AN: Big shout out to all those who liked my first publication. And a very sincere apology for the delay to all my readers who enjoyed this enough to keep an eye out for chapter 2. I am currently in school, and work may start soon. I will try to post once every week if not sooner. All your reviews made me smile, and convinced me to do a second chapter. Mostly Canon, but an OC may develop here.

Master Chief glanced out of the viewport of the UNSC Destroyer Indomitable. While they were still 12 hours out from their destination, Chief and the other Spartans of Blue Team were getting suited up. Kelly, the Rabbit of Blue Team, was the first to say anything regarding their assignment. "Being the heroes of the war, I really thought we would be off baby sitting duty."

Fred shook his head. "Well, at least with baby sitting detail we don't need to worry about getting the planet blown from underneath us, right?" When no one responded, Fred's face became pale. "We still are at peace with the Covenant, right? John?" Master Chief moved over to Fred, tapped his shoulder guard, and then took his seat as the Indomitable captain walked up to the projector.

"At 1800 Last night, the Resolute and her battle group were to rendezvous with the Covenant CSO Long Night of Despair. When they arrived on scene, the Despair was ablaze, and several MAC rounds appear to have punctured her hull. Officially, there is no accusation levied against the UNSC, yet. Your mission is to board the Resolute and obtain firing logs to make sure we didn't fire those shots, and to obtain recordings to try and figure out who did fire those rounds. Our job is to get you in, get you out, and make sure that if the people who shot come back, they get a taste of how good this treaty has been for the UNSC. The Infinity is in system, but will be in orbit around Chi Ceti IV answering the colonial distress call. We can expect he along with her Strident to come and help if any undesirables show up. Any questions?" Silence was the Captains reply. "Very well Spartans, you drop in 3 hours. Dismissed." As one, the Spartans stood, saluted, and exited the briefing room.

Walking back, Kelly bumped Johns arm, and that alone spoke volumes to how worried she was. John nodded his head without looking, sharing the same sentiment. From the outside, it looked like the Spartans were 7' tall giants that never said a word, and for the most part they were. But for the Spartans, a single glance contained a monologue, and a touch, an entire conversation. This language developed on their home world of Reach. While not the planet the Spartans had been born on, but the planet where they grew up, trained, met their family, and lost a war. The war with the Covenant had been over for almost 6 years now, but every Spartan remembered just how bad the fighting had been. From Harvest to Reach, almost every planet had been glassed. Every planet bore the wrecks of countless UNSC and Covenant ships that served in the war. Millions of men and women had given their life to stop the covenant war machine, fighting for Earth or for Reach, planets they had never set foot on.

But that was years ago. Now, there was peace. The Covenant even had even helped to terraform the glassed worlds, and Humans now lived alongside Sangheili and Huragok. Human Ships now all had energy shielding, and upgraded deuterium fusion plants. All around, peace was good for humanity, but something had been brewing at ONI, and everyone could feel it. Reports had been coming in of covenant cities and ships being the target of terrorist attacks. Attacks had been getting bolder, and now a CSO had been severely damaged. If it was found out that the UNSC was behind these attacks, then the covenant could very well declare war.

As the Indomitable dropped out of slipspace, the spartans looked out of a viewport, and witnessed what could only be described as the end of Humanity. UNSC ships floated in pieces, and covenant vessels lay shattered in the abyss. As the Indomitable passed a frigate hull, 3 covenant ships exited slipspace near Chi Ceti IV and began to fire at the Infinity. The spartans watched on as the Infinity expelled her 10 frigate escorts, and begin to fight back. Slowly, each covenant ships shields fell, and then dispatched. Then the captain's voice came over the intercom. "Spartans, the mission has been scrubbed. We are to rendezvous with the Infinty, and then make best speed back to Earth. We are now at war with the covenant."

AN: I want to give a shout out to Queen Angela, she has agreed to be my beta for this story, and has been extremely helpful.