Chapter 2 - The Fields of Hell

A/N: I'll say this now, the primary focus for the Highmark's scientific branch, both known and unknown (ones you don't know about either), has been on weapons technology, because of the Prothean's message. War is coming! Wouldn't you prepare? Still my, uh, ships may be to OP for you, but think about the galaxy the Highmark is entering. I would like to thank those who reviewed, and I urge those who haven't, to review.

Human society has developed to mimic that of the Forerunners, with slight differences that barely make any difference. Human adults separate themselves into Waves of Life, choosing to follow the Wave of a Warrior, Builder, Oracle, Keeper, Shaper and so on. Children are not included in the Wave of their parents until the age of eighteen, they then spend thirty years in that Wave, then are given the option to move to another Wave that they believe suits them. Though few actually do this.

Those without parents are adopted by Waves, leaving them no choice but to remain in their adopted Wave forever. Only the leaders of these Waves are political, but Waves mainly determine how society looks at you. Ever since the creation of the Waves, Builders and Warriors have always faced off with each other, the former seeing the latter as destroyers of architecture, and the latter seeing the former as logical creatures with no true love or hate for organic life. There are numerous reasons why these Waves were created, however, the main three believed reasons are: to keep Humanity diverse in its views, become a replica of a near perfect race, as they see their own as imperfect, or because these generations have developed using the Forerunners as inspiration, which has led to the evolution or devolution, depending on how you look at it, of Human society.

Another, rare belief is the Precursor Paradox, where the oldest race in the Halo franchise created Humanity to create Halo, thereby creating the Precursors so the Precursors could create Humanity, during this cycle the Precursors copied what they did in halo and spilt Humanity in two, creating Forerunner-humans and just normal humans yet to be discovered.

- Documentary on the development of Human society

August 6th - 2200

Deimos, once a Greek god that symbolized the terror that war will always bring, now easily defines the planet that the eleventh platoon, of the ninth cohort, found themselves on. As per patrol regulations, the HSV Boston carried a platoon of legionaries, a total of forty legionaries instead of the standard fifty, was sent down to a nearby planet to establish a listening post and to scout for resources. However, this system was deadly to Humans, and Deimos was the only planet that could barely sustain Humans, meaning terraforming would have to be heavily implemented here. It was hot, uncomfortable, and had barely enough air to be even considered a planet and not some gas giant or asteroid.

The red rock surface was equally annoying for the platoon, it was hard to build anything with secure support beams, when you couldn't penetrate the surface. Spades, pick axes, drills, even the bullets from their guns barely dented the thick surface.

"Maybe an orbital bombardment would do the trick." Suggested legionarie Dan, as he rested on a crate marked "AR AMMUNITION".

"Don't be ridiculous!" Scolded legionarie Jane "It'll take more than rail guns." She crouched to the floor and brushed her left hand along the red surface.

"If I may make a suggestion?" Asked the a Monitor class Ancilla.

Dan looked at the floating, metal, cube like ball form that was their squad Ancilla, his concerned look hidden behind his blackened, V shaped visor. The first squad, his squad mates, didn't like it when the Ancilla asked to do anything basic, their goal was to make him or her as organic as possible, less strict and by the rules. It was against the rules to attempt it, but no one paid attention to the eleventh platoons.

"You don't have to ask, whatcha got?" Dan asked.

The Ancilla floated backwards a little, the sonic propulsion systems evidently emitting from the bottom, left and right sides of the cube like ball.

"Well, Dan, you are all equipped with energy shielding units, correct?" He asked, the Ancilla knew full well that they did, but he asked for their benefit.

"Of course." Jane said slowly, hesitantly.

"Do you know what happens when two or three are overloaded?" The Ancilla asked rhetorically "It super heats and melts. Now my calculations assure me that three overloaded energy shielding units would be enough to melt the surface."

Dan quickly did up the math, the listening post that needed to be built would need twenty support beams, that was sixty energy shielding units, twenty to many.

"That won't work." Jane said, coming to the same conclusion as Dan had "We are twenty energy shielding units short."

"And I don't like the idea of being un-shielded." Dan added "This planet is very hostile, maybe the wild life is too."

"Sir, you are incorrect. We arrived with over fifty crates of supplies and building materials-"

"I know, it was a pain to move." Groaned Dan.

"Yes, your body temperature agrees. Anyway, one of those crates contained forty shielding units, so you see we will have twenty extra shielding units to equip four squads with."

"Your right." Jane agreed "Come on, let's find our fearless Elite legionarie."

Jane walked off from Dan, their Ancilla floating along next to her, in the direction of the piles of crates. Off loading all of the crates had taken hours, and the shuttles weren't available as they had gone to get more crates, so the Elite legionarie, the commander of the platoon, had wisely ordered his men to take a breather from all the work, while they could. The quick decision had left the crates in a semi-organized state, with stacks of the same equipment placed all around the landing site, opposite Dan, a few dozen metres away. It sort of looked like a maze, it was definitely one when it came to finding someone, Jane soon discovered.

"It appears we are lost." The Ancilla commented as they turned another corner, only to see Dan again.

Jane let out a sigh. "And here I thought we wouldn't have to use the Battle-Net."

"Indeed."

Jane ignored the Ancilla's strange response and brought her right hand up to her right ear.

"Elite legionarie, Gamma squad has a solution to our little surface problem. Gamma-one out."

"Gamma-one." Came her Elite legionarie's voice a moment later "Please tell me what it is, we just broke our tenth drill trying to break the surface."

Tenth? Well males were destructive.

"Sir, our Ancilla says that if we overloaded three energy shielding units, the heat would be enough to burn through the surface of one support beam location. We'd have to break into our spares, but after we're done, we should have twenty shielding units left." Jane explained.

The comms was silently for a while, the legionarie on the other end no doubt thinking it through, they were on a hostile planet with most likely hostile wildlife, their shields were their only protection until the listening post was set up.

"Looks like we have a plan, legionaries!" The Elite legionarie finally said "Gamma-one, tell your Ancilla: good job! Platoon leader, out."

Jane turned to the floating Ancilla, who had begun to whistle, or played an audio file of someone whistling anyway, she smiled at the attempt of acting Human.

"You heard the man," Jane said "good job. Now come on, we have shielding units to burn!"

Jane and Gamma's Ancilla walked back to Dan, Jacob was their too, Jane noted, now they had enough units.

"Jacob! Dan! Give me your shielding units please." She knew that both of them had been listening to the Battle-Net when she had announced their Ancilla's plan, as it was required to be always linked to a Battle-Net.

Jacob placed his hand on a small hump of armor on Dan's back, and pulled out the cylindrical body of Dan's energy shielding unit. Dan in turn did the same to Jacob's energy shielding unit and turned to their Ancilla.

"You sure this will work?" He asked.

"Of course!" Declared the Ancilla.

"Alright then." Dan spun a surprised Jane around with his free hand, slid her shielding unit out of her back hump and placed both units gently on the ground. Jacob placed the shielding unit next to the others, on a black X, scratched into the surface.

"Beginning overload." The Ancilla announced.

The three Gammas watched in complete fascination as their energy shielding units' cooling devices deactivated and began to melt away, due to the uncontrolled heat and energy. Eventually the cylindrical units turned to hot, steaming plasma, melting away the surface. Thankfully, the surface melted four feet before the lack of oxygen, that was required to sustain the plasma's heat, ran out, leaving a perfect, four feet long cylinder, in the ground.

"Sir, let's get the support beams to zero-two, it works."

Matriarch Benezia was in the Destiny Ascension's main med bay, watching over a dark blue Asari who laid completely motionless on the bed. She knew that she shouldn't be here, watching IV lines, listening to the heart monitor beep, looking miserable, weak... vulnerable, it wasn't helping the morale of the already depressed crew. But the freckles under the hurt Asari's eyes, the beautiful lips and delicate facial markings above her eyes, things that she had seen in a dream, told the Matriarch all she needed to known: this was her daughter, and she would not abandon her.

Liara T'Soni, her little wing, had been critically injured during the fight with Batarian hordes, she had, despite being a mere maiden, fought valiantly against the slaves and their overseers as they boarded the largest dreadnought in the galaxy. Her little wing had been swarmed on all sides, she had risen a barrier and was fighting desperately to keep them out, but two dozen fists constantly banging against the barrier would be to much, even for a Matriarch. It was only with the timely arrival of her commandos, did Liara live to see this day.

As her eyes fluttered open, the big blue eyes that drew all the attention to her already at work, she began to rise her hand. Benezia gently stopped the hand and lowered it back down to the bed.

"Mother," Liara said in a raspy voice "it hurts."

The amount of time Liara had actively used her biotics, as well as being subjected to nine seconds of beatings from a mob of slaves, had left her little wing broken, both physically and mentally.

"Doctor," Benezia motioned to the doctor behind her, who was currently treating a less critical patient "can you give her any pain medication?"

The doctor gave Benezia a sad frown, then shook her head, no. Benezia turned back to Liara, her little wing's fists were clenched, as if all the pain would go away then.

"Everything will be okay, little wing, you shall see." Benezia assured her, totally ignorant of who was coming.

As Matriarch Lindanya stepped into the med bay, her face cold and un-moving, she spotted her fellow Matriarch, Benezia, sitting on one of the chairs next to Liara, giving the young Asari a fierce hug. Liara was obviously in pain, but the medical staff had lost a lot of medical equipment when the Batarians had boarded, so whatever they had left had to be used as carefully as possible, never using more than was required, and even then... Lindanya hated seeing the Matriarch's daughter in pain, an Asari she herself had watched grow into once a shy archaeologist, to a major participant in Asari politics, just like her mother.

Lindanya looked at the over crowded med bay, the room was rather long, each side having fifty bed cots, all were in use. There were so many wounded, that every med bay on the ship was over filled, with everyone who had "minor" injuries either in chairs or lying on the floor. The two thousand and four hundred medical staff were overwhelmed with injuries, and did not have the required supplies to save them all.

"We have a week before all those injured, begin to die." The words of medical chief Melina echoed in her mind.

Lindanya walked over to Benezia and placed a friendly hand on her shoulder, Benezia looked up and over her right shoulder, her eyes sparkling with tears. Lindanya flashed Benezia an assuring smile, it was the only thing she could do, she was the captain, the Grand Fleet Mistress of the entire Asari navy, answering solely to Matriarch Atheyta, and she had failed in her duty: protect Benezia, protect Liara.

"Matriarch Benezia, you are needed on the bridge, we should be arriving soon and our scanners have detected... something." Lindanya finally said.

The med bay was filled with loud groans of pain, displeasure and smelt purely of blood and sweat, despite this, Lindanya could hear the thoughts of the Matriarch, and they were not pleasant. These thoughts, however, did not last as centuries of training activated, bringing the worrying mother into a cold, calculating state. Benezia rose from her seat as Liara reached out, as if to grab her for support, she wanted to come to. Gently placing Liara's hand back on the cot, Lindanya realized how weak Liara looked and really was, it mortified her, but didn't let it show.

"Grand Fleet Mistress, please lead the way." Commanded Benezia in a tone that could only be described as cold and distant.

It was a coping mechanism, Lindanya realized, inside Benezia was still dying along with her daughter, it was the connection they shared. Liara was turning into a matron, there was no doubting that as her changing body was proof, but she was still a maiden, still a child, and therefore shared a link with her mother that could only be described as mystical. It was something that each Asari shared with their mother, maidens, who were the most seen Asari, were very sex driven, hence the Asari's reputation. So it was the duty of the mother to ensure each maiden didn't go to far, to ensure that each maiden was not perverted, or misused the meld, stole or erased other people's memories, mind rape, the ultimate crime in Asari society. If the link were broken at a very early stage... the maiden would have to connect with a family member, otherwise these things were sure to happen.

That wouldn't happen to Liara now, of course, it was too late and she had much more control than even many matrons Lindanya knew.

"As you wish, Matriarch."

"This is all your fault, you know that right?" Questioned Star Navigator Thor.

He stared at his fellow Star Navigator, Josh was his name, who was already making his way to the cockpit of the Falcon class interceptor. The interceptor was rather bird like in design, with a pen like body, forward swept wings, jet engines in the tail, and a hover engine in each wing, it sported the golden colour of the Highmark military, with the blue electric circuits flying around the interceptor, they were nanites, ready to fix or improve anything during and out of combat.

"What?" Josh questioned as he slid the orange canopy open "What are you talking about?"

Thor jumped up onto the left wing and began to walk towards the cockpit.

"That were stuck on this pointless recon mission, when those falcon class drones," he indicated to five man sized falcon interceptors as they flew overhead, their hover engines whining and shaking "would be better suited."

"How is this my fault?" Josh asked, flicking his head and brining up the orange visor, Thor did the same as he climbed in too.

"Maybe that whole 'he's day dreaming let's not let him know', remember, when he nearly fell out of his seat." Thor sat down in the navigator chair, behind Josh.

"Don't remind me, that 'talk' we had was awful. Who knew a Human could shout so loud?" Josh adjusted the flight control sensitivity and began to fire up the hover engines. "Total worth it though."

The falcon interceptor began to rise a few metres in the air, as Josh carefully manipulated the controls, swinging itself around ninety degrees to the left, so that they faced the exit hatches of the prong hanger. The maintenance staff, that had been refuelling the interceptor and preparing it for a recon mission, darted off from the now hovering interceptor.

"Deck control, this is the falcon 2-2, third squadron, requesting launch permission." Thor said over the deck control's section of the Battle-Net, then turned off the link so he could respond to Josh "It wasn't worth it! Why did I have to sit through it too?"

Josh looked over his shoulder to look at Thor, a grin on his face, but Thor couldn't see it.

"Because it's your job to let our Centurion know, not mine."

"Yes it i-"

"Falcon 2-2, you are clear for launch." The deck control officer announced over the hanger.

The falcon's tilted wings and the side prongs at the front of the interceptor, instantly straightened, making sounds that reminded Josh of Transformers from those old Earth vids that had been experiencing a major reboot. Pieces of metal, that was retracted into the wings, slid over the hover engines and slid off the jet engines, all in an instant so that the interceptor didn't flop to the ground.

"And were gone!" Josh said as he throttled the interceptor forward.

He easily flew through the containment field, as it didn't stop anything physical from passing through, and made a hard right to avoid hitting the other hanger, that was parallel to the hanger they had just launched from.

"Josh! Slow down!" Thor managed to squeeze out as he felt his insides being squashed.

"Relax Thor," Josh said, he increased the power the inertial dampers to ninety eight percent "better?"

"A little warning next time Josh." Thor scolded "And why don't you put the inertial dampers to a hundred percent?"

As the falcon cleared the duel prongs of the HSV Boston, Josh looked over his shoulder and quickly drew back his head, the military sign of "Are you crazy?"

"Thor, I know you're all girly and such, but don't insult our military girls!" Josh chuckled "Seriously, I've met civilians with more gut than you."

"Well, some of us prefer to live!" It was at that second both of them sounded their age, nineteen, it had been a long time since Thor had let his child side free.

Josh and Thor had been in the Highmark Aerospace Training Academy for the past four years, there the instructors spoke very highly of them. Without a doubt they were the best pilot team in the Highmark, they had past simulations that were simply designed to be impossible. So they had graduated earlier, not the standard five years of training, but only four years, it was all they needed. They were just lucky that the Highmark Specialist Program had found them, an organization made to seek out those who are "special", otherwise they might have been fast food delivery boys instead.

"Then you picked the wrong career choice, my friend."

"Yeah, well, some one has to be crazy enough to watch your back." Thor leaned over and lightly punched Josh's shoulder "Energy banks were at maximum when we left, our slipspace drive has enough energy for seven, maybe eight portals."

Thor had quickly learned the problem with slipspace, it was having enough energy to actually create portals to enter or exit slipspace, as your already in slipspace staying there wasn't a problem. If you couldn't muster the required energy, you'd be stuck in slipspace forever. There was always the chance of someone finding you and helping, but slipspace was so vast it was almost impossible to find anything but a system's location, Highmark sensors were simply not advanced enough, or have the range required, to search the seven dimensions of slipspace.

"Well, we only have two systems to scan, we're good!" Josh declared.

"Okay, we're safely away from the patrol group, entering slipspace in five, four, three, two, one."

The purplish blue portal opened up a few hundred kilometres in front of the falcon, it was tiny when compared to the portals of cruisers, frigates and especially the Fortresses. Soon the falcon entered the portal, at top speed, and the stars of space seemed to loose all power, they just became dark, like a city blackout. It was a rather scary thing, being in the small interceptor, it's front headlights, were the only thing providing any light, and it was useless. What was behind you? To your left and right? Did you see that ghost ship?

Josh shook his head, many on the HSV Boston, in the entire navy, saw or felt these things, the ghosts, the feeling of helplessness in slipspace. What had made this place so dark? So evil? Could it have once been lighter like normal space, but those flames long since extinguished?

"You feel it too, right?" Thor asked, catching Josh be surprise.

"Feel what?"

"The ghosts idiot, the cries for help, the darkness." He explained.

"Yeah, I feel it, I think everyone does. But they can't hurt us, let's just focus on the mission." Josh said with all the strength he could muster.

"Your right, okay, here comes our exit point."

Another slipspace portal opened up, it's light illuminating the near vicinity, and that's when Josh saw it. A ship lay still, perfectly intact and it's size incomprehensible.

"Thor, what's that?" He asked, but it was to late, the falcon exited slipspace and what Josh had seen was quickly replaced by the stars of normal space.

"What was what?" Thor asked, seemingly happy to be out of slipspace.

"Never mind."

Deimos' air smelt of burnt plasma, not that the eleventh platoon could smell it, as their helmets were on, and the surface didn't look any better. In the ground there were perfectly scorched holes, twenty in total, each one having two legionaries trying to squeeze in the support beams for the listening post. The eleventh platoon was the last platoon anyone wanted to be in, it was more a punishment than anything else, as these forty men and women were responsible for the maintenance and construction of any assets their cohort had access to.

They were combat engineers, basically.

"Finally!" Dan announced "We're done!"

Jane's eyes wondered up and down the support beam, the beam was about four feet off the ground, cylindrical in shape, but had a square top. Blue streaks of nanites swirled around the beam, reinforcing its frame and durability, increasing its strength to support weight, and reducing aging of the Highmarkian Alloy. It wouldn't help anyone if it rusted, weakened or snapped only after a few weeks of use.

"All other teams report the beams are successfully in place, shuttles are incoming with the prefabricated buildings." Gamma's Ancilla reported.

The shuttles in question quickly flew over head, the VTOL Condor class shuttle was a design "borrowed" from the video game "Saints Row the Third" or something like that, from a faction called "STAG". It was quite long, around thirty-five metres long as it was a carrier class for buildings and support units, it had a cockpit shaped like a slope with a right angle, then a long strip of golden painted metal, that had a wing on either side, each wing had a hover engine of course, to make it a VTOL, and the jets were at the back of the metal tail, ready to active in seconds. To keep the fabricated building attached to this strip of metal, or tail, there were clamps on either side of the metal, that ran the length of the strip.

Everything that wasn't organic, Jane noted, was always golden in colour, with blue streaks of nanites to reinforce it, be it a ship, transport or even building. This slow moving beast was no exception. The orange canopy reflected the sun light perfectly, hiding whoever was inside, but giving away their position like a spotlight.

"Come on!" Dan shouted at the pilot, who simply hovered a dozen metres above them "I want to get off this rock some time today!"

"Dan, quiet down." Jane slapped him in the back of his dark blue helmet.

"Think we annoyed Dan enough?" The shuttle's Star Navigator pilot asked his Navigator.

"Well, he's shouting, so yeah, I say it's enough." The lower Star Navigator replied, a sly smile hidden behind his orange visor.

"Setting her down." Complied the Star Navigator.

The shuttle slowly descended, the lower class Navigator carefully directed the higher class Navigator, so that the shuttle was correctly aligned with the support beams. It took a little while, as precision was key, but the Navigators eventually landed their building on Dan's support beam, as well as a few others. Dan watched impatiently, as the nanites of the buildings and support beams quickly linked together and connected the beams to the building. The building wasn't complete, Dan and Jane's support beam just helped the lower left section of the base, but that section was huge, thirty metres in width and eighty metres in length, how the shuttle could carry is was beyond him.

"Well, it's long." Dan commented, as he watched more shuttles attach their sections of the buildings to other support beams. "But it also seems that this is more than a simple listening post."

"Agreed." Jane projected a 3D layout of the facility, using her helmet cam.

This was a base of operations, a firebase, that much was obvious. Where Jane and Dan were, was the four support beams they, and six others, had placed, it made up just one section of the base. There were three other sections just like this. It should stop there, but ten metres diagonally across from each corner were buildings marked "defence towers".

"Gamma, Beta, Fox and Omega squad, start moving the crates to their assigned destination and start assembling them." The Elite Legionarie ordered over the planet's Battle-Net "Alpha, Bravo, Charlie and Delta, grab the spare energy shielding units."

"Not the crates." Groaned Dan "Anything but the crates."

"Shake a leg." Ordered Jane as she grabbed the crate Dan had set on earlier "Looks like I'm heading for the armoury, section four."

As Jane ascended the ramp, their Ancilla following her like a lost puppy, Dan glanced over to the more organized piles of crates. As more had come they had worked even harder, organizing everything into rows and stacks.

"Why couldn't I be assigned to the tenth platoon." Dan whispered.

He entered a quick jog to reach the piles first, he wanted to grab the lighter, closer, ones before anyone else could. Dan spotted a crate labelled "MEDI-GEL" and smiled, medi-gel was a medical wonder, while it wasn't needed to be carried in tubes anymore, as everyone's armor had built in medi-gel dispensers, that supply had to come from somewhere. He grabbed the crate and began to walk back to the section his crate was assigned to, the medical section.

"Dan, Dan, Dan," repeated an all to familiar voice "when are you gonna stop actin' like a baby?"

Dan muttered something then turned back to see Gamma two and three, Jacob and a field named Taziu. They were standing there with much larger, much heavier crates, while their faces were hidden he knew that they were laughing at him inwardly. Dan was not the strongest Gamma, to put it mildly, no matter how hard he tried he couldn't develop the bone strength others had, even with the help of machines and gene manipulation, it was simply a curse with no cure. This was something Taziu had no problem in mocking, it was a "I really love you" mock, he knew that, everyone knew that, it was to obvious but Taziu wasn't known for her ability to express emotions.

"At least I don't look like a freak of nature." Dan jabbed, as the three began to walk again.

"At least I don't need Jane to hold my hand like an overgrown baby." She snapped.

"Jacob, you alright?" Dan asked, ignoring Taziu.

He was panting heavily with his crate, now he was seven feet, a giant mass of a Human, and he was struggling to carry a crate no larger than three feet long.

"Yeah, but what the hell is in this crate?" He wondered.

"A.S.D." Taziu muttered, reading the label "What's that?"

"Armoured Support Dog." Dan explained "A robotic dog that is five feet long, but curled up when it's offline. The A.S.D is primarily used for recon, sniping or overwhelming small enemy camps. Like all support craft slash units, it is equipped with an energy shielding unit and duel B-26 submachine gun, "Hurricane" class, on either side of the jaw. The A.S.D was first developed in the twenty first century by the U.S. military, to combat the second Iraq war, since then it had been redesigned countless times."

Taziu and Jacob both stopped and looked at him, Dan turned around.

"What?" He asked.

"You know this how, babe?" Taziu asked.

"I read the manual." Dan replied.

"There's a manual on A.S.D?" Jacob asked.

"There's a manual on everything, it's called a CODEX."

Satisfied with their answer, the three began to move again, nearing the medical section Dan finally realized something.

"Babe, huh?"

CODEX:

Highmark Ship classes:

Note: Each ship is coated with nanites, these nanites actively repair any and all damage to a ship, minimizing any damage as much as possible.

The Corvette is a small starship, forty metres long, designed to solely scan, scout and destroy enemy air or space support craft. Unlike the rest of Highmark ships, the corvette is more pen like in design, but still maintains the gold and blue of Highmark built starships. They are not equipped with energy shields, and are piloted, and crewed, by combat VIs, as Ancillas are to important to loose on a daily basis. Each corvette is armed with mines, EMPs, mining lasers, advanced scanners and twenty six point defence missile tubes. Due its tiny size, every starship with fabricators is able to build their own corvettes as a add on to their fleet. (Unknown number)

Next is the frigate class, a starship that measures at five hundred metres in length, and are designed for fleet screening, patrol and stealth operations. Like all other starships of equal or greater weight, the frigate has a diamond shaped body with two long, forward, prongs, acting as gun emplacements, hangers and storage facilities. Still maintaining the Highmark gold and blue, frigates often work alone or in groups of four or nine (patrol group). Each frigate has two layers of energy shields, a total of four hundred crew, an Ancilla, two normal fabricators, two Sentinel fabricators, and a minimal of ten point defence missile tubes on each side, along with two torpedo tubes on each side, and two frontal rail guns, each reaching a speed of one percent of the speed of light and hitting with a destructive force of thirty kilotons. As with all starships, the frigate has EMPs, mines, advanced scanners and energy banks. (480 frigates per fleet)

The Battle-Cruiser class is the grunt of any fleet, the starship is seven hundred and fifty metres long and are simply designed to fight other naval vessels. With the gold and blue of the Highmark, battle-cruisers often work in teams of ten and, unless in combat, remain with the Fleet Commander. Each battle-cruiser class has four layers of energy shielding, a total of six hundred crew, an Ancilla, four fabricators, three Sentinel fabricators, twenty five missile tubes on either side of the prongs, twelve torpedo tubes on either side, and a rail gun that runs the length of the ship and splits up at each prong, firing out of the end of each, it travels one point four percent the speed of light and can hit with a total of fifty kilotons. (600 battle-cruisers per fleet)

The Cruiser class starship is a whopping one kilometre in length, they are the leaders of the frigates, designed to operate as patrol group leaders, transport and escort. Also in the gold and blue of the Highmark, cruisers tend to operate in groups of three or alone with eight other frigates. Each cruiser has six layers of energy shielding, a thousand crew members, a platoon of legionaries, usually the eleventh when on deep space patrols, dozens of monitor class Ancillas, one squadron of interceptors, one squadron of bombers, numerous variants of shuttles and ground vehicles, eight fabricators, six Sentinel fabricators, thirty missile tubes on either side, ten torpedo tubes in each side, and two main rail guns, reaching one point two the speed of light and hitting with forty kilotons kilotons. (60 cruisers per fleet)

The Destroyer class starship is one of the most deadly, most strictly used starships in the Highmark navy. Two kilometres in length, the Destroyer is designed to level entire planets or fleets and act as a flagship for sub fleets, they are always in reserve and held back with the Fleet Commander. Gold and red, instead of blue, the Destroyers operate alone, with hundreds of enlarged Sentinels as escort, manufactured by the ship itself. Each Destroyer has ten energy shielding layers, two thousand crew, four monitor class Ancillas, four squadrons of interceptors, four squadrons of bombers, twelve fabricators, twelve Sentinel fabricators, fifty missile tubes on either side, twenty five torpedo tubes on each side, and two main rail guns, reaching one point six percent the speed of light, hitting with sixty five kilotons each. (6 per fleet)

The Carrier class starship is considered the most friendly out of the top three classes of Highmark starships, at two kilometres in length, they are designed to carry entire wings, legions and everything required to conquer a system. Operating in groups of three, each one has swarms of Sentinels as an escort, that they manufactured, they maintain the standard gold, but have green nanites. Each Carrier group is far more active than any other Destroyer group or Fortress group. Carriers are completely unarmed, relying on its Sentinel escorts for protection. Each Carrier has twelve energy shielding layers, three thousand crew, hundreds of Ancillas, five wings of interceptors, five wings of bombers, various shuttles, ground vehicles, support craft, twenty four fabricators, twenty four Sentinel fabricators and at least a legion. (12 per fleet)

The Fortress class starship, considered a necessary abomination amongst Humanity, is considered the deadliest starship ever created, measuring at five kilometres in length, the starship is painted golden with orange nanites. Considered a combination of the Destroyer and Carrier, the Fortress starship is meant to destroy fleets and completely destroy an entire planet, as well as act as an invasion platform. With an escort of thousands of all types of Sentinels, this beast is impenetrable. Each Fortress starship has a total of twenty five energy shielding layers, nine thousand crew, hundreds of Ancillas, one Hyper class Ancilla, ten wings of interceptors, ten wings of bombers, numerous shuttles, ground vehicles, support craft, forty fabricators, fifty Sentinel fabricators and at least two legions. In terms of firepower, on either side of the prong are a hundred missile tubes, fifty torpedo tubes on each side and a prototype particle beam in each prong, reaching the speed of two gigajoules.

Energy Technologies:

Energy shielding units: infantry grade energy shields, powered and controlled by a cylinder tube, is located in the hump of the armor. It is capable of sustaining itself for twenty seconds of constant fire, before failing, acid or any other type of non bullet weaponry has unknown durability, as newer, even cheaper models become available, energy shielding units are expected to witness a rapid increase in effectiveness and use, within the century. Be warned, each unit must be maintained and the cooling device always active, if it fails, remove the unit immediately as the power source [Classified by orders of the Highmark] will overheat and reach burning levels that match plasma.

Energy shielding layers: shielding plates around the ship, each layer has three stages of failing, the green stage, at full strength, the orange stage, at mid strength, and the red stage, about to collapse. Each layer is made up of tightly packed octagon shaped shields, each octagon shield can sustain thirty five kilotons of ordnance before failing. Destroying just one shield of the layer does not bring everything down, but does leave a noticeable hole in the ship's defences.

Energy banks: twenty percent of the Trinity Antimatter Reactor sends it energy into these storage banks, so when shields need more energy, or a back up energy source is required, they can feed off the banks and not disrupt the activities of the Trinity Reactor. In theory, when the energy banks are full it could take of the main two tasks of a Reactor, powering the engines and shields for month.

Authors note: Sorry it took so long to get this out! I've been quite busy as I said in the last chapter, I hope you enjoyed the chapter and remember: you only live once.