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Chapter 29: Xandar

After easily retrieving the Power Stone, by using his new ship Prometheus to land on Morag, he made sure to leave an empty orb for Peter Quill, aka Star-Lord, to find in a few years.

Eve began her work on the stone, adjusting Adams armor to handle the third stone, as well and adjusting both the Prometheus and Infinity's systems to handle the power if, or when, Adam ever needs to use the stone's power using the ship.

By the time Adam arrived back on the Infinity, Eve had already adjusted Adams suit to take in the Power stone. He felt a much more noticeable difference in his suit than when the Space and Mind Stones had been connected.

If not for Eve's built in limiters the suit may have killed him, its power had exponentially grown, a forever inexhaustible power. The Power Stone was one of the more important stones out of all the stones, it could supply enough power to weld the other stones without using your own power, thus avoiding the damage caused from the drain of using them.

Tony's death wasn't just because he was human, it was mainly because his understanding of the stones was shallow. Same with Hulk, although it didn't kill him, much of his own power went into his snap, thus weakening him greatly for a long time. Had they known how to properly use the stones together, they wouldn't have suffered any backlash from using them if used together.

This was why Adam wanted the Power Stone, he would be able to freely use the other stones with no burden by using the Power Stone to fuel the abilities of the other stones. He knew from Eve's scans exactly how to use each stone she is able to study, the connection between a SPARTAN and their AI's, that basically live within their suit, was beyond intimate. The AI's inside the Mjolnir armor had a direct connection to the SPARTAN brain thru the augments that are installed.

This allowed the AI to, on the fly, assist in strategy during combat, implant knowledge into the brain as if it was already there, it provided seamless integration into the suit allowing access to comms as well as other suit functions with just a thought. It was why pairing the right AI with the right SPARTAN was paramount to the success of the program.

Smart AI in Halo only had a life span of 7 years, they would then crash and be reborn, this is what kept the AI from going mad like what happened with Cortana, however she went mad due to initially being corrupted when she was held captive by the Covenant, she had already started to show signs of rampancy when she was captured..

During rampancy Smart AI would begin to disassemble and think themselves dead, after being corrupted, Cortana fought the rampancy process, eventually becoming twisted after the war ended, and became humanities, as well as the galaxy's enemy.

It was an issue all Smart AI suffered from, whether it was Human, Covenant or Forerunner AI, after 7 years the AI's would've accumulated so much data and knowledge they begin to have a god complex. Knowledge is power after all.

So to get around this issue, all Smart AI's reboot and do a data dump, although it would regain its knowledge lost thanks to the SPARTAN still remembering it, it would still be a baby AI so to speak. This allowed the AI continual growth without the danger of it going rogue.

Eve had already implanted all her findings on the stones into Adams head, which gave a large head start, although Eve could give him knowledge, wisdom could only be gained himself.

Knowing how something works is separate from having the wisdom to apply that knowledge. You can be told how to fire a gun or use a sword, the pointy end goes into your enemy or aim this end at your front and shoot, simple enough, but also not.

It still takes practice and training to become a skilled sword user, same with a gun, you had to practice to hit what you aimed at. The only way to do so would be to fire the gun enough to know it's recoil, its feel, before you can become a true marksman.

What better way to practice than to become a mercenary and give live practice rather than just training alone in using his new abilities.

Using the star chats obtained from the navigation systems off the Chitauri ships, this was how the Infinity was able to use slipspace to get to Morag and Xandar, after leaving Morag they exited slipspace a distance away from Xandar.

Adam didn't want to show up unannounced right in orbit above the planet, that was just asking to get shot at and war declared on the ship.

After arriving, immediately the Infinity began to receive communication hails from the planet of Xandar, their deep space scanners had detected the Infinity's energy signature, Adam wasn't exactly trying to hide. He was here on a diplomatic mission, not to take over, yet.

Xandar was the homeworld of the Xandarians as well as many other species, it was the capital of the Nova Empire and had a population of twelve billion. It wasn't very far from Earth considering the vastness of the universe, it was located within the Andromeda Galaxy, the Milky Way's closest neighboring galaxy.

At this point in time, the Nova Empire and the Kree are currently at war, it has been going on for the past thousand years, it wouldn't be until 2014 when a peace treaty would be signed to end the war, for the most part at least. It ended open war and large engagements between the two Empires, but Kree terrorist cells still wreaked havoc on colonies owned by the Nova Empire.

Adam accepted the transmission coming from the planet, as soon as he accepted he immediately recognized the man, he looked exactly like John C Reilly, "This is Corpsman Rhomann Dey with the Nova Corps, you are an unregistered ship within the Nova Empires space, state your business or you will be considered hostile and will be fired upon." Dey said in a serious tone, while the sweat began to bead on his forehead.

The ship had come out of nowhere, nowhere near where the jump point network would've deposited a ship normally, on top of that their scanners couldn't penetrate the ships shielding, so they had no clue as to how many people were aboard or if the ships weapon systems were active or not. They were at war with the Kree, so there was no telling what an unknown ship that just appeared from nowhere was here for.

"Corpsman Dey, we come in peace. I am Commander Adam of the UNSC Infinity, we are here on a diplomatic mission, I wish to register my fleet and planet with the Nova Empire, as a mercenary group. We hope for peaceful talks with your leadership and establish good relations between us. I am willing to leave my main ship here and only come with a small group to handle any talks and trade agreements between our worlds. I have full authority to not only speak for the UNSC but also for our home planet as well." Adam answered back firmly and respectfully, while also giving a pleasant smile.

"Affirmative Commander Adam, I humbly ask for your patience while we notify the proper authority that handles this, please remain on board your ship until we have approval for the meeting. May I ask, what planet or region do you come from, it would help in speeding the registration process up." Dey lied about that, but he knew it was the only way to get the information easily and quickly. No matter the race, nobody likes to waste time.

Even though Adam knew this he still gave the answer without hesitation, "We come from Earth, you know it by Terra or perhaps Planet C-53, but we call it Earth. We the UNSC, are the military branch of the UEG, or the United Earth Government."

Rhomann Dey's eyes widened at this answer, they knew of the planet, to them Terra or Midgard was a backwards planet under Asgardian protection. This was the only reason the other Empires didn't openly attack and dominate Earth, which is full of valuable resources.

The Kree had attempted to conquer Earth in the shadows, by experimenting on humans which created the Inhumans to wage war against humanity. Ultimately they failed and the Inhumans turned on the Kree, thus the invasion was cancelled since they didn't want to risk sending a large force in case Asgard stepped in.

It was now shocking to the Nova Corps that such an obviously advanced interstellar ship was from a backwards world, last they knew the Earth hadn't even been able to make it past their moon with any kind of ship, they didn't consider unmanned vessels ships, no where close to the technology needed to traverse deep space, at least in adequate enough time to survive the journey.

Although the Andromeda Galaxy was Milky Way's closest neighboring galaxy, it was still a little over 2.5 million light years away from Earth. This meant even if you could travel at the speed of light, it would still take two and a half million years to arrive there, much longer than a human could survive.

Intergalactic travel required Faster than Light, or FTL, capabilities, even in Marvel this technology was rare, the only way most ships could travel was because they accessed the jump point system that was set up across the galaxy.

Jump Points, its official name was Universal Neural Teleportation Network, was an artificial network of generating wormholes in the space continuum. They were located at specific points in and around various planetary systems, to travel across the galaxy you jumped planet system by planet system, each time you arrived out of one wormhole, you had to travel to your next jump point.

"I agree with your request and shall wait for news on a scheduled time and place for peaceful talks. We shall hold our position until further notice. Good day Corpsman." Adam confirmed then disconnected the call, he could see the man really begin to get nervous since he couldn't hide the shock he felt from learning where they were from.

As soon as the communication ended, Adam began to have a short briefing with Yelena and Frank Castle to go over what he knew of the planet and the Nova Empire, back on Xandar things weren't as calm and peaceful as it was on the Infinity.

Rhomann Dey, burst thru Nova Prime Irani Rael's office, he was drenched in sweat from running as fast as he could to this office, he had even forgotten to knock he was so flustered.

As he burst into the room, Irani Rael was startled from her contemplation over the war, she was reading the intelligence reports from the front lines. The Kree were massacring civilians, whole families, even children. Her whole time as Nova Prime, leader of the Nova Corps which was the military and policing branch of the Nova Empire, had to fight a war that had begun long before she was born.

The war had gone on so long the true reason for the war was long forgotten. If you asked either side the reason for the war, you got the same basic answer, no matter the reason they gave, it boiled down to three words, "They Started It."

She was tired of reading reports on the casualties of this pointless war that she had no idea why they were truly fighting besides just attacking, all she wanted was peace.

"No...Nova....Nova Pr..." Dey was bent over, his hands on both his knees as he tried to catch his breath.

"My god Corpsman, shut up and catch your breath. The way you're acting you'd think the Kree were attacking Xandar right now." This casual comment from her own mouth, caused a shiver down Nova Prime's spine at the thought, her own sentence caused her jump from her seat. "Are the Kree really attacking!?"

Dey, still catching his breath, gave her the universal hand gesture for one moment, he hurriedly placed a flat object on her desk, which Nova Prime snatched quickly as she rolled her eyes at the soldier in front of her. She began to think maybe the Corps has been too lenient on its soldiers, out of shape soldiers aren't soldiers, they would be militia.

As she placed the object on her desk, the information on the Infinity showed up as well as a recording of Dey's interactions with Adam. Dey, who had finally been able to catch his breathe stated seriously as he maintained a the military salute for the Nova Corps, "Ma'am an unknown and unregistered spaceship appeared several thousand miles away from Xandar, they literally appeared and not at the jump point that enters our planetary system. They say they are from Terra, or Earth rather, that's what they call their planet.." Dey began to narrate but was caught off guard when Nova Prime cut in.

"Dirt? They call their planet dirt, how primitive. Although, it seems they are a misleading group, they were able to advance to such a level, not only did they advance quickly, it was under everyone's noses. Not very primitive at all."

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