I have risen from the dead !

Nah, just found some time and motivation to finally finish this chapter that had been around for ages. So have fun with it.

Chapter 11

No profit

„They have artillery, they have TANKS!", the commander screamed into his radio, before a tank shell ripped his body apart. The pirates were well equipped, they had made good profits and invested them in top-of-the-line weapons from the Batarian State Armament Companies. This included personal equipment, anti-aircraft guns and hardened electronic systems, however this was not even close to enough to stem the tide that was attacking them.

Once most of the AA-Network had been taken out, the Spirit of Fire had landed an entire regiment worth of troops, with several batteries of artillery and companies of armour as support. And the UNSC had no qualms about bombarding any of the pirate's position to hell. Every time they would hold the line for a few minutes, a salvo of heavy shells would wipe the pirate's positions from the face of the earth. They had not been prepared to face such a force, who the hell carried MBTs and self-propelled artillery on warships?

Well humans did and now they were using these to annihilate the pirates. And Marc and his team were in their element, ahead of their allies, scouting positions and marking them for artillery fire. However, now this was no longer possible, as they had destroyed any outside position and were about to enter the main complex of the base. And with thousands of abducted people in there, they could not risk bombarding them.

"Command, Recon Sierra requesting orders. Pirates have retreated into the main complex; shall we attempt to infiltrate." Marc radioed to the carrier, but the bandwidth was full, so it took a minute until they got an answer.

"Negative Recon Sierra. Hold position and wait for the show." Marc was surprised, the officer sounded almost cocky, something had to be up, and Marc did not like it. They were not about to bombard this place, right? Most of the place was underground, so they only observe the small, well camouflaged entrance. Trying to force this entrance would be a blood bath and the hangar of the base was secured with massive blast doors, which they could not blow up without eradicating the entire complex. So, Recon Team Sierra took positions, observed and waited and waited.

They could still hear the battle sound from the tanks mopping up the last holdouts and at last with the last AA-guns finally silenced, the Air Force could now take care of any stragglers. A flight of Shortswords raced over their heads and for a moment Marc let his eyes slide of the entrance. Not much else for them to do, the ODSTs were much more useful in the close combat down in the base. So, they just observed this small entrance.

"The Pirates have friends sir." The anger and annoyance in the bridge officers voice could almost be tasted, but Morell only relaxed in his chair and waited. The System Alliance ships had already turned to face the flotilla that had just entered the system, but the UNSC would wait a little longer. Most people thought that UNSC tech was primitive and inferior, why destroy that wrong presumption if it could be used to their advantage. They still had some Bidents, so they could use those in a worst-case scenario.

Also, his probably biggest trump card was the Alemain. His ship may have been classified as a heavy carrier, but it had both the armour and armaments of an Super-Dreadnought. If those pirates would come into range, they would be toast. The Batarians supplied lots of weapons to pirates, but nothing that could face the firepower of his ship or the rest of his small battlegroup. Especially not with the four cruisers and 10 frigates they were using. So, he relaxed in his seat and watched, while the skipper and his crew prepared themselves for the battle.

"Blast those bastards!" Crispy shouted at her team, as they forced their way into the pirate base. They were "only" four ODSTs against most likely dozens of pirates, all well-armed and decently equipped. But the pirates were panicking and badly commanded and the humans were elite troopers, with iron nerves and years of training and experience in their bones. This was not their first combat drop, not even their first drop on a pirate base, so for them this was no different from any combat drill.

Precise burst, taking cover, flushing the enemies out with grenades, only flashbangs, cause they could not risk killing any slaves by accident. Still, even the batarian equipment could not block the entire effect of the flash bangs, so they were dizzied for a few moments, enough for the ODSTs to blast them. Their bodies hit the ground and not a second later the ODSTs charged past the corpses. Organized resistance inside the base was slowly collapsing and they had to seize this opportunity, before the pirates could try any desperate measures.

Nobody needed a hostage situation with slavers using their "goods" to "trade" with them.

"I found somebody." One of the Marines with them screamed, but before anybody could react, the explosive collar on the slave went of and tore both the Marines hand and the slaves head of.

"We need a medic." Crispy commanded in her radio before going on "be advised, the pirates have put explosive collars on some of the slaves. Do not touch them, they will go off. Leave it to be explosives experts." Several squad leaders acknowledged the information, while one of the medics now did her best to save the Marines life. It did not look nice, there were only stumps left of his hands and bone fragments and blood was everywhere, but they needed to push on.

"Marines hold position, ODSTs on me. Let us make these four-eyes fucks pay." She commanded and got a grumbled "Urrrah" from her soldiers, before they pushed on. They would make every single one of those bastards pay for what they did.

Ash still did not know who or what that strange lizard alien was, but it still mowed its way through the pirates and she and the others made sure to stay behind it. She hardly had anything to fight against, since this lizard left nothing in their way alive, until it finally stopped at a crossroad. It looked at Ash and gestured something that seemed to mean "hold", before entering a room.

"Did that alien just take a potty break?" one of the civilians behind Ash asked and she almost blurted out laughing at this idea, even if the situation did not call for it. From the chaos and noise that was filling the base, she had guessed, that the base was under attack and if they were lucky, it was even the UNSC. Hell, she would even take the Innies if they got her of this dam rock. A few of the aliens, mostly the Turians, had started to pick up weapons and gear from the dead Batarians and although they were reservists like most Turians, their skills were rusty at best and most of the stuff they had was either subpar or damaged. Finally, the door opened and out stepped what Ash guessed was the Reptilian alien, although it was hard to tell. It was now head to toe clad in some sort of brownish armour with a glowing visor. Many dents and scratches showed that it was not in good shape, but the alien just nodded and signalled to go on.

The faint humming of what she assumed were servos in the armour of the alien made her aware of its nature, it was what civies liked to call "Power Armour". And if she went by size and at least superficial impressions, it seemed to be far more advanced and sophisticated than anything humanity or the Citadel fielded. And it had to have an internal aim assist system, cause the first thing the alien did was popping another Batarians head, shooting its gun one handed and over a distance of at least 50 metres. This alien was not any alien, that much was sure and for some reason she did not understand, this gave Ash almost a sense of security.

"MECH!" one of the armed Turians screamed, before it was torn to shreds by the machinegun of a large security mech. The batarians were now sending in their heavy guns and Ash's improvised little platoon did not have the ammo, nor the firepower to take down this thing. She fired a few shots at it, but they all bounced of the armour plating, before Ash had to duck back into cover.

But even the crates that withstood the machineguns were not off much use, because those just got blasted away by the mechs rocket launchers. It was flanked by half a dozen pirates and quickly Ash, the aliens and the liberated slaves fell back through the hangar they had just entered, back to the unarmed people. They had to stop this thing, or it would slaughter everybody, Ash thought to herself, as even the desperate biotic attack of a freed Asari seemed to have no effect on the mech, except that it recoiled a little.

However, that seemed to be all the reptile alien needed, it charged forward, faster than any intelligent being Ash had ever seen and before the mech or its escort could properly react, the armoured alien had already jumped over the mechs head an onto its back. There, it rammed what looked like a knife into the mechs "neck", causing it to spasm and stutter. The alien then jumped of and, as the shocked pirates aimed their guns at it, they came under fire from Ash and the armed civies. It took only a few seconds, but the mech fell over, still twitching and the pirates were dead and although they had seen it, nobody really believed what had happened. This alien looked like some superhero from a bad hero flick and slaughtered the pirates like he was a bear, and they were mice.

And Ash, she would not complain about this, as long as the alien was on her side.

The ODSTs kept on pushing through the maze that was the base and while they were still making progress, the resistance got stiffer and stiffer. Several times they had had to wait for demolition teams to blow up closed air locks. One squad had been blown out of the base by an explosive decompression, but thankfully they survived thanks to their EVA suits. From the schematics they had salvaged, they knew that they were about to approach the command centre now, only one more airlock and they would be there. Again, the reinforced steel doors were sealed shut and they waved to the demolition experts to bring their toys forwards. The explosive charges were brought into position, they were directed charges, meant to blow the doors into the room. They retreated a few feet behind some corners and pillars and, after the all-important countdown, the charges were detonated.

The doors disappeared in a cloud of smoke and the soldiers charged in, guns at the ready and ready to fight. The pirates inside were still shell shocked from the explosion and the flying doors that had smashed two of their comrades, so the first few were taken out by the ODSTs without any resistance. This however quickly changed, as coordinated fire forced the troopers to take whatever cover they could take. Third Squads sergeant was sadly not fast enough and a shot to the neck decapitated him, before he could find cover. This however only spurred the soldiers on even more. Grenades flew, shoots were fired and one brave ODST finally flanked the pirates, making short work off them with his semi-automatic shotgun. There were no celebration when the last pirate fell, two more ODSTs had also lost their lives in this room and the soldiers immediately scattered to secure data and the perimeter. Being the highest ranking soldier present, Master Sergeant Crispy used the comms of the base, to address the pirates, with contempt dripping from her voice.

"This is Master Sergeant Crispy of the 105th Orbital Drop Shock Trooper division. We have secured the CIC of this facility and have complete control over all communication and environmental system. If you have any interest in surviving beyond the next thirty minutes, I advice every pirate to lay down their weapons and surrender, otherwise not mercy will be given.

The other soldiers looked at her and after a few moment of of the Corporals asked "Do you think they'll listen to you? Seems like they are pretty desperate."

Crispy just replied, with a mixture of contempt and disgust, but also the slightest hint of glee in her voice "Honestly, I would love nothing more than to slaughter every of this worthless scum. But if we can reduce our casualties, I'm more than happy to give this honour to ONI, maybe even the courts if those bastards are lucky".

The ODSTs voice through the comms had caused the freed slaves to celebrate and although they did not understand what had been said, the reptilian alien seemed to guess what had happened. Through its helmet it looked at Ashley for a few moment and then did its alien salute. Ashley, after a moment of hesitation, returned this gesture and before she could say anything, the alien had already sprinted away and disappeared in some corridor. She wanted to run after it, to see where the alien was going, but she still needed to keep the slaves save, so she remained calm and vigilant.

Some of the freed people now started to hug her, which caused her to tense up a little, although she scolded herself for this reaction. There was nothing bad about the aliens reactions and she would lie if she was not inches away from doing the same. But she reminded herself to remain vigilant, just because the CIC had been taken by the UNSC did not mean that there were no more Batarians left. But, I was over now, a few pirates still resisted, but most of them knew they were done and just threw away their weapons to prolong their lives for as long as they could. The moment she recognized the ODSTs approaching them, Ash let herself fall onto a crate in relief, they were safe and she was more tired than she ever had been in her life.

"Blip on the sensors. Could be a slipspace rupture, Captain" one of the bridge officers told Cutter as they inspected the data, but the Captain just shock his head and said.

"Probably a sensor glitch, the pirates don't have any slipspace ships, ONI has kept record of pretty much all slipspace drives that went beyond the Relay" the officer agreed and Cutter returned to the Holo table that showed an overview of the ground battle. The last resistance nests has been crushed and all that was left was securing and sweeping the installations.

The explosive experts had had massively problems with removing the slave collars in the beginning, but "convincing" by an attached ONI agent had quickly uncovered the codes needed to deactivate the explosives. They now had thousands of slaves to take care of and hundreds of pirates to keep looked up, so the Spirit was sending down every supply and doctor it could spare. Helping the Turians was problematic, since they lacked the proper resources to do so, but a request for aid had already been sending to Palaven.

The second space battle had been rather brutal and short. After a short skirmish between the pirate reinforcements and the "Alliance" flotilla, the UNSC ship had moved into range and position and overwhelmed them with a single concentrated salvo. The few surviving pirates had immediately tucked their tail and ran. So, Cutter could relax a little now, the fight was over and it had been an overwhelming victory for humanity. He was almost certain that at least one STG ship had followed them and observed the entire battle, but that was good by him. Letting the Council and all species in the Citadel know what the UNSC was capable off would cement its position as a great power. Until know most had seen them as a large, but unsophisticated and primitive force that was too far behind everybody else in most regards to be considered equals.

Cutter almost chuckled as he imagine the panic the Salarians would feel over these new revelations. How they would react to realizing how large the UNSCs industrial potential was, he could only imagine, but it was rather amusing. Sol and Epsilon Eridani alone were massive industrial powerhouses that were just getting started. Human space had enjoyed 150 years of relative peace and its economy had constantly grown. The Insurrection had only left a minor dent, many of the Inner colonies had even profited of the many contracts issued by the expanding UNSC.

But even that mobilization had been tiny compared to what had been going on in UEG space for the last five years. A nation and economy of over 40 billion people and hundreds of colonies was mobilized for what will likely be an all-out war. And mankind's military was expanded from a peace keeping force to a massive military machine, one that was supposed to be able to challenge any opponent.

But in the end that was nothing Cutter should worry about. He was a Captain, he had his ship and he would fight tooth and nail to keep it that way. He would rather retire before anybody put those dammed Admiral stars on his shoulders. The Captain chair was his home and he would stay there as long as he could, the Spirit was his home.

"Captain. Ground forces have captured the base. The Admiral has ordered us to gather our ground forces and the liberated slaves. We are to bring them to the Citadel and hand them over to the Council. Only focus on personal, leave the equipment for the rest of the fleet"

Cutter only nodded about the information Serena gave her and after a short command, his bridge crew put these orders into motion. It would take some time until they recovered all their men, but it would be much faster than also gathering all their vehicles, artillery pieces and other heavy equipment.

"Tell the Lt. that I'm fine, he does not need to stand outside and wait until you let me out doc" Ash mumbled, annoyed, but also slightly ashamed by the entire situation. The doctor inspecting her said nothing, since he already knew that the ships AI had listened in and would take up this task.

"Well Sergeant, I already informed the Second Lieutenant that his presence is not needed, but he insisted that he "Burrowed you from Sheppard, so he will also make sure to return you to her", his words not mine"

Ash only huffed at this, as if she were some weapon one could just borrow and return. But it was also kind of nice by Bradley to care for her, even today too many officers still believed that their stars meant that they stood above the others. Finally, the Doc seemed to be satisfied and released Ash and she was very relieved that her uniform covered her bandages and bruises, at least all except for the one caused by that dammed shock collar. The Doc had told her that they would fade soon, but it was still revolting.

Bradley must have thought the same, since his eyes were fixated on Ash's throat, as he returned her salute once she stepped outside the med bay.

"For the duration of you stay here on the Spirit, you will be a provisional part of my team. Do not worry, the moment we reach the Citadel you will be freed of us and the Bastogne will pick you up, once they finished mopping up duty. That alright for you Sarge?"

Bradley asked her and Ash only answered with a sharp nod, as she followed him to the barracks. The greeting by Andrews team was friendly, just as Garrus, Liara and now also Talis greeting.

"It's good to see you in one piece Sergeant Williams" Garrus words were sharp and precise, but not cold or distant. There was honesty in his words and voice and that made the alien much more tolerable and even likeable to Ash. Williams did her best not to show her still great displeasure with seeing aliens on board off human ships, but the presence of the Quarian girl made it spill out a little.

"What is it… she doing her?" she had just stopped herself in time, but the others didn't seem to notice or care.

"Well, Tali here is an excellent technician and fighter. I always needed and assistant and she agreed: This also gives her a chance to "admire" the human technology she has grown so fond off" Liara explained, but Ashley still eyed the alien suspiciously. However, Tali yelped in surprise, the moment Serena appeared behind her, out of one of her numerous terminals on the ship.

"I hope I don't have to order any physical surveillance of miss vas Nima. I will turn a blind eye on her three failed hacking attempts so far and will treat them as honest mistakes" as quickly as she had come, Serena avatar disappeared again, leaving a stunned Tali and amused human soldiers behind.

"Keehla, I'll never get used to how freely humans let their Ais act. Just thinking about what kind of control Serena has about the ship makes my skin crawl" Tali visible shivered as she spoke, but the human soldiers did not really have much understanding for it. Yes, the Quarians had a horrible past with AI, the Geth revolted against them and turned them into homeless nomads. But smart AIs have been in use for many years in human space and even when AIs had gone rampant with age, not much bad ever happened.

Some humans and some AIs even thought that it was the Quarians own fault, for trying to supress and destroy the Geth once they showed signs of sentience. But Marc and his team had enough tact not to say that while Tali was present. Even Serena knew not to comment on it, a rare sign of restraint from her usually rather snarky AI.

"We are back on our way to the Citadel. I am certain that Serena will not try to kill you, until we are there. At least as long as your Omni-Tool does not accidently try to hack any terminal, Miss Tali"

There were a few supressed grins from the Marines about Marc's comment and only a few shaken heads from Liara and Garrus. Tali obviously was not convinced by this, but at least the others could not see how she blushed underneath her helmet, embarrassed about being caught.

Council Chambers, two days later

"You have our thanks, Captain Cutter. We appreciate you freeing these people bringing them back home. Please make sure to also send Admiral Morell our regards"

Tevos had spent hundreds of years in politics and yet she struggled to stay cordial with the humans. Officially she was more than happy about the humans taking that pirate base and freeing all those people. But in reality, she was fuming with anger, anger about the ignorance off the humans and even more about how her fellow council members just accepted it.

Without consulting them, the UNSC and the "Systems Alliance" had launched a massive military incursion into the Terminus, had shot their way in and liberally nuked whatever was in their way. And what had her colleagues done? Spartarus had mostly cared about new weapons and ship classes the UNSC had unveiled, especially these so called "Bident-warheads". And Valern mostly just wondered how he could get the STG to "acquire" as many blueprints as possible.

It made her feel like she was surrounded by mad people and to be honest, she was slowly considering that her fellow Council members were actually losing their mind. Instead of opposing the humans unprecedented military expansion they support it and instead of trying to contact the Covenant, they instead readied themselves for a basically galaxy-wide war. The Turians had lain down several new Dreadnoughts, enough to eventually raise their number to fifty, if the Turians kept all of their current ships in service. There was even some talk about the Hierarchy getting ready to reactivate several mothballed Dreadnoughts of older models.

And even in the Republics, her own home, more and more voices called for more military spending, more ships, more Commandos, more weapons. It was all madness and worst, it was costing the Asari influence, in all aspects. Asari companies were loosing money because funds were redirected into military spending by the other nations. Asari diplomats were more and more isolated with the other powers influencing minor factions into a similar war stand. And worst of all, the Asaris cultural dominance inside Citadel space was slowly eroding. Instead of leaders and cultural icons, the Asari were seen as weaklings and annoyances, that hindered the effort to the "war" that would come.

And, some Matriarchs actually started to believe that dribble, see it as more than just the maniac screams of a violent and militaristic society that had no respect for the Citadel of its laws. A society that rather glassed its own planets than seeing reason.

But right now she had to hide all of this, the humans had done something good and she had to smile and pat them on the head. It was revolting to her, but now she could not change it. All she could do was wait and smile about what would happen in the near future. When the inflated military budgets would cause the economic collapse of the others. She had to hide a smile, imagining the very same human diplomats, who now treated her as unimportant, begging her for economic support because their hundreds of dreadnoughts and carriers ruined them.

But that happiness faded once the session was over and both Spatarus and Valern excused themselves to attend another meeting with human representatives. They would pay, sooner or later they would pay for just throwing away their ancient friendship in favour of somebody that wants to play war with them.

Valern and Spartarus knew of Tevos anger, although its full extent and especially how strongly it was directed against them, was unknown to them. But they had no time to care about this know, as they entered the by now almost regular briefings between UEG, Hierarchy and Salarian Union representatives and high ranking military officers. However, the mood was much more tense than usual and the worry on the generals and admirals faces worried the Councilmembers greatly.

"I will immediately get to the point. All information is pointing towards only one possibility, in that both ONI and the STG are one hundred percent certain. Those Covenant positions we have been able to observe, which I admit are only very few, have begun to mobilize, fast. We do not know why they waited for those five years, but we fear that they used this time the same way we did. And sadly, we have no been able to close the gap between them and us. Worse we fear that there are parts of their arsenal we have not even realized existed until now"

The central projector came to life as the ONI operative finished his short speech, depicting a covenant ship, an Assault Carrier, a massive warship, over five kilometres long, used extensively by the Covenant.

"Yes, I know what you think. We already knew about these Assault carriers, they are dangerous but not new information. Well sirs, this is not a Assault Carrier. This is"

With these words another carriers appeared next to the first, almost identical in appearance but only a fifth of the first ones length.

"Analysts have called these ships Supercarriers. They are over 28 kilometres long, carry unnumbered amounts of heavy weapons and ground forces. One of these alone can lay waste to fleets and siege and conquer well developed Core Colonies"

Shock silenced many of the present officer and officials, the Assault Carriers had been bad enough, but there was at least hope to beat them in a fight. This thing on the other hand looked like they could ram their own carriers into it and it would barely notice. The biggest ship on their side was one of the unimaginably expansive and rare Punic-class supercarriers of the UNSC. And those were smaller than even a Covenant Assault carrier and there probably existed less of them than Covenant Supercarriers, if the estimates of ONI were reliable.

"How are we to stop this? We can barely match their numbers or at least what we believe to be their numbers and our mightiest and largest vessel look like dwarves next to theirs" a human admiral asked, but nobody had any real answers to this. There was no great strategy, no new tactics or weapons that could equalize the situation.

The UNSC had a few things in their development pipeline and a handful of new ship types were pressed into service, but even these new ships could only possible shrink the superiority of the Covenant, but not end it. The same was true for both the Turian and Salarian fleets.

The Turians were in the final stages of developing a new type of main gun and some improved armour platting and barrier technology. However again, those could possibly only lessen their soon to be enemies lead, if they worked as intended. But at least the Turians were building a lot of ship, relying on the almost unlimited manpower their universal conscription system provided to crew these vessels.

The Salarians on the other hand were already at the limits what their volunteer manpower could provide. Worse, their almost compulsive need to implement whatever new gimmick or gadget they came up with into their fleet slowed down production terribly.

And of course, there were the Asari, who were doing nothing. The relations between them and the other council races had soured immensely. Many in Turian and Salarian high Command argued, that with the immense Asari economy on their side, they could have easily been in far better situation. But instead, the Asari did the opposites. Asari controlled military-industrial companies had massively shrunk their cooperation them, there were even unofficial embargos by parts of the Asari population. It was mostly a nuisance and annoying at worst, but still the bad blood that had been created over the last few years could not be missed.

Not that nobody here did not understand the Asaris position, most would have been ecstatic if the Asari were actually right. Had the Covenant shown any signs that may have been a chance for diplomacy, they would have all jumped on the chance immediately. Instead, the Covenant annihilated any envoy send, apparently massively increased their military, and had actually started to low scale probing attacks in the Terminus. What they had gathered sadly left no doubt, about the intentions of this power. War would come and even now, the alliance of Turians, Salarians and Humans was nowhere near ready.

Authors Note:

Well, finally finished and uploaded this Chapter. But please don't get your hopes up for me posting much in the future, this was mainly just something I finished since I was in the mood for it. There are alot of more important things that occupy my time. Can't promise any ETAs for new Chapters or stuff. But I at least wanted to have this little part of the story finished.

So, see you whenever I finish the next chapter.