The Year is 2564.

The UNSC has reached a new pinnacle in the years following the Human-Covenant War's end and the defeat of the Promethean Guardians and the Banished following. Though the last remnants of the Domain have been swept away, and with it much of the Promethean Warrior-Servants, the cost is still being counted in lost planets, ships, and human lives, both soldiers and civilians.

However, the UNSC has also made great leaps forward in its time. The average lifespan of an AI has been reworked from seven years to nearly twenty-eight, thanks to newly acquired Forerunner data. The UNSC Spirit of Fire, recovered from The Ark, was given a fresh set of upgrades to the once-ageing vessel, turning it once more into a fabled warship alongside the UNSC Infinity and the newly constructed UNSC supercarrier Remembrance. All three form the UNSC Battlegroup Alpha, the tip of the spear for the UNSC Navy.

Worlds once ravaged by the Guardians or glassed by the Covenant are being mass-terraformed by Forerunner constructs that now serve the UNSC. Holdouts of Covenant remnants are being revealed and eliminated by the Arbiter Thel 'Vadam and Shipmaster Rtas 'Vadum, and the Swords of Sanghelios. Atriox and his Banished, once feared, are now allies of the UNSC.

Everything seems to be turning around for Humanity and its allies.

Until four months ago, when reports reach Earthed, Fleetcom, and the Office of Naval Intelligence about strange vessels being reported near the protected research world of Cadenza. From what the local UNSC staff, mostly scientists and a few Sangheili colleagues can tell, these vessels have been setting up military bases on the planet's eastern continent, seemingly oblivious to the presence of the other ships and UNSC research outposts.

The reports were not concerning until word came a month later, when a UNSC outpost reported that two kinds of beings were engaging in all-out warfare on the eastern continent.

Quickly deciding to investigate, Fleetcom dispatches the UNSC Infinity, UNSC Remembrance, and the UNSC Spirit of Fire alongside the carrier Shadow of Intent to Cadenza, fully prepared for anything.

The crew of each ship expected battle. However, the UNSC and its allies did not foresee that they were not alone in their galaxy.

And the seemingly endless war in a galaxy beyond has come to their doorstep.

-H-

The Clone Wars continue to rage throughout the galaxy, converging into a stalemate between the Republic and the Separatist Alliance. After the Republic's successful second invasion of Geonosis, the Senate receives a report that a new Separatist fleet has moved into a distant corner of the galaxy, with their purpose unknown.

Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker, Padawan Ahsoka Tano, and the Clones of the 212th and 501st are deployed with a Republic battlegroup at their back to find the enemy fleet and investigate further.

However, the Separatists have gone further than expected, and brought both sides to an unknown corner of space, arriving at a presumably unoccupied planet.

Neither the Republic or the Separatists know that this planet is far from unoccupied, and both intrusions have not gone unnoticed...