A/N: SOOOOO SORRY! I'm afraid the past two months have been absolutely crazy. That's all I can say. Along with that and some new things I've been doing, I just forgot to write. But here's chapter 10, and the (hopefully) next chapter will be the end of all the setup for all the storylines. Hopefully.

Anyway, enjoy!

Chapter 10: Stacking Cards

Earth 4, E-Day+4

As Athena looked at the results of the ongoing battle, she was satisfied. While they were purposely trying to kill as few ships as possible, it was just too easy to kill these ships. Most fell from one shot from the MAC or the Energy Projector. However, their missile defenses were good. Very good. Athena was 99.9999% sure the only hits scored by Archer missiles were those against heavily damaged ships. The others shot them out of the sky in droves. However, in every other way the Infinity was superior.

A comm from the Justice came through. An Elite said, "We have received a transmission from the Demon. He reports that surrender of the flagship is confirmed."

Captain Del Rios stood. "Good. Can you transmit—"

The Elite bowed his head apolegetically. "Captain, I'm afraid that we don't have two way communications. The ship's shields are one-way. Transmissions can only come out without being scrambled beyond recognition. Many apologies."

Del Rios sucked on the inside of his cheek. "That may pose a problem. SPARTANS are not the best of negotiators. Especially not Chief. He's a II, they're worse than the III's or IV's. Grapp." He turned as sat down again. "Guess we just hope for the best. We cannot do anything to change that fact. However, on the bright side, I'm sure that by this point that Chief and Gypsy have more than enough firepower and leverage to force them to do whatever they decide."

As Master Chief jogged through the still-empty hallways, side passages and doors speeding by, he contemplated his choices. He was, like it or not, the highest ranking person here, and as such was liable to receive surrender and dictate terms. Unfortunately, he was a SPARTAN, and a SPARTAN-II at that. He knew he didn't have much tact. That wasn't his purpose. But now he was in a situation that required the utmost tact and a diplomat's mind—both things which Chief and his team lacked. Almost certainly, something was going to grapp up with a bang. And if it didn't, it was Chief's considerable supply of luck, not any skill on their part.

By his side were the 4 SPARTANS of Gypsy Team, formerly Gypsy Company. While they were all smaller than him, and not dressed in olive green, their comforting presence helped him forget, even for just a moment, that he was alone.

They neared the bridge, and Dustin warned, "We're closing in on the bridge, Master Chief. Get your game face on."

Master Chief knew that tone, and decided to reply to that with a suitably deadpan response. "You mean game visor. They can't see my face."

Dustin's response, however, threw him off and reminded him that Dustin was not Cortana. "Perhaps you should let them see your face. Might reassure them a measure."

"No. Against protocol, and most likely highly illegal."

"And have you ever truly followed either the laws or protocols if it would hurt your mission?"

"Point."

As they came to the blast door which signified the flag bridge, Chief slowed to his customary walk, looking slow while still eating up ground. He knew that the other members of his team were behind them, and ahead he could see some very nervous guards.

They dropped their weapons as soon as the SPARTANs came into sight, and one of them, who was a private judging from his fresh face, started trembling, visible from several meters away.

While most of the SPARTANs were reserved enough to just crack a smile and perhaps chuckle slightly, Jarvis was not so mature. "Bwahahahah! Look at that kid! He looks like he's got hypothermia!" Chief knew Jarvis was the least mature; he was the youngest. When looking at the behemoths, it was easy to forget that these men and women were just slightly older than he was when he entered service. Chief hadn't bothered to find out, but Jarvis was under 20, and he knew none of them were over 25. Indeed, he was one of the oldest men on the Infinity. He was, what, 78 now? Of course, with all of the cryosleep he had undergone, it was closer to 65, but still, that was old for a soldier. He wasn't sure if even the Captain was that old.

It had been a long time. A long time indeed. But he still had some years in him; he was still the single deadliest man in the UNSC. If he had a say, he'd go down fighting. It was what he was born to do. However, his particular skillset tended to lean towards him dying of old age many years from now.

As he approached the door and stopped in front of the guards, the private's shaking intensified. It looked now like he was having a seizure.

"Open up," stated Chief. His gravelly voice echoed through the tight hallway, and the private's face paled until he looked like one of the colonists from Niflheim: Nearly albinic.

The other man, pale but still composed, tapped a code into the bulkhead control panel, and as it opened, Dustin said, "You know, I could've opened that."

"Yes, I know. But that might not help relations at the moment."

"Congratulations, you've just passed Diplomacy 101!"

Chief banged the back of his helmet, an action that got him odd glances from everyone, including the second guard. He ignored it; he had the right to.

As he passed through the door and entered the flag bridge, he smiled as he heard just what he was expecting: a lecture by the more experienced guard. "Son, you can't pee your pants! Even if they are giant robots, we are MARINES! We don't tremble!"

His attention, however, quickly snapped to the flag bridge, as he scanned it for potential threats. A rather average man, decorated heavily, stood in the middle of the bridge, and the other officers stood behind or around him. There was one he would have to keep an eye on; he looked very angry.

"Admiral Miles, I presume?"

"That is correct."

Admiral Miles sighed. He knew this was the wisest choice, but it still burned giving up the ship to these Mesan freaks. As the blast door hissed open, he caught his first real glimpse of the warriors who had so quickly subdued his ship. His first thought was that they were very large. Nearly scraping the ceiling, they also made quite heavy noises when they walked.

As the green one's visor turned towards him, he noticed something. It was scarred and scratched, obviously from years of conflict. But he was jarred out of his observation as it spoke, a deep gravelly voice, obviously male. "Admiral Miles?"

"That is correct."

"You are now Prisoners of War, in accordance with UNSC Rules of Combat. You are hereby ordered to surrender all weapons to UNSC personnel and deactivate all weaponry and defensive mechanisms onboard your vessel, as well as order all ships under your command to surrender. Do you comply with these terms?"

He sighed and lowered his head. "I agree with these terms."

Suddenly, the Marine captain stepped forwards, holding a pulser. "Well—"

Inhumanly fast, the green one snapped out a weapon, and with a deafening boom, the captain's hand disappeared. He recoiled and screamed as blood poured from the ruined remains of his right hand, and as everyone stepped back, the green one nodded. Two of the others came forwards, first slapping a first aid kit of some kind onto his arm and then restraining him.

As they removed the first aid kit, it had bandaged the wound with some kind of white foam, which had hardened into a cast-like form.

"Now. You will order all the ships in your force to surrender." The green one holstered his weapon, a whitish-grey pistol, huge compared to a normal pistol. "You have two minutes."

"Lieutenant?" The comms officer returned to his board, before replying, fleet-wide channel open. "This is Admiral Miles. A hostile force has obtained control of our flagship, as well as an unknown number of other systems. I would urge you to surrender. Admiral Miles out."

He cut the connection, but even as the light flashed off, it flashed back on again. A English-accented voice said, "This is Dustin. I'm afraid your good admiral wasn't quite correct; I have control of all of the subsystems in 73% of the surviving fleet. It would be wise to heed her."

One by one, the impeller wedges of the fleet winked off, as finally only the flagship's was powered.

"Admiral, deactivate your flagship. Then you can be taken into custody."

"Do it, Ensign." The ensign nodded, and with the kill switch on his console, the impeller field shuddered and died.

A transmission came through. "—This is UNSC Infinity. Do you read?"

The green one paused, and a muffled sound could be heard from within.

"Good. Bring the Admiral back to Infinity for interrogation. Dustin, take the other ships and follow Infinity. We'll be taking cover in the asteroid field in the outer system."

Admiral Miles looked at the green one. "May I ask who just defeated an entire fleet?"

"Sierra-1-1-7, UNSC."

"Your name, not your code number."

"That's classified. My rank is Master Chief Petty Officer."

Admiral Miles sighed. Not only were they hostiles she was still unsure of being human, but they were special forces hostiles. She hated special forces and intelligence. It just caused more problems.

"Lead the way."

Unknown Universe, E-Day+2

Honor Harrington grunted as the ship shook and lost power, before the redundant generators kicked on, illuminating the bridge in unusually stark white light. She barked, "Report!" and the reports came flooding in.

"Main power conduits are down, but reactors and backups are green!"

"All main systems report green to fight, Admiral."

"Are the main cameras online?"

"Bringing them on now." An alert immediately beeped. "Ma'am! We have a tachyon signature matching that of the discrepancy—inside the ship."

She whipped her head around. "Seal off that hallway, get everyone out, and then set a guard there. We don't know what tachyons do to people, or what happens when you touch one."

"Ma'am."

As Noble 6 landed with a grunt on the other side of this portal, before catching casually the plummeting forms of each of the others and setting them down, he noticed one thing. This environment was obviously not natural—it looked like the hallway of a ship.

The second thing he noticed was the guard pointing a weapon at him. He reacted exactly like he had been trained—whipping out his gun and aiming it at one, creating an instant standoff.

"Admiral! Something just came through the tachyon discrepancy."

"Cameras, now!"

As the holoscreen fizzled into life, showing a full-color image of the hallway, it was evident that something hadn't come through the tachyon disturbance. Rather, someone, or to be more accurate, someones.

In the lead was a behemoth in grey armor, already pointing a weapon of some kind at the two guards, who had reacted in kind. Behind him were 4 very odd creatures. They looked like a cross between skunks or rabbits, and humans! Very,very odd indeed. It looked like something a few twisted minds in the Mesan Alignment would put together.

But the dark blue one, the skunk-hybrid, put out a hand and said something not audible. The gray one incrementally relaxed, though it was unlikely any other than she had noticed it.

"Perhaps not Mesans," she mused.

As Brennan stumbled through the portal, miraculously landing on his feet, he saw an instant Mexican standoff had already formed. Why was not exactly apparent, but he didn't want any more bloodshed today. He would probably break if anyone even got a paper cut, so close to the edge was his tolerance for violence. That screaming...

But he shook his head and said, "Six, did you really already have to pull out a gun? We haven't even said a single word."

Six replied in a low, directed tone, "He had already begun to pull his gun on me before I looked up. Get back."

But Brennan had had quite enough today. "No! I will not back off and watch as another man gets more killing today. Understand?" He got right up into the crouched Six's face, an interesting turnaround from the gibbering wreck he had been just a few minutes ago.

The guard was watching this in a kind of sick fascination, and his gun had started drooping to the ground as he stared, agape, at this odd spectacle.

Six sighed, before nodding almost imperceptibly. "No killing. I give my word." Holding gazes with Brennan until he broke away satisfied, Six simply grabbed the man's weapon, down due to astonishment, before breaking it in half with his hand and tossing it aside. "See? No killing."

But it was at this point that a fully-armored security team poured in the door behind the now-weaponless security guard. All with weapons pointed at Six.

Brennan facepalmed. "Are. You. freaking. Kidding. Me."

Honor wasn't exactly sure what was going on, but it seemed the diminutive hybrid had just stared down the behemoth, nearly twice his size! It was astonishing, and frankly laughable, but that ended when the behemoth grabbed her guards' weapon and snapped it in half with one hand.

Must be a command matter; it was obviously not a power matter. But it was at this point the rapid-reaction team poured in with guns pointed. It was obvious to those already there that the intentions on both sides were not deadly, but the introduction of new people might have just upset that.

Honor sighed. "Are you kidding me." Quickly pressing a button, she commed to the team, "This is Admiral Harrington. Stand down, now, and take a few steps back. You may have just escalated the situation. Seriously."

Earth Prime, E-Day+2

Gary surveyed their meager defenses grimly. Though there were dirt walls large enough for everyone to take cover in, there was no time to cover the Bradleys or the Abrams. The men were still in shock and demoralized. Manuel's shocking act of treachery had fatally weakened their flesh and steel defenses, but perhaps harder hit were the defenses in the men's mind. They were no longer the confident, wise-cracking men they had been only a few minutes ago. Now they were sullen and depressed, with conversation grinding to an abrupt halt.

And the Insectoids were close; you could hear the engines on the crawlers rumbling now. "Everyone, get to your positions!" he yelled, pointing out some of the embankments. "Don't let them get around us!"

As they scrambled behind the embankments, the first of the crawlers turned the corner, and behind and to the sides of it were several dozen Insectoids on foot. The noise grew much greater; you had to shout to be heard over the din.

"Fire!" he yelled, pointing at the tank. The Abrams boomed, and the walker paused for half a second. Then it exploded, fire from the insides ripping apart the tank and killing many of the infantry too close. The Bradley's machine guns chattered, and the remaining Insectoids were torn apart by several hundred bullets.

But now around the bend came two walkers in step, with three times the infantry. The Abrams reacted quickly, swiveling its turret and blowing the first walker up in a similar fashion. The second walker fired its main weapon with a mighty boom, but it flew over the Abrams and impacted several yards beyond, leaving a smoking crater.

It too joined its friends in death, but the infantry were nearly unscathed this time. Green trails, led by bullets, began to rip through the air above the embankment. Most pinged off of the Abrams' heavy armor, but the few, larger, bullets, trailing a streak of red, destroyed the reactive armor surrounding the Abrams.

Throughout all of this, it remained eerily empty of one usual sound. In every battle that warranted injured or dead men, there were the inevitable groans and screams of the wounded. But the Insectoids remained silent, not a sound escaping them. Even the bleeding ones on the ground made nary a single sound.

It was unnerving, along with the strange whines that the incendiary bullets they fired made. Once again, the machine guns on the vehicles tore them apart, and soon there were no more bullets being fired.

Another two walkers came around, but this time they were ready. The first one fired, and missed, blowing a crater just ahead of the embankments to the Abrams' right. The second walker fired after a few seconds, and hit right on.

Though the Abrams was better designed with fire in mind, and therefore didn't explode, a gaping hole had been torn in the turret. Flames began to lick from within, and only two men escaped, those that had been in the lower hull. The other two were nowhere to be seen.

Main cannons barked, and after several rapid-fire hits, this walker, too, succumbed. But their heavy hitter was down. As the next round of walkers turned the corner, the TOWs on half of the Bradleys spat out a missile, crashing into a walker. Though it lurched and reeled, the tank was still standing, and so a second set of missiles was dispatched to put it down.

The second tank fired, glancing a hit off the side of the right Bradley. The side was nearly ripped away, and the men quickly scrambled out of the Bradley, all but one making it out before a second bolt— shot just before the walker was destroyed—turned it into a flaming wreck.

It was evident that until they ran out of TOW missiles, they could turn back the walkers. Apparantly, the Rak'te had realized that too. Instead of another pair of walkers, a single walker and a horde of infantry blew around the corner to the small pass.

TOWs soon spat another volley, then a second, and the walker crashed to the ground, joining the littered remnants of its brethren. But the infantry proved more resiliant.

The main cannons on the Bradley weren't meant for anti-infantry work, though they attempted to do so valiantly. The machine guns were superb, but felling so many enemies left the ammo dangerously low. Though every Insectoid was felled, it took a large chunk out of the machine gun's supplies.

James Thorn, the commander of the lead Bradley, opened his cupola in between the two waves.
"Sir! We're almost out of ammo for the .50 cals. We won't take another wave without your support."

Gary cursed under his breath. "That's a big problem. We need to hold here for a long time." He sucked his lower lip, deep in thought, for a few moments. "I've got a—"

But yet another wave, completely comprised of infantry, rushed their position, and Thorn clanged back into his vehicle. The firing started again, but as the wave progressed, one, then two, then five, machine guns clicked empty. The Insectoids made it within 50 feet before they were all cut down.

James popped out of his Bradley again. "Sir?"

"I've got a solution. When your Bradleys run empty, run them sideways in the spot they occupy, and keep using the main gun. That way we'll have a shield back here."

"Sir!" With a rumble, five Bradleys started, and turned to the right, wedging themselves firmly as part of the defensive works. The turrets turned to face outwards. Just as the last Bradley shut down with a diminishing growl, the Insectoids sent yet another wave of infantry.

Gary jumped off the small knoll he had been standing on, running to take cover behind the earthenworks. "Fire at will, people! We can't count on the machine guns any more." They popped up, their heads and guns the only possible targets.

As they joined the racous gathering of lead and fire, the remaining Bradleys exhausted their machine guns and began to move with a groan, still firing all the while. The Insectoids made it within 30 feet this time—and they took their first infantry casualty.

Private Jenkins had been overeager, and in his zeal had popped up a bit more over the barrier than was prudent, or indeed, safe. A bullet took the back of his head out, and he flopped to the ground, blood already staining the earth and loose grass red. The men on either side of him stared in shock for a moment, before the one on the left took a grazing hit, carving a furrow in his helmet and knocking him to the ground.

With a cry of rage, he began to fire as fast as he could pull the trigger, and his new neighbor soon joined.

But now the next wave came inexorably, this time with a duo of walkers. Now unable to use their machine guns, the Bradleys concentrated on the tanks, but that left the infantry unmolested, and soon the fire grew thick as they came into range.

In the firestorm, they lost two more Bradleys and another man, and Gary couldn't tell how many men had made it out of the Bradleys. Now they lay, fiery hulks only good as metal shields against the hail of fire.

The Insectoids made it all the way to the base of the earthenworks this time, before the last one was riddled by three men simultaneously.

"Bayonets! Bayonets!" Gary called, and it was repeated down the line. They were down to half their armor strength, and numbers were telling. The Insectoids seemed to be able to throw men at them.

Gary knew with a certainty this is what the Wermacht must have felt as they attempted to hold this pass against the Russians, back in '45. They could just throw more men at you, and when you had few tanks, fewer supplies, and a meager amount of men, you could hold out only so long in even the best of positions. 'We have reserves,' Gary thought grimly.

And yet another wave poured around the edge of the pass. "Keep firing!" he screamed, even as a bullet took off Corporal Juarez's ear.