Chapter 5: The Ghosts of War

Author's Note: I considered using a quote from GOT as a title here, but I suppose that would be too much.

To address a few of the criticisms about UNSC tech not seeming to advance much, it should be noted that, as mentioned previously, all the ships in Shanxi's defense fleet were old junkers from nearly 50 years previous, and were mostly just outfitted with a shield, a working MAC, and prayer. Imagine it like World War 1 vessels fighting refitted World War 2 vessels. Outnumbered and out-gunned, WW2 ships couldn't win on technological superiority alone. Modern ships against WW1 ships? That's a whole different ball game, which we'll address later. :)

Space seemed too empty now. The lightshow around Shanxi had ended only a few minutes before, with god knows who winning. At the moment, his cargo ship, UNV My Other Spaceship's a Car, had been damaged by his idiot helmsman (Captain Arna bored his eyes into Jessa's skull, as if she could read his mind) running headlong into the docking bay at Shanxi station, which managed to throw off alignment on the slipspace nav, and shear off his antenna. He was lucky to have been in dry dock on station when the all-call went out, else he'd likely be xenomorph food by now. He was luckier that he'd the foresight to start 'running cold' before the aliens showed up and started blasting up the joint.

Such were the pains of hiring family. His dad had insisted he bring along his niece, Jessa, as a pilot after his last one had decided to hop fleets. His loss, Arna Stellar Consortium was one of the fastest growing cargo haulers in the Dead Zone! Or at least that was the company line, his Dad had come up with that one. Really, he wondered if his Father had only had his nine brothers and sisters to get cheap captains for his damn business.

In any case, he began to think he may have been a little hard on Jessa. She was only 17 after all, and she'd been forced to dock at literally the most convoluted docking bay in human history. Everybody lost a bit of pride at Shanxi Station, Jessa just happened to lose a bit more than most. While Arna waited for Lanvoo to repair his slipspace drive, he'd taken up a card game with one of his less recent hires, Minmac.

Minmac was a grunt, or an Unggoy if you were in polite society. Not that the bastards cared all that much, so long as you didn't shoot 'em. The little Unggoy currently whipping his ass at Pishti was the Patriarch of a small clan of his own: himself, his two mates, and their four kids, all of which had taken refuge on his vessel. Unggoy were one of the more interesting cases following the collapse of the Covenant. Although some made their way back to their ancestral home world, or the few other methane-based planets they'd terraformed or found, the majority became wanderers in the stars; laborers and pioneers looking for better lives.

In human space (though rarely on Earth) the Unggoy found the most success in this life style, as instead of becoming serfs in the various Sangheli Kingdoms, or essentially slaves in Kig-Yar settlements, humans were merciful in treating them as just second class citizens. Most Unggoy would work if you fed them, supplied methane for them, or paid them the meager wages they seemed to boggle at. On some more recent colonies, Unggoy we're beginning to make up 30 - 40% of the population, though they rarely had the right to suffrage. Shanxi though, well only humans were crazy enough to jump a hundred light years out without good comms, so it was mostly humans on Shanxi.

Minmac was a friend, and a bastard of one at that, as he'd just won another round with another fucking perfect pishti. That was the third time it happened this game, and Minmac chittered greedily as another 10 credits were added to his winnings.

"I've been playing this game for 20 years and I've never seen a fucker so lucky!" Arna moaned as he transferred the credits.

"Guess you've never met a fucker like me, ah Eser?" Minmac's voice was a deep, brassy thing that spewed from his mouth, a juxtaposition he'd never thought of before he'd met him two years prior. "Another round?" he grinned, holding his winning card playfully in his dexterous claws.

"Chew on your cables!" spat Eser, motioning toward the two reinforced 'meth cables' that allowed the Unggoy to work in Oxygen at all. Now a days, instead of the bulky apparatus that the Covenant forced them to wear, manufacturers had designed the discreet face mask and tank that opened mobility, and reduced their profile from pyramid to simply bipedal. Eser stood to reach his intercom, and punched in the code for the engine-bay. "Lanvoo, are you done yet! I'm losing all my money here, won't have enough to pay you soon!"

A faint shout about the 'sin of gambling' was all he heard from him, so he assumed it was still a few hours from working. Lanvoo got especially fire-and-brimstone when he was getting close to the end of a problem. But an unease had swept over him, despite that. He wished that his wife, Youra, had stayed behind this time, that his grandmother wasn't left alone taking care of his son on Mercator, he wished quite a bit. Now, he wished that he'd never played that damn Grunt for money, and lost nearly a hundred credits for it. A life full of regrets he mused. And a cargo bay full of grain, grapes, and 14 spacers.

CLUNK! The My Other Spaceship shook, as the titanium groaned under a piercing pressure. The air suddenly whisked out of the room, and then as quickly returned, the biting smell of ozone permeating the air, the atmosphere noticeably thinner.

"All call, is everyone alright!" The Captain coughed into the intercom. Check-ins from all his crew sounded, each reducing his anxiety, if only marginally. "Jessa, the fuck happened?"

Her chair spun around, revealing the slight, and pale-skinned teen that had served as his helmsman this flight. "I have no idea, I was just looking at data readouts when something collided with our left… I mean port side."

"Okay okay, do we have a damage report Youra?" He radioed his XO, and wife.

"Lanvoo and Finster report damage on our port side, explosive decompression was handled by adaptive foam, but we'll probably need a team to restore structural integrity."

"Shit, okay. Minmac, can you get your boys on it?"

There was no response, which prompted the Captain to turn and find the grunt already gone. Rude little bastard, but eminently capable. "Jessa, can you tell what hit us?"

"On-site cams are down-" Another headache in itself, "-but I think one of those asteroids might have hit us." She deftly typed, bringing up the aft cam on the blank wall, and displaying the perfect blue of the gas giant whose rings the Spaceship hid amongst.

"Well, document one of those bastards for insurance. Christ, my premium is so going up after this." The intercom buzzed quietly, directing Eser's attention to the small blinking nub on the central console. He activated it with a press. "What's up?"

"Hey Cap, is Kerir here." Minmac's eldest son sounded much like his father, yet had a slower cadence, and a poorer grasp of grammar. "Bulkhead arrived at, found a strange something, father calls it a 'pod.'

Eser whispered into his niece's ear, "Call a general alert, have Stollger and Asil meet me at the impact armed." he raised his voice for the young Unggoy to hear. "I think you guys should let us handle it Kerir, tell your father that's an order."

"Oh come-on Captain," the father sounded through the comm, "looks like scrap metal, might be something nice in it!"

"It's an order Minmac, not a suggestion!" He cut the comms. "Jessa, lock the cabin behind me okay?" She nodded, a little startled at the request, as he rushed out the door.

The My Other Spaceship was an FIT-109 Class freight hauler, essentially a small pressurized operations area with a 500 meter tall cargo hold attached to it vertically [A/N Imagine a thick B-Wing fighter]. He was happy that the damned breach was nearby, and didn't require a 5 minute turbolift ride. That ended when he arrived to an active battle.

Glowing balls of energy spun above the strange, metal structure, firing red-hot beams of energy. Kerir bore an angry burn across the chest, while blind firing his plasma pistol (of human-make) into the corridor. Minmac was charging his relic of a Covenant pistol, himself singed on his left arm. Fire forced the Captain into an alcove a few meters distant the grunts, while he heard a commotion marking Stollger and Asil's arrival.

"What did you do!?" Eser roared over the cacophony of battle.

"It wasn't us I swear! We just wanted to leave!" responded Minmac, who fired his overloaded weapon into one balls, shattering it with a shower of sparks.

"Holy Shit!" The two men behind him, armed with shotguns and shield belts, dove to avoid the burning beams.

Eser smashed a red button marking the intercom, and screamed into it, "Boarders!" before a furious beam melted the speaker, and burned his hand terribly. "Fuck! Now what?!"

The straightforward Stollger demonstrated, jumping from his own alcove and firing a devastating blast from his shotgun, shattering the delicate energies holding the sphere together.

"Good idea?" Stollger deadpanned.

"I guess? Now!" The three humans jumped up, and blasted the spheres with shotguns and plasma. A quiet fell over the battlefield, broken only by the sparking of wires and the crackle of electrical fires.

Behind the group of crewmen, another crash emanated, along with four robotic prongs that forced themselves through the hull. Dual burning lines etched themselves into the walls, and began to carve a circle through the two meter thick hull. Human and Unggoy stood in terror, as they watched the beams arc inexorably toward each other. "Take cover!" the Captain shouted, as the metal was punched inward, and tall, spindly things stormed outward wrapped in metal armor and orange energy.

Stollger reacted first, two claps from his shotgun disrupting one thing's strange orange and blue shield, and then sending its form crashing into a jutting support beam. The following one was quicker, loading first Stollger's shield, and then his body with the whirr of its gun. Asil was eviscerated by a third, which fired a blood red bolt of energy into the woman, ripping a hole through her stomach, and sending her to the ground.

The Captain sent a plasma round into the shotgun using form, sending it steaming into cover, it's armor a white hot. He aimed a shot at the hunkered down Unggoy. "Get out of here you two!" Eser thudded back into cover, whizzing bolts impacting the walls. He looked at his gun for a moment, remembering the complete bypassing of its shield. Maybe this thing was worth 4000 credits after all? He fired another burst of plasma, feeling the heat of the sleek pistol tickle his hands, his aim scoring a (head?) shot on Stollger's killer. As he slid back into cover, he laughed, "That's right you fuckers, die-" a sudden, violent force thrust Eser into the ceiling, breaking his neck instantly.

Zaeed's lungs hurt from running, but without anti-armor weapons that's what you did to combat a tank. At least that's what he'd told his men. The Raptor's armor had started landing only an hour before. He remembered fondly the rockets they'd spent on that armor, then the pocket-railguns, then the Promethean Beams, finally the anti-tank grenades. His emplacement had stopped 13 armored vehicles on Kilrei Street before they were forced back, he tried to feel pride in that as he ran like hell through the street.

Zaeed had become the acting Lieutenant of the Morning Star's Marines 1st Company only an hour before, and was currently leading the remains of that Company along with a handful of militia back to the tertiary defense points. Problem was, that was half a mile down the street. The tanks weren't so distant.

BOOOM!

A blast sent Zaeed stumbling, and chunks of militia women and asphalt spewing across the road, his shield flaring at the sight. "Get in Cover!" Someone shouted, and Zaeed took his suggestion, diving into a narrow alley with a few other militia already cowering. That raggedy band had only two rifles between them, and wounds that caked their kevlar in blood. "The hell are you doing here, get the hell up!"

"Respectfully Sarge, fuck that!" An explosion rocked the earth, and screams echoed down the street.

"I'm a damn Lieutenant now civvie, so get up or they'll be scraping your ass off this street!" A familiar whirring interrupted the argument, and brought hope to the group. Zaeed looked up to see a Bumble drone, a tiny helicopter with a huge rocket bay, fire a barrage onto his street. A cheer went up the line as the distinctive PIICNK of a Raptor shield collapsing primed a heavenly explosion. Zaeed peeked out of the alley to find the Raptor infantry pinned by the ragged fire of others down the street; the oddly elegant tank reduced to scrap metal. His squad of militia had mustered now, three carrying one, and all without shields.

The newly-minted lieutenant began to regret his harshness as he looked into the terrified faces of men and women that were janitors, shopkeeps, and farmers. People who signed up for the militia to get an extra stipend from the colonial government, not expecting much worse than pirate raids. This was no pirate raid. A scream shook past them, a UNSC fighter dodged around the bumbling drone still flying away, pursued by a Raptor fighter that could scarcely keep up.

"I'll give you bastards cover!" Zaeed shouted to the militia men, "We'll hop alleys, I'll cover, then you, got it?" They nodded, and ran out into the street, Zaeed's rifle spitting plasma-tips into the terrified enemy infantry. Then it was militia FMJs that cracked against the street, as Zaeed ran. They inched backward, friendly MGs and small arms fire dwindling as the advancing aliens picked off Zaeed's defenders. Not that they weren't falling like flies themselves. The plasma guns -rare as they were- melted through the Raptors without even bothering their shields. The lasers and beams were just as deadly, scything the aliens into cover, or in half. Only poor old reliable bullets seemed to find any trouble, and even then it was hard not to wonder how such weak shields could be used by a military force.

Two-Thirds of the way to the defensive line, a stray shot killed the downed militia alleys past, concentrated fire killed a second. But they made it, the militia men dove into the sandbags and gun emplacements. Zaeed made it himself, just in time for more tanks to begin their rumbling assault.

Colonel Williams led the battered defense of the New Landing Starport. Usually, it was a place where airplanes and space freighters transported goods acquired from Shanxi Station to the people of Shanxi. Now, some 170 fighters called it home, a refueling and repair station protected by a massive shield generator, a few miles of entrenchments, and ten thousand barely equipped men. He was the last staff officer left, and so he was left commander of the fifth of the defense army stationed here.

A rumble shook the new command building, but he paid it no mind. A third push had been made on his Northern side by alien armor, and from the reports made by the commanders there they would hold it. He'd sent the few Tarresques he'd had to spare toward them, to discourage another assault. He knew they wouldn't survive another.

"Colonel," a runner, half singed, met him in the crowded command center. "More reports of 'magic' sir, a massive group of 'em on the western edge." Williams had wanted to keep tabs on these reports. At first he thought his troops were simply losing their minds, but as combat footage began to pour in, he began to share his findings with the Lieutenant General. Several teams of these 'wizards' (as his men had taken to calling them) had been encountered and pushed back across the front, at considerable loss for his soft militia troops. As the Raptors tightened their grip around the Starport, the ammo and reinforcements needed by his troops was spread thinner, and then only arrived through the underground tunnels that linked the major city centers.

Williams nodded to the runner, and directed the recently received Promethean chargers to the west. He also put in a call to the only special forces he still had.

The shield flared, and a Raptor stood behind him, staring at its glowing orange blade, dumbstruck at its failure to go through. A sharp kick threw the avian into a back wall, and a burst from his rifle split its shield and its skull.

"You'd think these guys would wear helmets?" Cortana quipped "Not that I'm complaining, of course."

Chief knew better than to respond. He dropped his rifle, it's magazine too close to empty, and retrieved the gun from the alien corpse. He'd been chasing what he'd assumed was an officer, it's armor was plated with gold after all, and that suited the Covenant. But he'd lost it after an armored car and a platoon of soldiers closed ranks around him. It felt like fighting an army of grunts, fighting these ones. Once their shield was broken, one pop in the head dropped them. Unlike the grunts, these ones never had the good sense to run.

A sharp pang of static alerted the Spartan to a call. "Colonel Williams." Chief answered.

"Master Chief, I'm sending you the location of a unit in need of relief, be advised, reports of alien special forces with… supernatural powers have been made."

"Understood sir." The Spartan hid his own skepticism, as he began to slink his way through enemy lines, back to friendly territory. The Starport was a sprawling thing, a massive central spire, surrounded by landing fields, massive hangers, and an ocean of support buildings, hotels, and restaurants that ringed the landing fields themselves. All of it had turned into a battle ground, the air bearing the familiar shimmer of dust, dirt, and blood. Fires raged, and the shield around the dome crackled constantly from missile fire and stray bullets. As the Chief made his way back-through the shield, the smell of ozone and gunpowder filtered its way through his helmet.

He pondered the weapon he now held, the strange angular weapon that never seemed to reload. A shame it was a peashooter compared to the weapons he'd been given by human forces. A memory came to him; as a recruit they'd fire BB's at him in armor to test his reaction speeds to shield damage. The pathetic PING they gave when they bounced off sounded so much like the alien weapons. And yet what bounced off his shield pierced the armor of the reservists he fought with, the armor that looked more like 21st century kevlar and plate than the 27th's hard suits, which the regulars were equipped with.

As John approached the no-man's-land that was the wide, cratered street between human and alien territory; the garrison, in trenches and behind reinforced storefronts, cheered him on. He only feared for them.

+=+ HARDWARE IDENTIFIED UNSC FFG-20194 GREAT HORSE

?/BEGIN RECONSTRUCTING AI PERSONALITY

/RESTARTING

/RESTARTING

/ALPHA MATRIX DAMAGED:

+RECONSTITUTING FROM SAVED SCANS+

She awoke, and she did not remember. She ran a diagnostic on her hardware. The status report brought back memories. It hurt when she looked back at her five friends who dove into a storm. She felt her body, broken, empty. Life signs were not detected. A hole was now where her friends were. Cortina. Herdres. Lao. All gone.

Anger swelled as she began to reactivate her systems. But she thought better of it. The heat would signal her survival. She touched the transceiver, and it reacted quickly. She ran diagnostics on the realspace engines and found them dead.

Why did I survive? She knew why. A secondary and tertiary AI core exists in modern destroyers. Modern destroyers were compartmentalized. And they could run without crews. She was chosen to survive. She beamed a message in Morse to the Black Heart and received nothing. Alexander was dead too. She concentrated her rage on a new plan. She spun up a pelican, and measured the distance between the cruiser that killed her, and her own drifting corpse. She had a plan.

The ship had wide, comfortable halls, and an easy feeling about it that almost masked the red and blue mess one the ground. Two alien species? The female mused, perhaps the Turians have planted more Jian than a patrol fleet can juice. The Salarian boarding party had more trouble than they'd been expecting. The shorter, stocky aliens were equipped with primarily energy weapons and breathing masks, an intriguing, if terrifying, prospect. The humans -as they'd discovered the tall, fleshy race was called- also possessed them, and a remarkable similarity to Asari anatomical structure. Related species? Although convergent evolution was certainly possible, after all the vast majority of species are bipedal, it couldn't be determined till the genetic samples were returned to Citadel Space. It was even less likely due to the presence of sexual dimorphism, but she'd let the biologists deal with that.

Sadly, the computer drive had been damaged here as well, though it's erasure hadn't been as thorough as it's military counterparts. Her computer analyst had been severely wounded in the breaching by a primitive, if effective, shotgun. Disappointing, she'd start the analysis herself while he recovered.

What was most troubling was the evidence that something had been in the bridge when they'd finally cut through the security bulkhead. It had escaped somehow, and scans were proving ineffective. Such annoyances would be dealt with when the team returned to their deployment base, at least. Stowaways were a problem best dealt with by people other than herself. She was looking forward more to the promotion she'd receive for her efforts here. And the commission she'd get from selling this info to the Shadow Broker. How juicy would that be, a first contact with two alien species, a hostile one at that? The scandal this would cause. She allowed herself a smile, as she ordered her men to clean the viscera off the floor.

She had more pressing matters to attend.

Author's Note:

200 favorites?! Thanks everybody! As always, continue to leave your reviews. I also have a question for my wonderful audience. Would you lads prefer another installment, or a timeline/lore dump for this universe's UNSC and friends? Please, discuss in the review section. The next chapter, whatever it ends up being, will be a while coming. I'm heading off to college in the coming weeks, so the pen may be put up more often than not. In any case, please be patient. Thanks again! -SpaceTurtle