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"What happened?!"
"Lord Fedorian, please forgive me."
"Ravis, calm do-!"
"There's no time!"
-The sounds of shooting going on the back, and the team maintaining the QEC systems were enough to make him silent, ignoring this insolence for there was danger near her. -
"Sir, the quarians bested us."
"..."
"Our systems got downed, I can't know if the other ships remain, I have to assume only this ship is left standing."
"How?"
"We didn't use nukes, and they were just over our league when speaking of railgun... I-, we overestimated ourselves."
-The primarch waited for an explanation, his peers weren't going to just accept this dim news.-
"I sent you the transcript of the ship's registry, it's the only thing we can do."
"You know your duty, you are not to be captured."
"Our systems are down! We are feeding this computer with just batteries... I can't ignite the self-destruct."
"You have failed the hierarchy, but you went against the dark, and for that, I do not blame you."
"I am sorry."
"Don't be, I'll see personally that you have a proper funeral along with your men."
"Thank you."
"My heart is heavy for your loss, but the repercussions of this incident and the data I already received will be enough, you accomplished your mission; for even if this was the least wanted outcome, it was expected. You have done well."
-The admiral didn't answer, for she began crying, just as the door to the room was blown.-
-Fedorian's projector showed how a towering man sent the engineers and guards in the room to the afterlife with single shotgun rounds.-
"Surrender."
-The voice of the man was powerful, but Miss Ravis didn't bode, and instead took out her service pistol and tried shooting the intruder's helmet, but he grabbed her neck and pressed.-
Crack.
-Then, the connection was lost, leaving Primarch Fedorian, the de-facto leader of the Turian Hierarchy, in a quiet room in the middle of his palace on Palaven, all silent, only his thoughts racing due to this event.-
"Humans..."
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"Casualties?"
"Total?"
"By stage."
"Three hundred seventy-five members of the Marine corps, including eighty-nine ODSTs, plus a hundred members of the Army's hundred and fourth Cavalry regiment are marked as deceased or combat inoperable."
"Equipment losses?"
"Twelve Clyclops Mark III units were marked as lost, with a further twenty-one being damaged; this plus a Scorpion used on Hangar-15 were the only materiel losses fully confirmed."
Captain Cutter saw with a mixed bag of feelings to the EVA crews working on the ships through the lower observation deck, this was a victory, but he couldn't quite experience it, it felt weird, like had just committed a grave mistake.
But that's what he was going to do? Wasn't it? They had come with the expectation to be shot down out of the sky, these Turians weren't exactly friendly.
No, it wasn't that, what hurt the captain was the loss of human lives, he was grateful that the quarians didn't get damaged by the battle too, but he never felt right when even one of his crew died, so the wound still hurt deep.
Nevertheless, he gestured to Serina to continue as he saw charred remains of the enemy fleet and how the UNSC's dropships were still flying around and to those that still remained, with ever-vigilant fighters ready.
"On the ensuing battle, the Casaba Hugger, suffered a catastrophic loss of mobility due to the engines being penetrated by enemy fire, her entire port side has been disabled too. The Felix Dzierznsky has got 90% of her hull breached, and most of the crew died, including Miss Grudzień, her captain, though Miss Dess, the first officer is still alive."
"Can they be recovered?" - His tone was melancholic, hiding a bit of hope, he in his mind had thoughts of the possible answer, and wanted a positive one.
Serina doubted for a second before answering. - "The Felix can, the crew can be rescued and the ship flown by her AI, the Casaba can't, and we don't have spare engines."
"All the while the Turians can make a second coming."
"I am afraid so, sir."
"Get all crew, equipment, spare parts, the translight engine, all, we are going to scuttle her."
She nodded and transmitted the orders, soon, a Heron was seen flying along with three albatrosses to the rubble.
Cutter lifted his hat and scratched his head, then he passed his fingers through his face and sat down, looking nowhere.
"Sir... Do I continue?"
It took a few seconds before he nodded. - "Yes, you might continue."- He said with a more saddened tone.
"On the boarding actions to the inoperable enemy ships, we lost a further eighty-two troops, all marines."
"Something noteworthy?" - His question was for something that would mean a positive over the loss of humans, so she searched through the reports and answered.
"General Septimus Oraka and more than a hundred Turians have been captured, the mostly intact THS Filai has been too, we cannot render her operable, nor any of the enemy cruisers, but... We apparently fully destroyed a fleet, hastily made just to investigate us, but a fleet nonetheless."
To think that those words would come out of the mouth of an AI. In five years the average UNSC victory meant that they had more than double the losses than the enemy, unless the UNSC acted in some sort of guerrilla space warfare, the only equalizer for them.
"They also seemingly didn't use their full arsenal, cases with 'torpedoes' have been found on the weapons bays of the enemy ships, preliminary investigations have been concluded that they have a payload of at least two hundred kilotons."
Cutter smiled and looked forward. - "Take all that isn't tied to the ground, or leave something for our quarian friends, but we are leaving in five hours."
Following that, he got up, hands to his back, and he proudly saw how a Pelican flew in front of them. - "Also, bring all the food that we can to feed our new prisoners, we are bringing them home."
"Aye."
"Now, the status of our own ship?"
Serina projected a diagram of the ship and flared that most of the bow was mostly compromised.
"Our front port side has been demolished and disabled, the third and fourth repair and production bays have been rendered useless, along with the quarters of the Beta company of the forty-fifth of marines, crew losses are being counted; starboard side has taken less punishment, but it has rendered our third MAC useless and the fifth weapons bay too, meaning that we lost our donation of Grizzly tanks and field 105-mil artillery. Enemy fire has also rendered part of the deck guns damaged, with five coilguns disabled."
"In total?"
"Forty percent of the ship has been partially or fully compromised in some way, but we are operational, light-green state."
That meant that they were ready for routinary offensive operations after rest, maybe too optimistic, but the UNSC dictated as such after the usual results of battles with the covenant.
He was afraid to ask, as he knew the count would go up soon; but he did so anyway. - "And crew casualties?"
Serina sighed. - "Three thousand injured or dead."
And that just now, before they could get the real amount from the debris in space.
Only once in her life had the Spirit of Fire been damaged like that was when an ARES missile struck her keel and blew out the entirety of the UNSC's seven hundred first Marine battalion out to space, killing Mister Alexander Volova, the previous captain of the ship.
He ran his hands over his face and breathed, he felt guilty, but again, it was done, so had to go forward; he had things precious to humanity on board, and there was no time to spend on things like these, he was on a war before, this was just a moment before the relief of things getting better.
"Sir?" - A simple question to grab his attention.
"Yes?"
"The quarian Admiralty is asking to communicate with you."
He gathered himself for a second, standing up to give a few steps to get his ideas straight and he then said. - "Let them, thank you."
Serina's diagram of the ship was replaced by the image of Admiral Rael again, who didn't say a word, as he apparently was trying to understand the stern yet clearly worried face of Cutter.
"Was one of your ships damaged?" - He asked.
"Uh," - Babbled the quarian, surprised by the sudden question. - "no, none was."
"I am glad." - The human captain said before looking through the bridge again, seeing how a Pelican carried towed on its back some large assortment of crates. - "Then, what is your question?"
The lack of warmth on his voice now was felt, but he had to proceed anyways, it was the right thing to do. - "Do you need assistance?"
This levied the attention of Cutter, who got visibly concerned yet happy at this offer.
"We can help you tow your damaged ships to you, help you move things, even repair."
The quarian knew this was too much of a stretch, having let them take a tour to strengthen relations was already pushing the limits of human hospitality, letting tamper with their ship was maybe too personal.
Cutter had a knack of what was the real reason of the offer, so he said so. - "What do you want in return?"
Rael lifted his hands and moved his head from left to right, he wasn't going to say it out loud, so he was replaced by Miss Daro'Xen, who promptly replied. - "We want the scavenge, the turians are going to come back so we need to go, quickly."
"You know we won the battle and we need to examine this tech, right?" - Cutter answered.
"We do, but nevertheless, we ask you this in return for us to help you, we'll let you take whatever you want, as long as the rest is for us."
This was a hard bargain, for once, it felt weird to talk about scavenging the ships of a dead foe which whom they didn't have any diplomatic relations.
Yet, this could be an opportunity to let the quarians maneuver, they cleaned their hands, disappeared, the quarians could say that it was a pirate incursion, a trap, or anything, and the humans could flee and reunite with them in another time.
He was probably going to get court-martialed for this, but he had his answer. - "I accept, save for you helping repair the ship, no offense, but our compositions are national secret."
"Glad to make negotiations with you, we'll begin mobilizing the special projects fleet soon." - After saying that, the rash lady walked away, triumphant, letting Admiral Zaal now take the point.
"And you?"
"I want to ask for a favor."
At this point, Cutter frowned, but before he said anything, the quarian leader spoke.
"Where are you going after this? Because we will move the fleet after this."
Eerily cute to be honest, to Cutter this was obviously the quarian wanting to meet them again, from what Serina had uncovered from the Codex he had formed the idea that these were basically international pariahs, and though the idea of them selling that info to the Turians was still present on his mind, given that they had maintained their word of not-intervening in the battle and they were obviously going to get blamed for the results of the battle... He considered it.
"I can't really tell you, but, I can tell you where to meet us next time."
Then, he took his auxiliary datapad and signaled one file to be sent by Serina to the Admiralty.
It was Nicea Prima, the sister system to Cote d'Azure Prima, the point of insertion of the humans into this galaxy... And where they had the freighter incident.
"This... Really?" - There was some enthusiasm in his voice. - "And when could we meet you?"
Cutter didn't know, he didn't have a clue, but the UNSC had probably mobilized even five repair stations so they would probably be back up for combat in two weeks, and he didn't doubt for a single second that HIGHCOM would send them again, even if with other escort ships.
"In about a month, you just have to be patient, the UNSC never leaves, it only reorganizes." - He said with a tint of sarcasm, and a grim, something which was assumed by the quarian as a joke given the genocide war they were fighting back home.
"I wish you hope, and might your people endure the hardships of the future, for we were kicked of our homes too, and we kno-"
"Don't sweat it Mister, you have already shown more friendliness than any other species we have met, god might bless you."
Zaal nodded, with a happy mouth almost visible behind his mask.
Strangely enough, once the comms were cut, he was left with a happy feeling, for so much humanity was alone, or against strings, it felt nice having peers.
"Sir, the POWs have arrived." - Serina alerted.
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"FUCK YOU SHRIMP SHIT!"
A can then hit Septimus's left temple, he was quickly aided by one marine covering him from a second one.
He understood the situation, even if it was the weirdest one he had ever been on.
These weren't quarians, these were humans, more aggressive than the normal ones, he saw it in their eyes.
Once you had spent forty years fighting, leading, killing, you knew those eyes.
When he saw a bandage-covered human shouting at him, trying to shoot at him only for a fellow soldier to stop him with force he didn't see barbarism.
He saw hatred due to the desperation, the sad feeling, of not being able to save everyone, of not being superhuman, of having to face stress that you can't directly face.
The defeat showed its face even in victory, for no one won in a knife duel; these humans had won, but their three ships were left crippled, and Septimus just had to see the silent death of the navy in a few seconds, the pain that these people would endure was worse than what the Turians would feel due to the loss of the battle.
His troops were left humiliated, the crews without ships, their honor left on the battle.
But they were alive, and they obviously were precious to these humans, for they had them paraded, but not attacked, on a long highway in the middle of their mothership, gigantic, flaring strong metal beasts to say "We are ready to kill you all".
{Sir, what will we do?} - Whispered the Marine covering him, his armor clearly impacted several times by human rounds, likely of smaller calibers than the ones he had seen perforate helmets in one strike.
But the general said nothing, just walking forward, the first to do so, for he was the highest-ranking officer left standing and the only one that had surrendered of the higher-ups of the fleet.
They had walked for hours, yet the parade hadn't dwindled on its hatred.
Until in front of them, there was the man that had captured him on the first place, the green armored titan, his helmet still bearing the mark of an antimateriel round stopped by its thick defenses. He was standing tall above the rest, carrying no weapons, it didn't matter, he had seen his punches break bones behind armor, and kicks just shattering plaques.
He was with those who seemed to copy him ins tyle, ODSTs if the mutterings on some of their armor's patches meant anything.
It was like there was a hierarchy in this human military, but he didn't quite get it, he didn't see the division between the groups, for he had seen human normal troops fixing equipment along what he knew were normal ship crew.
He had seen ODSTs prepare equipment while they saw him being paraded.
These people were an oddity, one which he wanted to know more about.
One of his marines though, didn't share the same opinion, he broke the handcuffs that maintained everyone shackled.
He ran, evading bullets immediately fired at him, for he was a biotic, and he tried engaging the man who singlehandedly cleared the Filai.
His fists carried the same anger as the humans, and it was surrounded by purple energy as if it was his soul and the eezo were being used as a propellant for the punch.
He jumped, prepared to strike with all of his strength.
Some turians got routy and began trying to charge against the humans surrounding them, beginning simple melee battles, with them unable to use nothing but their handcuffed hands for their omnitools had apparently been disabled when they entered, only to be answered by human knifes and single shots that immediately dropped those who attacked.
Septimus knew how this was going to end.
In a blink, the armored green beast grabbed his attacker's hand and directed it to the ground, where it impacted the floor's metal, creating a sizeable dent, only for then his head being kicked with such strength that his neck snapped, killing him.
Just like that marine was the embodiment of turian anger, this human presented something too.
Septimus didn't know what it was, but he lifted his hand, making some of the prisoners stop attacking the humans, but those who didn't were met by death at the hand of bullets.
From more than a hundred, they were reduced to eighty.
A sad reality, but not one that would change the situation.
Yet the General didn't bode, he had accepted his reality, and he was going to go forward, the anger of his people and the enemy were to be ignored for past sentiments would cloud present choices.
He walked past the body of his soldier, looking forward, to an elevator, which was opened by the green titan.
"Am I going alone?"
"Yes, your troops will remain here, once the terms have been decided." - The human spoke without a hint of any sentiment on his voice, other than respect, and duty, like what his soldiers in Hasala did.
This made the Turian general smile as he entered the elevator with the ODSTs.
"Please, understand my boys, don't injure them." - He pleaded with a sincere tone.
"We won't." - Answered the armored beast, not a hint of mischievousness on his voice.
Before going down he took a last look at the troops on the group, they were battered, demoralized, but he knew that they all hoped that this went well. And he wasn't going to fail them, not again.
The trip down was silent.
The ODSTs were calm, or they were speaking in internal comms, hiding their voices from the turian.
He would never know, but he was thankful that they didn't comment on anything.
He closed his eyes, trying to understand where they were going, the motions of this lift, it went down, and forward.
Five minutes passed before he was greeted by a simple figure.
The room was almost completely made out of glass, with a direct view to the passing dropships, there were multiple screens, projectors, decorations, different types of foods and beverages, as if this was a leisure place, but it was clearly decorated to be used by one man, one who was in charge of organizing all of this.
"I am Captain James Cuter of the UNSC."
That name he had seen repeated so many times and he hadn't until now got to understand, UNSC.
Whatever it was, it was human.
It was understandable that they mistook them for quarians, after factoring in chirality, any machine would say that they were basically a match DNA-wise.
But enough of observations, he had a fellow officer in front of him, apparently speaking in full quarian, though that might've been because his Omni-tool was apparently tampered by whatever systems they had on this ship.
"Septimus Oraka, Turian hierarchy."
"Heard that name, and I don't want to despise it, but you tried to have our ship."
"Orders came from above."
"And I can understand that, but we were sent here for an exchange and we ended up meeting the friendliest aliens ever."
What did they mean by this? Hadn't humans been basically worshipped by Asari? What did the quarians have so special about them?
Though of course, these humans were weird, with none of their equipment being nearly Alliance standard, with them even lacking eezo.
"Are you with the Alliance?"
"No, but I would love to meet them."
No connections to the Alliance, maybe they were a lost colony? But that would have to be a secret project, with the tech they supposedly had before Shanxi it would have been impossible to build such a gigantic ship.
The tone of the Captain too was sincere, maybe a bit sarcastic, but it was probably a way to cope, especially since his fists were clenching as he spoke, this man clearly was very courteous but he had feelings that he was masking.
"Are you going to drop us on Turian space?"
"No, we will bring you home, we have food and everything."
"But we have differ-"
"Different chirality, I know, we took the rations from your ships, with your numbers I think you'll be easy to feed."
A pretty coarse comment, from more than ten thousand they were turned into less than a century; though he noted that it had no ill-intention, it was just a way to say things.
"Then, I assume we have a lot of free time."
As Septimus said this, the sight of a bulky ship, roughly the size of a corvette, carrying parts that were from the THS Corelato, flew in front of them.
"We do, there's a lot of explaining to be done."
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Just minutes after the Kirase, a Quarian 'Engineering' cruiser, finished welding the shattered hull of the Felix to the Spirit of fire's deck along with a surprising ammount of humans in space suits and human-operated mechs; the people of the Migrant fleet saw how the two still mobile human ships began going forward.
The last ships carrying the most important debris from the battle to the migrant fleet also came with glory, for fresh, and most importantly, modern, pieces of hardware were scavenged.
They all exchanged salutes, the quarians expressed high hopes for the humans well being, and the humans did so to the quarians, but their messages included commonly hatred towards turians, and promises of killing all of them if they ever threatened the people of the Migrant fleet.
Tali was standing right next to her father, looking through a window to the majestically big ship move.
In total, they had been in contact for sixteen hours, meaning that any turian response would come in approximately seven hours if their deployment schedule was still standard.
So they themselves began moving away from the Human ships.
"I say not farewell, but that we'll see each other soon, quarians." - The message of Captain Cutter flared through the intercom of the Rayya. - "And please, remain silent about our visit."
"I love you all friendly aliens!" - An unknown voice said after that, probably a very enthusiastic sergeant, even if Tali for some reason desired that it was a message from that '117'.
But more than the message, was what followed that surprised all the quarians.
A rift on space itself, blue in appearance, showed itself in front of the two human ships, and they ventured inside.
The radiation sensors of the fleet spiked, and all numbers went up.
And once the gap closed, a shockwave of strength shot down out of space an engineering corvette that was near the event.
Tali and her father ran towards the bridge of the ship, where they were examining what had just happened, only to come up with nothing.
And little time they had to rest was cut short, for a single transmission suddenly reached them, with a voice she knew.
"This is the Normandy SR-2."
The response of the control station wasn't slow.
"Our systems have your ship flagged as Cerberus', state your reasons."
"We offer hydroponic and factory equipment in exchange for information."
Hearing this, Admiral Rael rushed to the bridge of the Rayya, knowing that his fellow Admirals' response would be a resounding yes, for that is what they needed the most, as they now had the line warship-grade metal to build compartments to allow for the usage of these materials.
But the messages he got were of immediate yes, for every admiral save Shala gave their green light, they were on a rush of good strikes, even if they had to deal with the Turian problem later.
Eventually, he and Taligathered with a group of Marines, the captain Danna and some members of Daro'Xen's personal security team to airlock 34, where the ship had been docked.
They all raised weapons, not knowing what could be prepared for them after all of these events.
And in particular, Miss Zorah was astonished, she knew the name, well, everybody did after the events of the attack on the citadel. But she had a personal connection to the implications of what this could be.
Eventually, the airlock opened, and it revealed a pair of eyes behind a visor that she knew all too well.
And having gone through so many events in so little time, with no rest; made her faint.
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Now to answer reviews :D
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1) Brother Bov: I am humbled by your kind, moral-lifting words brother, if you are enjoying this, then I must be on one of the right paths when it comes to writing this, and I hope that my following efforts will prove to be fructiferous too. My prayers will be on your well-being, brother.
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2) Commander 117: Aight mate, don't worry, though first I need to have a good flow to write romance, cuz that's one of the focuses of this fic, to practice that, once the setting is calm, that is. Also, thanks for the rec c:
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3) Call to arms 1234: Awww, I hope so too, it's neat having people to entertain with something that I love, also, I am open to basically any question, bar those about the inclusion of really kinky shit... Well, maybe I'm open to that too.
There will be minuscule allusions to ruins, but no, ME humans are not reclaimers, for the same reason why Quarians and Asari ain't reclaimers, and that's something we'll explore later. And thank you for the review.
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4) bruscar: Well mate, first of all, thanks for your comment, but lemme say that I once thought like you, but it's something disseminated and just accepted, like Halo MACs only being 64kt.
Because yes, Mass Effects are faster (in combat) than UNSC ones, and that I won't even try to discuss because Mass Effect can modify its mass to move, you are right.
But in the battle, the Turians were overconfident and then shellshocked, it isn't a representative of them as a whole.
Yet, the Mass effect accelerators are not faster, with the only one that we have proof of being than your average MAC firing being of dreadnoughts, that's why in this fic there is two kinds of cruisers: fast-firing ones (Like Aria's) and single-shot ones directly in the speed range of the UNSC; the Mumbojum comment deals with this.
Also, the UNSC's range is, 16.000km, with no clear engagement range for ME, but the only ship that we have clear data that could operate in such ranges being also the one that is incredibly rare. The Turians have something about 10.000 ships (per one GameFAQs discussion), so it'd be much rarer.
That's not to say that the UNSC will dominate every engagement, neutron bombs are a pretty neat thing that I discovered from ME and I wanna use 'em.
And yeah, with the infantry; that's the entertaining thing, the Mass Effect side does have pretty good equalizers, and they will be used a lot in the future, once they realize what they are fighting against. Otherwise, it'd be just a Halo wank fic, and that wouldn't even be entertaining for Halo fans.
That said, voicing yourself out it is the right thing to do, even if we disagree, your input is important for future decisions in writing, and I thank you a lot for deciding to do it.
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5) Mumbojum: That and the Halo 3 cutscenes are the lowest end of the Halo MAC power, the highest end is TFOR's frigate MACs reaching at the same time as the Super MAC ones, or takin the point four tenths as .4c; here we'll take the middle-end, 300 to 2000km/s with up to 30 megatons for shipborne macs. Good observation mate!
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6) KingOfSummer 245: You got one right mate, but the other one is the Human covenant war, not the flood; that's... A tad too far away for this story's scope.
And yeah, we'll have smurf on human action soon mate, just wait for some chapters matey.
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7) Andres DMB: I'll try my best mate to keep up and better myself then. And don't worry, there are just a few chapters before we see the two humanities interacting!
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8) UNSCN Promise of Dawn: It's great to see someone who read The Cole List here, and thank you! The Casaba Howitzers were originally a means of propulsion for space-ships using a nuke as a basis, just like HEAT warheads they produce a stream of tungsten at high velocities and with thermal energy so that they could be used to penetrate basically anything, and the spillover radiation (especially the neutrons) that come from a normal nuke meant that they were an excellent weapon for sci-fi battles. They are relatively compact, and serve especially well against shields, for it mixes the good things of nukes and conventional kinetic weapons :D
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9) naotw: Thank you for your reviews, but, no. This is clearly just not a story for you, stop forcing yourself to read it.
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10) V1lla32: We'll have them interacting soon, but that's for the second encounter mate, and don't worry, they'll be real close when the humans meet the quarians again. ;)
And thanks for the comment mate!
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11) Chronus1326: Owww, good to know that you liked it mate, I hope you liked this one too :D
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12) Crazzytony: Well... Maybe you're right mate ;)
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Guest reviews:
-You know mate? That's a great idea, gonna put it into action next time, thank you matey.
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-I didn't quite get what you tried to say mate, but yeah, the UNSC is stronger numbers-wise, stronger industry, population, navy, territory, and weirdly enough for a ME-Halo situation, energy output; but they are still a factor, they are humans, after all, and the only thing humans love more than themselves are other humans. And thank you for the review :D
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Thank you all for reading!