3 Great Armies.

One War.

Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars or Halo.

The Venator and Acclamator touched down in time to see the last life pod smash into the sand on the beach. Well, 'touched down' aren't really the words that should be used – how about 'crashing into the water at tremendous speeds and rendering thousands of sea animals lifeless'? That's better.

The ships were instantly met with plasma fire coming from the beach, and so were the life pods, and clones scattered along the beach, digging themselves in or running towards the small building that occupied only a tiny amount of the sand. Over the other side, opposite the building, was a highway tunnel – which wasn't like the rest: enclosed and running through a protective wall – that lasted for about 20 metres and had been blown out by an explosion. The rubble scattered around it provided cover for the aliens there, and there was a small anti-gravity powered sniper tower, which had a grav lift leading up to it.

Xan saw all this from his position on the bridge of the Hellmor, and he turned around, walking down the ramp, hearing the message over the ship's speakers:

"All personnel: make your way to your fighters, submersibles, or the exit ramp, prepare to abandon ship!"

Xan stepped past all the clones, and he heard the ARC-170's and LAAT's launching.

"This is 325," he said into the comm to one of the Alpha pilots.

"Save one gunship, and make ready for 3 passengers, including me."

"Yes, sir!"

He finally made it to the med labs, and he saw Hawkins and Blay lying down on beds next to each other.

"You two alright?" he asked them.

"Never been better!" Blay coughed.

"Whoop-de-fucking-do explains my mood perfectly!" Hawkins agreed, jokingly.

Xan grinned at their resilience to the bacta's effect on their body – it makes the receiver drowsy and in a lot of pain, and this is after they are knocked out.

"All right, we're under attack-"

"As usual…"

"-by a group of aliens that we've never encountered before. These ones use plasma, and now we're stranded on some planet that's a mix between Kamino, Geonosis, Felucia, and who knows how many others."

"Great," Hawkins and Blay said in unison.

"And we need to get you two out of here, as well as any other wounded. So do you think you two are ready for combat?"

"What do you think?"

"Let's roll!"

Xan was proud of them. Hawkins had been shot dead in the middle of his chest, screwing up his suit's life support systems, and playing hell on him. Blay had suffered a 'helluva' lot of pain, and he was still as fit as a Bantha, ready for anything.

They both stood up, Blay more slowly than Hawkins, and grabbed their weapons – Xan grabbed his custom sniper/blaster rifle, Hawkins grabbed his blaster rifle and Detpack's, and Blay grabbed his rocket launcher and Blaster rifle. And they all grabbed some pistols and Thermal Detonators. They took one of the teleporter's to the hangar to save time, and pain, and hopped on board the gunship waiting for them, which lifted off straight away.

They flew out of the ship and towards the beach, where they could see lasers and plasma flying back and forth. ARC-170's were strafing the alien positions with their main cannons, and managed to take down a few, but the enemy – whatever they were – was well positioned.

"Land some sniper's on the top of that highway tunnel," Xan said into the comm.

"I want those hostiles taken down!"

A chorus of 'Yes, sir's came back through the comm, and he could see some of the LAAT's making their way over to the roof of it. The LAAT, along with a few others, landed behind the building, and Xan, Hawkins and Blay leapt off to face a saluting Sergeant.

"They got us as soon as we got out of the pods," he said, and Xan could see a plasma wound in his side.

"We did, however, find some form of a rocket launcher in the bottom area of this 2 level 'base'."

"Good."

They walked up a ramp to the roof of the building, which held a number of weapons that held projectiles. He could hear the screams of the clones and aliens out on the beach, and then he saw an AT-TE drop from the back of a carrier gunship, and immediately open fire on the enemy position.

The first explosion took out a number of the aliens, and the turret on the top fired as well. The floating sniper tower was hit by 2 of the lasers, and it toppled down, landing amongst the rubble.

"Send the order to storm that area," Xan said.

"And make sure that the snipers keep up the fire; but call off the ARC-170's – land them anywhere within 100 metres of this outpost."

"Yes, sir!"

Axton charged into the room and let rip with a burst from his SMG, taking out a Grunt when the bullets entered its head. Ryan was right behind him, and he fired his Battle rifle at the Elite in the room, and it fired at Quanse, who was crouching in the doorway. When all 3 of them concentrated their fire towards it, the Elite fell to the floor, writhing and screaming. Axton kicked it in the head and fired a burst through its chest, and then they ran back out through the door and into the stairwell. They ran up the stairs and came to the next level, and Axton burst through the door, firing. McCabe, who was in the room turned around and brought her Battle rifle in front of her face, which caught 4 rounds, rendering it useless.

"Sorry," Axton said.

"Silverman's down." She said, limping into the bathroom to show them.

They followed her, and Quanse got out some biofoam.

"I've already given him some," McCabe said.

"Then we'll have to evac you both," Axton said, looking at both of their wounds, and keying the COM.
"Sarge, this is Axton. McCabe and Silverman are badly wounded, and need immediate evac, over."

"Roger that, Axton," the Sarge said.

"Evac is already on the way – some others got hit too – about 5 more minutes."

"Yes, Sir!"

Axton and Ryan picked Silverman up, while Quanse helped McCabe limp out of the room and down the stairs. They came out the front door of the building, and they saw ODST's running around, setting up turrets and mines at choke points, and a Warthog drove past, with marines in all of the seats, and the turret aiming behind them at an enemy that might reveal themselves. Every now and then they could hear gunfire from the other buildings, and they knew that most of the buildings in this street were secure, or close to it. Axton, Quanse and Ryan took McCabe and Silverman to the nearest medical station, and they were placed onto stretchers. There was a roar, and a Pelican touched down on the ground, and reinforcements jumped off.

Silverman, McCabe and a number of other wounded ODST's were lifted onto the Pelican, and it rose into the air, leaving the rest of the ODST's behind.

Silverman was looking out the back of the Pelican, and soon he saw the city shrink, and he saw something in the water at the beach, near the bridge that led to New Mombassa.

"What's that?" he managed to mumble to himself before he coughed up some biofoam.

His vision darkened, and after a minute he blacked out.

Hawkins led a strike force of 10 clones into the rubble, but after sending 5 to scout out the beginning of the tunnel, he was left with 6, including himself. He stood at the edge of the rubble formation, and scanned the area with his eyes.

His eyes slashed right and fixed onto something with such a glare that it could penetrate a Venator's hull. His DC-15 snapped up and fired a single laser, and it smashed into the head of a small alien, which grunted and squealed as it toppled into the sand. One of the clones finished him off, and Hawkins rounded a rock with his Blaster rifle at the ready.

A mistake.

A blue alien, about the same size as him, stood at the ready, and it had 4 mandibles as a mouth, which twisted as it snarled at him. He roared and squeezed the trigger, getting the alien with 2 lasers, but they seemed to decapitate against some sort of shield which surrounded it.

The alien smashed Hawkins' rifle aside, and delivered an uppercut to the bottom of his helmet, sending Hawkins flying backwards. He skidded across the sand, and the clones dived for cover as the alien rounded the rock, filling the air with blue plasma that came from a blue 'claw' held in its right hand.

One clone was caught in the fire, and spun to the right, falling to the ground with his gun going off, screaming. Hawkins watched the alien approach him and raise the claw without hesitation.

Boom!

The single sniper shot penetrated the alien's shields, armour and head twice as it entered, exited, and smashed into the sand a centimetre from Hawkins' head.

"You trying to kill it or me?" Hawkins asked Xan over the comm as Xan looked around for any more stragglers.

He laughed from his position on the roof of the outer wall that protected the intact part of the highway tunnel.

"Doesn't matter," he said in reply.

"I got what I came for anyway – a chance to get a kill and scare the shit out of you!"

Hawkins rinsed the last of the purple blood off his armour and approached Xan, who had Blay go with Alpha in the highway tunnel. They were standing out the front of their command post.

"So," Hawkins said.

"You weren't trying to hit me, eh?"

"Who's to say I wasn-"

There conversation was cut off as Blay's voice entered the channel.

"Xan! Their eve-. Lost som- lot's of hostiles- oming out now!"

There was an explosion which originated from the highway tunnel, and every clone on the beach turned to look as an IFT-X tank came screaming out, followed closely by two purple hover crafts. The two hovercrafts spat out blue plasma from twin plasma cannons on the front at a rapid rate, and seated behind the large bulb at the front on each, looking over it was a red alien – exactly the same as the blue ones, just a different colour.

The IFT-X took hits from the two hovercrafts, and plates either melted or fell off the tank. The clone in the turret was firing at them with the tank's particle laser, and sand around the hovercrafts was kicked up. A clone sat on the left wing of the hover-tank, and he held a rocket launcher, which then shot a blue rocket at the closest hovercraft.

The rocket swayed back and forth, then zero-ed in on the hovercraft, smashing into one of its wings. The wing was obliterated, whilst the rest of the craft was thrown off to the side. The alien was torn out of its seat and thrown into the air, along with the pieces of the hovercraft that had come loose. The second hovercraft zoomed around the wreckage, and through the smoke that was coming from the bits and pieces of the hovercraft.

The alien inside fired a continuous stream of plasma at the IFT-X, which was chased into the water, and they hit the right-hand engine. There was an explosion which caused the engine to belch out thick, black smoke, and send flames above the surface of the water. The hovercraft followed onto the water, hovering above it, delivering more plasma to the damaged engine. There was another, muffled, explosion, and flames broke through the surface of the tank's armour.

The IFT-X slowed down, and finally stopped, the front of it pitching forwards and going into the water.

That was when the screaming began.

Xan heard them before he saw them – enemy flyers.

5 of them emerged from around the corner, flying above the clones, who were scrambling to get some ARC troopers out of wherever they were.

They looked odd – a bulbous front, two wings with anti-gravity pods on the side, and the top was actually a door, and the person inside would lie down, as they found out when one blue alien was sniped out of its. The armour was all purple – what is it with them and purple?! Damn!

3 more rounded the corner, leaving them with 7 to deal with.

"Take em' down!" Xan roared, raising his Blaster rifle and firing at the closest one.

Scorp stood on the bridge of his Venator, looking over the battlefield that consisted of rubble, rubble and more rubble. It had been 10 minutes, according to the ship's time since they had dealt with the enemy ship that Xan had left them.

An enemy ship which was now an assortment of floating parts.

They had tried to track Xan, but he had not gone to any galaxy in the entire universe.

"Sir," a clone said from behind him.

He turned to face the Lieutenant.

"Yes?" he growled – something that was becoming part of his nature.

"Sir, we have retrieved the last of the scavengers. Turns out that 'Xan' had taken everything worthwhile. Except, for this." He held up a purple crystal.

Or to be more precise, half of a purple crystal.

Scorp took it, examined it, and then handed it back to the clone.

"Feed this into the scanner memory, under 'known space', and then search for Xan."

"But sir, what makes you think that we're going to be able to find Xan now?"

Although no one could see, Scorp smiled.

"When one is in space, but cannot be found – they are neither left nor right."

"Sir? I don't understand."

"Lieutenant when someone is not left or right, where are the only other places to look?"

The Lieutenant couldn't answer, so Scorp did it for him.

"Back or forward."

A/N: OMFG! Sorry this one took so fucking long, but I had all these assignments, what with it being last week of school and all. But when school finished, I wasn't in the mood. Oh well. Here it is!

And soon I will be putting a redo of my 'Halo 3: Earth's Final stand', so stop by.