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Edited 8/4/15 to account for a small problem

Ageles: Lowerclass Cadets

Eirena: Upperclass Cadets

Sparta Academy of Military Studies

Sparta (Six months later)

Cadet Lieutenant Commander Jane Shepard, daughter of the renowned and highly decorated marine, Gunnery Sergeant David Shepard, was upset. Not at the fact that one of her instructors had given her entire class a pop quiz over military history, not that she couldn't get in contact with those outside due to communications issues, but at the fact that today's lunch meal was meatloaf. Vegetarian Meatloaf, however the hell that worked.

Taking a seat a seat near one of her friends at the table, Shepard dropped her tray on to it with a splat!

"What's with the frown Shepard? Last time I saw you like this was during M2T."

M2T was the nickname for Medical Trauma Training, a rigorous course dedicated to teaching cadets the hardships of providing medical care to those injured in the field. Environments were realistic, instructors would shoot rounds right over cadets heads to simulate the pressure of enemy fire, and the person being provided to was a life-size synthetic doll that had all the realistic features of a wounded human being. A synthetic blood-like substance would spew from the body, limbs could be taken off, and it featured a realistic look at the human body, fake muscle tissue, artificial veins and organs and all. Shepard's first time required her to fix a doll with a missing leg, torn off by an explosion.

To say it was a stressful experience would be… an understatement.

"Its fake-meatloaf Kaiden. Fake vegetarian meatloaf, even MREs (Meal Ready to Eat) taste better." She frowned in disgust; Kaiden in the meanwhile simply shook his head, before using his fork to dig in to the brown rectangle that was his food. Shepard, being one to not act too dramatic, did the same.

A few bites later, Kaiden and Shepard began talking over some recent developments within the past week, Miguel's prank on Instructor Carter, Onyx Squad's win over Amethyst Team, the recently built orbital elevator, and of course the terrible meatloaf. Only six months ago, this conversation would have been impossible, Shepard and Kaiden would have fought each other anywhere if they had the chance. But after the graduation of last year's class (including Rahna), Kaiden and Shepard had realized that they had very few people to talk to, and so after some time (and a lot of apologies), they became close friends. Their conversation about the meatloaf ended though when one of Shepard's friends, Sun Jeong, a lively, small girl of asian descendant, ran towards Shepard, tray in hand.

"Shepard!" she called from two tables away, drawing the attention of those around her. Shepard began to blush, Sun was nice and all, but she was always, just, loud. Annoyingly so.

A few quick steps later and she was near the edge of the table, sliding herself next to Shepard . "Did you guys hear? Did you guys hear?" repeated Sun excitedly. She was shaking in her seat, which made Shepard a little uncomfortable.

Kaiden decided to humor her, "Hear what?"

"Don't tell anyone but I heard from a friend of mine that since today was Sparta Day, we have a guest speaker coming in! A Spartan!" she half-whispered/half yelled. Everyone around the table stopped talking, forks were dropped and for a moment those around her became silent.

"Oops."

On another table, parallel to where Sun was sitting, Sapphire Team's leader, a large seventeen-year-old kid named Charles silenced his teammates. Looking at Sun with disbelief, he asked "Who told you that?"

Sun was about to open her mouth to answer when an the speakers throughout the room made a pinging noise, signifying an important announcement was about to be made. Students from all across the cafeteria quieted down as the Academy's A.I, Leonidas, began to speak.

"All cadets, report to the amphitheatre at nineteen zeroes. All cadets, report to the amphitheatre at nineteen zeroes."

And just like that the announcement was over. Cadets throughout the space slowly began to resume their normal conversations. On the other table, Charles simply glanced at Sun before smiling, and turning to one of his teammates after they said something interesting.

Sun looked at Shepard, the smile on her face was enormous. "See, I told you Shep."

Shepard simply shook her bed, before focusing her attention to the only good thing on her tray, a single, large, juicy apple.

Sparta Academy of Military Studies

Sparta

At 19:00 hours, the auditorium was a buzz of activity. Cadets of all years, numbering nearly four-hundred, were talking to each other over various things, the main talk of the moment being the guess of who the guest speaker was. Rumors had been passed around that it was a Spartan, a real honest-to-god Spartan. For the members of Onyx Squad, all of who were seated next to each other in a single, easily distinguishable group, they were talking about the guest, throwing out theories of who it was, and kinds of questions that they could ask them.

"Think it's one of the original Spartans?"

"No way man, everyone knows that their all gone. Master Chief was the last one. Now it's all new. "

"Think it's a guy or girl?"

"If it's a girl, she better be hot."

"Oh Carlos, you really would wish that wouldn't you."

The excitement began to reach its climax as the school's Headmaster, General Coats, stepped on to the large, grandiose stage. He was a Longsword pilot during the Covenant war... until a banshee did a number on him, specifically his face, it was how he got the large scar that ran across his right eye. With a single, gesture of his hand, the sea of red and black quieted down, their attention solely on him.

He cleared his voice with a throaty cough, and tapped the two-stared insignia on his jacket before addressing the entire auditorium.

"Cadets" he began, his voice amplified through the speakers in the room, by the device on the collar of his uniform.

"Today, we celebrate the founding of this institution and the very colony it was built on. Only a few years ago, this planet was discovered by the UNSC Vanguard, a sahara-class prowler that to this day continues to bare the burns and scars of the largest war ever seen by this Galaxy, the Great War." He scanned the crowd, all eyes intently on him.

"Despite acknowledging the fact that we were not alone, it was this war that taught us to realize that we were no longer the sole masters of the galaxy. That in no way, that does life owe us anything. We have discovered the hard way, that despite what we may believe about our own superiority, that we are just as vulnerable as those who live in the darkness between the stars. That in no way will any one of you be able to take the easy and way out. For all of you were called here, to serve a higher purpose, to lead our future in the hopes that you will be the one to provide us with it. Cadets, look at those sitting at the very top of this auditorium, they are the next generation of leaders, those who will lead us into the light. And in time you will too."

He stopped to let it sink in.

"Do not take your job lightly, for here at this school, we only train the very best. Those who can fight against insurmountable odds, those who can keep back the tide of creatures that seek our destruction, and not falter under the threat of extinction." He clenched his fist.

"We are Spartans" said the entire upperclass, many of the lowerclass were unaware of the fact they should have been chanting with them.

"You are here because we have watched too many of our brothers and sisters burn under the cause of a religious crusade. Fall to the power of scorching suns, against foes with the intention of removing our existence from this galaxy. Well I say, never again."

"In the fire we were forged! For we are Spartans!"

"We will fight against the darkness; we will not go out without a fight, for when we bring the light, we will say 'never again'. "

"In hell we will return! For we are Spartans!"

"We have watched world after world fall to the hands of an agglomeration of species, creatures who served but one purpose: to kill us. Our people were nearly wiped out. Well I say never again."

"We will reclaim! For we are Spartans!"

"Our heroes have fallen one by one to the overwhelming tide, swooped aside by hate. They were never shown mercy as they died on fields of glass. But you are here… so now I say never again."

"Never again! We are Spartans!" cried the class in a single unified chorus.

"You will take us forward unto Dawn."

The entire room began to yell in unison, "WE ARE SPARTANS! WE ARE SPARTANS!"

"Here to help us to reclaim and move forward, is Retired-Corporal Laura Palmer." The entire room shot into an uncontrollable roar as a red-haired woman, broad-shouldered, six foot-eight in height, walked across the stage in a black uniform. Everyone could see a patch on right shoulder, a Golden Eagle with lightning bolts and arrows being held by its talons… the telltale sign of a member of the SPARTAN Branch. Many were wowed, some gasped in silent surprise. Everyone wanted to be a SPARTAN when they finished here.

She stopped near General Coats, towering over him, before shaking his hand and whispering something inaudible to his ear. He quickly left, fast walking off the stage and disappearing into the darkness in a hurry. The entire space began to quiet down in respect to the guest speaker.

"Wow! That was an intense speech. So anyway, hi guys, how are y'all doing today?"

The responses were different, but the main answer was the same: Good.

"So as you can see on my name tag, my name is Palmer, but you can just call me Laura. And in case you didn't notice or you just weren't paying attention-"she began moving around the stage, her hands gesturing to whatever she was talking about. Her name to her name tag, Branch to the patch, etc. "-I'm a Spartan." Some of the students giggled to that, others paid deep attention, taking everything she said a little too seriously.

"So obviously I'm here to give you a speech, but before I do that, let me tell you a little about myself. Ummm… I was born in 2526, yup, right at the start of the war, on Earth, in the United Northern States. Lived most of my childhood on a farm, dreamed of becoming a marine, seeing space and what not. I loved the outdoors, my dad would always take me out, during Hunting Season, with him. By the time I was ten, I knew everything there was to know about rifles, especially the old ones. Flash forward a bit to my young adulthood, I joined the marines at age seventeen. My very first deployment was to Asgard, a very small farmworld between the borders of the inner and outer colonies. First time I met the Covenant too, apparently we lost the planet before we even touched boots on the ground. So for the next ten years, I was deployed to twelve different planets, with the final one ironically being Earth. I was there when the Covenant attacked Earth, kids. New Mombossa, remember it like it was just yesterday, I was down loading equipment into a warhog with a couple' buds of mine when we got the call. Flash forward two years, apparently someone high up there liked how well I was doing, next thing you know-" she clapped her hands together "-I'm a foot and quarter taller."

"So right before I get into my talks, I'd like to answer a couple of questions."

Hundreds of Cadets raised their hands, with Palmer randomly picking out students. She answered questions like…

"How long did it take for you to become a SPARTAN?"

"Well, first you gotta' get augmented, takes a couple of weeks for most people to get used to it. After I got 'em, took me two days to learn how to walk again, and three weeks to get used to 'em. After that, you go through two months of physical training, the kind that normal people would die from. A couple months of Fireteam tactics, then when they think you're ready, they toss you into a livefire exercise. If you complete it you graduate, if you don't... well."

"Why are you so tall?"

"That has to do with the augmentation process. Your bones are infused with a substance that makes them unbreakable, but to do that, your bones and joints need to reinforced. So to get that they lengthen your bones out, imagine stretching dough, makes you taller."

"Who teaches you to become a SPARTAN?"

"The same people who made the original SPARTANs."

"What made you want to become a SPARTAN?"

"What wouldn't make you want to become one?"

Out of a stroke of luck, Shepard's hand was the last one to be called upon. She was excited because she had been dying to get an answer to her question. Rising up to ask the Spartan directly, everyone's eyes were on Shepard while she loudly asked, "Have you ever met the Master Chief?"

Everyone who had been looking at Shepard turned to Laura, their curiosity peaked. She smiled to the question.

"Yes. Yes I have. Funny that you ask that, he is in fact the reason I became a Spartan. Remember how I said that I was in New Mombossa when the Covenant attacked? Well, so was the big fella himself, in fact while me and my boys were unloading some equipment off those warhogs that I mentioned earlier, he came running to our position. Four Wraiths thought they were chasing him, when in fact he was just coming to us for some more ammo. From there we traveled through the sewers to get to our HQ, Chief was with us the entire time.

She laughed thinking back over that time.

"I tried hitting on him twice the entire way to the HQ, something about that voice, and his height. Plus I've always fancied myself a man in uniform."

From across the auditorium Shepard heard someone yell "Did you get it in?!"

Some of the students laughed, while others turned away from the interruption with a smile. Of course some of the instructors weren't laughing as they stared into the faces of the entire cadet audience, searching for the person who made the obnoxious comment.

"Nah-" she looked out into the distance "-it seems that he was taken by another lady friend. Chief was one of the craziest Mike Foxtrots I've ever met and he saved my bacon." She paused, mulling over the memories of a war that seemed like it happened forever ago.

From the front of the auditorium, a young cadet, likely a freshmen for failing to use common courtesy and just the way she spoke, asked "What lady friend?"

Spartan Palmer was seemingly broke out her trance, smiling at the young girl. "Questions are over kids, save 'em for the end. It's time to get to that to speech."

Some of the young freshmen in the front "boooed" to that.

"So, who here is a senior cadet..."

CSV Elasa's Song

Orbiting Sparta

Spectre Tela Vasr carefully peeled off the bed sheets that covered her, sliding her feet off the bed one foot at a time. Making sure to make no noise, Tela tip-toed her way to the restroom, careful as to not awake the curivous figure that slept on her bed. She sneaked one glance at the asari in her bed before closing the bathroom door behind her.

A few minutes later, Tela existed, wearing a close-cut blue and white custom armor that complimented her own curves. She quietly moved towards the door, closing it and leaving the snoring figure in her room alone.

She entered the hallway and let out a large breath that she was unconsciously holding in as soon as the door closed behind her. Goddess that girl makes me feel old. Tela began her walk to the bridge, licking her lips and thinking of the young asari that shared the night with. It wasn't hard for Tela to get her into the bed, for two reasons: First being the fact that she was a maiden, and the second being the fact that she was a big fan of Tela.

The moment she stepped on the bridge though, all that happiness disappeared, for she was once again in the pit of horrible creature known as Captain Alik. Looking around however, Tela saw she was nowhere to be found, Maybe today is going to be easier than I thought…Tela saw the Captain's empty seat and considered taking advantage of her abscense.

Her hopes would be short-lived however, for as soon as Tela was less than a foot away from the comfortable looking chair, the Captain walked in, a salarian in tow.

"Captain, I advise against tampering of core actuators. Possibility of exp-"

The dark-skinned turian shook her head. "Listen" she said "I don't recall you being the Captain of this ship. As far as I'm concerned the Council put me in charge of this ship, so to disagree with me is to argue with the Council; and you're not suggesting that you know better than Council do you?"

The Salarian could not argue with that, especially not the way she worded it. Everything on the bridge was recorded, and if he disagreed with her he was facing political suicide. Career options would drop like the long-leafs of Ser kesh's trees.

"No. I apologize Captain." He said defeated.

The turian's mandibles raised in a smile. "Good. Now get back to work, I don't tolerate squabbles." She turned her attention to the rest of the bridge crew, searching intently for any discrepancies before even noticing Vasir's presence. "Vasir." She spat her name in disgust "Always a pleasure to see you abroad the bridge of MY ship."

Tela looked around, curious as to who she thought she was talking to. "Oh wait, you're talking to me." She said.

For the past six months that Tela had been on the goddess-forsaken ship, Tela had learned the true meaning of the word "Patience". It was like Asari Commando Training all over again, except the physical portion was replaced with psychological training. Regardless, after this was all over, Alik Lytax would pay.

Before Alik could reply Tela interrupted "You know what, just give me the report on whats going on." Tela crossed her arms, just coincidentally leaving her Spectre badge uncovered.

Alik knew how far she could go before the Spectre got personal, "Hmm…Maesk, whats our status?"

"The Goran, Tetlitus's Shadow, and the Darkened Edge are reporting green across the board, no discernible change in the human's daily activities."

"What exactly are they doing right now?"

"Considering their similar living cycles, they should be sleeping now."

Tela nodded, another boring day. She sighed in disbelief, another boring damn day. Of course, spying on the humans had provided a lot of info, over the battlefield effectiveness of the Phoro-Class stealth frigates and some info of humanity. Of course, the actual knowledge came from the human who provided insight into what the humans were doing. Had they not found that disturbed man alive in that wrecked ship of his, the time to find where his species had come from would have taken decades, having to go through each planet one by one. Luckily though, he provided an idea of living conditions preferred by human beings. Details like that had led them to this planet, two light-years from the nearby mass-relay system.

Besides what had been collected so far had only pointed out to how militaristic and violent the species were… but then again, if what the human had said about their history with aliens so far was true… then….

"Captain!" Maesk yelled, catching Alik and Tela's attention. "I'm picking up an unscheduled mass relay jump." His three-fingered hands scrawled through orange holograms, unlike Alik, Tela knew that there no point in trying to understand what he was doing. So she simply asked instead, "Maesk, can you identify who jumped?"

Slimy fingers, tapped on an orange keyboard, "Three ships, two match old generation turian cruisers, one is a freighter. All three ships appear to be heavily modified; two have extensive battle damage… Wait! More relay activity. Turian cruisers and frigates inbound."

The salarian tapped a button, and right in the middle of the bridge was a hologram of the entire system. The three unknown ships were tagged as red blocks, with predicted flight paths showing their most likely point of destination. Yellow ships representing the turian cruisers were following from behind. So far, all three ships were headed towards their position, but none were on an intercept course.

The entire spying thing was screwed now. There was no way, the humans couldn't see the vessels coming at them.

Captain Alik however, always presumed the worst. "Weapons, get me a firing solution. But do not open fire." The red blocks on the hologram inched closer to their location, turians hot on their tails. One red block disappeared after passing another planet, then the 2nd one.

But as the third unknown vessel neared, Tela came to realize it was an batarian cruiser. It was no worse for wear as it sped towards the location of Sparta.

Fucking slavers. It didn't take a genius to figure out that it who they were, as if the modified vessels and crappy paint configuration didn't make it obvious. Now Tela had to face a new problem.

She was at a dilemma now, shooting at the unknown enemy would reveal the existence of the Phoro-class stealth frigates and could possibly do nothing the cruiser in the progress. But at the same time, leaving a slaver vessel to attack the planet was irresponsible, and would reflect badly on Tela's duty to protect the Citadel Council's citizens.

But the humans aren't part the Citadel Council are they? Tela smiled. It would also offer an opportunity to see what they're capable of.

Using her Spectre authority, Tela ordered the bridge crew to…

Sparta Academy of Military Studies

Sparta

By the time SPARTAN Palmer finished her speech, it was around 21:00, or as everyone else knew it, bedtime. Every cadet was to head to his or her respective dorm areas, and stay there until it was time for bed.

Entering her room, Shepard was greeted to the sight of Sun sitting on her bed, legs swinging. "Hey Shep, did I show you that thing yet?" Taking off her red and black jacket, Shepard folded it in half and laid it on her bed, next to Sun.

"Actually you haven't. What do you wanna show me Sun?" she asked. As if to answer her question, Sun grabbed her by the hand and dragged her to the balcony outside. Shepard did not know how she and Sun got it, but out of all rooms, only those at the ends of the very buildings got balconies and they got it. And once again, Sun showed off her ability to get things , by the telescope outside their balcony. A real, tripod telescope, like the kind you would find in an old-fashioned vid or documentary. It was bronze colored, with a three-foot long scope and the words, Eye spy written in a molten brown across it.

Sliding the door open, Shepard was greeted to the dark, cloudy skies. The stars were faintly visible over the grays of the night.

"Look, look, look." Sun squealed in excitement. "So I was looking through the telescope last week, and I found these new stars and funny thing is, their always moving." Shepard look through the eyepiece, waiting for a blocking cloud to leave… and sure as rain as soon as it passed, there it was, a small white dot, indiscernible from the rest of the night sky's stars.

"Cool Sun." she turned back. "How do you know it's a new star and not just something you missed?"

"What? I look at the stars every night Shepard. Look right there is the Granger Constellation, and over there Prima Octoba Vergo." She pointed to some random stars. "I know what I'm talking about." Shepard could hear the anger in her voice, so she simply rose her hands in defense. She was about to apologize, "I'm not trying to off-".

When the unexpected happened: emergency sirens began to blare throughout the entire campus.

Leonidus, the academy's A.I provided a warning through the building's PAs, "Campus wide alert: All Eirenas report to your sector's armory immediately. All Ageles report to the tether. This is not a drill. Campus wide alert: All Ageles report to-"

Shepard and Sun looked at each other and then into the now busy hallway, where yelling could be heard coming from. This never happened before.

They could hear the pattering of feet, the cries and yells from cadets, as the sectors raced towards the location of the armory. Luckily, the entire dormitory was divided into sections based on class, freshmen got their own section, softmores got their own section, etc.

Joining the cadets in the hallway, Sun and Shepard tried asking the others if they knew anything about what was going on. The answers were all the same: no one had a bloody clue.

At the end of the hall, Instructor Petrovesky yelled at the cadets, "MOVE! THIS IS NOT A DRILL! MOVE! MOVE!" Running past her military tactics teacher, Shepard barely noticed the fact that her instructor looked… concerned, almost afraid.

The senior cadets joined the juniors on the trip to the stairs, providing some semblance of order and leadership to those who were frightened at the sudden excitement. Marching down a flight of stairs, Shepard nearly tripped as an anxious cadet pushed her forward.

"Hey, what's your problem?" Turning to get a look at the cadet, Shepard saw it was Kaiden.

"Shepard what's happening?" he asked, water running down from his hair to his face. Poor guy must have been in the shower.

Shepard nearly tripped on the next step. "I've got no clue" she honestly replied. "But-"

She noticed that Sun was nowhere to be seen, "Where's Sun?" she asked. Looking over the other cadets was slightly impossible due to her height Unfortunately it would have to wait, for her feet made contact with the last floor. The armory doors were straight ahead, she paused though upon the sight of the figure waiting in front of the armory.

Standing there, yelling at cadets to move, was Laura Palmer, or more accurately 'SPARTAN Palmer', for she was donned in her Powered Assault Armor. No longer was she the mortal they saw earlier today, her human fratility now replaced by the icy blue color of her molecular-enhanced armor. Her face was masked by a frosted visor, providing no hint as to the existence of the person beneath. She was a goddess of war, a faceless hero with the single goal of protecting the UNSC and its people, a Spartan.

However, Shepard made another realization upon laying eyes on her. Wait. That makes no sense.

Why would a Spartan who was only here to give a speech, bring her armor with her?

That was when Shepard noticed SPARTAN Palmer's choice of armor, it was conveniently the Defender Variant. If Shepard remembered correctly, the Defender was specifically tuned to do just as its name suggests, Defend. Protect. Its features were meant to take advantage of a defensible area, improve combat actuation in urban environments.

Environments like this campus.

Whatever was happening, SPARTAN Palmer had known it was going to happen.

She stepped into the armory and into the large banter of noise as cadets aged 17-18 changed into their gear. She ran past two female cadets who were ahead of everyone, and had already prepared themselves. When she got to her locker, she quickly typed in her six-number password, and was rewarded with the sound of the locker's magnetic locks releasing.

She ripped open that door and began to take out the contents that lay within: a red Battle Dress Uniform with black sections on the inner portion of the legs, sleeves and sides of the torso. There were also two black, armor-plated boots, a ballistic vest, leg and arms guards. And of course, the large, bulky helmet.

Shepard threw off the clothes she was wearing in record time and began putting on her gear. She slid on the uniform, added her armored boots, one by one, she began to look less like a seventeen year old girl and more like a battle-ready soldier of war.

Scanning the Armory, she saw kids her age dressed the same exact way; it was funny to see a small kid try to put on a tactical vest twice his size. Her attention however was stolen by a familiar mechanical sound. She moved besides her locker, towards the seemingly barren wall next to it, where a weapon would be cycled to her from the weapons storage facilities behind the wall. Pressing her hand against a biometric scanner, she was granted access to the weapon locked behind. Most of the time, the weapon cycled to her would be a MA38 loaded with Tactical Training Rounds.

Not this time.

The moment she reached for the handle of the weapon, she was instantly smart-linked to it. According to the HUD, she was now holding an M7/S3 SMG loaded with 5mm caseless ammo. It felt heavy in her hands. Making sure the weapon's safety was on, and that she had enough magazines in her pouches, Shepard exited the Armory.

The entire hallway looked unrecognizable. Gone were the smooth, featureless walls and black-tiled floor, now replaced by the occasional barrier that came from the floor, plus the armed cadets who took cover behind them. The ceiling had a new decoration in the form of two automated sentry gun. Shepard did not know how the specifics of it, but if appearance was anything to go by, it looked like the bridge defenses used on ships. There was enough firepower aimed down the hallway to make a Covenant Zealot pause. The entire hallway was now a killbox, and funny thing was, every hallway in the campus was designed similarly in design way to make an assault by an enemy impossible or so costly that they would be forced to back off.

Rushing to the stairs with a few other cadets, Shepard's HUD notified her to where Onyx Squad was tasked with rendezvousing at: the entrance of the Campus's A.I Core.

Retracing her steps, Shepard ran through corridors, now full of barriers and armed cadets and instructors alike. However her rendezvous was not near the dorms, it was on the other side of the campus.

And as if things couldn't get worse, she could hear the sounds of the base's Anti-Aerial network going off. Kick opening the door, Shepard felt like she jumped in front of a rock concert. Her ears were hurting from the loud buzzing noise as four M71/II Scythes fired a continuous stream of 20mm HEI/AP cartridges at hypersonic speeds. Her eyes had trouble adjusting to whatever target they were aimed at, but from what she could see so far, whatever it was it was big.

Hopefully it isn't a Remnant ship.

She sprinted towards the location of the building holding Leonidas's core, her little sight-seeing had cost her a valuable twenty seconds.

Passing the base of tether where evacuations were commencing, Shepard saw the building used for essential equipment, including leonidas's core. "Kaiden" she yelled into her comms mid-sprint. "Where are you?" Looks like all that running was good for something.

"Right *gasp* behind you." Unfortunately, for Kaiden, he did not do as much running. Turning her head back, she could see Kaiden and two other cadets sprinting alongside him, no doubt the last few members of Onyx Squad. That did not fare well for Shepard's own timing, so she took her speed up a notch.

When Shepard and the last three members of Onyx made it to the entrance of the building of where Leonidas took residence, the hallways were darkened, emergency lights providing the only source of light. Shepard found her entire squad, however, prepping defenses in a single hallway behind a breakroom. Two automated stationary turrets hanged from the ceiling, same model as the one in the armory, floor barriers were also up, and at the very front, a M247T was being manned by Onyx Squad' largest member, Darius "Small" Morris. Contrary to what his nickname may lead some to believe, he was nowhere near small, for a kid of seventeen he stood at an impressive 6'4" and weighed at around 230. Three other members of Onyx stood behind the barriers, saluting to their Squad Leader.

"Ma'am, Leonidas wants to talk to you."

She saluted back before turning to find a PA to talk to, "Whats going on Leonidas? Are we under attack?"

Unknown to Shepard, the glowing blue stripes that ran along the length of the corridor were capable of projecting a 3D hologram. Leonidas, as his name suggested was dressed in the uniform of the ancient Spartan leader, a spear in hand. His voice matched the brutal, manliness of his appearance.

"Since you're finally here Cadet Eirena Shepard, I can authorize the release of non-classified details."

Shepard nodded her head, unsure of where he was going.

"As you know my Scythes aren't exactly shooting at nearby birds." The buzzing could still be heard from within the building. "We are under attack."

The response was mixed, a couple of cadets frowned, two of them cursed under their breath stating that 'They knew it', and the rest were simply silent.

"Is it the remnants?" she asked.

Leonidas tapped his spear against the floor, revealing the hologaphic image of a strange-birdlike spaceship. "Your friend, Cadet Sun, believed she had found a new star while looking through her starviewer six nights ago. Utilizing my own communications array as well as the satellites in orbit, I looked at what she discovered; it was in fact a ship. One that does not resemble the colors of the covenant-"

It all made sense, Leonidas didn't need to say anymore because Shepard already knew what he was going to say. With the realization that there was an unknown, never-before-seen ship hiding over the orbit of Sparta, Leonidas did the only thing he could do, he contacted the "Men upstairs". They responded by sending a defense-orientated Spartan, no doubt to help in the event of an attack, but more as scout then anything. That also meant that there was no doubt a bigger, more specialized force being sent in the event of another First-Contact.

Whatever else Lenoidas was about to say would forever be left unspoken as a large boom interrupted him, followed by another, and another.

Shepard saw his hologram flicker each time, his shield was up as if he was attempting to block an invisible attack. As soon as they stopped tough, he leveled his spear preparing for an attack., "The wall is down, and the skybridge has been attacked! The enemies forces dawn upon us, prepare men!" His hologram disappeared, everyone understood what he was talking about: They were defenseless and whoever was on the tether… was gone..

Onyx Squad instantly took cover behind the barriers, safeties coming off, and weapons hot, pissed off and ready. Shepard knew that regardless of whoever came through those doors, covenant or otherwise, Onyx Squad would not be going down anytime soon.

The building shook as an explosion rocketed through entrance, blowing the doors apart, in the corridor she could see the smoke coming from the main area. Shepard could feel her breath getting faster as she waited for the monsters to come into the hallway like a demon from hell.

Four glowing red eyes was all she needed to see before giving out the order, "Open fire!"

Some things worth noting

-For those who may be confused, Staff-Sergeant Palmer was a character from the short story "Palace Hotel". Unfortunately due to the lack of background information, I've done my best to create a background for her.

-Sparta does not train Spartans... by that I mean the cadets who train in Sparta are not augmented or related to the SPARTAN program in anyway. They are simply named Spartans due to name of the planet. Do keep that in mind.

-With the influx of new and advanced technology, a codex is in the works and will be released next chapter.

Re: Reviews

Outcast's redeemer: I have no intention of bringing in the reapers... there are bigger threats after all.

Hunter 139: By "Humanity fuck yeah!" I mean exactly what you were suggesting, "[Humanity has]...thousands of frigates and destroyers...[POST WAR]" and "[Pre War] Humanity presumably had tens (if not hundreds of thousands of warships)"? Really man? Last time I checked humanity's ships numbered at around 2000 ships... this is what I mean by "Humanity fuck yeah!". I mean its not your fault, I see many people on this site have all said the same thing, and in turn convinced even more people the same thing, and then they convinced others the... see what I mean. I strive to make my depiction of the UNSC, Covenant, and Citadel Council as realistic as possible (with a little AU thrown into the mix). Nevertheless, thanks for reviewing, I await your next one.

One of the guests: The UNSC isn't being weakened for the sake of the story, that being said, we are only two chapters in the story. :P

Comments? Criticisms? Flames?