The group had climbed back up into the building, only to be met by a blaster at the grate. However, when the Clone Trooper, namely Hevy, noticed it was actual Clones and the two Misfits returning, he took a step back and offered his hand to the leading man. As they all stood up, Hevy snapped a salute at Commander Cody and Captain Rex, having probably noted who they are. He then said, "I'll be damned if you aren't a sight for sore eyes, sirs. We've got a lot of clankers coming up the proverbial hill now."

"Uphill, every way, Trooper," Rex spoke with a nod, then looked over to see the Sergeant in charge of the defense arraying their troops in various positions. The distant thrum of the landing ship's engines caused the gentlest vibrations in the outpost's air, but the presence of the two Clone officers seemed to have been felt. The Sergeant and the others soon turned to salute them, with Vic, Ves and Paul immediately smiling.

Rex hummed, then quipped, "You know, if I knew they sent a bunch of the Misfits over, I might've just brought the rest of you lot. Good to see you, Corporals, Sergeants," and offered the group a salute back. He and Cody approached the Sergeant, giving him a nod to relax, before asking, "Sergeant O'Niner. Situation on ammo count and your troops?"

"All in the yellow, still, sir. We'll see what happens when the Clankers send in that battalion they have on board their ship," O'Niner replied, checking his blaster carbine. He told them, "They really want this outpost... We think it's because they wanna strike at Kamino," as he took his helmet off, clearly dumbfound by the droids' strategy for this battle. Why try to take the outpost when what must've been the main objective, keeping the All-Clear Signal online, failed?

"They already lost the element of surprise if that's the case," Cody stated, taking his helmet off. He told the group, "Before we got blasted out of the sky, our sensors detected a large gravitational disturbance matching UNSC FTL at the edge of the system, meaning at least a Cruiser's coming here already..." And that got a few of the group to smile. The message had gotten through. Cody noted that they must've called the Cruiser in, then continued, "You can be sure they've probably sent out for a squadron of Venators to come support us. Either the officer of the fleet above wants us all dead for interfering, or he has a different plan."

O'Niner shrugged, "I don't know, sir. I'm not paid to think on wider strategies," and that got some laughs. He then told them, "It might just be the sunk cost at this point. They lost a platoon of Commando Droids for taking out two of our boys and the UNSC Pilot that the Misfits came here with," motioning to the Marines. He continued, "We turned off the All-Clear, too."

"That, we noticed," Rex nodded, then crossed his arms to his chest, "We thought it was the Droids jamming us when we spotted the fleet, though, so it's nice to have the confirmation of foresight. Well done, troopers," only to look toward the Droid with the bent neck and then to Paul's robot knuckle being scraped. He snorted at the thought of the man punching a droid's neck in like that.

"Sir," Droidbait grinned, "Just doin' our jobs, protectin' our home..."

"With some Basic lovebirds backing us up, mind ya," Cutup added as he readied his blaster, pointing jokingly toward the four Misfits. The other clones and the Marines let out laughter at that quip and the two Clone officers gave their nods of approval. Cody excused himself to go check the mines, to which Katja followed him in to ensure he wasn't going to step on any of the placed mines.

"Sergeant Toma," Rex looked over to Vesna, who nodded. She and Vic walked up to him and he told them, "How much of your platoon is currently away with the Infinity?"

"Rough estimates of of Seventy-Five Percent," Vesna replied as she shouldered her rifle, "Our officer, the Lieutenant, isn't with us, obviously. We've got a few more of our fellow Elite troopers with the Infinity for now, but they're waiting for injuries from Christophsis to heal, so we're the only ones who were capable of deploying here. Seeing how small the Outpost is, it's a good thing."

"Agreed-" Rex paused as he heard the muffled thumping of mechanical feet outside. Immediately taking command, the man pointed with his open palm to various positions. Katja and Cody rushed back up the stairs, readying their weapons and taking cover behind boxes and the consoles. Rex drew both of his blaster pistols and prepared to engage the enemy with the group as they took the positions he ordered them to take.

Hevy, who now took cover behind one of the consoles, looked to Echo and pointed at his chest, stating, "Nice new mark," as he noticed the palm. Echo nodded in thanks and tilted his head to Captain Rex, who still had a bit of the dried blood on the hand he'd used to make the mark with. The soldiers gripped their weapons tightly, readying themselves to engage the Droid menace.

The deathly quiet that fell upon the AO was probably a surprising change for the troopers and Marines, all of whom prepared to engage. The thumping footsteps drew closer and closer, until the first spindly silhouette of a Battle Droid stepped through the door, followed by more of its brothers. It spoke in its strange voice, "Optical sensors open! The Clones here can put up a fight!"

"Roger, roger!" The rest of the square formation of Droids replied. Katja and Rex looked to one-another, the man stowing one of his pistols and giving her a countdown on detonating the mines, which would subsequently set off the other charges. The girl had set up Claymore-style mines, the detonator of which being connected to her helmet's BattleNet system.

Rex gave a thumbs up and the girl hit it. The rumbling explosion that followed reverberated across the station's innards, the walls groaning and the shockwave nearly breaking the windows. An entire force of Droids was wiped, but yet more were audible, now advancing at a quickened pace. Through the fire emerged the first BD-1, which Rex promptly domed with his blaster pistols. When the second and third emerged, the troopers all opened fire into the smoke.

Azure blasts punched through the cloud of smoke wafting up the stairwell, causing ripples and holes to be drilled into it. Automatic fire from the kinetic assault weapons of the four-man Marine Fireteam filled the air once more, spent casings clinking next to spent casings as Rex and Cody, now at the forefront of the defense, engaged the Battle Droids with accurate and deadly fire.

Red bolts started flying up the stairwell in answer, rounds striking the metal roof and the stairs themselves, all around the Clones and Marines. The four poured down bullet hell from their barrels, while the Clones kept up their own suppressing fire, aiming center-mass of the droid silhouettes attempting to advance up the stairwell. It wasn't long, however, until their more heavily armored counterparts rolled up. BD-2 Super Battle Droids.

One of said droids had an arm-mounted cannon it aimed up the stairs. Rex's eyes shot wide open as he barked, "TAKE COVER!" before jumping out of the way and dragging Vesna and Echo with him. The projectile lanced forward and struck the ceiling, breaking the windows, the concussive blast causing the Marines and a few of the clones to stagger. Vic, however, never let go of the trigger of his MG. His shots went wide, yes, but some struck and staggered the machine with the arm-mounted cannon. Rex and Cody recovered quickly, too, much to their credit, immediately snapping their blasters up at the enemy Droid and filling it full of plasma.

A sniper shot rang out from behind them and a second droid with a similar pedigree was nailed clean through it's CPU, but the armored assault Droids pushed forward and up the stairs, firing their four arm-mounted heavy blasters at the group. Being forced back into deeper cover allowed the Marines to start hefting and long-arming whatever leftover fragmentation grenades they had, Cody commenting, "We got into one hell of a mess this time!"

"Can't be any worse than what we usually go through!" Rex replied. He stood up and blasted two more Supers with his pistols, his aim terrifyingly good even in the hectic close quarter battle within the Post. Vic poked out with his MG from behind cover and let loose a burst, catching one of the droids in its knee servos and sending it toppling over. Vesna moved forward next with Katja, the two letting their rifles spit AP Rounds out at the Droids.

Vesna gasped, however, as she saw one of the SBD's cock its fist back as Katja pushed toward it. She slammed into the girl, pushing her out of the way and lifting her own rifle up to meet the strike. Bone snapped audibly, Vesna being thrown back by the punch. Vic gasped, looking back to see her falling to the floor and grabbing onto her arm. He scoffed, stood to his feet and shouldered his gun as he pushed over toward her.

With surprising accuracy, the man laid down a hail of bullets at the Mech that'd punched his wife and broke her arm, bullets spraying oil and metal shards onto the floor. When the first SBD collapsed, Vic swept the gun high and to the right, away from their comrades and toward the Droids themselves. Vesna had managed to draw her pistol and fire at the SBDs, too, while the others focused fire on the leading elements.

When the last round in the current belt rang out, Vic threw the gun onto his back and grabbed his pistol out of its holster, snapping of fifty-caliber Semi-Armor Piercing High Explosive at the enemy drones with reckless abandon. She walked over to Vesna and lifted her to her feet, looking at the broken arm as she quickly put it in a splint. With a tug on the splint itself and a slight wince, the girl let the forearm, whose radial and ulnar bones had broken, hang as she fired her pistol. Vic took her into cover as a volley of plasma landed around them.

Hevy, who was covering them as Vic tended to her, called out to the crew, "Don't mess with a man's wife, you clankers!" and nodded to Vic. The others fell back to the rear corridor, too, engaging the Supers with direct and accurate fire from their weapons, but more and more poured through the door, with Hevy being the bulk of the firepower focused on them.

After making sure his wife was fine and healing, the Romanian heavy gunner quickly reloaded his LMG and joined in, firing the weapon from prone with its bipod down again, the barrel starting to glow red. Rex pushed forward next to the two heavy gunners, tapped the Clone on the shoulder and swept with an open palm to the left, to which the gunner nodded. He knelt next to the Sergeant next and made the same motion to the left for him. Vic nodded and immediately started shifting his fire, MG barking.

Cody, who was on the radio while firing, spoke, "Reinforcements are here!" and pointed up. It took Paul a second to take his aim off the enemy and aim through the window. He saw the tear in realspace, saw the cannon and bow of the Cruiser come out first, only for two more smaller escorts to follow along, two Frigates. He smirked, then turned his rifle back toward the enemy, firing his sniper rifle with anger.

Katja, right beside him, paid the Droids back for breaking Vesna's arm and prepped...

Over the radio, a voice spoke, "Rishi outpost, this is Colonel Tarkov, 105th ODSTs. Stand by, we're coming in with a Hot Drop..."

On board the UNSC Pass Me The Ammo

Captain Heikkala watched space tear open ahead, revealing the Rishi system. Barren overall save for the Outpost they were here to save from the enemy and the enemy fleet dead ahead, Rishi was a relatively boring place. Well, was until now. She spoke, "All crew, we're at Red Alert. Give me a MAC solution on their largest combatant, load our Nuke tubes, launch all fighters and deploy Colonel Tarkov and his boys ASAP. Let's ring some Tin Can bells."

"Aye, ma'am!" The voices of her crew called out as the muffled alarms of the warship echoed in the background, the vessel's lights flaring red. She counted the enemy ships in her mind:Six enemy 'Munificent'-class 'FRIGATES', with the heavy air quotations necessary, and three Lucrehulk-class Battleships from the looks. Not easy prey by any means, especially not for her small battle group, but they'd make do until the reinforcements they'd also summoned would come in.

She hoped the enemy's leadership was either dumb enough not to want to back off immediately, or smart enough to retreat, now that whatever element of surprise they'd wanted for probably seizing the clone-making world of Kamino had evaporated thanks to allied resistance. She still wanted to get at least one kill, piss off whoever it was that was in charge of the enemy formation.

She walked over to the hologram table, which displayed their arrayed ships against the CIS's battlegroup. They were outnumbered two-to-one, but the Frigates she'd brought with her were anything but weak, honestly. Despite its age, the Paris-class Heavy Frigate was still the backbone of the UNSC Navy while the Anlace and Strident fleets were being built up and the newer models were also coming out.

"Ma'am, MAC solution achieved on leading Lucrehulk! We're synched with the Pay No Mind and Silver Tongue, on your mark!" The gunnery chief spoke as the flashing dots of enemy fighter squadrons appeared. Their own Broadswords and Longswords met the enemy ahead in a violent exchange of fire, while their bombers were being loaded with nuclear warheads, too.

She smirked, then barked, "Tuli!"

The void rippled as the MAC of the Cruiser let loose its first shot of the battle. The high velocity magnetically-accelerated slug and its two smaller, Frigate-borne brethren, accelerated toward the enemy fleet and arced for the leading Lucrehulk of the trio, nailing the vessel center-mass and drilling nasty holes and gashes into their armor. Behind the MACs were a volley of missiles, among which nuclear payloads.

Several dozen missiles impacted two of the leading Munificents as those ships got in range with their main heavy cannons. Twin blasts of scarlet energy left the barrels of the each front-mounted cannon and struck the bow shields of the UNSC Formation. Behind them, however, the nuclear warheads detonated on the leading Lucrehulk, flashes of boiling white taking what looked like massive bites out of the armored body and central sphere of the warship.

The leading Lucrehulk was gone the moment the flashes from the nuclear warheads vanished. Now, the ships focused on the Munificents, which were closing into a Phalanx for the other two vessels. In the middle of the orbital battlefield, their fighters were engaged in destroying the supporting Vulture droids of the enemy fleet, too, meaning the UNSC Cruiser and Frigates could focus on the enemy.

Before they got too close for comfort, though, Heikkala gave the go-ahead for Tarkov and his men to drop into battle, a hundred Single-Occupant Exoatmospheric Insertion Vehicles dropping from the belly of the UNSC Cruiser down onto the Moon below in a tight formation. As the Cruiser and its escort reached the battlefield, their point-defense began to track enemy fighters, 5cm 'flak' rounds exploding and raining shrapnel onto the Droid Fighters.

The enemy's own warships finally reached proper firing range, their turbolaser batteries and secondary weapons engaging, volleys of scarlet lighting the void, being responded to in kind by MAC, kinetic rounds and explosives from the missiles, including yet more nukes from the Bombers, which now came under the escort of reserve fighters in order to drop their tactical payloads.

A UNSC fighter pilot banked right amidst the furball, aiming for an enemy Hyena bomber that was trying to slip through. He fired a tracking anti-air missile that struck the enemy voidcraft dead-center, causing it to fold in on itself, before he utilized his directional RCS Thrusters to veer away, a Vulture tailing behind him and firing its own twin cannons at the aircraft. The pilot refocused his shields to the ship's rear, letting them take the brunt of the red plasma's fury. Ahead of him, another Vulture dived for an attack run.

He aimed his cannons on his pursuer's partner and let loose, the magnetic coilguns raking the enemy craft with high-explosive rounds, shattering it and leaving a dead husk in the pilot's wake. He veered away from the debris and cocked his head as one of his buddies called for support. Three Vultures bore down on him like their angry namesake carrion bird, blaster fire overloading his shields and nailing his engines.

The man spun out of control as his buddy finally managed to turn and engage, firing a volley of rounds into the Droid birds furiously, followed by a flurry of missiles, one locked on each enemy drone fighter. Explosions rippled in the darkness. Three droids and one UNSC Pilot were gone in the middle of the fight... But the UNSC was handily winning this one, surprisingly.

Even as damage began to rain through the UNSC ships' shields, they held, their armor lightly cratered by Turbolasers as the trio of vessels employed a simple tactic:Firing all three of their MACs at the enemy's Frigates one at a time. That had gotten them three kills so far. Those three more to go wouldn't get the chance to be shot at, though, as the Lucrehulk fired all of her main batteries at the warships, causing damage to the already-hurt UNSC Cruiser and hurting her escorts ever so slightly. The enemy's retreat, however, was precipitated by the arrival of six Republic Venator-class warships in orbit.

Down below, the ODSTs breached the thin atmosphere and landed on the Moon, punching out of their pods and gathering to support the Marines and the Clones in the base. When Rex saw Tarkov, the commander in the golden armor, step through the gate with his silenced SMG coughing rounds into the back of the Droids, he was impressed at their guts to say the least.

Thank God for the UNSC's troops...

On Ossus...

The Arbiter and his escorting soldiers continued to delve deeper into the wide halls of the Library, finding ancient books, covered by Dust, still on their shelves and untouched, layers of dust caked upon them. The Elite felt for those that must have once tended this place. The Jedi that had had to leave it. Had they even survived the cataclysm? Were those Force-wielders outside them?

The Arbiter's gaze swept the ancient chambers around them, the deep caverns that permeated this place being open to them. He spoke, "It almost seems like a setpiece, frozen in time. The lack of corpses, however, worries me..." as they pushed forward, deeper into the place. It was, indeed, a rather 'creepy' thing that there weren't even any skeletons to look at. Again, he hoped those outsides were the descendants that buried said corpses.

They entered an antechamber of some kind, however. One where the collapse was more apparent, as some of the columns were damaged, chunks and chips of stone littering the dusty floor as they walked in. The strange antechamber, however, proved to be a little more than just that. In the chamber, there were statues, a dozen of them, surrounding a central pedestal in a half-circle, each bearing a blade, each looking a little alien.

Some were human, obviously, though the armors and equipment they bore resembled nothing of the modern times. The little altar looked younger than the rest of the Library of Ossus, whatever it may have been to the Jedi Order. The central pedestal itself bore a glimmering object that felt so eerily familiar to the Elites, they moved in to get a closer look. And indeed, despite it all, the body of the device was marked by familiar symbols.

Though the flags flanking it weren't... A deep blue flag shone in the light of their Energy Swords, the Elites remaining terrifyingly taciturn as they looked upon them. In the middle of a hexagon, lay a symbol that was, yet again, almost familiar, but not quite. Like an eagle with its wings sprawled, but gripping something in its claws. Two smaller hexagons with strange emblems, one resembling that of the Jedi Order, while the other looked eerie, almost like that of the Republic, but more jagged.

"This is the Artifact indeed..." The Elite Commando beside the Arbiter spoke as they turned back to the device. The Arbiter hummed as he ran his finger over the strangely familiar alloy. The Elite told him, "Shall we prepare to leave? The Infinity shall soon be here..." before pausing as he heard movement. All of the Elites soon drew their weapons and looked around, the hum of antigravity engines filling their ears.

They were deep within the mountain, meaning it could not be their Phantom. Nor could it be any device built by the locals, because they probably never heard of technology like anti-gravity, lest some remained nearby as an example. The Arbiter looked at the device, clipped it to his belt and drew his own plasma rifle, preparing for whatever came. And what came was indeed a surprise.

Silver-colored Sentinels, the standard defensive complement of Forerunner infrastructure, gently dived down from the ceiling. Three Sentinels, their eyes glowing blue, descended within the room, their under-slung weapons systems seemingly already powered. One floated over to the Arbiter and its sole 'eye' seemed to be examining the hinge-jawed alien from head to toe.

"This is familiar..." Muttered Usze as he readied his weapon. The Arbiter huffed in agreement, as did the other Elites. Meanwhile, attempting to activate their communication devices did very little. They were probably going to be alone down here and, if the Sentinels decided to engage, they had almost nowhere to run to at this very moment. It was fairly unsettling. Even so, they prepared to engage.

The Sentinels seemed to have notice this tension in the Elites. One quick scan later and they floated upward, trying to surround the Elites, all of whom formed into a circle around the pedestal as the Drones orbited around them, their weapons trained and ready. Why were they not attacking, the Arbiter thought. Were they waiting for a Monitor, perhaps? He did not want to deal with another of the 'Oracles' again.

... Then, he paused as he saw them flying back up into the shafts they'd come from. His communication system immediately picked up a barely-audible signal. It was the Infinity's. They had already arrived in system, but the Arbiter couldn't make more than that out, even as the ground around them began to rumble. He quickly ordered, "Out! Now! We may be facing a tremor!"