CH8: The Path of War…

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UCAF Military Archivist/Historian- Edwin Dullan

"It was a brilliant stroke of genius for the turians using salvaged covenant technology; it was impressive indeed that they even managed to rig up a quantum communications link to get the slip-space calculations pin precision.
But the mistake they made was that they assumed the UCAF would withdraw its forces from the city or for that matter they didn't see a certain hinge in their plans regarding a certain team of UCAF Helldivers, Young Bloods (white shields), and one squad of Astrates and a Spartan III who happened to be present when they began their real invasion." UCAF Archives, First Contact War- A Review: 5th Edition.

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Location: Elis- Domestic District 12

3 hours prior to unknown hostile incursion…

It was just her luck, the location of those supposed Space Marines proved to be a little late; the group had already moved off to join off some defensive team south east. It was somewhat inconvenient that the Space Marines weren't present at the time they're needed; she'd prefer having their firepower. But subtlety isn't something the Space Marines are famous for, that and they are sort of obvious considering their sheer height not to mention bulky armour.

Noble Six found herself tearing across streets towards the Omicron relay; she traversed the damaged and scarred terrain efficiently. Considering she'd been doing this for years. She knew what best means to navigate the ruined city, but as she got closer to the tower the more detours she had to take avoiding turian gunships which were scouring the area.

She hadn't run into any enemy patrols, but that could change at any given moment, she was playing it safe so she'd avoid any unnecessary use of ammo. She knew that wasting time just to silence a couple of troop patrols wasn't worth the effort or the detection. She intended to get to the Space Marines and see if they knew what the turians were up to in the orbital relay.

As she cut across an intersection filled with dead bodies of turians and a few UCAF marines, she noted that the enemy gunships had stopped patrolling the district she had entered into. It was likely that the turians were still dedicating their forces into fighting UCAF resistance at the Orbital Relay, but there might be another reason.

Six soon found a high overlooking position near the edge of the city to the orbital relay, as she climbed up to the top she passed through numerous abandoned offices and a few apartments, she found no dead civilians, or stranded children. But it did give off an eerie feeling of how things rapidly change in such a short amount of time.

As she reached the spot, she found that it was placed above a small park which cleared out over a few miles, but beyond that were a few waterfront high-rises which stared over crystal clear waters, but the main beauty of the city was always on the space port, its massive docks were as high as the skyscrapers and shield towers.

The island on which the port was built upon stretched into 8 petals, each with an orbital elevator on the edge of each petal; it held its own smaller docks which allowed for the movement of materials and personnel rapidly. The main docks were for ships which had to land on the planet or for shuttles and other vessels which were permitted for planetary landing.

The UCAF kept each orbital elevator secured with its own security and military garrison; however it seemed the closest elevator to the mainland was the focus of the turian strike force. The lift there was just across from the high-rises which was accessible via a bridge, a bridge which was now in complete ruins.

Six zoomed into the area where the bridge had been destroyed. The smouldering ruins of the highway bridge was very likely a chemical explosive mixed with a few high explosive demolition charges due to the still burning luminescent chemicals on the bridge. She figured the UCAF troops might have had to blow the bridge, but it didn't seem to have held the turians from taking the elevator.

She could see some fighting still within the elevator's ground level. She knew that trying to cross this was going to be difficult, there didn't look like there were any other bridges still connected, and there was no way she could access a service tunnel, even if there was one, it'd have run under the bridge.

She then recalled that the UCAF did have a few older bits of technology on these outer colonies, like boats. She peered around for a boat dock near the waterfront; she didn't spend much time looking around as she located a full dock in front of the high-rises. She zoomed out of her visor and got moving.

"Carter, I've got a way across the bridge, I'm making my way to a dock nearby. How's the situation above?" She asked over her com.

"It's a little bit hectic right now." Carter replied before a rocket flew by the side of the Falcon he was riding in. "We're going to have to pull out for a bit, but from what Jun saw through his scope the area between the docks and the bridge are silent." He said before having to pull his head in when the gunner on his right began to fire at a passing enemy gunship.

"Right, I'm on the move." Six informed him.

She got off from the lookout and headed back the way she had come, she wasn't going to risk running over this park that was for sure, even as quiet as it seemed, she had no doubt a few turians may have decided to perch themselves around it to pick off anyone trying to head across to the orbital relay.

She got back to where she had been before and found an alternate route to get to the base of the orbital relay, it would take a bit longer to reach it, but better than risk getting picked off by snipers. As she negated the numerous buildings and high-rises she noted a few more turian bodies, they were splayed open and gutted in various fashions.

She guessed there might have been a few other Space Marines running about the city, though from the lack of activity they've probably been gone for a while now. She had a feeling she'd find one or two of them around the area if she bothered to search for them, but her focus was on the tower, she needed to get up there as quickly as she could.

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Location: Orbital Dock 5- Ground Level- Foreground

Time: 2.5 hours prior to hostile incursion…

Brother Bram brought his Bolter Rifle to bear upon the approaching xenos, it barked out thunderously as it fired its deadly munitions, the xenos who dared to charge the Astrates met their bloody ends, turning into fine bloody paste and mist. Bram hadn't felt so alive, so damn happy to be out killing xeno again.

Ever since his assignment with the Burger Marines, he had felt utterly pissed at his predicament, but then he was given the chance at war once more as the Turians launched their attack upon the city, their breach of the city defences allowed him to take up arms. He got to grab his revamped Bolter Rifle from Burger Marine's storage locker and got to work.

He kind of felt a little depressed he was still in his Burger Marine getup, but killing xenos and letting them taste death at the end of his tools of destruction easily made up for the damned yellow smiley face with a burger under it. As he turned to face another xeno team along with a heavy mechanised suit tried to breach the last defenders barricades, he used the 72mm underslung HEAT launcher.

A violent roaring could be heard as the massive barrel ejected the rocket at the heavily armed squad of Turians and their armoured support, the pitiful creatures never managed to duck as the rocket slammed into the mechanised suit. The UCAFs ingenious understanding of physics and explosives made the 72mm guided rocket shell a nasty weapon.

Bram watched in slow motion as the shell punctured the suit and distorted the front of the machine, ripping it open and pulling it inwards before exploding, the 72mm did its job well as the suit burst into a vibrant spasm of fire which engulfed everything nearby. The Turian shock troopers nearest were vaporised or cooked by the searing heat of the explosion whilst others were tossed meters from the blast.

Shrapnel caught everything in range; shards of metal either impaled itself in the bodies or armour of each alien soldier. Some shrapnel was still heated and caused unbelievable amounts of pain to those impaled. The UCAF defenders nearby opened up and put the rest of the aliens out of their misery, high performance magnetically accelerated rounds blew chunks out of the survivors.

Bram watched with contempt as the aliens all died, he took the time to get his weapon reloaded, his auto-loader got to rearming his underslung launcher while he pulled a fresh magazine for his Bolter Rifle and slammed it into place. He really did love what the UCAF did to the weapons of the Astrates, as much as they had been in the eyes of many Imperials as heretics 'at first', they really did know how to make damn effective weapons.

Bolter Rifles were chambered to fit 27.4mm High Explosive Anti-tank rounds which were guided by internal rocket propulsion and also the chamber of the Bolter Rifle had a magnetic field accelerator, the field spun the round at much greater velocities. Each round was truly devastating; powerful enough to rip open a 5 inches of ceramite without trouble. That added with the fact each round contained an ionic compound powerful enough to vaporise its intended target.

He checked his magazines and counted another 4 more mags before he ran dry, he had 4 more HEAT rounds and a bundle of grenades along with his chainsword and ion recharger pistol. The ion recharger pistol is also one other unique weapon he managed to get his hands on whilst he had served alongside the UCAF.

It was a weapon gifted from a 'tech-trooper' who had no longer any use for it, the pistol could utilise energy from around it and fire nearly limitless time but it did overheat and required to cool down. He was thankful for having at least one other ranged weapon as much as it was slightly limited in use.

He broke from his inventory check as more Turian assaulted the barricades, this time they brought in heavier weapons. A large tank with one turret on top rolled in, it let loose a storm of strafing fire upon the defenders utterly wrecking the barricades defences, the troops fell back while laying down intense fire.

It was then he received a call over his com bead. "Brother Bram, fall back. The grounds have been lost; we will regroup at the interior of the lobby." Sargent Baros of the Sons of Faust stated as he withdrew from the level overlooking the foreground.

Bram felt a little disappointed at this turn of events, but he knew his orders. "Understood, I shall follow behind with the remainder of the marines." He said as he jogged over to the white shield troopers.

He dropped a few more Turians before announcing to the squad of young marines. "Soldiers fall back, I have received word we can no longer hold this position we need to regroup with the others inside." He said to them.

The marines looked at him and one of them shouted orders to the others, they began to withdraw while laying down suppressive fire, Bram added his bolter to the fire as they rushed back into the cover of the base of the orbital elevator. As they passed the large doors of the lobby the doors shut behind them and locked.

Bram made his way with the surviving marines over to where the Sons of Faust were gathering, Bram made a quick observation of who was currently here, 9 marines from the top levels had returned from the 30 which told him that their defence was overrun, 4 more marines were from the defenders who had manned the turrets.

And then there were his troops, a total of 8 men of the 24 who had held the foreground, to add to their numbers were the 5 battle brothers of the Sons of Faust who survived their fire fight with the Turians. It became pretty clear that they were under serious threat from being overwhelmed, not even having 6 Astrates could change that by much.

"Baros how did the defences hold?" He asked the Sargent as he approached.

Baros, who had looked as though he'd been through the gauntlet replied tersely. "We barely held against the numbers the xenos threw against us, it's surprising that they'd throw numbers at us rather than using better tactics." The Sargent said as he checked over his new armour.

"The xeno fight in their own way and for more devious reasons, they probably saw that there was no other means to defeating us." Bram stated.

"Well that tactic worked considering we've been pushed into this corner." Said an alliance marine who had been busy checking over a HMG turret which was being prepared to defend against the coming assault.

"Well that may be true, but the xeno paid in blood, that much you can take comfort in." Baros said as he grabbed a nearby weapons locker and opened it up.

"We have limited supplies and the only location which can supply our class of munitions is cut off from us, we'll have to make do with other weapons." Baros explained as he opened up the weapons locker for the squad.

Bram checked with the other battle brothers as they looked into the contents of the locker, they found a dozen high powered shotguns, if he recalled correctly the ones that were supplied directly to the UCAF military were AA88 shotguns. He picked up the black chrome weapon and activated it, the weapon recognised his signature and responded with a few confirmation beeps.

The side of the weapon revealed a small visual display of the surroundings; it emitted a sensor sweep which identified who was in the vicinity. He grabbed 6 drum magazines of 36 shots all of which were HE Slugs from the locker. He wasn't entirely fond of using non-imperial weapons, but no soldier ever complained about an AA88.

Auto-Assault 8th generation 8-gauge shotguns were famously well known for very low recoil and high rates of fire, not to mention absolutely devastating within close quarter combat, many UCAF troops prefer them over standard pump actions and weaker 12-gauge shotguns which use much smaller rounds.

But of course this wasn't the pinnacle of the shotgun series, this was just highly reliable, the weapon has very rare cases of jamming and well overall it was a simple weapon there wasn't really any need for training with it. He slung the half dozen large steel grey drums along the back of his armoured waist and checked the 88 was full.

Baros then took the brief reprieve to brief them on how they were planning on fighting the xenos.
"At the moment we had no support, no reinforcements and very likely no way out. But the advantage is with us, the xeno will have to travel through the breaches into bottlenecks, with that in our favour we will cause immense devastation onto their filthy kind."

He was interrupted by the HMG mounted gunner.
"Sir we don't honestly care, and also would you mind taking up a position? The Turians been burning through the doors while you've been talking to yourself…" The gunner pointed out as he pulled the pin on the 25mm HMG.

Baros turned about and confirmed the enemy had indeed been burning through the doors; he broke his squad up to cover all entrances into the lobby. Bram took up his own firing point where the largest doors were located. He armed another 72mm rocket round into the underslung launcher and prepared for the intense assault.

As the intruders finished burning their way through the heavy blast doors to the orbital elevator they laid down an explosive package to breach them and disorient the defenders. Of course the UCAF and the Space Marines knew what sort of tactics that would be used in these scenarios they had all done this at least a few times in their own careers.

As they prepared for the breaching charge, Bram took a moment to prime a flak grenade, the molten iron shards and plasteel would shred the first xenos who stepped or it would prove a good distraction for him to bring his bolter to bear and blast the unfortunate scum to bloody pieces.

And as if on cue the doors were blown outwards in a blinding display of light and sound, the concussive force of the blast didn't really shake the Space Marine or the UCAF troops, but it did make it a little harder to see their targets. Before even the smoke cleared, they could all hear the sounds of footsteps.

The UCAF gunner on the HMG let loose with his turret into the first breach in the door and got lucky as a bunch of screeches could be heard from the xeno who were caught in the early volley. But other aliens were not so easy to fall for such a trick again; they fired off from each breach blindly to allow more troops to advance.

The gunner adjusted his combat tactics from just blasting away to keeping short controlled bursts on anything that the other troopers or Space Marines could identify for him to shoot. From the left hand side of their vision the other breached door came crashing down instead of exploding, this was shortly followed by a series of shouts and the sound of something being launched.

Bram took a split second to duck behind his wall as a rocket, came flying out from the left hand breach; it sped past his cover before striking a nearby barricade. He returned fire with his Bolter Rifle; he could pick out a few targets and managed to nail a few from his position. The deaths of the xeno troops kept the others weary of approaching from the left.

But not all was going well with the defence, there was a third breach in the blast doors to the orbital elevator, the last door opened up with a large explosion which was larger than the other 2 making it even more critical. It was from this doorway that came their true opponents, a dozen heavily armoured, 'if you could really consider it being heavy', came strolling through the doorway along with one very bulky looking mechanised suit.

The suit in question was at least 4 meters tall and had some larger weapons than that of its counterparts; it let loose with some sort of gun that fired super-heated metal bolts. The first casualty was a lightly armoured UCAF marine who caught the blast to his chest and died immediately.

The other marines turned their focus to the suit and let loose with a barrage of grenade rounds, though upon contact with the mechanised suit the HE grenades exploded on contact with what looked like an energy shield. Of course it wasn't as it seemed to immediately fail from multiple impacts from the grenade rounds.

Bram took the moment to grab his AA-88 and begin to add his own firepower into the fight, but it was Baros who would take charge in bringing down the xenos mechanical weapon. He pulled out his chainsword and made a mad dash against the armoured machine. His sword roared in expectance for the blood of its enemy.

Baros swung his sword down in an upward motion, the machine tried to block the assault, but it wasn't enough to stop Baros, he shifted and instead of striking the forward section of the armour he made contact with his sword against the arm of the suit which caused a mass of sparks to appear from the grinding of the sword against the plated arm.

The chainsword steadily began to slice through the heavily plated armour of the suit; the energised teeth of the chainsword were made of admantine which was sharpened on a molecular level enabling it to slice through a number of very dense materials. The mechanised suit noticed the threat of the sword and knocked the blade away from its arm.

Stepping back the turian piloted suit fired off a couple of shots at Baros, the Sargent had very little time to dodge the shots as the suit fired a trio of super-heated bolts at him. Managing to crawl away, he got back on his feet before letting loose a couple of shots from his bolt pistol, 3 shots found their mark and blew chunks off of the mechanised suit.

The pilot responded with bringing up the other arm which had a mounted flamethrower attached, it fired off a burst of vibrant fire against Sargent Baros who barely managed to get to cover as the fire engulfed a part of his armour. As he recuperated he checked his armour which had been scorched on its left shoulder pad, a few other places on his armour looked like it needed a bit of work thanks to the flamethrower.

"Damn you, pitiful creature! If you think that was enough to break me then you're wrong!" He yelled at the turian who recoiled at the sight of the furious Space Marine whose armour smouldered as it broke through the flames reach.

He drove his chainsword in an upward strike to the centre mass of the suit, there was no way the Turian could dodge the attack, and since Baros was using all of his augmented strength in this decisive and furious assault. He drove the tip of the blade into the forward section of the suit's cockpit where the Turian pilot was seated.

The sword grinded violently against the forward plating it ruptured the armour and enabled him to use momentum to further drive the force of the attack into the soft belly of the machine. The chain tip and most of the blade went through and met with the body of the Turian inside, the alien only had moments to react in a frightened shriek before the sword tore into his bony body.

Baros, who felt and saw the gore and viscera of the xeno being plastered over the inside of the suit and on his sword decided to finish by driving the sword upwards. The blade continued to tear and rip through everything, it eventually cut through the forward part of the machine in sick ease before exiting and letting the Turian pilot's blood splatter the ground.

The suit ground for a moment before Baros kicked it with all his might on the cockpit and overbalanced it so it fell backwards, the Turians who had been attacking could only watch in horror as their trump card came falling back out with the blood of the pilot pouring out. The Turians realised that this was not a winnable battle shouted in panic and began to withdraw.

Bram who stood over a nearby communications terminal which was situated on an elevated platform continued to aid in the defence, said aloud. "A fine feat, but that's counted as one kill." He chuckled.

Baros who turned back to his brothers and those remaining marines shared in the joke as the Turians made their escape from the bloodbath. The xeno would only hear of the laughter of their enemies then, the battle was lost, but they haven't lost the war, at least not yet.

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Current Time…

Location: Unknown

Taldeer felt her head ringing, she could feel the impression left on her body from the assault on her cruiser, and she couldn't still believe that these disreputable creatures had managed to board with stolen covenant tech. It wasn't that new to her, when she saw the boarding pods burning through the hull, she knew that there were only 4 kinds of technologies available which could possibly breach the reinforced hull of a Void Stalker.

And considering she couldn't sense any tainted auras from the boarders she knew it had to be something from the covenant, the pod designs were just like the ones used by Heartslayer. His corrupted minions utilizing the covenant's own technology to breach Eldar vessels to take for his own, how she hated that monster.

But now being here in the hands of these creatures, it made her wonder, why? Why would they go out of their way to get their hands on her specifically? She couldn't recall them targeting any other members of her crew during the attack for that matter; they focused their forces exactly in places closest to the bridge of her ship.

She looked at the lithe alien pacing in front of her, this deep hued creature surely tried to act intimidating, but she lacked the attitude or the fierce look of such a person. She seemed more like an interrogator, someone who scrutinized every detail of a criminal, she inwardly laughed at that thought.

Even though her psychic abilities had been significantly limited thanks to the differences in this universe to the one she and the other Eldar came from, she had enough power to skim the thoughts of the alien before her. She was planning on using some sort of physical psychic link to her mind, but Taldeer had a little trick up her sleeve, or so human's say.

"You don't scare me little child." Taldeer said to the asari.

"Oh don't I? Then I guess being tied to a chair with no means of escape, lots of sharp pointy instruments lying around…" She gestured to a plethora of tools lying a few feet away on a tray. "Plenty of things I could do to get the information out of your head." The asari said with a smug grin.

"I believe you do. But you already know the most direct way of doing that don't you?" Taldeer asked with a tone of determination.

The asari's smug look turned a little sour, she seemed to be a little troubled that Taldeer managed to know about the mind link ability that all asari possess. The asari interrogator turned away and replied. "I guess I shouldn't be so surprised, the records spoke about your people being one of the most powerful races ever encountered." The asari said as she paced around a little while longer.

Taldeer knew that whatever information this alien possessed it was most likely a source from a Covenant database, she could sense the woman's uncertainty. The alien finally made up her mind, which Taldeer had prepared for. "I'm powerful alright, but I find it interesting that you think you can challenge me at all."

She took the time to reply in kind with her own smile. "I'll take you on your word." The asari said before placing her fingers on her temples. "Let's see how powerful you really are."

In the blink of an eye Taldeer watched as the asari's eyes turned from its normal colour to a deep hollow black, it was like looking into the void, but where no stars existed, just emptiness. She felt the rush of psychic concentration focused on her. The pulling of thoughts and feelings into a single consciousness, it was refreshing and rather easy to control.

The asari interrogator tried to focus upon her memories, Taldeer let her probe, but she'd find only her mental barrier stopping her from going any further. It was like a wall everywhere she turned, Taldeer kept her consciousness apart from the asari's. After what felt like a few hours, the asari changed tactics.

'You can't stop me that easily.' The alien jaunted within the psychic connection.

Taldeer admitted this alien was persistent, but not anywhere near skilled enough, she pulled a small section of her mind away to focus on creating a view of her memories, but not of anything critical, just something she had stored away in the deepest recesses of her mind. After a few moments she opened a crack large enough for the persistent asari to find.

She knew that the interrogator would try to access it; she'd never be able to break any other section of Taldeer's mental barriers anytime soon, within the month or the next year. It didn't take long, but the asari found the barrier's gap, and probed it for a few moments, then she took the chance to see what was inside the mind of the Eldar Farseer's thoughts.

Though one thing could be said about what the asari interrogator saw, it wasn't pleasant. Upon entering into the memories of the Farseer, the interrogator found herself swimming through what seemed like tides, the tides of blood soaked rivers, corpses of people of many species lying around her, she couldn't tell what these beings were.

But as she trod though this facsimile of bodies she was suddenly him by a rush of emotions and memories, people screaming and dying, the corpses of people being desecrated by creatures of vivid shapes and sizes. The emotions continued to pile into her mind, but as she tried to pull away, she found the way into the Eldar's memories had been sealed.

And then the realisation hit her, she had foolishly put herself into this place, a place where she'd only find one thing, despair. On the outside of their bodies, the asari interrogator had been linked with the Eldar Farseer for about 5 minutes, the guards to the room looked wearily inside, they expected the asari interrogator to finish soon.

Of course the link finally broke as the asari interrogator's body twitched and convulsed, it pitched back and dropped, severing the link. The observers outside called in the guards to check out what had happened, they found the asari interrogator lying on the floor, her eyes wide open and bleeding, and her mouth moving with a shallow voice just barely audible.
"Kill me."

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Location: Former 'Turian' Base of Operations…

Above the ruined facilities of the Turian station, the blood thirsting warriors of the Bloodsworn continued to savagely rip their way through the survivors of the battle. There was little to be seen aside from the bodies of thousands which were now splayed in the mark of chaos and of course Khorne's blessed symbol.

The blood of thousands now painted the grounds and walls across the station, and it hadn't ended yet, the sorcerers of the Word Bearers were gathering the bodies of the alien witches into a sacrificial pit which they had created from the flesh and bones of the aliens. There was now a massive symbol of Khorne shaped into the ground.

But it wasn't finished; there was still the need to gather more living witches of these xeno to perform this dangerous summoning, since it required a staggering level of sacrifices and concentration to even pull one being into this universe. It was historically bad since there was no warp in this universe, of course bypassing it was possible, but extremely risky.

An example of such an incident was about 20 years ago when a Tzeentchian cult tried to summon one of their daemon princes ended up failing because of lack of summoners and sacrifices which quickly destabilised and caused an almighty dimensional implosion. There was nothing left of the poor bastards to really scrape off the ground, which really saved the dogs of the Corpse God and their allies the trouble of killing them.

Kragus recalled a saying. "Suffering is good, on the path to carnage." He quoted as he let 'Soul Shriek' bathe in a pot of blood nearby.

"Good to see you haven't lost your temper yet." He heard the bastard Iko say as he approached from behind.

Kragus got up to face the Bloodsworn Raptor, the Raptor was different from himself or any of the other members of their warband, Iko was a warrior who sought money and items of interest to himself. Iko was only around because Kragus had no other choice but respect the orders of the other Bloodsworn leaders on having extra support.

"You know better than anyone Iko, the need to kill isn't finished, it never is, so I take comfort that I shall kill again, albeit later." Kragus replied aptly.

"Never knew you to be the philosophical one Kragus." Replied the Raptor.

"I'm not, I just killed enough for now, and there's plenty more to kill later. What else do I need to do?" Kragus asked rhetorically.

"Good point." Iko said as he turned to see the Word Bearers finishing the sacrificial marker.
"So who are we planning on summoning now?"

"You'll see…" Kragus smiled revealing his jagged teeth happily.

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Hey guys got to finish this chapter right, I think, it was going to be a full chapter on the Blood Thirsters and the Dark Eldar, but decided against it, next chapter:

The Seeds of Chaos!

Yes a full chapter for Chaos Space Marines and their merry bands of murders and insane hunter killers and we also get to have a very special guest starring, Kharn the Betrayer who'll be arriving to set things in motion. Well that's what I'm hoping.

Of course that ends the Chaos chapters for now because I do have to finish up with the attack on Elis and the matter with the war between the Council and the UCAF and Imperials, along with joining the Tau in this new war. The Covenant will play a little more diminished role so not so much with them around for a little while.

Also I updated my Star Trek and Halo fic, go check it out, and I am going to be adding a bunch of short stories to read up on. And a possible Stargate Atlantis series of stories with elements of Mass Effect being added for the Atlantis Expedition, sound great? :D