Omega Station, 2186

Shouts of pain echoed throughout the streets of Omega, indicative of a fight somewhere. Kolyat cracked his knuckles, grinning ear-hole to ear-hole, and delivered another punch to the turian's face. "Tell me where you got them, NOW!" he yelled, slamming the informant into a wall. Shepard watched carefully as Kolyat played the bad cop.

He raised a hand, signaling Kolyat to stop. Reluctantly, Kolyat released the informant and walked back towards Shepard. "Now, would you kindly tell us where you got these plasma weapons? Or would you like to have another 'chat' with my friend?" Shepard inquired, gesturing back to Kolyat, who was anxiously awaiting his turn at the interrogation.

"Fuck you, human. The Covenant will have my scales if I tell you that." The turian said, spitting blue-green blood onto the ground. He then flexed his mandibles, checking to see if anything was broken. They had been trying to extract information from this particular turian, an arms dealer named Kiric, for nearly three hours with no progress.

"I have to say, I admire your integrity, but sadly that isn't enough for me." Shepard said, loosing a sigh of disappointment. Omega had given him nothing in the way of leads, only loose-ends that desperately needed denouement. Shepard shifted his gaze to Kolyat, who sat waiting like a starved predator, desperate for a kill. "Do it." Shepard said calmly as he stood up. He stretched and walked back to the alley's entrance, unflinching as more pained screams filled the air.

Kolyat relished his kill, not even drawing a singles blade to speed up the process. The turian begged for his life, but all Kolyat did was laugh as his pained screams filled the air. Kolyat's punches landed with sickening, meaty smacks on the turian's body. You could hear the skin splitting, the bones breaking. It was a pain that almost hurt to think about. After another half hour of beating, Kolyat delivered one final juggernaut punch to the turian's face, a wet snap resounding through the alley as his neck broke from the force of the punch. Kolyat was finished.

Shepard sighed. Another lead lost. "Joker, prepare the Normandy for launch. We're leaving at 05:00. Shepard out." The Commander ordered over his radio. He had one last source on Omega, and after his recent exploits, Shepard knew that she'd be difficult to work with.

Club Afterlife, Omega, 2186

Aria T'Loak looked at Commander Shepard with angry eyes. "Commander, I gave you my one rule. And you seem to have forgotten it." The Asari crime lord said, her tone on the border between venomous and furious. Shepard sighed. He knew she'd be difficult to work with, but this had turned into suicide.

"Yeah, well, when the galaxy's at stake, I don't give a Vorcha's ass who I fuck with. So, I'll tell you again, do you know where your suppliers are getting Covenant Weapons?" Shepard asked, taking a serious risk by making demands of a pirate lord. Well, in this case, pirate queen.

"You don't tell me what to do, Commander, but I'll humor you nonetheless." Aria said, respecting Shepard's backbone, as the humans called it. She would have called it something more along the lines of stupid and risky. Then again, Aria liked risky, but had little tolerance for stupid. "My suppliers stole the weapons from a derelict ship on the edge of the Hawking Eta Cluster. I'll send the coordinates to you later. As for where the other idiots on my station are getting them, my best guess would be the Batarians. Considering the Covenant attacked a human colony, the Batarians are probably seeking out some kind of alliance with them." Aria finished, taking a sip from a glass filled with a glowing blue liquid. Shepard nodded in thanks, and turned to head for the Normandy. As he did so, Aria bid him farewell by saying, "I admire your bravery, Shepard. Don't do it again."

SSV Normandy, Hawking Eta Cluster, 2186

Joker danced his fingertips across the Normandy's flight controls, adjust vectors and thrust algorithms to suit their approach to the Covenant ship. Larger than a dreadnought by HAS and Citadel regulations, this vessel was the Covenant equivalent of a frigate. The image of a Covenant dreadnought still sent shockwaves through his mind. Twenty-seven kilometers in length, and able to carry an entire army's worth of troops. The thought of there being more than one sent chills through Joker's entire body. "ETA to vessel ninety-two minutes. Be prepared people, I've got a bad feeling about this." Joker announced, rolling his thumb over the "on" button for the ship's PA system. He rolled it back over to turn it off, switching on the inter-ship communicator. "Normandy to Einstein, asteroid field coming into view. Good place for an ambush. Advise you stay frosty." Joker called out, alerting the other ships accompanying the Normandy. Shepard requested another two frigates and an Assault Carrier for this mission. Admiral Hackett agreed, sending the best of the best with Shepard. The Council also sent one carrier from the Turian Hierarchy and two frigates, one from the Salarians and one from the Asari, with a full detachment of Asari commandos at Shepard's disposal. The Commander didn't want to take any chances.

"Joker, alter approach vector to zero-seven-two. Advise frigates to same vector." Shepard announced, reviewing the map of the system. Shepard's tactical analysis was unrivalled within the Alliance. He hoped his experience wouldn't fail him now. Scanning the map another three times, Shepard exhaled nervously, anticipating an ambush. It was something any enemy would do.

SSV Einstein, Hawking Eta Cluster, 2186

Captain Isaac Marlowe, CO of the SSV Einstein, sighed as he reached for his coffee. Neever before had his ship been requisitioned by the Council for some wild goose chase that would supposedly turn the tide against the Covenant. What they needed were bigger ships, bigger guns, and superior tactics. Humanity and the Council had all the desire in the world to stop the Covenant. They had the best engineers in the galaxy working up far-fetched countermeasures that wouldn't even fit in a sci-fi vid. Marlowe looked at his system map, typed a fw lines of code into a holo-console in front of him, and watched it shift into a TACMAP. Satisfied, he rolld his thumb over the refresh button to factor in any new sensor data. A few lines of code flashed through the top right corner of the display before the new readouts winked onto the TACMAP. Two new signatures, too hot to be asteroids or other forms of space debris. "Sparks, zoom in on heading zero-four-zero by factor six. Hold frame." Captain Marlowe ordered, Specialist Keenan Sparks keyed the command into his console, causing Captain Marlowe's TACMAP to respond accordingly. "Lieutenant Taggart, report." Marlowe ordered, wanting answers as to what the anomaly was.

"Scanners suggest a large amount of organics. Possiblity of small fighter craft. I advise we deploy a corvette to investigate." the Lieutenant said, eyes never once leaving his instruments. Marlowe sighed, crossing his arms. He didn't want to send a corvette out. It was too large and too loud for this kind of scout work. He scanned through his options metally for the next few minutes. Unable to reach a conclusion, Marlowe ordered th crew to standby.

"Crewmen, this is Captain Marlowe, prepare fighter squadrons for deployment. All crew to standby positions. Forward all reports to the Normandy." Marlowe ordered through the ships intercom. Marlowe looked down at his wrist, the antique watch still ticking away. Sighing, he wound the ancient timepiece and turned back to the TACMAP. "Hope our boys ar ready for an ambush."

Covenant Destroyer, Hawking Eta Cluster, 2186

"Arbiter, the drone hive is in position." The destroyer's Ship Master reported, kneeling at the larg and threatenig visage of the Arbiter Rylus Thal'Vedumee. He smiled, retracting his faceplate. The Ship Master looked up into his cold, soulless eyes and shivered. No Sangheili could be this monstrous. The Arbiter chuckled and turned to the ship's tactical display. The Defiler vessels with their insufficient armor and strange weapons approached the ruins of the other destroyer, a delicate trap laid by the Arbiter himself. Accompanying them were three ships belonging to a race calling themselves "Batarians" and sharing the Covenant's hatred of the Defilers, which they called humans. They had a Council that refused to aid them in some sort of dispute with the "humans" and have harboured an intense hatred ever since. Although they are ignorant to the glory of the Forerunner, the Batarians claimed to have never encountered any Relics of the Covenant's gods, but that did not matter to Mercy or to the Arbiter. The Batarians and the Covenant shared a common enemy, and that would suffice for now.

"Prepare the fighter craft. Send word to the rangers that their services will be needed. And take no chances. I want every last Defiler on those ships dead." The Arbiter ordered, his voice vicious ad blood-thirsty with the anticipation of battle. He activated his face plate as he left the bridge, satisfied that his trap was on the brink of triggering. He could feel th adrenaline entering his bloodstream from the sheer anticipation of battle. "Let this day bring forth victory for the glorious Covenant." the Arbiter said quietly, flexing his mandibles in preparation for the onslaught.

Hawking Eta Cluster

As the ships approached the mass of drones scattered throughout the asteroid field, the large insectoid monsters twitched with anticipation. They watch anxiously as the larger vessels deployed the single-person fighter craft necessary for proper ship-to-ship combat. The drones looked at them as though they were a kind of canned meat, savoring the moment they break the pressure sals on the fighters and pull the scraming pilots out into the hungry jaws of a starving death. When the ships reached the middle of the field, the drones sprang into action, activating ther zero-g packs and flying erratically towards the fighters in a mad dash for the canned food.

Flight Lieutenant James McGill stared into the vacuum of space, shock still rippling across his face. Sure, flight training and combat sims had shown him what it was like to fight other ships, but nothing had prepared him to fight a bunch of giant bugs flying through an asteroid field. And nothing would hav prepared him for the overwhelming odds he was up against. McGill took evasive maneuvers as the bugs drew in around his fighter, looping and doing barrel rolls to try and break their pursuit to no avail. The bugs sttill drew closer, mimicking his movements with precision and grace far beyond the capacities of any fighter craft in existence. Three of the drones latched onto his fighter, using their claws and weak mag-locks to adhere to it's surface. MGill attempted to shake them off by flying through a tightly packed debris field, only to have the space rocks bounce harmlessly off his kinetic barriers. "Fuck!" MicGill yelled, two more drones landing on his fighter. As the bugs crawled closer to the flight cage of his fighter, he frantically sarched for the fighter's self-destruct. "Got it." he yelled, relieving some of the tension buidling up insinde the cockpit. Instead, he found the eject button. As his fighter's canopy blasted into space and his seat rocketed into the ocean of starving insects, the last thought on MicGill's mind was, word for word, "I'm fucked."

"Holy shit! Did you just see that!" one of the other pilots yelled. The squadrons had become frenzied from the tactics of the drones. To make matter worse, a Covenant Destroyer, two Batarian Frigates, and one Batarian Dreadnought had entered the fray. Pilots franrically zipped through debris fields, dodging volleys of plasma and mass-accelerator rounds as they continued to dogfight with the drone hive with little success. Two more pilots met grizzly ends at the insectoid hand of the drones, their suits ripped open and the pilots eaten as though they were a well preserved meal. The Turian carrier sent aothr three squadrons of fighters into the swarm, accompanied by large volleys of anti-ship missiles and torpedoes. The explosions rockeed through the drones swarm, although it did little to curb the slaughter that the drones were unleashing on the fighter craft.

The Turian ship commander flexed his mandibles in anger. The Covenant had set a trap, and they were helpless to stop them. "Deploy the FENRIS." he yelled, slamming his fist on the release mechanism for the nuclar device. "Forward to all vessels, raise EMP shields. FENRIS warhead active." the Turian Commander yelled. The fighters in the massive swarm of drones raised their emergency shielding in preparation for the blast. The drones themselves continued to assault the fighters as though nothing were happening. As thee missiles launched, carrying the FENRIS warhead into the swarm of drones, more pilots continued to become meals for the starving insects. The warhead flashed red warning lights bfore detonating, sending roughly 1/12 of the drone hive to its end.

The Destroyer and its vanguard jumped into the middle of the asteroid field, signalling the drones to swarm around it in a defensive pattern. Two squadrons of shuttle craft deployed on a heading to intercept the destroyer. It was Commander Shepard's boarding party. "Alright boys, you've got your orders. Get in, plant the Shaw bomb, annd then get the hell out of there." Shepard repated over his comm, relaying the message to RED and Noble Teams. Blue Team would accompany them into the ship along with the Asari Commandos, Turian Rangers, and Shepard's own strike team. It was the best plan they had. Once they get inside, they'd plant a detonator on the ship's slip-space drive, and detonate it from a safe distance. The resulting blast would, hopefully, send the small Covenant force into the jaws of oblivion. Shepard kept a srious expression. This operation couldn't afford any delays, any slip-ups, or any miscalculations. If there as a single hith in the plan, it could cost them everything. "Alright, going in hot!" Shepard yelled, disegaging th lock on the Kodiak shuttle. He and the Bullfrogs ntered a highly controlled freefall, their target zone a shield dome on top of the Destroyer. Miss it, and the team enters an endless fall through the vacuum of space, probalby to be devoured by the drone swarm surrounding them. Land, and they hav to deal with the troops on board the vessel, all probably highly trained in the repelling of boarders. The nemy had the advantage here, and the odds were staked against Shepard's team. Luckily for him, the Spartans excel in bad odds.

"RED Team landed, sir. Approaching dome." Jerome said, voice distorted by the communicator. Shepard responded by flashing his affirmation light green twice, thn amber twice, the signal for "I hear you". Noble Team landed shortly after RED Team, and BLUE Team landed with the Asari. The Turians landed with Noble and RED Team. Lights flashed green across Shepard's HUD. He smiled, raising his assault rifle to the ready stance. "Alright teams, move in!" he yelled, leading a charge of vengeful soldiers into the very mouth of Hell itself. There was no better fight in the galaxy.