Vandread Fan Fiction ❯ VanDread - Halo The Second Stage ❯ New Arrival ( Chapter 1 )

VanDread Halo The Second Stage

Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to VanDread or Halo…

Chapter 1

New Arrival…

< >: Thoughts

**************

In the Nirvana's Medical Bay…

“All right Cortana, hold still…”

Cortana nodded as Dr. Catherine took a blood sample with a small injection and as soon as she was done, she placed the blood into a DNA scanner and programmed it to scan for the gene markers that determined Cortana's genetic origin.

Dr. Catherine had been very surprised by the fact that Cortana was now human, and she had been dedicated to getting as much answers as she could in order to determine just what were the reasons why Cortana not only was now a living breathing person, but also was still able to do the things a normal human being could do. She had run tests on her physical and mental abilities for the past few days and now she was doing a gene test.

“How is it Dr, Catherine?”

“We'll see in a few minutes Cortana…”

The two looked at the computer monitor and in came the results, showing that Cortana for all intents as well as purposes was 100% human, though with some abilities greater than a normal human such as an increase in her metabolic rates which no doubt was due to her ability to enter the Holo-tank on the bridge of the Nirvana to return to her AI form, there were humans with higher metabolic rates but Cortana's rate was bit higher than the normal. She also had higher base line reflexes as well as some increased physical strength though nowhere near the caliber of some of the Spartans including John. The data proved that she was not a construct, but purely human.

“Remarkable….and you say you have no knowledge on how it happened Cortana?”

Cortana shook her head and that made Dr. Catherine even more interested in finding out just how the Paeksis worked, if it had the power to cross dimensions, then there was a chance it could be a Forerunner artifact or a prototype of some sort. The UNSC genius thought hard of the implications before her as she looked over Cortana's genetic data, as well as the results of her other tests on Cortana previously conducted days before.

Since Cortana was essentially a program that was born through the use of her flash cloned brain, she was basically Catherine's younger self or in this case, her' daughter', that was enough to make Catherine Halsey wonder how to handle this fact. She had never given birth to Cortana the way a normal human baby would be born and thus it was rather unsettling for her to have a younger version of herself alive and around her. However, she had a soft spot for Cortana the same way she had a soft spot for John when he was starting out the Spartan II Program all those years ago.

She still recalled how she met John in Elysium in John's home system with Jacob Keyes all those years before, he had been a foot taller than others in his age group and had remarkable reflexes as well as intellect and physical strength and truth be told, he was nice looking as well. He was a smart young man and had been tested with a coin and asked which side would land face up, he replied by grabbing the coin in mid air and correctly stating which side was face up. And while she felt guilty for placing John and the others into this life as Spartans, it did her good to know that they were alive and safe.

It still made her sad to know that they were facing a new foe once more, but she admitted that she could never talk John, Fred, Kelly, or Linda out of fighting, the will and ability to fight was now `in their blood' so to speak so she couldn't take that way. However, she had been hearing how John had inspired many of the people who met him, she had spoken to some of the Talvernians on how John and his assembled nirvana Fire teams had helped them save their people, as well as hearing how much the women in the Nirvana's Fire Teams respected their commander. She even heard from Cortana about the incidents of two children saluting John and wishing to join the Spartans, and the description of the little Talvernian girl hugging John and calling him hero gave her a sense of pride.

“Dr. Catherine?”

Catherine turned to Cortana who seemed to be deep in thought and she spoke to her.

“What is it Cortana?”

“I want to know, am I really human?”

“What do you mean by that? You are genetically, physically, and mentally a human being Cortana.”

“I know….but…it's hard to explain these thoughts I have about what happened to me when I have them, it's been months since it happened but I still wish I knew how to act like a human more effectively, I have all the knowledge of being human….but I've NEVER been human myself, I was just a program after all.”

Catherine wondered just how she was going to answer Cortana's questions, she understood just where Cortana was going with such questions, unlike her, Cortana had no parents to speak of, she had no brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, and more, she had never experienced childhood, adolescence, young adulthood and more. Though it was true that Cortana retained all the knowledge she had with her ever since her creation, she had never experienced them the way a flesh and blood person did until recently. It was no doubt taking some time for Cortana to think all this out, and it was somewhat pleasing that Cortana would tell her these things instead of others.

“Cortana….being human is never easy for anyone, if you like I could help you.”

Cortana looked at Catherine with surprise and eagerness, she knew for a fact that unlike her, Dr. Catherine Halsey had lived as a full human ever since she was born so she would know more. She had been able to help Dita in dealing with some hurdles in her own life, but this was the first time she could talk about her own problems as well.

“Thank you Dr. Catherine….”

As the two decided to chat for a while for Catherine to learn just how Cortana had been doing since entering this world, Catherine decided to run one last test and saw that her DNA and Cortana's was full on match. This made her feel a bit more unsettled, as she would have to get used to seeing Cortana as herself essentially.

This would take time to get used to…but if there was one thing that was true about Dr. Catherine Halsey, when something piqued her interest, she was going to go at full tilt to find out as much as she could on the subject that got her attention. She then noted the coin that she had used to test John when he was still a young man, and couldn't help but feel that the fact that John had given it to Cortana in the form of a necklace was of great importance to Cortana.

**************

In the UNSC section of the Nirvana…

BOOM!!!!

The Spartans were currently taking the usual rounds of firing at the shooting range in order to get back into the groove of things while John wore his MJOLNIR Mark VI, while Linda, Fred, and Kelly wore their MJOLNIR Mark VI with the upgrades that they got previously before going to Onyx. The UNSC Spartans were quite a sight for the crew, it had taken a number of weeks to a few months in order for the rest of the Nirvana crew in order to get used to the sight of just one Spartan, having to deal with three more Spartans was getting to be a problem for them all.

John-117 knew that to be true, it had taken him some time to be accepted into the crew, and there was no doubt Fred, Kelly, and Linda would need to adjust with the rest of the crew. The Spartan IIIs were also something of a concern of his, seeing the young children reminded him of his military childhood quite easily. However, he had his doubts on their effectiveness, despite Kelly's assurances that despite their youth, the Spartan IIs would be more than able to make up for their age.

He was aware of the fact that the young Spartans would have to be isolated for a bit in order to adopt to the crew for the time being, even when he was not able to see the young men and women of Spartan III Beta Company and Gamma Company in action, he could tell that they were going to have to get used to dealing with the facts that they were not only no longer at war with the Covenant, but now with a new foe as well as the facts that both the UNSC and the Covenant Separatists are now in alliance with one another, though it had been some time since he had heard of news back from their world.

The de facto leader of the Spartan Blue Team placed those thoughts aside as his team finished their training for the day. He placed his Ma5C ICWS Assault Rifle aside with the safety lock on as Kelly placed aside her MA5C ICWS Assault Rifle, Fred did the same with his MA5B ICWS Assault Rifle, and Linda placed aside her SRS99D-S2 AM Sniper Rifle on her back with the safety on as well.

As the Spartans gathered, the newly promoted Lieutenant Junior Grade Spartan Fred spoke to John.

“How soon do you think we're going to encounter these Harvesters Squad Leader?”

Despite the fact that he outranked John, Fred always considered John as his leader, and so did the other Spartans, they considered the master Chief as their de facto leader ever since they were children. This stared long ago back on Reach during a special exercise. When they were eight years old, the young Spartans were in a field exercise in a forest in the snow covered mountainous areas on Reach and get to a Pelican for extraction before the end of the day. As soon as they arrived in the starting area, it was then that they were told that they would have to leave the last one behind or they would suffer painful punishment. John did not agree with that and revealed his leadership skills as he rallied his fellow Spartans and gave them a plan to work with. Naturally John was not comfortable with the role, in fact he was surprised they gave him that role to begin with.

But it paid off, they were able to incapacitate the unknown soldiers guarding the Pelican as John was not going to take the chance of thinking that the soldiers would be friendly with the children. With the help of their AI instructor Deja, he and the others were able to hijack the drop ship after taking out the soldiers and he made sure no one was left behind, the mission was successful.

But it was not long for the consequences to come back to bit them in the posterior. Chief Mendez was not happy with the result for several reasons. The first was his Marines were harmed, and the second was that no one was left behind. However, John's actions had him promoted as Squad Leader for all the other Spartans and they all looked up to him as the unquestioned leader of their group.

Besides that, Fred knew that these Harvesters were a totally different foe than the Covenant as well as the Flood, he had never fought the Flood before but John had and his experience in these matters was greater than his own so he would need to learn as much as he could from John in order to be a good leader.

John then replied.

“I'm not sure yet Fred, but I know they would not be silent forever, sooner or later, they are going to make their move.”

“If they are, I am going to take a peek and see just how good they are.”

“You'll get your chance Fred, you all will…anyway…is it true? Was Kurt really alive when you met him? What about Will, why weren't they with you all back there on Onyx?”

Fred, Kelly, and Linda thought about what they were going to say to John, they knew that Kurt had not always been on John's good graces when they started out, but John grew to trust Kurt's feelings as well as his talents, to tell John that they lost Kurt AND Will was not going to sit well with their brother Spartan. It was something that all of them took hard though as Spartans, they hid their emotions from others, but never themselves.

Fred decided to fill John on what exactly happened back on Onyx.

**************

In another part of the UNSC Forward Unto Dawn…

Chief Mendez was busy training with Hibiki as he looked over the young man before him, he was still a kid, but he did show promise, no doubt his world had forged him to be a tough, no nonsense kind of kid when dealing with physical exertion. Right now Hibiki was doing sit ups on the command deck and building up his strength while the UNSC Marine officer observed him in action.

<This kid has promise, give him a full military application as well as several years of basic and advanced training, he might not make a half bad Marine despite being a civilian.>

Hibiki had been surprised to see his mentor salute this older man, but after learning that he was the one who had trained the Master Chief when he was young , he quickly showed respect to Franklin Mendez. Despite being young, Hibiki could tell from the way he moved, that Mendez was a seasoned soldier, and his eyes were the kind seen in gruff warriors in the movies he had seen back on Tarak, only difference was that Mendez was no actor, but the real deal. He also learned from Cortana that Mendez was a tough veteran and like the Master Chief, had won quite a number of military commendations and medals, all of which were won in battle.

Unlike the arrogant and self serving officials back on Talark, Hibiki could tell that Franklin Mendez was very serious and by the book in his way of fighting and living, which made him very wary on getting on the UNSC Marine officer's bad side. Besides, considering the fact that Franklin Mendez had trained his mentor, he could learn a lot more from the highly decorated veteran UNSC Marine officer as well.

As soon as he was done with his physical training, the Talark teen got up and stood at attention before Franklin who then spoke to him in the same voice that he had spoken to John when he and his fellow Spartans were under his watch. While Hibiki was neither a citizen of the UNSC as well as a member of the UNSCDF Marine Corps, Franklin decided to address him as such since he had gained considerable training from John, and seeing the footage of Hibiki's first combat performance in killing a Harvester Shock Trooper as well as the records of the plans he had cooked up in several critical mission convinced Mendez to treat Hibiki as a soldier of the UNSC.

“Marine! TWENTY ROUNDS AROUND THE DECK! DOUBLE TIME!!”

“SIR! YES SIR!!!”

Hibiki took off to a run around the Marine officer as Franklin observed him. Back then he was usually tired and panting, but after getting the right dietary allowance, eating good food, gaining proper physical training as well as medical treatment, Hibiki had changed, he had undergone a grown spurt and was taller now than he was before as well as physically stronger and better built than he was when he had stowed away on the Ikazuchi all those months before.

As he did his rounds, Franklin timed him and checked on the data pad Hibiki's previous performances under John and added his own reports, while this was not a military ship by all standards as well as not being a UNSC ship, the soldier knew that since they were now fighting a new foe, he was back to fighting in his element.

Hibiki and Mendez were not alone either in the section that Hibiki was training in as Tom, Lucy, Mark, Olivia, Cade, Ash, Max, Leena, and Jake were there and they too were also training in their own fashions while still wearing their SPI Mark II Armor. The Spartan IIIs were not very comfortable with the idea of being in a civilian ship as well as hearing that the war was over, they had wanted desperately to fight with the Covenant and now here they all were, stuck in a new dimension and fighting a foe they knew next to nothing about.

And to hear that the war between the UNSC and the Covenant was now over before they had a chance to avenge their families grated their nerves deeply. It was not long before Ash made his anger known as he punched a punching bag so hard it ripped through the covering.

RIP!!!

“Damn it!!!!”

Tom heard that and spoke to Ash.

“What's going on Ash?”

“None of your damn concern Tom!”

The survivor of Spartan III Beta Company however was not going to let this slid, he might only be a year or so older than Ash, but he was still his senior and he had trained Ash alongside Kurt, Mendez and the other DIs.

“It is my business, you're wasting your effort and strength on a punching bag.”

Ash glared and the others could tell that the leader Team Saber of Gamma Company was in a very foul mood. And Ash proved it as he spoke evenly.

“I joined the Spartan III Program so I can kill those alien bastards who butchered my family and everyone I cared about back home, and now here we are and the war is over, what the heck are going to do now?”

“You heard reports Ash, these Harvesters are attacking human colonies, just like the Covenant did…”

“Just like the Covenant….they AREN'T the Covenant Tom! I trained my whole life to fight the Covenant, not these Harvesters or any of their forces, it just doesn't feel right.”

Tom could relate to Ash and so could the others, they had indeed joined the Spartan III Program willingly to avenge the loved ones they lost in the UNSC-Covenant War, now that they learned that their side had won and the war was now over, it felt that they had failed and they had been able to do nothing to keep their respective pledge to avenge their families. With the war over, there was no purpose for them anymore.

However it was not long before Mendez came on the scene and spoke to them sternly while Hibiki continued his rounds. He had overheard their conversation and he was not liking the attitude that Ash was showing.

“Spartan IIIs!!! Front and Center!!!”

The young Spartan IIIs moved to the command in Franklin's voice and he spoke seriously to them.

“You might not be fighting the Covenant anymore, but that's excuse to start forgetting that you are part of the military now! You fight who are the enemy designated by your superiors without question, is that understood?”

“Yes Sir!!!”

Mendez knew that he was going against Catherine's desire to let the Spartan IIIs stop fighting and live as normal people, but he knew that they were not going to be easy to change. Maybe Catherine would succeed in making Tom, Cade, Lucy, Ash, Mark, Olivia, Max, Leena, and Jake change their views of fighting someday….but considering the situation before them, there was still a need for them to get ready for the possible need to combat.

“All right then….fall in and give me twenty rounds with Hibiki Tokai! MOVE!!!!”

The Spartan IIIs fell into step and moved out, now joining the Talark teen in his training.

**************

In the Conference Room…

“We've got quite a group now it seems, not only are there new faces in this ship, but we have new Spartans here as well.”

Magno sighed as she thought about all that had happened only a few days ago. The sight of the new Spartans was something she had never thought she would ever be able to see in her life time. It was hard enough to not be impressed by the feats made by the Master Chief in combat with the Harvesters, as well as Cortana's own abilities and contributions to the survival of the Nirvana and the crew. Now to have these new individuals in their crew something else entirely in the mind of the elderly pirate Captain..

“I have to agree….this is highly unusual.”

Buzam said as she sat down to observe the various situations, the conversations between Cortana and Catherine, as well as the training between Hibiki and Mendez as well as the young children who were still wearing the SPI Mark II Armor. It was hard to imagine these children were already soldiers at such a young age, but there was no denying the way they acted and carried themselves, they were dangerous young men and women to say the least.

“Tell me about it, but at least we've got some new help in dealing with the Harvesters, after our victory over them with Hibiki's plan of using that Gas Giant as a star, I can bet the Harvesters will do anything and everything to kill us.”

Gascogne said as she played with the metal rod she normally had on her when she was deep in thought or planning to say something important.

“That's true….but still, we can't just accept them already, it took us all quite some time to adjust to having the Master Chief and Cortana onboard, as well as the Talvernians, now we have several Spartans here with us as well as head of the Spartan II Program, creator of the MJOLNIR Power Armor and Cortana's `mother' as well as the Master Chief's trainer. The crew is still reeling from this as well, we need to take this slowly, they might be potential allies, but that does not mean we can just get used to them.”

Magno nodded at that.

“Buzam is right, this will take our crew quite some time to get used to so I suggest we be ready to iron out any differences and problems that might arise between out crew, the Talvernians as well as our guests. We can at least speak through both John and Cortana since they are very familiar with the others, more so than we are.”

The others nodded and then Buzam spoke.

“Captain….do you remember what The Master Chief told us about the Spartan II Program?”

“I do, it's hard to imagine that he was conscripted then he was just a boy. I can't deny the results of his life, but still….I think I will have a conversation with Dr. Catherine soon enough to find out why she allowed this to happen. But now is not the time, we need to take the time to get them settled in and help get the crew to be comfortable around them….namely those Spartan IIIs, I can't help but feel that they will need to be watched for a while.”

Buzam and Gascogne nodded in agreement, the Spartan IIIs seem quite different from John and his fellow Spartan IIIs in many ways. They were more aggressive, more fierce, though the ones named Tom and Lucy seemed somewhat less aggressive, no doubt due to being the seniors of the bunch. They wanted all the details they could from Catherine on the Spartan II Program and also to figure out the story behind Tom and the other Spartan IIIs.

**************

A day later…

Hibiki gave a groan as he woke up in his bed in the Forward Unto Dawn and got a nearby bottle of water, he took a good gulp of the cold liquid to get his system going as he stood up, he then headed for the refresher to clean his face with some water. As he finished, her got dressed and thought about his dream.

He saw himself fighting the Harvesters as before, with Dita and him merging their machines to form their VanDread and blasting away, but suddenly they were stuck by a red beam that seemed to disable and damage them he then recalled seeing meia and Jura being taken out by the blast in their own Dreads, the sight of that plus being alone in the VanDread with Dita being unresponsive to his words filled him with anger as he tried to fight back, but his weapons became useless, he then saw the Nirvana being destroyed by the beams. And then….a bright explosion as the ship was destroyed and the blast engulfed them all.

“Was that a dream….or worse?”

Hibiki had no idea why he had that dream of all things, but he didn't like it at all in the least, the idea of Meia, Jura, and Dita dying before his eyes as well as everyone in the Nirvana was something he disliked and it made him ache at the thought. The three Dread pilots were also deep in his thoughts as well.

The thought of Dita being killed by the Harvesters was sickening to his stomach, as well as the thought of them attacking Meia, and Jura as well, for some reason, they were tied together in not just forming the VanDreads, but also through the Paeksis, he had no idea why he felt it that way, but he did either way. The thought of them dying under his watch was painful to his thoughts and emotions though he didn't know why he felt that way.

Hibiki then placed those thoughts aside as he got to the shower and took a bath….he had a lot to think about at the moment and maybe he would have to speak to some people in order to figure out just why that dream came to him of all things.

**************

In the Vanguard Hanger…

Hibiki was currently dressed in his normal clothes and looking at his partner, deep in thought as he had taken a mug of hot coffee from one of the Food and Drink Dispensers in the Forward Unto Dawn before coming here. He thought about the dream and why it was so real to him.

“Mr. Alien?”

Hibiki turned and was surprised to see Dita in her pajamas, Meia in her comfortable flight suit minus her chest and shoulder padding/armor, and Jura in a night dress of pink silk with a thicker silk number as an outer garment of the same color. He was curious why they were out as well as he was so early in the morning, but when he saw the troubled faces they had, he had a very accurate idea on what happened to make them be like this.

“You had that dream too?”

Dita was surprised and spoke with considerable worry.

“You had that dream too?”

Hibiki nodded and he gave a deep sigh.

“I did and I didn't like in the very least.”

Jura sighed and rubbed her head.

“That was really weird….why did that dream feel so real, and why do we have the same dream?”

Meia was silent as she thought over the possibilities before them to explain the dream that they all shared at this moment, she then spoke seriously.

“I don't think it was a dream, it's way beyond that if we had the very same dream and it felt too real to be the figment of imagination.”

“So what do you think was it leader?”

Meia looked at her comrades and Hibiki.

“Maybe it was a message from the Paeksis, we were all exposed to the Paeksis when the ships merged, so maybe it was some form of communication from the Paeksis. That's the only thing to me that makes some level of sense.”

Hibiki replied to that.

“Maybe….but I don't buy it as some message to tell us we're not going to make it. It's more like a warning to me.”

“Warning?”

“Something will happen soon….we know what might happen if we fail, but now that we know, we can be ready.”

The others thought about Hibiki's words until Jura gave a cry of pain and rubbed her forehead, Dita was concerned as well as Meia and Hibiki but she assured them that she was just feeling a bit of pain and all she needed was a chance to get some extra sleep and if worse came to worse, she would go to the Medical Bay and get some medicine from Duero.

Hibiki decided to eat in the galley of the Nirvana for the moment, and then he would speak to his mentor to see what he should do about this dream, vision, or warning.

**************

In the Engineering Bay…

Catherine was currently working with Parfait as the head of the MJOLNIR Power Armor Series looked over the design of the Power Armors developed by the head engineer. Apart from the developed units was also John's Paeksis upgraded MJOLNIR Mark VI Armor. The genius behind the Spartan II Program, Third Generation Smart AIs, and the MJOLNIR Series had to admit that for less sophisticated versions of her project they were not that bad.

She had taken the time to study the technology used by the women of Megele, she was impressed that they were able to make use of lasers in many ways, the UNSC still used basic ballistic weapons as well as coil guns, and the only energy based weapon they had in their arsenals for their soldiers was the Spartan Laser. It was a surprise to see laser rifles as well as Laser Rings.

The other forms of technology from Megele were surprising to say the least and were not so bad as well. However, for their technological process the weapons and technology appeared to be ill suited for certain situations as the laser rifles were not apparently conditioned for outside use from the ship. As she looked over the designs of Parfait's power armor, she spoke to the head engineer of the Nirvana.

“These are not so bad, they don't match the MJOLNIR all that much, but this is still good work.”

Parfait nodded with a blush as she looked with respect towards Catherine as she could tell that Catherine was a genius in her own fields and being an engineer, Parfait was eager to learn a lot form others. And the chance to speak to the creator of the MJOLNIR series was something that she was very happy to be able to do as she wanted to get input from the woman who created such a power and impressive system.

“Thank you Dr. Catherine! I know this is nowhere near able to come close to your work with the MJOLNIR but it's the best I could come up with on such short notice. My people have never attempted to try creating Power Armor before so we're very much in the dark on how to make suits like the Master Chief's MJOLNIR, the only things we have that come remotely close are our special environment suits.”

“I see, but the changes you have are rather unique, the UNSC had a hard time coming up with Power Armor as well. It took a number of years before we got to what we have used before.”

“I guess….still, this armor can certainly of great aid for the ground teams if we can finally field test them in battle conditions.”

Catherine nodded and she asked the head engineer an important question.

“How did you design them?”

“Well…I knew there was no way I could study the Master Chief's MJOLNIR due to it being upgraded by the Paeksis as well as the fact that my fellow women back on Megele have never delved deeply into the use of Power Armor for our forces, so I had no prior knowledge on how they worked. But I understood the principles on how they operated. However, the MJOLNIR was meant for Spartans like the Master Chief so there was no way any of the crew could wear it, I had input from Cortana about it so I decided to make a variant that could make due and could be used without having the physiology of the Master Chief as well as the augmentations.”

“Good reasoning there.”

“Thank you, so in order to make it user friendly for people who were not like the Master Chief…”

Parfait then explained all of what she had done in developing the suits and Catherine was quick to understand the crew principles that led to the creation of the units that were before her at this moment. She nodded patiently as she listened to Parfait's words on how she had developed the Power Armor units before him, as well on how she worked on making the suits able to move and function without using the reactive liquid metal crystal as well as the neural interface system used in the MJOLNIR. Catherine listened even more as Parfait explained how she had made her own shield system for the Power Armor and while those were nowhere near as advanced as the MJOLNIR Series or that of both the Covenant and the Forerunners, Parfait's approach to the Energy Shield System was very original.

“And that's how we designed them….of course we haven't really tested them in a real battle field situation so I can't really have practical field data to make adjustments. Suffice to say, they are still in testing mode Dr. Catherine.”

“Hmmm…not bad at all Parfait, how long have you been an engineer?”

Parfait thought about it and replied a few moments later.

“I guess I was always something of a gear head since I first held an antique wrench when my Ohma gave it to me, I've always wanted to invent things since I was young and being in the pirates was a good choice since I liked the independence from Megele, besides, I wanted to see all machines in action, plus the Paeksis Prototype here on the Nirvana is always a patient of mine.”

“Patient? You consider the Paeksis your patient?”

“Yeah, it always acts up like a human being, and I always say that anything that moves is alive, even if it's not a living thing. Sometimes I feel like a doctor to it when it ever gives me and my fellow engineers a hissy fit.”

Catherine laughed a bit at that and then decided to do a secondary scan through of the Power Armor suits to make sure she got all the data so she could run some data simulations on them for a test base while on the ship. While Parfait's variants were not as advanced or powerful as her MJOLNIR it was good enough for human beings who were not like the Spartans. The MJOLNIR could never be worn by normal humans, but Parfait's versions appeared to be more friendly for the average human and considering the records she had seen of the Harvesters they were going to need every advantage they could get.

She then decided to do a thorough scan of the Master Chief's Paeksis enhanced MJOLNIR Mark VI to see just what the Paeksis had done to the systems in the Master Chief's MJOLNIR Mark VI Armor at a much later date, the data she got from John and Cortana told her that the enhancements made by the Paeksis to his MJOLNIR Mark VI were very helpful in the battles that he had been in ever since arriving here in this dimension and fighting the Harvesters in combat, but still, she wanted to see more and make some decisions if there were ways she could increase the power of Fred, Linda and Kelly's own MJOLNIR Mark VI.

It was then that one of the head engineers ran up to the two and spoke seriously.

“Parfait! We've got a problem with the Paeksis!!!”

Both Parfait and Catherine moved to the Paeksis Reactor room as Chief, parfait's second in command spoke to her leader.

“It's not good Parfait, for some reason, the power ration and output went down considerably, it's not life threatening to the ship but it's certainly unexpected!”

“When did this happen?”

“No less than ten minutes ago, we were doing a routine systems check then the Paeksis just went like this.”

Catherine looked at the controls and quickly began to type in a rapid sequence, surprising both Chief and Parfait, she had heard from Cortana that Dr. Catherine was considered the finest mind n the USNC and was highly respected by many members of the military, and seeing her in action was great, Catherine then turned to the head engineer and spoke.

“This Paeksis is the first prototype right?”

“Yeah, it was developed as the test bed model for all the power sources that were like it, I have no idea what it's going to do since it's a prototype.”

Parfait then turned and spoke to the Paeksis through the window with an exasperated tone.

“You're a real trouble maker you know that?!”

Catherine smirked a bit and both of them went to work figuring out just why the Paeksis was acting like this, the chief UNSC scientist was very much impressed by the Paeksis and decided to run some tests of her own but considering that it was somehow a living entity, she would have to be very careful about how she would approach to treating and studying it

**************

In one of the hallways of the Nirvana…

Hibiki was busy getting his thought organized on that dream of his and he subconsciously touched his arm where a wound was supposed to have been in the dream he had at that time. He was so deep in thought that he was unaware of the fact that he was being followed.

“Mr. Alien!!!”

He turned as he spotted none other than Dita herself, still wearing her pajamas, the redhead seemed to be in a very happy mood though why that was the case was still very much unknown to the Tarak teen, he turned around while wearing his normal clothes and spoke to the young Dread pilot.

“Yeah? What is it now?”

Hibiki was surprised to see that Dita suddenly seemed very shy and bashful, there was red in her cheeks and she was twiddling her fingers together, plus to his amazement, she was stuttering.

“I…well…I-um….I have…”

This was a first to Hibiki's mind as he knew that Dita was not the kind of person to leave a conversation hanging the way she was doing now, and for some reason he couldn't help but feel some sense of apprehension from the way she was acting around him all of a sudden, and that was already confusing in itself. He decided to let her speak on her own time as doing otherwise was considered….rude, though why he never knew.

Dita finally managed to get her train of thought back on track and spoke to Hibiki.

“I was wondering, when you would come to my room, remember, you promised me?”

The very second that came out of Dita's mouth, the Tarak teen began to panic, he remembered in that instant the promise he had made to Dita when they were facing the Harvester battleship only a full ten days ago. He had no idea why he was acting this way, but suddenly the idea of being alone in a room with Dita was somehow making him very wary.

“W-What are you saying?! I can't just go into your room right now!”

“But…you promised me Mr. Alien.”

“I know….but I can't just go there now!”

“So when are you coming? Tomorrow? The day after?”

As Dita asked those questions, she moved closer to Hibiki, further embarrassing the already confused Tarak teen as to why he was acting this way towards Dita of all people. He decided to reply and try to get his head straight on this whole thing at a much later date.

“I'll see if I have time, now I've got to go and eat!”

Dita smiled and spoke.

“Then maybe we can eat together Mr. Alien!”

Hibiki turned, still blushing at the moment as well as still very confused at his reactions as well as the circumstances he had just found himself in at this moment and he replied.

“I'd rather dine alone right now Dita.”

“Please don't be like that Mr. Alien! I`ll even cook you some of the food you like so much!”

Hibiki knew that he was not going to get anywhere at the moment and arguing with Dita was not going to be simple, and apart from that, he was not in the mood to see Dita in tears, it was not something he wanted to see as well as the fact he might get into trouble with the pirates yet again.

“Oh all right Dita, just promise me to not mention me visiting your room while I'm eating okay?”

As the two left, they were unaware of the fact that they were being watched by Meia who was not wearing her chest and shoulder padding, she was still trying to get used to the sight of a fellow woman like Dita being this close to a man and she couldn't help but wonder how things had gotten ever since the time they had raided the Ikazuchi, she also wondered about her own relationship with Hibiki.

She might not be as crazy over Hibiki as Dita apparently was, but she still found him to be quite different from the regular perceptions of her people when it concerned men, she also wondered about the dream that they each had since she wondered of the ability to fuse their fighters together had an effect on how they felt as well, she felt some level of familiarity with Hibiki though why that was the case was still very much unknown to her.

“So yet another day begins.”

Meia turned the new voice and found herself looking at none other than Paiway who was currently writing on her diary and seemingly in a very happy mood. She then spoke in her usual voice.

“Dita is chasing Hibiki yet again.”

She then spoke in her cartoony voice using her frog puppet.

“I can't believe that she would be willing to chase a man like, it's really weird though he's not the same as the men we knew back in the day.”

That was then that Pyoro suddenly came out of nowhere and spoke.

“Actually that sort of thing is considered to be normal human behavior…hck!”

Meia was somewhat surprised at the sight of Pyoro, for some reason, despite being a machine, the Navi-bot looked sick and even sounded sick, even Paiway after being angry at being interrupted was also surprised by the way Pyoro was acting, the floating robot even began to move like a person being afflicted by the hiccups.

**************

In the Conference Room…

“We're at least ninety days from the home system where our home world of Megele is located, with all the data we've gathered on the Harvesters of Earth and their plan to harvest the internal organs of humans for their own needs. We've also sent pods to both Tarak and Megele but so far we're being ignored since there have been no replies form either world. And there has been no previous reply from the pods that we sent before.”

Buzam reported as Magno nodded with a sigh.

“I can't blame them in that regard, after all, even I had a hard time digesting the fact that the harvesters who have caused so much destruction are our own kin left behind on Earth. But I have a feeling we're being ignored for the fact that we are pirates.”

Buzam and Gascogne nodded at that, as pirates they preyed on ships from either world so it was to be expected that they would not be seen in a very favorable light by either world and either government.

It was then that Parfait came on the line and Magno took the call.

“What's the problem with the Paeksis now Parfait?”

“I'm not sure, but it's power ratings have dropped to at least eighty percent, and I have no idea what's making this act this way, Dr. Catherine and I are working hard here but right now this situation is not getting any better.”

Magno sighed as she sat back on her chair.

“Here we go again.”

Buzam then thought it over on what was happening to the ship.

“It could be that the Nirvana is still dealing with the residual effects of the fusion between our cruiser, the Ikazuchi and the Forward Unto Dawn.”

“Or it could be that we're dealing with the integration between men and women.”

Magno looked at Gascogne and asked the head supplier what she meant by that.

“What do you mean by that Gasco?”

A vein appeared at Gascogne's forehead but she didn't react in the normal fashion of losing her temper, she was in front of the elderly Captain.

“We still don't know much about men and I can bet it's likewise for them as well, it will be a long time before men from Tarak and women of Megele ever get along.”

Magno had to agree with Gascogne in that regard as well, it was still going to be hard bridging the gap between the women of her world and the men of Tarak, but if they were going to have a chance at facing the Harvesters and defeating them to make sure that they never wipe them out for their own benefit.

“That might be true, but with all the people we have on this ship, namely the Talvernians, we might be able to bridge the gap. Though how will be interesting to see at this stage, I haven't had this much fun in years, and I'm older than most here already.”

**************

In the Forward Unto Dawn…

The Spartans were all around Hibiki as well as Duero and Bart, the two had decided to visit the UNSC section to see how things were going on and while Bart was still not at ease with the Spartans, Duero was more than willing to learn what he could, though he respected the privacy of the Spartans when they asked him to not ask certain questions.

As soon as the tired Tarak teen came in and then flopped on his bunk, the others looked at him as well as Kelly and Linda, the female Spartan IIs had been very curious on who this young guy was and why was it that their Squad Leader had taken him in as well as trained him the same way Chief Mendez had trained them. They had seen his performance and while they were impressed to a degree, they were eager to see just what else was Hibiki capable of for themselves.

Duero and Bart were the first to talk to Hibiki and the tired teen sighed and explained the predicament he was in, to the amusement as well as the curiosity of the two Tarak men while the Spartans were not showing much, though it seemed that they were very curious as to how this was going to play out.

“You make a promise to Dita?”

Hibiki nodded at the question that Duero asked.

“Yeah, I kind of said it by mistake when she called me and before I thought the whole thing through, I said yes.”

Kelly then spoke n her usual fashion.

“So now you don't know if you want to go through with going to see her in her room right?”

“Yeah….”

Bart ate some of his food pills and he was also very curious about this despite his unconcerned look and munching on his food.

“I don't see what's the big deal Hibiki, you made the promise so you might as well keep it, go to her room then.”

Hibiki turned to Bart and glared as he spoke out.

“Oh yeah?! Why don't you go instead?!”

Bart shook his head and replied seriously.

“I'm not the one who made the promise to Dita remember? You did so why involve me?”

Hibiki moaned at that as Bart did have a point at that and then John spoke out.

“I'm sure she only wants a conversation Hibiki.”

“I guess…but what do I say? What exactly am I going to talk to her about? Besides that, I've never been in a girl's room before!”

The Spartans looked at one another and had to agree with Hibiki's point there, however, they also had a feeling that Hibiki was going to have to learn a number of things in order to adjust to the idea of dealing with women in general. That was when one of the Talvernian soldiers walked into the whole group.

Felix looked at the assembled Spartans as well as the men of Tarak and wondered just what was going on at this moment.

“Hey guys, what's going on?”

The Spartans turned and John filled the Talvernian male on the details and Felix grinned at Hibiki.

“You know something Hibiki, sounds like you're being asked out on a date.”

Hibiki was confused at that and that was fairly obvious due to the next question he decided to ask the Talvernian soldier just what he meant by a date.

“What's a date?”

Felix looked at the Tarak youth with a considerable measure of surprise, but then grinned as he figured that it was about time the young man from Tarak got an education on the finer points of being with a woman. He sat down and began to think on how to organize his thoughts and say them, of course he decided to be honest with the young man.

“A date is an event between two people who like each other, kind of like a courtship period, that is when the pair get to know one another, find common ground, shared interests, that sort of thing. It can vary between partners as well, some like to have quiet meals and the like, while others love to go to parties and revel, come on, I think you guys on that world of yours MUST know what courtship is?”

Bart and Duero nodded with the young doctor speaking in the behalf of the others.

“Yes, that does happen on Tarak, I happen to know some happy couples.”

Felix sweat dropped at that, and even Kelly as well as Linda gave a slight shake of their heads, John and Fred were also not very happy in that regard. The Talvernian soldier and the Spartans were not all that comfortable with the idea of an all male society as they were raised in co-gender environments, though they were aware that same sex couples were known to be in their world and dimension respectively, though such relationships were not common. Felix replied.

“I bet you do Doc, anyway, that is what a date is, and I think that is what Hibiki is getting into if he decides to go to Dita's room, there's no harm in doing that you know….unless….well…you two do the deed. That's when things between you two can get rather interesting.”

Hibiki was even more confused by that, and so was Bart as well as Duero.

“What sort of deed are me and Dita supposed to do?”

Felix was a bit confused at first and the recalled that since Hibiki was from an all male society, then he wouldn't know about how things would be between men and women, namely in the very intimate sense. He knew that he was going to cause a panic in the Tarak men, but he already found out that some of his female comrades had mentioned the fact that men and women could be intimate and have children. That was something that was still causing some level of confusion in the women of Megele so there was a chance the same could be done with the men.

“That's another term for…hold on, Doc, you said that you know some couples on Tarak right?”

“Yes.”

Felix nodded, this was going to be uncomfortable for him and no doubt the Spartans, but it had to be done so Hibiki would at the very least be aware of just what he was about to walk into the very second he was in Dita's room.

“All right then…were there times that those couples in question expressed their relationship in the more intimate sense and with the use of certain body parts?”

Duero thought about that and then he as well as Hibiki and Bart realized what was it that Felix was referring to and they then gave looks of confusion as the blonde Tarak youth spoke for himself and the others.

“Yes that does happen, we call it…”

The Talvernian however replied.

“You don't need to tell me what it is, trust me I don't need to have a description about the act being done in the way of men.”

Felix then spoke as he dropped a bomb on the men of Tarak.

“Anyway let's get back on topic, all right then, you see, there is another way to look at a date, and that involves you doing those exact same things you described….with a woman, though the positioning, actions and the like is rather different.”

The result of that was not lost to the Spartans, they did have classes on those sorts of things though they knew that the only Spartan comrade they had who tied the knot was Maria, she was still on Earth, last Fred and the others checked, her family was still safe and no doubt their sister Spartan was back to raising her family despite the fact that it still boggled their minds that Maria even found a guy she was interested in, as well as the fact that the guy had to be very brave to be intimate with one of them.

The reactions of the Tarak men however was a lot more animated than the Spartans since they were not wearing any Powered Assault Armor to hide their reactions.

“WHAT?!?!?!”

Hibiki was blushing bright red the very second he understood just what the Talvernian soldier was telling him, of all the things he expected to hear about how to act around women, the idea of being intimate with them was something that shocked the hell out of him. The very second he thought of doing that with Dita, his body began to heat up while a strange ache in his pants made itself known to him, and before he could stop his imagination from getting the better of him, he began to have thoughts on two other female who he was partnered with when forming the VanDreads doing the same thing with them.

As for Bart and Duero…

“THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE!!!”

The blonde's reaction was expected as he was still not used to the idea of being this close to women though he was a bit more comfortable in their presence now. As for Duero however, he was a little more open minded than Bart was.

“Really? Is that true?”

Felix nodded and replied.

“That's how we do things back on Talvern, and I can wager a bet that other worlds that have men and women on them do that too. I know that for a fact since my parents gave me the lecture about it when I was old enough and I had Sex. Ed classes when I was still in high school. It's not something to be ashamed about. To tell you guys the truth, you have no idea what you are missing, most guys I know would kill to be in your shoes right now, being stuck on a ship with a hundred and fifty women, who are very attractive by the way, as well as our fellow Talvernian comrades who are female, is a dream come true for most guys.”

“THAT IS SO GROSS!!”

Bart replied but his convictions were as solid as he might have thought as he began to think of the female commander of the pirates who was Buzam and he wondered why he suddenly felt a strange sensation in his loins at that.

Felix laughed at that and replied.

“It's only gross if you don't do it right buddy, if you do it right, it can be quite pleasurable and more besides. There's also a chance you might have a baby after a certain time frame of nine months though that doesn't happen often since the process relies on a few things to work properly.”

Duero was very curious about this whole thing as he spoke once more; he wanted to get as much details as he could as he had been reading a book that spoke about men and women contributing to the creation of a child, now that he was hearing this, he was keen to learn even more about this process that was known as procreation between genders.

“So is the process effective?”

Felix shook his head.

“Not exactly, unlike what you guys on Tarak have or the women have on Megele, the process of procreation is not very accurate, the woman has to be in the right time of the month to be fertile plus she has to be in the mood to do it, you have to get her excited, same with her doing the same to you, the conditions for both partners have to be favorable and there's usually a chance that even if it's done, there's no chance of having a baby right off the bat, it takes several attempts to do it.”

Bart then spoke.

“If that process is so unreliable and unpredictable, then why do it in the first place?”

Felix sighed and replied.

“The whole doing the deed as some guys and even some women call it, is very pleasurable, and some do it because they love it, as well as others doing it to show their commitment and affection for one another, you must know the term love right?”

“This is quite fascinating indeed, I had a suspicion about all this since reading a book concerning the possibility of men and women being able to have children, and that has made me wonder about the physical differences between men and women, do those differences between genders have anything to do with the art of procreation between men and women?”

Felix nodded and grinned like a happy monkey at that, he could have told Duero just how the differences between men and women, but decided to wait for the time being as he wanted the men to find out for themselves, he could always help them out, plus they could talk to the female members of his group, that way they could see the act in the perspective of women.

“They do, but at the moment, I think now is not the time for you to learn about those things, besides, I need to take care of several important matters back with the others, see you guys!”

As Felix left the area, the three men looked at the Spartans. The Spartans were also thinking about other matters. They had a feeling that discovering the intimate side of being with the opposite gender was going to be a shocker to the men on Tarak. No doubt they would ask them questions as well.

Hibiki looked at the Master Chief and asked.

“Is….is this true Chief?”

“It is, that's how men and women were like back in the past and even more so in our world, and before you ask Hibiki, there is only one of us Spartans in my unit that got into a relationship, in this case, our Spartan comrade was a woman. Last I recall, she has children, though how many I wasn't really sure.”

Duero was surprised at that and spoke.

“One of your fellow Spartans gave birth to children?”

Kelly spoke then.

“Yeah, why does that surprise you?”

Duero had to admit that the news that a Spartan could have a baby, he began to wonder just what kind of child would be the result of a Spartan being intimate with another person, or even, a fellow Spartan, seeing the results of the Master Chief's biological enhancements was impressive enough on their own, but the idea of a child having the same level of ability and skill as a Spartan did was something else entirely.

The idea of it all was so intriguing that he decided to ask Dr. Catherine what would be the result of it, as she was head of the Spartan II program and would know just what the results would be if two Spartans were to have children together, the resulting child could be incredible in terms of physical and mental faculties. He then turned to Hibiki and spoke.

“You know, that kind of information could be able to help us deal with reducing the expenditure on time and resources, we might need to learn even more of this, Hibiki, why don't you go to Dita's room and try out what Felix said?”

Hibiki was quick to react to the suggestion…as he face faulted.

WHAP!!!

The others looked at Hibiki who was now unconscious on the floor with a bit of a nose bleed and Kelly spoke in her usual manner.

“He took that better than I thought.”

“No kidding.”

Linda replied as she also looked at the now unconscious young man who was getting up and then Hibiki roared.

“Are you out of your mind?!”

“You are going to her room after all Hibiki, so no sense not learning how to do the deed with her when the opportunity presents itself. Or maybe you could try it with say Meia or Jura?”

Hibiki face faulted yet again and was really out cold this time. Fred and John looked on at the now totally unconscious young man who was still trying to get his brain back into working order after all the information his brain had just been subjected to. At the moment, Fred and John wondered just what else was going to happen for the rest of the day.

**************

In the Medical Bay…

“Wow…it's gotten so big!”

Paiway said with awe as she looked at the ultrasound images of Ezra's growing baby as Duero ran the scanner on Ezra as the gentle bridge officer lay there on the bed. Duero himself had to admit that the sight of a developing baby inside a woman's body was very interesting as well as fascinating.

“According to the estimates, the baby should be ready to detach in a few more weeks.”

Ezra gently spoke at that.

“We call it giving birth Doctor.”

“Oh I see.”

As Duero moved aside to log the latest data into the computer, Paiway spoke to the expectant mother to be, she wanted to see the baby Ezra would have but she was worried about some things, they didn't have the needed gear and facilities.

“Hey Ezra, do you plan on delivering the baby today? We might not have the right equipment here since we left our base in a hurry….besides…”

Paiway then looked at Duero's direction and spoke.

“I doubt a man knows how to help in child birth.”

Duero however took out a book he had been reading for some time, this one detailed the process that Felix spoke of to them previously though it was more of a child's hand book and never went into the finer details. He had been reading it very carefully in order for him to get a full idea of just how the process works.

“Don't worry, I have been reading on the process so I think I can handle it.”

That got a pair of large sweat drops from both women, just as Catherine walked in as well as Jura, the blonde Dread pilot was in her usual dress and rubbing her head, still feeling the effects of the headache that she had since this early morning after having that dream that she shared with Dita, Meia, and Hibiki as well.

Catherine greeted Ezra and Paiway as she looked at the pregnant mother and sat down to do some work on her newly provided work console, Duero could tell that she had some things to take care of and decided to take his time in talking with her as he could see that now was not the best of times, and besides that, he had another patient to take care of, judging by the way Jura was rubbing her forehead.

Ezra then turned to speak to Jura.

“Whatever is the matter Jura?”

“Hi, sorry, but I have a really strong headache today. I really need some medicine to make this go away for the time being.”

Duero was curious about that and pondered just what the news meant tot him, he took a vested interest in this case as he was aware of the Paeksis acting odd recently.

“Hmmm….Parfait mentioned that the Paeksis was undergoing some changes recently, not mention Pyoro's current state of `health', I wonder if that is related…”

“Doctor! Please hand me the medicine right now!”

Jura said as she felt the pain of her headache hit her and she forgot her manners, she realized that and apologized to the people in the room, Catherine however was not bothered as she was now working on the computer console with great speed and Duero accepted her apology as well as Ezra and Paiway.

As Duero got the medicine, Jura admired the sight of Ezra's baby still in her mother's womb, and it was then that she spotted a book that she found to be rather interesting in images, as soon as she took the book and read the contents, her eyes widened and she looked at the image of Ezra's baby and then the book once more as an idea began to form in her head.

**************

In the Nirvana's gun firing range…

BLAM!!!

BLAM!!!

Barnette looked as she took out the next number of targets with her Glock 9 pistol and reloaded a fresh clip, she felt a lot more relaxed at the moment as she bled out the stress in the shooting range on the targets with the special padding on the walls to catch bullets. As she loaded a fresh clip, Jura was sitting there deep in thought on some important matters…namely on what she had just read from Duero's book. As soon as she was done getting it all in her head, she spoke out.

“I want to have a baby.”

That had an immediate result from her companion Barnette as she missed her target completely and she turned to face the blonde with a look of utter shock.

“A BABY?!”

“Yep.”

Despite the smile Jura had on her face at the moment, Barnette could tell that her blonde compatriot was downright serious about having a baby and she couldn't help but be utterly surprised by the news that had just managed to slug her hard. She managed to then get her wits together and spoke.

“Y-Y-You want me to be the fahma?!”

“Not exactly Barnette, I want to have a baby with a man.”

THAT got a reaction.

“YOU WANT TO HAVE A BABY WITH A MAN?!”

Barnette was utterly shocked by that's statement as she looked at Jura who nodded and she couldn't help but wonder just what was the reason for her friend to suddenly develop this idea from out of nowhere.

Jura grinned and replied.

“Think of it Barnette, the first woman of Megele to have a baby with a man, no one on Megele has ever done that before as far as I know, I'd be famous once I have the baby when we get back to Megele, a heroine even!”

Barnette could tell that there was no way she would be winning this argument anytime soon and knew that once Jura had a plan in her head, there was no way for her to make her think otherwise, however, she was still somewhat curious just where had this idea come from.

“I know I can't tell you to not do it Jura, but at least tell me where you got this idea of having a baby with a man.”

Jura showed the book and Barnette read the details and then looked at her long time friend with a very serious expression.

“All right, so who do you have in mind for the donor?”

“Well, there ARE men on this ship.”

“Don't tell me it's that blonde navigator of ours.”

Jura shook her head and replied.

“Nope, he's still a bit of a cry baby and he still doesn't trust us women well enough despite loosening up a bit more, why have him as a partner in that case?”

“Okay, Bart's out….how about Duero?”

“No….he's nice and certainly someone very interesting and well put together, but Parfait would not like that, I get the feeling that Parfait would not be happy if I start to show I have an interest in him.”

Barnette thought it over and then knew that there were other men on the ship as well.

“How about choosing from some of the men from Talvern then? They know about the process no doubt since they lived with women all their lives, plus you can ask the women in their group for advice since they were with men all their lives.”

Jura nodded.

“I thought of that, but my baby has to be very special, not just a baby in the regular sense, but someone more.”

Barnette wondered about that and the green haired woman had an idea on just what Jura might have in mind. The special men would have to be Hibiki since he formed a VanDread with Jura, while the others were naturally the Spartans who were male and the one they knew the most was none other than the leader of the Nirvana Fire Teams.

“Don't tell me you're going to have a baby with the Master Chief!”

Jura had to admit that having a baby with the Spartan was a VERY tempting idea, he was nice in his own way, tough, skilled, strong, and more besides. However, as much as the idea was very tempting, she was not fully sure she would pursue it as she knew little of the Master Chief since they never got to socialize much, not to mention Cortana would not like that to say the very least and she was not in the mood to court Cortana's wrath as well.

“Actually, I thought about that, but I can bet Cortana would put her foot down on that idea, you know that the two of them happen to be very close.”

“Okay, so that leaves Hibiki, the other Spartan named Fred, Chief Mendez, and the younger male Spartan IIIs.”

Jura thought it over and decided to focus on Hibiki for a while see how that would go.

“I'll try Hibiki first, it would be interesting to see if I can shag him into giving me the chance to have a baby with him.”

“Won't Dita object to that? You know how close she is to him after all.”

“I'm aware of that Barnette, but I'm not giving up just yet, besides, I'm actually going to enjoy this. If it might not be possible, I could try the other men as well, but only if I don't do too well with Hibiki, though I can't help but think this will be worth it in a lot of ways!”

However, Jura's thoughts on the matter were cut short as the ship's alarms came online, it seemed that things were about to get interesting, Jura decided to take her time and plan out just what she was going to say to Hibiki when the time came for her to make her move on Hibiki.

**************

In the Bridge…

“What is it?'

Magno asked as the bridge crew along with Cortana who was in her holo-tank worked on locating the object that had tripped their sensors as Cortana had released the Clarion Spy Drones well ahead of the Nirvana but in a wider pattern when they picked up an odd signal, since she had no knowledge of it, she allowed the signal to get closer as she had determined that the signal didn't match any pattern used by the Harvesters. It was not long before the object came into view for all to see.

“That looks like a pod.”

Ezra commented as she looked at the image, Belvedere and Amarone scanned the pod while Celtic looked at the rest of the area.

“The signal matches that of the old Colony frequency as well having lift signs, that must be an escape pod of some sort.”

“From a ship or a station?”

Buzam asked as she looked at the image before her, she was the cautious one of the pirates and the idea of something this far out in the middle of nowhere was something she was very curious about.

Cortana scanned the pod and was surprised as she did so.

“The pod's outer hull shows signs of long use, I'd say this pod's been out here for at least sixty to near seventy years, But it seems to be in good working order.”

Magno was surprised and decided give to order to the pirates and their Talvernian allies to go and retrieve the pod, but also to look out for possible Harvester forces in the area, there was still a chance this could be a new type of Harvester trap and they were not in the mood for a repeat of what they had done weeks before using Hibiki's idea of turning a gas giant into a star.

Besides that, they didn't have one on hand to begin with anyway.

Celtic then reported that there seemed to be no other signs of ships in the area so that meant that the pod was drifting in space at the moment, showing that this pod was special for it to be still functional over the years, whatever or whoever was inside it had be of great importance.

She also ordered the Master Chief to get the Fire teams and his fellow Spartans ready, if the Harvesters were about, there was a good chance the enemy would have Boarding Craft nearby and they had be to ready for anything that the Harvesters would be sending their way. Inside the Forward Unto Dawn section of the Nirvana, the Spartans got their weapons while the Fire Teams got into their Marine Body Armor as well as getting their weapons used for close quarters combat, however, they were surprised that Linda was not taking any close combat weaponry with the exception of a Combat Knife, she carried an SRS99D-S2 AM Sniper Rifle and a BR55 HB SR Battle Rifle.

**************

In space…

The Dreads flew in a standard defensive patter, accompanied by a number of Ai controlled Longswords courtesy of Cortana herself. As the pirates approached the pod, Hibiki went ahead under the escort of at least three Longswords with the Dreki following close behind.

As they reached the pod, Gascogne went to work in getting the pod into the shuttle with the grasping arms of her shuttle, Hibiki closed in with his Vanguard and spoke to the Head Supply officer.

“Need any help Miss Gascogne?”

Gascogne smiled, apart from John and Cortana, Hibiki was the only one who used her full name and she assured the young man that she would be able to handle things on her own. However, things were not going to get any better as out of nowhere, several squadrons of Cube Fighters came from out of nowhere and attacked the group, the arms of the Dreki were blown off and it was not long before the Nirvana pirates got into action.

Inside the cockpit of her ship, Gascogne coughed at the smoke of the control panel as well as shielding her face from the sparks, she then swore at that.

“How the heck did those guys get past the scanners?!”

The Dreads and the Longswords went to work and that allowed the Nirvana pirates to see the Cube Fighters, the new fighters looked different, a lot more cylindrical in design and appeared to be faster, and this time, they appeared to be installed with a whole new slew of operational improvements to make them a lot more effective than they were the last time. The squadrons of Cube Fighters were able to work effectively as a team, with some providing covering support while the others grabbed the pod to keep it away from the Nirvana pirates.

**************

In the Bridge…

“Well now….it seems we're not the target board for today.”

Magno commented at the sight of the Harvester forces as the Cube Fighters were doing their best to keep the Dreads as well as Hibiki in his Vanguard from taking the pod. This told the elderly woman that the pod contained something or possibly someone the Harvesters did not want anyone to either find or rescue.

Buzam nodded, this situation told her that this pod was of value to the Harvesters.

“That pod must have something or someone the Harvesters don't want anyone to find Captain, they would normally target us first and get the pod afterwards considering just how much of a threat we have been to them.”

“Well then, I guess the time has come for us to keep them from getting that pod, if they want that thing bad enough to ignore us, then we'll give them a reason to not ignore us.”

**************

In the Nirvana…

“What the heck are those things?”

Kelly said as she looked at the view screen to see the strange fighters that were currently trading potshots with the Dread Squadrons as well as the Longswords Cortana controlled. She had never seen them before and she wanted to know just what they were.

“Those are the weirdest bunch of fighters I've seen.”

Fred commented as he cradled his MA5C ICWS Assault Rifle as he and the Spartans looked at the Cube Fighters. John nodded and replied.

“Those are the Harvester Armada's main assault fighter, the Cube Fighters.”

“Cube Fighters?”

“It's their deployment method, the giant ship that looks like a seed opens it's mouth and then unleashes a massive Cube that break into the fighters themselves. However, those seem to be different in design, I guess the Harvesters have been upgrading themselves since the last battle.”

Fred and the others listened to the information as they got back to moving out, they knew that staying there was going to be a bad idea as there was no doubt that the enemy were going to show up at some point in this mission that they were in as they knew that while there was no sign of any Boarding Craft, there was still a chance that the Harvesters would deploy a number of them to attack the Nirvana directly. And sure enough, there were as they were quickly contacted by Cortana.

“Blue Team! We have incoming contacts to the Port Side of the Nirvana!! Move in to engage, Fire Teams are in route to said location!”

The Master Chief then spoke.

“How many have you seen Cortana?”

“At least a dozen, the Boarding Craft have some sort of stealth system that rendered them harder to detect, I had to recalibrate the scanners to spot them, it looks like the Cube Fighters aren't the only things the Harvesters have upgraded Chief!”

The Spartans knew that meant that things were going to get real dicey soon as they knew that the enemy would always adapt to fight back a lot more effectively, as soon as they arrived on the scene, their thoughts became reality as they met up with the Fire Teams. The groups got ready as the Harvesters began to infiltrate the ship using the very same methods they used to get into the Nirvana the first time they were encountered by the pirates and the Spartans. It was not long before the fighting started once more as bullets flew as well as plasma bolts, lasers, and Needler rounds filled the air.

The Fire Teams were still armed with their usual UNSC weapons as well as their Covenant based plasma weaponry along with the Needlers, Beam Rifles and the Carbines and the new Megele Laser rifles and wearing their Marine Body Armor as they engaged the Harvester Shock Troopers, and this time it seemed that things were going to be different here on out.

The Harvester Shock Troopers were still the same in the form department, showing that the Harvesters were not keen on removing the alien design to frighten their foes into submission, but now they were apparently had underwent some changes, they had slightly bulkier armor and apparently some sort of ablative coating that gave them a subtle increase to their resistance to bullets as the coating would chip off with each hit. They also appeared to have a faster firing rate with their plasma weapons than before, there also appeared to be some sort of color scheme into the armor of the Harvester Shock Troopers, one group apparently had a leader who was not in the same color scheme as the other Shock Troopers as it was in a slightly silver sheen on the shoulder areas as well as the shins, as well as a glowing chevron on the chest area in the red color, showing that they now had some form of leadership in their forces.

And the most significant change was the fact that the Harvester Shock Troopers were actually thinking for themselves, in the sense that they were now using tactics instead of the usual line up and overwhelm the enemy by sheer numbers style of combat, they were a lot more agile and used cover in order to fight back a lot more effectively than they did in the past, this made them a lot more capable than before. The Nirvana Fire teams and their Talvernian Allies were quick to see that and fought back as best they could. The Fire Fight turned nasty at this point as some of the women were hit, though thankfully their Armor held on as it was treated with a stronger ablative solution.

The Harvester Shock Troopers might have undergone upgrades to better fight the Nirvana pirates and their Talvernians allies as well as the Spartan, but they were now facing a number of Spartans who were more than ready to fight back.

Fred, Kelly, and Linda might have been wearing the older and somewhat obsolete MJOLNIR Mark V with only a few upgrades from the MJOLNIR Mark VI, but that certainly didn't mean that they were at a disadvantage. Linda showed her lethality with a SRS99D-AM S2 Sniper Rifle as she took down three of the Harvester Shock Troopers down with a prices shot, and then took down three more merely a second after she dropped the first three, this got the eyes of the Nirvana pirates right off.

“Did you see that?!”

Several of the Harvester Shock Troopers charged at Linda, but were quickly intercepted by Kelly who used her speed that was beyond even Spartan standards and cut them down methodically with bursts of weapons fire from her MA5C ICWS Assault Rifle as well as quickly moving the weapon aside and jamming a pair of M6G Magnums in her hands into the faces of two of the surviving Harvester Shock Troopers and blew them to hell, she was so fast that the people who saw it were shocked completely.

“So fast….”

Fred moved in and fired several bursts of his own MA5C ICWS Assault Rifle to take out several more of the Harvester Shock Troopers, the Harvester Shock Troopers fought back and two tried to use their blades on the new Spartan as Linda and Kelly fired their weapons to pin down the Harvesters, the two were quickly greeted by the Spartan's quick knife work. Fred was known for many things, he was John's only equal as he had the same traits as the Master Chief, but one thing that did separate him was his preference for the UNSC Combat Knife. Fred was the second best Sniper and Marksman in the Spartan IIs only surpassed Linda herself as well.

Fred's Combat Knife only flashed with a slight hiss as it left the sheath, and then two flesh tearing sounds were heard as the Spartan quickly cut the heads off the Harvester Shock Troopers with little effort, Fred quickly kicked away one headless Shock Trooper away and threw his Combat Knife at another trooper, taking the attacker right in the face and he shot another in the stomach, the 7.61x51mm FMJ rounds of the Ma5C ICWS tore into the stomach of the Shock Trooper due to the concentrated burst from the Spartan II. Another second later, Fred took out a second Combat Knife and knifed another Harvester Shock Trooper right in the stomach as it tried to ambush him.

John moved in with several burst of his MA5C ICWS Assault Rifle and quickly dispatched yet another band of the Harvesters with his own shots, the Spartan then quickly evaded a close combat attack from the Harvester Shock Trooper and slammed his Assault Rifle's butt into the stomach of the attacker, the blow forced it back, allowing the Spartan to fire a burst right in the face of the Harvester Shock Trooper, shredding the Harvester unit to nothing, The Spartan quickly turned as Plasma bolts hit his shields and he grabbed a Plasma Grenade strapped to his wait, he primed it and with the precision of a pro-baseball pitcher of Earth sent the ignited Plasma Grenade into the chest of the leader.

The result was explosive as the Harvester Shock Trooper leader was blown apart in a bloody mess as parts of it were sent flying all over the place.

The Nirvana Fire Teams mopped up what was left and then the Spartan IIs rallied the Nirvana Fire Teams to fight the rest of the Harvester Shock Troopers, Cortana reported that she was able to destroy a handful of the Boarding Craft but there were four more that got past her and had disgorged their forces into the ship, she would lead the Spartans and the Nirvana Fire Teams to deal with them soon enough.

**************

The Spartan IIIs were not far behind in getting kills either as one group of Harvester Shock Troopers who were moving through a wide open corridor were suddenly cut down by weapons fire as the Spartan IIIs appeared from the walls as their SPI Mark II Armor's photo reactive panels had allowed them to meld with the walls of the corridor with little worry, the Harvester Shock Troopers were cut down before they could fight back.

The SPI Mark II Armor was a lot better than the Mark I versions used by the first batch of the Spartan IIIs and therefore was not easily seen by scanners but the cooling systems were no doubt about to reach overheating, but the Spartan IIIs were ignoring that, they eliminated the surviving Harvester Shock Troopers and moved on to intercept the rest, they were then joined by Franklin Mendez as the Spartan I was dressed in Marine Body Armor and carrying a MA5C ICWS Assault Rifle, showing that he was still going to fight no matter who or what the enemy was before him.

Mendez took command of the Spartan IIIs and they quickly intercepted another band of Harvester Shock Troopers and the Spartans quickly went to work as back up arrived in time to see them cut down the boarding team of Harvester Shock Troopers to half the original number. The Nirvana Fire Teams and Blue Team quickly intercepted yet another attack force and soon the battle was pitched once more as the Spartans of Blue Team went to work.

**************

However, while the Nirvana Fire Teams and the Spartans were quickly adjusting to their enemies' new tactics and strategies, the Dread pilots, and their allies were having to push the pedal to the metal at full gear so to speak. The new tactics and strategies of the Harvester forces as well as the new designs of the Cube Fighters caught the Nirvana crew off guard.

“These guys apparently have been upgrading!”

Hibiki shouted out a bit as he swore as his attack on one Cube Fighters was evaded by said Cube Fighter and he tried his best to defend himself from the coming attack, one Cube Fighter might have evaded him, but due to his training and discipline, the young man kept his cool and struck back as he pushed his Vanguard's thrusters to full power and then took his Vanguard's swords and attacked several Cube Fighters with swings of the blades. The Cube Fighters tried to evade, but he tossed the shorter sword and turned it into a throwing weapon and killed one of the Cube Fighters in a massive explosion.

He then charged towards it and the Cube Fighter behind him attacked to finish him off, but suddenly, the Tarak youth quickly reversed the thrusters and flipped his Vanguard tin reverse and used his Vanguard's sword to strike from the bottom and cut the Cube Fighter as he jetted over it, he then turned about and cut down another Cube Fighter that came right at him.

Hibiki knew that his luck would not last long and he quickly retrieved his short sword and flew off to fight the Cube Fighters, but they were not going to make it easy for him as they darted away, Hibiki focused on chasing the ones with the Pod as he knew that the pod was the key objective of the mission. It was not easy as the Cube Fighters were working a lot better than they were the first time they had been encountered.

However, it was not long before the Nirvana's forces began to get organized and make due, the fight began to change to the side of the pirates. The Dread Fighters and the Longswords moved in unison as well as Cortana began to unleash a massive blast of weapons fire on the enemy. Cortana was quick to make the adjustments to her targeting systems and quickly began to rake in the kills for herself and loan even more support for the rest of the Dreads and Longswords.

However, the Vanguard pilot was quickly joined by Meia who managed to shoot down several of the Cube Fighters blocking her way. As soon as they were able to be close enough, their machines fused once more and out came the VanDread. The two moved in to take the pod but were surprised when the Cube Fighters increased their own speeds and took the pod away from them.

Meia was surprised by that as well as Hibiki was.

“Since when did Cube Fighters move that fast?!”

Hibiki however replied.

“Doesn't matter how fast they are, they are not perfect!”

With that, Hibiki and Meia pushed their VanDread to the limit and managed to dice through the Cube Fighters, showing that while they were faster, they didn't have the same speed as the VanDread did in attack form. The VanDread quickly got into range, but suddenly a massive lance of red light smashed into them…and then the VanDread was forced apart. Meia's Dread was sent into one direction while Hibiki's Vanguard was sent to another.

“Red Light?!”

Hibiki recalled the dream from before and tried to figure out why this was happening, but he snapped his mind back to his work a moment later, his training told him to focus on the mission as well as his comrades, he can worry about other things later. He contacted Meia immediately to check on her condition.

“Meia! You all right?!”

Meia coughed a bit as she winced in pain and surprise as her Dread's cockpit was releasing sparks, however she knew her Dread was still able to fly, she spoke then Hibiki quickly, she knew that they had to hurry and get that pod out of the area before things got really dicey.

“I'm fine! Go get the pod!”

Hibiki nodded and went after the pod and was about to reach it when the Cube Fighters came in again and took it from his reach, the Tarak youth cursed at that but just then he spotted Jura's Dread coming in towards him.

“Here I come!!!!”

The two merged and as soon as the VanDread was formed, they released the shield system and forced away the Cube Fighters, knocking them aside with a quick burst of energy and then taking the pod into the long arms of their VanDread.

The blonde then turned to Hibiki and smiled seductively as usual, making the Tarak youth a bit more nervous than before as he was suddenly getting some weird sensations all over his body and the memories of Felix's words were very much still in his head.

“So how did I do?”

Hibiki replied to the blonde's question with a slight huff, but he was still thankful she made it in time, with the shield on, they might be able to keep the Cube Fighters from getting the pod despite the slow speed of the VanDread their machines formed.

“You made it in time, though being a bit more early is just as good.”

Jura then moved her chair to the direction of Hibiki who was quick to feel a little bit surprised as well as wary as the memories of how the blonde Dread pilot had acted the very day they had beat the Harvester ship over Anpathos came back to mind.

“Hey, I want to ask you something Hibiki.”

The way Jura was saying it was having a very serious effect on the young man as he began to blush somewhat, that plus the way the blonde was getting up close to him allowing him to see her figure a lot more than he liked was making his body react, he could have sworn his heart beat had picked up to the point that he felt it hit his marine Body Armor through his clothes, not to mention his body began to have flashes of heat move all over it.

“W-W-What is it Jura?”

“I was wondering if you wouldn't mind having a baby with me?”

THAT got a reaction from the Tarak youth as he felt himself blush bright red, sweat like a fountain, and feel his body get hard and hot for reasons that continued to elude him. He recalled the words and he reacted to that suggestion.

“You want me to do THAT with you?!”

“Ooh….so you KNOW about it?”

It was then that an irate female voice came into the act, and that voice belonged to a certain redhead.

“HEY!!!! Mr. Alien is mine!!! He's going to do it me!!!”

That added fuel to the fire in Hibiki's mind as well as his loin as he began to have his thoughts head into Dita's direction once more.

Meia had no idea what was going on at the moment and spoke quickly to the others.

“Hibiki! Jura, hurry back to the Nirvana with the pod! We'll….”

Her words were drowned out as she spotted another pair of red beams come out of nowhere and slammed hard into the shield of the VanDread and like before, the power in the shots was enough to force both Hibiki and Jura's machines to separate, Jura's Dread was flung aside as she was shocked by that.

“What happened?!”

As the pain hit him in the moment from the blast Hibiki looked to see just where the pod had gone and since Jura's Dread was still there and he could hear her, he knew she was all right, he then spotted the pod and tried to reach it but was held back by several Cube Fighters. He tried to free himself but the machines were not in the mood to let things go as they held him off.

“Damn pests!”

“Hang on Mr. Alien!!!”

Hibiki turned to see Dita's Dread heading towards him and then they fused into their VanDread form, the Cube Fighters were destroyed after being swatted aside and the VanDread got the pod once more.

Hibiki sighed at that and spoke.

“Finally!”

“Hah! Take that you bad aliens!!! We're not going to let you have this pod!”

Hibiki moaned as Dita once more was moving on his lap and cheering, the moan was from the battle itself as well as the way Dita was moving on his lap, as despite wearing his Marine Body Armor at the moment when he was in his Vanguard, he could feel her body touching a part of him and that made him even more aware.

“Hey! Stop moving Dita!”

Dita turned and then spoke.

“Hey Mr. Alien, I want you to do it with me instead of Jura all right?”

Before Hibiki could retort, Meia called in.

“Dita! Hibiki! Now is not the time to be distracted, we have to get the pod out of here, move back to the Nirvana ASAP!”

“Right!”

But just as they were about to move forward, the VanDread was hit be another pair of the same red beams from the same source. Hibiki and Dita shouted out in pain as those beams hit the arm and then to their shock they saw the arm that was hit being covered in red and seemed to go stiff and useless despite their attempts to make it move.

Hibiki then focused on just where those red beams came from and sure enough he spotted it as the Cube Fighters moved aside as something monstrous came before them.

**************

In the Bridge…

The Bridge crew gasped at the sight before them as they looked at the latest monstrosity of the Harvesters. The thing resembled a massive manta ray with red glowing eyes and a large maw that looked not too friendly and the way it scanned the Nirvana was far from pretty. Magno gave the machine a serious look while Buzam spoke out.

“What is that thing?!”

Cortana scanned the machine and spoke to the bridge crew.

“Those beams that thing is firing must be the reason why the VanDreads are being separated.”

Magno nodded at that and spoke.

“Take that thing down Cortana!”

“Got it!”

**************

Cortana ordered the Longswords to engage the new target and the fighters were on their way, some were intercepted by the Cube Fighters and they fought one another in yet another space borne dog fight, the others broke through and attacked the manta like creature, but it was able to use it's tentacle arms to swat some of the Longswords aside, destroying the fighters, this allowed Hibiki to try and fire the VanDread's other cannon, but to no avail as the red energy disabled the VanDread's weapons. The machine then caught them in two long tentacles and they were now trapped.

“Damn…that beam's disabled the weapons!”

Hibiki tried his best to get the VanDread working while Dita was in a panic.

“This is not good Mr. Alien!!!”

The disabling of the VanDread then allowed the manta like creature to fire a barrage of beams at the Nirvana, bypassing the shields easily as if they were not there.

**************

In the Navigation Well…

Bart shouted in pain and spoke in pain.

“Will someone explain to me why the shields aren't holding?!”

**************

In the Bridge

Cortana also was in pain at the moment, The Bridge crew watched in shock as Cortana in her AI form fell to her knees as she wrapped her hands on her body. She groaned in pain and looked at the ship before her and glared.

“I am going to make you pay for that!!!”

She however knew that with Hibiki and Dita in the firing line, there was no way she could use the weapons on the Nirvana which were under her command, plus the energy beams were also gumming up her targeting array, however she was not out of the fight yet as she fought off the pain.

**************

Catherine and Parfait looked at the Paeksis as it showed spots of red energy on it, they began to scan for a way to counter act the beams after what Pyoro told them when it appeared to be affected by the red beams' energy signature as well. The UNSC scientist ran up a wave form of the red beam and that of the Paeksis and saw that they matched each other but were of the negative spectrum.

“That red beam's using a power signature similar to the Paeksis, but in a totally negative wave length, that must be how it's able to harm the VanDreads and the Barrier shields of the Nirvana.”

“Is there any way we can counter it?”

Parfait asked Catherine as the UNSC scientist continued to locate a possible solution and then she found one. Catherine then spoke to Parfait.

“We need to make a special energy shield around the Nirvana using the Paeksis in order to make the barrier resistant to it. But we can't do that now in this condition, I need to find out just what that thing uses for it's weaponry.”

Parfait and the others did what they could as Catherine set to work on using her current understanding of the Paeksis to flood the Nirvana's power systems with small bursts of energy to try and counter act the damage as best she could at the moment, Catherine was still getting used to the idea of this crystal being this powerful but she was not going to give up just yet.

**************

In the Nirvana…

“MOVE!!!”

John ordered his team to move out as well as the Nirvana Fire Teams as well as the Spartan IIIs to move out and seal off the damaged areas and get the wounded out of the area, they had already destroyed the Harvester Shock Troopers and were evacuating the wounded for their forces as well as those of the crew when the beams hit, the ship was still there, but the damage was showing also.

As he listened to the battle outside through the COM of his MJOLNIR Mark VI, the Master Chief hoped Hibiki could fight his way out of this.

**************

“Come on….we have to beat this thing….Hibiki, do what you can.”

Buzam spoke seriously as she watched the battle unfold before her as Dreads and Longswords were fighting as best they could at the onslaught of Harvester attacks on them. Magno like wise hoped that the young man in the VanDread and the three ladies who were her daughters could pull out yet another miracle.

<You all can do it….we've come too far and done too much to let it end like this!>

**************

Out in space…

Hibiki groaned as he tried to get the VanDread working again as the giant manta like creature came to them, he looked as the thing wrapped it's massive tentacles around the VanDread he and Dita formed, the young man thought of the dream and glared at the machine as it revealed a massive maw of teeth.

He recalled what he promised himself that morning, that he was not going to let this dream frighten him, he knew now just what the dream meant and what would happen if he failed, he was not going to fail!!!

Too many people have suffered because of those bastards back on Earth and the people of the Nirvana needed him now, he was not going to let some nightmare tell him to lie down and die!!!

“Dreams happen when I am asleep…”

Dita looked at Hibiki as he glared at their foe, she could tell that Hibiki was getting even more serious than before as she looked at the Harvester monster before them.

“But I am awake, and I have nothing to fear from dreams or nightmares, I am not afraid of you, I will never stop fighting you and your masters no matter what, you have done too much to others to make me just roll over and die!”

The reaction Hibiki's will suddenly had the desired effect as the red from the arm of the VanDread was pushed away and also the weapons came back online.

**************

The effect was the same as the red spots in the Paeksis on the Nirvana vanished and then the shields were able to repel the attacks, much to the awe and delight of the Nirvana crew and their Talvernian allies. Magno was happy at the sight and so was Buzam, Cortana and the rest of the crew while the Dread pilots looked on with awe and happiness.

**************

The VanDread then ripped off the tentacles that held it and was now free to launch a counter attack on the manta ship.

Hibiki spoke with confidence and then guided the cannon right into the mouth of the manta like creature, making it halt it's advance.

“ You want to try and eat me you monstrous freak of a machine?! Try this first!!!! I WILL NOT SURRENDER!!!!”

Hibiki pumped in all the power the VanDread had and fired a massive blast into the machine. The manta ship moved open it's maw as if screaming in pain, that didn't last very long as the body of the ship bulged to try and contain the massive energy that was coming into it's inner workings, but that was not going to work as it finally reached the breaking point and a massive beam was unleashed through the back and it exploded into massive chunks.

This also had the effect of halting the Cube Fighters, showing that the manta ship was a command unit to lead the assault, with their command unit halted and destroyed, the Cube Fighters were now unable to fight back, allowing the Dreads and Longswords to finish them off as well as Cortana, in minutes the fight was won by the pirates.

“That was so cool! We did it Mr. Alien!!!”

Dita cheered as she looked at the now destroyed husk of the manta ship sent by the Harvesters to defeat them. With that in mind, the VanDread took the still unharmed pod and flew back to the Nirvana in victory.

Meia sighed as she followed.

“Not bad at Hibiki, Not bad at all.”

Gascogne smiled as her supply shuttle flew in as well under a protective escort of Dreads and Longswords.

Jura then spoke to the Tarak teen.

“Not bad Hibiki, you did great there and that makes me want to ask you again, would you like to do it with me to help me have a baby?”

Hibiki blushed bright red at that and Dita shouted right back at Jura.

“No way, Mr. Alien is not going to have a baby with you!”

“And why is that Dita?”

“Because I want to have Mr. Alien do it with me!!!”

“No he isn't Dita!”

“Yes he is!!!”

Hibiki had no idea how to deal with the fact that two women were actually fighting over him, this was totally unheard of in Tarak and no doubt in Megele either, but his imagination began to get wild with him as he looked at Jura and Dita were still trading words, he couldn't handle the images being flown into his mind at the moment and spoke out loudly.

“Will the both of you stop that!!!”

**************

In the Hanger Bay…

“Hmmm….judging by the outer energy plating, I'd say this life pod was designed to handle a host temperatures as well as have a build in solar recharger, the charger gathered spare solar energy from the stars to serve as a power source just in case the main fusion cell gave out.”

Catherine replied as she, Parfait, Cortana, as well as Duero were busy trying to crack the pod open to see just what or who was in that the Harvesters appeared to be very keen on capturing during the battle. All around them were members of the Dread Squadrons including Dita, Meia as well as Jura and Barnette, other crew members, several of the Nirvana Fire Teams and security detail and a handful of the Talvernians.

Along with the rest of the crew that were already there to begin with were the team of Spartans including the Spartan IIIs. John had no idea what or rather who was on this pod, but considering just how fiercely the Harvesters tried to keep them from getting it, it must have been a very important person.

It was not long before the group of tech specialists had finally opened the pod, there was a great hiss of released air. The sight of what was inside the pod was enough to get the attention of just about everyo0ne in the hanger.

“It's a girl!”

True enough, the person inside the pod appeared to be young woman, having a pair of triangular earrings as well as wearing some sort of jump suit that was white and yellow at the same time in a very unique pattern, she had deep blue hair in a ponytail and was somewhat cute as was commented by a number of the Talvernian men who were nearby to take a good look and the new arrival.

“Kind of cute.”

“Yeah, makes me wonder what she's doing here of all things.”

The women of Megele were confused by that for a minute or two as while they had gotten used to being around the men of Talvern, they were still a bit in the dark about male and female relationships, unaware of the fact that the Talvernians had been caught by their commanding officers talking about the finer points of being with men and women and were under watch at the moment.

Dita then spoke.

“Is she an alien?”

Parfait shook her head as both Catherine as well as Duero ran the check on the stranger's vitals.

“No, she appears to be human.”

Catherine ran the scanner over the young woman and spoke as she looked at the readouts.

“Her vital signs look about normal, no sign of Freezer Burn, and it seems her body is already recovering nicely.”

Duero nodded as he looked at the monitor and took out his stethoscope and placed in on the woman's chest to be sure about the young woman's vital signs, it was not that he doubted Dr. Catherine's diagnosis, but he was the kind to be very thorough as well as making sure that everything was set as he wanted to make sure that accidents and risks were toned down and minimized as much as possible.

“Her heart rate's picking up, no doubt due to the fact that her pod must have administered some sort of solution into her body when we opened the pod.”

The people watched as the girl woke up; she opened her eyes and actually had red eyes, much to the surprise of the people there, as it was the first time they had seen such eyes not to mention the fact that the color appeared to be entirely natural and was not done through the use of colored contacts of any sort.

It was then that Hibiki made his way towards the pod to see just what or rather who the harvesters were going out of their way to capture, however, his rush made him trip on the foot of a person nearby and he fell forward, right past Catherine, Parfait, and Duero and nearly landed into the pod itself.

“Thank you my Prince!!!”

The sight of the new female smiling as well as hugging Hibiki made quite the impression on several of the women who were close.

Jura was utterly surprised by this.

“What the heck?!”

Barnette was surprised.

“She's hugging him!!!!”

The Talvernian men and women were laughing their butts off at the moment, as Felix couldn't help but hold his sides in laughter. This day was going to get very interesting from here on out in their minds.

But there was one person who REALLY reacted at the sight of Hibiki being hugged by the new arrival, and that person in question was a certain redhead.

“NOOO!!!!! MR. ALIEN SHOULD UNITE WITH DITA!!!!!”

Paiway was scribbling away like mad while the Spartans looked on, as John couldn't help but shake his head a bit…he had a feeling things between Hibiki and Dita were about to get rather strained with this new arrival into the crew not to mention the other matters ahead of them. He however wondered just what the Harvesters were going to do, now that the secret was out that his fellow Spartan IIs were on the team as well as the new Spartan IIIs.

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The Spartan was right, for the Harvester Council were once more in an uproar at the latest defeat of their forces. They were not going to give up until the Nirvana was dealt with, however, they now were very interested in the news that they were now dealing with several more Spartans, while this was unexpected, it could also be useful, if they could capture these Spartans, then they would be worth the price any loss.

For those warriors could be the key to their survival.

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To be continued…

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Author's Notes:

Sorry for the long delays but it could not be helped, I had a LOT of things to take care of so it has been a while since I updated.

Well…..this might not be very long but since I had my attention elsewhere for the duration of the month, I was not able to make this chapter complete and for that I apologize to all my readers, but be assured that VanDread Halo The Second Stage has not been forgotten.

Now a reader of mine sent me a message asking me not to make this story into a Harem style animation, and that has given me extra food for thought, the reason being that since we are expanding the story board into something a lot more complex than the original VanDread I might or I might not go with the same design as one of my other stories, ZoidDread.

One of the hard reasons is the fact that VanDread IS a Harem style anime to begin with so the ZoidDread idea was not easy to do in the first place, and the hard part is that if I am going to make VanDread Halo a non harem style story in the Second Stage is looking for the right partners to fill in the gaps in terms of relationships, Hibiki and Dita are fairly settled in, and there is no doubt about John and Cortana, but what about Meia, and Jura?

Also, is there a chance that Barnette might get her chance as well?

Anyway, we'll see how this develops and maybe we can see some VERY interesting results.

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For those of you who are either new to the Halo Universe or have not been able to get all the information on the Halo Universe, here's the lowdown on some things you might have missed.

The Spartan I Program codenamed Project ORION was the first Spartan Program initiated by the UNSC for Special Warfare Task Groups in the year 2491 to 2508. The program was started to create advanced warfare squadrons tasked to battle the Insurrection in the Outer Colonies and sometimes Inner Colonies as well. These squads were used in most operations deemed simply as Black Ops, such as assassinations, counter-insurgency missions, raids and the like. They were to use HEV and Pelican Drop ships for their missions. However, the results were not effective in the goals of the Program and Project ORION was scrapped with the participating soldiers assigned to other Special Operations Units.

The ORION Program was meant to test new advances in genetic enhancements on volunteers from the Armed Forces of the UNSC. These enhancements were later perfected after the scrapping of the ORION Project to be the base enhancements undergone by the Spartan IIs in the later Spartan II Project spearheaded by Dr. Catherine E, Halsey. Those who survived the high mortality rate that led to the shutting down of the Spartan I Program were hit with mental problems. However it is known that children who were born to the number of soldiers who had participated in the Spartan I Program were named as Spartan I.Is.

The Spartan I.Is had the same genetic enhancements as their parents but lacked the overall military training that their parents had.

Two famous Spartan Is were Avery J, Johnson and Nolan Bryne, both had the first contact with the Covenant in the area of the UNSC colony world of Harvest and in the following Battle of Harvest, with Avery rising to the rank of Sergeant Major as well as being the last human to die in the end of the UNSC-Covenant War, while Nolan's fate is unknown. There were other Spartan Is, and one of them were known to be SCPO Franklin Mendez who later trained the Spartan IIs.

The Spartan III Program was the creation of Colonel James Ackerson of the Office of Naval Intelligence or ONI of the UNSC Section III. The Program was created as the successor and replacement of the widely successful Spartan II Program headed by Dr. Catherine Halsey. The soldiers trained in this program were made to cheaper to train, equip, and field in larger numbers with them being chosen from a wider selection. They would rely on superior battle tactics, training, stealth, and team work rather than technology and equipment to see them through, unlike the Spartan IIs.

Colonel Ackerson stated that while the Spartan II Program was a dazzling success in the field it was too restrictive in numbers since there were too few Spartan IIs to make a difference on the many fronts of the UNSC-Covenant War due to the strict genetic requirements placed by Dr. Catherine in the creation of the Program, while this was true, there were other issues surrounding Ackerson's actions. The negative effects of the Spartan II Program in the eyes of ONI overshadowed the successes, the first was the high mortality rate of the children in the program which limited their numbers further, going against the drive, purpose, and ambition of the Program. The next was the funding of the Spartan II group plus their MJOLNIR Powered Assault Armor was enough to fund a UNSC Battle Group as was stated by ONI Captain Rich, though he too had other reasons to dislike the Spartan II Program and Catherine Halsey as much as Ackerson did. The third was that they were too few to turn the tide of the war, and lastly, they were exposed to the public to boost morale in both the military and the citizenry of the UNSC and for an organization such as ONI anything that revealed their operations was a mistake in their book.

With the approval of the Program, the Spartan IIIs were born, they were meant to be cheaper, more plentiful, and expendable, they were made to form companies that were numbering at least 300 to 330 at a time and were sent on suicide missions that even the elite UNSC Orbital Drop Shock Troopers would not be able to accomplish. The casualty rates for the Spartan IIIs were very high to the point that 100 percent losses were the result. For ONI, those missions despite the loss of an entire Spartan III Company were successes, they were trading lives for time against a much deadlier foe such as the Covenant. ONI hoped that despite the high death rate, there would be enough Spartan IIIs would survive to train more and more Spartans allowing the Spartan IIs be in the numbers up to a hundred thousand compared to the Thirty Spartan IIs.

The Spartan IIIs were able to survive their own augmentations due to the advances in genetic enhancements in the rate of a 100% compared to the 44% survival rate of the Spartan IIs. After the utter annihilation of Alpha and Beta Company on their missions with only Tom and Lucy being the survivors of Beta Company, Kurt-051 who was given the name of Kurt Ambrose, acting head of the Spartan III Program ordered the use of illegal drugs to the members of Gamma Company to at least give them a chance to survive the odds stacked against them .

While the Spartan IIIs were indeed cheaper to field, equip, and were better trained than the Spartan IIs, they were not as lucky in the sense of overall abilities. Their SPI Armor did give them a stealth edge over the MJOLNIR Powered Assault Armor as well as being cheaper to create, mass produce, require less physical traits to use in combat, as well as transport. But it was far from able to match the power of the MJOLNIR, plus it didn't give the Spartan IIIs the needed protection and enhanced physical abilities that the Spartan IIs were able to have. The armor was also not up to speed and could not take the pounding the MJOLNIR was known to take as well as lacking the essential Energy Shields of the MJOLNIR Powered Assault Armor, namely the Mark V and Mark VI series of the MJOLNIR.

They also were not genetically gifted as the Spartan IIs were as the Spartan IIs were meticulously selected for their superior genetic qualities while the Spartan IIIs comprised entirely of war orphans seeking revenge on the Covenant for glassing their worlds and killing their families and friends. Without the needed genetic traits, they were not able to easily match the overall power of the Spartan IIs who were able to pull off many victories despite their low numbers in combat.