the best of the best men and women the UNSC could find.

She waited for them to settle down for a moment, future soldier soldiers or not, they were still children. She almost smiled at that, just a little, before she began speaking.

"These are your fellow trainees. They will train with you to become spartans, as you are training to become spartans as well. I will be handling control of the training to these persons behind me." shrugging at the figures behind her "Now, do you have any questions?"

The typical questions were asked, painful in that she remembered when the Spartan-IIs asked them. She answered them clinically and efficiently, having remembered the notes she had written down for the occasion. It was fine until the young sanghelli, Ghell if she recalled correctly, went and asked her the most obvious thing a male sanghelli would say.

"Who's our squad commander?"

By which he meant who's the boss. She explained that they would play things by virtue of merit. Those who show true leadership skills will become leaders, and because they had arrived only now, they still did not have a leader. This seemed to placate him, then he asked the second most common question to a male sanghelli.

"Who's their squad commander?"

Her lips twitched at that, and she spent a few moments calming her breath. She called out, in as clear a voice as she could without them breaking. A little boy, with features she once knew so well, but strangely altered now, stepped forward and spoke.

"Recruit Number SIV-059 from Genetic Batch SII-117 : SII-058 reporting for duty ma'am."

She closed her eyes.

They had to get their genetic template from somewhere, and who were better than the Spartans?

She hoped John would forgive her.


Project Threshold: The Proletariat Program

The Proletariat Program was the designation for one of the 5 programs created for Project Threshold. It's purpose was to create supplementary artificial intelligences to assist the UNSC in their own war making efforts. The AIs that typically control Necropolis Class Battle Cruisers for example, were the result of the Proletariat Program's own extensive research into the problem of how to achieve maximum efficiency with as little problems as possible.

It's origins came from the extensive loss of human life after the end of the Great War. The human population from after the Great War was be too limited to risk in another conflict, which was one of the principal reasons for the UNSC's reluctance to enter the Pacification War. Considering the extensive use of artificial intelligences that the Forerunners used, the problem of how to support the UNSC with artificial intelligences was formally adopted to the Threshold Program.

The Proletariat Program's main objective was to automate all but the most essential military posts held by human hands, and to insure that they don't facilitate an armed robot rebellion. A Necropolis Battle Group are a fine example of what the program aims to achieve, a fully autonomous, obedient, and effective fighting force. Considering the success the Necropoli program had gained, it was only a matter of time until the Proletariat Program would move on to other ships.

This was not merely isolated to ships, other aspects of military warfare were being supplemented or outrightly replaced with AIs. Proletariat would communicate with the other four programs to see what they could improve, an example of which were Sentinels being shipped to supplement UNSC Army operation against Insurrectionists on March 2586. Another would be using AIs in the UNSC's armored regiments, though this had limited success, as a Dumb AI could not fight as well as a UNSC tank commander, which in turn, could not fight as well as a Smart AI, which ran the risk of going rampant.

Which was the main obstacle for the Proletariat Program in really. The AIs were already there, and there was no need to really tinker with them. Putting them into machines invited a risk that they would go rampant, and in the fevered dreams of all science fiction writers, turn against the UNSC and make the Great War look like a particularly rude exterminator.

This was partially resolved by only using Dumb AIs, which had limited intelligence capacities, and to give them micromanaging positions, with human commanders watching over them. Risk of said commanders turning on the UNSC were there, as the risk always was, but the shutdown codes for the AIs were with ONI, so the problem was mostly neutered.

Smart AIs were another problem entirely. Since the new AIs reverse engineered from Forerunner technology did not have the same 7 year 'till crazy problem, it could not be predicted when the AIs would go rampant. They couldn't risk going back to the old formula, mainly because the increased capacity of the new AIs, and the cost of replacing every smart AI in the UNSC every 7 years was an ugly prospect.

So they did the only thing they could really do, hardwire the AIs into being fanatically loyal to the UNSC and humanity. The Proletariat Program had learned from the failures of Mendicant Bias, trapped as he was into a logic puzzle that could only be solved through siding with the Flood, and decided to bypass the problem altogether. Smart AIs sent to assist scientists would obey all of their commands without question, even going past typical UNSC laws if need be, but if the scientists deliberately decides on a course of action which resulted in unacceptable losses to either the UNSC, Humanity, or both, the AI was authorized to eliminate the scientist.

The same was true for every AI from that point on. Civilian AIs, city administration AIs anyway, would manage the city to the perimeters set for it, and would deal with severe infractions of the law severely. Information AIs would record and analyze anything they would be sent, but would turn on their commanders if they planned to sell the information to other parties. The only exception were Special Tactics AI, which were given enough autonomy to decide upon any course of action which resulted in a positive outcome for the UNSC and ONI.

Considering the AIs would be programmed with fanatical loyalty to the UNSC, and absolute loyalty to ONI, that the AIs could technically be called their watchdogs. The amount of power this would give either the UNSC or ONI is immense, and there are whispers that, should ONI ever go rogue, the resulting power struggle would be catastrophic.

They were based, as the rest of the programs were, in Onyx. The Shield World had proven to become the lynchpin of a technological revolution which come to be known in future years as the Second Renaissance, though the fruits of the technological bounty would not reach the civilian population for decades, since a considerable amount of said technological bounty was being used to arm up, and Onyx was required for that to happen. Not that Onyx was the only forerunner installation the UNSC would find, far from it, but it was the first one they would find, and so the majority of human technological achievement would be based off it.

They were aware that they weren't the only AI centric department that the UNSC had at the moment. There were plenty of independent parties that would love to get their hands on Forerunner tech. Not that the tech was being actively suppressed, but the most useful ones were being hoarded by the military in preparation of BERMUDA, but back to the point. Besides the Proletariat Program, ONI's Section V for Forerunner Research would be the closest thing they would have to a competitor. However, considering that the Proletariat were focused on AIs that would generally supplement human military and information actions, Section V was currently focused on creating Artificial Commanders, the Tacitus being one of them.

The Tacitus...well...it, and the Reach Class AIs were not the Proletariat's concern, it belonged to another department's project. Still, those that worked with the Proletariat Program were disturbed with the Reach AIs, and the concern that they could become, or already were, seed AIs, AIs that could continuously improve themselves into a technological singularity, in which case Humanity was fucked. Considering that the Tacitus would have complete control over any and all forces for BERMUDA, and that a significant portion of those forces are AIs, they couldn't help but think those idiot's in Halsey's division were doing their job. Not that they would merely stop with hoping off course.

Author's Note

That was, most definitely, me not pulling through with my promise.

Anyway, I had encountered a clusterfuck of problems for me, and I was more or less done with the chapter when it happened. I had to take a few days off to cool down otherwise the story would spiral into GRIMDARK by the next few chapters.

In any case, I haven't shed light into the Federation's position have I? Well, I'll try to explain that in the next chapter's end notes. But the general position is that during the Pacification War, they were to busy trying to survive, while the UNSC cleaned house and aided them with as few ships as they could get away with. After the Pacification War, the large amounts of change and resistance with turning a previously Theocratic Empire with an insistent view on the caste system being turned into something with democracy in it? Where the common masses have the ability to choose? I've made the story to give the Sanghelli a chance by not turning the former Covenant races against each other in another civil war over what government to create, or making them stay a Theocratic Empire, but one that was more friendly. I chose to change their government because it has been stated in canonthat the Sanghelli have considerable respect for the humans' way of warfare and conduct, so they would try to pattern the new empire into something resembling a human government. In this case, a federation.

It also may or may not have been affected by the mental picture of a Sanghelli working at a fast food restaurant, screaming that they would handle the customer's orders 'By the Blood of my Father, and by the Blood of my Son!' or something similar. My mind wanders sometimes, so sue me.