John-117

UNSC Cargo Freighter Nabal

July 4th, 2525

"Blue Team, status." The towering size of the armored Spartan spoke within the inner halls of the Commercial Freighter. Much had been known about John as he took quick stock of the number of entry points that an intruding force would use to breach the ship's hull. Even the multi-layered casing that the freighter model held would not be enough with the history over how Harvest's initial engagement went with an unknown hostile faction encountered by a couple of UNSC ONI operatives.

With how well the war had shifted in their favor, John would have expected this to be a training operation. Yet, without the guiding hand of a specialist, the advise of Halsey, and the lack of details before an operation; John was not all too happy with being fed high-risk missions without the filler. Wiping out entire URF regiments and tasked on the hunt for Harper Garvin had done nothing for the Spartan except keep the young man on the lookout for his team and fellow Spartan companions.

"Fred-104 in position." Fred replied in communication. His combat knives were swiftly tightened in place and his shotgun was mag-locked onto his back. The armored tactician stood nearby the black box of the ship and waited for John to give the word when everything was settled into place.

"Kelly-087 in position." Kelly spoke in the comms. She was prepped in her ambush sites and chokepoints in the ship. No corner was left unchecked, and no spot was left uncovered. Whatever enemy they were going to expect, she would not go in blind. John's word was final, a lasting reminder before she hauled herself for the team.

"Linda-058 in position." Linda whispered. She was ready in finding the quick and easy spots of the ship that allowed her to maximize her sniper rifle's effectiveness. Nothing would escape her sight, even as Linda mocked with a shotgun in her hands.

"Samuel-034 in position." The tall and strong Spartan spoke as he stood beside the Chief. He was the most prepared and ready out of the entire team except John himself. Nothing stopped the young man from taking his place within the confines of their team. They were here for a mission that ranked higher than the URF itself.

On the motion trackers inside John's vision, he would soon see the pings of fifty remote devices on the network responding to the status report.

"Those robots give me the creeps." Sam commented, looking at the metallic humanoid figures. They were definitely robots by design, combat robots by default. The size of the combat unit was humanoid by figure, height, and capacity. Similar architecture configurations listed their overall looks to be very similar to ODST's, with prototype rifles to boot their use in combat. These rifles were listed as 'Battle Rifles' by comparison, a use Blue Team may find in this mission.

John merely looked to the side and darted a glance at three of the nearby robotic metallic containers on the other side of the hallway. He could see the combat robots were simply awaiting sensor readings to turn on and engage with what they were tasked to complete. Something about this mission felt off and the rest of Blue Team knew it. There was so much information that would provide mission critical objectives… and all that John was given was to wait in the cargo freighter and prepare for boarding.

Boarding by what, he would soon find out.

In that moment, a thud would rock the Spartans where they stood as something shocked the deck. In seconds, however, the ship hit a round and the ship's systems powered off completely. It was as if the reactor was hit with a deactivation command by its rapid breakdown. Following the shut down of many systems, John would turn on his helmet's VISOR and speak within the comms.

"Blue Team, prepare for boarders, activate mag boots." He ordered. The acknowledgment flickers in his motion tracker pinged Blue Team's response. Due to the possibility that the hostile force was most likely prepared for small arms fire, John locked his weapon and prepared for enemy activity.

It was what came next that surprised John. The moment when the lights went out and the reactor deactivated, the combat robots started to activate all throughout the ship. He could see the friendly movement in his motion tracker gathering into several blobs of animatronic sounds clanking in the metallic floors a distance away. It was as if the ship's power going out activated them.

However, John didn't have a moment to realize this fundamental truth when the bay doors latched onto something. In moments, there was a spark in the middle of the hatch that leaked molten plasma and began to spread to the horizontal section of the panel. Seeing this, John silently motioned Sam and Fred to back up before the door opened.

This move proved to be a valid option when the bay door violently blew open in a splash of plasma, smoke, and bent metal all over the frontal entrance to the docking platform. What came out from the hole were lanky, bulky, and masked creatures that hissed into the moldy entrance. John took a second to observe the strange creatures emerging from the entrance, before he aimed his MA5D Assault Rifle and unloaded on the creatures.

From his vantage point, five of the orange armored bulky cretins fell to the ground with a pool of puffy cyan blood oozing onto the floor. When the initial assault was completed, five of the combat robots rushed to the entrance with raised rifles at the opening. In a split second, the combat units rushed through the entrance at breakneck speeds in order to cross the bridge that connected to the alien construct.

"Blue Team, follow the robots. Treat anything not human as hostile. Kelly, you take the rear. Linda, you're looking after the robots. Fred, cover corners. Sam, you're with me." John ordered, soon taking up the mantle and pushed past the dead mounds of corpses and started moving forward into the bridge. The alien connectors that brushed into the freighter looked slick, smooth, and violet in coloration. Glows of alien symbols and dim lighting only caused the Spartan to further document the environment with his cam recorder before pressing ahead.

Crossing the entrance into the alien vessel, John soon heard the crack of gunfire as the combat units pinpointed enemy movement and dropped even uglier creatures onto the ground. He could very well see that these creatures were reptile in nature and held energy gauntlets on their arms. The items they dropped were very much a curiosity, but with the motion tracker detecting a scrambling of dozens of rapidly moving targets, John looked to the three possible hallways and motioned to his team to move forward.

However, when he looked into the tunnel, not only were his team behind him; but there was a mass of the combat units backing their rear. It seemed all fifty of the combat robots were gathered together for one mission. And it very much clicked inside Chief's mind the second it came to him:

Capture the alien vessel for ONI experimentation.

Due to the quick reaction to the situation at hand, Chief pointed to Kelly, motioning her to cover this entrance. He soon looked to Fred and motioned him to take the center, Sam with Linda to take the right, and himself to the left. It was at that moment, he looked at one of the combat robots and spoke into the comms.

"Split into separate groups, cover more ground and kill anything not human." Chief ordered, holstering his rifle and aiming it directly into his hall. Five of the combat units followed Chief's orders and moved ahead of the Spartan with raised rifles. At this, more of the strange creatures popped off from the corners of the distant halls and the combat units took out the reptiles and the scrawny bulky creatures with short bursts from their rifles. One burst to the head took them out swiftly, hitting the gauntlet and then a final burst to the head.

"Linda will be upset with their accuracy on this mission." John thought to himself as he would begin making his trek forward through the halls with five combat units to the front and five to the back. With the precision of their numbers and ability to scan for potential hostile activity, taking out the non-shielded hostiles were simple to wipe from the field.

Time to capture a ship.

Patrick Weller

Circinius IV, New Peragus

July 5th, 2525

Owning a company was a dream Patrick never dreamed he would have the opportunity of having. It was unfathomable over how quick The UNSC went to breaking several laws of robotic law when the company was contracted to produce security forces designed to protect military assets. Knowing the state of the colony, it was a clever excuse to send fifteen hundred of his armed robots to be deployed all over the planet. Since he was starting from only his apartment building, Patrick was forced to move to the low-end side of the city, hire a large cheap labor force, and buy countless properties to effectively perform the services he needed.

In a swift weekend, Patrick never knew how successful everything was going to become when his company turned from a shady production plant on 5th Ave to practically owning an entire city by the end of the second week. With a robotic army produced by 3-d technology made overnight, control of the city shifted instantly when the influence of the URF was snuffed out in quick and ruthless raids throughout the territory. Dens of these criminal and terrorist elemets were all cleansed in a rapid pace, proving their worth in mere reports of combat data and immense results.

Patrick never would have imagined in his comprehension that he would become the owner of an entire Mega Corporation that would be expanding to three separate systems in the Outer Colonies because of these results. Since the immense success of his worth, the company would now be called Atlas the moment they were recognized as a Mega Corporation. Masterfully placed, Atlas would produce the basic and easy infantry fighters into the field of any combat encounter. Passing the test of utilizing minor fragments of AI to perform basic functions without safety issues was a test he never expected in passing.

He was happy that at least his new staff were able to take on the hurdles of managing the production cycles that demanded unimaginable work orders made by The UNSC. One project that had gone successfully was the full implementation of the Mobile Shipyard project in orbit. One of the first of its design, the massive undertaking of fifteen planetside factories on overload production and an entire colony's use of robotic manpower made the last couple of months insane for the owner of the Mega Corp.

Yet, there was one main reason why Atlas was able to perform the way it did. In the evaluation reports, the mega corporation had initiatives to improve the quality of life for its consumers and its employees with little cost to their daily lives. Healthcare insurance was provided by the company and their outsourcing technology solutions programs ensured that third-party vendors were capable of developing new technologies to tackle the medical issues of the future. There were matters of agriculture that had been positively influenced by how Atlas came and provided immense assistance to the overall industry as a whole. In Patrick's suspicions, he assumed that there was an AI behind these quality of productions for the populations.

In the end, all Patrick could do was reap the rewards for seeing his inventions produced and sent out into the colonies to hopefully provide a better quality of life than what the Insurrection had sparked. He had his doubts that his inventions would be capable of turning into death machines, however, he had developed his machines to pacify a target first before committing a lethal blow.

With Madrigal, Algolis, Alpha Corvi, and Arcadia being the next transit point, the Mobile Shipyard Craftworld would be deployed to several mining missions before consolidating a few production fleets into the planets for quality-of-life improvements and resource allocation missions. Everything about this was in reference to their own company missions the UNSC approved of by Vice Admiral Stanforth.

These approvals and talks with UNSC HIGHCOM and a few of ONI's more public branches have made the young man nervous in his Corporate office, but with how his operations have been playing out; none of the universe seemed to care if he was the worker he wanted to be or the owner he actually was. By seeing how the people of the colony were changing and adapting to the new technologies introduced to them, all he hoped for them was to not be too involved with the innovations at play.

However, while looking into the nearest Cyber Implants developed by the medical wing of the corporation; he would receive a message from his comms beacon. He would let the signal go on as he looked at the results of this device and many others. The implant he observed was surgical and meant for users getting more implants. Not only could the user have muscle-enhancers and advanced weapons at their side, but there was the sense that this new implant could bring the user to move at incredible speeds.

His thoughts would be interrupted when the holographic image of an AI came out.

"Orders from your benefactors: Begin the creation of space evacuation stations." The AI would speak, before shutting off.

Patrick, hearing such a swift, immediate, and very intrusive command uttered to him, the young man sighed and started to close his windows. It was rare to receive a request like that on the fly, and especially without warning.

Whatever was going on… it must be big.

In the months that preceded Griffin's tenure into the Imperial position as Advisor to the empress, the time of action had come for him. Through the all-seeing eyes of House Starlight, Griffin had consulted with its shaman to prepare the other houses for the great conflicts ahead. Under the suspicion of Griffin's insight, the shaman questioned his ability to guide. With the word of Augustine, the shaman stepped down from her arguments as she would reveal her position and her house to both Imperial and Noble bodies.

Under his tutelage, Griffin would begin the process of mobilizing the races of the Solarian people to prepare for the wars ahead. He had not come to rule them as Augustine had done, but with his encounters with the owls, he would meet the eagles, the ravens, crows, falcons, hawks, the phoenixes, and the gryphons. All had assumed a humanoid form such as Augustine and the owls of the houses, but their specializations had many trials to bring.

By his insights, each race had a purpose to fulfill, and the greatest challenge was to get them ready before The Covenant came. He could not think about when, but he knew that they did not have much time; especially when a new civilization was coming into birth with new races to be involved in them. Time had become his enemy and he needed to bring the races together.

But how?

"Griffin, I swear, you have a problem." Augustine grunted as she ferried the last parts of an engine compartment into the Interceptor Fighter that the young man had assembled. In a large hangar bay, the advisor had taken the area as his own personal workstation. She had seen the young man shift from being the self-contained person of the academy into the worker of technology and weapons, a master of arms in the practice of war.

"Remember Augustine, there is much work that needs to be done to protect the innocent lives of your people and mine." Griffin retorted as he would pop off from the assembly mechanism and begin welding the parts together with the mobile MIG handler. With light covers and proper protection, the ship that was being designed was fully complete in implementation. There was no space for error as when Griffin finished his design, the Atlas Combat Drones would activate and triple check his work.

"From a small workstation, not a Hangar filled with prototype Fighters and two Frigates," the avian female retorted, soon pointing to a bulky Two-hundred-and-seventy-foot Assault Frigate and a smaller Frigate with a long pulsing front to it. "Three months of consistent building has to stop somewhere." Empress Augustine continued, with Griffin climbing down a metallic ladder to look at the tall avian female.

"This helps me find a way to get the houses together." He parsed, struggling to think about the looming problems ahead.

"I can see your struggle, Griffin. And there will be time to take the mantle and bring them together in your vision. You can convince them, speak to them; it doesn't take much to rally them." Augustine replied, turning from her place in the engine assortment and headed directly to him. She walked to the young man and bent down, looking him straight in the eye from her vantage point. "But you must not strain yourself, or you may jeopardize yourself."

"There is so much that needs to be done." Griffin exclaimed.

"Not at the expense of yourself." Augustine replied. Soon standing up and looking down upon him from her angle.

"That's easy for you to say." Griffin retorted.

"Oh really? Since when did you last commune with your voice in the mind?" Augustine asked.

"She's got you there," Forthencho replied. He would soon appear nearby an open space a distance away, crossing his arms.

"Not now Forthencho." Griffin implied, not even trying to look at him.

"Don't try to deny him either, Griffin." Augustine smirked from the sidelines, pointing directly to Forthencho before turning around and walking away. "I will leave it up to you, old man. Please help him see that he doesn't have to do this alone."

Forthencho would look at the avian who was nearly his height, nodding to her on the way out. "It looks like she has some familiarity with our presence at this point." The ancient human pointed out, soon turning to the young man. "Yet, your desire to save everyone is coming at a steep price."

"Okay Lord of Admirals, please tell me why I should wait?" Griffin asked, soon turning to begin working on another project. "Because it seems that the world might be glassed in a few months or on schedule… but waiting does not halt the enemy advance."

"You should rest and conserve your energy young one, not rush and harry yourself to death." Forthencho pointed out.

"I can't!" Griffin roared in reply, nearly crushing the screwdriver he was using to tighten a bolt. "I simply can't." He repeated, looking at Forthencho.

"You're afraid, aren't you?" Forthencho asked.

"Oh, when did I start?" He asked in reply.

"Since you have been using time as a mechanism for your concentration, and desperation as a result of it. You fear The Covenant and… failing everyone in the end." Forthencho started.

"I am afraid. And the burden has been overwhelming." Griffin admitted, now looking to Forthencho.

"You do not need to face it alone." Forthencho replied.

"How? I cannot convince the Solarians to unify with my word alone." Implied the male.

"Let me show you…" Forthencho smiled and waited for Griffin's answer…

Time to unify another race.

Deep within the chasms of the collective consciousness of the shamans, of Augustine, and Griffin himself; there was an essence that sang within the minds of the powerful telepathic lords of the mind. Much was sensed and allured the Empress and awakened Griffin to the mental image the voices presented. They were soothing, alluring, and calm to the touch of what mental presence this essence brought. By being aware of its calling, The Empress and Griffin would appear before the collective consciousness of The Solarian Houses of Twilight, Starlight, Dusk, and Dawn to prepare for an astrological pilgrimage to the voices within.

In the completion of many rituals conducted by the Solarian houses of the stars, Griffin would telepathically take the shape of a white-feathered owl with the noble robes of a king. This was him in their realm, one of them, a ruler and guide to the path. Empress Augustine took her shape as an armored ruler and moved beside Griffin in a respective pose along the roads to the mental journey.

"You look more appealing," Augustine smirked from his side as she looked him up and down.

"Oh, you would love it if I turned into your plaything." Griffin retorted, chuckling at her pinpoints.

"In this realm of the mind, I could very well show you what I think of such things." Augustine under implication before turning to the path ahead of them, where the songs would lead them ahead of the path they were displayed to see. "Yet we have to see what lies before us, could very well be a new race."

"Indeed, it could very well be." Griffin chuckled before he would help her take the passage to the voices that sung in the distance. No matter what the imprint was, if the songs could reach them, Griffin could very well find them.

In a dark void of the mind, Augustine and Griffin would see something familiar from the memories of Griffin's past. He could see the pair of tentacles hanging over the crest of the insectoid's body like a half-grained circle over its chitin scales. Blue bioluminescent marks trailed its slick and dark frame, with six legs, a pair of arms, and a long head slicking over the base of its large and wide interior frame. Through Augustine's trained mind, it was easy to discover what was the cause of the tunes:

Rachni.

Here, the two avians investigated the forms of five Rachni Queens, large and imposing from the distance… with thousands of voices singing a tune to rhyme with the mental chorus of the motherly queens that joined them. It was beautiful, harmonious, and resonated the soothing notes of mothers cradling their children into beds.

The second Augustine and Griffin were sensed by the five mothers within their domain…

Three of the four queens vanished and only one queen was there before the two interlopers. In a response to the presence of the avians, the queen sung a tune to the Empress and the guide. By the mental translations of meaning, language, and time, Griffin was able to decipher the essence of The Queen's notes and speak in reply.

"I am Griffin Phoenix, this is Empress Augustine of The Solarian Empire. We have heard your songs and come to join the chorus." Griffin spoke to the queen, even as Augustine could not understand the tunes the queen played.

"What is… The Rachni saying?" Augustine asked, hearing the tune of the Rachni Queen.

"She does not know what we are, she is confused as to what we are. There is fear here, and we have disturbed their tune." Griffin implied, looking to the Queen who was looking very much flickered and agitated. "The Queen is… concerned by how she is alive, there is much confusion in her voice and she seeks to protect her children like every mother does." Griffin spoke in turn.

"Indeed, well, offer her that she will never be harmed by The Solarians. Her kind is welcomed among the mountains of Caliban." Augustine proclaimed, with Griffin bowing his head; with The Queen trilling a response.

"She has heard your request and she considered this acceptable. I will seek to educate our Queen of the dangers of what we will face… and bring the truth of our situation to her well." Griffin nodded, letting Augustine turn head and return to her people. "And please let our people know how to prepare the AI for the matters of The Rachni."

Another chapter complete!

Honestly, I really do apologize if my posts have been taking longer. Finals Week and Final Lab assignments have been the most difficult stressor in any University students life. Now that they are over, I have passed my courses, completed another Internship, and am one semester away from graduation!

With that being said, to take the elephant out of the room; today marks my 27th birthday! As a gift to you all, the first stages of The Human-Covenant war are now beginning to come into the sphere of the Series and the first combat phase including Master Chief and Blue team will begin! Now, I know that the beginning of this chapter there wasn't too much details given about Master Chief as a Hyper-Lethal vector yet, but with time, the Master Chief will get to that vector.

However, while we are on the subject of plot points, I hope that some of you Cyberpunk fans will get some of the references hinted in this chapter, as I hope the Mass Effect fans don't crucify me too hard for not including more of The Rachni and Homeworld fans don't go too hard into the ship designs of this story. They all will play a large role in this story for sure, but with the onset of robotics, an Empire, and plans for safeguarding the future; many plans must come together.

Speaking of which, considering I have passed my exams, got healthcare insurance, and it is my 27th birthday, I'm going to throw in a momento in this story for me. Since I have started to really get into World of Warcraft again with the Dragonflight expansion (Shadowcatch at the server of Najatar btw, Evoker Devastator); I am making a move to complete the final pedestal of races in threes.

Cue to the backdrop below for this series next chapter!

PS: Small edits have been made since yesterday, an additional planet was added to the list. You'll know what I mean :D

Please don't be afraid to like, follow, or favorite this story!

It was time to begin the final steps to the essence he inherited. The power of creation was in his fingertips, within his flesh, and deeply rooted in his very being. Whatever The Precursors were, resonated within the essence of Griffin himself. Knowing this fundamental truth and listening to the voices in his mind… the whispers of creation spoke to him, and he listened.

No longer shackled in the mind, Griffin moved forth into the center of the House of Starlight's twilight home and begun the process of creation, of life, and the mysteries within it. By taking out his knife and slicing his flesh from the palm, the young man closed his eyes and absorbed himself into the thoughts of that life which he would make.

All around him, the essence of his blood began to glow and spread out into seven distinct spots all around him. The earth that surrounded him would be absorbed, brought into the forms that would be created by the essence that brought them into this life. Their purpose was to defend that life, made to stand against the tides of time, of the horrors of the beyond, and fight for the humans who were hunted.

With Griffin's glowing eyes and his drained hand, the young man would retract his right hand and let the forms of matter and fluid all around him take the forms he knew they would become. Everything that they were, that existed within his mind would be shaped by the creatures he put before him. The powers of The Precursors ran through him and the creations taking form would resonate the genetic imprint he left them, what they will become.

And in the shadows of the seven spots, his creations took form within the seven different mounds that were there before him. What they would become was what the young man envisioned, a creation of familiarity, of numbers, and size that would rival the length of Pelicans, Phantoms, and Spirits. He could see in their eyes that they glowed rather ethereally, of power, of strength, and the understanding of their creator before them.

Their tails whipped the ground once their forms were complete, their maws crackled with the fiery taste of their foua , the psionic imprint of their minds gave them speech and telepathy… and their scales radiated the smooth tint of essence that gave them understanding from their creator. They knew the odds of what was to come, and they were determined to aid the human into the fires of war…

Before the eyes of Griffin…

The Dragons of all his youth had come into the universe, knowing the score that was to be. And they were determined to uphold the tenants that the young man followed. These reptilians were strong, wise, and contained the visions and histories that Griffin held of the universe, a purpose to their great potential.

Into the war against The Covenant.