The Covenant Command Center hovered in a cloaking field of ingenious technological wizardry approximately five hundred meters above the remnants of the former command center. On the uppermost deck of the Command ship was the Prophet's Council Chambers but after the death of two of his Elite High Commanders only he and the Occupation Commander inhabited it this day. It was a large spherical chamber with observational bubbles letting in light from all directions. A dozen Brute Guards stood in mute readiness around the Council Seats. Each was heavily armored and armed with high-velocity grenade launchers as well as the more widely used plasma rifle. The Prophet hovered behind a strange construct of floating crystals and holographic displays while two meters beneath him the Elite Commander sat behind a simple crescent shaped desk. Neither the Prophet nor the Elite Commander looked at all pleased with what stood pathetically before them.

A pair of Brutes was holding the Special Operations Commander that had led the team to capture the Forerunner artifact and General Perry on his feet. One eye was swollen shut and his right hand hung limply. He shivered where he stood as the combined gazes of his superiors burned through him.

"You have failed, shamefully so, and you know the penalty for failure of this magnitude," the Occupation Commander seethed his eyes narrowed.

The SpecOps Commander nodded slowly.

"Then I have no choice but to order your immediate execution," the Prophet said, nodding to one of the Brutes," Take his head."

Then the Elite began to laugh and the Brutes holding him turned to stare in shock. Every being in the room had their full attention on the laughing Elite not because of his laughter but the sound of it.

It sounded human.

Like lightning the Brutes were slammed brutally together in a clang of heavy armor. Just as they were separating the Elite's hands flashed out in knife-edged chops that crushed both their throats. The Brutes standing guard wasted no time in opening fire but by that time the plasma grenade that had rolled unnoticed into their midst detonated. Plasma opened up a hole in their ranks that left the Prophet wide open. The Elite threw something a long spike topped by a glowing sphere of some sort faster than the eye could follow. The spiked tip planted itself directly in the Prophet's forehead and the holy Prophet died with a barely audible sigh. Ignoring the near miss of the grenades the Elite picked up the body of one of the Brutes that had been holding him, turned and ran for the nearest observational bubble. The Occupation Commander grabbed the fallen Prophet and harshly screamed for the Elite's death before noticing the blinking lights winking off around the sphere. Then he began screaming for someone to disarm the bomb before running for his life. Meanwhile the traitorous Elite hurled a shaped thermite charge, of human design no less, at the observational bubble. It detonated on contact and when the blinding flash dissipated the glass was half melted and cracked. The grenade fire had slackened considerable as half the Brutes were frantically trying to disarm the bomb. The Elite spun on the run and tossed the heavy carcass of the Brute at the weakened glass. Thermite charge damaged viewports don't so much shatter as splash, so it looked as though the Brute belly-flopped into a liquid surface of some kind.

The Brute was considerate enough to leave a nice hole for the Elite to jump through though. An astonishing transformation took place as the Elite passed through the window. His flesh shimmered with reflected light before turning into a mercurial substance that was sucked into his midsection to reveal a brief glimpse of a feminine robotic construct. Within seconds the liquid metal flowed back outward, the limbs shortened considerably, and the Elite was now a tall human with reddish-brown hair and bright green eyes.

There was no breeze.

That was the first thing Reese noticed as she made her dramatic exit from the Council Chambers. At that altitude there should have been a constant breeze but there was none. That meant that there was probably shielding of some sort in addition to the cloaking field. She had not been able to tell during her hasty transport here in the belly of a Covenant ship. There would be little time left. The countdown steadily declining in one corner of her field of vision had just passed the sixty second mark.

The Brute's body was slowly sliding down the curving hull of the ship and Reese found herself landing on its back. Sparks flew as her momentum jolted the body to a much greater speed. Reese folded her arms and rode the body as though it had never been anything more than a conveyance. Thoughts flew furiously through her mind, plans discarded within seconds and new ones taking their place just as quickly, as she slid lower and lower down the hull. Then she saw the flash of a single ship ascending from the bank of clouds that perpetually hung beneath the Command Ship. It flew through the shield, which Reese's newly awakened senses could detect faintly as this range, with daring speed. There was a hole apparently left open for transports, but against a featureless backdrop of clouds it would have been impossible for nearly any being to have a point of reference.

Reese smiled, played back the footage, and extrapolated the precise position of the portal. The countdown timer was down to thirty seconds and Reese did not hesitate in propelling herself up and away from the hull with all of her might. Her eyes flared a brilliant red as she concentrated on willing her body to perform a task its designers had never intended for it. Her back stretched out wide to either side in identical flaps of polymimetic alloy ten meters in length. With one powerful flick the flaps transformed into metallic batwings. Reese dived at the portal's position with her telemetry data the only thing between her and being fried on the shield. The countdown timer and the distance to the portal began interposing themselves with every blink.

Fifteen seconds.

Ten meters.

Ten seconds.

Five meters.

Five seconds.

Then Reese, her winds tucked behind her, blasted through the portal at nearly eighty kilometers per hour. She was within the clouds when the countdown reach zero. A lance of searing purple light suddenly filled the sky behind her for all too brief a span. Then it seemed to bulge out as though it were a snake that had just eaten a huge meal. A screeching wind buffeted Reese just before the gravitonic shockwave flung her heedlessly away. If she had needed a reminder that even though she was far stronger than she had ever hoped but still not invincible, this was a very good one. It took her far too long to regain control and by that time she was hundreds of meters closer to the City. One of the blackened hulks that used to be a magnificent tower was still standing and it was directly in her path. She threw her wings out wide and leaned back to slow herself but she was still coming in too fast. Reese extended her legs and arms out in front of her, retracting her skin to reveal the claw like digits beneath, and braced herself for the impact.

Her plan had been to hit the wall and cling there like an insect. The reality was that the wall, once incredibly strong, was as brittle as any ancient ruin. Reese broke through it as though it were mist. The impact threw off her balance so that she hit the floor hard to commence what felt like an eternity of bouncing, smashing through barriers, and indelicate poking. Finally she rolled to a stop somewhere in the center of the building where she lay on her back for a few seconds assessing her injuries.

The building was empty, its rad count still too high for prolonged exposure, and all was blessedly silent for the scant seconds Reese's diagnostic checks all came back green. Still she continued to lie there enjoying the chance to rest, something she had not gotten in the past week, something that she intellectually realized she didn't need to do but old habits were a hard thing to break. Reese had carried out her mission, despite the doubts and misgivings about who Sarah Perry was, and she deserved a few moments of reflection.

The sounds of a city-wide firefight, thunderously loud even this deep in the building, scattered any reflection. General Perry had been prepping his army with frenetic energy for the past week in preparation for the destruction of the new Command Center. He had called up all the reserves, hundreds of thousands of troops, from the heavily defended sub-levels, for a massive all-out assault on all the Covenant positions. All of their heavy armarments, including a squad of retro-fitted LongSwords and Pelican Dropships, had been brought to combat readiness. Any Covenant reinforcements would have to endure a hellish amount of anti-air defenses that had lain dormant around the city for the entire life of the conflict. Reese could not contain a wide grin. When her father decided to bring the hammer down he really brought it down. The TechCom assault would be like a Juggernaut-

Before Reese realized what she was doing she had tapped into the TechCom comm.-net and was patching into the Juggernauts command freq.

"-request immediate reinforcements! Anti-armor! We've got five hunter-killer platoons on our asses! Captain- " it was Vance's voice and he sounded desperate.

" Hold your ground, lieutenant! I'm sending two Heavy squads to your position. You'll have air support in ten minutes," Reese had no idea what Captain the high-strung voice belonged to.

"You said you were sending five Heavy squads in MPV's ten minutes ag-" Vance's voice was cut off by a burst of weapon fire followed by seconds of static.

"We need all the MPV's we have here. My company is leading the assault against the most heavily fortified Covenant base," to Reese she didn't sound as though she were in a firefight at all.

"Forget the reinforcements! We'll get out on our own! Just direct the air support to-" Vance's voice was cut off again and this time there wasn't even static.

Reese stripped the mission data from Vance's wrist-com with a thought and instantly extrapolated the quickest route to the Juggernauts position. It was obvious to Reese that this unknown Captain had used the Juggernauts as bait. Her platoon had blown the primary power source for the base someone had dubbed 'The Breaker' for all the assaults that had smashed themselves on it. But then instead of withdrawing to link up with the assault force the Captain had ordered them to rampage further into the base to destroy the AA fire control. The Juggernauts, and Reese was proud of them, had managed to do that but halfway to their link-up point they were ambushed by hunter-killer squads of red-armored Elites.

Reese raced towards a lift shaft, the doors blown off, and leapt for the emergency cables. She was sliding down almost before she had a good grip and did so with such speed that sparks flew from the cable she was holding. She swung her legs back and forward just at the right time to fling herself at a pair of intact elevator doors. Reese kicked out just at the moment of impact and the doors flew out of their tracks. The reactive force made her hit the shaft's opposite wall but she kicked off of that and leapt onto a catwalk high above a street.

The next five minutes were spent racing from one building to the next while simultaneously keeping tabs on her platoon. The situation was not well and Reese urged herself to run even faster than before. Then she was standing on a balcony looking across a three hundred meter clearing into a cordoned off landing field that was easily two hundred by two hundred meters. Her team was hunkered down under the cover of a pair of Wraiths and several of the larger, blunt nosed Covenant Dropships. Five hunter-killer squads were indeed closing in on their position behind the shields of at least ten pairs of Hunters. The MRG's were useless in this kind of massive assault. There was a high chance of killing TechCom soldiers as well as Covenant with the number of bodies above street level today so they only had rockets and heavy guns to use against the Hunters. Reese could see they had been using those weapons; four more hunter-killer teams and five pairs of Hunters were already littering the area around the Juggernauts. But they had to be running low on charge.

Reese activated her rocket launcher and allowed her auto-aim function to take over. She only had a limited payload of six mini-rockets but she would make them count. Reese designated the boldest looking Hunters as targets, fixed them on her visual display, and opened fire. Within the space of six seconds she had spent her payload but the sound of something heavy scuffing the floor behind her meant she couldn't watch the fireworks.

Reese turned with inhuman, fittingly, quickness and stepped into the cloaked Elite's swing of his plasma sword. He was now plainly visible to her in thermal mode. There was no time for toying with him so Reese quickly, almost casually, collapsed his breathing tube with a chop. The Elite had also been armed with a plasma pistol and she took that as well as his plasma sword. Five more brightly lit silhouettes dropped down into her view and each ignited a plasma sword. Reese ignited her own with a manic grin and raised her plasma pistol.

A short time later Reese, in the form of an Elite, emerged from the building covered in human and Elite blood. She stumbled around, clutching the bandoleer of grenades with one hand, and her needler with the other. A gold armored Elite flew up to her on a Ghost and demanded to know what had happened to the sentry detail.

" Slaughtered! Hundreds of humans have swarmed up from the depths! We must flee!" Reese dived forward and clutched the nose of the command Elite's vehicle.

"Back, filthy dog!" the gold Elite kicked Reese in the face before wheeling his Ghost around.

Reese sent a command to control nanytes and the response was immediate. A trio of Covenant plasma globules struck the Elite, who fell from the Ghost with boneless grace, and then the area around Reese was filled with fire pouring into the ranks of the hunter-killer teams. Reese sent a separate command to the nanytes she had implanted in the Ghost, hoping they had had enough time to embed themselves in the machine, and started running towards the hunter-killer teams. The Ghost obediently ignited its booster and streaked towards one of the hunter-killer teams where it collided spectacularly with the broad back of a Hunter. The Hunter's spine was snapped like a twig but plasma bolts unerringly struck the Ghost at that instant. The explosion cleared away the entire squad in an instant.

Reese dove behind the cover of an overturned human vehicle with an h-k squad and a Hunter pair. On either side of this team there were others awaiting orders from the ranking officer. Reese opened her mouth to speak but then the Juggernauts began opening fire. The Hunters swiveled to cover the squad's back and that was all the opportunity Reese needed. She armed, primed and tossed, three grenades in each direction in seconds. Reese did not need to look to know they had hit their targets spot on. The Elites behind her roared in shock as Reese ignited her plasma blade and sheared both Hunter's heads off. She turned to find that the Elites were only now bringing their needlers, plasma rifles, and pistols to bear. Reese shoved a plasma grenade down the closest Elite's throat, literally, and shoved him into the others. Reese somersaulted backwards and when the grenade went off it ignited the fuel inside the large truck.

Reese dropped into a crouch just as the remaining Hunter pair opened fire simultaneously with their fuel-rod cannons. A quartet of rockets leapt to meet them but the blasts were already away. Reese dived out of the way of both blasts only to find herself in the midst of a barrage from the remaining Elite's before they too were silenced by the crack of conventional sniper rifles. The damage had been done though and Reese could only lay there in the strange pain but not pain of Terminator senses as her diagnostic systems went into overdrive. She was on her back so she could see her former Sergeants surrounding her as the damage scrolled across her vision. The damage she had sustained was moderate and it would take ten minutes to repair. Her cpu also needed a diagnostic run on it, a stray shot had struck her in the head, and Reese would have to be temporarily shut down for that. If she shut down she would revert to her default appearance and they would all know.

"I say we should finish it off," Moon said vehemently.

"But why did it help us?" Kinh asked, contemplatively.

"No discussion. It's dying anyway." Vance said, his voice ringing with an authority Reese had not known he possessed.

Her hard-code gave her little choice in the matter of a necessary shut down period and Reese found herself slipping into unconsciousness. She could still hear the Sergeants voices as she slipped into darkness though.

"What the hell's it doing!?" Tren shouted.

Then the voices were silent for a long moment and the last thing Reese heard before complete unawareness took her was a glad cry from Kinh.

"It's the fucking Lieutenant!"

Consciousness came back quickly and Reese was instantly aware that she was weaponless. She quickly got into a combat crouch and saw that she was on the top of the wall that cordoned off the landing field. Lieutenants Red and Vance looked at her with bemused expressions on their faces before turning to stare up at the sky.

"Look, there's Sky-High, told you she wasn't dead!" someone from her platoon, Gianni, yelled from the far wall.

"Lieutenants," Reese asked cautiously before rising from her crouch.

"Captain," they said in unison.

"How did you know about my rank?" Reese asked, knowing only her father and Captain Black had known.

Red turned to her with a grin," After your sudden… "rebirth" we had a chat with Captain Black. He filled us in and we filled the men in."

Kinh walked passed her, cradling a sniper rifle, with a grin and a wink. Bunti came running up suddenly, but stopped as he caught sight of Reese, and his jaw dropped in astonishment. There was no fear this time but there was plenty of awe.

"Corporal!" Vance barked," Do you have something to say or did you just come to show us your best imitation of a fish?"

Bunti came back to himself and snapped to attention," Sir! Command says we have incoming! ETA: one minute!"

"Thank you, Corporal," the dismissal was plain in Vance's voice.

Reese studied her surroundings and saw that the Ravagers and the Juggernauts had taken the landing field. They seemed to be holding it but she didn't imagine it was for Covenant incoming.

"What are we standing here for?" Reese asked, " Bunti just said we have incoming! "

Red and Vance both grinned before pointing to the sky.

Reese looked up and it was her turn for her jaw to drop. Dropping from the low cloud cover that had turned the area into a gray warzone was a craft of unfamiliar design. It looked something like a wingless bee except that bees did not have plasma cannons and repeaters firing away at targets flitting all around them. The bulbous bow of the ship seemed to be composed of nothing but battery after battery of weaponry. The longer aft obviously housed the propulsion units but they were not like any propulsion system Reese had ever seen. It swivelled in the air and she saw the exhaust ports for ion thrust but they were dark. At least four meters of the aft section of the vessel crackled with strange blue-white energies. A similar spot lay under the bow as well which was probably why it seemed to wobble every so often. A quartet of Seraph fighters broke from the cloud cover on a strafing run but was immediately intercepted by what looked like Mini-LongSwords. LongSwords were huge fighters that made up for what they lacked in maneuverability with power and were usually an even match for the faster but weaker Seraphs. These new LongSwords were half the size of the old ones but the moment they opened fire on the Seraphs it was obvious that there had been a shift in power. Lines of strange crimson light tracked the Seraphs before what looked like a huge pulse of plasma was emitted from beneath the belly of each LongSword. No matter how the Seraphs dodged the LongSwords kept their crimson light shining and it seemed as though the beams themselves were guiding the plasma pulses. In moments each Seraph was a ball of fire and the LongSwords were peeling off in incredible, what looked impossible, maneuvers.

Whistling sounds brought Reese's attention back to the bee-shaped ship. The ship had never dropped within three hundred meters of the ground but it had released streaks of silver light. She watched as they impacted the ground and saw they looked like man-sized seeds. What strange world had she woken up to?

"Catch, Reese," Red said, tossing her a plasma carbine.

Reese caught it instinctively and turned to Red with wide eyes.

"You'd trust me with this," she said, feeling her eyes watering up but not caring.

Red shrugged," You've saved my life more times than I'll ever admit. Even if you are a Terminator that counts for something."

Vance laughed," I don't even know what a Terminator is but I'll follow your metallic ass any day. That's what Rogers would have said and I definitely agree."

Red nodded in the direction of the landing field," Besides, us old timers will have to get used to it. It's a strange world we've found ourselves in."

Reese looked at the landing field again and again her jaw dropped in disbelief. Emerging from the seeds were Terminators, X-Series, but they were all Terminators. Each clutched a huge plasma weapon in either hand and looked around with mechanical precision. Then they all had shifted into unique bodies and personalities began to become apparent. She saw swaggering, swearing, and even a rude gesture or two.

Red groaned," I knew it. They'll be worse than civilians."

"What are they?" Reese asked, wonder in her voice.

"A.I.'s the tech's gave bodies. Some of them are pretty old, seen the whole war, and are geared towards the military. Some are civilian. The vast majority though just got created and don't know shit from shine."

Reese laughed," Well, they can't be worse than this bunch," she nodded at Vance who shrugged in chagrin.

"There'll be consequences though, I can tell. Once we get rid of the Covenant these A.I.'s'll want a bigger part in the UNSC," Red snorted," Well, until then we've got plenty of Covie to sort out. You ready, Reese."

Reese closed her eyes and took a deep, totally indulgent, breath.

She slapped a fresh charge.

" Let's go to work. "