Hello, everyone! Welcome back to The Space-Time Condition! I would like to apologize to everyone for that horrible opening blurb last time. I would also like to thank everyone who posted reviews. It made me a nervous wreck when writing this, but thanks. Your input was much appreciated. I'm going to try to update this at least once a week from now on, so don't expect such fast follow-ups in the future. We now return to the story, where the Infinity and Normandy have just arrived who-knows-where…
Also, do not own anything but OCs.
UNSC Infinity, Unknown Location, Unknown Time
The light began to fade, and Laskey finally was able to uncover his eyes. The metallic surface of Requiem was nowhere to be seen. Instead, a verdant garden world floated serenely in space. Suddenly, he heard something rather heavy landing on the deck-plates behind him. Turning, he discovered fire-team Majestic, Commander Palmer, and Doctor Halsey getting shakily up from the ground. Halsey, surprisingly, was the first to get up.
"Thank you for the rescue, Captain. It was rather timely. I had just retrieved two rather significant Forerunner artifacts." She looked closer at his face. "Although, now I'm not entirely sure that was your doing." Laskey looked at Halsey inquisitively. "You thought we did that?" Halsey gave a curious look. "Why, yes, I did. The experience was similar to how John and Cortana described Forerunner teleportation, and I was sure that there were samples of the technology in Onyx."
Laskey was about to reply when the sensor officer shouted again. "Sir, we have an unidentified ship moving in... Sir! It's locked weapons on us!" Laskey turned and began frantically shouting direction. "Sound General Quarters! Bring shields online and start spinning up the MACs! All nonessential personnel, get off of the bridge! Battle stations!"
Red warning lights started flashing as a quick burst of static appeared outside of the viewport, signaling the activation of Infinity's shields. The strange, triangular ship fired a fusillade of what appeared to be an upscale version of the Covenant's plasma weapons. The odd bursts of energy impacted the shields, causing a golden shimmer to appear just in front of the blasts.
Halsey, who had been hanging on to the bulkhead frame, spoke up. "That appeared to be a package of superheated plasma, similar to Covenant weapons, but much more powerful. Interesting."
Laskey, annoyed, interjected. "Let's save the science for after we've dealt with the people shooting at us? What's the status of our shields? Weapons, give me a report!"
A voice rose from the engineering. "Whatever those blasts were, they took out almost twenty-five percent of our shields! Those things are powerful!"
The weapon officer turned back to his console, and started flicking through windows. "We have the Magnetic Accelerator Cannons charging up. Autocannons and Archers are standing by, though we'll have to boot up the Archer's guidance systems before we can use them and the MACs are taking a while to charge."
Laskey closed his eyes, weighing his options for a few seconds. He then looked back up at the weapons officer "Activate the autocannons and start booting up Archer pods D-1 through D-5, then target the hostile. Divert seventy six percent of power from the engines and split it between the shields and the MACs."
The weapons and engineering officers nodded and started typing on their consoles. All along the hull, small turrets extended from recessed ports and began blasting away at the unknown ship.
SSV Normandy SR-2, Unknown Space, Unknown Time
The light dissipated and the alarms finally stopped whining. Shepard uncovered his eyes, and looked out into space. It took him a few seconds to realize that they were no longer around Vaul. Looking around, he saw a verdant green world below. As he examined the planet, he noticed flashes further around the orbit. He focused on those, looking for a pattern. After a few seconds of random flashes, Shepard finally gave up and turned around. "EDI, there are some strange flashes in orbit. Mind doing a sensor focus?"
EDI pressed a few buttons on her console, and then flicked the window onto the main screen. "There appears to be a battle going on. Combatants are using a form of high-energy plasma in their weapon systems. I am not detecting any Element Zero anywhere in their ships. Standby... I just detected a radiation spike consistent with what I detected during our encounter with the unknown object. The spike is occurring within visual range." A holographic circle appeared over the portside viewport, highlighting a far-away tangle of arcing gold electricity. As Shepard and the rest of the people on the bridge watched, a massive silhouette appeared in the field of energy. As they continued to look on in awe, the silhouette solidified into an immense ship. As the gold lightning disappeared, a smaller, more reserved, blue version of it played across its surface. Shepard suddenly noticed a triangle of lights moving from the main group and moving towards the new ship. He was in awe as he noticed that whatever the triangular shaped thing was, it was huge. The massive white triangle-thing opened fire on the massive, gunmetal gray vessel with blasts of green energy. A slight shimmer appeared around the large ship, then a crash as another wave of lightning played out across the hull. Explosions ripped through the bow, although it didn't appear to Shepard as though there was much, if any damage done to the ship. The smaller aggressor swooped in like a hawk, blasting away. The large ship apparently decided that it should probably fight back, and began a massive fulisade of projectiles. A red-tinged shimmer appeared around the outside of the triangle, blocking the some of the blasts as the rest impacted its white surface. The aggressor continued firing with a vengeance, and holes started appearing in the larger ship's barrier. Shepard watched with a growing anxiety, before turning to EDI's body.
"The big ship... are you sure that the radiation we detected was the same as the unknown object's?"
EDI responded without turning from her console. "Affirmative. The radiation was consistent with what I detected when the odd light began fading."
Shepard stood there, staring out at the battle, deep in thought. Joker suddenly turned away from his console, with a worried look on his face.
"Shepard... the triangle ship just launched a swarm of what looks like some kind of fighter... and they're heading this way..."
Shepard looked out at the large triangle ship, looking for the smaller ships. "How close will they get?"
EDI's head turned and looked at Shepard. "Projected course will take them within seven point three-four meters of the Normandy in approximately two minutes."
Shepard looked further, noticing a large formation of blue lights approaching the ship. "Ready the CBTs for activation. Don't know how effective they'll be if the small ships have energy weapons like their big ship, but we have to have something. Start up the targeting programs. I'm hoping we'll not have to fight them, but judging by what happened to the big ship, I don't think we'll have a choice."
Wrex let out a short laugh. Shepard shook his head and continued to watch the blue lights as they began to get close enough to discern their shape, praying that they didn't fire. His prayers went unanswered, though, as just when he managed to discern that they were an H-shaped arrangement of solar panels around a central orb they fired on the Normandy with green energy weapons. Joker immediately threw the ship into a spiraling climb, which the odd fighters matched expertly. As Joker threw the ship into more and more high-G twists and turns that would have torn apart a more fragile ship, the fighters remained on his tail with an ease that surprised everyone onboard. And through every maneuver, the fighter's fire drew ever closer to the ship...
UNSC Infinity, Unknown Location, Unknown Time
Alarms continued to blare across the bridge, as the unknown continued to pour fire into Infinity's ever-weakening shields. Officers and Marines scrambled across the ship, trying to reach battle stations or damaged sections of the hull. Laskey shouted above the din, trying desperately to buy time for his guns to charge.
"Transfer all remaining power from engines to shields! Shut down all non-essential systems and transfer the power to the shields as well. Get all the power you can get your hands on into the shield generator!"
The sensor officer shouted up from his station. "Sir, enemy ship is launching single-ships!"
Laskey swore. "Dammit! Get the Broadswords in the air ASAP! We've got enough problems as it is!"
Suddenly the sensor officer jolted. "Sir, new contact! It just appeared in front of the enemy single-ships! They're moving to engage... Damn! I've never seen a ship that size move like that!"
Laskey activated the holotable and brought up a tactical map of the battlespace. "Roland, show me what he's talking about."
The view immediately began racing far to the right of its original position, suddenly focusing on a small ship. It was larger than the ships chasing it, but still pretty small by UNSC standards. However, whatever it was flying like it was a high-performance fighter. Laskey was impressed. He pointed over to his tactical officer.
"Launch all Broadswords! Vector them onto the hostile fighters! Roland, get me a com-channel to that ship, now!"
SSV Normandy SR-2, Unknown Space, Unknown Time
Joker continued to move the ship through impossible maneuver after impossible maneuver. Despite the artificial gravity and the acceleration dampeners, Shepard was starting to feel the G-forces associated with these high-speed maneuvers. Suddenly, EDI spoke up, surprise evident in her synthesized voice.
"An unknown program is attempting to access systems on the ship. It has already bypassed several of my firewalls. Attempting to isolate..."
Shepard winced as the ship made an incredibly high-speed turn to port.
"Just what we need right now. More problems!"
A crackle came over the intercom. As Shepard turned to ask EDI what was going on, a voice came over the speaker.
"This is Thomas Laskey, captain of the UNSC warship Infinity. Hold tight, we're sending support your way."
Several ships shaped like old-fashioned in-atmosphere fighters flashed past the windows, firing at the H-shaped fighters before Shepard could even begin to wonder how this unknown Captain could speak English and why he had such a human-sounding name. A new voice came over the intercom.
"This is Roland, Infinity's AI. I'm sending your ship's computer our targeting vectors. Steer clear, we're going to set off some fireworks."
Holographic lines appeared over the view screen. Shepard looked on, wondering what exactly these strangers were going to do.
UNSC Infinity, Unknown Location, Unknown Time
"The MAC is finally charged?" Laskey was amazed. The damn thing had taken so long, he wasn't sure that it would ever be fully charged.
Roland's avatar nodded. "Engineering finally discovered why it was taking so long. One of the power cables had been cut, probably by an Elite when they boarded off of Requiem. It's been replaced, and the number three cannon is fully charged."
Laskey positively beamed. "Let's get this over with then. Fire the MAC!"
A whirring sound filled the ship, followed by a massive bang as the number four Magnetic Accelerator Cannon fired at the enemy ship.
Imperial Star Destroyer Devastation, Aramantari System, 4 ABY
The Ship's captain was less than pleased. These Rebels were putting up much more of a fight than he had expected. What's worse, the main Rebel force had started breaking out and was savaging his picket ships! He clenched his fists in anger as he consoled himself in the knowledge that the enemy ship would soon be nothing but floating space junk over an uninhabited world. As he watched, a flash erupted from the front of the Rebel ship. His brain had barely had time to register that the enemy had just fired something when the ship's reactor exploded, incinerating the ship.
UNSC Infinity, Unknown Location, Unknown Time
A massive cheer went out through the ship's corridors as the enemy triangle-ship exploded in a massive blue fireball. Laskey sighed with relief, grateful that the lives of his crew had been spared. His sensor officer shouted up over the euphoria.
"Sir, and unidentified fleet is approaching! Energy profiles are consistent with that of the destroyed enemy ship!"
The shouting immediately died down as it dawned on the crew that they might be forced into another battle.
Laskey pointed at the weapons officer.
"Ready all remaining MACs to fire! Bring all weapons to bear, get a firing solution..."
Laskey was interrupted by his communication officer.
"I'm receiving an audio signal... Sir, they're hailing us! "
Laskey nodded. "Put it through."
A young, male, and undeniably human voice spoke up through the bridge speaker.
"Thanks for the assist. There was no way we could have beaten that Star Destroyer alone."
Laskey stepped forward and spoke up. "I'm Captain Thomas Laskey of the UNSC warship Infinity. Whom am I speaking to?"
The unknown voice spoke with confidence. "I'm Commander Luke Skywalker of the Alliance to Restore the Republic, in command of the Alliance cruiser Sibwarra. What in the name of the Force is the UNSC?"
Thanks for reading! As always, please point out any flaws you see in the story, grammar, etc. And please feel free to give me any input you want to, story wise. Thanks again!