(A/N) Hey guys, do you know what this is?! This is the very first update for the second fic in our Freelancer saga trilogy, Phase Two: Betrayal, seeking to emulate the success of its predecessor, Phase One: Genesis, which, as of the moment that I am uploading this chapter, has a view count of 40,000! So, basically, we're going to have to work our asses off to make this fic an even bigger success. We've got a helluva task ahead of us, but we've also got a great story to tell, and some fantastic new writers working on this with us, so there's absolutely no reason why this won't be able to raise the bar, but more on that as we come to it. I can't even begin to express how excited I am that this is finally getting up and running, and I promise that our other fics will now resume a more constant update timetable, there's just been problems lately on that front due to my laptop being damaged, but all shall resume normal service shortly! This is strictly the prologue. Expect the next update to come tomorrow night! There's so much more to come!

Enjoy!

Prologue

Colonel Eric Grant

Written by NicKenny

"The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. If you would take a man's life, you owe it to him to look into his eyes and hear his final words. And if you cannot bear to do that, then perhaps the man does not deserve to die."

– George R. R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

Many years ago...

The Colonel looked about himself with a certain satisfaction, as the guests began to flow through the lobby, into the rooms designated to receive them. Today was the culmination of months of planning, and he wouldn't see it go to waste. Today was the day that the UNSC would finally announce their victory over the Unified Revolutionary Front, having wiped all traces of it from the planet's associated with the Insurrectionist movement. More importantly, it would be he, Colonel Eric Grant, who would be receiving a commendation for defeating this Insurrection.

Hell, he might even make brigadier after this.

He paced behind the curtains of the main hall, impatient for the ceremony to begin, already anxious to get it over and done with, before his nerves kicked in and made it even more difficult to give his speech before the assembled UNSC officers, functionaries, media, and some of the wealthier citizens of Haven.

It had seemed somewhat fitting to hold the event on Haven, where the URF had been founded, all that time back. Colonel Grant had quickly made a name for himself, holding the capitol of New Delphi against the overwhelming forces of the Insurrection, until reinforcements had arrived in the shape of Project Freelancer, and whatever forces the UNSC had been able to spare.

After they had successful repelled the URF forces, Grant had pressed forward the initiative, allowing Project Freelancer to combat the Insurrectionists on other nearby planets, while he directed the mop-up of Insurrectionist forces on Haven. After that he had moved onto Aurora, then to Arcite and finally took part in the military blockade of Byzantium, and the final assault on the URF's compound, although, of course, those Freelancer bastards had claimed most of the glory for themselves.

And look at where they were now – shut down, their Director attending numerous court hearings for potential negligence and unnecessary endangerment of human life. Colonel Grant couldn't help but smile at that, and reflect at how the times had changed. The details of the matter had not been passed onto him, too classified for his rank, at the moment, at least, but Grant couldn't help but entertain the thought that it was no doubt the Director's own pride and arrogance that caused whatever problem had occurred.

Behind the curtains, he could hear the announcer's muffled voice ring out, and he straightened up, adjusting the embroidery on his dress uniform, standing proudly to attention as the curtains began to draw back, and the applause of the crowd sounded clearly in his ears as soon as the announcer proclaimed "Colonel Eric Grant, the hero of Haven!"

He stepped out proudly into the light, walking up next to the announcer's podium, acknowledging the crowd only with a stiff nod, and nothing more, playing the part of war hero with every fibre of his being. Camera's flashed and followed his every movement, with representatives from apparently every aspect of the media in Haven and its neighbours present, all lapping up in the ceremony of the occasion. Here and there stood UNSC soldiers, fully armed and on guard, just in case any remnant of the Insurrection that Grant had been responsible for the destruction of chose to make a sudden appearance, although the UNSC had little fear on that point.

Still, some small part of him was relieved to know that over eighty UNSC troops were stationed around the facility, patrolling the corridors and checking the identities of guests. He couldn't afford for anything to go wrong tonight, and fortunately, it seemed as though everything was progressing according to plan.

The announcer was now reading off his list of achievements during his time in the UNSC, both in action against the Covenant and the Insurrection, although his only real achievements of note were the destruction of the URF, and that one time he, as a captain, led a squad of ODSTs against a Covenant assault force, rescuing a dozen people before withdrawing and watching as the Covenant glassed the planet.

He had received a commendation for his actions that day, too.

Brigadier Gerald Hopkins was present to deliver his commendation, and Colonel Grant smiled warmly as the brigadier took the stage, even though, privately, he hated the man's guts, along with his grovelling sycophantic tendencies. Always smart to remain on good terms with your superiors, though, he reminded himself, and shook the man's hand firmly, never allowing his smile to slip.

Some corner of his brain, the part that had made him such a good soldier, suddenly flared up, and a sense of growing unease crept through him. If he had time to analyse this feeling, he might have noticed that his brain had been counting off the seconds for one of the patrols to pass through the back of the room, which they didn't, but as it was he simply put it down to nerves and gave himself a mental shake in an effort to dispel them.

The brigadier took the microphone from the announcer, smiling warmly to the crowd and the cameras that were trained on him, his eyes sparkling as the flashes of dozens upon dozens of cameras flared on and off with alarming rapidity.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he began, flashing an oily grin to the cameras. "We are gathered here today to celebrate the achievements of one of the heroes of our recent campaign against the Insurrectionist movement known as the Unified Revolutionary Front, Colonel Eric Grant. There can be little doubt that without his heroic sacrifices and exemplary leadership skills both in the field and out of it, the war would still continue to this day."

He paused, and Colonel Grant stirred uneasily, pleased at the praise that was being lavished upon him, but at the same time the sense of growing unease continued to grow larger and larger. While he continued to ignore his own instincts, three more patrols had gone missing, unbeknownst to the security guarding the area, as they continued to check in periodically using their comm links.

Of course, no one realised that something was wrong. People never did, not until things had gone wrong. Even those with minor misgivings, not just the Colonel, but the other soldiers waiting for a patrol to pass by, those watching the surveillance cameras that, on some level, picked up on the fact that they were watching the same clip of soldiers passing through the various corridors at a ten-minute loop, but all of them shrugged off their minor doubts, providing rational explanations, or insisting that they were either paranoid or "seeing things".

The entire purpose of having guards was for them to see things.

The brigadier smiled and began speaking once more. "We can consider this to be a message to the rest of the Insurrectionist movements within the galaxy: You can try to fight us, but we will defeat you. You can try to destroy our way of life, but you will fail. You can try to assassinate our leaders, but new heroes will spring up to oppose you, and their names will live forever, while yours will be forgotten."

A polite bout of applause rang out throughout the room at this moment, and the cameras began to flare once more, but this was quickly overshadowed by the series of brief, dramatic bursts of gunfire that suddenly rang out across the building, apparently from all angles, accompanied by the lights in the room suddenly flickering off and back on again, and several members of the crowd screamed, while others, mainly the military representatives, stood up and quickly scanned the room for possible exits, only now noticing that the guards on the doors had been replaced.

Where only a few minutes ago two to four men and women clad in UNSC uniforms had stood guard, now the same number of armed soldiers wearing a mixed range of fatigues, varying from normal camouflage to arctic, desert, forest and night variations, but one thing remained in common: a deep red sun emblazoned over the letters GACS, where the usual UNSC symbol and letters would normally be. There was no sign of the original guards.

A slow handclap began to fill the sudden silence that had fallen over the assembled crowd, and a figure began to make his way down from the main entrance, clad in coral and sage coloured armour, bringing a word of recognition into the colonel's mind.

Freelancer.

"What is the meaning of this?" he asked, enraged, ignoring the sudden chill that was settling along the base of his spine. "Who are you, and what are you doing here?"

The figure merely let out a brief peal of laughter, shaking its head slowly, its face hidden behind his visor. A male voice replied, in a tone of the utmost scorn: "Who I am is of no importance. It is what I represent that you should take note of. As for what I'm doing here…I'm here to deliver justice. I'm here to right a wrong."

The colonel took a step forward, pausing only when the man raised his arm, Magnum in hand, causing him to stop in his tracks. "You have attacked UNSC soldiers and are currently holding several high ranking hostage. Do you have any idea what you've done, and what this means for you?!"

The figure nodded slowly, and turned to the crowd, the cameras now trained on him by the ever-story-searching media. "You may call me Arkansas!" the man in armour announced to the crowd, his gun still trained on the colonel, unwavering. "I am here tonight to dispense justice for crimes committed against the people of Haven, by this man here, Colonel Eric Grant."

Arkansas turned back to the main entrance, and four more figures entered, two of which Colonel Grant was more than familiar with. The first, the brooding mass of muscle that was Agent Pennsylvania, cemented into the colonel's mind that somehow Project Freelancer was responsible for this. The Freelancer had changed his armour somewhat, repainting it steel grey and red instead of the dark blue that Grant remembered, but there was still no mistaking him.

Even in this century, few men were as tall as he was and had the same aura of intensity and anger that he did.

The other confused him somewhat, as he wouldn't have thought Director Church would have felt it necessary to work with Insurrectionists to pull of this mission, but there was no mistaking the maniacal swagger of former-UNSC Lieutenant Ian Harper, a man who had once served under Grant all those years ago, and whom he had spent the better part of the last decade hunting down, to no avail. These two men marched down the entrance, and their appearance increased his sense of foreboding, casting a spell of silence over the assembled crowd.

The other two barely registered in his mind next to their predecessors. The first, a young woman in her early twenties, held a small, portable data-pad in one hand and a Magnum in the other, while the man next to her, who forced Grant to retract his statement about few men being as tall as Pennsylvania, as he too, was a giant, held a camera, training the lens on the colonel, just as the various televisions and holo-decks around the room suddenly flared into life.

Grant found himself staring at a slightly younger image of himself, weary-looking, sweaty and red-faced. Already, he was aware of what they were showing, and if Arkansas hadn't turned to look at him, warning him not to try anything, he probably would have gone for the Freelancer. A second later, the recorder of the video turned around, away from the younger Grant, focusing the lens on the horde of protestors in the streets of New Delphi, the streets on lockdown by the UNSC, forcing the protestors away from wealthier or government affiliated areas.

Insults were hurled towards the soldiers, soon followed by rocks and rotting vegetables, and the protestors sought to vent their frustration on the only body of the government within reach, the UNSC. A loud curse echoed out from behind the cameraman, and he swung around, to see the younger Grant's face growing even redder as he wiped the rotting tomato from his face, then the recording turned down to the floor and those watching got the sense that Grant and his guards, along with the cameraman, were retreating to a safe distance from the crowd.

This was confirmed a minute later, when the camera was finally raised once more, as Grant ascended into a Warthog, talking into the radio before looking up at the cameraman and ordering the nearby soldiers to remove him. The room had gone beyond silent now, so those watching were able to pick up the barely audible "open fire", issued from the younger Grant's lips, but the sounds of the gunfire and screaming that followed echoed through the room with a harsh finality.

The video cut out, and Ark nodded to the female soldier with the data-pad, and the image on the screens now flicked to what the giant with the camera was recording, just as he turned to Arkansas. In a grave voice, the Freelancer began to speak once more: "That, ladies and gentlemen, was a video recorded by a war-journalist by the name of Edgar Hobbs seven years ago, shortly before the birth of the Unified Revolutionary Front. That same journalist went missing three days later, and later washed up on the banks of the Latyara river, with three bullet holes through his chest. This was blamed on the protestors."

He turned back to Colonel Grant, and neither his posture nor his voice expressed a trace of pity. "For your actions on that day, Colonel, I am given little choice but to sentence you to death. Do you have anything to say in your defence?"

The colonel opened his mouth, which suddenly felt unnaturally dry, and all that he was able to produce was a faint moaning sound, more animal than human.

"Then so be it," Ark replied, and a gunshot rang out, sending the colonel sprawling to the floor, blood seeping from the chest wound into his dress robes.

The camera focused on the downed colonel, before turning back to Arkansas once more, then flicked over to Pennsylvania, Harper and the various soldiers on guard, before finally setting on the blazing sun design on the soldier's uniforms, as Ark's sonorous voice rang out throughout the room.

"This feed is being broadcasted throughout this planetary system, to every man, woman and child that we could reach. We are the Galactic Alliance of the Crimson Sun, an organisation pledged towards bringing war-criminals to justice and we have come here today to impart an important lesson to you all."

He turned and glanced at the now-unmoving body of Colonel Grant, and the camera zoomed in on the corpse's face, flecks of blood on the colonel's lips, the light of the room reflecting from his cold dead eyes.

"Even heroes die."