Disclaimer: We do not own Star Ocean 3 or Halo or anything we ripped off, either blatantly or- Albel suddenly appears from behind the screen and kicks the camera, breaking it and toppling it onto the ground Albel: Sweet dreams!
A/N: This chapter focuses more on large-scale space battling, and little on individual character battles.
Chapter 10: Homecoming I
Having your house on fire isn't the most pleasant experience a human could experience in his life. Having your house on fire and having to rush home to put it out after killing several dozen enemies and blowing up a planet definitely wouldn't be high on anyone's agenda. Having to save your burning house from a bunch of pitchfork-toting, torch-bearing aliens' needles to say is something no one would want to live through.
Welcome to a day in the life of Fayt Leingod, an ordinary kid tasked with the extraordinary job of safeguarding humanity from aliens.
It was like any other day on board the Reynolds, Fayt was doing what he usually did, chatting with crewmembers, mucking around, bugging the Chief to take off his helmet, when they received a transmission calling all fleets back to Earth, citing an imminent Covenant invasion.
"So what do we do now?" asked a bewildered Fayt, images of Earth in the earlier version of the Eternal Sphere still fresh in his mind.
"We do what we can do," replied the Master Chief grimly, "We fight."
On the lofty bridge of the pride of the UNSC fleet, the Rejuvenator stood two men. They might have easily been two armies. Crisp, well-seasoned uniforms adorned with lanyards, badges and medals were a testament to that. Thick capes draped their shoulders and ceremonial staves leaned in their grips. Whole armies had been defeated by the crafty tricks and stratagems of these two men.
They were not men, not to many in their line of work.
One was a Vice Admiral with a reputation that preceded him, with short grey hair, mutton chops, and a pair of wide-spaced moustaches bracketing his mouth. The pistol strapped onto his leg was a mere concession. Just with his mind, he could deliver death, and send the heavens crashing down on any army.
The other man, to many a soldier, was a near-god. It was he that defeated the Communist separatists on Mars. It was he that increased the UNSC's influence tenfold. It was he that led the survivors of Reach to their salvation. It was he who would keep Earth safe.
Fleet Admiral Ezra Callis drew a deep breath of the cool space air. The slight breeze, created by the air-conditioners that gave the crew some respite from the tension, dragged at his ash-blonde hair and goatee. It snapped his cape behind him.
"Can you sense it Barrin? Do you sense the intentions of the Covenant?"
Vice Admiral Barrin Khurzog nodded. Time had wrinkled his flesh and clouded his eyes. Still, he seemed like a young protégé to Ezra. Indeed, Ezra had been in four times as many combat missions as he had.
"Yes. They have amassed an armada. They are coming."
"Splendid," said Ezra, "Before we could only wait for them to find us. Now they have come out of hiding, the fun begins."
Barrin scowled at his superior's jovial attitude to the matter, "We should summon the frontier fleets. At top speed they can arrive once the Covenant start exiting Slipspace."
"No," Ezra said flatly, "I will summon them, but they will come slowly. They would be weakened after a more speedy flight." He barked some orders to the communications officer, who started frantically typing out a transmission.
"Better to field many troops early than to perish before the stronger enemies arrive," quipped Barrin.
"Haste makes waste. Better to bide our time," replied the Fleet Admiral.
"If it were up to you, Ezra, we would wait forever."
"If it were up to you, Barrin, we would do the same."
"But it is not up to us. It is up to the Covenant," Barrin said.
Ezra's temples hardened in grim determination, "If we succeed in this war, nothing ever again will be up to the Covenant."
Barrin grasped Ezra's muscular shoulder and pointed toward a spatial distortion in space: a Slipspace exit, "Here they come."
The heavens ripped open. Blackness tore a hole in the velvet of space. A portal yawned wide. Form its lightless depths stared a malign presence.
Ezra's hand tightened on his staff, "My old foe, the Prefect Da' Gara, the Prophet of Truth's right-hand. He is gazing at me."
"And you are gazing at him."
"Were it not for him, my fleets would have found and vanquished the Covenant homeworld. But he knows me. He knows many of my tricks. He shoves at me, even here."
Ships- small, fleet ships- shot form the yawning portal. They buzzed outward and swarmed there, watching for attack. Some were frigates; their decks crammed with pulse lasers and plasma torpedo launchers. Others were smaller still, single-pilot Seraph fighters configured like fleas. A few were puppet craft, unmanned and controlled distally. All flew in intercept patterns as the first big cruisers made their way through the portal.
"They've learnt from the In Amber Clad's tactics," Ezra observed grimly, "We won't be doing this Master Chief fashion."
(A/N: As in the Master Chief boarding and blowing up a ship.)
"He's shoving you Ezra," Barrin said, "Shove back."
Nodding in satisfaction, Ezra raised his staff, "First- some old friends. Do you think they still remember my Falcon Space Mines?" He pressed a certain button on the control panel.
From amongst what seemed to be harmless pieces of space junk and debris, metal things surged forth suddenly. There were ten thousand of them, little more than an engine, a heat-seeking device, and a warhead. A very powerful warhead. They bore whirring metal shredders, capable of digging through the shielded armors of Covenant vessels.
The mines rocketed towards the invaders; in moments they had reached their foe. Converging on the Covenant vanguard, they smashed easily through the Seraphs who tried in vain to intercept them. Most hurled themselves onwards to the cruisers that lumbered behind. Plasma batteries answered form the huge ships, but there were too many mines. They burrowed through whatever thin armor or hollows presented themselves, and made their way through vents, pipes and corridors to the hottest part of the ship, be it engine, reactor, or armory. There, they exploded.
Once again, there came that impossible grin on Ezra's face.
"You're enjoying this," Barrin observed grimly.
"It's sort of a chess match," Ezra replied, "Two foes, wizened and powerful, battling over little squares of turf."
"Barrin's face was bleak, "Two not dissimilar foes-"
"He has lead with his knights and bishops. I have lead with my pawns. They are swarming and destroying his pieces."
"The Rejuvenator is no pawn. It is your king! You're leading with your king!"
Ezra gestured as Seraphs exploded in spectacular displays of fireworks, "It is beautiful. How can you not smile?"
"In this chess match, Master Ezra, you have sixteen pieces, and he has sixteen thousand!"
"I have sixteen billion," Ezra said, "I have every fluttering heart on this planet." He brought his staff down, and every gun port in his mighty fleet assembled behind him opened up.
Through the eyes of war coordinator, Prefect Da' Gara watched another Seraph explode into a shower of flashing-bits. "All glory to you warrior," he mumbled reverently, the appropriate farewell to the one killed gloriously in battle.
He was not distressed at the sight of one of his warriors dying in the all-out melee, though. To die in battle was one of the highest honors a Covenant warrior could achieve.
Nor was the Prefect distressed that the battle was apparently going against the small force he had dispatched to meet the incoming enemy force. This group was meant to lose, was supposed to retreat, and in doing so bait the enemy out of range of their protective fire from the orbital platforms, and closer to the true power of the Covenant.
He surveyed the rest of his fleet held in reserve, just barely camouflaged beneath the asteroids. Hundreds upon hundreds of ships, consisting smaller single-pilot craft, and larger gunships, with a multitude of gunners, to the great fire capabilities of his capital ships, from pulse laser and plasma torpedo, to the power of the suns themselves.
In came the remaining craft of the pursuit group, skimming across the surface of the moon, heading for the safety of the asteroid belt, and the fleet it hid. And hot on their heels came the human fleet, a dozen large ships, including one huge and impressive vessel, and scores upon scores of smaller craft.
A wry smile spread across the Prefect's face. The victory this day would be major, far great than the destruction of Reach.
"Are they joined?" the Prefect communicated to his lieutenant.
The under-officer's confidence brought an even wider smile to the Prefect's face. The bait was taken. Now his massed armada would rain death upon the foolish human defenders. The Covenant fleet's main armaments were the many heavy plasma turrets on his cruisers, and the strategically placed torpedo corvettes capable of downing an entire squadron in an instant. Never mind a fighter. Even a planet would crumble under their assault.
In they came, and Prefect Da' Gara waited eagerly.
Captain Sam Anglo kept his destroyer, the Fire Shard back as the bulk of the fleet soared in, as did Ezra and the Rejuvenator. Given the beginning of the battle, the rout on the far side of the moon, it seemed as if the morons at Intel actually gave them an accurate estimation of enemy vessels.
Then, what seemed to be the flagship of the combined frontier fleet sent to their aid hailed him.
"So I hear things are going quite well," Wallace called, as his fleet prepared to exit Slipspace.
"I heard," came the response, "We'll get you guys docked in with the rest of the fleet as soon as the Rejuvenator and her escorts clear…" Sam's voice trailed off, as soon as Wallace glanced at the next radar signature of the mounting battle, he understood why.
Thousands of Seraphs had come out at the approaching fleet, zipping and zooming in and around the many fighters. What had been a rout and chase was suddenly a scene of absolute chaos, of battle joined- heavily.
"Chief," he called, "Get you and your Marines' asses onto some Pelicans. We got a job to do, a huge one."
The huge Spartan scurried off to do his commander's bidding. Taking the initiative, Commander Keyes declared a code red.
"Intel just came in," she reported to Wallace, "They got about three hundred and fifty ships. Combined with the defensive fleet, other frontier fleets and the Elites, we've got about six hundred. Still one hundred short of the two-to-one ratio we need to ensure a fair battle."
"We've got the Chief, Ezra and wonderboy. They three of them have gotta be worth more than a hundred ships," remarked Wallace, "Plus, they don't know we brought them some of their old buddies."
He let out a confident snigger, and was joined by the Praetor on the other end of the joint-communications channel.
"All right boys and girls, battle stations! Prepare to get those guns singing!"
Longsword Interceptor pilot sergeant Daryl Read bit his lip and throttled his fighter out to full, though the speed of the closing Seraphs mocked at his attempted run. He thought to turn about and plunge again into the protective cover of a huge asteroid a click away, but then realized that even that option had closed for him, for some of the Seraphs had fanned out to block his way.
"They've got me," he muttered, and for the first time since joining the UNSC Space Corps, Daryl felt truly helpless, as if all the training to be worthy of a Longsword pilot could do nothing now to help him.
He closed his eyes and prepared to be engulfed in the flames of his fighter, but then, sensing something, he opened his eyes…and almost toppled with relief.
The Reynolds came out of Slipspace right before him. Other ships- destroyers, carriers, gunships- appeared, and before Daryl could even open a channel and warn the approaching fleet, the great cruiser dropped into attack mode. Longswords and other fighters zoomed out of her bays; her great forward batteries opened up, streaks of light sizzling past him.
This had to be the frontier fleets summoned to the defense of the homeworld and… good lord, they had managed to win over allies from within the Covenant? Behind the human vessels emerged shining carriers from Slipspace, eager for battle, but somewhat reluctant to be seen by humans.
"Hey there pilot," came the voice of Kyp Durren, Longsword squadron commander, and Daryl, for all the resentment he held against the Spartan, had never imagined he would ever be this happy to hear the former's voice, "You need a little help?"
Seraphs flew in perfect formations with Longswords. Missiles shrieked towards their targets, exploding alongside plasma torpedoes.
He took survey of the battle. The enemy had been taken by surprise, it seemed. Most Covenant vessels in the immediate vicinity were going up in blazes of sparkling pieces. Others did manage to head for home, but then came yet another voice across all channels.
"This is Wallace," it said, "Let's take it right up to their home."
"Good morning kid, I see you made good of those dissatisfied Covenant eh?" came Ezra's cocky voice over the Comm channel.
"Don't call me kid," came Wallace's dry response. He finished with a cry of triumph as the Reynolds slammed a MAC slug right home into a Covenant destroyer, slicing it neatly into half. Behind, the Praetor's carrier, the Scarling Bliss, blasted another similarly designed Covenant carrier with pulse lasers, before several Seraphs and Longswords sailed in to finish the job.
Ahead and to the side of the Reynolds, which had now placed itself nearby the Rejuvenator, a pair or Elite gunships opened up, dozens of batteries on each sending lines of plasma fire out in all myriad of directions, forcing all nearby Covenant craft into wild and desperate, often unsuccessful, evasive maneuvers.
"Impressive," remarked Ezra, as the Praetor entered the joint-ops channel.
"The newest and best," the Praetor started to reply, but stopped short and flinched when one of the gunships off to the side of the Scarling Bliss went up in a huge explosion.
And then a small corvette rushed in at the nearest human destroyer. They heard the banter between the Elite captain and the human commander, one saying that he had the corvette, all guns trained forward, and calling for the other to cover his attack.
And so the destroyer let loose a tremendous barrage of rockets that streaked at the corvette…
And disappeared in a symphony of flame and light.
"Plasma disruptor," Ezra muttered breathlessly, "Just took one hit…"
And now they heard calls from Kyp and the combined-fleet pilots, waging a blistering, weaving battle against a swarm of enemy ships, and those calls were not of victory, but of surprise.
"They're more that we though," Wallace remarked, watching and listening to the distant spectacle of that battle, for Longswords - top-of-the-line fighters - were barely holding their own.
"Give us support, Aegis!" came Kyp's plea.
The Aegis was the second-best ship in the fleet, sent forth to serve as a mobile firing platform to cover the fighters. But the Aegis had her hands full, Seraphs and small corvettes buzzing her from all angles, and somehow avoiding her devastating cannon arrays.
"Going in for the broke," Rojo, the Aegis' commander, sent his call throughout all channels, and the great leviathan opened up an even more spectacular display of firepower. But the Seraphs were good, amazingly so, pacing the larger ship's movements and keeping their attacks so wonderfully coordinated.
Commander Rojo soon came to realize that he was in trouble. The onslaught of the Seraphs and the larger fighter-support craft was nothing short of brutal, and nothing less than brilliant, and those fighter squadrons sent out to run guard for the Aegis had all they could handle running guard for themselves.
Damage reports chimed in from all around him, relating mounting problems on the Aegis and relating the growing losses throughout the fleet. And then came the general alarms as a distant heat signature had been detected a score away. All those alarms that were not local to the bridge were washed out in a flood of static.
Commander Rojo knew he was running out of time.
Damn plasma disruptor.
"Commander! They're launching their fucking beam!" yelled one of the bridge crew.
"Evade! Hard to port!" Rojo screamed desperately.
"That wouldn't be necessary sir," came a voice from the back of the bridge. It was the navigator.
"Huh?" choked Rojo. He glanced at the viewscreen, only to see the great beam of whitish-blue energy streak harmlessly past the Aegis…
And impact itself on a nearby Covenant carrier.
Back on the Rejuvenator, multiple heat signatures appeared on the radar. It was a great fleet, more than two hundred strong.
"Covenant reinforcements?" queried Barrin.
"Possible," replied Ezra.
He observed as his fighters flew in a desperate assault against the sleeker-looking newcomers. As expected, the capital ships opened up gun ports and unleashed swarms of fighters. Hundreds of them.
But instead of engaging the Longswords and Elite Seraphs, these fighters swooped past them, ignoring them totally, but slammed sparkling beams of energy into whatever Covenant ships that got in their way.
"Are they friend or foe?" gasped Fayt, having struggled to repel a boarding action onto the Rejuvenator, the party now returning to the bridge for a breather.
"Friend or foe? Goddamn, what's the world coming to? Even wonderboy doesn't recognize me anymore!" came a voice over the joint-ops channel. A very familiar voice. Whoever he was, he managed to hack right in.
"Could it be?" said Nel.
"Don't tell me…" muttered Adray.
Sensing the newcomer was friendly, the communications officer unblocked his signal, and the full face of Albel the Wicked, with his usual smirk grim plastered across his face, emerged onto the viewscreen.
"Damn, why don't people stay dead," murmured Fayt.
Back on his personal ship, the Black Drake, Albel marveled at the power of the Lesiri armada. The armada he was at the head of. They sheared through mighty Covenant vessels like they were nothing more than pieces of cardboard. What seemed to be a loosing battle to the defenders was not a total rout in their favor. So it was a good idea to bring these guys along.
There were things yet to be done, of course. Ezra explained that Covenant dropships had landed on Earth, Africa to be exact, and they were rapidly advancing towards major cities. But the battle up here was almost theirs. Lesiri captains were reporting completed objectives, successful kills, and other brainless chatter.
He took sometime to bask in the glory that he was the one who orchestrated this, then set back to his job. He was receiving numerous complaints that humans and Elites were firing at his troops and set another verbal reminder to Ezra and his troops on the diplomacy of the battle.
"Agnate!" he called out into the communications channel.
"Yes sir!" a low but sharp voice replied.
"Get the troop carriers ready. We're landing on Earth," he ordered.
"Where shall we make battle?" came the response.
"A desert, they call it the Sahara. Nice flat ground, perfect for deploying troops," he elaborated.
"Aye sir, we shall set a rendezvous point for all troop carriers and shuttles," acknowledged Agnate with a crisp salute.
Imperator Thaddeus, supreme commander of the Lesiri fleet surveyed the battle. The First Deathdealer was right. The humans, as cornered and in such a hopeless situation as they were, never stopped fighting. Truly, they had the spirits of warriors in their small slender frame.
Leaning back on his throne-like command chair, he watched as the flagship, the first Deathdealer's own corvette, the Black Drake, dove dangerously close to a Covenant carrier, and virtually tore it apart with a ferocious bombardment of anti-matter beams. Cerberus made a good choice with his successor. Despite not being Lesiri, to Albel, the title "First Deathdealer" fit him like a glove.
He recalled that Albel himself had disrupted his affirmation ceremony, the most glorious day for any Lesiri, just to save his comrades on Earth. Moved by his sacrificial act, the entire Lesiri armada followed him back to Earth.
Now the entire Lesiri fleet emerged from Slipspace with weapons blazing. Simultaneously, from the steamy hangers of the carriers, Nidhog fighter squadrons raced forwards to engage the invaders, the radiance of their ion drives adding a renewed glow to the shimmering battlefield.
Batteries of one of the many Lesiri forward cruisers and their frigate escorts ranged toward distant targets and fired. Anti-matter beams slashed outward, visible in vacuum as wrathful hyphens of energy. Overlapping spheres of brilliance flared out in the darkness, blossoming thicker than a meadow of wildflowers.
The Covenant vessels- heavily shielded- withstood the initial barrage. Defensive maneuvers were taken and plasma turrets guzzled countless ergs of energy. Answering bursts from fearsomely powerful arrays streaked towards the Lesiri task force as spiraling golden projectiles, grotesquely beautiful against the starfield.
Diverting energy to their shields, the Lesiri ships held their own, then returned fire. Laser light and nova-bright missiles griddled the blackened space as the two flotillas continued to trade volleys.
Nidhogs, Longswords and Seraphs swooped in from all angles and began to distract, harass and sting the vanguard Covenant vessels with barrages of ordnance. Dazed by the appearance of the humongous Lesiri armada, and their powerful volley, a Covenant frigate dropped its guard momentarily. Slipping through vulnerable spots in the ship's defenses, torpedoes from a combined wing of Nidhogs and Seraphs detonated against the ship's hull. Chunks of steel as large as fighters separated from the vessel, and blazed fiery trails in all directions.
Centerpiece of the battle, Albel's Black Drake swooped in close to a carrier and sent a volley of rockets, which knocked out its main turrets. He then gave the signal and three shuttles exited the hanger bays, carrying hordes of bloodthirsty Lesiri marines.
Sergeant Johnson thought he'd seen it all. Genetically modified humans? Check. Alien invasion? Check. Weird kid who seems to be superman's son? Check. Humans teaming up with aliens? Check. But what was unfolding before his eyes was nothing short of a Hollywood movie set.
Here he was clutching his rifle and blasting away at Covenant boarders storming out of an airlock form their Phantom, when their numbers started thinning drastically. Puzzled, he popped his head out from the crate he was cowering behind, and nearly died of surprise when he saw that a bipedal dog-like alien force was killing- or rather massacring- the Brutes.
He was about to start firing at them again, when a firm hand on his caused him to lower it. The Master Chief shook his head and said, "Relax marine, they're friendly."
At that moment, all channels blared Ezra's voice, calling on all personnel not to engage these aliens.
Friendly?! I guess and enemy of my enemy is my friend. I can live with that. But how the heck did they get into…
His thought process was cut short as the Master Chief, as though reading his mind, pointed at the Phantom beyond the airlock. It seemed that these, Lesiri, as the Chief called them, had boarded the Phantom from their own shuttle.
Great…Boarding ship getting boarded? Check.
To Ezra, it didn't matter what these newcomers were, or who was their leader. They were good, he had to admit. He marveled as two of these Lesiri cruisers fired their main bow guns and sent a Covenant cruiser, fully shielded, spinning into oblivion.
It seemed that one of wonderboy's friends, whom they all left for dead, had been rescued by these aliens, and now was regarded as their god. But he didn't care. As long as these newcomers gave him a fighting chance, he'd take it. Their Imperator had already been connected to the joint-ops channel, and just from viewing an image of the alien commander, he knew that whoever this Thaddeus was, he was full of mettle.
Fayt, on the other hand, had no such luxury as to having a chitchat with the Lesiri commander. He had his hands full fighting off boarders. This incursion was larger than most, with four Phantoms dropping off troops simultaneously. He needed reinforcements badly.
Then, some charges on the far end of the hanger went of and Lesiri marines flooded in, overpowering the Covenant boarders with almost casual ease.
The first dozen to disembark were clearly warriors, wearing something that Fayt guessed was combat armor but which resembled him own armor the same way a classic painting resembled a crude sketch. The Lesiri were towering figures, easily seven feet tall, and in their armor resembled deadly insects, their bodies protected by shiny, segmented shells whose pieces overlapped perfectly but slid easily, allowing both protection and flexibility. Portions of the armor swept up from the chest, high over the flared shoulder-pieces and down to the back, resembling stylized wings. A gleaming light was embedded in the center of their chest, just below the arc, and Fayt couldn't tell if the light was functional, decorative, or both. They wore no helmets over their huge gaping maws and pointed wolf-like ears, their armor ending in a high collar that protected the neck and back instead. Their long, peeked heads peered out from the welter of protective metal, glowing orbs for eyes staring out from behind a long snout. Fayt saw several firing rifles, but most attacked with energy wrist blades, extending out from thick bracers, which covered each warrior's forearms.
He watched with awe as these warriors glided through the battalion of Brutes and Jackals like a band of trained swordsmen moving through a raging mob. It was an amazing display, be he was sure he missed much of it because the Lesiri moved simply too fast for him. A Lesiri swordsman would pivot forward, dancing as much as attacking; his arm would lash out, blade crackling with energy. The blade would draw blood from any Brute slow or foolish enough not to get out of the way. The swordsman would then pause for a moment to pick his next target and the process would repeat.
At once he felt like a child again, clinging onto his mother's skirt, whilst these aliens from beyond the stars stood like giants before him.
God they're good…
Back outside in the battle still raging, a Lesiri cruiser avenged a human destroyer by sending anti-matter beams that sliced through the assailant Covenant frigate. Nearby, two Elite gunships moved into position at the flanks of a Lesiri destroyer, determined to make roast out of a Covenant cruiser. Pounding discharges from the batteries of all three ships vaporized dozens of Seraphs and escort craft at a burst. Desperate ploys saved some of the Covenant fighters, but most were out-smarted, disintegrated, or transformed into short-lived comets.
Elsewhere, junking through whirling hunks of debris, a squadron of Longswords and Nidhogs converged on a maimed Covenant corvette and began to nip at it mercilessly. Missiles punched through the imperiled defenses and slammed into the bow. Stratified layers began to peel away from the ship, rubble exploding outward, rocketed from sight. A second, smaller craft, similarly lanced by a wing of Seraphs, also blew to pieces, showering nearby space with briefly glowing motes.
Close to the Black Drake, a chaotic melee raged as Seraphs, Longswords and Nidhogs mixed it up, ferociously and with grim resolve. The fighters came out of smooth rolls, inverted dives, and predatory banks to go to guns with their prey, riding them until they were annihilated. Other craft revectored, racing through fragment clouds and carnage or form up for reengagement, sometimes slewing wildly out of control.
Not that Albel could care anyways. He got word Fayt and the party had head down to Africa to help in the ongoing campaign against the Covenant ground troops, which had landed. He had to get down there. He didn't trust the kid, or anyone else for that matter, to protect his Nel for him. Just then Agnate reported in, "Sir, all Roc heavy troop carriers are ready for deployment. Regrettably we lack the geographical knowledge set up an adequate rendezvous location. Perhaps-"
Agnate was cut off by his commander, "Tell them to look for a burning Covenant ship."
Slightly stunned, Agnate stood for a while with his jaw opened, then years or military experience kicked in and he gave a salute, before barking orders to the Roc pilots.
The bridge crew had overheard his conversation with Agnate and one of Albel's lieutenants, Trandoshan, questioned, "Your Eminence, where are we going to get the Covenant ship for the beacon?"
Albel's calm look widened into a sadistic grin, "There." He pointed at a nearby carrier.
Trandoshan's curious look turned into one of pleasure. Taking the initiative, he reached for the radio and gave a public announcement, "All Deathdealers are to form up at the hangers. We're going on a little excursion."
The Brute captain and his squad patrolling the corridors of the targeted carrier had no idea what hit them. They were alerted of the approach of the Lesiri boarding craft and had formed up exactly where the shuttle had placed its airlock. But when the charges went off, the boarding shuttle was totally empty.
"What in the likes of-" the sight of his front rank getting brutally dismembered, by nothing, cut off the captain's curse. It was absurd; perfectly health warriors do not get sliced to pieces just like that, perhaps-
He didn't need to know the answer. Just seconds after the airlock was opened, the captain and his squad lay decapitated on the corridor. Out of the shadows phased a group of Deathdealers, similarly armed as their counterparts with two wrist blades, but they wore jet-black armors, which blended perfectly with their dark hides. Over their salivating jaws they wore black silk masks.
The communicator of one of the Deathdealers beeped, and he conversed in hushed voices with the Deathdealer on the other end of the line.
"For the Deathdealers' guild!" he cheered as he beckoned for his comrades to advance further into the ship, the others nodded in agreement, before fading back into the shadows in a synchronized fashion.
Albel stood over the dead bodies of the Covenant carrier's bridge crew. His father had been right. Men fear darkness for what hides inside. Apparently so did Brutes and Jackals. He stepped aside to allow Trandoshan access to the ship's motherboard. After flicking a few switches and pressing a few buttons, the lieutenant nodded his head, and stepped back.
Albel reached for his radio and hailed Agnate, "We've gotten control of the ship. We're going in. Watch for it and rally to me." Agnate responded with a grunt.
Wait for me, Nel. Wicked Boy's coming.
A/N: Ok, next chapter will be the land battle. Actually, the Lesiri were based off the Protoss from Starcraft, in case you thought the designs were similar to the Zealot and Dark Templar armor, and the name Black Drake was inspired from the Black Pearl; nigh uncatchable, nigh indestructible.
Master out.