Authors Comment: Wait, I'm still writing this? Yes I am. It took me ages, mainly cause well my free time is limited and this is not the only story or fandom I like to write. But, after the long hiatus and until I post my next chapter(probably after at least 6 months of wait^^) have lots of fun with this.

Chapter 10

Wrath of the Eagle

Describing the situation as tense or weird was an understatement, just like calling World War 1 a slight disagreement between neighbours. Right now, a small UNSC battlegroup, lead by the massive Epoch-class carrier Alamein and under the command of rear-admiral Erich Morell was parked right next to the independent colony Freedoms Progress. Several ground-based and repaired mass drivers and rocket silos were aimed at them at all time and that wasn't even the largest problem. Just an hour after they had destroyed the last slavers ship, a small force of colonial, or System Alliance, ships had entered the system.

Scans had identified them as older generation warships, cruisers you could buy with ease in the Terminus and a few, heavily modified, Mako-class corvettes. At least the commander of this force hadn't opened fire on sight, so now the two flotillas were eying each other. Morell had agreed to meet the colonial commander on his ship, so a Pelican with him, Garrus, Liara, Tali and what remained of Marc's was just landing in the cruiser's hangar bay. The procedure took longer than usual, a cruiser, if it was classified by Citadel standards, had a by UNSC standards a hangar of rather limited size, so the pilot had to pay extra attention not to damage any of the fighters or dropships that were cramped in there.

Finally, the machine sat down, and the Rear-Admiral was the first to stand up and walk for the ramp. The colonial commander had requested that the "friends" who had helped to defend the colony would also come to his ship. To be honest the skipper of this cruiser had told them this, since they hadn't seen the Commanders face or heard his voice till now. It was a bit unnerving but, with the exception of Tali, they managed to hide this uneasiness, while the Rear-admiral seemed to be completely calm.

Some 'Marines' already waited for them, they were armed with second grade armour and weapons of which there was a pretty much endless supply in the Terminus. Still, at least they seemed to be more disciplined than the militia men, they didn't try to pick a fight and except for their tenseness showed no emotions. The walk through to the cruiser didn't take too long, the ship was a bit smaller than a Halberd-Destroyer so hardly a capital ship by UNSC standards. Marc wasn't familiar with the crew layout of "Citadel-cruisers", his only trip on such a warship had been several years ago, but still it was crowded on board here, with a disproportionate number of Marines. They had been prepared to take back the colony in case the slavers had overrun the defences.

The awfully slow lift to the bridge now finally stopped and their escorts went out first, with Rear-Admiral Morell right behind them and Marc's team and alien friends in tow. One thing a naval soldier had to admit that this ship was not some ragtag rebel bucket. It was clean, the crew professional and disciplined and everything seemed to be in as good of a condition as possible. Still Marc had to take a deep breath once he saw who waited for them.

A man with short black, already largely grey hair and beard and a hard, scar covered face awaited them, a face filled with determination and confidence. The famous "Grey wolf", one of the most famous rebel ship commanders, responsible for about one third of all UNSC looses during the last 15 years. Former UNSC Captain Steven Hackett stood there, wearing what appeared to be a blue admirals uniform, every single UNSC member knew this mans face and under other circumstances Marc would have at least shoot his leg to capture him. But the situation didn't allow that, they were guests on his ship and they really wanted to get home alive.

"Captain Steven Hackett." Morell said, not in the slightest moved by their host, disregarding the ornament rank insignia Hackett wore. Hackett didn't show even the slightest reaction to this and just calmly corrected him.

"It is Fleet Admiral Steven Hackett, of the System Alliance Navy." Morell raised one eyebrow at this and replied, with a dry tone and emotionless voice. "Really? I remember a certain Lieutenant-Commander Hackett telling me that he would never give up commanding a ship to sit in some admiral chair or am I mistaken?". For the slightest of moments there was a hint of surprise on Hackett's face, like he hadn't expected this answer or that Morell would remember this, but then he replied dryly.

"Not an admiral in the UNSC, not one to command the suppression of protesting people. But an Admiral of Navy defending freedom instead of destroying, on that chair I can sit." The atmosphere was so tense, you cut it with a knife as these two men stood face to face with each other and neither the remaining guests nor any of the bridge crew or Marine guards dared to take a break. For almost an entire minute the two men looked at each other, waiting for a response, until the hint of a grin formed on Morell's face and he said.

"Good to know. Now that this is cleared, please tell us what was so important that we needed a personal meeting. As much as I enjoy this stay, I have important business to attend to." Hackett didn't show any reaction, as he stepped towards the holo-projector that was located in the middle of the bridge.

"We are thankful for your assistance during the slavers raid on the colony. Still, they managed to abduct over a thousand colonists and from what I have been told also some UNSC soldiers, so it seems like we have some common goals." Morell had taken a position on the opposite side of the table, listening to his colonial counterpart, while the entire bridge and the guests seemed to be frozen in place, observing the two men's conversation.

"From the data we salvaged from the downed slaver frigate, we managed to extract the position of their base. Taruk, a remote little planet just on the border between the Traverse and the Terminus, not of much importance, except for the massive pirate base that is hidden there." Until now Morell had been silently listening, observing the holo projection of Taruk, which had been called up by Hackett while he explained the situation. But now he rose his voice, with a well measured amount of snark in it.

"And, since your 'Alliance Navy' is not strong enough to take care of these pirates yourself, you're asking us to help out." The Commander in Chief of the System Alliance again showed no reaction to this interruption, he only took in a deep breath and answered the question.

"Yes, our forces are still not as strong as we'd like them to be and not sufficient to win against the pirate flotilla guarding the base and we are, indirectly asking for your assistance, since you also have interests. You get to save your soldiers and don't face public pressure for either helping us or leaving soldiers behind and I don't get hanged back home for cooperating with you. It's a beneficial deal for both sides." The moment Hackett had finished his last sentence, Morell simply nodded and said
"Alright, then let's get to business. Send us the data and we'll move out within the hour.".

With that, Hackett and Morell's 'discussion' was over the System Alliance Admiral turned towards Garrus and Liara, obviously hoping to also secure some support from the Citadel for this operation. However, Marc was almost one hundred percent certain that he wouldn't have much success with that, considering how little influence Liara and Garrus had and how much red tape normally blocked any military operation sanctioned by the Council. Unless of course it's a Spectre mission, but that would not be sufficient here.

"Lieutenant, I'm sorry but you and your team still need to stay with us, until we got Sergeant Williams and flight lieutenant Moreau back from these sons of bitches." Morell now addressed Marc as they were back in the slow elevator.

Once the militia men had crowbarred them our of the control hub, back on the colony, they had thankfully found Häkin really quick, he and the others had actually run to cover when the whole airfield had gone up in flames. Sadly, or luckily depending on your perspective, he had been split from the flight lieutenant and Ash afterwards and had only seen from a distance how the slavers had carried away the other two unconscious soldiers. Well at least they now know where they could search their people, at least if they were fast enough, before the slavers shipped them away, probably into batarian territory where they would be out of range.

For the next half an hour Marc wondered why he and his team were actually present, they were no one representative, Rear-Admiral Morell didn't really need an escort so all they could do was standing around and try not to look too bored. Morell and Hackett had now opened a conference conversation with all the other ship captains, both from the UNSC and System Alliance, going over their options and battle plans. The System Alliance officers seemed to be uncertain about the strength of their force, even with the additional UNSC ships their force wasn't that large and it could easily end in a massacre. But, to everybody's surprise, Morell wasn't even remotely afraid of their odds, actually the opposite, he was rather sure that this operation wouldn't be any problem.

The talks were still going on, but this didn't stop the crews and skippers of the UNSC ships from taking preparations and making sure that they were ready to march out once the final orders came. There wasn't too much that could be done on board the destroyers, except for checking ammunition and drop pods, while the Marathon cruisers crew was as busy as a swarm of bees, refuelling their Longswords, checking all their arsenals and equipment. Tanks, Warthog, Pelican, Warthogs everything needed to be in perfect working order once they moved out to take care of these pirates, the longer they took, the smaller their chances would be to still find anybody to save.

Now imagine this business on the cruiser and multiply it by ten and you might get the hint of an idea how busy the Alamein was. Her flight decks, barracks, arsenals and storage rooms were an organized chaos, thousands of crew men and soldiers running past each other, sometimes into each other while gathering and preparing anything you could ever imagine needing for a planetary invasion.

In difference to the slightly smaller Orion class carriers, which were optimized for planetary assault and support of ground battle groups, the Epoch class were constructed more for space combat and space control. While they had miniaturized fabricators too, these were fewer than on an Orion-class, their real strength was in the number of troops and fighter they could carry. 16 flight decks in total, with 12 fighters on each, plus 12 reserve machines gave the ship a massive amount of options for both ground support and space control. Add to that 4 massive hangars, each with 20 Pelicans to ferry down the six battalions of Marines on board and you had a ship that could easily invade a colony by itself.

Morell was now back to the ship and every time he came on board, he felt tiny sting in his heart, remembering that it wasn't his ship anymore. Most admirals missed the times when they commanded a ship and those who didn't were not popular, neither with their subordinates nor other flag officers. He was greeted by the carriers XO once he left the Pelican and was escorted to the flag bridge, where he sat down on his chair and relaxed for a moment, before his eyes and focus turned towards the holographic sphere, that filled the central part of the bridge. Around him staff and junior officers still hurried into and out of the bridge, while others sat at their stations and worked, the saying "For every minute of battle there are a thousand hours of staff work" was really fitting in this situation.

For a few more minutes, Morell just sat in his chair, observing both the organized chaos surrounding him and the movements of the ships on the holosphere. His ships were moving perfectly in order, as their flotilla now headed for the Mass Relay. And, while he would have never admitted openly, the System Alliance ships were also doing a good job. The System Alliance officers had been worried about their odds, especially since they considered the UNSC ships to be inferior to Citadel ships. Well he would have quite some surprises for them.

Taruk, 12 hours later

Taruk was supposed to be a secret, well it had been a secret until now. But the Human ships which had just entered the systems was proof enough that somebody had fucked up. Except for one cruiser, the entire raiding party for the human colonies had been wiped out, but the hundreds of human slaves were worth more than enough to make up for these loses. And this human "fleet" was so small that they could easily wipe it out. The Batarian Commander had to admit that this carrier the humans huddled around was truly massive, a small space station filled to the brim with troops and fighters. But that meant that this ship was probably not heavily armed, so no problem there.

His ships took a defensive position, the humans thankfully were stupid enough to approach them on their own. Half their ships were those ugly "bricks" the UEG and its dogs used, the other half old salarian and batarian ships somebody must have bought on the black market. He himself had eight cruiser and one and a half dozen frigates, enough to wipe this force out easily.

Time passed by, the human ship slowly approaching them, until they came to halt, about three times the maximum firing range away from the pirate flotilla. Well the carrier and the older ships stopped but the cruiser and dreadnought sized human ships continued their advance. Three of these, against his flotilla? If they wanted to die, he'd happily help them with it. Still, these ships were now reaching a rather impressive speed, hurling themselves towards his ships. They would have at least 4 or even five shots to take them out, before they got in reach.

Then something strange happened, the carrier started to fire rockets, massive rockets. But their numbers were far too small, it was only ten projectiles, which their Guardian defence systems could easily stop. The three other ships were almost in range, just a few more seconds and they could turn them into wrecks and then take out the remaining human units, show them that messing with Batarians would only lead to their death. The rockets were fast and almost in range to be intercepted, but the Commander payed them no mind, until they detonated, just outside of Guardian range.

The Commander didn't notice this anymore, sensors were limited by the speed of light and the very moment the sensors of his ship received the data about the rocket's detonation, they ceased to exist, burned out of existence by an intense Gama-Ray Laser beam. Three of these gutted the cruiser, two other cruisers also fell victim to these weapons, before their crews could even react, causing chaos and panic among the remaining batarian ships.

The new Bident-Class missiles the Alamein was equipped with had worked just as advertised by the eggheads on Reach. Each of them contained a 30-megaton nuclear warhead, which explosion was focused into a Gamma-Ray laser burst. No kinetic barrier or armour known to Citadel Space could withstand such a hit and Morrel would have destroyed the entire enemy fleet with these weapons, weren't they so incredibly expansive. Even in their modern times, nukes were expansive and the fact that nuclear mines and classical nuclear warheads also needed nukes, increased their cost even more. And the nuclear charge itself was the cheapest part of the warhead, the materials used to produce the lenses and containment fields to focus the energy of the nuclear blast were rare and expansive, making mass production a fiscal nightmare. His ships had been given 12 of these missiles in total, he kept two as and emergency reserve and he had just fired the others on those poor cruisers.

The results were great, great arguments to beat any pencil pusher down with, if they tried to argue against producing more of these weapons. But still, the price of these weapons was high, actually equipping the carrier with all the Bidents it could carry, would almost cost more than building an entire destroyer. The Marathon and her escorts still raced towards the disorganized Batarians and before while they did eventually open fire, the humans star ships were also in range.

The moment humanity had realized how outranged their ships were, scientist had done everything they could do to modify existing weapons technology. Secondary batteries had never been a real focus of human ships, Railguns themselves had only been in use a few decades and they just recently learned the proper way to use them in space. The spinal MACs of the Marathon were still the normal ones, they were more powerful than those in a frigate, but still only short range, compared to mass drivers using ezo. But the Marathon was a Marathon-B, am modified version, equipped with the most advanced secondary naval coil batteries humanity had.

These weapons fired a 2 Kilogram tungsten-uranium projectile with a speed of 1,800 km per second every five seconds, still weaker and slower than a cruiser or dreadnought spinal gun, however the Marathon-B carried to off these weapons, in addition to its own Spinal MACs. These secondary weapons allowed the Marathon-Bs to engage in long range artillery duels, until they get in knife fight range to use their MACs.

And the Marathon was not the only modified ship, the Halberd-destroyers had also been given an overhaul recently. This was pretty much the first actual combat test for the new Marathon-Bs and the Halberd-Bs. The normal Halberd had two MACs, a normal main gun and a small secondary gun and the secondary gun had been modified to similar configurations like the Marathon-Bs batteries. For the moment, only Halberds and Marathons got this overhaul, since they have the necessary space or modular nature to house these changes.

With their new, modified guns the three ships returned fire on the Batarians, focusing their fire on a single cruiser, which was taken out after a few precise salvos. The Batarians now started to coordinate their fire, too, but the high speed of the UNSC ships made it hard for them to hit anything. Every weapon on the three human ships opened fire now, over a thousand rockets racing for half a dozen unlucky batarian ships, the ships close defence weapons firing into every direction to intercept any torpedo heading towards them. The System Alliance ships also entered the battle now, but stayed about 20 000 kilometres away from the opponent, firing their main guns, bombarding the Batarians, as they tried to get a hold of the human ships. The destroyers were fast, not as fast as frigates, but they danced around the few remaining pirates, while they fired dozens of rockets at a time, while hundreds more already chased after the pirate's frigates and fighters.

The Marathon-B cruiser itself duelled with two cruisers, even their main guns seemingly unable to penetrate the cruisers thick hull, their own barriers getting pounded by the cruisers unending fire of rockets and secondary artillery. The pirates then made a mistake, trying to not get into a destroyer's range, they actually got into the cruisers effective range. Each MAC of the cruiser was fired at one pirate ship and five seconds later, the two ships were vaporized, while the Alliance frigates now chassed down the last of the pirate ships. The entire battle took only half an hour and except for some wounded and superficial damage to the cruisers and destroyer armour plating, the human ships had suffered no loses.

Not that Marc and his team knew, they were already in on the Alameins Pelicans, as the carrier and the cruiser send down their drop pods, full of ODSTs. The pirates didn't seem to have any ground to space weapons, but an intact AA gun network was to be expected and sending Pelicans against that would mean certain death. The Droop troopers would open the road and the Marines would clean up the mess. Hundreds of pods now rained down on the pirate base and caused more than just a little panic.

The majority of them were aimed for the pirates' main base, almost a suicide command, meant as a diversion, while smaller teams took care of the outlying AA positions.

One of these units was the four-man team commanded by Master Sergeant Andrea Cisp "Crispy" and she and her team were the worst nightmare those poor Batarians could imagine. Only about a dozen of them were stationed there, neither trained nor equipped to properly defend themselves against any proper attack.

So, just like their comrades in the main base, they panicked, as the four pods crashed into the ground around their position. Before they had recovered from the shock, the lids flew of the pods and the first Batarian fell to ground, killed by a random spray from Crispies sub-machinegun. Almost like a machine, she jumped out of the pod and immediately jumped behind the armoured metal box. All the Batarians were now focused on her, pinning her down, but ignoring the other three soldiers, who had landed a bit farther away.

So, panic totally gripped the pirates, once the three other ODSTs started to attack their flank, taking out three of them before they could even react. Andrea also jumped out of her cover again, SMG throwing its entire magazine at the opponents. It only took a minute and the fight was over, the pirates had had no chance and were now just a bunch of corpses and dying bodies. Not anybody left to press some information out of, so they had to look through everything themselves. And as Crispy and her Marksman, Sergeant Lee Jinn-Zou "Keeper" prepped the explosives to take out the AA-gun, just to be certain, the rest of their team screamed out from the small building.

"Well Sarge, seems like we hit the Jackpot." They stopped what they were doing and while Keeper stayed outside, Andrea went inside to inspect what the other had found. "Maverick" and "Garfield" were inspecting the entrance to a tunnel and, from what the batarian data pads said, this tunnel was a supply and emergency entrance, right into the main base of the pirates.

"Well, what can I say, seems like the gods are on our side this time. Keeper, radio the others, we need a squad on guard duty here, so we can infiltrate." There was almost a hint of amusement in Andreas voice and her entire squad grinned widely, as they radioed the other nearby ODSTs. It would take them three minutes to reach the position and Andrea had to admit, that they didn't have the time to wait for them.

"Tell them to hurry, we will go in and we won't wait for them."

Ashley's eyes followed the batarian slavers, as they hurried past her cage, panic clearly visible in the faces and movement. They were under attack and if she had any luck it was an entire carrier task force blowing this hell hole to kingdom come. Of course, they would hopefully safe her and the thousands of other enslaved people here. Some of them were human, maybe a few hundred, but the vast majority was species from the Citadel Council races, and this made Ash's blood boil.

The Council, those spineless, pencil-pushing cowards. It was their fault this all happened, for centuries they had let the Batarians do what they want, to preserve "peace". Well, what was this peace worth, if it meant that colonies and people got massacred by slavers. Sometimes war was necessary, especially if you faced something as rotten and horrible as the Batarians. And she was sure that the UNSC would not let them do what they wanted.

She could admit the fault of the UEG and the UNSC, she knew of them. But there was one thing, one thing all human factions and groups agreed upon and something they had agreed upon for over 500 years. Slavery and all those who practise it were not tolerated. But something else had also caught her attention, another slave in the cage next to hers. It was none of the Citadel races, at least she was pretty sure it wasn't, a reptilian alien, that looked a little like a bipedal Lizard with green scales covering its skin.

It hadn't spoken and had only moved to eat the tiny rations provided to them, sitting their and meditating, at least that's what Ashley guessed what it was doing. She didn't even know its gender or name, the alien just sat their and creeped everybody, even the wardens, out.

Her attention was now off the strange alien again, the Batarians now fell into complete panic, she couldn't understand them, but they ran around like a flock of scared children. They started to open the cages, hurrying the slaves away, probably to some escape shuttles, so they could save some of their "goods". Ashley wanted to struggle against them, but the electric collar they had put on her, after she crushed two eyes of a slaver, tazed her if she tried anything, or if the slavers were bored.

They lastly opened the unknown aliens cage and it stood up, half a head shorter than the Batarians, but built somewhat sturdy and muscular. What happened next, well Ashley didn't know. She heard the screams of one guard, which turned into a horrible gurgling sound as his throat had been slashed. Before anybody could react, the unknown alien had broken the other guards' neck, its speed was amazing.

The other guards raised their weapons, but two of them fell to the ground, their brains splattered across the walls, cause the lizard had already picked up a pistol from the dying guard. Several more shoots, none of the slavers had helmets on or barriers up and none of them was left in the cargo room. The alien spun around, seemingly in by instinct, as Ashley moved, pointing the gun at her, but immediately lowering it as it saw her.

He Lizard talked, for the first time, a language similar to human speech, except for the occasional hissing sound. However, they obviously were both soldiers and as such Ashley realized what he wanted her to do as he gestured with the pistol. She reached her hands out in front of her and with the same accuracy it had used to massacre the guards, the alien shot of the restraints on her arms, not even causing a tiny bruiser. Ash was impressed, whoever this alien was and although she wasn't a fan of aliens in general, she had to admit that it was legitimately good.

She immediately reached for one of the dead Batarians weapons and after remembering that she couldn't understand any alien languages without an Omni-Tool, snatched one of the dead slavers' ones. It was ill-fitting and it took her minutes to click through dozens of menus until she found language settings. The software wasn't too old, so standard English was included. The alien had been fascinated by the tool, its two small, black eyes darting between the doors and the holographic screen.

But even with the tool, its speech remained unintelligible, so it wasn't even from Citadel space, wonderful. They now liberated the slaves and those in better condition started to salvage the dead slavers equipment and weapons and still no more slavers had entered. The alien had been so fast and efficient, no Batarian had gotten out a distress call, but surely, even with the chaos of being under attack, they would notice sooner than later.

With Ash and several of the freed slaves now guarding the doors, the alien seemed comfortable enough to start looking through the crates of loot the Batarians had also stored in this cramped room, which was even smaller, now that everybody was no longer forced into small cages. A bullet flew over her head, as Ash's instincts kicked in and she ducked behind the crate, while the freed slaves started to panic. The slavers had noticed now and several of them were forcing their way in, to be greeted by erratic fire from the former slaves and precise bursts from the Marine.

This made the Batarians fall back a little, while several of the civilians were already on the floor, wounded or dead. However, in the brief moment she glimpsed at the alien who had allowed them all to be free in the first place, she spotted something on its face, that looked like a wide, satisfied smile. The Lizard pulled out a Pistol and a Helmet out crate and immediately put on the dented piece of armour, which concealed its entire head.

The alien's precision, already baffling till now, became unbelievable, as it fired an endless stream of perfect headshot from the pistol, which seemed to have an endless magazine. After about fifty bullets in under two minutes, now slaver was left to attack them, and a smoking magazine fell out the weapon. The alien went back to the crate, getting more armour pieces and magazines, until its entire body was covered in metallic-brown armour, pistol holstered and a strange looking rifle in its hand

Nothing UNSC Marines would use, but Ashley had enough knowledge about weapons to know what it was and if the lizard fired it in here, it would probably kill several of the civies. So instead the next slaver that tried to enter the room just got more pistol headshots and a burst from Ash. Now, with its armour and weapons gathered, the alien gestured to the door, to the hallways full of dead Batarians. Ash understood and relayed the order to the civies.

"Follow me."

Authors note: Before there are any guesses or discussions. Except for maybe the appearence, the unkown alien is not from any other franchise. It's OC and it will be explained (if I ever get that far, probably Chapter 20, 15 years from now)

But well, I hope you enjoyed this Chapter, until next time.