Righteous Destiny (Halo/SW fic)

[Mitth`raw`nuruodo]

This is a great story so far. I never even CONSIDERED what would happen if someone like Spartan 117 got thrown into the Vong, and you have made it very fun and interesting to read. Keep it up!

[Rightous Fist Of Heaven]

I have gotten the third chapter started, but my final exams week is coming up and there are couple of bad exams that i need to read to, or otherwise i wont pass the damn course. But i will continue it, hopefully i'll get something done this weekend.

[Jaris Merc]

This chap is better than the last more cool stuff ! hope 3 comes out soon

[Jaris Merc]

its driving me insane!!! when will the next chapter come out????

[Mitth`raw`nuruodo]

need...chapter...soon!

[Rightous Fist Of Heaven]

Sorry people that its been a while, my summer holiday starts soon and i have been writing a bit now every evening but it takes time and im just so goddamn tired every day after work. Patience the chapter will come.

And im very glad to see that there are people expecting for it

[Mitth`raw`nuruodo]

*bump*

We haven't forgotten about this, and I'm hoping you haven't either. *cracks whip *GET WRITING!

[Rightous Fist Of Heaven]

Nope, as a matter of fact, the next chapter is soon ready. Expect it in a day or two.

[Micheal Ryans, Beta pilot]

Nope, as a matter of fact, the next chapter is soon ready. Expect it in a day or two.

Good.

[Jaris Merc]

Happy! Happy! Joy! Joy!
Happy Happy Joy Joy!!!
* does stupid Stempy dance*

hehehehehehehe

[Rightous Fist Of Heaven]

Ok people, since there clearly have been people waiting for the next chapter i can give you one.

Chapter 3: To believe or not to believe

The alien ship fired again. Half a dozen cannons on its surface flashed sending streaks
of plasma towards the six kilometer UNSC cruiser. The range was over five thousand kilometers and
the Sword Of Orion was evading and responding fire with three fourths of all its missile batteries.
Four more shots of plasma struck the allready battered cruiser, its titanium-a battleplating
allready glowing superheated in several places. Captain Ryans' expression was grim, with
less than 10 minutes of the battle behind them, the Sword Of Orion had allready taken
severe damage from the aliens plasma weapons. Altough the plasma cannons on the organic
ship were hardly as destructive as a Covenant plasma torpedo, they more than made
up for it in their rate of fire. The Sword Of Orion did the best it could with its missile pods,
however the shock on the bridge had created a long moment of awe when they saw
the first salvo of missiles disappearing entirely to miniature black holes spawned by
the alien vessel to their missiles paths. Altough Ryans had discovered along with his
tactical officer that the void defenses could be saturated with overwhelming amounts
of fire. However despite them firing over a hundred missiles per salvo, barely a dozen
of them got thru every time, and the effects were hardly encouraging. Altough these
aliens lacked energy shielding, their hull was incredibly strong. The Archer missiles had
only been able to crater the hull of the alien ship to some degree and they had even
blown away one or two of the plasma cannons: But it was getting painfully clear to
Ryans who was going to emerge victorious from this engagement, and it wasnt his ship.
"Another eighteen hits captain. No noticable damage." Tactical officer Shania Hughes reported.
Ryans only nodded and noted that the efficiency of the aliens void defenses had actually
decreased a bit. Not that it really mattered, they would have to get atleast a full salvo thru
before the enemy bothered more than to flinch. He desperately went thru all the options
in his head once again, he had done it a dozen times allready but he wouldnt accept
that his entire crew would be blown to hell in a battle against an enemy who he hadnt
ever seen before and couldnt understand. Fate had a strange sense of humor. If it
only had been the Covenant, he had fought the Covenant, they were someone who
he could understand. They were someone who he know how to fight against. All
those tactics, maneuvers and weaknesses he had learned to apply against the
Covenant were useless now, nothing more than waste of space in his brain. But
were they? Then it came to him. It was a standard fleet tactic against the Covenant
to time the impact of the MAC round only a second or so before the impact of an
Archer missile salvo in order to get the high energy warheads to strike the bare hull
of the Covenant ships. What if he reversed that timing? They had allready tried to
use the MAC cannons against the alien vessel, but it had been no use. The voids
had sucked the MAC rounds as easilly as the missiles. But if he timed the missiles
to strike a second or so before the impact of the MAC rounds, perhaps the void
defenses would be too pre-occupied and they would ignore the MAC rounds. At this
point he was ready to try anything.
" Lieutenant Hughes, prepare the MAC cannons and Archer missile pods"
Puzzlement dominated Commander Waters' face, he knew as well as the captain
how usefull the MAC cannons were against these hostiles.
" Captain what use will that be? Their void defenses have allready proven that they
have no trouble against our MAC rounds."
Ryans wasnt angry at his XO for questioning his orders, but he was irritated for
him to question those orders out loud. He turned his gaze to Waters for a few
seconds, his eyes were cold but calm.
"I am well aware of that Commander."
"Captain, the MAC cannons are charged."
"Very well Lieutenant. Now this is what i want you to do. I want to fire every single
missile pod that can get a firing solution on that ship. Target the missiles on numerous
different spots of the ship so that their voids will have harder time to snatch them. Then
i want our MAC cannon rounds timed so that they will strike only a second or so after
the missiles have reached the target."
Hughes punched in the targeting lock for the missiles and prepared the locks for the duo
of MAC rounds also.
" Firing solutions aquired captain, missiles are ready."
" Fire lieutenant"
Dozens and dozens of missile engines ignited with the simultaneous fire of nearly all of
the Sword Of Orions missile pods.The monstrous salvo of missiles raced away at over
500 kilometers per second. The range between them and their target quickly shrunk to 1500
kilometers. The automated firing sequence regognized the mark with one millionth of a
second accuracy and executed the next firing order. The dual MAC cannons fired, sending
two 100 ton tungsten steel slugs racing thru space at 2000 kilometers per second. It all
happened quickly, but it almost seemed like time itself had slowed down. The missile
salvo closed in and spots of complete darkness, spots that seemed to draw in even the
light appeared on the missiles paths, over four fifths of the missiles disappeared without
doing a thing but the MAC rounds reached their target. The two rounds struck straight
at the middle of the vessel. Coral shattered and superheated resulting of the immense
friction caused by the impact. The two slugs burrowed deep, drilling in unison a massive
hole straight thru the hull. The momentum of the impact threw the ship spinning when the
two projectiles still burrowed deeper to the ship. But as the captain had seen happening
before to Covenant vessels hit in the similar manner, the shots did not come straight thru
the vessel. No, they remained inside as a display of the integrity of the craft. Nevertheless
the aliens had finally been hurted and bad, athmosphere and tiny figures along with shards
of coral vented from the hole. The fire from the vessel had ceased.
"Lieutenant, arm a single Shiva warhead and one more Archer salvo. Aim the Shiva
straight down the shaft done by the MAC rounds. Time the impact of the missiles slightly
before the Shiva."
The Lieutenant acknowledged, and with a few quick strokes she inputed the firing order
and authorization for the thermonuclear warhead. She noted the completion of her task
with a slight nod.
"You may fire." Ryans gave the order calmly.
Another salvo of missile exhausts ignited on the Sword Of Orions missile pods, along with
one much much larger exhaust of the Shiva nuclear warhead. The 10 seconds felt like the
eternity. The tactical display visualized the wall of destruction closing in on the now hurt
alien vessel. Again, miniature black holes spawned in the missiles paths to protect the
vessel, but the number of them was barely one third of what it had been before the impact
of the MAC rounds. Blooms of fire luminated the dark vessels hull, doing relatively minor
damage to the hardened hull of the vessel. The Shiva however went straight inside the
ship, only a fraction of a second later blinding light filled the viewscreen. The automatic
shaders adjusted for the brightness, the flash lasted only for the blink of an eye, after
it disappeared everyone on the bridge could see where once had been a twelve hundred
meter long black monstrosity, now only pieces of coral remained. There were no cheers,
no cries for victory. Only silence. Victory came with a price tag, and everyone on the
bridge knew how much damage the Sword Of Orion had taken, not to mention the casualties.
Ryans broke the silence with the regular calmness of his voice.
"Damage and casualty report Commander."
"Reports are still coming in sir. The initial reports indicate that we lost Archer pods C thru K
and our point defense is all but gone. Numbers are still coming in on the casualties but
estimates indicate atleast 150 dead and near twice that on wounded"
Ryans sighed and nodded. Death had been part of his command for so long, he had lost so
many crewmen under his command during the years that sometimes the amount felt unreal
to him. But he never forgot those men and women who had sacrificed their lives in the line
of duty. That was the nature of war. People died and Ryans knew that. But goddamnit it didnt
make it any easier.
"Coordinate the repairs Commander." He replied and turned to face his navigational officer.
"Navigation, i want to get out of here as fast as possible. Try to get us a course to some
nearby system. I dont want to be around here when that ones buddies come looking for
us."
"Aye aye captain."
"Commander, you have the bridge. I'll be in my quarters."
Waters acknowledged the command and with heavy steps left the bridge. What the hell
did fate have against him?

Master Chief sat silently observing the data screen at the end of the room. The alien named
Sien Sovv along with Danni Quee poured words of explanation to him. John wasnt a
sceptic person as long as something didnt feel absolutely insane to him. From what he had
heard so far, despite how insane it was. He could not deny it. Cortana had also agreed that
despite the obvious insanity of the explanation offered to them, they had no real objections
towards it either. From one meat grinder to another, and i though our war with the Covenant
was bad. John tought. From all what the Quee woman and this Admiral Sovv had told him,
the humans war against the Covenant invaders was quite miniscule in its scale compared to
the war that had torn this galaxy for the last five years. It was hard to decide, who were more
sadistic, the Yuuzhan Vong or the Covenant.
The brief had so far been a quick one, concentrating on explaining the Yuuzhan Vong, the
course of the war and some basic facts regarding the Vong technology and weaponry.
Cortana had settled for a silent whistle when the scientist woman had described the Vong
defense systems and ships. Miniature black holes, and he thought that the Covenant shields
were bad!
John hadnt said a word during the entire brief, he had nodded slightly signaling his understanding
of the different parts of the explanation.
"So far, todays attempt has been the biggest Vong assassination plot. There are numerous
instances where Vong have smuggled villips and other small equipment or weapons aboard
ships, stations or past planetary customs. But never anything as big as full vonduun crab
armor and amphistaffs. We have no idea how they managed to do it, especially here! We
have the best means of detecting Vong agents so far and we have allready found and terminated
dozens of agents."
Chief again nodded in acknowledgement to Admiral Sovv. He understood, this kind of attempt
couldnt have never been pulled off in any UNSC installation or ship without some very serious
work from the inside. Even after that it would have been quite difficult.
"I think that pretty much concludes it. So you now have a basic understanding of where you
are and what the conditions here are. Now lets hear some explanation from you." Quee
concluded the brief.
"I think i should let someone else do that, do you have any holographic emitters in here?"
Quee nodded and pointed to a small computer terminal placed in one of the walls.
"Thank you" John rose and walked crisply to the terminal placing his hand touching it and
he felt the familiar presence of the AI allways accompanying him fade away as she uploaded
herself to the system.
The emitter above the table at which everyone present was seated shot out a cone of light at
the center of the table. The half a meter tall representation of a woman appeared smiling
cheerfully. Everyone seated at the table now turned their eyes at the hologram.
"Well Chief, dont we have a cheerfull group of people present here?" The trick of light spoke.
"We do indeed, please explain them the basics Cortana" Chief requested here and received
a nod of approval.
"Certainly. Gentlebeings, i am Cortana or in other words, an artificial intelligence. I'll offer you
a quick brief which shoud explain Master Chief here and answer the questions about him."
John returned to his seat and listened Cortana starting his explanation of the basic stellar
information regarding the Milky Way galaxy. Knowing the thoroughness of Cortana, the Chief
knew that this would take hours. Not that it bothered him much, patience and the ability to
wait for eternity if necessary were traits that had kept him alive for this long.

"What!?" The single word filled with rage was enough to make the warriors spine shiver.
The new warmaster was not someone to be angered. The plan had been perfect, it had
been perfected for months and the biggest problem had been getting the warriors with
their equipment in and disable the security and door controls in the required area. But
they had succeeded and everything was ready for murdering the greatest figureheads
of the infidel empire. The warriors and planners of the plot had known that there would be losses
but even the great jeedai couldnt have lived thru the ambush. But despite all the carefull
planning and practice couldnt have predicted a single infidel, who wasnt even a jeedai,
slaughtering four warriors without any kind of trouble and snapping razor and thud bugs
with his hands alone from the air. The three remaining agents had withdrawn, they'd had
no vonduun crab armor to protect them, and against three jeedai and the armored infidel
whose skill had allready been proven, they'd had no chance and they had felt it more
necessary to report what had happened. That didnt make the Warmaster any less enraged
nor did it make Shujak R'ha feel any safer.
"You fool, this simply isnt possible. Please humour me and repeat it."
Shujak swallowed and repeated what he had told.
"The attack failed, all the nine warriors with full equipment died and they did not succeed
in killing any of the infidels. One un-armed infidel in armor only killed four of the warriors with
his hands and feet and sustained no damage"
The warmasters face twisted in pure rage for what he heard. How was it possible? He
had accepted the fact that the jeedai with their sorcery and weapons were more than
a match for warriors. But only the Master Jeedai like the cursed Luke Skywalker had
absolutely no trouble in slaughtering single warriors.
But what he could just not comprehend was how in the name of Yun Yammka could
an un-armed infidel slaughter not one but FOUR fully armed warriors with his hands
and feet. From the explanation given to the Warmaster by Shujak, he had heard that the
human had incredible strength, for the one warrior who he had kicked had flown over seven
meters straight to a wall so fast that his spine had shattered. No, he had to accept it. And
the assassination of the Skywalkers and the Solo's must be postponed until this new
infidel thread was dealt with.
"I see, i see indeed. This is what i want you to do warrior. Do not make any new attempts
on the infidels lives. Inform the other agents of these orders as well. Your new task is to
aquire all information possible of the new infidel warrior. Report back to me in seven days
and Shajuk...see that you have information for me by then". The villip twisted back to its
regular form. It seemed that Shajuk still had a chance to reclaim his honor and avoid death.

All the figures around the table had been concentrating on every word that Cortana haid said
for the whole three hours. No one showed a single sign of fatique and the last hour of the brief
had contained even more questions from the New Rebublic personell than the first one. Propably
because during the third hour Cortana had begun to explain the Covenant, their technology, their
culture and the UNSC's war against them. But still the AI had not answered to the question which
had been hammering everyone's mind for the whole time after they had seen what Master Chief
was capable of, what the hell was he?
But Cortana's explanation had followed a logical course which had now arrived to explaining the
SPARTAN II program.
"As i explained earlier, the UNSC's ground troops were vastly inferior to their Covenant counter
parts. The Covenant have better weapons and there are often more of them. We needed something
that would even up the odds, something that could literally kick the asses of the best Covenant
warriors. Thats when the SPARTAN II program was conceived."
"The SPARTAN program was basically an attempt to create super-soldiers in simple terms.
Soldiers that would be armed to the teeth, have un-imaginable strength and speed and years of
military training."
"One hundred and fifty candidates were put on the list of possible SPARTAN's. These were all
children in the age of six. All of them had been observed to have capabilities and traits that
made them all exemplary children."
Some of the people gathered seemed to be quite uneasy with the concept of children being
trained as soldiers. Cortana continued.
"Seventy five of the children were chosen for the program in the end. I wont go into the details
but they were brought into a military installation in all secrecy where the training could begin.
From the first day in their new home, the trainees training program contained tough physical
excerzise, study of military history and tactics."
"At the age of eight, the children were allready soldiers to the heart. They had firm understanding
of group operations and tactics and they refused to leave no one behind. At the age of eight,
Master Chief here was allready the natural leader of the group."
"Despite all the training and education, the Spartans needed a true edge to the Covenant. And
there is a limit to how much can be done to the human body with sheer excerzise. Drastic
measures were required to make the Spartans what they needed to be."
"There were numerous "enhancing" procedures that had been introduced to make soldiers stronger.
Unfortunately all of the procedures had some severe risks despite the heavy advantages they
offered and were thus considered too dangerous to be applied in practical use. Yet they were
the only choice available."
"At the age of fourteen, the Spartans were decided to have physically developed enough so that
the augmentations could be done."
"All of the critical physical traits were altered. Bones were enhanced with advanced material
crafting which made the bones virtually unbreakable. Muscular enhancements increased the
density of muscle tissue and decreased the lactase recovery time. Reflexes, eyesight and
bone and musle growth were all improved radically. But the risk in the enhancements was
very real and thirty of the Spartans were killed during the procedure and twelve of them were
injured so that they could not be healed to combat efficiency with any means available."
There were whispers and silent talk among the gathered Rebublic personell. John saw the
disgust in the peoples eyes. He understood them for he too would have felt the same way
unless he wouldnt have known how desperate the war against the Covenant was. Despite
that, Cortana continued, explaining the introduction of MJOLNIR armor, the Spartans success
in every battle they fought and the final MJOLNIR MKII armor. Comprehension sparkled
in the listeners eyes, now they understood. They understood the strength and all the potential
the Spartans had, no longer was there any disbelief regarding the way with which the Spartan
in their company had executed the Vong warriors. However, their distaste for using children
in such a way was still very visible.
"Ms. Cortana, what you have told us explains a lot but disturbs us also. I think i speak for
everyone present here when i say that your methods in this Spartan program were hardly
acceptable."
Cortana began to talk but John interrupted her with a flick of a finger.
"Mr. Omaas, i understand what you think. And i think you can understand my opinion too for
i was one of those children. The first months were indeed horrible and i did not feel how could
it be right to do what the military had done."
"But with time i came to understand the desperate situation where humanity was in. Make no
mistake the Covenants intention is to exterminate every single man, woman and child of the
human race. They feel no mercy, they believe it is the will of their gods for us to die and they
are the tools for that. They dont fight this war for resources, hell if they were fighting it because
of that they wouldnt be simply glassing every single human colony they come up against. We
Spartans gave the humanity hope, and a fighting chance. I no longer feel that it was wrong from
the military to do what they did. Not at all. It was their duty, it was the only choice."
Silence howered in the room as the gathered Rebublic military, religious and political leaders
crunched with the thought. The first one to talk was Leia Organa Solo.
"I understand you Master Chief. I cannot honestly call some of us any better than your military.
Altough the Vong also fight their war against this whole galaxy, their ruthlessness loses to the
Covenant in some aspects. They dont simply bomb planets to oblivion and they do take a lot
of prisoners and collaborators to their cause. Your goverment was indeed in a dire situation but
forgive us if it requires us some time to fully accept that it truly was the only choice."
The Chief nodded again in response.
"Well since we have the explanations sorted out, we could get to orbit to check what the techs
have to say about fixing your ship Chief." Han suggested.
"Agreed." The Chief was back to simplistic responses again. He didnt seem to be much of a
talker.
"I think we can conclude the brief here. Lets hope that the techs have something positive to say
Chief."
John nodded to the chief of state and downloaded Cortana back from the holographic system.
Altough these people obviously thought that he was a very passive person, they had no idea
of the reality. He had been doing a tactical analysis from the first minute of the brief and memorizing
every bit of important data that had been said to him. Not that fighting some alien invaders was a
problem to him. Afterall that was what he had been doing for the last 27 years. Over five times longer
than the people of this galaxy had fought their war. And from what he had gathered, in his area
of expertise, these Yuuzhan Vong were hardly comparable to the Covenant. He soon dished the
thought, "never underestimate the enemy", he had said that to Cortana and repeated Deja's
teaching to himself too. If he did that he would be as good as dead. He let out a mental sigh,
atleast now he was in the company of people who werent trying to kill him and he considered that
as a plus.

It took barely 10 minutes from the moment he departed from the briefing room for the shuttle to reach
the massive shipyard facility. The yards must have stretched out hundreds of kilometers in a
horizontal plane. They hadnt seen it when they had arrived with the Millenium Falcon but the sight
was remarkable. Cortana whistled and John knew what the AI was thinking. "Just how many cruisers
could be constructed on this yard". Indeed, with facilites like these, the UNSC could churn out
cruisers so fast that they couldnt even have the crews to them anymore. There were dozens of
dry dock facilities all over the yard. All of the dry docks had construction projects in progress.
Most of them were building organic shaped over a kilometer long vessels, some of the projects
were still in the phase of constructing the basic skeleton of the ship. There were also massive
hangars dotting the shipyard web. "Propably fighter construction facilities" John thought. A few
of the dry docks had some sort of wedge shaped vessels being built. The ship designing habits
of this galaxy sure were peculiar, tough he was certain that the designs gave the ships just the
fighting capabilities they had been thought to have. "Those organic looking vessels look a bit like
Covenant warships" Cortana pointed out in his mind. John agreed, they were somewhat similar
to the silvery looking sleek Covenant warships.
What also had impressed John were the defenses of this planet. There were atleast a dozen
massive orbital space stations which the Solo man had pointed out to be Golan III fortresses,
dozens and dozens of smaller defense platforms, a hefty sized guard fleet and what had
amazed John and Cortana the most, a planetary shield covering the whole planet. Not bad,
he thought, not bad at all.
The shuttle began closing in on the what appeared to be the central hub of the shipyard. There
were less of those massive capital ship drydocks at this area. As the hub came closer, John
noticed that they were headed towards a hangar that was only one fifth of the size of the ones
that John had reasoned to be fighter construction facilities. The dark grey hangar structure grew
bigger and bigger on the shuttles main window. He started to make out the insides of the hangar,
he could not believe his eyes. There was absolutely no blast doors covering the inside of the hangar
from the void of space. Instead some sort of blue hue was between the void and the pressurized
inside. As the shuttle came more closer, the workers inside the hangar began to leave from the
hangar and John noticed that his Longsword fighter had been placed at the center of the hangar.
Surrounded by all kinds of equipment and devices. In less than two minutes the entire hangar was
clear and the forcefield disappeared. The shuttle entered the hangar slowly and set down in one of
the corners with gracefull elegance. The forcefield snapped back in place and the techs started
scurrying back to their tasks.
There were some dozen people working at the Longsword fighter, eight of them were alien and
one resembled a walking furry carpet or a fur coat, the rest of the aliens were the same fish looking
people that he had allready seen down at the planet. The rest were humans. Han lead the Chief
towards one of the humans holding a datapad and shouting instructions at the other techs.
"Doctor Bath!" Solo shouted at the man when they had gotten within 10 meters of him. The man
only murmured something and kept on to his work. When they got close enough Solo slapped
his hand down on the mans shoulder and he turned around quickly.
"Doctor, i'd like you to meet the owner of this vessel."
The doctor examined the Chief and after a few seconds only snorted.
" *sigh* how can you expect me to get anything done if you keep interrupting me?"
"Im so terribly sorry doctor, but we thought that the owner would like to know whats up."
"Well then, i guess i'll have to tell you 'whats up' then"
"Altough the vessel is technically very crude and un-sophisticated, the FTL system caught my
interest. Its based on...." The Doctor tried to begin a nerve breaking and incredibly boring
technobabble session but Han was very quick to interrupt him.
"Yes Doctor im very sure its fascinating and all but im sure that Master Chief is aware how it
works and i most certainly am not interested."
The Doctor began to object but Chief's crisp tone stopped him.
"Doctor, just tell me can you get it fixed."
The man sighed again and took a quick glance at his datapad.
"Yes we can most surely get it fixed, with time that is. Currently the components and structure
of your FTL systems are just too alien to us to begin repairing them. Some parts require full
re-building and that will take time, not the actual building of the parts but how to do it. I would
say that we need two or three months minimum to get it repaired. With the help of your AI we
could propably chop that down to one and a half but thats the most optimistic estimate."
John progressed this turn of events. So, even in the best case he would be stuck here for atleast
the next six weeks. He hated the fact that he would be out of the war against the Covenant for so
long at the time when the need for him was the greatest. But the realities were what they were
and he would just have to adapt to the current situation.
"All right Doctor. Do the best you can."
"By the way Chief, i think we can um... "borrow" one portable holo emitter from somewhere, one
with sufficient data storage capabilities for Cortana" Solo suggested. The way how he had said
'borrow' pretty much meant that the man intended to steal one. Not that it bothered Chief too
much but he had learned how to notice such things.
"Very well Mr. Solo. Doctor, we will be back to you soon."
The man only nodded as he was again fully succumbed to his work, making notes to his datapad
and shouting instructions.

The trip thru slipspace hadnt been a long one. But finding the route thru slipspace to the system of
their choosing had been. It had taken nearly twelve hours for the astrogation teams of the Sword Of
Orion to find a suitable system and plot the course. The system wasnt far, only some two hundred
lightyears away and the Sword Of Orion had crossed that distance in four and a half hours.
The damage repairs had been difficult. The most critical damage had allready been fixed but the
massive holes in the armored hull of the Sword Of Orion would require dry dock as would replacing
the lost weaponry. Pretty much every single system in the ship had taken damage. Some had been
irrepairable and some had been quite easy to fix. But there was nothing that would fix the crew loss
of the ship. The final counts had come in and the numbers were 152 dead and 321 wounded.
Ryans sighed heavully in his quarters. It was merely a drop in the ocean but it did not change the
fact that one sixth of his crew was now dead. They had survived with quite low losses at the battle
of Reach where an entire Covenant Armada had attacked the planet, but now they had lost three
times more people than in Reach against a single unknown alien ship.
His communicator chimed, reminding him that they were close to exiting slipspace.
"Yes."
"Commander Waters sir. 15 minutes to exiting slipspace sir."
"Acknowledged, im on my way."
He shut down the com and lowered the reports. And started for the bridge.

They had strolled at the central hub for half an hour allready. The place was indeed intriquing. There
were a lot of social places at the shipyard. Restaurants, bars and resting places along with different
stores. The Solo man had explained that there were at all times atleast eight hundred thousand
personell aboard this shipyard. There were often nearly two million personell aboard when there were
a lot of projects going on which helped John to understand the need of social relaxing places. The
vast array of different alien life forms on the station startled him. He had allready seen atleast a dozen
different races aboard, most of them tough being humans and the fish aliens who Solo had explained
to be Mon Calamari who according to him were quite exemplary ship builders and engineers. Since
they were on the station, Solo had offered to show the Chief around a little bit. As anxious as Chief
was to get his ship back to working order he knew that an hour or two wouldnt make a difference.
They were currently in the administration and command area of the shipyard. There were sentries
in every corridor and who clearly were military officers and personell walking around in their business.
In a way, the place was very similar to a UNSC military installation on this part of the station.
The amount of sentries and personell, especially officers, running around had grown for the last few
minutes of their trip. It seemed that they were closing in on the command center. What startled
Chief to some degree was that they had not been stopped nor asked for identification and authorization
for a single time. They arrived to the double doors leading to what appeared to be the command center
because of the double sentries on the entrance and writing above the door painted bigger than on the
other parts of the station.
"Hey sergeant. Is the commander here?" Solo questioned the right side sentry.
"Yes general. But we are having a situation currently and...."
"A situation? Well why isnt the door allready open then?"
The man only nodded to the second trooper standing on the left side of the doors and in unison they
opened them. Inside was a massive room, a half circle in form. In the middle was a pit which contained
one atleast a meter and a half tall holographic sphere which currently represented the Mon Calamari
system and all Rebublic capital ships and stations, John quickly estimated the pit to be we atleast
fifteen meters wide yet with the humongous holo sphere, data terminals, computer terminals and
tactical displays and two dozen personell the pit seemed to be very cramped. At the edges of the
circular pit were computer terminals one after another and on the middle level which was dominated
by large triangular window screens some one meter in height there were yet more computer terminals,
every single one manned by either an alien or a human. From the tones at which reports were yelled
and just the rush with which everything was done implied that whatever the situation they were in
was enough to worry them.
"Unknown vessel within optimal firing range of the Justifier in three minutes." The shouted report came
from somewhere on the crew pit. The man standing in the middle of the pit acknowledged.
"Still nothing?"
"Negative, no transmissions of anykind."
Solo strode to the commander.
"Hey Wilkins, whats going on?"
"Well Solo, some ten minutes ago the outer sensors picked up an unkown contact near the Justifiers
patrol area. We have no idea how it got there. We picked up no hyperspace signature to go with it and
the design and emissions match nothing on the database."
"We tried to contact it but we got no answer and they began coming deeper in system. I ordered
Justifier to intercept it but i have a bad feeling about it. The Justifiers only a light cruiser and whatever
that thing is its some six kilometers long and masses three times that what Justifier does."
The Chief had now closed behind Solo and was examining the different tactical screens. His gaze
moved to one analysis screen showing a schematic of the alien vessel. There was no way John
WOULDN'T have regognized it. The Minotaur class cruisers were one of the newest class of cruisers
in the UNSC navy and the design of human vessels was quite easilly regognizable. The Minotaur
seemed to have suffered severe battle damage, there were atleast a dozen large holes in the hull
and the accel. was only 25% of what the Minotaur was capable of.
"Commander, could you get me to a communications terminal? I think i can solve this situation."
"Chief do you mean that....."
"Not now Mr. Solo i'll explain in a few minutes."
The Commander seemed to consider the request for a few seconds and then gave him an accepting
nod.
"All right, this way."
He lead the Chief to a terminal at the edge of the pit and signaled the officer manning the station to
leave his post. The human woman gave her headset to Chief who placed it on himself. The commands
on the terminal were still quite peculiar to him despite Cortana's continuous analysis from the moment
they had seen the first bit of what seemed to be the basic language of this galaxy written somewhere.
It took a few moments to get the grasp of it with Cortana's help but then it was quite easy to program
the basic encryption and code to the transmission. He executed the commands and began the
transmission.
"UNSC Cruiser, this is Master Chief Petty Officer Spartan 117. Please respond."
There was only silence and Chief noticed that the looks of everyone on the pit and many of the
operators on the second level had turned to him.
"UNSC Minotaur Class cruiser, this is Master Chief Petty Officer Spartan 117. Please respond"
Silence followed, the seconds ticked past and they felt like hours. For a moment John wondered
that had the cruiser lost its comms systems. Then the familiar sharp voice of a UNSC captain
came off from the speakers.
"Spartan 117, please transmit your authorization code to verify your identity."
"Acknowledged, transmitting now."
The silence lasted for only ten seconds now and then the very very relieved sounding voice of the
captain came back to him.
"Master Chief, this is captain Michael Ryans of the cruiser Sword Of Orion. I think you understand
exactly how confusing this is and our caution."
"Yes Sir, judging by the battle damage you have sustained you have every reason to be cautious
but you are among friends now. If i assume correctly you were attacked by aliens using organic
technology and ships?"
"Yes Chief, we did not provocate them in any way. Despite that they attacked."
"Well Sir, the people here are the enemies of that alien race. I had my own run down with them yesterday
and i can assure you that no harm will come to you while you are in this system."
Again, silence followed and lasted for atleast half a minute. No doubt the captain was discussing
with his tactical officer and first officer about their options, but the choice would have been the same
for any UNSC captain.
"Acknowledged Chief, we request to approach the station where you are transmitting from. From
what we gather its some sort of shipyard facility and we desperately need dry dock."
The Chief took himself off the air for a moment and it was now his turn to discuss with the commander
of the station. He didnt need to ask anything from him for he seemed to approve allready.
"Very well Master Chief. Tell them we are transmitting them the approach vector shortly and they will
have the Justifier to escort them to the dock."
Chief opened re-opened the channel to the Sword Of Orion.
"Captain Ryans, you are cleared to approach and are granted dry dock. You will be transmitted the
approach vector soon and the ship that has been closing on you will be your escort."
"Thank you Chief. And its nice to see familiar faces so far from home."
"The feeling is mutual Sir."

[Micheal Ryans, Beta pilot]

This is very good.

My ship going to get any new techs added ?

[Rightous Fist Of Heaven]

This is very good.

My ship going to get any new techs added ?

That remains to be seen

[Companion Cube]

Worth the wait.

[DPDarkPrimus]

Pretty damn sweet.

[His Divine Shadow]

The dual MAC cannons fired, sending
two 100 ton tungsten steel slugs racing thru space at 2000 kilometers per second.

Thats *only* 95MT though.

[JodoForce]

I quite like the story even though I've never seen anything to do with Halo before Ah, I see we have some issues with the balance of power between the SW and Halo worlds. Never mind, I wouldn't know the difference anyway

Some things you should fix:
1. Please type in your fiction using an editor with word wrap, so you don't have to
hit Enter
at the end of every line and the words won't appear like this
(if you know
what I mean)

2. Use more commas in your sentences, I can't quite tell you exactly where to put your commas but I can see that there is a general lack of them

3. Put a space after a full stop and put a line between two paragraphs, it's easier to read this way

[Rightous Fist Of Heaven]

The dual MAC cannons fired, sending
two 100 ton tungsten steel slugs racing thru space at 2000 kilometers per second.

Thats *only* 95MT though.

Yup. But im working on with some sense here. And with the assumption that Vong ships dont like kinetic impacts.

[Rightous Fist Of Heaven]

I quite like the story even though I've never seen anything to do with Halo before Ah, I see we have some issues with the balance of power between the SW and Halo worlds. Never mind, I wouldn't know the difference anyway

Some things you should fix:
1. Please type in your fiction using an editor with word wrap, so you don't have to
hit Enter
at the end of every line and the words won't appear like this
(if you know
what I mean)

2. Use more commas in your sentences, I can't quite tell you exactly where to put your commas but I can see that there is a general lack of them

3. Put a space after a full stop and put a line between two paragraphs, it's easier to read this way

Yeah, there are some balance issues but i decided to risk some of the huge power advantage in SW's favor to make the story a bit more interesting.

1. Unfortunately im writing using WordPad and i dont have Word and im too lazy to get it anyways. But i've noticed that when i copy and paste the text over here from the file, it tends to get somewhat right, altough there are in occasion stupid editing things like the one you pointed out.

2. Commas? Hmm cant recall what that meant since my native language isnt english but finnish.

3. Point taken.

[His Divine Shadow]

This is a comma -> , <-

Yeah, there are some balance issues but i decided to risk some of the huge power advantage in SW's favor to make the story a bit more interesting.

What about the power advantage? Are you saying you are being generous towards SW or Halo?

[JodoForce]

@HDS: I think you can figure that out yourself??

RFoH: I can be your editor if you want

[Rightous Fist Of Heaven]

This is a comma -> , <-

Yeah, there are some balance issues but i decided to risk some of the huge power advantage in SW's favor to make the story a bit more interesting.

What about the power advantage? Are you saying you are being generous towards SW or Halo?

Uhm, since the only weapon that is more powerfull than standard turbolasers in Haloverse are the Covvy plasma torpedoes, UNSC super nukes and Super MAC cannons, i think im being generous towards the Halo side. Besides in sheer firepower basis the Haloverse is pretty much inferior to Wars.

[Rightous Fist Of Heaven]

@HDS: I think you can figure that out yourself??

RFoH: I can be your editor if you want

You could? Excellent thank you, so if i just send the new chapter to you allways before i post it then we could have a working system.

[JodoForce]

Yeah that sounds about right just pm me

[His Divine Shadow]

This is a comma -> , <-

Yeah, there are some balance issues but i decided to risk some of the huge power advantage in SW's favor to make the story a bit more interesting.

What about the power advantage? Are you saying you are being generous towards SW or Halo?

Uhm, since the only weapon that is more powerfull than standard turbolasers in Haloverse are the Covvy plasma torpedoes, UNSC super nukes and Super MAC cannons, i think im being generous towards the Halo side. Besides in sheer firepower basis the Haloverse is pretty much inferior to Wars.

Well I am not that knowledgable about Halo y'know, all I've heard is some talk about 4TT super-mac cannons or something like it.