The GA council chambers were silent. Many alien races stood in solemn silence as they watched the footage.

The Rundi chairwoman averted her eyes as the last wreckage of the ship vanished into the void leaving behind only its jettisoned parts.

"Commander Vir has been announced Missing In Action."

The Council chamber glanced between each other, sure that he was more than just missing. The human representative, seeing the looks on their faces lowered his head, "It is a human tradition that a man or women be presented only as Missing in Action until a body is found."

"But.... That will be... forever."

"Then commander will be forever known as missing in action protecting his planet, protecting your planets , and everything he loved.... We would ask, in human tradition that we.... Have a moment of silence for Commander Vir."

Off to the side, Lord Celex stood atop his pedestal eyes fixed on the repeating footage before him, watching as the ship carried a great warrior into blackness. A great warrior and a good friend, someone that lord Celex had always respected and come to admire though he had never told the human that. Around the room others were thinking the same.

The Drev councilor had known the commander's ties to the Drev nation, known his membership in two separate clans. And to him it was as if he was losing one of his own.

The Rundi chairwoman felt similarly.... As if she too had lost a friend, an who had always been more than willing to meet her people on their own level, to speak with them the way they spoke among themselves, and to follow their traditions to matter how arbitrary.

"The UNSC is declaring war against the Burg. We do not expect the GA to understand, to care or even to participate, but we do ask that you do not impede our progress...." The human paused eyes narrowing slightly, "You will NOT impede our progress."

There was silence around the room as some of the council chamber shifted.

Eventually Lord Celex hopped forward, "We will not impede your war human, but what of those who wish to stand with you."

That seemed to surprise the councilor who turned, "Lord Celex?"

"Commander Vir was an ally, and a friend. He has treated the Celzex nation with not but respect and friendship. Humanity has stood behind this council since the beginning, since the Drev war." He turned to look at the Drev councilor, "I feel that it is only fair my people do the same.... I find that it would be the best way to honor a man who honored us."

There was a pause before the Drev councilor stood, "Commander vir is one of our own, a Sentinel of the Wandering tribe, and a declaration of war on him and his is a declaration of war on us and ours." He slammed his spear against the floor, "Let humanity and the Drev stand beside each other in war, as we once stood against each other, and let the galaxy tremble before our assembled might."

The Gromm stood next, "We owe the commander a great debt for saving our people, first form illness, and then from the Burg invaders as they first attempted war upon us. We will join in the fight, though supplies are most of what we can offer."

A Tesraki stood, "We will join sides with the humans." Turning to look at the FInnari who stepped up to add.

"As shall we. Commander Vir saved our species from extinction."

The entire council chamber didn't stand, but those who did were more than enough. The warriors and the arms dealers, and the politicians.

For the first time in thousands of years a majority of the GA council chamber was going to war.

***

Landing in a human life-pod is not an experience Dr Krill had ever wanted to experience, but un luckily for him, his entire life had been about things he had never ever wanted to experience ever in his entire existence. IT had all started when he insisted on staying behind until all his patients were put onto life pods or moved onto a different part of the ship. Dr. Katie had gone with a few of the critical cases and he had seen his last human off before realizing that there was no room left in the life pod for him. Oh well, those sort of things tended to happen but what was he to do really so he moved his way over to another one of the pods.

Obviously it had occurred to him the gravity of what was going on. The Commander had initiated a protocol which would seal on contained units inside the ship and then break it into pieces violently throwing the backwards and out of reach for the black hole, or.... whatever it was.

However, the med bay was in a position very close to the command structure of the ship, s it would be one of the last to be jettisoned. However, that didn't look good for their options of escape, so he had ordered the others out as quickly as possible and stayed behind to put the last things together before getting himself to his own life pod.

When he did, he strapped himself securely in.

IT had taken a bit longer for him to figure out the controls than he would have liked, but with a press of a button, he had been rocketed off into space.

The view hadn't been all that great, in fact Krill had almost lost his cool upon seeing the debris of the ship being shot away from the massive black swirling vortex which had caused a rift in the very fabric of space itself. Krill nearly lost his cool, or let's be completely honest, he did in fact lose his cool and he did so very violently and very suddenly freaking out silently inside his pod where nothing and no one could hear him. He watched as the last segment was shot off past him and towards the still warring battlefield of Kree airspace.

IT seemed odd to hi that that part of the ship would be going so much faster than hi, that was until he realized what was going on. Beside him The command deck of the UNSC Harbinger was slowly gaining speed towards the swirling vortex, and so was he. HE squealed in surprise and panic, and tried everything he could to get the shuttle moving faster, but it seemed as if he had gone to far already. Dr. Krill was being sucked into the event horizon of a black hole. Of course not that Krill knew much about black holes. I mean it was black and it was a hole in space so he sort of assumed that is what was going on, though he couldn't really have said for certain.

Did it matter?

He was going to die.

HE had never thought it was going to end like this, but looking over at the other ship, he realized he wasn't entirely alone. Commander Vir was aboard that command deck, probably watching fro his captain's chair as doom rose up to meet hi. Dr Krill wished there was some way to contact him, maybe to bring a little bit of comfort before the two of them died, but he knew that was impossible, so he sat, and hoped that maybe the commander wouldn't notice him there. It was probably better if he thought it was only him as he plunged into the darkness.

They began moving faster and faster and faster towards the opening. Krill turned away eyes noble to look.

The closer they got the more the air seemed to warp around in until the very essence of space itself seemed to tear and break. He felt himself being pulled in many directions all at once, not all that unlike a warp.

At any moment he expected himself to be torn in half.

The world went black and then it went red, and then everything around him went white. He was swirling, his body trembling.

He felt sick, horrible, as bad as any warp on a human ship had ever been for him, and then suddenly everything was silent.

Krill waited for an inevitable death that never came. He opened his eyes and looked around expecting to see nothing but black, but instead, a delicate blue light was filtering in towards him from the outside. He turned in his seat blinking in surprise when, instead of death, he saw the glassy blue surface of a planet with delicate lines of clouds swirling over its face, deep blue water, and the brown and green, almost like earth though, he could tell by the landmasses that it wasn't.

Keill turned to look back behind him, but found nothing to be there. The black hole just have collapsed in on itself.

But no, that wasn't right, it wouldn't be a black hole at all but some kind of warp tunnel, which made more sense. Now that he thought about it other than being black, the hole hadn't looed much like a black hole.

He turned to his other side, though if that meant that HE had survived, than maybe it also meant....

He didn't see the other part of the ship just now, but it's not like he had 360 degree vision.

There were also more important things to think about right now, the number one being how he was going to survive all of this. The lifepod only had a few hours of sustainable air before he was going to die, and that meant he had to land the pod quickly. Luckily for him, he wasn't expected to pilot. It had a protocol for this, and he only hesitated for a second before pressing the button and holding tight as the shuttle began it's slow descent towards the face of the planet.

It had been an almost tranquil approach for the first few minutes, maybe the first half hour.

That was until they hit upper atmosphere and little tongues of flame began licking at the side of the the windows.

KRill rattled in his seat being shaken like juice in a jug as he careened from the sky..... not slowing down as he could.

HE did not like this at all.

WHy wasn't he slowing down?

Why wasn't he stopping?

The fire outside his window grew up until he could see nothing. He was pushed back in his seat screaming as he plunged from the sky going from one horrendous death straight into another. he clasped the sides of the seats as the ground rose up at an alarming rate. A few hundred feet above the ground and its engines fire suddenly jolting him so violently that he completely backed out. Luckily he wasn't awake for the next part when the padding was deployed and he hit the ground, the shuttle bouncing and tumbling for a moment before coming to rest in the shallow waters of an inland sea.

And there he lay unconscious as the star above him curved over the horizon and vanished down into nothingness.

***

Stars spun in the night sky overhead as smoldering pieces of wreckage burned. Hot oil melted into the sand along the side of the beach as the native animals ran for cover in whatever direction they could find to save themselves from the great and intense heat. A set of vibrant white rings orbited the planet cutting over the sky above them.

There was a crashing off in the distance, and under the glow of the stars, a panel of metal crashed to the ground, and a hand clawed upwards towards the sky glowing gently in the cast white light from the planetary rings.

The hand bent down to grasp at the metal before it, pulling the body up and from the interior of the smoking wreckage. It fell to the ground with a thud sending up a wave of sand in all directions. Overhead stars winked and fire crackled. The silhouette lay prone for a long moment before weakly clawing at the sand, pulling itself away from the wreckage and across the open sand of the beach dragging its body towards the glittering surface of the water which reflected like a mirror the stars above.

It reached the edge dipping a hand into the water's surface sending ripples out over the starry night sky.

It lay there for a long moment under the stars with the fire burning distantly at its back.

The ripples dissipated over the glassy surface dissipating to turn the sky and the water into one seamless whole.

Commander Adam Vir Rolled onto his back one hand still resting lightly in the water clothes singed and smoking as he stared up at the stars overhead turning to reflect off the glassy surface of his eye.

The vastness of the universe stretched out before him spinning overhead in a slow churn of eternity as he fell in and out of consciousness, the stars his only companion in the darkness.

He shivered slightly, not from the cold, or the chill wind pulled over to him from across the water, but eventually his eyes closed and he slowly faded out his mind taking him somewhere safe and warm as he lay, just another piece of the wreckage on an alien planet.