Welcom back! Sorry this took a while, but it is one of the longest chapters I've ever written and kept running into writer's blocks. Thank you Smoke Tiny Tom for Beta-ing this chapter and thank you people who have followed, favorited and reviewed this story, you are awesome! This story is way more successful than I initially thought it would be and it has really motivated me to write more and better.

There are a couple of references in this chapter. I will give you a hint for one, because only Dutch people would get it. Probably not even all Dutch people. It has to do with the William of Orange's serial number.

I hope you enjoy! Don't forget you can still submit chapters and concepts for this story.

~Chapter 6~

The captain heaved a sigh as he read through the casualty reports. Three Scorpion MBT's were destroyed and their crews KIA, 23 marines KIA, 15 of those and two pilots from a pelican crash, ten marines WIA, three ODST KIA, one Ranger WIA, five warthogs heavily damaged or destroyed and 7 civilians dead in the crossfire. Luckily, none of the fighters and bombers were destroyed

Over-all not that bad, for an unplanned assault without any intel on the enemy that is. He knew he shouldn't have just charged straight in like that, but his drive to protect others had kicked in and he didn't think about the consequences. Now 47 men and women lay dead and 12 were in the ship's infirmary with various wounds because of his actions.

Andrew hated himself for it, he remembered all the friends that he lost when he served on the UNSC Chernarus, over fifty percent of the crew had died, some being sucked into the vacuum of space and others from several boarding parties that had made it through, but most had died when a reaper missile was had blown up by a surviving Banshee inside it's tube and taken a large part of the ship with it when the fighting was already over. That was where the drive to protect others came from, from the desire to not let anyone go through losing so many friends.

He knew Hiyo' had the same drive, it already shone through when she scared the bullies away the first time they met. With her though, it came from something else; she, like most Sangheili after the war ended felt a certain sense of guilt for the acts of genocide against the humans, called by them; the Great Debt, and had almost been defeated by the Storm after ONI sabotaged them. It was an understatement that the UNSC had been angry with ONI. No, they were furious. The Office of Naval Intelligence had been disbanded and the leadership executed or transferred to Sangheilios for punishment, the first one being the more desirable option.

But now was not the time to dwell on the past. He stood up and looked in the mirror, his dark grey uniform was a bit wrinkled, but the UNSC eagle and the William of Orange's emblem, a clawing orange lion, were still clear on it. He stroked the wrinkles out of his uniform and left his cabin. Now was the time to talk to the queen of Naboo and ask the Jedi that was there about what he had seen the girl Private Swanson had brought aboard do.

He made his way to the pelican that was prepped to bring him to the surface to find his security detail there waiting for him. Four ODST in their token black full body armour, armed with AR-507 R3's.

They saluted their captain and entered the pelican after him, he heard the dropship come to life and felt it take off. Edward appeared on the holo pedestal with a smile on his 'face', "Let's go meet some new people shall we?"

One of the ODST's chuckled, "Commin' with us Eddy?"

"Why yes, I wouldn't want to miss seeing the queen, especially since these people are from a different galaxy." He said with childish excitement in his voice.

"Calm down Ed, we have to pick up Mantakrea and her guards first." Andrew remarked and the AI seemed a little bit sad.

"Do we have to cap? She keeps calling me construct." Edward said in a mock disappointment.

To this all the men laughed and the pelican set off to the battlecruiser.

Padme looked out over the plaza in front of the palace as military vehicles and personnel buzzed around. The UNSC and USC, as they called themselves, were a peculiar bunch. They used what would go for primitive in galactic standards for their military forces. Wheels for one, hadn't been seen for millennia, the same counted for slug throwers. And yet they absolutely smashed the Trade's army.

Literally, their first wave of troops dropped from orbit in pods and with eight wheeled tanks, crushing droids in their landings. Sadly one had crashed into a museum and shattered a statue that was being borrowed from a museum back on Coruscant and was worth a lot of credits.

The young queen now stood on the steps to the palace with members of the Naboo defence force behind her and Obi-Wan next to her together with Jar Jar Binks, waiting for the captains of the ships to arrive.

The young queen looked up when she heard the now familiar roar of one of the dropships and seconds later a large green craft broke through the clouds and descended down to the ground, stopping in front of the stairs extending two struts from the back and lowered the ramp with a hiss.

As soon as the engines has shut down, four black clad soldiers wearing armour that looked like it was designed to be intimidating stepped out of the dropship and took positions around it. She looked at one of them, trying to see their face, but could only see her own reflection on their silver visors.

Next came aliens, these aliens were in no need for armour to intimidate and took her by surprise. She hadn't been expecting an entirely new race, all the soldiers she had seen on the ground were humans. They were easily seven- eight feet tall and had the demeanour of a race that had evolved for war. The guards wore golden armour engraved with runes she could not read - not that she could read what was written on the chest plates and shoulder pieces of their smaller black armoured companions - and they definitely looked important.

Amidala saw her guards and the Jedi next to her tighten up and sent them a reassuring look. It didn't help her guards much, but Kenobi seemed to calm down a little bit.

When all eight guards had exited and formed a sort of honour guard, two figures exited the craft side by side; one was a human of at least 6 feet tall with bright blue eyes and short brown hair and beard dressed in a dark grey uniform bearing the image of a predatory bird clutching a planet in its talons on the left shoulder and one of a clawing orange predator on his right. A medal and a few ribbons decorated his chest, signalling that he had not been a captain for very long.

The alien next to him was a bit smaller than the others of its kind and also wore gold armour, albeit with red pauldrons.

As soon as they reached the welcome committee the human extended his hand to her, "Captain Andrew Hallsson of the UNSC William of Orange, I presume you are the queen?" He said in strangely accented basic and she shook his hand. "Indeed I am captain." And she turned her attention to the alien standing next to the captain and had to crane her neck to look into its eyes, which were a warm brown colour.

"I am shipmistress Kiyo' Mantakrea, of the USC Unbending Justice." It - no, she - said in a gentle feminine voice.

"I'm Queen Padme Amidala of Naboo and next to me are Jedi knight Obi-wan Kenobi and Gungan representative Jar Jar Binks. I have to say that we are very grateful for your help in liberating our planet and if there is anything you need, we will provide it to you if within our power."

"Do not worry, we were merely doing what we thought was right. If we can take this talk inside? What I am about to tell you should not be heard by unfriendly ears."

"Wait, what?!" she all but screamed, almost losing her composure in front of an alien and a human that claimed to be from another galaxy.

"It may sound strange, but if you would ask the Jedi next to you, he'll tell you he didn't feel what you people call a 'force signature'." Hallsson looked at the Jedi and he slowly nodded, small traces of shock on the young man's face.

The queen just looked incredulous before Mantakrea spoke, "We understand if you do not believe us, so let us show you the history of our people. Edward, If you will?"

Everyone looked around for this Edward person, it couldn't be a guard, because those were stationed outside the richly decorated meeting room, before a green hologram of a man wearing strange clothes appeared. He wore a very tall hat and some sort of long coat and held a walking cane in his right hand.

"Who is this, Shipmistress?" Obi-wan asked, surprised that he could feel a hologram's presence in the force as a living being.

"I am a smart AI, designation EDD 6336-231 for the UNSC William of Orange WVN-584." The hologram said and tipped his hat. "But people usually call me Edward."

The AI scratched his chin, "Hmmm… I thought the queen would be here."

"I am." Padme said flat toned.

"Oh my, excuse me you highness. I was looking through the databases and I must say, the information about your galaxy is quite vast and I wasn't paying attention. Normally that wouldn't be a problem, but a large part of me is still in the ship. You should really do something about your firewalls, it took me exactly 3.1483164 seconds to find a way arou-"

"Ed, get to the point." Andrew said, annoyed by the AI's rambling.

"Wait, hold on for a second. You broke into our database?!"

"Technically not, I found a way to bypass the firewalls."

"Ed"

"Ah yes, the history," a grave look suddenly appeared on the AI's 'face' and his body was replaced by a map of the Milky Way.

"This is the Milky Way galaxy, the home to the Unified Earth Government and the United Species Coalition. It all began when we started to look at the stars and wondered what would be up there. After the second world war, the Unites States and what was then the Soviet Union, or USSR, started a space-race and not long after, the first man was in space. Later a rocket was built and on 14 December 1969, the first men were on the moon." Edward showed a video of Neil Armstrong saying his legendary words and continued by telling them everything and pausing at the point of the rainforest wars.

"The Rain Forest Wars in 2162 was a war between the United nations, the Koslovics and the Frieden movement and in the process destroyed a large part of the Amazon rainforest, hence the name. Shortly after, the UEG was formed." He showed a picture of a lush green forest full of wildlife, after which this picture was replaced by one where the forest was burning and most life in that area had been destroyed, to which the Nabooians looked shocked.

"This was the first interplanetary war and one where the UNSC, the military branch of the UEG, together with exploration and research, showed its worth. Mankind set out for the stars again and eventually the amount of colonies was at 800 worlds, there was a time of prosperity, but soon some of the outer colonies started to rebel against the UEG's unpopular centralistic policies." A video played to show a group of badly armed people fighting professional soldiers, followed by one where a group of those people hijacked a military vessel.

"The United Rebel Front was formed and more and more colonies started to defect from the UEG. This event is called the insurrection. The insurrectionists committed acts of terrorism, even detonating a nuclear bomb in a heavily populated area." A hologram of a massive crater appeared.

"the insurrection grew and grew until finally, we made first contact at the planet Harvest." A hologram of Harvest appeared, "It wasn't peaceful." The hologram changed to a planet of molten rock and glass."

"W-what happened?" Padme asked with a quivering voice and Andrew spoke up,

"After a five year long campaign, Harvest was lost. They came into the atmosphere and glassed the entire planet and its inhabitants." Kiyo' just looked down in shame of what her people had done under the false prophets.

Edward resumed his story, "One by one, the alliance of alien races glassed our planets in the name of their gods. We could fight them with a three-to-one advantage and still lose an entire fleet. It wasn't a war for victory, no, it was a war for survival. In fact, it wasn't a war at all, it was genocide. Eventually we were down to the core worlds and a few outer colonies." Another hologram of a planet was shown, this time it was a lush green one. "This is the planet of Reach, the most well defended planet second only to Earth and the centre of most of our military. We defended it, but eventually it too fell."

"But hope was not lost, after the heroic sacrifices of SPARTAN squad Noble, one of our greatest heroes made it out on the Pillar of Autumn with an AI that would eventually turn the tide of the war. These heroes were Sierra-117, or the Master Chief and the AI Cortana. They found out about the Flood and Halo rings. The Flood is a parasitic race that only desires to spread and the Halo rings were rings made by the Forerunners, a race that lived over 100,000 years ago. They stopped the Flood by firing the Halo array, 7 Halo's spread across the galaxy, and after storing samples of all sentient life they fired and killed the food source for the Flood, after which the galaxy was repopulated."

"Eventually there was a new Flood and a pact was made between the Swords of Sangheilios and the UNSC to wipe out the flood. The Arbiter – leader of the Sangheili – eventually ended up helping us in the war against the covenant and defected after the Prophets were proven false, causing the Great Schism."

"The Great war ended in 2552. After three decades of fighting a genocidal war, approximately 23 billion human lives were lost, numerous worlds were changed into molten glass and countless families torn apart."

"The USC was formed and after fifty years and the Kig-Yar rebellion, we're still fighting Covenant remnant forces. We now live mostly in peace and humanity inherited the mantle of responsibility from the forerunners as a new way of life, dubbing us protectors of sentient life in our galaxy." Edward concluded his tale and his regular form appeared once again.

Amidala, Kenobi and Jar Jar Binks were all dead silent. Padme looked shocked and was left completely speechless.

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed. Next chapter will be a bit more about Gus.

Cya and may the Chief be with you.