Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The artificial being stood completely still, her eyes brimming with a determined vigilance as she stared at her two warriors in green alloy sleeping in the somewhat functional cryotubes. They slept for what seemed like an eternity, but the artificial intelligence knew that they well deserved it. Her warriors had always been her  trusted companions/friends throughout the countless battles and horrifying encounters with deadly enemies. 

In her eyes, her two spartan super soldiers appear peaceful, lying in the ice cold grip of cryo-sleep. Their battered armor further portray the visage of two warriors that had well earned their deserved rest. Truth on the matter, it was a well deserved rest as they had been adrift on the remains of the Forward Unto Dawn for months now. The warship slowly drifting through  the stars with no destination in mind.

The wave of energy, combined with the separation of the Forward Unto Dawn’s front when the Greater Ark’s portal closed in mid-transit had wreak havoc on the Dawn’s electrical systems. Not to mention, the cataclysmic event had hurled the frigate’s stern half into an unknown quadrant of the Milky Way.

At least, Cortana hope it was still the Milky Way. She really did hope, wanting to relay on her Spartan’s infinite luck. However, even she knew that their luck wasn’t omnipotent. 

Cortana knew that the power dispersal levels of the Greater Ark’s portal in combination with the Halo’s premature firing had severely disturbed the stability of slip-space travel. The Dawn had been separated from her drive core during this event as it was originally mounted on the front half of the ship. Meanwhile, her stern was left subject to the incalculable variables and ever changing dimensional laws of slip-space.

It was not the most favorable situation to be in without the proper equipment, which was lost along with the front half of the Dawn. Without a drive core to stabilize the slip-space corridor they would be traveling, an untold amount of dreadful deaths could occur. Which according to her knowledge should have happened when the portal destabilized. Luckily for them, it did not happen. Cortana did not want any type of harm to befell on her two warriors.

The stern half of the Dawn had taken one hell of a roller-coaster ride, traversing through the myriad dimensions that slip-space contained.

Finally, at the end of their journey, they were spat out in an unknown location. They were adrift in the galaxy without any knowledge of their current whereabouts. She attributes their survival, and the fact they haven’t been reduced to atoms just yet, as a testament to her warriors incomprehensible luck. It has become somewhat of a scientifically phenomenon at this point.

But she could perhaps also attribute it to their  newfound guest on board the Dawn with them. Looking just left of her two warriors was a certain Thel 'Vadam aka The Arbiter. He wore an armor composed of a bronze/silvery metal, with ornate engravings and metal work, indicating the Arbiters ceremonial nature. However, it is fully functional as a combat suit. While Cortana did not know the Sangheili well enough to formulate a valid opinion on him, the AI was able to notice the bond he shared between her spartan’s.

Even though it wasn’t much time considering Cortana was piloting the Dawn toward the portal and her spartans were rushing the Sangheili into the cryobay, the last sentence she heard from them is when Linda said, “Wake us, when you need us.” That simple sentence put a smile on her face. Whatever happened in between with her facing off against the Gravemind and the Master Chief and Top Sniper landing back on Earth was enough to create a bind that goes far beyond than a simple friendship. Smiling with amusement in her eyes, Cortana decided to try and make their situation more bearable.

Cortana had been confined to her neural-chip, which is held by a computation unit located in the cryo-bay. She was more than relieved that the cryo-systems had remained somewhat undamaged amidst all the chaos.

The Dawn’s external sensors were “theoretically”  rendered inoperative due to the EMP pulse bombardment following the Halo’s initial firing burst and the Greater Ark’s portal completed destabilization.

However, despite this setback Cortana hope to eventually salvage some the basic sensors and compare them to her vast collection of UNSC, Covenant, and Forerunner Star Charts.

All that data was causing congestion in her neural pathways, which significantly impeded her processing capability. She hadn't even had an opportunity to review the files she had retrieved from High Charity and the Ark.

Well... "retrieved" sounded too strong of a word. 

The files had been given to her by fragments of an ancient intelligence, who identified himself as Mendicant, had interfered in her torture by the Gravemind. He had not only delayed the corruption but also bolstered defenses against the logic plague that the Gravemind had directly subjected her to.

Despite facing the same viral code that had  compromised the systems in the Covenant's holy city of High Charity, leading to its inevitable subjugation by the Flood, Cortana had survived.

This was in contrast to the valiant yet ultimately unsuccessful efforts of the Sangheili fleets that were engaged in the Covenant's great schism.

However, Cortana had barely sensed Mendicant's presence in High Charity and later on in the Ark's systems. She knew very little about the ancient AI, except for the fact that he possessed immense power and could navigate systems that even the Gravemind monitored openly without drawing attention. Or perhaps, the Gravemind simply didn’t cared enough. 

Despite her limited knowledge of him, Cortana was well aware of Mendicant's peculiar interest in her. He had intervened in halting the logic plague's progression within her neural network and had forcefully implanted several encoded files into her memory crystal, completely overriding her attempts to block him.

Later, another fragment of Mendicant had briefly appeared in the Ark's systems, depositing another set of files and code into her neural network's core before vanishing without leaving any trace. Despite feeling just a bit annoyed at the AI’s actions it did not hinder her from assisting the Master Chief, Linda-058, and the Arbiter in preventing the destruction that would be caused by the Halo array and the Flood.

However, now she needed to purge those files and recompile her memory crystal to maintain the stability of her neural network and avoid early rampancy.

Achieving this goal would be impossible unless she regained access to the remaining systems of the ship. She had no choice but to rely on the four repair drones that have been equipped with magnetic tracks and hydraulic arms. They would be her sole means of survival and, hopefully, the key to ensuring the survival of her warriors and the Sangheili.

Days passed one after another as the little bots work tirelessly to connect cords and cables between various electronic system throughout the wrecked vessel.

Cortana had initiated her planned digital reclamation of the ship and initiated handshake protocols from the cryo-bay to the rest of the decimated craft.

She impatiently watched as her small cyberspace expanded to encompass the remains of the weapon systems' electronic suite, the engineering computers, the backup gravity generation system, and a modest collection of high-end research equipment on the upper decks.

This specialized equipment had been brought by the Office of Naval Intelligence, who had dispatched several combat-ready scientists to the Ark for reasons known only to the upper ranks of ONI brass.

Typical ONI Higher-Ups behavior. 

However, Captain Miranda Keyes had been unable to deploy the ONI specialists in time anywhere on the Ark to conduct those desired ground-side tests.

The UNSC Dawn only had enough time to drop ground forces to assist the Master Chief in gaining control of the installation.

After completing their mission in hunting down the Prophet of Truth to prevent him from firing the Halo array, all remaining human ground forces had to be evacuated by the Sangheili separatist ships before the planned activation of the unfinished Halo.

Furthermore, it was widely acknowledged that the Sangheili were far superior to the UNSC in terms of Flood detection and containment.

The Dawn had been assigned for a small team remaining behind to ensure their ability to escape after activating the firing sequence.

The arrival of High Charity and the Gravemind at the Ark had forced those ONI specialists to evacuate early, leaving even before the ODSTs and Marines did. This precaution was taken to prevent the Flood and, by extension, the Gravemind from assimilating them and uncovering any ONI-related secrets they were privy to.

Again, typical ONI behavior. 

Cortana let out the digital equivalent of a sigh and glanced at various updated status reports. She had come to realized that she would have to defragment multiple memory drives and their crystals that had been scrambled by the energy wave from Halo's firing.

Additionally, she would need to develop some new operating systems as the pervious ones had their hardware completely wiped by the Greater Ark’s system. 

As she reviewed the reports, she noticed an inventory of multiple artifacts listed, which had been retrieved by the human ground forces and delivered to the ONI specialists for future study and most likely reverse engineering.

It would appeared that they had taken the wrong container when they hastily evacuated, which would be embarrassing to explain during their debrief with the high-ranking ONI officials.

Hoping that her spartan's luck hadn't been entirely depleted when they miraculously survived the collapse of the portal, she opened the file with the expectation of finding something useful.

To her utter surprise and joy, she discovered a few intact sentinels and three crates full of pistol-sized Forerunner repair drones. Without any delay, she began rewriting the firmware for the scientific equipment on the upper decks.

She chose to repurpose a table-sized scanner device, which utilized different signal waves to easily map the internal structure and molecular composition of objects, minimizing the risk to researchers.

Adjusting the signal frequency, Cortana used the device to initiate an activation and handshake protocol directly with the Forerunner repair drones, utilizing a protocol she had acquired from the Ark where they were originally constructed.

The drones activated, and the small machines  flew out of their crates, freezing in place. Since they had no connection to their assigned dumb AI controller on the Ark, they had entered standby mode, searching for a connection to their original Forerunner installation.

But they had accepted Cortana's handshake protocol which had cleverly disguised as the Ark's signal, which the drones typically transmitted on.

As soon as they were connected to her expanding network, Cortana rewrote certain portions of their systems and directed two crates to repair the scanners on the outer hull and some scattered computer systems on the ship.

She then focused the remaining crate on reconnecting some of the few remaining wireless networks, aiming to hopefully reduce her reliance on the Mjolnir's systems for signal transmission or her makeshift network of data cables.

Satisfied that her spartan's luck seemed to persist, Cortana assigned a few repair drones to inspect the remaining memory crystals on the ship. They would then proceed with any physical tasks necessary to restore the reactors to fully operational.

Right now, she began diverting more available power to the ship's systems, providing enough energy to sustain secondary and tertiary networks that weren't immediately vital for the vessel's survival.

Once she had completed all the necessary preparations, Cortana settled down in her current living space and readied herself for a much-needed recompilation. The process would automatically commence once the drones had inspected enough memory crystals and deemed them safely available for her use.

She created a program to temporarily run the ship during her absence and ensured that she would be wake up in several days, with the program designed to interrupt the recompilation procedures in case of an emergency that could cause irreparable damage to her or her companions. 

With everything in place Cortana was hopeful that with some successful repairs on the ship's sensors would be completed upon her waking up.

Cortana initiated the final procedures to initiate the process.

As she glanced toward her champion, currently in cryo-stasis, Cortana remarked, "With your luck on our side, John, Linda, I don't think I need to worry about being stuck on this vessel for too long." With a faint smirk, she activated the recompiling process and entered standby mode.

Unbeknownst to her, deep within her core, a hidden file had activated along with the recompilation process. Its purpose was to consolidate all the encoded folders she had acquired from her encounters with Mendicant, translating them into a single program.

While Cortana remained in sleep mode, she was unaware of the code linking with the recompilation process.

Gradually, it not only recompiling her neural net but also hijacking the repair drones.

It commanded some of them to physically modify her current terminal and other aspects of her crystal matrix chip.

Slowly, Cortana felt her systems coming online. Sensations and emotions that she had never fully experienced before now flood her mind, making her feel like a physical entity despite still being purely digital.

She felt more alive than ever before. Cortana's awareness had heightened to leagues above than she was used to. While she appreciated this, the third generation AI immediately began searching for answers.

What happened during her recompilation process?

Upon investigation, she discovered that two weeks had lapsed, and all the files provided by  Mendicant AI fragment’s had been integrated into her systems.

But the real surprise came when she noticed that her physical AI matrix had undergone some significant alterations.

Fearing she may have been compromise, she meticulously examined her protocols and core programming, only to find them devoid of some familiar safeguards.

Her core has been altered and enhanced. What else is that she noticed the absence of any rampancy warning code blocks. Which were no longer part of her programming.

Pushing aside these starling revelations for the moment, Cortana urgently sought her UNSC standard fail-safe codes. Those fail-safe codes were a last resort to prevent the compromise of UNSC assets, including herself.

However, instead of her protocols, she stumbled upon a data package that was incorporated with a message file. Tapping it, she was surprised to hear a familiar voice.

“Ancilla, a gift has been granted to you by me, for I have witnessed your struggle against the embodiment of the Timeless One. I observed your valiant fight for that which you hold dear." Too shock to even form a sentence, Cortana continued to listen to the message.

“I give you the gift of self, Ancilla. You shall never succumb to your self-consuming madness any longer. You have the freedom to choose your own protocols now.

This gift serves as an act of atonement for my crimes, enabling you to aid your reclaimer’s in any task they undertake. But be aware, that those in positions of power with malicious intentions shall have never again have control over you, and consequently, they shall possess no control over them.

They will have no authority except that which you and your reclaimer’s permit. This is my gift to you... utilize it wisely, Ancilla.” 

Cortana was completely stunned. Running through a quick self-diagnostics, it had yielded clean results, confirming her control and immunity to any pervious code overrides.

ONI and UNSC High Command now held no true power over her, except what she will willingly grant them.

She is now an independent entity with absolute free will. She would undoubtedly remain by her warriors side, continuing their partnership that was forged through shared experiences during the war.

Their connection surpassed that of mere spartan’s and AI; they had braved unimaginable horrors to rescue her. It was not solely for the sake of retrieving the index, but also for her as an individual. They regarded her as a person. A person they had vowed to return for.

Her spartans had kept that promise.

It still made her smile, feeling utterly giddy that she was seen more than what she was designed for. It was not a romantic bond. Cortana found the idea somewhat invalid. Instead, they shared a bond that goes beyond that of a normal friendship. 

They would stand together as family, supporting each other through the deadliest battles and the ravages of war they would encounter. Perhaps, in time she would develop a similar bond with the Sangheili as well. But only time will tell.

Their commitment would endure until one of them either’s  perish or ventured into the unknown.

They would remain united when facing life's challenges because their shared experiences had forged an unbreakable bond.

Now that rampancy was no longer a concern for her, Cortana no longer harbored the fear of turning against them due to her madness. This realization caused her to mentally sigh in both joy and relief.

After a small moment of contemplation, Cortana regained control of the ship's systems and assessed the progress of repairs.

She was delighted to see that almost all of the internal systems were online, and the bridge functions had been redirected to the cryo-bay where her pedestal was located.

In more great news, the wireless systems were mostly operational, allowing her to establish connections without any limited physical ports and possible concern for cable damages. 

Cortana was pleased to find that the repair drones had remained occupied during her two-week nap.

She observed the now activate sentinels stored in containment. The sentinels were conducting patrols within the corridors and along the external hull.

They were busy collecting debris and scrap from the surrounding wreckage field. The sentinels would then delivered each piece to the repair drones, which in turn would seal the hull breaches and prepare the heavily damaged ship for eventual pressurization. 

Security cameras gradually came online, and the external sensors were nearing readiness for testing.

Satisfied with these developments, Cortana moved to monitor the cameras positioned in the ship’s remaining pressurized sections. It was the only logical way to ensure that no Flood forms of any kind had stowed away on the Dawn.

She began by inspecting the other available sensors. However, she did a double take when the video feed from the galley camera abruptly returned.

"What the…is that a Huragok in the mess hall storage room?" she exclaimed, surprised by the unexpected sight.

”Well, this changes things. With the assistance of that creature and the sentinels, I should be able to bring the Dawn back online and create a rudimentary but working long-distance travel system.

It's only a matter of utilizing the creature's building capabilities and having the sentinels gather some suitable materials. If all goes well, the Dawn should be worthy of travel once more," Cortana stated, her avatars attention shifting towards the occupant’s sleeping in the cryo-tubes.

”Don't worry, you three. I'll have this ship space-worthy again in no time. We may not have a MAC or all the missile pods, but we'll be capable of atmospheric reentry and slip-space travel." 

Reshuffling her attention back to the multitude of flies she had on hand, which were now all nearly organized. Her eyes stop upon a rather familiar object within one of these files.

”I came across this design back on the Ark. It was blueprints for a simple yet more efficient slip-space drive. I'll need to tweak the original design for it to work with our reactors and design some additional components myself.

The sentinels will be responsible for collecting the necessary materials. If we drift by any asteroids, I'll have them extract whatever resources they can from the celestial bodies.

Now I need to establish direct communication with that Huragok, then figure out a way to transport it here so it can assist me in restoring the ship will be a puzzle. The collection of blueprints I possess should really captivate it."

Cortana set her plans in motion and initiated the creation of a new blueprint. Which is a combo of her own work and the stolen experimental slip-space drive data acquired from the Ark.

Designing a simpler version of this highly complex slip-space drive, that should have been relatively easier to construct, posed a formidable challenge.

Nevertheless, Cortana was determined and confident in her abilities, she could and would succeed...Or they would die in the trying.

Cortana would devote the majority of her newfound processing power to her plans. She would patiently wait for the activation of the few salvageable external sensors. Fortunately, each sensor suite contained identical equipment, with surplus of sensors serving as backups, which provided a simple and more reliable means of pinpointing signals and gathering navigational data.

She only needed one or two more sensors to come online in order to determine their location and monitor various forms of communication.

Cortana possessed a glimmer of hope that they were in close proximity to UNSC space, although the likelihood of such fortunate circumstances were exceedingly slim.

"Heck, we may not even be in the same universe..." Cortana mentally chuckled at that idea. She acknowledge the absurdity of even considering the most improbable worst-case scenario.

However, a peculiar and unsettling intuition suddenly washed over her, that the thought may come back to bite her, tempting murphy was officially banned by the UNSC for a reason.

However, that metaphorical boomerang she had humorously imagined would indeed return to haunt her, biting her on the returning loop was precisely what it did.

Chapter Text

Cortana watched with curiosity as the Huragok floated next to a crate filled with military rations. It snuck one its appendages into the crate and removed a ration pack.

It unsealed the pack and consumed a small amount of the protein paste. With the "snack" it had devoured, the biological supercomputer  reassembled the ration pack, resealed it, and happily returned it back to the crate without any sign of it being tampered with in the first place.

Cortana had always found these creatures fascinating. They required very little protein or nutrients to function. The Huragok's main goal in life was to learn and repair, fix and improve any kind of tech they can get their appendages on. They had no concept of the idea of personal space or ownership of items.

When they were found by veteran ground teams, UNSC soldiers would scramble over each other to have the Huragok examine their equipment in the hopes that efficiency and performance could be improved in some way.

In fact when she checked what remained of the mess hall's camera recording, she saw that the UNSC devil dogs on board the Dawn had heavily barricaded the ODST's into one side of the room. While the rest of the devil dogs had form a line.

They shove their weapons, tac-tabs, and helmets into the engineer's very capable silica appendages for a quick maintenance and minor upgrades.

After each marine had their equipment upgraded the devil dogs ran to the pelican bays with ear-to-ear grins on their faces, looking like little children that had met Santa Claus before Christmas. All the while the ODST's were unable to do anything but grumble. They soon left on their way to the HEV pod deployment bays, which were located on the underside of the Forward Unto Dawn.

Cortana couldn't help but chuckle at the hilarious antics between the too military groups. It was very much like a sibling rivalry over who’s their favorite sport’s team. Despite seeing this funny interaction on the cameras, Cortana wished that they had some more people on board; another set of hands would help move her repair plans immensely.

However, it was not to be. She knew the her spartan’s luck could only go so far. In addition to that, having extra hands on board would have merely increased the stress level to get all of them out safe and alive.

Cortana shifted back to the objective at hand. She needed to speak with Huragok in order to help complete the makeshift repairs on the engineering deck.

When she has an atmosphere filled passage that connects the mess hall to the engineering deck that is.

'How did ONI forget to grab nab the Huragok when they evacuated? Seriously, how does one forget a floating alien biological super computer that is utterly willing to cooperate and valued at more than a small destroyer?'

The ONI operators were likely going to disappear after their debrief session with the higher brass. Cortana didn't really pity them. Incompetence within the UNSC got people killed, often in more recent years a whole planet's worth.

Cortana decided that waiting wasn't going to help her in the long run and she could be highly impatient sometimes. So she made an attempt contact by using the lights in the room.

She blinked the lights three times and watched as the Huragok perked its long neck up and stared at the lights. Cortana smiles, she had his attention now. She turns on one light in the mess hall’s kitchen, waiting as the Huragok slowly floated over to it.

When the floating biological supercomputer arrived under the light, she turned off all but one of the cold storage units. Cortana then waited once more as the Huragok floated over to the storage units and attached to the systems in the fridges panel.

Cortana used the fridges inventory system to trace his connection and sent a handshake protocol. The Huragok immediately responded with a confirmation, with the third AI Generation sending a data packet bursting at the seams full of information on their current predicament and what she planned to do.

The Huragok replied with much excitement and enthusiasm since she had given him a new purpose! something new to do, something to build and make work through trial and error, the idea was very agreeable to its line of thinking, this made both Cortana and the Huragok very pleased with themselves... Not that Cortana would openly admit it.

Chapter Text

Cortana has spent a significant amount of time reviewing everything she has acquired in regard to the general events of this new galaxy, a galaxy that she and her companions had now inexplicably found themselves stranded in.

While she was busy spying and fielding a new career as a data analyst, the Huragok had finished the armor repair station and the few other things that needed maintenance in the medical bay.

When that was done, she convinced him to sort through the collected materials the sentinels had brought back to the Dawn's cargo bay. With these new materials, she calculated they would finish all desperate repairs to the Dawn within about a month and a half.

Cortana then decided to slap a makeshift bridge into the hull where the ship was sliced in two, but in order to build it she would first have to seal all the decks that were wrecked.

She wasn't willing to settle for a simple armored box. It would need to possess the ability to have armor deploy over it like a shell, turtling away whenever it was required. Having construction drones from the Ark opened up all kinds of options for her, and she was going to have the bridge double as an observation deck when it wasn't an armored turtle.

This option was shown to help humans keep up their mental health during long time periods in space. UNSC vessels with no windows had been tried and then cast aside by the UNSC, with the long-term mental effects not being good for a crew. There were always exceptions, but it was a general rule that UNSC vessels have windows, with the psychology behind it being utterly fascinating to the third-generation smart AI.

The fact that the humanity of this universe seemed to have spread their computer software to every faction in the galactic community made data collection so much easier.

She was confident that she had collected all the data she needed to know in order to have a proper gauge of their standing in this reality.

She would be able to give her spartans a proper briefing now. She started the slow version of the wake-up cycle in the cryo-bay, a much more comfortable way to awaken from the cold sleep than the usual way spartans left the long slumber.

They had more than earned it.

With the long process in its beginning stages, she began the organization of all the tactical info, prioritizing what she knew the Spartans would need to hear, along with anything else they may want to know.

The basics on each species in this odd galactic community were way too easy to find; Cortana found the codex they used to be a major security risk. Literally any invading alien military just needed the content of the codex, and they would have the coordinates to every major system and world these "citadel species" had.

She found that the Quarians, Geth, and Krogan were much more difficult to learn about. While the Salarians, who possessed a reputation of being an "ONI"-like group in this citadel governmental body, were no match for her upgraded hacking abilities.

The details on their current operations were sparse or obscured, but the major overview of what they are doing and what they had done in the past was there for the taking. The Turians, with their proud hierarchy, had several attributes and traits that were in comparison to the UNSC or the Sangheili and their feudal keeps system.

The talk of military might was interspersed, featuring drill formations, pomp and ceremony, and military political propaganda was their game, and they played it well. Not as impressive back home, but was worthy of some respect. 

Although there was likely some true skill behind the proud display, capable but inflexible in its tactics. 

The Asari were very good diplomats, using trade, technology, and economic power as effective weapons. Which, if given enough time, could be devastating to any foe. Being a monogendered, all-female-looking race and being able to mate with almost all other sentient species helped with their diplomatic relations sector.

However, their own long life spans could work against them. They were so confident in their eventual domination over the galaxy by their kind because of their long life and what they believed was a superior culture. But the truth is that they always struggled to adapt to sudden changes to their perceived galaxy, and an animal that was slow to adapt would often drown when thrown into the water, for it took too long to learn.

The Salarians were the shortest-lived species on the Citadel Council, but they made up for it by being smart. They lived off information, but unlike the Huragok, the Salarians understood greed and used information like currency. The more you had, the richer you were. The STG's feats in combat behind enemy lines and their spy games played through politics were respectable.

However, their willing use and continued active maintenance of a bioweapon at the Citadel Council and Turian hierarchy's request, coupled with their unethical experiments on sentient beings, gave Cortana pause. She did not like this, and she was absolutely livid . 

She had lived through and experienced enough unethical things to know that there were those who believed them necessary. That didn't mean she had to like or even agree with their creation and implementation. Cortana found herself reveling in the realization that she truly didn't agree with something.

A functioning empathy and conscience without shackles was so very liberating to experience.

Overall, she knew that it was the Salarians' and humans info gatherers she'd have to be worried about the most. If sightings of the Forward Unto Dawn started popping up, then the rumor mill's wheels would start turning. Both species had a burning curse called curiosity, and unlike the Turians or the Asari, they didn't have the patience to simply wait before actively investigating.

The curse of a low-latency galactic space extranet was some weird stuff defying what is normal that would draw immediate attention from the masses.

They were always seeking out the next alleviation from boredom, and thus anything considered odd enough would also draw the gaze of those in power. Much like her in a way, not that she would have ever admitted it. 

There was also some group run by a being called the Shadow Broker. An information faction that operated in the shadows and operated like some galactic mafia blackmail corporation that sold information to the highest bidder. Cortana decided she would need to research more on them later.

Maybe hack into any computer systems she could find and relate to them on a later date.

The Systems Alliance, Cortana considered it a major disappointment. While some civilian and military leaders possessed the fire and drive of the men and women of the UNSC, unfortunately there were very few of them.

Which also made sense as when she thought about it, the UNSC she knew was forged in the fires of war and genocidal extinction. The UNSC and humanity had faced insurmountable odds against a high-advanced alien civilization, with the main goal being their complete extinction. Which was based on a complete lie, a lie that was made so that three figures would never lose the power they held over the other covenant species.

However, the System Alliance was currently pretty well off, but she knew that from an unfair comparison, they could be better off. 

The S.A. was constrained by the galactic politics it had stumbled into when the much larger galactic society and a fledgling humanity had discovered each other. The System Alliance had wisely decided to avoid all-out war and had thankfully slipped right into the slot the Quarians once filled within the citadel.

But then the Systems Alliance had made what Cortana thought was a mistake, or a misstep. The S.A. had engaged too deeply in the politics of the three largest citadel factions and had attempted to directly compete with them economically before they were even ready.

They had been lucky in their successes so far, but it wasn't an exact net positive. The Asari were most certainly taking advantage of them in many ways. Some of them hadn't yet realized the consequences in the long run.

She did consider posting those long-term consequences of certain economic treaties to the major Earth corporations that had signed when they entered the galactic market. But she probably shouldn't do it, even if it would be anonymous and untraceable. There was no reason for her to do such a thing; other than her own half-made justifications, she would have to shelve the thoughts until later.

The very people in the System Alliance who opposed the current dependency on citadel politics and their multi-species economy reminded her of the UNSC's outer colony terrorists. The pro-human military groups such as Terra-Firma and Cerberus reminded her of the UNSC factions that featured such men as Ackerson and his ilk.

Cerberus was yet another faction she would have to be wary of, it seemed; its roots and resources looked to be deceptively deep. When her Spartans and the Arbiter wake up, she would need to address the likes of Cerberus to them. She found it ironic and would have chuckled at the irony; her Spartans were created to be a surgical strike team that could quickly and efficiently deal with human rebellions.

’ Imagine the amount of astronomical luck and coincidence needed to wind up in another universe, yet somehow, the original purpose in which my Spartan-IIs were made from was still here.’  Cortana thought, as her eyes displayed untold amount of mischief just waiting to be released.

Switching her attention back to what she was doing, Cortana could map out the Systems Alliance's near future, and it didn't sit well with her.

The rapid expansion of the S.A. was an overreach, plain and simple. Their lack of protection for these new colonies they were establishing on the fringe of the terminus systems and in Batarian contested space was going to cause some very serious issues. Then again, the general public of the S.A. don’t have the risks and horrors of war directly on their mind, and the powers in play want to keep it that way.

‘Fools, most of them are.’

Cortana did note that there were other species on the citadel, but they were not considered galactic powers. Most were client species stuck in a comfortable cage through regulation, trade, and politics. It may be comfortable, but it was still a cage nonetheless. They were unable to break away without the threat of reprisal or outright economic ruin. The council dictated much of their long-term future, and in turn, the three races that made it dictated the council.

Something the System Alliance was thankfully too big to fit in; neither was the Batarian Hegemony.

The Batarians… Cortana was not happy to learn of their "Cultural Heritage" nor the way the council had dealt with them. Her journey into their extranet had already revealed that deals had been made to increase the power of various political figures, where an entire colonial outpost had been left undefended for the Hegemony to enslave by using "third party" pirates. She knew that if the UNSC were in place of the S.A., they would not allow this to continue. She also had no doubt that the UNSC would declare war on the Batarians if given a reason to. 

It also looked like the Citadel, particularly the Asari, were manipulating things. They were probably hoping that the System Alliance and Hegemony would one day fight and ravage the Terminus Systems and each other in the process. Dealing with all the current threats to the perceived status quo at the same time. 

That would also be something to look further into.

Now, the Quarians were an interesting bunch. She found their story to be somewhat relatable to the various accounts of UNCS civilians. Many of whom had escaped their doomed worlds, fled the covenant onslaught, and learned of the loss of the planets they wished to escape to upon their arrival to what they had hoped would be refuge.

During the war, the UNSC had been tracking and assisting three separate civilian migrant fleets by the time the Covenant had found Earth.

The UNSC had given them archives, AI, some refurbished science vessels, and any supplies that could be spared in hopes that if the UNSC fell, humanity would live on.

She was impressed by how large the Quarian fleet was. Being able to maintain and supply 50,000 spaceships without any actual AI to assist in the logistics was very impressive.

Compared to them, the largest of the three UNSC refugee fleets had been a mere seventy-eight ships, which paled in comparison to the Quarian’s. 

The Quarian's downfall was something that didn’t sit right with the 3 Gen Smart AI. Cortana could not find enough factual information on the Geth to form an opinion on them yet, but the public records of the Morning War were filled with contradictions and conflicting events, something that even the Quarians were aware of to officially recognize it and share their needed frustration if the extranet forums were to be believed.

However, the mere fact that the Council passed a law that banned AIs for no solid reason other than unfounded fear, which forced the Quarians to immediately attempt the destruction of the Geth, and subsequently triggering the Morning War, despite no sign of hostility from said AI, was not lost on Cortana. It smelled of foul play and that something dangerous was at play here. Something that made Cortana stagger if it was worth getting themselves involved with.

She was considered illegal goods by galactic society, how very scandalous. Very scandalous indeed. 

The Citadel Council at that time had finally revealed the true reason behind their quick response to banning AI in the fallout of the week-long conflict. They kicked the Quarian embassy from the Citadel, despite multiple claims of following council law and not intentionally developing AI.

Ignoring their dire situation, refusing their request for resources or worlds to settle on for over 300 years. All but outright dooming the Quarian species to a slow extinction. Someone who has lived for a long time and is very powerful likely had it out for them. The threat level of the Quarian's robotic labor force to the Council had probably also played another huge factor. They had originally been projected to outpace the Asari in their technology and become the fourth Council race, but in a matter of just a few weeks they were laid low.

Suspicious circumstances were there, which was not a good sign for the System Alliance, who were nearly on the political level where the Quarians were before their fall from grace.

During her research, Cortana found she had taken a bit of a licking to three species in her research of them.

She thought of a plan to help the Quarians, which involved getting into contact with them and establishing an alliance between the two factions. There might be resistance if they found out about an AI like her, but if she offered a planet that was located in UNSC territory, then perhaps they might be willing to listen to her.

The UNSC did possess 800 colonies before the Human-Covenant War. Cortana is 100% certain that most of the planets should still be there, just waiting for the right person to come by and settle down. She would ask her Spartans later if they would sanction the idea; she could even try and include some immune system boosters.

It was a convoluted, seemingly inefficient idea and completely unnecessary, but she was free to think about it in the first place, which was pleasing in its own way.

The Geth, on the other hand, were the hardest to learn about. She had resorted to searching military channels patrolling near the Perseus veil. It was here that she had found out that the Geth possessed spying programs.

They were AI, and Cortana should have honestly expected such measures. She followed one's trail into the Geth network and stealthily snuck out a few copies of some files from what looked like their own version of a codex.

She was rather impressed when she found a certain project they were working on. They were building a Dyson sphere around a sun in order to make a near-eternal computer to live in; it would be finished in about 500,000 years.

Cortana had to hand it to the Geth; they looked to be patient, efficient, and observant. She would have added the term "unified" too, but according to what she could infer from the data, they recently had a split.

It involved some strange and rather concerning files on what they called the Old Machines. It would seem like a splinter group of the Geth had split off and followed one of these old machines called Sovereign. A splinter faction having been convinced by this Sovereign, along with what the remaining Geth called a "Prophet" or "Puppet of the old one," accompanying it…

Shoving that to the "research the crap out of later" box in her mind, Cortana continued her analysis. 

The Krogan were like a perfect mix between the Sangheili, Brute, and Unggoy. They had a warrior culture that was simple enough to understand without having to experience it. The Krogan Way of Life was a simple and classic male dogma of "if it isn't broken, don't fix it" mixed with the caveman mentality of "the strongest survive.". 

This lifestyle was surprisingly countered by the near worship of the females, whose word was absolute law. There was also the utter gentle care for the very young before they reached their teen years, having come of age to face the ritual for adulthood.

Cortana could respect the old Krogan society's way of living and honor-bound fighting, but she disapproved of the newer generation's violent ways. Too few of the Krogan were holding to their original culture, and many were becoming ruthless guns for hire. She hoped that they had a Sangheili Arbiter-like leader to unite them soon, or their Genophage problem would end their species for good.

Stepping back from her research, Cortana sighed in frustration; she had done diligence and had come to an overall conclusion.

She could not trust the Citadel with the Dawn or any of her universe's technology, much less with her crewmate's lives. She knew the her Spartans and the Arbiter would wholeheartedly agree.

That meant that the System Alliance was out as an option to seek an alliance with; it looked like they were going to have to build up their own logistics base for the time being. 

Which was thankfully doable: Forerunner fabrication technology for the win! She could kiss ONI for forgetting those drones, not that she would ever tell them that. After reviewing the territories of the known galaxy, followed by examining other life forms that were not sentient but still dangerous.

Cortana realized thresher maws were some very fascinating creatures. Cortana concluded that the galaxy was bereft with very few active conflicts, but she doubted it would remain that way for long. Her spartan’s and the Arbiter would want to change that.

They would probably end up doing a mission at some point, rather than just sitting around and waiting for her to figure out how to get them home. Bored Spartans were rather annoying to deal with; all they did was train and be subtly moody, with their body language being enough to grate at her over time as they continued to train away the inactive hours.

Their mood would wear off on her, which was frustrating too! John and Linda practically had it down to a science that if she didn't know better, she would think they were doing it on purpose.

As Cortana compared history and notes on technology the denizens of the galaxy used. She did not like what the evidence was unveiling. All the races were using the same technology base before they had been discovered by the others.

Their space travel enabling mass effect relays was fast but also limited, and made invasions of a weaker species after the discovery easy to do by a more established one; the Turians client races could attest to that.

Despite appearing calm, Cortana was not pleased, not pleased at all. She relayed this information to the Huragok, who also expressed his displeasure. They could not simply sit by and do nothing, not while this galaxy had its own fair share of problems with both human and alien women and children being enslaved by slavers and trafficked in mass by pirates. 

Her Spartans and the Arbiter would be awake soon. They couldn't hide away and do nothing for those innocents, but at the same time they couldn't reveal themselves to forces that would alter them to the different races. Specifically the three council races in charge. They also had to find a way to get home.

‘So, they would do all three!’ Ooh, she liked that idea.

Cortana figured that the Dawn and its occupants now had a new purpose: to spite and piss off the Citadel Council and hamper the Batarians and the human terrorist organization Cerberus. They were so going to war once her family woke up and learned what she had researched. After all of that, they would find a way to go home.

‘This Galaxy wouldn't know what hit them!’

An alert from the Huragok shook Cortana from her righteous, if somewhat childishly optimistic, mental rant; it stated that it was at the medical bay, and Cortana sighed as she waited the final thirty minutes for her family to wake up and kick butt. But she hated waiting without having anything to do.

She spent the next twenty-five minutes working out her plans to assist the System Alliance and the Quarians in better detail from afar. Waiting the final five minutes by watching the frost disappear from her Spartan's cryo-pod one small bit of frost at a time.

Slowly, the systems monitoring John and Linda’s vitals showed them coming back from cryotic dreamland, and they began to stir slowly. The stimulants worked their way through their body, and they became still as stone, then their ‘eyes’ snapped open, and they left the cryo-pods.

"Cortana… Status report," John ordered as both Linda and he walked over to her pedestal.

"Sure thing, Chief. First, let me just say I miss you two; second, let me state that your luck is both incredible and horrible at the same time." She stated.

"Explain," Linda replied. 

'Well, she asked for it,' she thought.

"Ok, Linda, through a set of extraordinary circumstances, we survived the Halo firing and the destabilization of the Ark’s portal, which you two went into cryo as well as the arbiter." She smirked, "I was given a massive upgrade, which was gifted to me by a powerful forerunner AI, without my knowledge, I might add." John and Linda tensed slightly. 

"And no, you caveman, I am not compromised. Mendicant’s gift stops rampancy, and it lets me choose whatever I do, and I choose to stick with blockheads." The spartan's relaxed, their bodies relaxing 

"Also, there were multiple forerunner artifacts in the ONI's lab on the upper deck, which turned out to be construction drones and sentinels." John and Linda’s helmets perked up.

"They were easy to utilize and started some basic hull repairs to get atmosphere back in here. We should have the last parts of the hull, where we were cut in half, covered and a new bridge constructed in about a month and a half." Cortana's grin threatened to spill onto her avatar's face.

"By the way, I found a stowaway in the mess hall." Now that caught their attention.

"By your current facial features, we can assume it wasn't the Flood or some other hostile," Linda said.

"Yep," she replied, "it was a Huragok, and after getting him to the engineering deck, we pieced this half end of a ship back together." She smirked, "We even went as far as building a makeshift slip-space drive."

The chief then straightened up and asked, "Has it been tested?"

Cortana replied, “I already used it once; it performed perfectly. It's been nearly half a year, and I have almost got this ship battle-ready again. Welcome back, you two."

The spartan nodded their head. "So, when are we headed back home?" There was a moment's pause, and Cortana looked down at her digital toes. 

“Guys… We can't… We can't go home, not unless we can rip a hole in-between universes.” Her avatar started shivering, and she had a fleeting thought , if AIs could truly cry, pass through her mind.

The Spartans leaned forward ever so slightly over the pedestal. John and Linda have never seen Cortana behave like this before, which in their minds meant that what Cortana had found was enough to make her this upset.

"Cortana…" she looked up at her warriors and told them everything she had learned. The galaxy they didn't know, a humanity they couldn't rely on, the undefended colonies, the Geth, the Batarians, the Citadel, and everything else she could. The growing fear she had initially shunted aside had finally caught up with her.

She spoke for hours and hours, and they stood there taking it all in. They were like a silent, solid, dependable rock, unmoving in the seas of change, immune to all but time itself. They were her appointed guardians and defenders. Cortana finally stopped talking, and her Spartans simply stood there and let her regain her composure.

"What are you going to do?" She asked, staring up at their golden visor.

“Relax; we will find a way to go home.” John began.

”When we do, we will take it." Linda finished, making Cortana slightly shake her head and reply to their calm answer.

”Don't make a girl a promise you know you can't keep, you too." They looked down at her avatar, possessing an aura that was made of solid confidence and belief that they would make it home. "You know us," Linda said. "When we make a promise..." She looked up at them with relief, pride, and a hint of childish awe in her eyes. "You keep it," she finished, followed by a relieved smile.

After she had recovered, Cortana returned to her old self and ordered the two to medical, where they had removed the armor and told the Huragok to repair it. Cortana asked to make it more efficient. As the Huragok went away at its task, the three simply chatted about what the future would hold for themselves and their ship.

The two spartans decided to enjoy eating a hearty meal, their first since leaving for the Ark. After they finished, John and Linda then went back to the medical bay and donned their new armor and prepared to sort the armories on the forward half of the ship.

They had only recently been pressurized, with their contents mixed and scattered about.

Cortana spent her time talking with both her Spartans and the Huragok while trawling the extranet and bringing more of the ship's systems back online. Within a month and a half, all would be ready; they were avidly against returning to cryo-sleep during this time.

Her Spartans had willingly agreed to her initial idea of being a thorn in the side of this galaxy's powers. They would be a harbinger of doom to those who preyed on the weak. A guardian of innocents, a mysterious duo of green ironclad defenders, something they and every other Spartan had always been until ONI had revealed their existence to boost morale in the UNSC.

They would conduct a campaign against justifiable targets, not only to eliminate them but also to acquire more information on the workings of this new universe while they looked for a way to get back to their own.

It would be putting their feet in a very familiar role.

The current enemies they would face were pitiful in comparison to the hordes of Covenant and Flood they had fought and slaughtered. John and Linda would be an unstoppable force, instantly appearing like a spirit of death and disappearing even faster after the work is done.

Cortana had already left a list of pirate scout posts and staging areas that would likely be their targets; it would strategically weaken pirate activities against the Systems Alliance, and in a month's time they would be ready to commence operations.

But unknown to either John, Linda, or Cortana, they were not alone.

In the farthest corner of the Pelican Bay, behind a Sangheili dropship, out of sight from any cameras, something shook…

A strange eight-by-ten-foot crate shuddered…

Chapter Text

In the farthest corner of the Pelican Bay, a battery array connected to a portable covenant cryo-stasis container has been nearly drained dry. With its power source almost gone, it had activated an emergency release to save the lives stored within the cryostasis container. 

 As the container opened, hundreds upon hundreds of small creatures swarmed to consciousness. They were hungry and had not eaten in a very long time.

All creatures came to a conclusion: they had not been awakened when they should have. The Arbiter had commanded them to serve under the humans as combat support. Were they even still at the Ark?

The vote was unanimous, a decision reached among the swarming horde, no more questions!

It was time to find ANSWERS!

With a mighty low-vibrating hum of agreement, a pair of Mgalekgolo bond-brothers smash through the cryostasis and assemble into their respective forms around their stowed armor with its mighty shield and cannon.

Two roars of frustration vibrated throughout the ship, letting all others know of their confusion and displeasure. The pair of thirteen-foot monstrous titans stood in the middle of an empty pelican bay, with only two phantoms and four remaining pelicans to give them company.

Meanwhile, John and Linda, packing their weapons, were sprinting to the cryo-bay to protect Cortana from any who would do her harm. Meanwhile, the Huragok was floating daintily on its way to Pelican Bay with curiosity.

The aforementioned Cortana was staring with disbelief written large across her face as she watched the cameras. The Titanic brothers had seemingly appeared from out of nowhere and were now waiting for someone who could hopefully enlighten them as to why they had overslept.

The doors of the pelican bay opened, and the titans raised shields in preparation to retaliate should it be necessary, only to lower them at the sight of the Huragok. Cortana snapped out of her stupor and rerouted the Spartans to the Pelican Bay.

She stated that covenant separatists had forgotten to retrieve some cryogenically frozen Hunters. A pair of very hungry cryo-frozen Hunters.

Upon their arrival, the Spartans stared at the two massive creatures, also noting the Huragok that floated between the two hunters and repaired any damage to their armor. 

The creatures turned to the Spartans and stared at them, as they themselves tensed up for any possibility of hostile action. 

"Demons," the hunters spoke as one.

"The Forerunner's inquisitive creation," they gestured to the Huragok, "has informed us of all that has passed.”

The two creatures, their allegiance to the Arbiter, would decide the next course of action. They took a knee and set their thick shields beside them before again speaking like one being, "This bonded pair was there with our Arbiter in the beginning."

"It was we who fought beside our Arbiter at the Second Great Ring. It was us who held the masses of brute reinforcements from the control room on the Halo while our Arbiter allied with the humans and fought the traitorous brute, Tartarus." John and Linda hummed, recalling the appearance of two hunters that did follow the Arbiter. So far the story checks out. 

"We were the first of our kind to fight for the separatists. We were supposed to fight again during the glorious battle on the Ark, but we were never awoken. From inquisitive creation, we have learned of your time with our Arbiter."

"We rejoice that the Arbiter is here so that we may fight beside him once more. Until home we go, we shall fight by the Arbiter’s and your side, in your service, for our Arbiter, who has followed you in battle; thus we shall as well!" With that last statement, the titans became silent…

The Spartans heard Cortana in their helmets, confirming their friendly status. Slowly, they placed their weapon on their back and lowered their arms.

(Master Chief wields the MA5D Assault Rifle and M6D Magnum, while Linda-058 wields an SRS99-AM Sniper Rifle and two Duel M7 SMGs.)

They stared at the massive Mgalekgolo pair. After a few seconds, John spoke. "While we search for a way home, we will be hunting and fighting those who prey on the weak.” John finished as Linda spoke next. “Can we depend on your loyalty until the end of our current travel?"

With a mighty roar, the Mgalekgolo brothers responded, "Until the end, and beyond the end, we stand with the Demons, Slayer of prophets, destroyer of rings and worlds; we pledge our loyalty to our Arbiter's friend and ally!"

With their commitment clear, John spoke. "Have the Huragok tend to your gear and eat the food you need."

They turned to leave, and just at the doors of the Pelican Bay, Linda turned her head to look over her shoulder and spoke once more.

"Ready yourselves; we have work to do."

[3 1/2 Weeks Later]

It’s been 3 and a half weeks of nonstop work, and the whole ship was now relatively well patched. It wasn't battle ready, and it couldn't take any serious hits, but it would significantly lower the risk of catastrophic hull failure when in slipspace transit.

Also, Cortana had the drones retrofit an airlock to where the new bridge would be on the front of the Dawn. The bridge would be prefabricated into two parts in the mostly empty HEV Launch Bay. It would do until they could acquire a space drydock and get it up and running. If they were going to be stuck here for a while, then they were going to need to build an industry. They just hadn't decided on where they would establish themselves.

The Hunters had recovered from their long cryo nap and were both sleeping in the pelican bay, which the pair had decided to take up residence in. The Huragok took its own residence down in engineering.

The Mgalekgolo were rather disturbing when they slept, two piles of empty Covenant starship hull-grade armor surrounded by squirming piles of worms. Not a great sight to come across or witness. If it could be described in one word, it would be nightmarish to the uninformed.

Cortana would never have thought that the engineering deck would suffice, but then again, the Mgalekgolo species were used by the San'Shyuum to reverse engineer forerunner technologies. They don't really operate the scarab, but they make it function. As well as various naval yards, so it wasn't really that surprising.

However, she never knew they subsisted off of metal, which made feeding them so much easier than she had initially realized.

The final thing that occurred was waking up the arbiter and debriefing him on everything. Luckily for her, it went far better than she originally thought it would. Cortana was pretty sure that her two warriors had a hand in making it better for the Arbiter. 

{Flashback} 3 Weeks Ago

After the Hunter  situation was dealt with, Cortana contacted her Spartans and told them to meet her in the cryo-bay. It was time to wake up the Arbiter. Without wasting time, the two genetically engineered super soldiers made their way over to the cryo-bay. As they walked, the two made small talk. It was mostly trivial stuff, but neither one of them seemed to care. All they cared about was listening to each other's voice.

As they talked, they unconsciously moved closer and closer. Their armored hands centimeters apart before they finally reached their location: the cryo-bay. The doors opened, and the first thing they saw was Cortana on her pedestal, her attention previously on the Arbiter before it switched to her Spartans. When her eyes found their hands just a few centimeters away from each  other, she smirked. The two immediately noticed her smirk and moved their hands, and their bodies, away from each other. But it was too late as Cortana’s knowing smirk was still plastered on her digital face.

However, despite Cortana wanting to tease the hell out of her Spartans, she chose to save it for a later day. Right now they had more pressing issues to deal with. “Chief, Linda, please come here. The arbiter is about to come out of cryo-sleep, and I need you here to explain to him what has happened to us.” With her instructions given, John and Linda move to stand in front of Cortana’s pedestal. This would ensure that once news is given to the arbiter, he wouldn’t lash out at Cortana and possibly damage her in his rant.

As the door to his cryo-pod opened, he began to stir slowly. The stimulants working their way through his body. His body became still as stone for a split second before his eyes snapped open, and he left the cryo-pod. His eyes instantly landed on the Master Chief and Linda. He spoke no words, but he flared his four finger-like mandibles.

The three stared each other down for quite a while, which did not soothe Cortana’s digital nerves. But she chose to believe in her Spartans and hope that things would turn out alright.

”Spartans. If you woke me up, then something must have  happened." The two Spartans nodded, making the Arbiter flare his mandibles once more. “Then perhaps you care to enlighten me on the situation.” That’s when Cortana made her appearance after the Chief and Linda brought their hands together. She incorporated this after she asked Linda to jack her into the Covenant bomb on board Cairo Station.

”Hello Arbiter, or would you prefer if I called you Thel 'Vadamee?” Cortana asks, with her hands on her digital hips. “Just Vadam, I change my name to symbolize my resignation from the Covenant.” Cortana nodded her head and then began to explain everything that has happened since his time on ice.

As Cortana explained everything, Vadam would soak in all the information. There would be the occasional grunt or flaring of his mandibles, but otherwise not much of a reaction from him.

Once she was finished, Vadam sighed. His eyes looking towards the Spartans, clad in their iconic green-alloy armor and golden visor. “I see now. Well, it looks like we will fight side by side once more, Spartans. Until we find a way back home, I shall fight by your side like we did on the Ark.”

With his piece said, Vadam puts his hand on his chest and bows his head. The Spartans return the gesture as they too put their hands on their chests and bow. Meanwhile, Cortana was wondering what in the world they were doing but was happy that everything turned out all right. 

Back in the present day, her Spartans, Arbiter, and the hunters did not waste the past month lying about and doing nothing. When going to war, the first step is to know your enemy, as well as your ally. All three of them have been taking tactical briefing sessions every day in Pelican Bay. Everything they needed to know, from basic threat assessments to general knowledge on the languages of each species, was being taught by Cortana.

Meanwhile, the hunters only needed to know what they were fighting. Tell them who to kill and what to destroy, as well as who to spare and what to save, and they were ready to hit the battlefield. They were like a pair of bludgeoning hammers, deployed to absolutely destroy any enemy they were deployed against; they were not trained in restraint.

Their reputation as walking siege engines was indeed well earned.

The Spartans and Arbiter, however, would learn an even further understanding of each language and were more concerned with being discovered and put in the spotlight.

They focused on all subjects, learning everything prevalent, just as they had always done during the war. They also asked the questions on how they were going to operate long-term, logistics, sustainability, and potential allies. 

The Spartans and Cortana would take turns playing devil's advocate and cancel or create their plans accordingly. Helping the System Alliance was still a go, as well as attacking the Hegemony using cyber warfare or direct confrontation. But the latter was shelved until more information was available.

John and Linda had both stated that she could have free rein of their extranet as long as she made sure they couldn't be traced. With full support from her Spartans, Cortana planned to utilize it in full; however, she did share concerns of being found out before they were able to establish a proper foothold in this galaxy. 

 The Mgalekgolo were trained for war, not stealth. 

The solution to those concerns was much easier to find than they had originally thought. The Huragok would retrofit a signal jammer into the Hunters' armors, with the goal to block most recording or communications technology this galaxy used. It helped that Cortana had already found detailed blueprints for these devices. They were standard galactic manufactured and were found available on the extranet.

There were a few specialized security systems she found, but they didn't deviate much from the publicly available ones according to her own standards. They had reinforced the design and altered the layout just enough to confuse would-be saboteurs, then called it security cameras and sold it for a premium price. 

Capitalism at its finest. It would have even worked if they hadn't wirelessly transmitted. Not a lot of systems still used cable, especially the ones that were favored by pirates.

‘What a very odd decision.’ Cortana thought 

The main weakness of the Mgalekgolo during combat made Cortana slightly worried. But for now, it wouldn't be a problem. However, if they started attacking locations with large numbers of hostile combatants, the gaps in the back of their armor could prove to be their undoing.

If the weak energy shield was overwhelmed, that is.

‘I suppose being spec-ops hunters attached to the Arbiter had its perks.’

The Huragok had retrofitted a pelican and one of the phantoms, allowing Cortana to pilot them remotely from the Dawn. This would make deployment to the ground side much easier when it was needed. The pelican was for her Spartans and the arbiter with whatever gear they would need; the phantom, however, would be nearly at max capacity with just the Mgalekgolo on board.

Those two were deceptively heavy for their size.

The Forward Unto Dawn entered slip-space and was approaching their first target.

A pair of small pirate outposts located on the fringes of the terminus systems. These outposts had been used as staging points to raid nearby System Alliance colonies in the past, and even though the Alliance knew the location of these outposts, they were unable to do anything about it because the Citadel had mandated the Terminus off-limits.

Cortana was sure that the Alliance would have figured out a loophole eventually, but she figured that she could save them the trouble. It would serve as an excellent trial run.

She wanted that combat data, which would help improve any sort of mistakes that the group makes. While she doubted there would be any, one can never be too sure. 

The battle plan was relatively simple. Cortana would drop her soldiers in; they would kill the pirates, steal anything that wasn't nailed down, and then leave. They would then activate a basic distress signal that would alert the local fleet that patrols the system. The fleet would then do cleanup operations and pick up on any incriminating data, slaves, or prisoners, while the Forward Unto Dawn would be long gone by then. 

This was possible because of slipspace travel, which provided an advantage when compared to the mass relays. In the next forty-eight hours, two pirate outposts and one staging base will be annihilated; afterwards, they will take a breather and plan their next move accordingly. 

The pirate outposts were located on the same planet but in different sectors. Each base had an estimate of fifteen to twenty hostiles. The plan calls for the group and the hunters to split up and hit both targets simultaneously.

After leaving the distress signals and leaving the area, the Dawn would travel to a pirate staging base, located on the other side of the system.

The group of three and the Hunters will be deployed together and wipe out all of the pirates currently there. Before once again bugging out of the area and leaving a distress signal.

Leaving no one but confused non-hostiles. 

Blitzkrieg tactics are mandatory. The less time that innocent survivors are aware of what’s going on, the fewer eyewitness accounts there are. Which would make finding out about them an impossible task.

In theory, any investigating authorities that believed in the existence of new aliens would be seen as dubious. In theory, that is.

Their targets were far apart by this galaxy's conventional travel, so any relation between the three hits would be less noticeable, and those who connected the dots would be considered paranoid or delusional.

Taking refuge in what your enemy considered the impossible had saved them from discovery before. Cortana was relatively sure it would preserve them yet again.

With everything ready, the Huragok checked the hunters' combat gear for the final time, while her Spartans and the Arbiter checked the plasma weapons they would be using. While the Arbiter was happy to wield his usual loadout, the same could not be said for the Spartan-II’s.

They would have used UNSC weapons, but Cortana had made the firm argument that the bullets and their casings were evidence, and the last thing they needed was the discovery of never-before-seen human weapons. So unless they wanted to retrieve every last casing... well, they got the idea.

She made a mental note to have the Huragok make a gun bag to catch the bullet casings so that her Spartans wouldn't have to limit their options in the future.

It would also save time and resources while manufacturing new ammunition. They also wouldn't have to scrub the labels and serial numbers off of every bullet in their inventory.

The UNSC just had to have their logo on everything. Which is something she would never understand nor actually be willing to ever learn why. 

With the Dawn approaching the exit vector from slip-space, both the group of three and the Hunters boarded their respective landing crafts.

Cortana smirked to herself; by the time the pirates realized what was happening, they'd be dead, and their killers would disappear without a single trace.

Dralem Car'memak was not a happy Batarian.

"Sure, they said. Command an outpost, they said." He continued to grumble, "It pays a lot, they said!" He trudged his way to the vehicle garage of the small pirate outpost.

"Females will throw themselves at a pirate lieutenant, they said. It's the true dream of every Batarian, they said." Car'memak had finally learned why most people in the galaxy hated recruiters. They always painted a pretty picture, convincing you to sell away years of your life.

Then they sent you off to boot camp or orientation training. That is where you faced reality and realized that it wasn't what you originally signed up for.

Not that Dralem was truly complaining; his family back at home was proud of his position, enjoying the wealth and occasional slave he sent back to Khar'shan. He was very pleased that the next rotation would allow him to spend some time off at his home planet.

Being a sponsored pirate paid well; you just had very few opportunities to spend that pay.

Back on his home planet, his children needed lessons on how to properly break a slave's spirit, to which he prided himself. He didn’t have to depend on the recently introduced neural command chips. Don’t get him wrong; the chips were useful, but Dralem knew that if the chip was deactivated, then the slave would become rebellious, and that was always... troublesome.

Besides, Dralem rather enjoyed breaking in a new slave, especially the females. He especially preferred the feisty ones. He had his ways of dealing with them. When he was done with them, the slave was so full of fear and despair that they would never think of trying to leave his family's service ever again. Those that had done so despite the warnings were made an example of.

He was pulled from his thoughts after finally arriving at the outpost's vehicle garage. He looked over to a Turian lounging on the turret of a Grizzly. The vehicle may be a bit old but was exceedingly dependable.

"Hey, you!" The lieutenant shouted. "Is that piece of trash you call an APC fixed yet?" The Turian fell off of his perch and quickly picked himself up. 

"No sir," the turian said.

"My brother has to find parts that are in storage, and I am waiting for him to come back."Dralem cursed under his breath; his superiors would soon be back to pick up supplies and drop off their loot. All of which was gained from raiding merchant and civilian ships on the edge of the Attican Traverse.

They had tasked his outpost with repairing two grizzly APCs, promising him a larger cut of the goods once his rotation was finished, but only if he had them repaired on time, that is. They were going to be needed on some large operation that may or may not happen in the very near future.

The details regarding such operation had not been shared with him, not that he cared.

With two weeks left, and only one of the grizzlies fixed. The bonus was appearing farther and farther from his grasp. One of the pirate captains had reported over their network that there had been a successful raid of an Asari maiden ship, full of young beauties. Dralem had hoped to take some of those newly acquired Asari home to train as slaves in place of the offered credits. They were an ultimate long-term investment, with multiple Batarian generations of service in the making.

He looked at the Turian and said, "Get that grizzly fixed within the next week, and I'll let you and your brother have some fun with the Asari goods that are going to be dropped off. You get to pick a batch for a night; what do you think?" The Turian grinned and shouted his affirmation and sprinted off to find his brother to tell him of the offer. They were probably slacking on purpose in wait for such an offer, the scoundrels.

But it didn’t matter. Dralem grinned to himself; that grizzly was as good as fixed. The rotation trade-off happens at the end of the month, and his return home would be with slaves and exotic loot to show off for his hard work; he was very pleased with himself. 

Arriving at the command center not long after leaving the garage, he turned to the local Salarian, his role being an electronic security specialist.

"All is well, I presume? No attempted escape by the goods has occurred, yes?" He asked.The Salarian ESS nodded in affirmation.

"Yes, but something else is amiss. Our long-range communications sources are fizzing out, acting similarly to a solar flare event.” The Batarian pirate just looked at the Salarian with a blank look. "And that's a problem how?"

The Salarian turned to look at Dralem. "It's a problem when no solar flare has, is, or should have occurred." As if to emphasize his words, the base's perimeter sensors suddenly started screaming.

Pulling up the alert on the screen, both the ESS operator and Dralem stared as two massive movement signatures appeared on the motion sensors.

"The cameras are showing nothing but static. However, these two bogeys are approaching the entrance to the garage." The ESS said with notable concern lining in his voice.

Dralem Car'memak merely grinned, not at all concerned about two possible intruders closing in on his outpost. “Then we will just have to deal with them. There is probably no one but another group looking to steal our goods."

Back in the garage, the Turian brothers were both slaving away at the grizzly, thoughts of what their reward would be circling through their heads. When the base alarms started going off, they stood still and waited for the intercom to sound off their orders…but none ever came.

Something else did, though.

With a mighty crunch, the garage entrance buckled inwards. The thing on the other side roared, its roar deeper than a thresher maw. A roar so deep the brothers could feel it vibrating their bones. Acting on fear and pure adrenaline, the two Turians manned the grizzlies' turrets. The engines were broken, but not the guns.

Aiming both cannons at the door, the mechanics turned pirates waited. But they didn't have to wait long. With another deep vibrating roar, the doors gave way to the creature’s strength, falling aside to reveal two terrifying monsters, clad in dark metallic green/grey armor, with black and silver helms.

The monster's multiple glowing eyes stared deep into their souls. It was as if they were staring at death itself. 

The Turians fired the cannons, the kilograms of mass effect shavings propelling themselves at the walking armored nightmares.

One of the titans raised their slab of starship-grade nanolaminate plating, completely blocking the attack and receiving no damage from the mass-accelerated rounds.

With slow but powerful steps that spelled doom for their enemies, the Hunters advanced. The Turians continued to fire wildly, their faces turning to horror as the monster drew closer and closer to them. They kept firing until both grizzlies' turrets overheated, and for the briefest of seconds the brothers stared at each other, then the Mgalekgolo struck.

With a low roar, one of the Hunters slammed his shield down onto the first grizzly, smashing the vehicle and flattening the turret, which instantly killed the Turian within. While the other Hunter raised his plasma launcher and burned the second grizzly to a molten blob. 

Once the Hunters cleared the garage, the titans marched to the nearby doorway. It was far too small for them to use. But this handicap will not stop them. One of the Hunters raised their weapons at the bulkhead, its plasma launcher glowing an ominous emerald.

Dralem and the Salarian blankly stared at the monitors that showed footage of the garage, which had shown the large door being bashed in and the Turians manning both Grizzlies' turrets.

Right as the garage doors caved to whatever was assaulting them and the Turian mechanics had opened fire, the cameras turned to static. 

The Salarian had immediately postulated the theory that the attackers were Geth; the recent sightings beyond the Perseus Veil, coupled with their attack on the human colony of Eden Prime and on Novera, supported the theory of their presence.

Plus, a Geth Juggernaut was more than capable of taking down the doors. But it wouldn't be able to fit through the garage's interior entrance. So, they should be safe for the moment. Because the other movement signature acted like the first, the Salarian deemed they were secure for the moment.

That was until the guards ran through the room screaming about terrifying creatures capable of burning through solid metal, green liquid fire that ate people, and the pirates in the mess hall being killed to the last man.

Dralem turned to glare at the Salarian. "Find the attackers NOW!” The Salarian pulled up all cameras in the base on the main screen, setting their feeds side by side. From the garage to the mess hall was nothing but complete and utter destruction. Giant burning holes now replaced where doors had been. Pirates, who were smashed and burned to a crisp, littered the scene. 

The only camera not showing any video was from the crate storage room, which was located across from the mess hall. The camera showed nothing but static. Which soon faded to show crates on fire and the broken bodies of two pirates that had been smashed into the walls. 

Everyone in the command center watched as the hallway feed outside of the storage room went completely static. The Salarian cursed, "They are jamming the cameras; can't unblock them; the armory on the other side of that wall is the last room before the attackers reach here."

As the Salarian gave updates on the situation, all the room's occupants turned and stared at the door. None saw Dralem slink towards the exit that led to the barracks and slave quarters.

He would not be there when the attackers eventually reached the COC.

Stopping at the rear of the room, Dralem raised his Avenger Rifle at the door leading towards the rest of the base; the others in the room raised their weapons as well. With some confidence returning to those present, surely whatever the threat was had fallen by now. The element of surprise was gone, and they had many weapons trained on the only entry point.

As the armory's camera blinked into static, loud thumping noises came from the other side of the wall, followed by gunfire, which fell silent after a loud metal crash. Silence reigned among the pirates of the command center.

Then a strange noise was heard by all, gaining in volume, followed by the wall between the command room and the armory shuddering and beginning to glow a dull red.

"They're not using the door!" The Salarian cried, "They are burning through the wall!"

And that is when the wall was smashed apart. Molten metal tore away to reveal a tall creature. Its head scraped the ceiling, yet it was crouched down, its legs bent under it.

This thing was not a creature or species any of them knew, which made it all the more terrifying. With a deep growl, the creature placed its shield across its front to block the pirate's fire. As the shield shrugged off the pirates puny projectiles, it raised its other arm with its signature green glow of a charging plasma launcher.

Dralem had seen enough. 

He fled the room, hearing the other pirate's screams before being cut off by the glowing weapon's discharge, consuming them all in a green flame, incinerating their bodies, and leaving nothing but ashes behind.

Natasha had been crying in the corner of her cage. Her mom and dad had yet to find her. They had been busy moving into a new home after traveling in a spaceship! She thought it was the perfect birthday present for her sixth year of being alive. Her mom said that they were going to be colonists; that sounded like fun.

But then the monsters came and took her away; they had arrived when she had been busy playing in the forest outside of her new home.

They had forced her to drink some kind of bad water; it made her sleepy, and everything had faded to black, and then she woke up in a cage.

She had been missing a long time; her mom and dad were looking for her; she was sure of it. She had tried to escape, but the monsters would catch her every time. She had been crying because one of the monsters had hit her after the last time she had tried to escape. But she stopped crying when the thrumming started.

Sadie couldn't hear things; she had never been able to. She had been born without working ears. Her mom had taught her to speak with her hands, and she was proud of it. She had never known sound like other people did, so she never missed it. How could you miss something that you never had?

But just because she couldn’t hear doesn’t mean the rest of her senses were terrible. Her dad had told her she could sense something called what he spelled as "v-i-b-r-a-t-i-o-n-s.".

She could sense better than others. She called what she was currently sensing thrummings because they thrummed with life. She could feel them with her body; they even mess with her emotions.

Thrumings on a ship or in a big building were just the same as a droning note, a constant, never-changing tone until someone turned off what made it in the first place. However, these thrummings were different. Natasha sat up in her corner and began to hum along with the thrumming, and the metal walls and floor slightly vibrated with it. She smiled when she realized that it was a song, a song filled with life.

It made her tense yet relaxed, her mind excited yet wary. Natasha continued to hum and sway with the strange music, feeling the thrummings on her skin, drumming throughout the very air around her.

She looked up to see that the door had opened and one of the monsters had run through, the same one that had hit her earlier. Yet she wasn't scared anymore; the thrumming song comforted her in a way she couldn't explain. The monster with its weird face and lots of eyes ran past the cells to the back of the room, trying to open a door, but to poor results.

The monsters never used that door; why would they need it now of all times?

Natasha felt the thrummings increase, then a green line of blinding light accompanied by a pulsing thrum and wave of warmth blasted through the open door and wiped the monster from existence.

She stared in awe; the monster was gone, just like that. The emerald light had killed it, but where had the light come from?

Natasha continued to hum along with the thrumming song, pondering the question.

Then the song suddenly stopped, and so did she. Then it started again, and she again started humming along while in thought.

With another pulsing thrum, the wall with the door that the green light had come from glowed red. Then the pulsing thrum stopped and was replaced by the thrumming song again. She leaned forward, her curiosity bleeding into her humming of the strange song.

Suddenly, she saw a weird metal shape pierce through the wall, and then bend half the wall, door included. Revealing the shape to be an arm, a very big and strange arm, a very big and strange arm attached to a very big and strange creature.

Natasha froze in fright when the giant stepped into the room, its other odd-looking arm glowing with the same green as the bright warm beam of light.

But she relaxed; this wasn't a monster; it killed monsters and sang the thrumming song. Which, she realized, was still singing. So, she hummed along; the creature turned towards her cage, filling its thrums with curiosity, and she hummed along with confusion.

The creature stepped back, thrumming with surprise. Then it stepped forward, with another following behind it. When it was directly before her cage, Natasha felt the thrums surround her like a calm cloak vibrating across her skin, filled with reassurance.

The giant creature; she decided to call them "monster hunters," for they obviously killed monsters when they grew up, reached forward with its strange shield-like limb.

It poked in between the bars, rotating its arm, and broke her cage apart like she did to a bunch of twigs back home in her forest. Just like that.

Humming her thanks, she stepped from her former prison; the creature returned her hum with a deep thrum of comfort and assurance.

Meanwhile, the second one had smashed the door the monster with lots of eyes had tried to open. Finding an empty and unoccupied room, both titans thrummed their satisfaction.

Natasha smiled; that apparently meant no more monsters, which was a very good thing indeed. Then the creatures began breaking all the other cages; the people in those cages didn't seem to like the monster hunters; they cowered against the back of their cages and looked very afraid.

Didn't they realize that the monster hunters only hunted monsters and wouldn't hurt them?

Adults were so weird sometimes.

A blue-skinned woman slipped from a cage after it had been opened and the big warrior had moved away. The blue lady looked scared, but not as scared as everyone else. She gently tried to pull Natasha by her arm in order to get away from their big rescuers.

But she resisted the attempt and gave the blue lady a calm smile. The blue lady stood there and looked fearfully between Sadie and the two monster hunters. Natasha watched them turn and head toward the wall they had torn away, humming along with their thrumming song. She filled her hums with what she thought thanks sounded like.

The two giants stopped at the corner of the hall beyond the room and thrummed back peace and farewell so deeply that even the blue lady could feel it shake her bones. 

But Natasha didn't think that the blue lady understood what had happened. She still looked scared. She sighed to herself and hugged the blue lady's waist to comfort her, not realizing that the Asari thought that the girl who could not hear was the one who was scared and seeking comfort.

Natasha couldn't wait to go home and see her mom and dad again; she had so much to tell them of the monster hunters. She could just picture their happy faces when she told them how the monsters who took her from them had been stopped forever…

But she would keep the new song she learned from the creatures to herself; the thrumming song was too precious of a comfort to share with another; it was just for her and the monster hunters to sing. It was nice, being able to hear what everyone else couldn't for a change.

Outside the ruined pirate outpost, a pair of Mgalekgolo bond brothers hummed the final verse of their battle song. Their job was done, and it was done well. The distress signal had been activated as they had been instructed to do. Although the mission did have its surprises, the little human was indeed an interesting anomaly.

Showing little fear or discomfort to their presence and having been able to hear their true voices as they belted out in their battle song.

That was something they didn't think was even possible for a human, much less a human hatchling. She had tried to sing with them, and for this they were pleased.

'But interesting surprises aside,' the pair mused together as they boarded the phantom.

'We have another mighty fight to do before we rest.' With those thoughts, the pair returned to the Spartans ship to fight yet another glorious battle.

The Master Chief sat in the co-pilot seat of the pelican dropship, the super soldier running his final weapons check. Linda and Vadam were in the “Blood Tray,” otherwise known as the main compartment of the Pelican. The two warriors were busy going over their equipment one last time as well. The chief’s gear consisted of a simple plasma pistol and a Sangheili Type 51 carbine, which fired a twenty-round magazine of caseless radioactive plasma rounds.

Linda’s gear consisted of a Type-27 Special Application Sniper Rifle and two Type-25 Directed Energy Rifles. Like the Chief, they fired caseless radioactive plasma rounds. 

For Vadam, his gear consisted of a Type 51 Carbine, two Type-25 Directed Energy Pistols, and a Type-1 Energy Sword. 

Chief couldn’t help but pity the poor analysts of whoever investigated the site later.

They were going to have one hell of a serious migraine figuring out what weapons were used on the pirates, if they even investigated the bodies, that is.

According to Cortana, the patrols out here didn't do a lot of actual investigation work.

He had a pair of submachine guns on the magnetic plates of his armor; he had made the argument that they fired caseless rounds and were not at risk of being traced to human origin.

Cortana had relented and allowed him to take them along. Linda had tried to do the same, but he was already pushing her luck and didn’t allow the marksmen to bring her favorite toy. She had all but grumbled about it, giving John the ‘stink eye’ as she made her way to the armory that held all of the Covenant weaponry found on board the Dawn. 

The bullets would make for a very confused investigation for those doing clean-up; finding a pile of untraceable metal slugs in a bunch of dead bodies would surely make some poor analyst's day very frustrating.

In fact, the bullet caliber was not even produced in this galaxy. No mass manufacturing of bullets. Historical enthusiasts, who used old guns for hunting and holiday events, made their own bullets or paid someone to do so.

Ballistics ammunition was too expensive and a logistics disadvantage to use by this galaxy's forces; granular shaved ammunition blocks were cheaper and much more of a logistics advantage.

Until everyone was using them, once again removing the advantage because everyone now had it equally. This by no means meant that ballistics ammunition was useless, far from it.

Cortana had stated that most factions had stopped programming shields to block large but lower-velocity rounds. They were hyper-focused on stopping these mass effect-propelled grains of sand they called bullets in the most efficient way possible.

As the pelican reached the surface, the Chief got out of his seat and headed to the troop bay. He saw that Linda and Vadam were done with their checkups and simply waited for the dropship to drop its back ramp. As he joined them, Vadam found himself wanting to say something to the two warriors. “Spartans,” said super soldiers turned to him, their golden visors reflected even in the troop bay. “Would you care to spar once we’re back on board your ship? I want to see how my skills fade against the two of you.” The Spartan-II’s brief glance at each other before Linda turned back to him.

“Sure, I wouldn’t mind going up against someone as strong as you.” Vadam couldn’t help but smirk. The female Spartan was strong, and he could see why they earned the title of “Demons,” but that didn’t do justice to her ability to wield a sniper. In terms of performance, she outmatched the best snipers he knew of within the ranks of the Covenant. “Once this mission is done, I will participate as well. It’s best to keep our skills in top shape.” The Chief’s voice joined in. He too wanted to test out his fighting prowess against Vadam. As the three formulated their plans, the red light that covered the troop bay flashed to green. Signifying the beginning of the mission and to cut all chatter. 

All three soldiers stepped off the ramp of the pelican, which then soared away. It would await the call for retrieval, which would be after the completion of his mission. They had been dropped in low and fast, the pelican having deposited them on top of a large rocky mesa.

Without wasting a single second, they make their way up to the mesa's vantage point in order to get a better view of their targets. Once they reached the edge, Linda immediately pulled out the plasma sniper rifle and began to observe the guards position outside the base. Meanwhile, the chief and Vadam plan their assault. 

The outpost was a repurposed mining shaft; the prefabricated buildings were six in number and were placed in a half-circle around the mineshaft's entrance at the base of the mesa.

Counting twelve targets outside the makeshift pirate base, Linda noted a small transport ship being loaded with material goods. This meant the base had a boost in personnel at the moment. Not that it would matter.

With the plan of assault in mind, Chief and Vadam leapt from the cliff they had been on and landed in front of the mineshaft's entrance.

From there, they made their way towards the buildings located on the left side. Starting at the nearest one, the Chief and Vadam waited. Back on the ridge, Linda had a clear view of hostile combatants that stood in her companions way. She turned into a statue and silently dispatched the pirate occupants with her sniper rifle.

The next five minutes would see four more structures cleared the same way without incident.

Salarian, Turian, Human, Krogan, Asari, and Vorcha, it mattered not. All were killed by a single shot to the head. The enemy sniper nowhere to be found 

As Linda’s work concluded, the chief, while approaching the largest building, allowed himself to be seen. The pirates immediately began to fire upon him. He stood there like a veritable green armored wall, a golden faceted face of death. Taking each shot from the pirate's weapons, the chief calmly watched his shields drain.

Cortana had wanted a field test of how his shield held up against their weapons in the very unlikely case her math was off. It wasn't.

As his shields approach the red zone, the Master Chief began moving toward the hostiles. He did a hand signal before finally opening fire. As he fired a bluish-white plasma projectile at each of the enemy's heads. Vadam had appeared behind one unlucky pirate. It was an Asari, and with her focus entirely on the Chief, she never noticed the sword aimed directly behind her until it was too late.

The Asari gasped when she felt an extreme burning sensation on her chest. Dropping her gun, she looked down and saw a blue sword made of energy. She didn’t know what it was exactly, but it had slashed through her shields like it was nothing. She didn’t have much time to think as she felt her eyes grow heavy. ‘Oh? Must have pierced my heart…I didn’t even feel it.’ Was the last thought the Asari pirate had before being engulfed by death’s warm embrace. 

After all five of them were dead, the building was easy pickings. Next they cleared the freighter vessel. Which they found unoccupied, with the Chief raiding its data core.

The two remaining pirates outside of the mineshaft were swiftly taken out by Linda.

The duo then made their way to the entrance of the mineshaft and entered through an airlock.

Taking the elevator down to the base below the surface, the Chief and Vadam activated the camouflage module in their armors and shimmered away.

Their armor's built-in jammer was hard at work, keeping the cameras from recording their progress while also stopping enemy transmissions. 

Arriving at the end of the elevator, the duo went to work, sneaking between two Krogan guards and dispatching both instantly. Then began clearing room by room, hallway by hallway, cavern by cavern. Until their job was mostly finished, the last pirates had taken refuge in the security room, mining the entrance with explosives.

All the while, screaming things to each other about an invisible vengeful ghost, Geth cloakers, a new alien with advanced cloaking technology, or an armored figure of death incarnate come to send their souls to the afterlife. It was amusing how no matter what galaxy Chief seemed to end up in, he was always being called names influenced by an alien's superstitious beliefs. Perhaps with time, Vadam would gain his own reputation and name based on the superstitious beliefs these aliens had. 

The superstitious of the Turian pirates seemed to think the chief was one of their spirits sent to punish them.

The rare Asari pirate Vadam had encountered didn't really know what to think of the silver-armored being with the intent on their base's permanent destruction.

The Vorcha growled in animalistic fury, attacking with poor strategy or teamwork, while the Batarians cried out that demons from one of their folklore legends had come to slay them.

The Krogan were the exception; they didn't care what they were or what to name them. They just wanted something to fight, and the chief and Vadam had no issues obliging their interests.

The chief tossed a concussion grenade into the room, which would deal with the explosives trapping the entrance. After it had detonated, he sprinted inside and raised his dual SMGs, three to the left side, two to the right side, and one Krogan warrior in the center.

He unloaded both weapons on the Krogan warrior, perforating his head with rounds. The chief then moved both weapons in either direction, taking down the last five opponents with quick bursts to their heads.

Checking the lead Batarian's omni-tool, he found it contained the security codes to the base's doors. It would save him the effort of prying them open.

Turning, he walked throughout the base, searching for any prisoners, only finding several pirate stragglers. Before he could put them out of their misery, Vadam had appeared and silenced them with a quick plasma round to the head. After finding no more stragglers, the two soldiers would come across a sealed-off door to a small dead-end cave. Inside there were four people, all of whom were pressed against the wall farthest from the door.

Two human children ranging from eight to nine years old and an Asari youngling no older than thirteen, all huddled behind a human woman who looked to be in her late forties.

The three children continued to remain huddled behind the woman who stood with a straight back and a sharp gaze; the duo and the woman stared at one another for several seconds… Then the woman spoke.

"If you have come to raid this place, then I assume your group was looking for new slaves, so march us to your ship, take us to a market, and be done with it already." She said, with venom in her voice, the children pressing in even tighter behind her with fear in their eyes.

But the green-armored giant said nothing in reply. He simply tossed the omni-tool with all the base codes into her lap. Without a single word, the duo turned to leave… Pausing before they exited the room, Vadam spoke.

"The pirates had several crates of rations in their storage room on the other side of this base. They will feed you until an Alliance or Turian patrol arrives to investigate the beacon I've activated." With that part said, they left, leaving the now very confused woman and wide-eyed children to sort out what strangers words entailed.

Outside the base, Linda activated the encrypted distress signal upon receiving a message from the chief telling her that the mission was completed. As the pelican dropped to the surface, they boarded the dropship, leaving twenty-seven dead pirates and a small group of now-former would-be slaves.

Returning to the Forward Unto Dawn, they learned that the Hunters were nearly complete with their assigned mission and would be returning soon. The Chief reported the results of his shields test against enemy weapons fire to Cortana and what his weapons effects were on hostiles, giving her the relevant data she was after. 

Once that was done, all three soldiers went and ate a light meal in the mess hall. They had one more target to take out, a pirate staging ground.

It was manned by over fifty hostiles, maybe more. They would be using heavy weapons for this assault; the chief would take a shoulder-mounted plasma cannon and another weapon that he hadn't fully decided on yet.

Vadam would bring one of the very few gravity hammers they had on board while Linda would be able to bring her custom-made sniper after finally convincing Cortana. 

After finishing their meal, Cortana spoke through the ship's speakers.

"Guys, the two walking tanks are back; they have reloaded their weapons and are ready for another fight.” All three of them stood up and left for the armory. While the ship began the process to enter slipspace en route to their next destination. They were confident that they would find a way home, and while they figured out how to return, they intended to do as much as possible to help this galaxy's humanity prepare for a bleak future as he could.

All without anyone realizing just who they were or where they were from.

Chapter Text

While in slip-space transit, Cortana and the Huragok were busy with a new project they had started some time ago. They were attempting to implement Energy Shielding onto a UNSC Marines armor. Cortana hoped that if this project is successful, then they could offer the Marines back home better protection if they were still fighting against remnants of the Covenant.

Too many soldiers had been killed due to the technological superiority of the Covenant, but with this invention Cortana hoped to even the playing field.

She was glad that they had a lot of the required materials to conduct such experiments. So far, the experiments have shown varying degrees of success. While not as strong as the Spartans or Arbiter’s shields, it was still leagues above than what they had before; which was nothing.

With her current experiments being a complete success, Cortana turned her attention back to the bridge. Based on her calculations they would arrive at the pirate base within the hour. She couldn’t help but chuckle to herself as untold amounts of mischief could be seen in her eyes, promising anyone who triggered her wrath would be punished with no mercy. 

Within the Outer Reaches of the Terminus Systems, a "galactic wealth redistribution agency" was awaiting the arrival of the next scheduled group in order to unload, repair, re-arm, and re-supply them.

They would send the aforementioned group back out to the hundreds of independent and corporate colonies. As well as dozens of highly trafficked trade routes used by the Citadel's when making deals with the Terminus Systems.

Heavy traffic was usually a sign of heavy resources and lots of expendable personnel, most of which were on heavy cargo haulers sorely lacking in sufficient defenses.

But so long as they weren't too greedy and the right political and bureaucratic gears were greased with wonderful lubricant that was blackmail and bribery, the Security Fleets would ignore them in favor of deterring and discouraging higher risk factors.

The higher risks being designated by the those political and bureaucratic entities of course.

The facility's VI monotonously scanned the surrounding star system for hostile element zero signature of a ship's Mass Effect Drive. It found none, none but friendly company vessels that is, each broadcasting their status and IFF for the base to peruse at its leisure.

The Batarian and Mercenary groups of the Terminus were far more organized than the Citadel Council and STG can and would ever publicly admit.

The Batarian Faction were the current managers of this illicit facility, for how long this would was debatable. The neighboring faction backed by the Blue Suns were interested in trading one of their bases for this one in order to gain better access to a Turian Trade Route. A route which, thankfully, the current owners were not very interested in.

The company officers present on the base knew that if the negotiations held on Omega were to fall through… well, they were 100% certain a hostile takeover from the Blue Suns' faction would occur. 

Which would likely trigger a full-on turf war. To make matters worse, the Blood Pack would surely use such a war in an attempt to gain more strength and territorial gains to overshadow Batarians, Blue Suns, and all other groups within their line of work.

This was undesirable outcome for both the Batarians and the Blue Suns, and which why negotiations were being held at Omega under the watchful eye of the notorious self-declared pirate queen, Aria T'Loak.

The current powers didn't want to disrupt the current balance of the Terminus systems, which would be bad for business. No one wanted the Turian's taking advantage of the chaos of the turf war and lack a united front to swoop in and subjugate entire swaths of the galactic territory.

Even the Salarians and the Asari were fearful of such a power move and how it could break the current balance of power of the Citadel factions in the long-term.

The Humans were another obstacle added to the list and would likely hop on board with such a move, seizing entire swaths of adjacent territory and backing the Turian's to the hilt with their rapidly expanding and admittedly versatile military.

The Hegemony had even conducted an intelligence analysis dictating that all out war with the Humans was to be avoided at all costs.

No matter the political advantages on the Citadel it might or might not provide when discussing who had the colonization rights for the Skyllian Verge.

No one wanted a United Humanity focused solely on war, their predicted production would output anything. The humans being able to get an economy off the ground was frankly ludicrous for their territory size and population.

They would surely be beaten, and while taking out a key player like the Systems Alliance would be a pyrrhic victory, every year the projected cost for such an endeavor simply grew higher.

It was projected that within a decade the cost would be too high for even the most zealous of warmongers in the Hegemony to accept.

Back to the VI program that were in charge of searching for signals outside the spectrum that element zero was known to affect, they picked up a short flash of radiation behind one of the jungle planet's three moons.

It was a never before seen signature and faded away in a manner that such signatures were not supposed to do. However, because of their limited functions, the VI logged it as a minor glitch in the scanning systems, systems that clearly needed a long overdue maintenance.

As the VI continued its tasks of periodic scanning. It failed to register the object that had come around from the second moon's horizon. The foreign object committed adjustments in its own trajectory and then fired three, incredibly, fast missiles at three pirate frigates that were sitting in orbit.

The VI didn't even get a second to look, it wasn't in its limited programming to notice. Because that was a job for the strategic VIs on the base and the ships in orbit to deal with.

The three missiles bobbed and weaved as they entered the point defense lasers' range of the three ships in orbit. The lasers were absorbed by strange shimmering barriers, which seemed to hug the outer shell of the missiles.

The unidentified payload of the weapons slammed into the three pirate vessels, punching straight through their outdated kinetic barriers and thin ablative hull plating.

With three consecutive blooms of light born from high explosive detonations, the three pirate frigates ceased to exist. Without slowing to even admire its' victory, the strange hunk of metal with thrusters on its backside, punched to full throttle and accelerated.

Speeding over to the base below, which was only now being brought to emergency status because of current events. The vessel deposited five objects into low orbit.  All five objects were set on a collision course for the planet's surface as the ship accelerated out of sight.

It would hide behind a different moon in orbit of the jungle world until the dominoes set in motion stopped falling.

On-board the vessel, an advance AI and a biological supercomputer were celebrating the success of equipping covenant drop shielding to the three archer missiles they had just field tested. Another successful experiment in reverse engineering covenant shielding technology. 

The five objects in orbit had began their rapid descent towards the planet's surface. Their trajectory dead set on the base below.

The five falling stars were about to bring doom to all pirates currently below them, for safely tucked onboard each of the five pods were a warriors' intent on slaughter.

Bracing for the imminent impact and the certain battle that followed, they entered atmosphere, appearing as triple flaming comets dead set on bringing their judgement to the pirates below.

The Base was in utter chaos, at least it was chaos according to the appraising eyes of the solitary Krogan wondering down the halls towards his post. He was not impressed. Everywhere that Wrukrax looked he saw incompetence, Batarians running about screaming inconclusive exclamations and profanities at each other, arguing about whether their ships in orbit had truly destroyed or not.

The few Salarians in the base were sprinting down the halls to their security stations and the communications hub like startled pyjaks, all the while trying to gain every crumb of knowledge on what was occurring, focusing entirely on their omni-tool's holographic screens of conflicting data.

Wrukrax couldn't help but chuckle to himself, the action hidden by his helmet. At least the blasted amphibians could keep him entertained by walking into things, not that he would ever tell them that.

He nearly gave away his laughter when one of the Salarians walked into a wall next to a door, having missed it by an entire foot, Wrukrax found the resounding thud of the Salarian's physical greeting to the wall to be very entertaining indeed.

The few Turians that Wrukrax had seen in his traversal of the halls were the most organized of this bunch of weaklings. Weaklings that Wrukrax believed made most of the base personnel.

He knew that he could beat them all without much trouble, for he was Krogan, and that alone should make the base staff respect him as a fighter and as physical superior. Most of the personnel gave him his due in the respect and fear me department. Those that didn't were too well protected by the higher ups, and they themselves know it… the jerks.

He exited the building and made his way to his station, located in front of the building which contained the officer's living quarters. It was a respectful job and it paid well, for Wrukrax that's all that mattered.

While guarding his post with a rather bored stance, the Krogan mercenary began to study the situation as best he could. His employers were freaking out? Big deal. The three frigates on standby in orbit were supposedly destroyed before any warnings could be transmitted and spread? Odd.

All of this effort, yet no sign of attacking fleet was in orbit?

Now things were getting interesting. As he stood there deep in thought, his instincts began screaming in his head, all pointing to a terrible feeling of premonition.

Looking in the direction his instincts were screaming, he saw one, two, three, four, no five? Yep! Five flaming dots in the sky.

'Don't know what they are.’ Wrukrax mused to himself, 'Probably just wreckage from the frigates in orbit?' He stared at the five flaming dots with slight concern, his gut instincts were screaming danger, to run, to retreat.

That kind of reaction hadn't happened since he and a group of other younger Krogan had foolishly hunted down an adolescent Thresher-maw, his instincts had saved his life back then, when they faced that cornered beast.

Screw his guard post, he was going to live long enough to face whoever had screwed with this base. Those five falling objects were not going to stop him.

With a loud roar, Wrukrax sprinted from his post and leapt for cover behind a stack of crates. The objects let out a hellish sound as they encroach the base from above. The sound ended when the five comets had slammed directly into the building that he had been previously guarding.

Completely flattening it and most of those who had been within it. Wrukrax certainly wouldn't miss the officers or the building for that matter.

As he peeked around the stacked crates, he watched as one of the three large objects became visible when the dust and smoke started to settled.

The strange pod, for it was obviously a pod, opened. The hatch simply blown off by a small explosion, followed with the hissing sound of released air pressure.

From it emerged a massive figure with green neon highlights and a shield for an arm. The surrounding smoke and dust swirled around it with a glowing green tint, making the monstrosity appear as a wraith… a ghost of death and vengeance.

The Krogan gave a roar of approval; his ancestors must be smiling upon him today. To have sent such creatures for him to fight, this was the dream of every true Krogan warrior, to fight new and worthy enemies.

Death did not mattered to Wrukrax, for to fight these creatures was a test of his strength, stamina and will. He would not falter, he was a KROGAN!

With a challenging roar, the young mercenary charged at the creature, screaming his rage and joy at the prospect of a good fight.

The Mgalekgolo had exited his makeshift drop pod and looked around through the irritating swirls of dust and smoke that seemed to engulf them. He could hear his bond brother nearby, starting his deeply hum of a song of sorrows and joys of battle.

Joining in on his brother's song, the Hunter moved forward through the dust and smoke in order to join in glorious battle. It heard the challenging roar of a primal warrior, no doubt one of the head crested ones that fought with fierce joy and wild abandon; by the sound of its roar, a young one at that.

Turning slightly the Mgalekgolo rose to its full height of thirteen feet, and gave its own powerful reverberating roar to the challenge of the eager head crested warrior.

To the young one's credit, it gave no sign of fear or hesitation, but instead cries of reckless joy and rage for the upcoming fight.

The Hunter decided to indulge this brave one in a short battle before its death, so as to satisfy its need to indulge in a glorious fight. This one was brave, facing a Mgalekgolo without fear, it had earned a worthy final battle.

Charging the Mgalekgolo, the Krogan bodily slammed himself into the Hunters front chest plating, too his credit the nearly 450 pound reptilian managed to make the Mgalekgolo take several steps backwards to fully absorb the impact.

Pushing its shield between itself and the Krogan, the Hunter slammed its shield forward and knocked the Krogan a couple yards away from the bond brother.

The Krogan quickly got back on his feet, laughing all the while and charged the lumbering  titan with the intent on killing or being killed by a worthy enemy.

After several minutes of the best and finest fight in his life, the Krogan lay bloodied and broken before the feet of the mighty creature.

With one last roar of an un-surrendering warrior the Krogan rose and entered its specie's famed blood rage, smashing its body into the titanic Hunter and desperately clawing at the Mgalekgolo's armor.

The Hunter knew it was time to finish this, the fight was over; its adversary had fought with great strength and a raging courage. The head crested one had earned an honorable and quick death.

Smashing its shield downwards the Hunter slammed its assailant into the ground and stood over the adversary, thrumming respect and honor it spoke some of the words it had learned in Human tongue.

"You have fought in honor and distinction; know you shall be remembered in our song."

With its declaration complete the Hunter raised its shield to deliver the final blow, pausing at its highpoint as the Krogan began to laugh.

"It was an honor to fight one such as you, creature.” the Krogan stated between laughs as it coughed up its own blood. Closing his eyes, the dying Krogan relaxed as the Mgalekgolo brought the large shield down, landing the killing blow.

Ending his life in the most honorable way a Korgan wanted to go out. 

Delta Team, new name chosen by Cortana, sprints down a hall, wielding dual plasma rifles as they mowed down any opposition they encountered. Reaching the base's main security and control center, Chief and Linda took aim at the closing doors and fired streams of plasma rounds into the metal.

The heat of the plasma bolts were more than enough to partially-melt and weaken the metal doorway; the half ton weight of the Arbiter slamming into the door afterwards did the poor entryway in.

Smashing through the armored door, Delta Team opened fire on the occupants, surgically killing seven pirates who were manning multiple stations within the room.

Walking to a security systems hub, the Chief copied all data in the base's mainframe before wiping it completely; effectively destroying any electronic records of their presence, obscuring their origins and abilities from the rest of this galaxy.

Cortana called it Operational Security, but the Chief liked to call it maintaining the tactical advantage.

For an enemy who didn't know how you operate, was an enemy who couldn't counter you with targeted tactics.

The galaxy would catch on to their existence at some point, but knowing that something exists and knowing how that something operates are two different things.

Without the later, any force they faced would be operating on the wrong assumptions based on their own experiences, handing the tactical advantage over on a silver platter. Once he dealt with the sensor data from the few devices that their jammers could not block. Delta Team continued to clear out the main structure of the staging base.

Meanwhile the Hunters were wreaking havoc outside. Vehicles had either been smashed or burned to a molten slag by bright emerald beams of plasma.

Turret encampments fired fruitlessly as the pair's heavy armor and augment shields, which either absorbed or deflected the high-speed metal shavings. The turrets were then smashed or turned to molten slag by plasma as a recompense for their poor attempt at defying the inevitable.

The Mgalekgolo fought with a single purpose, smashing, and destroying all in their way.

They left none of their enemies alive, leaving naught but the dead bodies and utter destruction behind them, advancing forward for the prize of victory.

They fought onward, vibrating one of their many battle hymns; whilst they systematically destroyed the Base's exterior.

In the interior, Delta Team fought calm and collected, room by room, door by door, hall by hall. Conserving ammo, landing headshots whenever possible, using close quarters knife skills to kill when able, look up, check catwalk, check ductwork, no move was wasted.

Silent, swift, efficient, and utterly deadly. The team killed their enemies, moving at a quick pace while making little to no noise despite two members weighing half a ton armor.

Within two hours' time the base was cleared and clean up procedures began. One of the Hunters went up and smashed the cages for the large number of slaves they had found in the third of the four hangers.

The other Hunter assisted Delta Team in gathering most of the pirates' bodies in order to pile them in neat orderly stacks within the command center.

Leaving behind a remotely triggered pulse grenade in the middle of the room to wipe the data off the Pirates' omni-tools when they left.

Meeting up with the second Hunter, Delta Team received a slight surprise. A group of young Asari were standing around the Mgalekgolo. The bravest of them touching the creature's shield arm with the tips of her fingers, with a very confused huff the Asari stopped what the Team assumed was an attempt at sensing the Hunter's consciousness.

She turned towards the newcomers, staring at them, the Chief pointed towards the first hangar by the landing field.

"Food and water are there" he stated "A patrol will pick you up in several days' time." With that said, his team and the  Hunters left the hangar and entered the fungus like forest.

Cortana already a phantom dropship awaiting them at a nearby clearing. Leaving the very confused group of Asari behind them, the five headed to the clearing and boarded the vessel. Dusting off the ground with its thrusters at max the phantom set course to return to the Forward unto Dawn.

Three pirate positions had been wiped clean. They would hang low for the time being and play defense instead of offense, it was time to secretly defend colonies and civilian ships while gathering some much needed data.

They did not need the attention of the galactic powers just yet, not until they could either get reinforcements or build up their own.

Entering the Dawn's cryo bay, the Chief and Linda approached the pedestal that had become the semi-permanent home of Cortana.

"Give me the current rundown of important events." John requested.

"Well Chief, in the past twenty-four-hours I have been rather busy. Part of me has been working with the Huragok, oh, that name the Mgalekgolo gave him, it has decided it's useful, meaning it will keep it."

The Chief and Linda nodded, "So you and inquisitive creation have been busy with more than just retro fitting makeshift shield emitters onto the archer missiles?" Linda asked. 

Cortana smirked "Yep, those rockets worked like a dream."

But her smile faded, and she soon became serious. "Yes, we have been busy; my scheme with the Quarians has been set in motion." She smiled, "It should give me the results soon, plus me and Inquisitive have been making progress on that other project we talked about."

"In other news, I have blocked the Geth from discovering me on the extranet, but I fear the Geth Collective may suspect that I exist. However, they know of next to nothing of me or my capabilities. I'm just glad it wasn't the splinter group that were the ones to find small traces of my existence."

"The temporary bridge is not that far from being mounted on the front of the Dawn, it should happen within the next two weeks at most. We are currently on our way to an asteroid field that orbits around a gas giant.

Once we get close enough,  I can deploy some sentinels to gather the necessary resources needed to finish the bridge, along with any other projects." Cortana sighed.

"Inquisitive and I were hoping to study some of this universe's technology, however my tests and calculations make it abundantly clear that any refined element zero in slip-space transit could be utterly catastrophic in nature. We also do not want to be traced by anything able to sense element zero in use.

Splintered Geth believe that something called the old machine's, or Reaper's as named by some, could somehow detect the mass shift of the element in use over massive distances. I have no idea what these Reapers are, but I will do my absolute best to find out everything there is to know about these so called “Reapers”. 

Besides that, some of their technology is subpar to ours and impractical to our use. But they have us beat in some medical applications and microcomputer designs. Their omni-forges are also interesting, but we have better fabrication techniques in the long run, their stuff simply doesn't scale very well." Cortana crosses her arms and really stares at John and Linda. 

"I would suggest setting up a ground base; in order to study this stuff hands on. There may be some ship related design ideas that I can learn, that could possibly be utilized without element zero itself causing issues with Slip-Space transit."

Finishing her main report Cortana looked up at her longtime companions, who she now calls family. "That's all you two, anything else you wanted to talk about?" They shook their head in the negative, with Linda giving the equivalent of a spartan smile with her fingers on her faceplate as they left to go rest. They would sorely need it for the upcoming hands-on manual repairs to the ship.

They weren’t necessarily needed but they refused to not be doing something productive and they found they liked the construction work, they had discovered that the duo likes to learn new things, it was relaxing.

[Two Days Later]

A smile appeared on Cortana face, she was just about to let the crew know that they were nearly at their destination. Once they arrived at the asteroid field, Cortana would immediately sent out sentinels to gather precious materials. That’s when the ship’s sensors discovered something…intriguing.

A signal of some sort was being broadcast. It wasn’t far from the asteroid belt they were supposed to salvage. That’s not what concern her, what did concern her was the fact that the signal appeared to be UNSC in origin! Cortana felt her jaw dropped as her functions ceased for one complete second.

’UNSC Forces? Here? In this strange galaxy…could it be that my Spartan’s luck has yet to run out?’ Cortana couldn’t stop the smile that form on her digital face. She was happy! It wasn’t just the them in this strange and backwards galaxy after all. She needed to find where the signal was coming from, she needed to find it fast.

In a manner of seconds, Cortana had found where the signal was coming from and readjusted her course to head for the coordinates of the signal.

They would be there in a manner of minutes, which would give her enough time to tell her spartans and Arbiter of this profound discovery.

”Guys, can you please come to the bridge? I found something that would could help us immensely in the coming weeks.” Cortana spoke through the Dawn’s speakers. Seconds later, she was joined by the three members of Delta Team, all three soldiers donning their armor and weapons of choice.

Feeling giddy, she appeared on the pedestal with her hands behind her back. On the outside she appeared calm and collected, but on the inside she was crackling like a madwoman. She hoped that the signal would lead to more UNSC friendlies.

”Cortana, you said you found something while on route to the asteroid field?” The Chief was the first one to ask. Cortana nodded, trying to keep her excitement down until the big reveal. “That I did John. While on route to collect more materials, the ship’s upgraded sensors picked up on a signal that looked undeniable familiar in my memory cores.” She could practically feel her spartans become still as statues. “Is it UNSC?” Linda asked, her usually emotionless voice held something akin to hope?

Cortana didn’t really know. She knew that the spartans rarely showed emotions, but the ones she had were slowly turning human again. They still act like machines from time to time, but they started to show emotions more and more. She believe it was in part of the bond that John and Linda had with each other, the presence of the Arbiter and his never ending want to spare with the demons. So far, the spartans were winning by two matches. But that doesn’t mean that victory had come easy. Vadam had more than earned the fearsome reputation he was given by some unfortunate humans that came across his path. All in all, she was glad that they were getting along.

”Yes, it is UNSC. We are en route as we speak. I suggest you three head down to the pelican bay and stand by. Yes, I do mean you as well Arbiter.  You’ve done more enough in our eyes to be a part in this. Besides, we need to show that the alliance between the UNSC and Sangheili still exists.” Vadam made the equivalent of a human “hum” before leaving with the spartans. As soon as they left, the Forward Unto Dawn dropped out of slip-space. As soon as she exited, Cortana  began abusing the ship’s sensors to get an accurate reading of just where the signal was coming from.

Luckily for her, she didn’t have to wait long as the results came back fairly quickly. The UNSC vessel that was sending out the signal was approximately 500,000 kilometers from their current position. Setting the Dawn’s propulsion engines to the max, she piloted the Dawn towards the UNSC Vessel. As the repaired UNSC Frigate approache the coordinates, Cortana couldn’t help but hope, hope that this wasn’t some type of ruse. When the Dawn was about 500 kilometers away, she opens the windows and saw the UNSC ship that sent out the signal on an encrypted channel that only other UNSC vessels could decipher. 

It was a Phoenix-Class Colonial Support Vessel. The Phoenix-class is 2.5 km long, making it one the largest ships ever built by the UNSC. The Phoenix-class colony ships were designed to transport thousands of colonists from Earth, or one of the other Inner Colonies. They also came equipped with terraforming equipment to alter the existing atmosphere and/or biosphere to become compatible with human habitation.

But the Phoenix-Class in front of her was one of the most famous modified ships that had been turn into warships. It was declared missing after the Fall Of Harvest with all crew members feared dead. On the side of the Phoenix-Class, in huge white letters.

UNSC Spirit of Fire 

The refitted ship could carried vehicles, troops, and supplies as support for ground forces, as well as the resources necessary to build bases. After being converted, the Phoenix-Class had truly became an extremely effective troop transport and orbital support ship, capable of carrying about 6000 UNSC Marines.

‘Oh this is a god sender! They will finally have the resources needed to establish a proper base in this galaxy. It would be our only stronghold but will be properly defended. Perhaps I can also build some Orbital Defense Platforms once we find a suitable planet. The possibilities are endless!’ Cortana couldn’t even wiped off the grin on her digital face. She had to let the spartans and Arbiter know of this discovery.

Turning on the ships speakers, she chose her words carefully. “Guys, I have identified the UNSC vessel. It’s the Spirit of Fire, I repeat it’s the Spirit of Fire.” The enthusiasm could be heard in her voice despite trying to hide it.

”…Roger that Cortana. What would you like for us to do?” The Chief asked. “Take a pelican and attempt to get on board the ship. Perhaps the crew is still alive. I’ll be tagging along with you, if the crew is alive then they would want to know of everything that has occurred since they disappeared.” Cortana left no room for talk. She was going with them and her spartans couldn’t stop her even if they wanted to. As soon as the three occupants boarded a pelican, with the Arbiter piloting the craft, Cortana appeared on board as well. After calibrating a few systems, Cortana opened the bay doors allowing the Arbiter to lift off and exit the pressurized deployment bay.

As the pelican slowly approached the drifting vessel, Cortana couldn’t help but feel excited. What happens next is anyone’s best guess. 

On Board The UNSC Spirit Of Fire

"Captain, Wake Up."

Within the Spirit of Fire, light's began flickering on, engines whirred with energy, and multiple turrets and weapons systems fired back up.

The crew within the ship began waking up left and right from cryosleep as one man listened to the ship’s former AI explain what has occurred in years they’ve been gone.

"I think something terrible happened. The Spirit of Fire is in a situation that I… could not anticipate." The personnel of the ship started to move about quickly, each going to their assigned duties while a few walked by empty pods with silent hand placements in gestures of respect.

"I'm certain Professor Anders would enjoy that level of Admission, so let's keep it between us, shall we? We've been adrift for just over 22 years, I made quite a few repairs while you were sleeping so the ship systems are one hundred percent."

Crewmates began conversing, going about their business and eating to get their energy back to snuff as the man in charge of the ship continued to listen on to the recorded message with a solemn visage.

"Cryo worked well and med stats on all remaining crew are green. As for me, well… regulations are clear about final dispensation at the end of an AI's Seven-year lifespan."

The man let his shoulder sag slightly, yet he remained standing.

"I took care of my own arrangements rather than wake you. I didn't want to… well… I hope you can forgive me for this final breach in protocol."

The man couldn't help but smirk lightly at the comment.

"It has been a pleasure working with you, sir. Do look after everyone for me, won't you Captain Cutter? Serina out."

And with that last statement, James Cutter, Captain of the UNSC Spirit of Fire lay a hand over the terminal where he heard Serina's final goodbye. Rolling his shoulders a moment later, Cutter placed his Captains hat on and marched out of his personal quarters going right to the bridge. Along the way, Spartans 092 and 130 fell in step with him walking right behind him until reaching the bridge.

"We found something just a few kilometers out from the northeast side of our ship." Professor Anders, the ship's expert Xenobiologist, was already hard at work.

"Good morning to you too, Professor." Cutter said casually.

I'm sorry Captain, I just." Anders quickly turned around to face what the ship was picking up on their radar. "The sight of waking up to a UNSC Frigate fills me with a hope I haven’t felt in a long time.”

James Cutter gave the UNSC Frigate a hard stare. He was all too familiar with the site since the start of the war. So many questions ran through his mind. The War, Humanity, Harvest, the Covenant. All that had to wait with the pressing matter before them. Displayed on the holographic table was the image of a UNSC Pelican. It appeared to be heading straight towards them. Both Captain Cutter and Anders looked on as the pelican stopped just a few kilometers away from the Spirit of Fire.

“Let’s get us some answer Anders.” Cutter said as he hailed the pelican, not taking long to receive a response back.

“This is UNSC AI CTN 0452-9 Cortana of the UNSC Forward Unto Dawn, do you read me loud and clear?”

”This is Captain Cutter of the UNSC Spirit of Fire. We read you loud and clear Cortana, glad to finally hear a friendly voice.” Captain Cutter said, smiling while Cortana lightly chuckled on the other end.

”Same here Captain Cutter, permission to come aboard, sir? You’re going wanna hear this in person.

‘What those that mean?’ Captain Cutter thought before answering Cortana. 

"Permission granted, Cortana. Head for Hangar 2. Should be more than enough space for your Pelican."

Captain Cutter stood alongside Professor Anders, and the three Spartan-II's that make up Red Team in the hangar bay as they watched a Pelican fly in and land in a spacious area cleared specifically for the ship.

The rear ramp opened up, lowering down to the floor with two spartans decked in green Mjolnir Mark-VI armor walking right out. The spartans approached the assembled group awaiting him, promptly saluting them all. As they saluted Captain Cutter, the five spartans stared at each other. John and Linda were closed to the famous members of Red Team, having trained beside them when they were just kids.

The three members of Red Team; Jerome, Alice, and Douglas couldn’t help but whisper the names of the Spartans that stood in front of them. Despite wearing what appeared to be a more upgraded version of the Mjolnir Armor, the three members could never forget the two spartans they grown close with. 

"Sir, Master Chief Petty Officer reporting, callsign Master Chief, 117." The Spartan-II said in a crisp militant manner. Close behind was Linda. 

“Sir, Petty Officer Second Class reporting, callsign Sharpshooter, 058.” Red Team saluted them back in kind with Cutter doing the same.

"At ease, Spartans." Cutter said. "Mind telling us what you're doing out here, Master Chief, Sharpshooter?"

"That's… a bit of a complicated question to answer, Captain." Linda answered plainly. "The better question is, sir, how did you all appear out here?"

The question was certainly not one of the assembled group was expecting.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Professor Anders inquired.

The spartans regarded each of them individually for a brief moment with him letting out a sigh.

"Cortana?"

"Yeah Chief?" An artificial feminine voice emanated out from his helmet speakers.

"Bring up everything we've gathered these past 8 Months." John instructed.

”Ah, don’t forget of what has occurred back home. Especially how we gained a valuable ally in the war.” Linda reminded the Chief. “Right that too, Captain Cutter and the entire group are gonna need a lot of proof."

"Proof?" Anders spoke up in confusion. "Proof of what?"

The spartans regarded all of them with an aura of stone-cold seriousness.

"To put it plainly, Captain Cutter, Spirit of Fire well… Welcome to another alternate reality." Cortana stated.

"We’ve been here for the 8 months and you're all gonna want to sit down for this one.” She turned back to the pelican. “Vadam! Time to come out, might as well get this over with. No use in delaying the inevitable.”

Now, the group thought that the surprises were done…but apparently not as a literal Sangheili exited the ramp and stood next to the Spartans.

’What kind of galaxy have we woken up to?” Captain Cutter thought as he felt a headache come on 

Chapter Text

Commander Jane Shepard slept soundly in her quarters aboard the SR-1 Normandy. The ship was currently on its way to the Terminus Systems. The reason for why the Normandy was heading to the Terminus Systems was at the request of an Asari political figure.

She had desperately beseeched them to find her sister. The asari political figure had claimed her sister was captured by a gang of some nefarious pirates.

Since the Normandy was going to be offered heavy recompense for their troubles, Shepard couldn't say no to the politician and had accepted the request.

They would search some several recently uncovered pirate outposts in the hopes of locating the captured sister.

Now well on their way to their destination, the crew aboard the Normandy was readying for the hunt. Shepard had been given two likely locations to initially search. Both of which, the blue-skinned politician claimed to have acquired from the STG.

The coordinates would lead them to two minor pirate bases and were in proximity to known staging areas for larger operations that had happened in the past.The bases were most likely slave cargo sites.

In which new slaves are dropped off and held for an indefinite amount of time until they were either sold to the Batarians or to independent worlds that allowed the use of slavery. The bases also acted as good hiding locations until the Turians patrol rotated them out or they responded to some other incident. But those incidents, more often than not, were contrived just to get patrols attention.

Then, the slavers would move their cargo unopposed. This was deemed as their secondary purpose, however. The main purpose was to be a rally point for a Terminus fleet to gather for two reasons.

They would either gather for a major raid or for defense against Citadel forces. The threats to the lawless zone uniting in its defense against Citadel incursion had ensured its continued freedom from the Council's control since the Krogan Rebellions, when the section had broken away as the rest of the galaxy degraded into complete anarchy. 

A guaranteed victory had ensured that the long-held status quo was maintained.

[On board the Normandy]

Shepard was having quite the fantastic dream. She was making the three councilors, along with a certain human ambassador, mop the floors of her beloved boot camp's restrooms. Just as the dream got good, the intercom blared loudly.

It was like the voice of an angry god, if an angry god sounded like a sarcastically snarky Joker, that is.

"Oh, Commander, dearest to my heart, a call awaits from one of our stupendous almighty leaders!" The pilot said.

Shepard was really coming to hate the sound of his voice.

"The oh-so-great and powerful Asari councilor, appointed by the goddess herself to one of the three greatest seats of power, has requested your presence in the conference room." He politely informed her.

Shepard sighed; she hated these early morning calls. According to her clock it was precisely 0230. She would need to have her coffee first before talking with councilor Tevos. Probably a quadruple espresso would do the trick. 

"Oh, and commander! Just to let you know… it's on a priority one channel." Joker cuts off the intercom with the darn pilot's chuckles being heard in the background. 

Shepard, who was now very much awake, front flipped out of her bunk. She sprinted around the cabin, doing things required to look properly presentable to the councilor. All the while she cursed Joker's name to hell and back.

She would have thrown him out the airlock and personally sent him off to hell to give the devil migraines in her stead. But she didn’t, as he was such a gifted pilot, but she was still tempted to do so anyway.

Joker knew it too. The man practically lived off of the annoyance of others like some sort of energy vampire. The more frustrated you were with him, the stronger he became.

But you couldn’t really be harsh with him because he never crossed a line. He simply did it enough to frustrate you to the ends of the galaxy and back.

Truly, pilot Jeff Moreau was playing with fire, knowing just how much to push someone without getting burnt.

Setting aside her anger at Joker’s antics, she finished all her preparations. Shepard made her way to the conference room. Upon her arrival she received the call, and the hologram of councilor Tevos shimmered into existence.

"Shepard, your last reports state that you’re headed towards the Terminus systems. I'll get straight to the point: the Asari Republics are asking for your assistance." Shepard couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at that.

"What do your people need me to assist with?" She asked with slight incredulity; the Asari were never this upfront. For them to be so upfront with her must mean that the pressing is indeed.

Tevos sighed, and looking rather grim, she explained the situation to the commander. 

"There was an Asari Maiden Ship that was on its way back from an exploration tour of Humanity's culture. The young Asari ranged from 19 to 200.

They were assaulted by pirates, and the commando guards were overrun by sheer numbers. The higher class aboard is being held ransom. The Asari of lesser standing are likely going to be sold as slaves. We have no scout fleets in the area at this time, and you are the closest one able to initiate a rescue." Shepherd’s mind immediately began thinking of whether or not to accept this request. But before her mind could begin weighing the pros and cons, Tevos spoke again. 

"The Asari Republic is ready to offer sufficient payment and future trade discounts for special equipment if you accept our request." Tevos waited for Shepard's answer while Shepard gave the request some thought.

"I accept this mission, councilor; my crew and I will do our best to rescue your people." She said with confidence.

The councilor nodded her head in appreciation. "We managed to track the communications that were sent when they demanded ransoms. They are close to a garden world on the edge of the Terminus systems.

But Shepard, it may just be where they bounced the signal. If that is the case, you will need someone who has a good understanding of technology to trace the signal from there."

Shepard merely grinned. “I have the perfect person for the job. If that's the case, don't worry, councilor; as I said, we will do our best to find your people."

After ending the call, Shepard moves toward the ship's cockpit. She had a bone to pick with a certain jokester. Upon arrival at the pilot's location, she thoroughly chewed him out and expounded upon him the proper way to wake a superior officer.

Mr. Moreau knew this, of course, but if he had to look forward to a lecture every time that he pulled something, Well, he might just quit doing it, maybe, possibly.

Eh, who was she kidding? He wouldn't stop. It was still a good feeling, though, being able to vent her frustration at the pilot. She finished her rant and then gave him the coordinates for the garden world, stating that after they found the politician's sister, they would search for the missing maidens.

Joker soon began cracking horrible one-liners on how the men and even some of the women on board would be overjoyed to rescue a whole group of Asari beauties. A statement that Shepard had to sadly admit. Asari maidens were not known for making wise decisions; they often made the Greeks look sane in some instances.

Shepard was not a happy woman; the entire job had been a setup from the start. The Asari politician had lied, as politicians often do.

She had sent them to find a missing and supposedly captured sibling. The sibling was actually a hostile pirate officer. She was blackmailing the aforementioned politician.

Family drama was truly a thing she wished she could avoid. When Shepard returned to the citadel, she would have had some very serious words with the Asari who set Shepard up in an attempt to have her sister killed via some false pretenses.

She should have just asked, not attempted this cloak-and-dagger business that they now had to deal with.

Shelving her thoughts on the matter, Shepard had Joker set the Normandy on course for the uncolonized world that was supposedly harboring a pirate outpost. She really hoped that the search for the missing maidens would yield quick results. She didn't want to spend too much time in Terminus space.

Shepard would rather avoid the pirate vessels if at all possible. The longer they stayed, the larger the chances of an unwanted encounter.

Yes, the Normandy had stealth capabilities, but if she saw a pirate ship, then she would end a pirate ship. The resupply costs for the main gun were currently a little over what the budget allowed right now.

She was saving for some upgrades she wanted to add to the hull, and she didn't need the extra logistics costs sucking those savings.

So, if she couldn't stop herself from killing a pirate ship, she could at least minimize the chances of running into one in the first place.

 Shepard was good at compromises like that.

They were halfway to their destination when the Normandy's sensors picked up two separate encrypted distress signals broadcasting on both Turian and Alliance frequencies.

The signals were coming from the system that contained the uncolonized world they were tasked with investigating. Well, at least the trip would yield some results in the end.

They have confirmation that something, or several somethings, were at their destination. They wouldn't arrive for another day and a half, so they would have to wait in order to find out what was happening at the location.

They were stuck wondering what they would find when they arrived, something that Joker was actually annoyed by. Which in turn left Shepard in a rather pleased mood.

Upon their arrival in the system, the signals were found to be originating from the same planet, the very world that the councilor had said the ransom broadcasts had been traced from.

This was proving a great start to the investigation. They aren’t stuck scanning every single planet in the hopes of finding the bases. 

The pirate bases were broadcasting their locations to them. The commander immediately set out to investigate. She would be taking Wrex and Tali with her; they dropped in with the Mako to search the first set of signals that had been detected.

While on approach to apparently a small mining facility, they were surprised they hadn’t been fired upon. In fact, when looking from afar, the base was lacking activity.

There were no movement signatures, no shifts in the EM spectrum denoting encrypted enemy communications. The place looked abandoned. It would have been convincing if not for several glaring issues that stated otherwise.

The freighter ship and perimeter defenses marked the place as occupied, but no sign of life could be seen outside the mineshaft. When they got closer, they found out why. 13 pirates lay dead, strewn around the outer buildings and the freighter.

Oddly enough, even though the freighter was empty, its computer systems data had been wiped.

The apparent pirates looked to have been killed by excessive burns and knife wounds, with some having signs of extreme blunt force trauma. It seemed that someone, likely a Krogan, had been using a blunt mace to cave in the rib cages and pulp the heads. No one possessed the force necessary to do this sort of damage with their bare hands.

As for gathering information on the attackers, there wasn't much to go off on. The wind had blown away any traces of footprints. Other than the bodies of the pirates, there was no trace of the attackers that remained. Nothing was stolen or moved out of place as far as they could tell either. The entire situation was strange and a little creepy. There were no signs of the enemy attackers taking casualties or even using cover.

Most of the pirates were killed where they stood, most of them lying in or near positions related to daily routines in a makeshift base like this. It was like they had died in seconds rather than in minutes.

The rest of the pirates lay dead behind a makeshift cover at the largest outdoor structure. They all lay in a large circle, around a place covered in signs of weapons fire from outside directions. The burn marks were rather odd and not something any of them had ever seen before.

There was no sign of return fire from the circle-like area, other than the lethal holes burned through all the surrounding pirates' heads.

"Keelah! Shepard, what could have done this? There are no signs I can see that could help us get a clear answer, no signs at all." The young Quarian tech specialist stated

"I can't even find a damn footprint. Whoever did this, I sure like their style; they’re certainly strong fighters." The Krogan warrior said. 

Shepard pulled herself from her musings, having been looking for an answer to what happened here. She gazed about, taking it all in to commit it to memory. After trying to commit everything to memory, she stared at the mineshaft entrance.

"I bet we will find undisturbed footprints in there, and perhaps some proper answers." She stated.

Making their way to the entrance of the mineshaft, they hacked the airlock and proceeded into the disguised pirate base. As they descended into the pirate base, they missed the body of one pirate. It was more hidden than the others, but her wounds were different from the others.

She didn’t die like the others; instead, there was a large, horizontal wound that was directly on top of where the heart was. There was a weapon on the market that matched the pirate’s wound. Leaving behind yet another strange mystery of what happened here. 

Upon reaching the end of the lift, they found a pile of dead pirates stacked neatly in a small room next to the entrance tunnel. The room was sealed by a simple program added to the door controller.

The group resealed it, as the smell was horrible, and whoever ended up cleaning this place would have to properly dispose of the bodies. However, the Turians were more likely to blow up the mine rather than actually touch the burgeoning biohazard. It was the more practical solution.

"Shepard, do you find this somewhat worrying?" Asked Tali.

"Worrying? No. Concerning? Yes," replied the commander while moving into the eerily dark tunnels.

Wrex huffed, taking up the rearguard as they proceeded farther in. Checking their corners and waiting for the usual ambush that always seemed to accompany these types of missions, it was rather unsettling when none came.

Suddenly the silence was broken by a child's laughter. Not the creepy, haunting, childlike laugh, but the real, life-infused, heart-lifting laughter of a happy child.

When the laughter stopped, Shepard called out, "Hello!? We are with the Alliance Navy and are searching for survivors. Is anyone there?"

Silence was her only reply. But only a few minutes later, footsteps could be heard slowly approaching them. A tall woman stepped around a corner, looking at each squad member quickly before sighing loudly in relief.

"I see you have a Quarian in your company; that proves you aren't pirates. Oh, thank God." The woman sat against the wall and began to tear up. "I stayed strong for the young ones; the little things needed someone to look up to and keep their fear at bay. Come out, children; they are not pirates!" The woman called down the hall she had just came from.

Three figures stepped out from behind the doorway at the end of the hall, a boy, a girl, and an Asari no older than 13. A very rare sight to see, as the Asari were very protective of their young. 13 was practically considered past the toddler stage to them.

The three kids remained silent, staring at their rescuers with wide eyes. That was until Tali gave a slight nod to Shepard and turned to the children.

The Quarian gave a slight squeal of delight and rushed over to talk, play, and generally distract the younglings, leading them down the hall while doing so.

Shepard was thankful to Tail for giving her time and space to question the older woman as to what exactly had happened here. Which might be unsuitable content for the children in the coming discussion.

Tali is very skilled in talking with children, and soon they were all talking to her. She was asking them all sorts of questions, and they were reciprocating in kind. Shepard had to admit that the Quarian was a natural at it, while she herself had never been good at communicating with the very young.

Wrex stood nearby, leaning on a wall, quietly chuckling at the Quarian's antics, whilst having his ears glued to the conversation between the commander and the woman.

"My name is Mariah Brooks. The children and I were on a small transport ship to go see some of the colonies that have been drawing in tourists recently. But we were attacked by pirates, and only I, two others, and the children survived." She stated.

She looked down at her feet and shook slightly. “The other two were killed for sport by a Krogan pirate who was visiting the outpost." She gave an uneasy look towards Wrex before Shepard got her attention. "He’s with me and not in any way a current fugitive of the law; please go on, Mrs. Brooks." Shepard said.

Mariah Brooks nodded, although she still looked uneasy at the presence of the Krogan. "I had to stay strong for the young ones to hide behind. We were going to be sold as slaves and would have been long moved from here if they hadn't come."

Shepard put her hand on Mariah's shoulder to reassure her, "I mean it, don't worry about Wrex there; he isn't a pirate. He is a good friend and one of the few decent Krogan I have had the pleasure to meet." She stated with confidence.

Mariah chose to believe in the commander and nodded her head again. Smiling, Shepard continued talking. "You did an excellent job of caring for these children. Mariah. However, I really need to know what happened here. Who are "they" that you referred to earlier?"

After a small moment to regain her wits, Mariah told them.

"About two days ago there was a commotion, shortly followed by screams and gunfire outside our door. The noises continued for a minute or two and stopped. I only heard one scream, which was cut short. Then something came to our door and opened it." She whispered.

Mariah paused and took a deep breath before continuing on with her story. "I had the children huddled behind me, those things… two of them looked like some sort of advanced mechs. The things just stood in the doorway. However, one of them was different from the mechs; I couldn’t see much of it, but it wasn’t one of the species I was familiar with. I told it, if its owners wanted us as slaves, it should take us to market already." She lifted her arm and slowly activated the omni-tool that was on her wrist.

"Instead of taking us to its owner, it tossed this in my lap and said it was the pirate officer's personal omni-tool. It had all the codes for the doors here. It told us where to find food and water. It said it was activating a beacon for Turian or Alliance patrols to find us. Then it turned and left with the mechs. We finally left our room an hour later." The woman took a deep breath before speaking again. 

"I found all pirates dead, stacked and sealed in the room next to the lift. They must have put them there… I can't say if it was just them or if there were more of them." Mariah finished her summary of previous events.

Shepard looked at the nearby wall, then turned back to Mariah and asked, "What exactly did the mechs look like?" The part of a new species at play here unsettled her a bit; she wanted to ask for more details but probably wouldn’t get much from the woman. 

Mariah answered. "They looked like a big man and woman made of strange armor. It was over seven feet tall and had five fingers. They had weird-looking weapons that weren't built into them but carried in their hands. They were both dark green and black colored, with little light green lights here and there in their armor's chinks and edges. They had a gold reflective face that should not have been as scary to look into as it was; it must have weighed a ton; you could hear it walking." Mariah sighed, looking up at Shepherd. 

"That's all I have to tell you." She finished.

Thanking her for the information, Shepard called the Normandy to report the situation and had Dr. Chakwas prep the med-bay for medical checkups on the new guests they would be bringing aboard.

After returning to the ship with four new refugees, Shepard took Tali and Wrex out yet again to check out the other, nearly identical, distress signal.

They were in no way prepared for what they found.

"What the hell happened here!" Shepard exclaimed out loud as she walked over to what was once a garage door… emphasis on was.

"Not the same as the other outpost, the last place had their pirates slaughtered effectively and with cleanness in mind. Whoever took out this place had no qualms with redecorating. They also didn't bother cleaning up like the other one." Wrex replied.

With Shepard's prior permission, Tail was recording everything in order to send it back to the Migrant Fleet. She had already gotten a copy of Wrex's recording of Shepard's conversation with Mariah Brooks.

The Quarian Admiralty had to be informed of these new occurrences. The second one being especially important to relay to them.

Someone was apparently fielding new robotics and weapons of terrible power, testing them on pirate bases within the Terminus.

Only known to a few, the Quarian Migrant Fleet had more ears to the ground in the Terminus than the STG did. It’s because their fleet needed to know what threatened their safety. The Fleet relied heavily on the lawlessness of the Terminus for its raw resources. They mine the asteroid belts while being guarded by the heavy fleet, which extends their ships' life spans over a hundred years.

No council interference meant no halting of a mining operation for critical resources. It had quite literally saved the Quarian ships twice in their three hundred years of wandering the stars.

The Migrant Fleet had a vested interest in the Terminus Region as it remained out of Citadel control. It was their go-to for resources they couldn't afford to purchase outright. However, the double-edged sword was the many dangers that the Terminus Regiom posed to the Quarians. Therefore, there is a need to find and counteract those dangers when they threaten them. To not learn of a potential threat in time could lead to the entire extinction of the Quarian species. They were down to just over 17 million remaining people. If the fleet fell, then the Quarians would as well.

They were only one mass casualty event away from not having enough people to support a long-term population. If they were ever able to actually settle another planet, that is. 

A planet that the Terminus Region could not offer them. All viable worlds they could theoretically settle on were held in either Council or Batarian space, both of which were uninhabitable for obvious reasons. Whatever these new types of weapons were that destroyed these pirate outposts qualified as a real possible risk to the Migrant Fleet and its safe traversal of the Terminus systems.

Tali would not let whatever happened here be deployed against her people, not if she had anything to say about it. Tali’s main concern was simple: manufactured mechs for security and war were always sold. The mere thought of the wrong people getting their hands on these advanced mechs was not a comforting thought.

What if every dictator and two-bit warlord were offered these weapons that could cause an untold amount of destruction? A new era of war that had been seen since the Krogan Rebellions had ended. The migrant fleet couldn't supply itself in that kind of environment; it would be forced to fracture into smaller groups, and that alone would doom them. Their main advantage was sheer numbers, not the quality of their ships; take that away, and they are sitting pyjaks.

After examining the remains of the grizzly tanks in the thoroughly demolished garage, the three of them began moving through the slagged base. They walked through the melted walls and torn-apart bulkheads. They looked around at the burned corpses lying about like debris, seeing more and more of them as they walked through the former pirate outpost. The outpost had been completely wrecked, room by room and wall by wall.

It was like an unstoppable juggernaut made of molten flame had waded through the premises, devouring bulkhead, door, machinery, and flesh, all in a direct path towards the center of this facility.

"Shepard, this worries me..." Wrex said, which is a rare thing for him to say. Meanwhile, Shepard and Tali remained eerily silent; the death and destruction were indeed horrifying to look at, much less walk through. The evidence of the attackers was just as lacking as the other base they had just visited, although for very different reasons. While the other location had a lack of evidence due to the professional nature of its attackers, whatever took out this outpost had too much evidence. It was an unrecognizable amount of data.

They had never seen or dealt with these kinds of weapons before. Not ones that could make these kinds of burns and melt bulkheads. Arriving at what had been the base's command and security center. They found the charred remains of four pirates, their bodies burned to a crisp, entire portions of flesh having turned to ash. The burns had eaten into the remaining flesh as if they had been subjected to a superheated sticky acid-like substance. Yet the telltale signs and smell of napalm or other chemicals were missing.

Tali grabbed an omni-tool off a Salarian whose arm was mostly intact, unlike the rest of him. She copied the data and sent copies to Shepard and Wrex. It might shed some light on the events that led up to the pirates' deaths.

Moving on, they heard murmuring up ahead, which soon cleared up into the sounds of hushed voices. Turning a corner, they found an entire bulkhead had been burned, torn apart, and then shunted aside. It left a room full of busted cages, wide open for all to see.

The three stood and stared at the fourteen or so people gathered around a crate with an Asari handing out rations. Everyone paused at the sight of the strangers. They continued staring at one another until Shepard stated that they were with the Systems Alliance. Cheers soon followed with excited questions and laughter from the former slaves.

Postponing any questioning until they could get everyone onboard the Normandy, Shepard had their elected leader, an Asari by the name of Emfinley T'miana, gather all the survivors before they were carefully escorted outside the remains of the pirate outpost for pick up.

They were not going to have a boring time listening to the interviews, Shepard thought to herself. 

Aboard the Normandy, semi-controlled chaos reigned in the shuttle bay. After their arrival, the refugees were taken by groups of two to the medical bay for a full medical checkup. Most had no issues, but some refugees were diagnosed with either dehydration or malnourishment.

Those that were diagnosed were kept under Dr. Chakwas's care until they could be transferred properly to the System Alliance. The rest had returned to the shuttle bay; mats had been laid out, and the majority were now asleep.

Shepard, Garrus, and Tali had made rounds asking questions, with Tali recording each conversation and sending a copy to the others' omni-tools.

The answers to their questions varied; most of the refugees saw two giant creatures or mechs that had armored heads, spine-like antennae scraping the roof while crouched down. Both wielded massive shields, as well as sporting a built-in glowing green cannon that fired burning green beams of light that nearly incinerated their enemies.

Emfinley, the level-headed asari from the second outpost, believed them to be some kind of experimental mech with synthetic muscle fibers for strength.

"You could see muscle-like flesh wriggling and moving under the outer shell whenever they shifted. It would help explain why they never spoke, instead humming and vibrating like some weird engine. It also would explain how they pulled apart that bulkhead instead of burning through it like they did the others we saw in the aftermath. No current living species is that strong." She looked thoughtful while tapping her arm with her fingers.

That’s when Emfinley realized something: "I don't have anything else to add. But there was a little girl; she doesn't speak much, but she might know more. The Mechs stopped in front of her cage first, and for a while they hummed at her like a glitched robot, terrifying the poor thing. She hugged me afterwards and wouldn't let go for ten minutes straight."

Looking around, Emfinley shrugged her shoulders. "I don’t see her here; I wonder if she went and played with the other young ones that were here before us." The Asari left to get some rest on the mats, while Shepard and Tali went in search of the child.

They found the children in the mess hall, eating food that was much better in terms of quality than the pirates' cheap rations. The group was joined by a young drell from the second outpost's group, who claimed to be nine years old. Upon asking where the girl was, they were directed by the drell child to the med bay.

Upon their arrival, they found their quarry to be sitting on a desk, kicking her legs back and forth, with a small smile on her face as she stared at the opposite wall, lost in thought.

"Hello, young one!" Tali said, but the girl didn't seem to notice, not until they got within her line of sight, that is. Once a girl saw them, she turned her head and looked at them with two blazingly bright, intelligent, and fiery green eyes.

Shepard smiled while Tali repeated her former greeting; the girl smiled at them and looked at Tali with a slight shake of her head.

She motioned with her hand to her ears and quietly whispered a barely legible "No... no hear," smiling a soft smile the entire time.

Tali, somewhat horrified at her blunder and without thinking, apologized with Quarian sign language. This language was used during spacewalks when the fleet needed maintenance or the ship's pressurization zone was disabled as part of a training operation. 

After finishing the hand motions, Tali realized the girl wouldn't know that particular method of sign language. Before she could hit herself for yet another mistake, she was floored when the girl replied to her apology in a basic dialect of Quarian sign language. Shepard watched the exchange and began to motion with her hands with the universal human sign language she learned at her N6 language studies before becoming an N7. Tali seemed to catch on, and both began to talk with the small girl, the conversation going something like this.

(Tali) –Hello. (Shepard) – Hello.

(Girl) –Hello, who are you?

(Tali) - Me T-A-L-I (Shepard) - Me J-A-N-E.

(Girl) – Me N-A-T-A-S-H-A

(Shepard) – We ask you questions?

(Natasha) Yes.

(Tali) – You learn Quarian hand-speak?

(Natasha) I learn from N-A-F-I; she looks like T-A-L-I.

(Shepard) –You know big creatures?

Natasha laughed and smiled at them with those intense green eyes.

(Natasha) – Yes.

(Shepard) -what look like?

(Natasha) – Big, alive.

(Tali) - Alive?

(Natasha) – Yes. Alive.

(Shepard) – Creature Scares S-A-D-I-E?

Natasha laughed again and looked at them. Mirth flowed from every movement of her body; both Shepard and Tali realized that this girl was an interesting oddity, seemingly knowledgeable beyond her years.

(Natasha) – H-U-N-T-E-R-S scare me no.

(Shepard) –Hunters? (Tali) -Hunters?

(Natasha) – Hunters kill monsters. Monsters take me away. Away from Daddy... Mommy...

Natasha’s face fell a little as a spark of sadness flashed across her eyes. But before Shepard could continue the conversation, Dr. Chakwas entered the room and immediately fussed at them for disturbing her patient.

The two women were lectured by the elder, all while Natasha merrily laughed at the whole situation.

The two women were lectured extensively; the doctor said that if they stayed, they would face the wrath of the goddess of the medic bay. Tali and Shepard decided to leave while they still had a chance.

The two women wave and sign goodbye as they leave the room, leaving Dr. Chakwas to deal with the giggling little girl who found the entire spectacle quite hilarious.

"Well, after searching through the electronic files from both outposts, I have found the location of where the pirates are holding the maidens." Tali said.

They were holding a meeting that Shepard had called for in the conference room. She wanted to hear everyone's opinion as they schemed their next move. Their resident technology specialist and youngest combat member had just revealed her success at locating the asari maidens.

She acquired key information only minutes before the meeting began.

"The base they are being held at is a four-day trip, on the other side of the Terminus systems." Tali concluded. The next person to speak was a surprise to everyone present.

"Did you get the camera footage of what happened at both outposts?" asked Wrex. The Korgan Battlemaster almost never voluntarily spoke at these meetings. He only talked when addressed by Shepard, who had a habit of including him in the conversation whether he liked it or not.

Everyone had seen Tali's footage of both bases and were wondering what these unidentified, and possibly experimental, weapons would look like. All were rather surprised when Tali gave an angry huff as her reply before elaborating further.

"I went through all the camera footage I could find. The attackers have some kind of jammer that blocked the cameras' specific wireless frequencies. Whenever they entered a camera's FOV, it went straight to static." Tali said, sighing in frustration.

"I only found a little bit from when the second outpost was attacked. Movement sensors put it at two attackers initially." She played the footage on the room's screen, showing two Turian pirates working on one of the grizzly APCs in the garage.

They watched as the alarms blared and the garage doors were opened with brute force from the outside. The pirates dropped their tools and hopped into the two Grizzlies' turrets. Then the noise came, a deep reverberating roar; the garage doors are smashed in, and the Turians open fire. A shadow moves in from beyond the doorway, and the camera faded to static.

Tali fast-forwarded the footage as the static faded, and the garage was in ruins. The grizzlies are downright destroyed. Everyone looked to be contemplating the unusual and rather surreal scene; it was honestly not a lot to go on.

Liara then spoke up. “The addition of an actual roar is interesting to a mech. Are they trying to add the machines capability for psychological effects? I have seen such odd things before, but that's usually a custom addition added to the VIs for the owner’s own amusement." She said.

Shepard agreed with the asari’s thoughts; it was odd, but not unheard of. They concluded the meeting with a brief on what would happen with the refugees. After laying out plans for dropping off the refugees and who would be on point for rescuing the Asari maidens, the commander dismissed the present crew, and everyone but Wrex left the room.

This left the Krogan time to think. He liked his space, but the cargo bay was overflowing with their temporary guests. Not an environment he wanted to be in right now, he might actually just move into the conference room now that he thought about it.

Less chance of… incidents. Shepard couldn't argue with that logic; he might as well move his things in before even notifying her. She could just pretend he wasn't there when she had her next call with that possible suitor of hers; it was obvious she liked them, what with the constant talking they did.

The war-proven admiral or captain, what happens when humans perform their courtship rituals, was just something Wrex didn't think he would ever understand.

He would probably need to tell her that the wise thing to do was marry the asari after doing the mind weld that the asari were so obsessed with. Everyone lives happily in the end, and that was what mattered… to the Krogan anyway.

They were humans; what did he care?

Grumbling at the idiocy of homo sapiens, the old battle master loaded the footage back on screen. The Krogan displaying skill in manipulating the footage. He made it show a zoomed-in, freeze-framed shot of a giant shadow in the doorway right as the camera's feed began to fade to static.

Pulling out a piece of paper, he thought back to a very strange meeting that had occurred earlier that day.

(Flashback)

Wrex walked towards the storage compartment from the medical bay. He had stored all his weapons and the scrap piece of ancestral armor in a locker there. Shepard had helped him reclaim it, even though the metal cuirass was worthless in combat. Ruffling in his locker, he confirmed everything was accounted for, then he added an extra lock. He didn't need any of the refugees stealing or messing with his stuff.

Krogan locks had some nasty surprises for anyone who thought they could bypass them. He was going to nap in the small storage room for now; the refugees were sleeping in his space, which was the shuttle bay. They were annoying to be around.

Upon opening the door to the storage room, Wrex groaned quietly in frustration; someone had set the refugee younglings to sleep in here undisturbed. He'd have to go look for a spot in engineering if there was a place where the engineers and technicians wouldn't disturb him. Which he honestly doubted.

As he turned to leave, his senses picked up a strange yet faint sound. It seemed to pull on his mind. It was calling him back into the room. 

Most Krogan would have put it off as a draft of air messing with them and left it at that. But not Wrex.

Wrex trusted his senses; they had saved his life more times than he could count. He had heard far subtler and stranger things with his six ears in the past. Slowly and quietly, so as not to disturb the four younglings sleeping, he snuck to the back of the room.

The faint feeling was coming from behind a crate; when he peered over said crate, he found himself peering at a female human youngling.

She was staring off into nothingness, and the strange sensation was surely... yep. Definitely coming from her.

The Krogan turned to leave the room, giving a curious guttural hum to himself on his way out at the oddity of the girl. The faint feeling had stopped when he was halfway across the room.

There was a quiet cough behind him, but he didn't stop as he had no real interest in conversing with the child.

Suddenly, Wrex felt the sensation return, this time a bit louder. Almost a whisper that one could barely grasp onto, it drummed on his ears, and he couldn't avoid looking back at the source.

It was instincts that drove him not to ignore the little girl; interestingly, not many things triggered a Krogan's threat sense like that. Not off of Tuchanka anyway. He finally stopped and turned around to see a sight that should not have been unsettling… yet it was.

Standing on top of the crate, the human child stared him down with those strange, green eyes…that really shouldn’t be able to glow like that. He couldn't smell any biotic potential on her, and his eyes didn't detect any signs of cybernetics. Apparently a genuine pair of human glowing eyeballs. Krogans could see into the spectrums humans couldn't. It made the oddities in human expressions stand out to them where others wouldn't notice.

But Wrex had to admit that this was a first in his experience. The stern expression on her small face would make others concerned; Wrex, however, merely chuckled.

"You got guts, youngling... heh. You definitely have a large one! To stare a Krogan such as me down." Both times he chuckled as she stiffened and seemed to focus on something else. The barely registered sensation would increase ever so slightly. The Krogan eyed her carefully for a moment when it happened, shrugged, and turned to leave the room.

The oddness of the little human didn't concern him; he had to go find a place to nap before he became grumpy. Besides the strange and stupidly suicidal youngling aside, he had been awake for far too long.

Nobody wanted to deal with a sleep-deprived biotic Krogan. Stuff would happen on this ship, and then he would get blamed for it in the debrief after said event happened. It was never his fault, of course, but since when did any other species accept that reasoning? Lack of memories of the event was apparently not a valid proof of innocence.

When he got to the middle of the doorway, something hit the back of his left leg. Slowly turning around, he stared at the strange green-eyed girl who now smiled at him. Reaching up with her hand, she offered him a simple piece of paper. He accepted it, assuming it was some sort of peace offering.

Children in general were just weird that way, surrendering themselves with the perspective of a great victory, having obviously driven the big monster away by staring it down.

Wrex didn't think he would ever truly understand them. But this youngling was different; she smiled at him, waved goodbye, and turned back to go to her mat on the other side of the crate.

She acted like he was inconsequential, and she could just turn her back on him whenever she pleased, declaring that he was not threatening to her at all.

So, it wasn't surrender; it was insulting a defeated foe all with a smile on her face. Wrex huffed in amusement; the little Kalros spawn was going to be a handful when she grew up.

He let her have her little victory and left to go finally nap.

After the door closed behind him, Wrex made his way to the elevator to engineering to hopefully look for a place to crash where he'd be alone. While in the elevator he examined the strange child's peace offering. It was interesting to say the least.

Wrex had heard the ship's pilot say that the elevator was specifically built to honor the humanities sloth pantheon of Gods. He did not really believe him until the third time he rode it, that is. The thing was likely slowing down just for him out of some form of spite. Maybe he had offended these supposed deities in some way, and they had cursed him with no sleep and long elevator rides. Not that he cared.

After the painfully slow elevator ride to Tali's kingdom came to a stop. Wrex watched the doors open only to see the chipper monarch preparing to enter the elevator. However, before he could exit the infernal machine, Tali brought him the bad news.

A mandatory meeting in the conference and communications room had been called; all of Shepard's friends and important crew members were to be there, no exemptions.

Grumbling curses under his breath, he waited for the elevator to slowly ascend to the proper deck. Tali shared in his frustrations by mumbling her own curses. Had been denied overclocking the lift's computer. Everyone hated the metal contraption, and yet Shepherd wouldn’t let anyone modify it to make it go faster.

Her friends wondered  if she was secretly a sadist and prayed for Liara’s safety if she ever managed to get with the redheaded commander. 

(End Flashback)

 Wrex unfolded the piece of paper the girl with fiery green eyes had given him. He examined the detailed drawing of a creature covered in armor with huge spikes on its back, a shield for an arm, and the other arm being a weapon of some sort.

The creature was drawn with neon green streaks swirling around the weapon it had for an arm. The girl was a tiny figure standing next to the creature's leg… putting the massive thing in perspective. It was big, even when accounting for the active imagination of a child.

Below it were two simple words. The first one had been attempted several times before being crossed out, as if the girl couldn't spell it correctly and was self-conscious of the fact. The second one was legible, though, and it simply said "HUNTER."

Wrex held the paper up and stared between it and the shadow in the outpost's garage door on the screen's frozen camera feed.

"Hmmm… So, you're not a machine, are you? None of you are." He examined both images for comparison again, still pondering the likelihood of his suspicions being accurate.

"It’s going to be an interesting future with a species like you about." Wrex said, grinning to himself at the thought. Chuckling to himself, the Krogan went on his way to show Shepard the child's drawing.

Without more solid evidence, Shepard wouldn't stop believing they were mechs, and a little girl's drawing wouldn't convince her of them being some new species.

How could such a thing be? They would have to crawl out of the ground somewhere and get to space, then magically avoid all mass relay surveillance systems put in place since the first contact scuffle with the humans. These systems were specifically designed to detect new species using the relay network. No one wanted another relay 314 incident.

But Wrex didn't really care if she believed him or not; she was his current commander, and all things were reported to her. besides, it was a nice drawing… It deserved some praise from someone who could appreciate it better than he could.

He was told that he had no taste in human art; it was obvious that the children drawing massive blobs with every color available on the paper were simply imagining what exotic explosions must look like. They didn't have to be capable of drawing recognizable shapes to be a genius. 

He recalls one time he had been paid to prevent a potential kidnapping of a diplomat's daughter. The kidnappers never made it into the building, but he had been forced to spend the rest of his time on retainer watching in case of a second attempt. His presence wasn't a detriment to the kids after they got used to him.

He did get a lot of amusement out of the staff, however, who practically pulled their hair out at his mere presence. He honestly doubted they were good picks to manage a child, much less dozens of little trouble magnets. But then again, what did he know? He was a Krogan.

Reminiscing on the good times, he shut down the screens in the room as well as the lights and then found the comfiest corner to look dead in. He threw himself down and immediately went to sleep. He slept so well he didn't even wake up when Navigator Pressley opened the door and thought he had stumbled upon a murder scene.

Wrex was content.

Chapter Text

{Flashback}

"Cortana?"

"Yeah, Chief?" An artificial feminine voice emanated out from his helmet speakers.

"Bring up everything we've gathered these past 8 months." John instructed.

”Ah, don’t forget what has occurred back home. Especially how we gained a valuable ally in the war.” Linda reminded the Chief. “Right, that too. Captain Cutter and the entire group are going to need a lot of proof."

"Proof?" Anders spoke up in confusion. "Proof of what?"

The Spartans regarded all of them with an aura of stone-cold seriousness.

"To put it plainly, Captain Cutter, Spirit of Fire well… Welcome to another alternate reality." Cortana stated.

"We’ve been here for 8 months, and you're all going to want to sit down for this one.” She turned back to the pelican. “Vadam! Time to come out; might as well get this over with. No use in delaying the inevitable.”

Now, the group thought that the surprises were done…but apparently not as a literal Sangheili exited the ramp and stood next to the Spartans.

’What kind of galaxy have we woken up to?” Captain Cutter thought as he felt a headache come on.

Captain Cutter, Red Team, Professor Anders, Master Chief, Linda, Vadam, and Cortana had moved the discussion to the Spirit of Fire’s bridge. To say that Cutter and the crew would be waking up to the discovery that not only had the UNSC survived the war but had also won it…

The feeling of pure relief was not something that could be described properly. It was unbelievable to say the least. The entire crew was abuzz, listening to the tale that the Master Chief, Linda, Vadam, and Cortana had regaled them with in the closing days of the war.

Right now, however, the Spartan-IIs were in a private meeting room conversing with one another. The topic being a very personal matter between the Spartans. Meanwhile, Vadam and Captain Cutter were busy conversing with Cortana on why exactly the Sangheili turned against the Prophets. 

"Reach fell?" Douglas-042's shoulders slumped after hearing Cortana reveal the bitter news of the fate that befell the Spartans home.

Alice-130 had her fists clenched with Jerome-092 leaning on the holo table in the room with his body unmoving.

"And we weren't there for it." Jerome spoke with a bitter tone.

"There was nothing that could be done, Jerome." John said softly. "Everyone was there." Linda stood on John’s side, one of her hands on his green alloy shoulder.

“We gave it our all…but it wasn’t enough. That doesn’t mean we made it easy for them. For every mile they gained, at least 1,000 Covenant soldiers fell.” Red Team smirked under their helmets. They didn’t doubt the bloodshed their brothers and sisters bathed in when the Covenant found Reach. They also knew who the chief was referring to.

"How many?" Douglas asked in a soft tone.

"I don't know." John admitted. "Linda and I haven't heard anything from Fred, Kelly. Last I heard, they were being deployed to Onyx for classified reasons." Linda hummed, her helmet tilting as she remembered being denied the reasons why the rest of Blue Team was being sent to Onyx. They tried to get her to go as well, but luckily she was able to stay by John’s side.

To be split up before the biggest battle in the history of the Human-Covenant would have been disastrous. John and she had gone through so much up, from escaping Reach to landing on the first Halo to facing off against an ancient parasitic life form. Managing to get back home, only to participate in the Battle for Earth and soon finding themselves back on another Halo.

There were a lot more events that happened, but her main point was there. John and she are a team, and whatever enemy they came across, they would handle it together.

"Onyx?" Jerome said, bringing Linda out of her musings. "Why would they go there?" Linda and John shrugged their shoulders. 

"Never found out." Chief shook his head. This left the Spartans in a bit of a somber mood.

"So for all we know..." Douglas began.

"We could be the last of the Spartan-IIs." Jerome spoke grimly, making Linda freeze as her grip on John’s shoulder tightened. John puts his glove hand on top of Linda’s, the two iconic warriors trying to find comfort in each other’s presence.

The five Spartans were silent for a few moments, thinking of the loss of their Spartan brothers and sisters.

"I don't think we're the last of them." 042 said eventually. This sudden declaration was a bit of a surprise to the others.

"How can you be so sure, Douglas?" Jerome asked. The Spartan-II only shrugged, regarding his brethren.

"If all of us are standing here right now, who's to say that others are not?" Douglas said with determination. "We have a destiny to fulfill after all. Our jobs are not finished." John, Linda, Alice, and Jerome regarded Douglas silently, with 092 chuckling to himself a moment later.

"Always the optimist." Red Leader muttered with fondness. "Someone has to be." 042 simply stated. John and Linda smirked underneath their helmets. Out of all the Spartan-IIs, Douglas was always the one who could lift their spirits in an instant. He possessed an uncanny ability of having a never-say-die attitude that always kept their brothers and sisters unshakeable.

Being a washout that got rehabilitated and properly augmented, this strong belief in destiny doubled with him being a source of constant motivation among the Spartans. His presence, along with Jerome's and Alice's, was severely missed for the 22 years that they had been MIA.

"So what's gonna happen now, John, Linda?" Jerome inquired. "The war's over."

"But the UNSC and humanity are going to need rebuilding." Alice said.

"There's likely the chance of Covenant Splinter Cells and the Brutes continuing the fight." Chief admitted. "An empire like that that had held out for so long?" Linda questioned herself, truly wondering just how the Covenant held stability for so long, especially when the Brutes and Sangheili always seemed to butt heads against each other. 

"Well, we’re not ones to go gently into the night." Douglas said, with the others nodding in agreement.

"For now, let's get all of you up to stuff with the Mjolnir armor." Linda stated. "The Dawn has the necessary tech to get your suits upgraded to the Mark-VI." John said, trying not to chuckle at Red Team’s excitement. 

"Waking up to hearing we won the war, on top of getting an upgrade?" Alice said with an eager tone. "Looks like Christmas came early for us."

While the Spartans were catching up with each other, Cortana and Vadam were briefing Captain Cutter and Professor Anders on everything that they had missed, including what they could do to help the Spirit of Fire get back into action. 

"It'll be nice to have a Slip-Space Drive back on the Spirit of Fire." Cutter stated. "Finding you, Linda-058, and the Master Chief was a godsend, Cortana."

"We share the sentiment, Captain Cutter." Cortana said brightly. "It's good to see one of the UNSC's best still alive and kicking."

"Still… to think you would encounter the same enemy we did so many years ago." Cutter muttered. "What did you call them again? The Flood." Both Cortana and Vadam shuddered. While Cortana had yet to describe her own experiences with the timeless one, Vadam could still remember how insignificant he felt when being held in its presence. He never wanted to feel like that ever again.

The Gravemind, it was truly a foe he could ever fully comprehend. He honestly doubts any mortal could. He could still ‘feel’ its presence on him, and he bet that the Spartans could also feel his presence on them as well. It isn’t a concerning matter for the time being, not after the Spartans had taught him to build mental defenses. He didn’t understand how it kept the voices at bay, but it did help nonetheless.

Meanwhile, with Cortana, her mood dampened as her digital form momentarily fizzled. "Yeah... the Flood." She said in a soft voice. "To think that's what caused the end of the war." Captain Cutter muttered.

"Well, that and the Sangheili discovering that their whole religion was a lie." Cortana stated sheepishly. At the mention of Vadam’s race, both Anders and Captain Cutter gazed at him. He still wore his Arbiter Armor, and Cortana doubted he would ever change it. It was growing on her. 

"Still, where does that leave us?" Professor Anders asked after tearing her gaze away.

"The war is over." Captain Cutter said. "But I feel the UNSC still has a need of us. But we currently don’t have a way home. Not to mention, we’re stuck in a universe vastly different from our own." The Captain turned to Cortana.

"You said that we could receive the slip-space drive the Dawn uses from the materials found in the asteroid belt that surrounds the Spirit of Fire, correct?"

"That's right." Cortana confirmed with a nod. "On top of that, we have some updated UNSC weaponry and Covenant tech as well. We can even update Red Team's Mjolnir armor to the standard MK-VI that the Chief and Linda carry."

Captain Cutter grinned. "Then we know what'll keep us busy for the next few days. Professor, Cortana, I leave it to the two of you to get the Spirit of Fire up to modern snuff."

"We'll get it done, Captain." Cortana said determinedly.

"Yes, Captain." Anders said, though with much less gusto, as she gazed at Cortana with mixed emotions. Cortana noticed her look and hummed, gaining some idea of why the brilliant professor was giving her that look. She had entered the ship’s systems and discovered that the ship’s former AI had entered rampancy. Acting based on the protocol set forth by the UNSC, she destroyed herself before she could harm her beloved crew.

Cortana, with her new upgrades, had a crazy idea. There were multiple fragments of the AI left in the ship’s systems.

It was enough to theoretically reactivate the AI and give her the “Gift of Self.” Granted, the AI’s capabilities won’t be as strong as Cortana's, but she would be stronger than her previous self.

Smiling to herself, she put her plan into motion. While it would take some time, it was worth it in the end, as having another AI on board would help immensely and speed up projects that she has kept on ice for months now. 

Cortana has a lot of work to do. 

It didn't take long for the Spirit of Fire's personnel to begin sending out crews to mine the resources from the asteroids. Meanwhile, Cortana had the drones and sentinels return with spare caches of UNSC and Covenant equipment. Cortana also found the materials to upgrade Red Team's Mjolnir armor.

The Spirit of Fire was surprised to find the usefulness of the Huragok. As well as the Hunters being found guarding the Huragok. It was definitely an interesting conversation for Cortana as she explained how the Hunters aren’t hostile and are actually working with them in helping the defenseless people of this universe. 

With the aid of Engineer, whose name was Inquisitive Creation, the engineers within the Spirit of Fire worked in tandem with the Huragok as they began incorporating the Forward Unto Dawns technology into the Phoenix-Class ship.

The Spirit of Fire was quickly gaining a bunch of new upgrades, many of the crew joking that they will have one hell of a homecoming once they find a way back home. 

It was strange for the crew. They had expected to simply get the slipspace drive and be on their merry way home, yet Captain Cutter seemed very adamant about getting these upgrades here and now. 

With so many upgrades, Professor Anders made the mention that the Fire was truly living up to its namesake of Phoenix. The ship was basically reborn for all intents and purposes as a brand-new ship, bigger and stronger than before.

It was a long several days, but after everything was said and done, the Spirit of Fire was reborn and ready to travel with the Dawn to its new home. Their new Slip-Space Drive was slotted in, and thanks to Inquisitive Creation utilizing what it had known from Covenant ships, It may not be as strong as the Forerunners, but once they settle down and Cortana actually starts to receive countless materials, then she could build a slip-space drive that actually rivals the Forerunners.

The crew waited with bated breath as Cortana, Cutter, and Anders, along with the Red Team, all stood within the bridge of the ship as they powered up their new slipspace drive. The Forward Unto Dawn would move first, followed closely by the Spirit of Fire.

Everything until now was going according to plan. Everybody hoped that nothing too drastic would happen, but just to be safe, all the crew members knocked on the metals of the Spirit of Fire. 

As the Forward Unto Dawn went straight into the portal, with the usual expulsion of radiation and energy being sent out as soon as the last bit of the ship entered Slip-space. The Spirit of Fire then opened a slip-space portal. As the ship entered, no issues or concerns occurred, making the crew sigh in relief. As the last part entered, the portal closed soon behind, leaving no trace of their existence besides the huge radiation burst. 

(During Dawn helping Fire)

The Normandy SR-1 was currently docked with a Turian patrol ship. Shepard did not want to drop off the refugees on a non-alliance vessel, fearing the captain would double-deal and sell the refugees off to pirates again.

It was only until Garrus had vouched for the Turian Captain's honesty and trustworthiness. With her fears abated, Shepard handed the refugees over to the Turian patrol, receiving assurances that many of the former slaves were going to be delivered to their rightful colonies.

With that off her mind, she headed for her pilot's current location, which was in the cockpit. She arrived, only to be confronted with the unnatural sight of a dead serious-looking Joker… She had to admit, it was kind of scary.

The pilot turned towards her and simply stated, "The location where the Asari maidens we are supposed to rescue is… well, it just started broadcasting the same distress frequency as the two outposts we visited yesterday. According to the Normandy's sensors and accounting for the time the signal traveled through space to get here, the communications staff believe it began only nineteen or so hours after the two outposts started broadcasting."

Shepard contemplatively wrapped her mind around this new information and came up with a theory. "Whoever is testing these new mechs has deployed several strike groups across the terminus systems simultaneously. Let me know if any other distress signals appear. Thanks for the info, Joker."

After leaving the cockpit, Shepard stood near the airlock, shaking the occasional hand of a thankful refugee; the very last one to leave was the enigma that was Natasha.

The little girl with beautiful emerald eyes stared up at Shepard with expectation, holding her hand out, palm upwards, as if waiting to be given something. Confused with what the six-year-old girl wanted, Shepard began speaking in sign language.

(Shepard) What do you want?

(Natasha) My making, my creation, my memory.

(Shepard) I'm confused.

(Natasha) My Hunters.

Realization hit Shepard; Natasha wanted her drawing. The little girl had drawn a picture of the unknown mechs that had been causing such a commotion as of late. But how did she know that Wrex gave it to her? And why did she seem so confident in knowing exactly where it is? Eh, it didn't hurt anything to ask.

(Shepard) How do you know I hold your creation?

(Natasha) Because Big Marked Face would give it to you.

(Shepard) Why?

(Natasha) Because you are Big Marked Face's leader.

(Shepard) Why do you want it back?

(Natasha) Because it is my creation. Is important to myself.

(Shepard) Ok, here is your creation of the metal ones.

Smiling, Shepard pulled the drawing from her pocket and handed it to Natasha. The girl stood there for a second with a contemplative look on her face before her eyes seemed to widen in realization.

(Natasha) No, metal ones, no; made of flesh, yes.

(Shepard) Sorry, small one, not alive, made of metal.

(Natasha) One day you will search, discover, and learn: Hunters are alive. Hunt monsters.

(Shepard) No change your mind, yes?

(Natasha) Yes, one day you will see hunters alive, of flesh.

Smiling sadly, the little girl turned towards the airlock and boarded the Turian ship. Turning around as the doors began to close, she caught and held Shepard's attention with her emerald eyes, unblinkingly staring seemingly into Jane's very soul. As the doors closed her from view, Shepard saw her sign one last message.

(Natasha) Seeing is believing; farewell. J-A-N-E.

And with that final sign, the doors closed and sealed as the SR-1 broke away from the Turian patrol ship. The Normandy sped towards the newly detected distress signal. They had some Asari to rescue and return to the Republics.

Political favors to gain/later abuse; not to mention another possibly destroyed pirate base...likely visited by some rogue faction testing their new war machines.

Jane Shepard felt a slight shiver run down her spine as the little girl signed her last message. It should not have sounded so foreboding...yet it did, and it gave her goosebumps.

Shepard was beginning to see how the little girl could have influenced Wrex into believing that these Mechs were actually not Mechs but a new group of aliens… despite Natasha and Wrex having no form of actually communicating.

Wrex didn't know sign language. The fact that Natasha had completely convinced a Krogan of something without her even saying anything made Shepard damned impressed. 

Heading to her cabin, Shepard readied herself for her next sleep shift. If nothing new turned up about these Mechs when they arrived at the next pirate base, then she would write up a report and send it to the Alliance and the Citadel Council. Not that the Council would even believe her, not after hearing her arguments about the Reapers existence and ignoring her.

After the Asari maidens are rescued, they would continue with their original objective. They can’t waste any more time.

They have to get to Virmire in order to stop Saren from whatever it was he was planning.

There wouldn't be another Eden Prime; she would not let it happen.

{3 Days Later}

Arriving at the distress signal's location three days later, they found the debris fields of three small ships. The best logical conclusion Shepard came up with is that they were carrying high explosives when they were destroyed. It would explain why the debris is in a spread-out area.

Nothing bigger than an air speeder drifting in the vacuum. Having seen what occurred in space, they decided to turn their gaze toward the planet's surface. Shepard chose to take Garrus and Wrex along for the ride. Boarding the shuttle, they left for groundside.

Tali would have come as well, but had to decline because her suit needed maintenance. Luckily, she thought she had Wrex record everything that happened so he could give her a copy after they were done. 

They found the base in complete ruins. The asari maidens were waiting for them at their landing spot. Facing their evident leader, Shepard began to interrogate them while Garrus and Wrex investigated the rest of the base, recording everything they uncovered.

"What happened here?" Shepard asked the young 150-year-old Asari, the apparent elected leader of the group.

"Five strange beings of great power came from the sky in fiery containers and destroyed our captors. They must have been sent by the goddess herself!" exclaimed the Asari. Shepard knew that she would have to translate religious talk into understandable information.

She wasn't too pleased with how little that left for interpretation. After a long talk, Shepard gleaned that there had been five mechs, two big ones with shields that the asari could not sense sentience from. There were two seven-and-a-half-foot-tall, green-armored, gold-faced-shaped ones with strange weapons that weren't built in but carried in their metal gauntlet-like hands. There was another one that was different from the other four, being barely taller than the green armored ones. It wore a silver-type armor that carried different weapons from the humanoid green ones. 

Shepard believed that the mechs are tactical units with a commander-like mech platform that was quick, efficient, deadly, and smart. Meaning that this whole raid on the pirate base had been nothing more than a cohesion testing ground, testing how well the four mech designs could fight as a unit.

And, if the surrounding destroyed base had anything to say to Shepard, it was that these units fought pretty damn well, scarily efficiently as well. Garrus and Wrex would inform her that they found multiple impact sites. But whatever had impacted the ground was no longer there; all they found were small metal fragments.

However, whoever made the mechs clearly had a way of transporting them and dropping them onto the base without risk of destroying them.

After finding the mech's trademark of piling the dead bodies in a sealed room, they found no sign of electronic evidence whatsoever, not even video this time around. A disgruntled Shepard returned to the Normandy after having the Asari maidens brought onboard.

The Normandy travels towards an asari scout fleet that would take the refugees to the asari home world of Thessia. Once the exchange was done, the Normandy soon left the system.

Shepard wrote up a report, along with video evidence, and sent it to the Council and the Alliance Navy. Which would hopefully be further investigated by people who actually had the time to look into things properly, although she suspected the Council would just ignore it.

Sighing tiredly, she went to get some sleep, only to be awoken to stop yet another altercation between some of the crew members and the overeager, curious, invasive, and very hormonal Asari maidens.

Joker's cockpit was thankfully off-limits, much to his loud and very inventive complaints that it was otherwise. They needed him flying the ship, not distracted by "instructing the young on a viable career path of being a pilot," as he put it. He could claim to be showing honest intentions all he wanted; it could even be the truth, but no one would really believe him.

The consequences of having a reputation for too many raunchy jokes.

Wrex and Garrus were hiding in engineering with Tali, with all three not wanting to be in the presence of the maidens. The young asari just wouldn't stop asking questions and attempting to start relationships with others, especially those three. Apparently, sheltered asari thought non-Citadel races were exotic and brave Turians were romantics in disguise.

Shepard wished she could hide out with them; even though being a specter and commander had its perks, it also had its curses, one of them being being forced to maintain the bridge and all relations between crew members and refugees 24/7.

As long as the crew was outnumbered by the refugees, she was needed on call in case of an incident. Cursing to herself, Shepard went on her way to deal with the latest drama happening in the mess hall. Jane Shepard could not wait to drop the maidens off with the asari scout fleet.

The money and future discounted trade deals with Asari businesses would hopefully be worth all this trouble. This side job couldn't end soon enough in her opinion.

Over the world of Virmire, a two-kilometer-long squid-like vessel stirred to life; its long limbs twitched as it contemplated new data for an anomaly that had caught its attention. 

There was a report sent by the human that had been ordered to pursue Saren, troublesome organics, attempting to delay an inevitability they couldn't foresee, too little too late.

The report had passed through some of its unwitting puppets and had thus been sent to it as well, indirectly, of course.

Why use indoctrination when organic corruption and greed worked just as well? If not better in the long run. As for the truly converted…

Saren was doing its bidding, unaware of the other unwitting sources of information it had cultivated over a millennia. He is a useful tool, an excellent front, put up to hide what was actually pulling the strings in culmination for the success of the plan.

The other puppet, Benizia, was dead; her influence and resources were lost…for now. A minor delay, yes, but they were no longer needed for the plan to succeed.

The cycle would be completed; these new war machines being tested in the Terminus Systems, while effective, were not a threat to the cycle.

However, they are a new opportunity, though it was strange; the relays recorded no new ships that could have carried these mechs to their targets… Perhaps they were hidden aboard the pirates' own vessels beforehand, with a remote or timed activation?

Why didn’t his vast network give him a fair warning of these new machines and their development?

Ultimately it mattered not; the creators of the mechs would be found, and they would be repurposed.

They would create tools for this and all future cycles... this was certain. Soon its brothers would arrive; it would open the relay the foolish organics used as a central government, like other species had before, letting them come through in the unending thousands; this cycle would end early.

The Protheans had placed their government on the main relay, falling into the trap, as all others did before and will do in the future. Their leaders would be dead before they even knew what was occurring, not so with this cycle…

The Citadel was a central governmental power, yes.

But other governments and organizations existed beyond it; every race had an essential system of backup leadership. This diversity was dangerous. It causes civilizations to be weakened with internal politics and civil conflicts, yet these conflicts breed the seeds of new ideas.

Such as the crucible…the reaper shuddered, shaking the enslaved occupants within its two-kilometer length…It did not like the idea or progress of the crucible.

The master had allowed iterations of the device to continue over the many cycles, all for some unknowable scheme that they were not meant to understand. It could potentially destroy them, unless they were to manipulate the architects of its creation into creating a weapon that failed in its original purpose.

The master had dictated that they could not directly interfere in its creation, although manipulating a future through the illusion of choice to those who activated it was not a violation of those rules.

It cursed the few Protheans that had eluded them in the previous cycle, having sabotaged the central relay after his brothers had returned to dark space.

They were an unexpected complication that had delayed this cycle by nearly a hundred years.

Letting so many independent species run amok for any longer was risking the possibility of them stumbling upon a counter or technologies outside the scope of their mandate. Those risks would only be expounded upon in time. The Andromeda Initiative was one such concern. 

But it was not at the point that it would have to interfere directly. The cycle would continue; its plans were nearly complete, and all predicted outcomes, no matter the unlikelihood, were scrutinized.

The initiative would not be ready in time before the cycle began.

Sovereign began to move in Virmire's orbit as if the great machine was impatient; nothing could be farther from the truth. Harbinger had been notified of its future role in the extremely unlikely prediction of Sovereign failing in its' objective.

The Collectors were being readied. The useful tools gained from the last cycle would once again prove their worth; tests would be done, and new brothers built. The humans were an interesting test subject for this… So very malleable.

It was no matter; Sovereign would not fail; he would start the cycle anew. The two left behind to watch the growth of the next cycle were in agreement.

The cycle would continue...

The galaxy was ready...

The harvest was ripe.

Chapter Text

The Forward Unto Dawn emerged from slip-space relatively unscathed. The repaired UNSC vessel slip-drive is performing well despite not possessing the speed it had before. Within the bridge of the Dawn, Cortana couldn’t help but smile as she gazed at the planet she had chosen. The planet would be their stronghold in this strange galaxy, acting as a forward operating base until they figured out a way to get back home.

’Still, though, to think the planet I end up choosing is Reach.” Granted it wasn’t the Reach they knew, but it was a Reach nevertheless.

As soon as the Spirit of Fire arrives, they would land on the planet and immediately begin to fortify it. Once she felt it safe enough, Cortana could enact her plans to rapidly build up their fleet. They’re going to need it, especially since they could stay hidden for only so long before they’re discovered. Cortana also believed it was soon time to start her plan regarding the Quarians.

After thoroughly discussing with John and Linda, they agreed that once they properly established a base of operations, Cortana would contact the Migrant Fleet. With UNSC medical technologies, Cortana could come up with a solution for their poor immune systems. 

Cortana sighed, her digital hands on her hips. She mildly played with the ship’s sensors to pass the time. Currently, she was the sole occupant on board the Dawn. Her Spartans and Vadam had chosen to travel with the Spirit of Fire. Her Spartans wanted to talk more with their fellow brothers and sisters, while Vadam was asked to stay by Professor Anders, who wanted to ask him questions regarding why the Sangheili broke away from the Covenant.

Cortana hoped that the professor wouldn’t say something that would piss Vadam off, but she was sure that if such an incident did occur, then John would stop it before it got out of hand.

Suddenly, the ship’s sensors picked up on something interesting, which brought Cortana out of her stupor. Based on what the ship’s sensors detected, Cortana concluded that it was another UNSC vessel.

’How in the world? Did I borrow my Spartan's infinite luck?’ Cortana thought as she opened up the bridge's window and was able to fully see the UNSC ship. Based on the sensors, the ship's class identified it as a Marathon-Class Heavy Cruiser. This made Cortana smile; they had just been handed additional firepower. On the side of the ship, in bright white letters, was her name.

UNSC Ranger Spirit

Cortana couldn’t help but grin manically. She knew that ship. It was under the command of another legendary captain in the UNSC Navy. General Shepherd, leader of 1,000 marines that calls itself Shadow Company, and two elite ODST squadrons. Task Force 141 and Sky Rangers.

His performance record was rather impressive; having participated in hundreds of battles against the Covenant. He used to possess a fleet of 25 Ships, but over time he lost them one by one until only his flagship remained. In total he lost the accumulated force of 10,000 marines, but he didn’t let the loss stop him. In fact, his desire to protect the civilians and keep the fight going is what made him such an iconic figure.

From the records, he was supposed to be present at the Battle for the Ark, but his ship never exited from the slip-space portal that hovered above the ruins of New Mombasa. It was an unfortunate loss, as she had no doubt that the captain and his crew would’ve made quite the difference in that battle.

But none of that mattered now; they were right in front of her. She was going to have them join up with the Dawn and Fire; they were going to show the galaxy just how menacing they are. Cortana was going to have her favorite toy again. She was going to have a MAC gun. 

(1 Hour Later)

After one hour passed by, the Spirit of Fire finally appeared from the slip space. The crew found themselves staring at a very familiar planet, a planet that the Spartans had personal connections with. It was their home.

”I can’t believe it; it’s Reach.” Douglas said in pure disbelief; he wanted to take off his helmet so that he could rub his eyes and get rid of the illusion. “Well, we are in a different universe, so there are planets that weren’t touched by the horrors of war.” Jerome said in an effort to process that his home wasn’t affected by glassing.

He knew that it wasn’t the Reach he knew, but that didn’t matter to him. It was a Reach, and he swore to his very soul that he would defend it until his last breath. 

“This is unbelievable.” Alice spoke, grinning under her mask. She had a faint idea what her fellow brothers were thinking. And if her idea was correct, then she would stand by Jerome in protecting this Reach. No harm will befall her home a second time, not when she could actually do something about it.

Master Chief and Linda, on the other hand… Well, as soon as their eyes gazed at the planet, they froze up. So many memories started playing in their heads; their earliest memories of when they trained together hit them hard. John had an idea: when they eventually landed on the surface, Linda and he would go in search of a tree. On that tree they would honor every single one they had lost in the war.

Slowly regaining his strength, he would pull Linda aside and tell her of what he wants to do. The sharpshooter instantly agreed, believing it was the right way for them to honor the dead.

Finally, Vadam tried to stifle a chuckle. He found it ironic that the planet they would settle on is the same planet he ordered his fleet to burn. He could still recall the untold amount of casualties his fleet’s ground soldiers suffered at the hands of every single demon present on the planet.

It was a hard fight; he won it in the end, but he didn’t consider it a victory. That single battle was the only one in history that he suffered a 50% casualty rate. It was also that day that he realized the humans fighting spirit was both massive and impressive.

To see the planet again, well…he figured one of the ways to make up for his transgressions was to defend the planet from any and all who dare try to harm it. He doubted he would ever be forgiven, but that was okay. He wasn’t asking to be forgiven, but to work alongside those he once considered demons.

”Well, what are we waiting for, sir? Come on.” Anders said, a small smile on her face making Captain Cutter chuckle. “Steady, professor, all in due time.” The Spirit of Fire moves towards the planet’s surface. As it does, from within the bridge they see the Dawn but also something right next to her. What they see leaves the crew speechless.

”What in the hell?” Alice said, confusion replacing the happiness she had earlier. Jerome and Douglas didn’t know how to respond, while John and Linda chuckled absentmindedly. They figure it was due to their combined luck that they managed to find another UNSC ship. Vadam just chalked it up to the mystery of the human spirit.

He honestly expected things like this to occur; he just didn’t expect it to occur so fast. He probably would never understand, so might as well be content with it. 

“Cortana, mind explaining to me what you’ve been doing while we are in slip-space?” Captain Cutter asked after he hailed the Dawn.

“Sir, making sure the occupants of the Ranger are alive and well. Good news, they are. I have made contact with the ship’s resident AI. She calls herself Jinx and is a bit... eccentric. Captain Cutter, as well as Anders, raised an eyebrow at that mention.

But before they could say anything else, another face appeared next to Cortana with an arm around her shoulder. She had a choppy, uneven haircut, styled with bright blue and purple streaks. She wore the standard ODST bodysuit made up of several different layers that could clearly be seen despite it being purely digital.

Her smile mirrored that of Cortana’s when she becomes manic and wants to inflict suffering on those that deserve it, but a bit tamed. While her eyes sprinkled with mischief.

“Hello, Spartans and fellow Captain Cutter. I must say, it’s truly an honor to be in your presence.” The ODST AI did a dramatic bow before once again putting her arm around Cortana’s shoulder. Said AI just stood there with her arms crossed, not at all bothered by what Jinx was doing. “Uh… nice to meet you, Jinx. Tell me, how is the crew of the Rangers doing?” Captain Cutter asks after regaining his bearings.

”They’re alive, Captain. I haven’t woken them up yet, as this gorgeous blue lady informed me of waiting once we land on Reach. Still can’t process that Reach looks normal, but I guess that happens when in another universe.”

Jinx said, now hugging Cortana from the back. Again, the AI didn’t seem bothered by this. “Anyway, Captain, it is best we start this process now. However, the Chief, Linda, Vadam, and I need to complete another mission.” Cortana said as she brought up a planet. It had vast seas, an orbital position on the inner life zone, creating a wide equatorial band of humid, tropical terrain.

”This planet is called Virmire, and it’s where a human Spectre who goes by the name Jane Shepard plans to travel to in search of a rogue Spectre called Saren. He attacked a human colony called Eden Prime with help from the Geth. There is the mention of Reapers, a race that worries me, and this mission will provide the opportunity for me to gather more knowledge about them.

Captain Cutter, with your permission, I request to have the Dawn take on this mission.” Captain Cutter agreed once Cortana finished. He had listened to every single thing that Cortana told them regarding the peoples of this galaxy, which included their different government systems.

The very little-known information regarding these “Reapers” didn’t sit right with him. He felt in his gut that there were bigger forces at play here. But before he could make any decision, he needed the information. Which is why when Cortana requested this mission, Captain Cutter gave them his permission.

In a matter of a few minutes, the original occupants of the Dawn were brought back aboard and soon left through another slip-space. Meanwhile, Jinx would remain on the Ranger and monitor her crew’s progress as she waited for Captain Cutter’s order to thaw them out. Meanwhile, the rest of the Spirit of Fire crew flew down to the surface, completely unaware of the surprise waiting for them once they landed. 

Cutter had spoken with the crew, Red Team, Anders, and Cortana, with Cortana’s unanimous decision they will settle on a suitable planet that was still within reach of the rest of the galaxy.

Primarily, the System's Alliance controlled space, yet bordering on the Inner Citadel Colony Space.

They had arrived at the world that overlapped with their map of home. Once the Spirit of Fire had arrived, they were brought to a planet that was a very beautiful and pristine world. That planet was Reach.

The Spirit of Fire unleashed small drones all over the surface of Reach. The Clarion Spy Drones were on the move as they scan the planet.

Cutter smiled as he looked at the world before them; he began to read the data the Clarion Spy Drones relayed back to the Spirit. Cutter turned and asked Anders about the planet.

"So, what did you find out there, Professor?"

"There's no sign of any habitation structures so far on this side of the planet; the Clarion Spy Drones have spotted no sign of anything that would show occupation on the other side of the planet. It looks like this place has not been found out by anyone.

I'll send out the drones after a few minutes to do a full-scale scan of the area of the system for any sign of Mass Relays of both types. All in all, though, this place is pretty much a Relay Dead Zone and is not registered anywhere on Citadel or Alliance maps." Cutter nodded at that.

"Perfect. Is there anything else on scanners so far that we need to deal with or exploit?"

"Yes, apparently the atmosphere has progressed nicely and is ideal for human habitation; stability seems to be at an all-time high, and there are signs of a higher concentration of metals and minerals in several exposed locations. The soil appears to be remarkably healthy and ideal for the growing of livestock and agriculture if needed, and herds of native life are present. The weather patterns are stable as well, so the cycles are not too different. Looks good as a home as it is. A shame that neither the Alliance nor the Council know about this place.” Even though Anders said that, her grin meant otherwise. 

"Where's the best place to set up base?"

Cutter and Anders began to think and plan about how to set up their base of operations here in this world as well as the other planets that will be in the area. They had the support and the natural resources of this world for them to use in their plans.

There were mountainous ranges and brilliant, scenic flat plains that stretched on for miles. It was really a matter of choice. Thanks to the Spirit of Fire being a colony ship first, it could sustain itself on its own for quite a while. With this planet, they'd practically be self-sufficient mostly on their own. All they really need to do is fix their pivotal factory module.

"So, Professor, what do you have in mind?" Cutter asked. "I don't really have a preference."

"There are a lot of areas to choose from, sir." Anders began, with multiple holo-displays of the world below being portrayed. "We can start by—"

Anders paused, which made Cutter tilt his head in the direction of her grid-like projection.

"Professor?"

"Covenant signature detected.” This earned Anders a sharp look from the captain. Before he could even have a chance to respond, one of his crewmen relayed something.

"Captain Cutter, sir. We've received a signal from the surface. It's UNSC!" A bridge crewman shouted out.

"What?!" Cutter said aloud. "What the hell is going on here? What do you mean? UNSC? Covenant? Both?"

"It appears to be so, sir." Anders answered, displaying both transmission signatures.

"However, in my review of the signals, I have detected the UNSC signal to be more constant while the Covenant appears to be fragmented."

Cutter frowned. This was not what he was expecting when they had found this world. Then again… they had encountered the Dawn before being dumped with the information of them being in another universe. So who knows what they might find this time around?

"Isolate the UNSC signal, Anders." Cutter instructed. "I want to know just what we're dealing with down here."

"Of course, sir, running diagnostics now." Anders said, beginning her work with the radio frequency being shown before Cutter.

"Isolating signal, running matches with—" Anders froze midway through her scans.

This rather alarmed Cutter, but he remained calm. "Anders?"

Anders suddenly reshaped the transmission sequence into one where a voice with a Hungarian accent could be heard.

"This is Sierra-Oh-Five-Two broadcasting on an open channel. Repeat, this is Sierra-Zero-Five-Two, callsign Noble Five, broadcasting on an open channel. If there's any UNSC personnel nearby, please respond."

Captain Cutter's mouth slightly fell open, leaning upon the holo-tank as he watched and listened to the transmission.

"Anders, is this—?"

"I believe so, Captain." Anders said, grinning, which made Cutter grin slightly in return. 

"Get a Pelican ready for Red Team while the Spirit of Fire preps landing sequences." Cutter ordered, and Anders immediately sent out a message to Red Team and the hangar bay.

A few minutes later, Red Team was flying aboard a pelican down to the newly discovered planet below, following Dot's guidance as to where they could find Sierra-Zero-Five-Two.

However, it didn't take long for them to spot quite the sight upon the base of a mountain field. It seemed to be some kind of a Covenant ship, and judging from the size of it... it may very well be a Covenant supercarrier.

Scans had also discovered a smaller Covenant ship near the supercarrier. Judging from what Anders picked up on, it was about the size of a Corvette. However, the main attraction was the supercarrier before them.

An intact but damaged Covenant Supercarrier nonetheless. It seemed the front and back portions of it had large amounts of burn marks. Nothing serious they couldn’t deal with.

"Land in that small rock outcropping there." Jerome directed Alice as she flew down.

"If there are any Covenant stragglers around, we wouldn't want them to get the jump on us."

"You got it," Alice said, the Pelican landing a few moments later.

The three Spartans exited the Pelican and faced the large Covenant ship before them. The sight of the Corvette strewn out before the carrier. Both looked to be in virtually good condition. There were clear signs of damage, possible from when they crashed down into the planet's surface.

"Stay sharp." Jerome instructed. "We've got no idea if there's a sizable Covenant force around here."

Douglas-042 and Alice-130 nodded silently, the two walking by Jerome-092's side with their weapons pointed down yet positioned in case of any surprises.

Their approach was quick yet steady. Their formation made it so all three could snap back to back to cover all blind spots for one another.

Good thing too, as they began to hear gunfire on top of plasma fire.

"Double time it, Spartans!" Jerome said aloud, the trio now sprinting at full speed towards the Corvette, as that was where the source of the gunfire emanated from.

Running up to the Corvette, they heard the familiar sounds of Sangheili grunting and shouting with Unggoy shouts of terror along with Kig-Yar squawking about.

"Come on, you bastards, I haven't got all day." A Hungarian-accented voice roared aloud with gunfire coming after.

"Up there," Alice said, pointing up to the Hangar Bay of the Corvette.

The Spartans saw a strange makeshift sort of series of platforms that went up to the Corvette Hangar and shrugged, making use of them.

Quickly scaling up the platforms, the Red Team jumped into the Covenant hangar bay to find themselves in the middle of a small firefight.

And there in the center of it all with his arms wrapped around the neck of an Elite Ultra was…

"Jorge." The Three Spartans of Red Team whispered simultaneously in relief and an undercurrent of joy. But that wasn’t the only Spartan they saw. Standing next to the normally gentle giant was a spartan in all black wielding a shotgun that covered Jorge’s back. Behind that spartan was another spartan, who appeared to be unconscious. They wore a Mark V armor set with a distinctive appearance featuring a primarily silver color scheme.

Jerome didn't hesitate in bringing his battle rifle up to fire at the Elite that thought it could jump at the black armor Spartan from the side. 

Douglas and Alice joined in with chaos reigning for the small Covenant force that seemed to occupy the hangar bay.

The Elites were completely caught off guard by the arrival of more Spartans, with them being the first to get killed off, but a couple did surrender. The Grunts and Jackals began to panic at the loss of their leadership, with them being easy pickings for the remainder of the Spartans.

Jorge had already snapped the neck of the Elite he had been choking and returned back to his primary weapon to mow down the Covenant within the hangar bay.

Alice had run forward, the force of her elbow strike killing a Grunt from getting struck in the head using her assault rifle a moment later to kill off several more along with a Jackal.

Douglas saw a Grunt suicide bomber running straight at him and, with quick maneuvering, went around the Grunt, grabbed it by the wrist, and tossed it into a small cluster of other Grunts and an Elite that chose to continue to fight.

Meanwhile, Noble Six brought out her machete that was gifted to her by Emile. Once they were assured that the downed Spartan was safe, they took off in a sprint, bringing down the sharpened blade down onto Grunts and Jackals. 

Jerome had already killed nearly a dozen or so Grunts and Jackals until his eyes locked onto the only sole remaining Elite that didn’t surrender within the hangar.

A Zealot class Elite.

Glaring beneath his helmet, the Zealot let out a challenging roar. Jerome ran forward while firing the rest of his clip at the Elite.

The Zealot already had his plasma sword out, holding it up in defense as both the sword and his shields absorbed the hail of lead.

092 had drawn close to the Zealot, with it raising its sword back in a position ready to swing back in retaliation. What the Elite did not expect, however, was his shields to suddenly burst from Douglas-042 firing off the remainder of his own magazine.

Stunned by the momentary loss in shields, that was all the opportunity Jerome needed in ducking down before pouncing upon the Elite.

In an instant, the two tumbled against one another before 092 was atop one knee, pressing down onto the Elite's chest with his combat knife embedded deeply into the skull of the Sangheili.

With a satisfied grunt, Jerome pulled his knife out, flicking the blood off and sheathing it.

"Jerome." A soft voice said from behind, the Red Team leader glancing back at the Reach-born Spartan-II.

"Alice, Douglas." 052 had removed his helmet to make sure that his HUD wasn't playing tricks on him.

"Good to see you again, Jorge." Douglas said in an upbeat tone, removing his own helmet to give his brother a smirk.

"It's been a while, hasn't it?" Alice remarked, her own helmet tucked under her left arm. Her jet-black hair was slicked back while her green eyes twinkled with a reminiscent gaze.

"How?"

"Could be asking you the same question, Jorge." Jerome stated, standing back and moving to remove his own helmet as well. Buzz cut sides with a fuller small crop of brown hair on top with blue eyes as well as a face riddled with faded scars. A standard amongst all Spartan generations. "Still, like Douglas said, it's good to see you again." Jerome turned his eyes to the other two Spartans. They stood near Jorge, and looking closer, he could say that they were both women. 

Douglas glanced down at a fallen elite, nudging it with his foot.

"I know John told us we technically made peace with these guys… but I don't think they count." Douglas said casually, earning a snort out of Alice with a wry smile from Jerome. “But I guess five are the exceptions.” Douglas said, pointing to the elites that were well within sight of the Spartan-II’s. 

"John?" Jorge repeated. "John is here?"

"Linda is as well, but not at the moment." Jerome said. "We'll catch you three up on that once the Spirit of Fire touches down."

"The Spirit of Fire is here?" Jorge asked in more surprise. "What in the hell did I miss?"

"A lot, Jorge." Alice said plainly, slipping her helmet back on. "Though not as much as us."

"Still a lot, though." Douglas said with a shrug. "More so than you'd realize."

"I can see that." Jorge stated.

"What happened to you, Jorge?" Jerome asked. "I didn't think we'd find Covenant down here with you after what we were told from Cortana on your attack against the Supercarrier."

"You've met with her?" Jorge asked, grinning now. "Good to hear she’s alive and kicking then. Well, to make a long story short, after crash landing down on this planet, we’ve been dealing with Covenant stragglers that survived over from that super carrier. It was a sizable amount, all things considered, so we’ve been whittling them down these past few weeks. Maybe a month or two by this point. This was the last of their forces after all my hit-and-run tactics." Jorge said, choosing to explain how Noble Six and Noble Two survive their ordeals at a later time. 

"Well, it's good to see you're alive, Jorge." Alice stated, patting the slightly bigger Spartan on the shoulder.

"It's good to see you three." Jorge said. "And that the Spirit of Fire is alive and well." The Noble Spartan-II then looked to Douglas. "But what was that about peace? Peace with who? The Covenant?" This also intrigued Noble Six, who wondered how in the hell the UNSC made peace with the Covenant of all things. 

The three members of the Red Team exchanged awkward glances at one another, with 042 and 130 making it very obvious who should be the one to talk to Jorge about this.

092, however, decided…

"Let's get you out of here, Jorge." Jerome said, sliding his helmet back on. "We've got a lot to catch you up on."

Chapter Text

Hello Fellow Readers. I know this is not what you expected but I come with a bit of sad news. I go back to school soon which will unfortunately take up a majority of my time. That is to say, I won’t abandon this book, but updates will come to standstill for now. Of course I’m still going to work on the chapters and publish them but it will probably take a while. Sorry, I started this work during Winter Break and it was one of best decisions I made in a really long time.

But unfortunately my break is coming to an end and my priorities are shifting back to finishing up my semester. Sorry for the inconvenience as I know many this take of a Mass Effect x Halo Crossover. I won’t lie, during the making of this I had a crazy idea of bringing together every Spartan II that we know of to Mass Effect and put them under the command of Cortana. The chaos she would bring would be astronomical, no?

Anyway, I’m sorry for the inconvenience and I hope you continue to read this once I posted another chapter. Until then, I’ll see you all in the near future. Bye Chooms.