Chapter 1- An Unexpected Turn of Events

23rd June 2535

UNSC Bonaventure Bridge

It had been over ten years since first contact and the beginning of the subsequent war with The Covenant. Ten years of hell, mindless bloodshed, and senseless destruction all because humanity was ordered to be exterminated by some alien gods.

Rear Admiral Charles Nelles, Captain of the Bonaventure. A Orion-class Carrier and Commander of Battle Group Carolina, led a fleet consisting of one Orion-class carrier, three Marathon-class cruisers, ten Halberd-class destroyers, five Charon-class frigates, three Stalwart-class frigates, two Paris-class frigate, with ONI's Prowler Corps providing three Razor and one Sahara-class Prowlers.

"A respectable if not slightly overkill complement of ships for a simple patrol," Charles thought to himself while looking into the inky black of space. "Navy must be getting desperate if they're promoting people like me to Rear Admiral. War against an advanced power will do that I suppose. Though I do wonder what will happen if the former inscur-." Charles wasn't able to finish his thoughts before being interrupted by an ensign who said, "Sir, the battlegroup is ready to jump into slipspace on your mark."

"Thank you, Ensign," Charles nodded in reply before turning on his console saying, "Romuald, have the fleet enter slipspace." The Bonaventure's AI acknowledged the order as his French Napoleonic avatar appeared before saying, "Here begins half a year of patrolling for Covenant..." As the reality tear that was a slipspace portal opened in front of the fleet, Charles then thought to himself, ""At least it's not a combat assignment..."

24th June 2535

UNSC Bonaventure Captain's Quarters

"Charles, you're needed on the bridge, ASAP," Romuald said as klaxons and red emergency lights flashed.

"Ugh...Romuald, what's going on?" the young Rear Admiral said as he hastily put a uniform on and proceeded to run to the bridge.

"I'm not quite sure, sir," the AI replied. "All that I know is that we were traveling through slipspace just fine for a few hours and then we were suddenly in real space in a completely different system from our destination." The AI continued to shift through the navigation systems before saying, "My efforts to find out where we are have failed as neither the system that we're in nor the systems around us match any that I have on record." Pausing for a moment in response to the admiral's silence, the AI then continued, saying, "If it is any consolation though sir, we thankfully haven't suffered any casualties from the jump, and there seems to be a habitable planet in this system. Though according to my sensors there are seven unknown ships in orbit around it along with a debris field. However..." The AI paused to scroll on the holographic screen further before continuing, "I do suggest you bring Colonel Glenn and Captains Smith and Angelos to the bridge to discuss our next course of action." In the meantime, Charles hastily made his way to the bridge moving passed confused crewmen and marines until finally making it to the bridge and seeing the alien system.

"Contact both the Colonel and Smith and have them report to the bridge. I'll contact Angelos" Charles stated as he started keying into a nearby terminal. After a few moments, the screen erupted into life as Angelos' holographic form appeared in front of the admiral.

"Rear Admiral Nelles, to what do I owe the pleasure? Is for a nice chit chat over a lovely cup of tea? Angelos said, seemingly unconcerned from being sent God knows where.

"Cut the act. We both know why I'm calling you so would you kindly report to the bridge of the Bonaventure? We can discuss this in person and plan our next steps."

"Of course, sir. It won't take a moment. I want a shuttle prepped immediately. I'll be seeing you soon," Angelos said, saluting crisply as the feed stopped.

Charles then paced between the recently used terminal and the holotable somewhat frustrated before asking, "Romuald, is there anything else you can tell me about the system while we wait?"

The ship's AI appeared again as he reported, "From what I can see, there is what appears to be shuttle craft moving back and forth from the ships to the planet, along with what appears to be a single craft that took off a short distance from where the others are landing trying to leave and avoid the small fleet." The AI paused for a moment to sort through the data before continuing, "So...it looks like we're dealing with at least two, possibly three parties. Those that are coming from those ships, the ones that fled, and possibly those that made it through the debris field assuming that they're not related to the first two. We should be able to gather more details on the fleet orbiting the planet after discussing with Angelos or we can order the Prowlers out now."

After spending a few moments to think, Charles then ordered, "Send the three Razors out, but make sure we stay undetected from the unknown fleet. See if they can track the fleeing ship." He kept pacing with sweat starting to bead down his head anxiously due to the situation. Breathing quickly to calm his nerves, Charles stopped pacing and leaned onto the holotable before thinking to himself, "I've got to show these men that I have my head in the game or else all hell is going to break lose once word gets out." He then stood and said to those around him, "Can someone get me a status report on the slipspace drive?"

UNSC Bonaventure corridor leading to the bridge

"So, Erwin, what do you think happened that has the Admiral asking for both of us on the bridge asap?" asked Chestly Glenn while walking hastily to the bridge.

"I don't know, but it's probably related to the fact that alarms are going off all over the ship," Erwin replied as he noticed Gabriel and some of his men also heading to the bridge. "Not to mention we have the spooks on board also."

Upon entering the bridge, Gabriel had his men wait outside while Charles told the three officers to come with him, leading them to a small room with a holotable in it.

"Romuald, you mind bringing the men up to speed before we start this discussion?" Charles ordered as the AI appeared on the holotable along with a projection showing an overlay of the system and the unknown fleet.

"As you three can probably surmise, about half an hour ago, we were pulled out of slipspace when we encountered an anomaly. As a result, we have entered an unknown system with a group of ships that are neither Covenant, Rebel, nor UNSC in origin. Admiral Nelles has taken the liberty of deploying the Prowlers Knifes Edge, Cobra, and Venom to gather information on the unknown ships while we monitor all traffic to and from the planet," the AI stated plainly.

The holotable then showed holograms of the Prowlers moving towards the ships before heading over to the unknown fleet, showing the shuttlecraft moving to and from the planet. The AI then continued saying,

"From what we've been able to gather so far, the group of ships in orbit seem to be invading the planet based on the amount of orbital traffic to and from planet, though we did notice a ship that doesn't match the configuration of most of the other shuttle craft in the system." The AI then zoomed the projection in further to show the shuttle image in further detail before he continued, saying, "It seems that this particular spacecraft made quite the effort to stay unnoticed by the other ships in orbit before making a jump out of the system."

The holotable projection then began to follow the small ship as it made its way from the planet before moving to leave the system and disappearing from view. The holotable then changes to its projection view to what it was previously before showing the system and both fleets.

"At the moment, we're still doing a diagnostic on our slipspace drive to make sure it's still in working order, just in case we need to make a jump out of system. We should have the progress report on that soon, if you gentlemen would be so kind as to wait." Romuald concluded as his avatar disappeared from the holotable, leaving only the map of the system and the ships positioned in it.

UNSC Bonaventure Bridge Meeting Room

After roughly an hour since the start of the meeting, only now was when everyone was getting an update on the slipspace drive and the anomaly responsible for pulling them out as an ensign hurriedly ran in with the diagnostic progress report. The ensign saluted quickly, giving the report to the admiral before running out of the room after his task was complete.

Charles then looked at the document that handed to him. According to the report, the crew still don't know how they were pulled out of slipspace. However, it does appear that their slipspace drives were altered somehow due to the anomaly. Additionally, attempt to figure out further how the anomaly altered the engines, further modifications were made to the drive to make sure that they were safe to use.

Once he was finished reading through the document, the captain inputted the data to Romuald, who ran several simulations on the drives to make sure the information given was correct. After the data was verified to be correct, it was passed on to the rest of the captains in the fleet. "So that's why he took so long," Charles thought to himself while reading the report.

"Gentlemen, it seems as though the anomaly we encountered in slipspace didn't just knock us out of it; it also altered our drives. Now according to the engineers and Romuald, our drives now help us move at an exponentially faster speed than what could in slipspace with our normal engines. This change in our drive function is also why it took so long to have a report on it as the head engineer wanted to make sure that we didn't blow ourselves to high hell in an attempted jump. Now that we know we're able to make a jump, we can now make plans on what to do about the ships still orbiting the planet."

"Now all to do is to figure out if we should fire at the unknown vessels..." the young Rear Admiral thought to himself.

"My current suggestion is that we contact them but have our weapon systems ready to go in case they turn out to be hostiles as I doubt, we dropped out of slipspace unnoticed. Does anyone have any other suggestions on what to do about the ships?" Charles asked with as much authority as he could muster.

"Personally, I'd like to find out some more about these unknowns, but other than that, I do agree with your plan," Gabriel replied while grinning. "A hand ready to shake while also having a hand holding a knife." Both Erwin and Chestly were surprised that the ONI captain wanted to speak to the unknowns rather than eliminate the potential threat. Before they were able to voice their surprise however, the ONI captain continued.

"If these are military ships, taking them out will only prompt someone to come looking for them. Now the problem here is this: we don't know who that someone is. That someone could either be neutral, friendly, or hostile. So, by talking to the group here, we have a chance to willingly get information about that someone rather than making them outright hostile. Additionally, because of the Covenant, we know that just because we have the numbers doesn't mean we have the firepower, something that I'm sure the Admiral here understands more than most," Gabriel stated matter-of-factly with a massive grin knowing he rendered any point the Marine or ODST would have to say moot before continuing. "Thirdly...I don't know about you guys, but I like to fight my wars one at a time, so if we can prevent a war by talking, I'll gladly take that chance. So, what do you say that we talk to these unknowns first and find out if they're friend or foe?"

With no other objections from the other officers, Charles and the others got to work on setting up a plan.

UNSC Bonaventure Bridge

After twenty minutes of going back and forth between the officers, a plan for contact with the unknowns was developed. The first step would involve getting into weapons range of the unknown ships just in case they did turn hostile.

The second step would involve Gabriel and his AI Vitaly making a pictogram-based first contact package as they assumed the unknowns didn't read or speak English until a decrypted audio report from Knifes' Edge was revealed that the unknowns apparently speak English based on decrypted transmissions to and from the planet.

Apparently, the unknowns were military-based as there was a reference to someone named General Skywalker, and that they're apparently conducting a search and rescue operation for someone named "Commander Tano." With the reveal of this new information, the pictogram idea was scrapped in favor of broadcasting a hailing communication on all frequencies directly to the fleet instead. It was also decided that Admiral Nelles would be the one to initiate contact, as he was the overall commander of the fleet.

Soon, Task Force Carolina moved from its position in the system and moved closer to the fleet around the planet, all the while charging their weapon systems as a safety precaution.

With a sigh, Rear Admiral Charles Nelles opened a hailing frequency on all channels, cautiously waiting for a reply. After a tense minute of waiting on the bridge, what answered their transmission was beyond anything that Charles was expecting.

A.N

I just want to start this off by saying that this is my first ever fanfic so if I do make mistakes on how certain characters act then please do let me know so I can address that in the future for latter chapters. As for how laid out story is I have a rough idea for how things will go up until shortly after what would be ROTS. I won't share any details as that'll be spoilers. As for a few questions that I'm sure will be asked no there will be no Spartans or at least not yet as I'm not sure how the Halo galaxy will interact with the star wars one besides task force Carolina. As for why they're not with the task force itself. ONI says it best "deployment of a Spartan team is a gross mis-allocation of valuable resources." Also I'm kinda tired of seeing Spartans in stories.