Hey readers, I'm looking for a beta reader since first one, after checking chapter 3 and realized it had halo parts in it decided that he wont be my beta reader anymore cause h knows very little if anything about it. So I would like to know if anyone could help me either find me a beta reader or be a beta reader?
Oh and sorry if this chapter feels rushed.
Date: January 12, 2164
Location: Unknown location, SSV Normandy
The SSV Normandy just reached a mass relay from which the System Alliance originates. The same relay, that the Alliance leadership order not to activate because the sun in the system where the humans originate from has been turned into early super nova by impact of a large meteor into it. At least this is what the official history of the alliance says. Now however, the SSV Normandy, first of her class must take this relay for unknown mission, under the command on Captain Anderson.
"Captain, were nearing the relay, so far I'm not getting any reading that the relay wouldn't work."
"Thanks Joker, bring us to 1000 kilometers from the relay and hold position."
"So hurry up and wait, got it sir"
Anderson shakes his head after hearing his pilot reply. He opens up his console and begun to read reports when the alliance diplomat they received on before embarking on this mission knock on the door, despite having a bell, for that solo function. "Come in" spoke Anderson as he closes his console, as it contained both reports from the front-lines and personal messages from his friends and family. The person who walked in was a human male, about 40 to 45 years old. "Yes? Is there anything I can help you with Mister Philip Johnson?" Philip walked over to Anderson desk and asked "Mind if I sit down?" Anderson made a hand gesture that shows him he can. After the diplomat sit down he spoke "I know that you have some, troubles with us going through this mass relay captain"
"This relay is supposed to be out of the question, because it leads to our original homeworld. One that was destroyed by its sun going super nova after meteorite hit it. We are only alive because governments of the world united and build as many colony ships as they could and escape throe the relay, but still, there was not enough time or ships to save everyone. This is the darkest time in our history that I know of"
"That captain, I'm afraid is wrong" spoke diplomat and after a small delay continued "The history you know is a fabrication of original admirals that lead the colony fleet throe the relay"
"What are you saying Phillips?"
"What I am saying, our original homeworld, Earth, was never destroyed by the sun going super nova. There never was a supernova to begin with" Anderson stood up enraged "Are you saying that our history, the things that make us "The System Alliance" are FAKE!" Phillips only nod once and continue "Please understand, I was only told this a few moments before we departure and please, allow me to continue" Anderson, gauntly sat down and do his best not to be mad at Phillips . It was not an easy thing to do.
"The admirals decided to hide the truth behind our origin. We are decedents of rebel faction captain, a faction called "The insurrections". They rebelled against a faction of humanity known as the UNSC which stands for United Nation Space Command, who at the time had control over 800 colonies." Anderson was clearly surprised and shocked by this information. "800 colonies? Even with the entire citadel space combined we would barely reach 200 colonies, and you're saying that this UNSC controlled over 800 colonies?"Phillips nod once and continued "Due to large amount of colonies under a single rule, the disputes were excepted to follow, especially given the fact that UNSC were basically fascists, if we can believe this report" Phillips handed Anderson a tablet on which there were every information from 24 century "24 century? But we are only in 22 century"
"That is because admirals decided it is better if we started a new, so they replaced the timeline to year 2000, by all the logic, the UNSC should now be in 27 or 28 century"
"If this UNSC is so bad, why are we going there?"
"This is rather obvious isn't it captain? We are going to ask them for their help against the Turians and the Batarians and captain, perhaps it would be better if we keep this history lesson between ourselves, at least for now" Suggested Phillips and Anderson, was inclined to agree with him.
XXXXX
A few decks below them, a squad of Alliance marines had a target practice. By far the best marksman is soldier called John Shepard. He managed to shot nine out of ten targets right in between the eyes with his sniper rifle with the last one hitting in middle of target chest. He did this in nine seconds, which is the record among the System Alliance marines. The rest of the marine's time to shot all ten targets was from ten to 14 seconds. The reason why Shepard managed to shot faster and more accurate than the rest of marines in his squad is because Shepard is a N7 Commando. This means that he had access to advance training and better weapons. For example the marines used the Mantis Shepard used Viper sniper rifle with better range, damage and accuracy. However it still had same rate of fire.
"And another one shot one kill" spoke Shepard as he scored another headshot. "Although I would prefer, more challenging targets over those standing ones, Jenkins, could you change targets to moving ones?"
"Sure thing commander" replied a marine private identified as Jenkins as he set the holographic targets to represent a Turian platoon in attack formation. Shepard and the alliance marines too their aim and fired. Out of 12 marines that fired alongside Shepard, 10 of them managed to score clean kill, as the other two wounded their targeted alien. Shepard managed to take down two Turians, however that meant his rifle overheated so he had to wait a couple of seconds before he could fire again. Instead he switched his Viper sniper rifle for a Vindicator assault rifle and fire in full auto against remaining Turian holographic targets. It didn't took them long to clear the range of all targets.
"Nice shooting commander" spoke Jenkins as he checked the score. Shepard managed to shot more targets then all marines combined.
"That's N7 training for you" replied Shepard "There is no one that can beat us"
"I don't know about that commander, I heard rumor that the Turian black ops unit, the black watch, eliminated a N7 platoon during the second assault on Shanxi" spoke a marine who removed her helmet and held it in front of her.
"Your captain Ashley Williams are you not? The granddaughter of general Williams, the man who had surrendered Shanxi, during first contact war right?" Asked Shepard and after a while, Ashley responded with an affirmative nod, thus Shepard continued "This doesn't matter anymore as there are other generals who did the same thing in this war, and to reply to your statement, that what you heard is a result of Turian propaganda" he then step on a empty crate so that whole shooting range could see him and spoke.
"I am a commander Shepard and I have something to tell each and every one of you. Do not believe every rumor that you hear about the Turians OR the Batarians. Captain Anderson is still receiving reports from the frontlines, despite the fact we are several relays away from it. And he shares those reports with me. I personally guarantee you that the rumors are false. Yes, we are taking hits, but we are giving both of our enemies as hard as we're getting it!"
After his little motivation speech, he jumped off from empty crate as the crew of SSV Normandy and the marines under his command cheered.
"Hey commander Shepard, this is Joker, just letting you know, that victory speech of yours was heard all over the ship and now captain Anderson would like to speak with you"
"Thanks Joker, please tell the good captain I'm on my way"
Date: March 28, 2706
Location: UNSC controlled space, outer colonies, UNSC the Dawn of War
The ONI operative, Major Rebeca Chung walked inside a room containing a Sangheili shipmaster, captured during the pirate ship raid. Inside of the room was also a pair of ODST in full ODST armor and stunt batons, in case if the Sangheili would manage to break his restrains and just in case of the Elite defeating both ODSTs there was a Spartan waiting outside the room armed with a shotgun with less then lethal ammunition. They still need this specific Elite alive.
"Good morning prisoner number 3141, how are you feeling today?" spoke Major Rebecca as she sat down on a chair on her side of the table. The Elite on his side of the table look up into Majors eyes and spoke "I am not a number human, my name is…" before the Elite could continue Major Rebeca raised her hand. This was a signal for the ODST as one of them activates his stunt baton and pushes it on the Elite neck. The Elite grunted in pain and tried to strike at the ODST, only to be restrained by the energy handcuffs placed on his side of the table.
"As I was asking you, number 3141, how are you feeling today" spoke Major Rebecca once again, and this time the Elite answered "I felt worse human"
"Splendid, now we can continue our little chat, tell me number 3141, what exactly where you doing on board the…" spoke Major Rebecca and paused a little and then continued "CCS battlecruiser "Vengeance of the fallen"
"I tried to find a way to avenge my family blood by killing your kind" replied Elite and chuckled "Commanding a pirate ship was the best way"
"Charming, I was unaware that the "Sangheili honor code" allows a act of terrorism against their allies"
The elite tried to slam his fists on the table in rage, but just like before the same handcuffs prevented him from doing that. So instead he yelled at his interrogator "I AM a TRUE Sangheili, I am not an offspring of a weak blood that follows "the arbiter" honor code. I follow the teaching of the covenant! The only true path to the great journey!"
Major Rebeca smiled amusingly. She clearly enjoyed this little conversation with the Elite. "And you are aware that the leaders of "The Covenant" tried to exterminate your race about 150 years ago?"
"That is because the Sangheili in Thel 'Vadamee time were weak and pathetic and did not follow the teaching of our gods, the forerunners!"
"It must be nice to live in your own little worlds number 3141, but now it is time for me to break your world and I have to admit, I love the sound of that" spoke Major Rebeca with a grin on her face "Your gods, the Forerunners, did not ascend to a "higher place of existence". The halo array, or in words you would understand, "the sacred rings" did not send the Forerunners on this so called "great journey" she smiled once again, her grin slightly widening and continued "In fact, the only journey it sent them to, was to their death"
"Do not speak these lies to me and believe that I will fall for them. You speak the lies that the Arbiter believed and not the true words of our prophets!"
This last statement got Major Rebeca. San'shyuum, also known as the prophets in the covenant are in liege with this Elite? She know that now she hit the nerve in him so she continued to drill deep into the Elite for answers, hoping that by simply acting on his religion zealotry would give her the information she needs "And where did you hear "The truth spoken by the prophets" hm? All of the San'shyuum is dead by the hands of the Sangheili Empire during the great schism"
"More lies spread by the heretical humans and the Sangheili who believe them! Those who are true believers must visit the ancient homeworld of the prophets themselves to learn the truth!"
"Thank you number 3141, you have been very useful in stopping the raids on the UNSC and the Sangheili Empire" spoke Major Rebeca with clear satisfaction in her voice. As the ONI operator stand up and walked outside the room, it took the Elite a full minute to realize what he had just done. When Rebeca closed the doors of the room, the Elite roared in anger, mad at himself for letting a human to trick him.
XXXXX
"Admiral Marshall, ma'am!" spoke captain of the UNSC Dawn of war Victor Angelos as he was contacted by the Fleet admiral Julia Marshall, stationed on "The United Future" a massive station build by combined efforts of the UNSC, the Sangheili and the Jiralhanae Empire. The station is located on the only pace in the galaxy where hr borders of the empires meet.
"Captain Angelos, I can see that trap laid by ONI was a success" spoke admiral Marshall as she read the reports forwarded towards her by Major Rebeca. "And from what major Rebeca already learned from her week of interrogation, the combined Sangheili and UNSC task force razed several pirate bases in their sectors. This has been a major victory captain"
"Thank you Ma'am!"
"However this is not the reason I am contacting you captain" admiral then send him a set of coordinates onto his terminal and continued "Our forward observation station received these signals emitting from outside of UNSC space. We had scouted that system where this signals come from, but it was primary meant for new colonies. Since it had no habitable planets we left it alone and focus on other systems. This may have been a mistake captain"
She had then forwarded all known information of the system in question. It had one blue sun and gas giant along with few mercury sized rocks that could be counted as planets. The only importance the UNSC might have from this system was mining for resources on the asteroid belts. But at the time that was not a priority so the expedition there was abandoned
"Why did you contact us ma'am? The Dawn is a warship, it would be better if you deployed a science vessel instead"
"I contact you because you are the only ship nearby that will get there in less than a hour."
"And if this is a first contact scenario again?"
"IF the contact turned out to be hostile, you will have a quarter of my fleet to support you and on top of that, we will contact both of our allies to send their own ships for support. In fact one of Sangheili ships is on its way there as we speak"
Captain Angelos was amazed. Fleet admiral Julia Marshall commanded a fleet of almost a 400 ships, so if they were in trouble a 100 UNSC ships would jump in to assist the Dawn of war. Not to forget supportive fleets from the Sangheili and the Jiralhanae allies. He could easily count on 200 ships in total to assist him. That was not bad force to counter an alien attack.
"Admiral, do you know the name of the Sangheili ship on its way there?" The admiral revised her notes and replied "It's a assault carrier, "The seeker of redemption", I believe you know her shipmaster don't you captain"
"Yes admiral I do"
"These are your orders captain, if this is a first contact scenario I want you to do whatever you can to prevent a war coming."
The captain Angelos saluted her and after she disconnected from her end he relay his orders to ship AI, who in turn plot a slipspace course to it. After a minute of crew preparing for slipspace jump the ship jumped towards the given coordinates.
Date: January 13, 2164
Location: unknown region of space, SSV Normandy, after relay jump
"Joker, report!"
"Sorry captain, I have no idea where we are, however there is no black hole around, isn't this the system where our homeworld is suposed to be?"
"Joker I want to know if there are any ships, stations and colonies, anything that would be man made out there!"
"Sir…I don't detect anything in system, is anything supposed to be here?"
"Joker, just keep scanning"
"Aye aye captain"
Captain turned towards diplomat Phillips and spoke "I thought that we would meet something belonging to the UNSC as soon as we would jump into the system" Phillips only shake his head and spoke "I had my doubts, our ancestors AI, once they woke up from cryro sleep reported that they actually jumped 2 relays, one by mistake and another as AI test."
"So we still have one relay before we reach the UNSC"
"In theory, however admiral Akimov believes that they would found the first relay and advance using it" replied Phillips and before Anderson could reply, joker spoke over comlink "Captain, there is something big coming our way" joker spoke with amazement and to Anderson surprise, shock as well, in his voice. As far as Anderson knows it, Joker is not shocked by ordinary things, so whatever Joker spotted on his scanners had to be anything else then ordinary. "How big Joker?" after a moment of silence her replied "It's about four to five times bigger than the Destiny Ascension, its massive sir!"
"Are you sure about that Joker, couldn't it be a bug in our scanners?" asked Phillips after a while, hoping that it was. A ship four times larger than the destiny Ascension would be almost impossible to build within the System Alliance, even with the Citadel founding.
"Captain there is no bug in the system, and it will appear in the system in a minute or so" replied Joker and added "I suggest you come to the cockpit and see for yourself if you don't believe me, sir" Anderson and Phillips look at each other and then walked towards the elevator. It opened before they got near it however and out of it step commander Shepard and saluted them "Captain Anderson, Phillips, reporting as ordered"
"Commander Shepard, please follow us to the cockpit, we'll talk on the way" Shepard nod and moved a little so that they could all fit in. As the door closed Anderson spoke "You are , served on the SSV Delhi, which was boarded by Turian shock troopers in 2162 and you alone are responsible that they didn't capture it, as soon as you come back to New Earth you were recruited to the N7 program, is my information about you correct?"
Shepard nod in agreement "That's correct sir, may I ask why we are going to the cockpit?"
"To either see the largest ship in our history, or the biggest embarrassment of Joker so far" Shepard only laugh a little, but just as soon as they reached the cockpit, a flash of light appeared above the SSV Normandy. A second later a massive purple ship emerged out of the light. It took it about three seconds to fully emerge out of shimmering white and blue light. They could now witness it in its full size and glory. True to joker words, it was about 5500 meters long, give or take several meters.
"Sir, I doubt that this is a bug in Normandy scanners" spoke Joker and both Phillips as well as Shepard only nod slowly, still not believing that the giant ship is real "Joker, I hope that we are in stealth mode, are we?"
"Yes sir, I don't think that they can see us, unless if they are watching out of windows that is" Just as he said that, the massive ship performed a turn that even the SSV Normandy, despite its maneuverability, and Joker as its pilot, would have hard time doing it. It turned right at the SSV Normandy and approached it. "Sir, should we run?"
"Joker, I think that if we did, it wouldn't matter, and if we try to fight it, I'm sure we wouldn't last for more than a second."
"So what…should we surrender?"
"We'll stand our ground they could be the ones we come to meet" ordered Anderson and despite Joker better judgment, they remained where they were. The purple ship positioned its self so that its hangar bay was right in front of the SSV Normandy. "I think that they want us to go in sir"
Date: October 18, 2163
Location: Horse Head Nebula, Minuteman Station, Cerberus
It took six days for the requested reinforcements to arrive. That made the Cerberus operative Miranda Lawson a little mad, and the welcome the Cerberus centurion received has been anything then warm. However, after her anger had softened, she led them towards the cryopod and explained them what to do. After they were in position, the Cerberus technicians began their work to open up the pod. As they did so, Miranda tired to contact the cryopod virtual intelligence Cortana. As she taps several controls on her Omni-tool an image of Cortana appeared.
"Greetings" spoke the image of Cortana and Miranda replied "Hello Cortana, I want to ask you a question about this John-117 inside the pod" she looked at the pod and technicians were about half way through opening it. "What is your question miss Miranda?" Miranda turned her attention back to the image of Cortana and asked "How did you know my name?"
"I learned it by talking to technician who access me earlier this week, is the question you wish to know?"
Miranda shakes her head. She had more important matters to attend to at the moment. She once again looked at the pod, seeing that it was about to be open she asked Cortana "How would this John-117 react when he realized he is not in familiar environment?"
"Probability of spartan attempt to escape is low"
"That isn't helpful Cortana…" spoke Miranda and was interrupted by Cortana reply "Probability of Spartan to attack the Cerberus soldiers is almost 98%, statistic suggest that Cerberus soldiers will try to stop him, but it suggest that they will be unsuccessful at their attempts"
"Wait what?" asked Miranda and turned to Cortana, just moments after that, she heard technician screaming. She turned and witnessed a giant of the man in a green armor grabbed a Cerberus trooper. The spartan grab trooper arm that hold the gorgon assault rifle and with relative ease point at the troopers standing on walkway, while holding the soldier in front of him like a shield. One of the troopers managed to fire at the Spartan back. As he did, a golden barrier appeared. Spartan reflexes were extremely fast for human standards. He brought the soldiers to intercept the incoming fire and when the gorgon overheated the spartan toss the "shield" trooper into the one who was firing at him. As the duo collided, the spartan sprinted past them and into the hallway.
"Go after him! But do not kill him!" yelled Miranda her order to the Cerberus troopers who got up and followed the spartan herself. A beeping in on her Omni-tool signaled that she is being called. She activates it and a message from Cerberus trooper played itself. "Ma'am, the subject is nearing the barracks our centurion is currently there, we already informed him of the subject heading his way."
Miranda sighed in relief. The Cerberus centurions have a shock baton so she didn't need to worry about centurion harming the spartan. She accesses the cameras from her Omni-tool and monitored the encounter of centurion with the spartan. She could see centurion activate the shock baton and spartan reaching for something as well. She could exactly tell what he got from his belt, but it seemed like a piece of metal, perhaps a stunt baton of his own. But she was amazed at what it actually was when she witness the spartan activating it. It was a two edged blade made out of energy! She was clearly impressed by it and by the look of centurion he was too as he drop the shock baton and bring his first up, thus challenging the spartan in hand to hand combat instead. The spartan seemed to accept it as he deactivated his sword. This however was a futile gesture as spartan punched the centurion just once in the head, breaking centurion helmet. Spartan, upon seeing that the centurion was a human stopped and simply stood there.
Miranda just entered the barracks and spoke "Spartan 117, stand down, we are not your enemies!"
Spartan look at her and after a while he spoke "You have 5 minutes to explain to me who are you, where I am, what am I doing here and where is Cortana?"