Book One: Harvest - Believer218 (2024)

Chapter 1: Prologue: 117

Chapter Text

Prologue: 117

(—0—)

Arcturus Station, Main Conference Room

January 9th, 2583

Local time 1128

“Well, what about the Master Chief?”

“Which Master Chief, Anderson?” Donnel Udina sardonically asked with a roll of his eyes.

“You know which one,” David Anderson responded seriously. “His early history's coated with ink, given how secret SPARTAN-II was, but we all know of Eridanus.”

“He proved himself during the Blitz,” Steven Hackett added. “Held off enemy forces on the ground until reinforcements arrived.”

“He's the only reason Eridanus is still standing,” Anderson agreed.

“We can't question his courage, nor his leadership,” Udina relented.

“Humanity needs a hero,” Anderson firmly stated, “and the Chief's the best we've got.”

Udina sighed. “I'll make the call.”

“Before you do,” Hackett interrupted, “I need to show you both something that does not leave this room, period. It will either cement this decision or shatter it.”

“Very well,” Udina said.

Hacket turned to the center of the table. “Doctor, send Anderson and Udina the dossier on John Shepard. Clearance: Hackett.”

A small hologram of a skinny man in a tweed suit and red bow tie appeared in the middle of the table. He had a small frown on his face “Admiral, before we do this, are you completely sure?”

Hacket took a moment to think. “Yes… I'm sure.”

Doctor sighed. “Very well.”

(—0—)

NAME: Shepard, John

DATE OF BIRTH: 03/07/2554

SERVICE NUMBER: 01123-02474-JS

N7 TAG: N7-0117

EYE COLOR: Blue

HAIR COLOR: Brown

BIRTH WORLD: Eridanus II, Elysium City

BIOGRAPHICAL DATA: Following the brief First Contact War with the turians in 2557, the Systems Alliance realized that they would need highly-capable covert operatives in order to counter any possible efforts that may be levied against humanity's safety, external and internal.

At the age of six, John was identified by Catherine Halsey as having several physical and genetic traits considered highly favorable, including being stronger, smarter, and faster than his fellow first-graders. Halsey also identified several personality traits she considered essential for her plans, including competitiveness and willpower. As such, John became candidate number 117 for the SPARTAN-II program, and was conscripted in 2560 alongside seventy-four other candidates, replaced with a short-lived flash clone, and taken to the colony world Reach.

During eight years of brutal training under then-Chief Petty Officer Franklin Mendez and several ONI drill instructors, John-117 was observed to be a strong and competent leader, with the other Spartans coming to look up to him in their early years. Doctor Halsey also believed him to be extremely lucky, with her reports stating that during several exercises, events fell into place that enabled whatever team John-117 was on to achieve victory. While his luck is not strictly quantifiable by any sort of test, it is possible that John-117 is indeed more fortunate than others.

In 2568, once the SPARTAN-II candidates reached the age of 14, Project ASTER was implemented. The candidates underwent biological augmentations that included carbide ceramic ossification, occipital capillary reversal, muscular enhancement injections, a catalytic thyroid implant, and superconducting fibrification of neural dendrites. Only 33 candidates survived without suffering physical complications, another 12 were crippled, and the remaining 30 were declared deceased. John-117 was one of the candidates who survived without physical complications, though he did grieve the loss and injuries of those candidates who failed the augmentations.

Soon after, the Spartan candidates received and were trained in the use of Mjolnir Powered Assault Armor/Mark IV, completing their training. In 2573, the Spartan-II's received a significant piece of news: the Office of Naval Intelligence was unwilling to continue to fund super-soldiers of a morally-tenuous origin, due to the possible public relations outcry should the information go public, not to mention the inter-species diplomatic catastrophe that would result, and as such SPARTAN-II was to be merged into the Systems Alliance N-program.

The N-program had been started around the same time as the SPARTAN-II program, as a way of training a new generation of elite soldiers. Whereas SPARTAN-II was drowned in black ink, N was not designed to be hidden. While N-commandos were capable of covert operations, they would also be able to be deployed alongside frontline soldiers. With SPARTAN-II being merged into the program, N would continue to fund their equipment, including Mjolnir and its development; however, all future Spartan development programs were canceled. It was later discovered that SPARTAN-II was partially funded by the human supremacist group Cerberus, further cementing the program's downfall.

In 2576, three years following the absorption of SPARTAN-II into the N-program, John-117 was on shore leave in Elysium City on the colony of Eridanus II when a massive force of slavers, primarily batarian but also including various other species, landed on the planet. The overwhelming force had crushed the planet's orbital defenses, including the defense stations in geosynchronous orbit, and had come to kill or enslave any humans they came across.

However, it was here that John-117 truly earned the title of hero, singlehandedly leading the small contingent of Army and Marines in the colony to fend off the invaders. While the slavers did escape with some colonists, and the defenders did suffer some casualties, it was nowhere near what might have happened if John hadn't rallied the defense forces. The survivors praised how he defended the planet, calling him “The Shepherd of Elysium”. It was thus that he took the surname “Shepard”. John was not present for the subsequent offensive on Torfan due to being assigned to a Systems Alliance propaganda tour; however, he did express regret that he could not participate, saying that he “would have killed at least a hundred batarians for every dead or enslaved colonist and soldier on Eridanus.”

PERSONALITY: John Shepard is a surprisingly moral individual given his origin, willing to stand by what he knows to be right even when told otherwise. On the other hand, he also has occasional renegade tendencies, often being dismissive or otherwise insubordinate to those he feels have wronged him or are standing in his way. The exception to this is when he highly respects the person in question. He is understandably distrustful of aliens given what happened on Eridanus, but is willing to recognize that sometimes it is better to work with them. Shepard is highly competitive, having a drive to win that far outstrips even the other Spartan-II's.

PREFERRED EQUIPMENT:

Armor: Materials Group Mjolnir Powered Assault Armor/Mark VI modified with MAGNES grappleshot. Colored olive-green, with N7 stripes on right arm and helmet.

Assault Rifle: Misriah Armory MA40 Individual Combat Weapon System

Pistol: Emerson Tactical Systems MK50 Sidekick

Sniper Rifle: Hahne-Kedar M-29 Avenger

Shotgun: Misriah Armory M45 Close Assault Weapon System

Melee: Misriah Armory M1 Combat Knife, standard issue

Omnitool: Nexus-II

(—0—)

Reach Orbit

January 10th, 2583

Local time 2503

A twenty-nine year-old man sat next to the window on a military dropship. Whether he was physically twenty-nine was debatable, given the nature of modern medicine as well as his… ethically dubious origins, but he was definitely chronologically twenty-nine.

The man had pale skin, extraordinarily pale, but not to an unhealthy degree. Close-cropped brown hair adorned the top of his head, with the sides shaven down to the skin. He had a short, neatly trimmed beard, well within modern military regulation. He was only slightly gaunt, with high cheekbones, a squared jaw, and a mostly-rounded complexion. Electric blue eyes stared with far more experience than a man his age, physical or chronological, should have. But what was most obvious about the man was that he was very tall, reaching a height of six feet and ten inches without his armor on. Right now, however, he wore a simple olive-green T-shirt and gray pants, as well as a green vest with “117” emblazoned on his left breast and “N7” on his right.

Master Chief Petty Officer John Shepard looked out the window. Behind the shuttle was the planet Reach, its beautiful greens and blues swirling in a vibrant mix of land and sea. The night side of the planet was only more marvelous, with a twenty-eight-seven aurora near the poles. The planet was widely considered to be one of the Systems Alliance's most important locations, only after Arcturus and Earth itself.

From his seat, he could spot the moon Czodaszarvas, its thick atmosphere and massive rings providing a spectacle to those on Reach's surface. If he were on the other side of the transport, he might have seen Turul, Reach's smaller moon. Turul was barely symmetrical, and was practically barren save for some daredevil mining companies looking for rare resources. It wasn't always a moon, having been captured into Reach's orbit some seventy- to eighty-thousand years ago, likely before even the protheans left their homeworld.

John let out a small sigh. He hadn't gotten many details for his next assignment, save that it came directly from HIGHCOM and Parliament, meaning he was probably not going to see what had become his home for a while.

“Chief, we’ve been cleared to approach the relay to Arcturus,” a Spanish-accented voice over the intercom said, shaking John from his thoughts. “Wanna take a look?”

“Sure, Esparza,” John replied in a slightly husky voice, standing up, “why not?”

He palmed a button by the co*ckpit door, causing it to slide open. As he walked inside, the first thing he saw was a significantly shorter man in the pilot's chair. His black hair went to a good eight inches long, giving him a somewhat disheveled appearance, but he made sure to keep it neat. The man had a thick beard that went down to a little over an inch above his shoulders, which obscured his gaunt complexion. On top of it, he had light brown eyes seated beneath thick eyebrows. He wore a standard blue Alliance jumpsuit, with a green pilot's vest worn over it.

“The relay will be in visual range in a few minutes, Shepard,” Flying Officer Fernando Esparza reported as he set the Pelican's autopilot. “If you're wondering anything, now's the time to ask.”

John didn't show it, but internally, he took a moment to process things, a moment in Spartan terms being a fraction of a second. It had been six or so years since Eridanus, but he still struggled to think of himself as "John Shepard". Sometimes, he had to force himself not to refer to himself as "John-117".

Once he gathered his thoughts, however, he nodded. “What do you know about our assignment, Esparza?”

“Only that we're being assigned to some prototype frigate, and I'm going to play co-pilot to a Flight Lieutenant Jeff Moreau. Calls himself ‘Joker’, not sure why,” Esparza replied. “Apparently this comes from the top, so there's probably a lot they aren't telling us.”

John scoffed. “Typical.” On a more serious note, he added, “I heard a Spectre's gonna be on board.”

Esparza's eyes widened. “A Spectre? If that's true, then there's definitely something they aren't telling us. The Council doesn't send Spectres on shakedown runs.”

“On that, we agree,” John said.

Just then, a beeping noise sounded in the co*ckpit, causing Esparza to turn back to the controls. Ahead, the mass relay stood stationary in space, twin rings spinning between a massive structure that looked like a tuning fork. Picking up a headset and putting it over his ears, he keyed the comms. “Relay control, this is Alliance Pelican Echo-216. We have calculated our mass and are requesting a timetable for clearance to pass through the relay, over.”

“Control to Echo-216, Admiral Hackett put out a notice to prioritize your shuttle in traffic. You are cleared for transit, no need to wait, over.”

Well, that was a pleasant surprise.

“Echo-216 to control, preparing for transit, over.” As the comms shut off, Esparza deftly took to the haptic controls, steering the Pelican alongside the relay. A bright blue beam of lightning extended from the relay's core, connecting with the shuttle, before sending them off to Arcturus in the blink of an eye.

Chapter 2

Chapter Text

Chapter 1: Normandy

(—0—)

Arcturus System

January 10th, 2583

Local time 1229 (Sol Standard Time)

Faster than could be perceived even by Spartan-II standards, the stars outside the Pelican's co*ckpit changed. One of the most obvious changes was that instead of the relatively young main-sequence star Ran that was in the center of Epsilon Eridani, there was a massive red giant, Arcturus.

Esparza took only a moment to gather his bearings before returning to the controls, a testament to his piloting skills. John then sat down in the co-pilot's seat as the flying officer guided them closer to the space station where they would be receiving their next assignment. Indeed, only a few minutes later, the two saw the iconic disk between two pylons: Arcturus Station, the political and military heart of the Systems Alliance.

“This is Alliance Pelican Echo-216 to Arcturus control, you read me, Arcturus?” Esparza asked into the comms as he guided the dropship into a holding pattern.

"This is Arcturus, we read you Echo-216, over.”

“Echo-216 requesting permission to dock, over.”

"One moment, Echo-216… I have a priority notice from Admiral Hackett saying to send you to his personal hangar. Sending coordinates and flight path now. Echo-216, confirm?” Huh, Hackett must really want them there fast.

Then again, there was supposedly a Spectre involved.

With a beep, a flight path appeared on the dashboard. “Echo-216 confirms flight path, over.”

"Good luck, Echo-216. Arcturus out.”

Esparza quickly got the Pelican onto the assigned flight path. As the dropship flew around the station, John noticed a ship docked at a tube near their Pelican's assigned bay. It wouldn't impede their docking, but it did draw his attention.

The white-painted main body was long and thin, tapered like a kind of flat banana. On either side were black, skeletal, triangular wings with four rectangular nacelles attached, and near the back was a T-shaped tail fin, similar to some early human aircraft he'd seen in museums on shore leave. Emblazoned on the side were the words “Normandy” and “SR1”. The total package was about one-hundred-and-seventy meters long, around five times longer than their own Pelican.

“So that must be our ship,” John noted aloud. “Doesn't look like any frigate I've seen.”

He was shaken out of his thoughts by a muted thud that signified the dropship landing in the hangar. John and Esparza headed back to the blood tray to prepare for disembarking, before waiting for the Pelican's atmosphere to equalize.

The light near the door suddenly flashed green, signifying that it was safe to leave the dropship. With a hiss, the blood tray opened up to the station, allowing John and Esparza to leave the Pelican. Ahead of them, a scarred man in a blue Alliance dress uniform walked up to them, flanked by two guards. The Spartan and the pilot quickly snapped salutes, with Hackett quickly dismissing them.

“Good to see you again, Master Chief,” Hackett greeted, and Chief nodded in response. “You too, Officer.”

“I'm guessing that frigate out there is our next posting?” Esparza asked.

“You would be correct,” Hackett confirmed. “SSV Normandy . Prototype stealth frigate we were working on with the turians. Feel free to get yourself acquainted. I need to speak with Chief Shepard alone for a moment.”

“Sir.” With that, Esparza headed off to the Normandy . Hackett then started off to his office, with John falling in step soon after.

“Admiral, if you don't mind me asking, why did we need to work with the turians for the frigate?” John asked. “It's an Alliance prototype, so wouldn't the cooperation be a security breach?”

“The First Contact War was twenty-six years ago, Shepard,” Hackett reminded. “The Normandy was seen as a way to improve our diplomatic relations with the Council. They fund our research, the turians help design the ship, and we gain favor with the Citadel.”

“So politics,” John realized with a scoff.

“Indeed,” Hackett said with a chuckle. “I’ll admit, ONI isn’t happy about it, but as I’m sure you know, the orders come from HIGHCOM. If Parangosky isn’t willing to play ball, she can complain to them.”

“I doubt they’d listen to her unless she brought them the Illusive Man’s head on a silver platter,” John dryly replied. A private journalist had found missed breadcrumbs that exposed ONI’s previous head having massive dealings with Cerberus and their leader, resulting in his trial for treason and subsequent lifelong incarceration. This left his successor, Admiral Margaret Parangosky, the arduous task of cleaning up after him. One of her first actions was canceling Spartan development and working with the Marine Corps to merge them into the N-program. Sure, the Office still did some questionable activities, and Parangosky was a cold and calculating woman who, from the single occasion he’d met her, John honestly didn’t like, but under her leadership, ONI wouldn’t be signing off on more child soldiers.

That he knew of.

It was then that they came upon Hackett’s office. After keying in the passcode, the admiral took a seat, before gesturing for John to do the same.

“I imagine you have some questions, Chief, so feel free to ask,” Hackett said as they settled in.

“I heard there was a Council Spectre coming aboard,” John said, quickly cutting to the chase. “Any idea why whoever it is has to be there?”

“The Council helped fund the Normandy , so they’re sending an agent to make sure that their money wasn’t wasted,” Hackett replied. “As for who that agent is, he’s a turian by the name of Nihlus Kryik.” He hit a button on his omnitool, pulling up a hologram of a turian in black and red armor. The alien had black and white facial tattoos, giving him the vague appearance of a skull.

“That the official reason, sir?” John skeptically asked.

“I can’t say much more,” Hackett said, “but I can tell you more details about your assignment.” It was then that the door slid open again, revealing a dark-skinned man with thin lips and a buzzcut.

“Anderson,” Hackett greeted. “Perfect timing. I was just about to explain to Chief Shepard what he’ll be doing aboard your ship. Take a seat.” As Anderson sat down, Hackett turned back to John. “Shepard, this is Captain David Anderson. He’s in charge of the Normandy , and you’ll report directly to him.”

“Good to see you, Master Chief,” Anderson said, proffering a hand, which John took. “The Normandy will be taking her official first flight tomorrow, to an Outer Colony called Harvest.”

“Official?” John asked, noting Anderson’s usage of the word.

The captain sighed. “Joker took the ship on a joyride a month back. He was reprimanded, but at the same time, I recognized that he was able to pilot the ship with skill that I doubt even Esparza is close to matching. So, I requested his presence on the crew.”

“Huh.” With that out of the way, John got back to business. “So who am I working with?”

“You’ll be on the Normandy's ground team. There’s Nihlus, as Hackett no doubt told you,” Anderson began. “Then there’s Staff Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko. He’s a biotic, and will be your second-in-command. Lastly, there’s Corporal Richard Jenkins. About as green as green gets.”

“Noted, sir,” John replied. “When do we get started?”

“Report to the Normandy at 0800 tomorrow,” Anderson ordered. “We cast off at 0900, on the dot. Your armor’s already on board.”

(—0—)

Arcturus System

January 11th, 2583

Local time 0924 (Sol Standard Time)

Having cast off twenty-four minutes ago, the Normandy soared towards the relay to Harvest.

John, meanwhile, was fully armed and armored in his olive-green Mjolnir Mark VI. Folded on his back were Misriah Armory’s MA40 assault rifle of the famed MA line and a Hahne-Kedar M-29 Avenger sniper rifle. The MA40 had a remarkably fast fire rate for an assault rifle, second only to the far older MA5B, and the Avenger was powerful and accurate. The small of his back held a folded M45 shotgun, also made by Misriah. On his right thigh was an Emerson-manufactured MK50 Sidekick pistol. It wasn’t the most powerful, but it could fire off shots as fast as the trigger could be pulled before the heat sinks overheated. Sheathed on his right shoulder was an M1 combat knife. John would readily admit that he wasn't particularly proficient with melee weapons, even by Spartan standards, but it never hurt to have a knife on hand. Moving on to his armor, John was happy with his generic Mark VI, only modifying it with a grappleshot, but he did acknowledge that other Spartans and N7’s preferred more specialized gear. As for his helmet, it was currently cradled underneath his left arm.

Right now, the Spartan was headed for the co*ckpit. As he walked, he heard the pilot, Joker, report on their progress towards the relay. A crewman briefly acknowledged him as he passed through the CIC, with John nodding in response. He then strode through the gunnery stations, with some of the officers there sparing an amazed glance at the armored giant, no doubt in wonder at the fact that not only was a Spartan on their ship, but the Shepherd of Elysium at that. Finally reaching his destination, John walked around their Spectre overseer, Nihlus, just as Joker confirmed they were on final approach. The pilot was in the central seat, with Esparza on his left and Kaidan Alenko on his right. John wouldn’t dare miss this next sight.

The Normandy pulled next to the relay’s twin rings.

“Hitting the relay in three… two…”

A bolt of blue lightning connected between the frigate and the fork.

“...one…”

FWOOSH!

Esparza piped in just as they cleared the relay. “Thrusters… check. Navigation… check. Internal emissions sink engaged. All systems online. Joker, how’s our drift?”

“Just under fifteen-hundred K,” the pilot confirmed.

“Fifteen-hundred is good,” Nihlus remarked in the dual-toned voice typical of turians, turning to leave. “Your captain will be pleased.”

As soon as the Spectre was out of earshot, Joker immediately dropped his professionalism. “I hate that guy.”

“Nihlus gave you a compliment… so you hate him?” Alenko asked, seemingly more disappointed than confused.

“You remember to zip up your jumpsuit on the way out of the bathroom? That’s good,” Joker countered. “I just jumped us halfway across the galaxy and hit a target the size of a pinhead. So that’s incredible! Besides, Spectres are trouble. I don’t like having him on board. Call me paranoid.”

“You’re paranoid,” Alenko said without missing a beat. “The Council helped fund this project. They have a right to send someone to keep an eye on their investment.”

“Officially,” Esparza jumped in. “But we don’t know the unofficial reason.”

“I’m with the pilots,” John piped up. “Spectres don’t get deployed on something as mundane as a shakedown run, even if the Council helped fund the ship.”

“Which means that the captain isn’t telling us everything,” Esparza said.

"Joker, Esparza, status report!” the voice of Captain Anderson suddenly ordered over the intercom.

“Just cleared the mass relay, Captain. Stealth systems engaged. Everything looks solid,” Joker reported. “Esparza?”

“Same here,” the co-pilot responded.

"Good,” Anderson accepted. "Find a comm buoy and link us into the network. I want mission reports relayed back to Alliance brass before we reach Harvest.”

“Aye-aye, Captain,” Joker dutifully said, before adding, “Better brace yourself, sir. I think Nihlus is headed your way.”

"He’s already here, Lieutenant,” Anderson corrected, with Joker shaking his head in exasperation. "Tell Master Chief Shepard to meet me in the comm room for a debriefing.”

“You get that, Chief?” Joker asked.

“On my way,” John said, before turning away.

He strolled through the gunnery station, leaving the pilot, co-pilot, and Staff Lieutenant to their conversation. As he neared the CIC, however, he heard the executive officer, Charles Pressly, arguing with someone over the intercom.

“I’m telling you, I just saw him!” Pressly hotly said. “He marched by like he was on a mission!”

"He’s a Spectre, they’re always on a mission,” the person on the other side countered.

“And we’re getting dragged right along with him!” Pressly crabbed.

"Relax, Pressly,” the other person advised. “You’re gonna give yourself an ulcer.”

Before he could continue complaining, Pressly noticed John walking up. He turned and flashed a quick salute to the taller man, one that John mirrored. “Congratulations, Master Chief. Looks like we had a smooth run. You heading down to see the captain?”

“I was,” John confirmed. Out of curiosity, however, he asked, “You don’t trust the turian?”

“Sorry, Chief. Just having a chat with Adams down in engineering. Didn’t mean to cause any trouble,” Pressly apologized. “But you have to admit, something’s odd about this mission. The whole crew feels it.”

“I have a feeling I’ll be asking him soon enough,” John replied.

“Good luck, Chief,” Pressly said, before the Spartan resumed his path.

Walking around the consoles, he spotted Corporal Richard Jenkins talking to the ship’s medical officer, Karin Chakwas. The greenhorn was wearing a blue beret, while the doctor was in lab attire. They seemed to be in debate about the nature of Nihlus’ presence, just like Pressly and Adams.

“I grew up on Harvest, Doc. It’s not the kind of place Spectres visit,” Jenkins said. “There’s something Nihlus isn’t telling us about this mission.”

“That’s crazy,” Chakwas replied with a scoff. “The captain’s in charge here. He wouldn’t take orders from a Spectre.”

“Not his choice, Doc. Spectres don’t answer to anyone,” Jenkins countered. “They can do whatever they want. Kill anyone who gets in their way.”

Chakwas let out a laugh. “You watch too many spy vids, Jenkins.”

The greenhorn jumped when he spotted John walking towards him, evidently having failed to notice the giant Spartan, before quickly regaining his composure and snapping a quick salute, with John following suit. “What do you think, Chief? We won’t be staying on Harvest too long, will we? I’m itching for some real action!”

“I sincerely hope you’re kidding, Corporal,” Chakwas dryly replied. “Your ‘real action’ usually ends with me patching up crew members in the infirmary.”

“The doctor’s right,” John agreed. “I’ve seen enough to know not to look for fights.”

“Sorry, Chief, but this waiting’s killing me,” Jenkins apologized. “I’ve never been on a mission like this before. Not one with a Spectre on board!”

“Just treat it like any other mission,” John wisely said. “Jenkins, you’re from Harvest. What’s it like?”

“It’s very peaceful, Chief,” Jenkins said fondly. “They’ve been real careful with development, so you don’t have any city noise or pollution. My parents lived on the outskirts of the colony. At night, I used to climb this big hill and stare across the fields back at the lights from the main settlement. It was gorgeous. But when I got older, I realized it was a little too calm and quiet for me. That’s why I joined the Alliance. Even paradise gets boring after a while.”

John hummed in acknowledgement. It seemed like a decent place for retirement. “Got any thoughts on why it’s our destination?”

“Not really sure, Chief,” Jenkins admitted. “Harvest is one of our most stable colonies, not many Innies to speak of. Good place to take the Normandy for her shakedown run, I guess. No real danger there. But there’s gotta be something else going on. We’ve got a Spectre on board! That’s why I’m so wound up, I can’t wait for the real mission to start!”

“Again, treat it like any other mission,” John reminded.

“Easy for you to say,” Jenkins retorted. “You proved yourself in the Blitz. Everybody knows what you can do. This is my big chance, I need to show the brass what I can do!”

“This isn’t about glory, Corporal,” John harshly responded. “Don’t mess up our job by doing something idiotic. And I don’t take glory in what happened at Eridanus. Too many good people were lost there, and not enough slavers paid for it.”

“You really should be more sensitive, Corporal,” Chakwas chided. “And listen to the N7 in the room.”

“Don’t worry,” Jenkins confidently said. “I’m not going to screw this up.”

John hummed skeptically. “I should go, the captain’s waiting.”

“Goodbye, Chief,” Chakwas said.

Walking around the two, John went through the hatch to the comms room. The first thing he saw was Nihlus looking at a holo of a verdant, sparsely developed landscape.

The turian turned to the Spartan. “Master Chief. I was hoping you’d get here first. It will give us a chance to talk.”

“The captain said he’d meet me here,” John responded.

“He’s on his way,” Nihlus replied dismissively. Pacing, he said, “I’m interested in this world we’re going to, Harvest. I’ve heard it’s quite beautiful.”

“Never been,” John answered.

“But you know of it,” Nihlus countered. “It’s become something of a symbol for your people, hasn’t it? Proof that humanity can not only establish colonies across the galaxy, but also protect them. But how safe is it, really?”

John immediately tensed, his hand nearing the Sidekick on his thigh plate. “Is that a threat?”

“Your people are still newcomers, Shepard,” Nihlus said. “The galaxy can be a very dangerous place. Is the Alliance truly ready for this?”

Before John could respond, the hissing of the hatch signified the arrival of Captain Anderson. As he walked down, the captain faced Nihlus. “I think it’s about time we told the Master Chief what’s really going on.”

“This mission is far more than a simple shakedown run,” Nihlus said.

“That’s obvious,” John dryly said.

“We’re making a covert pickup on Harvest,” Anderson informed. “That’s why we needed the stealth systems operational.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about this, sir?” John asked.

“This comes down from the top. Chief,” Anderson responded. “Information strictly on a need-to-know basis. A research team on Harvest unearthed some kind of beacon during an excavation. It was prothean.”

“Didn’t the protheans vanish fifty-thousand years ago?” John asked in confusion.

“Their legacy still remains,” Nihlus said. “The mass relays, the Citadel, our ship drives - it’s all based on prothean technology.”

“This is big, Shepard,” Anderson added. “The last time humanity made a discovery like this, it jumped our technology forward two hundred years. But Harvest doesn’t have the facilities to handle something like this. We need to bring the beacon back to the Citadel for proper study.”

“Obviously, this goes beyond mere human interests, Master Chief,” Nihlus dryly continued. “This discovery could affect every species in Council space.”

“Why hand it over to the Citadel?” John skeptically asked.

“You humans don’t have the best reputation,” Nihlus explained. “Some species see you as selfish. Too unpredictable. Too independent. Even dangerous.”

“Sharing that beacon will improve relations with the Council. Plus, we need their scientific expertise. They know more about the protheans than we do,” Anderson added.

John scoffed. “Politics. Typical.”

“The beacon’s not the only reason I’m here, Shepard,” Nihlus said.

“Nihlus wants to see you in action, Chief,” Anderson continued. “He’s here to evaluate you.”

John was confused. “What’s going on, Captain?”

“The Alliance has been pushing for this for a long time,” Anderson began. “Humanity wants a larger role in shaping interstellar policy. We want more say with the Citadel Council. The Spectres represent the Council’s power and authority. If they accept a human into their ranks, it shows how far the Alliance has come.”

“You held off an enemy assault during the Blitz single-handed,” Nihlus noted. “You showed not only courage but also incredible skill.”

“With all due respect, it wasn’t single-handed,” John corrected. “I had good soldiers under my command… and we didn’t save everyone.”

“Regardless, you have exactly what the Spectres are looking for. Bravery, skill, leadership… luck,” Nihlus said. “That’s why I put your name forward as a candidate.”

“Seems odd that a turian would want a human in the Spectres,” John observed.

“Not all turians resent humanity,” Nihlus responded. “Some of us see the potential of your species. We see what you have to offer to the rest of the galaxy… and to the Spectres. We are an elite group. It’s rare to find an individual with the skills we seek. I don’t care that you’re human, Shepard. I only care that you can do the job.”

“Not often I support politicians,” John noted. “But I think this is a good play.”

“Earth needs this, Shepard,” Anderson confirmed. “We’re counting on you.”

“I need to see your skills for myself, Master Chief,” Nihlus reminded. “Harvest will be the first of several missions together.”

“You’ll be in charge of the ground team,” Anderson informed. “Secure the beacon and get it onto the ship ASAP. Nihlus will accompany you to observe the mission.”

“Whenever you’re ready, Captain,” John affirmed.

Anderson nodded. “We should be getting close to Harv-”

"Captain! We’ve got a problem!” Joker’s panicked voice said over the intercom.

“What’s wrong, Joker?” Anderson questioned, going full business mode.

"Transmission from Harvest, sir. You better see this!”

Anderson’s eyes narrowed. “Bring it up on screen.”

Almost instantly, a video appeared on the holo. A female Alliance Marine in white and pink armor fired her Lancer assault rifle at some unseen enemy, with… glowing blue globs whizzing past her. She ran towards the camera, yelling, "GET DOWN!” at the person behind it as she shoved them to the ground, before resuming her fire. The background noise suggested that whatever was going on wasn’t good. More Marines were seen, also shooting at the unknowns.

A Marine in yellow armor bent down to the camera. "We are under attack! Taking heavy casualties, I repeat, heavy casualties! We can’t-” A glowing white ball landed behind him, before exploding in a blinding white flash and causing him to stumble. "Argh! Need evac! They came out of nowhere! We need-” The Marine was interrupted by an unearthly groan. The camera turned to the source of the noise as the other marines stopped firing in shock, showing an absolutely massive ship with a hooked bow as it came down from the sky, an eerie blue light emitting from a circular section on the bottom. The message then turned to static.

"Everything cuts out after that, no comm traffic at all,” Joker gravely said. "Just goes dead. There’s nothing.”

“Reverse and hold at thirty-eight-point-five,” Anderson ordered. The holo flashed to the hooked ship. Everyone in the room analyzed it. It didn’t match with any known ship classes. “Status report.”

"Seventeen minutes out, Captain,” Joker reported. "No other Alliance ships in the area.”

Anderson took a moment to think. “Take us in, pilots. Fast and quiet. This mission just got a lot more complicated.”

Nihlus quickly got to business. “A small strike team can move quickly without drawing attention. It’s our best chance to secure the beacon.”

“Grab your gear and meet us in the cargo hold,” Anderson ordered. As Nihlus went off to get his weapons, the captain turned to John. “Tell Alenko and Jenkins to suit up, Chief. You’re going in.”

The Master Chief donned his helmet, a small beep accompanying the pressure seal activating. “Don’t have to tell me twice.” Before he left, however, he spared one last glance at the unknown ship.

(—0—)

Codex: Misriah Armory

When humanity joined the Citadel community, they brought their weapons manufacturers along with them. Chief among those is Misriah Armory. Founded in 2274, the company is by far the largest supplier for the Systems Alliance, and has a rapidly-growing reputation in inter-species markets. Currently, 52% of weapons sold to humans are made by Misriah Armory, with the next closest runner-up being Hahne-Kedar at 22% and Aldrin Labs at 14%. A common saying among weapons dealers is “If a human wants a weapon, they want a Misriah.”

While most people know Misriah for their popular and reliable MA line of mass accelerator rifles, the company has a wide range of products, including the M6 Magnum line of sidearms, the SRS99 series of anti-material rifles, and, most notably, a licensed version of AMG Transport Dynamics’ M12 Light Reconnaissance Vehicle, also known as the Warthog. They also produce the GUNGNIR, SECURITY, and MP variants of N7 and Mjolnir helmets and various helmet attachments, as well as numerous models of Marine and ODST hardsuits. Company officials announced in 2580 that they were designing prototypes for a helmet codenamed ATHLON, designed primarily around safety during War Games training matches, which will be released in mid-2584 as part of the Alliance’s GEN2 line of N7 hardsuits and Mjolnir armor.

While Misriah primarily caters to the Systems Alliance, they have a growing presence in inter-species markets. One of their more notable contributions is a deal they brokered with fellow human manufacturer Sevine Arms, where Sevine would produce a licensed variant of Misriah’s M392 Designated Marksman Rifle called the Bandit for export. While the Bandit is indeed popular among non-humans, most commonly quarian Marines, STG/ONI joint ops, and Council Spectres, the main buyers are mercenary groups in the Terminus, rendering the Bandit a controversial weapon in the public eye. Sevine defends the sales, saying that if they had any reason to think they were illegal, then the Bandit would not be in mercenary hands.

Within the last decade, Misriah has been experimenting with disposable heat sinks in their weapons, instead of the more traditional integrated ones. These new heat sinks, called “thermal clips”, can be quickly swapped out for a new one, rather than waiting for the gun to cool down. A major caveat they have observed is that with these thermal clips, it is once again possible to run out of ammunition. The company justifies these experiments with the claim that warfare is shifting to who can output the most fire in the shortest amount of time, and that they are just being proactive. Detractors say that this is a ploy to gain more sales, though company spokespeople deny it. Misriah says that thermal clips will be standard in every new weapon they make by mid-2584, and that they will make the patent for thermal clips open-source in order to allow other manufacturers to iterate upon the design. Given the massive pull the company has in human markets, and its ever-growing influence in non-human markets, these thermal clips are likely to completely replace integrated heat sinks.

(—0—)

Next chapter: Contact

Chapter 3: I-II: Contact

Chapter Text

Chapter 2: Harvest, Part I: Contact

(—0—)

As the Normandy neared Harvest’s surface, the first thing Chief noticed was just how different it was from the holo. The holo from before showed blue skies and green grass, whereas the planet he was seeing right now was tinted orange by the massive amounts of smoke and ash.

In the cargo bay, as Alenko and Jenkins did final checks on their weapons, Anderson was briefing the ground team.

“Your team’s the muscle in this operation, Chief,” the captain informed. “Go in heavy and head straight for the dig site. Link up with the colony's Superintendent if it's still intact.”

“What about survivors, Captain?” Alenko asked as he racked the heat sink on his pistol, a Misriah M6H2 Magnum.

“Helping survivors is a secondary objective,” Anderson said as the bay door opened. “The beacon’s your top priority!”

“Approaching drop point one, get ready,” Esparza reported over the intercom.

“Nihlus, you coming with us?” Jenkins asked.

Nihlus checked his shotgun before answering, “I move faster on my own.” He then sprinted forward, before jumping out into the rushing air.

“Nihlus will scout out ahead,” Anderson explained. “He’ll feed you status reports throughout the mission. Inform him of any new enemies you find. Otherwise, I want radio silence.”

“We’ll make it happen, sir,” Chief dutifully said.

“The mission’s yours now, Shepard,” Anderson finished. “Good luck.”

“Approaching drop point two.”

As the Normandy came to a halt above a small plateau, the Chief, Alenko, and Jenkins all got a running start, before leaping out. Their armors’ mass effect fields lightened the impact, with the Mjolnir’s built-in shock absorbers taking even more of the fall. Chief immediately unfolded his assault rifle, checking their surroundings for any unknowns. Jenkins did the same with his BR85 battle rifle, as did Alenko with his Magnum.

“Clear,” Chief called out.

“Ship perimeter secure, Chief,” Alenko reported.

“Looks like nobody’s home,” Jenkins said.

“I've connected to the city's Superintendent,” Nihlus said over the radio. “This place got hit hard, Chief. Unknowns everywhere.”

“Sierra-117 to Nihlus. No hostiles at my location yet, but we’re staying alert,” Chief responded.

“Good. Move towards the dig site.”

The three then set off at a jog, weapons at the ready. They didn’t want to be caught with their pants down by the new enemy. Up ahead, what looked like floating potato sacks hovered above a small pond.

“What the h### are those?” Alenko asked.

“Gas bags, they’re harmless,” Jenkins answered fondly.

The three then went over a hill, between two walls of stone. The sight of destruction met their eyes, black smoke rising from the rubble of a ravaged skyscraper.

“Oh god… what happened here?” Jenkins breathed, in shock at seeing his home in this state. Alenko was speechless, and Chief was likewise silent, but the Spartan only allowed himself to be distracted for a moment.

“We can't help them right now,” he reminded. “We've got to get to the beacon. Help whoever we find along the way, but don't deviate from our course.”

“...aye-aye, Chief,” Jenkins eventually responded.

As they went down the hill, Chief crouched and raised a fist, signaling the others to halt. Crouching down and taking a look around, he saw nothing. It was quiet.

Too quiet.

He eventually waved the squad forward, with Jenkins taking point, battle rifle raised. It was at that point that a faint insect-like buzzing sound was heard, and it began to grow louder.

PEWPEWPEWPEWPEW!

Three of the largest bugs Chief had ever seen flew in from behind the rocks, weapons spewing out glowing green globs at a rapid pace. Jenkins, who had been out of cover, took the brunt of the ambush.

Chief immediately opened up with bursts from his rifle, downing one of the bugs in just a few shots. Alenko followed suit with his pistol, knocking off another bug's wing and causing it to spiral into the ground, where two more bullets finished it off. A final burst from Chief's rifle ended the last bug's threat.

The Spartan then took note of the unmoving Jenkins. The two remaining squad members walked over to his body, and Alenko crouched down next to him. His hardsuit was cratered and melted, with charred bone and muscle visible.

“Ripped right through his shields,” the biotic somberly said as he closed the dead Marine's eyes. “He never had a chance.”

“He'll get a funeral,” Chief assured. “In the meantime, we need to move.”

“Aye-aye, sir,” Alenko responded, standing up.

Before they resumed their advance, however, Chief took a closer look at the bugs. They were most definitely insectoid in nature, but that was where the similarities to normal bugs ended. The bugs had four limbs, two arms and two legs. The arms had three fingers, with what looked like opposable thumbs, while the legs had two claws on the end. A brown carapace covered the alien, and two feather-like antennae sprouted from the head. Chitinous wings were attached to the back, but they seemed too small to allow flight in Harvest's gravity. Maybe he had somehow missed them using biotics. As for their weapons, they looked kind of like a blue horseshoe. Glowing yellow lines were on the side of the unknown pistols, and between the prongs was a green bolt of electricity.

Between the glowing pistols and Jenkins’ melted body and armor, it wasn't too hard to realize what they shot.

“Sierra-117 to Nihlus, we have made contact with unknown hostiles. Some kind of giant bugs with what look like plasma weapons. Possibly biotic, and Corporal Jenkins is KIA,” Chief said over the radio. Turning to the soldier with the aforementioned biotics, he asked, “Alenko, did you see these things use biotics?”

“Not from what I could tell, no,” Alenko responded.

In other words, screw physics.

“Correction, negative on the biotics,” Chief amended.

“Understood,” Nihlus replied. “Be careful, energy weapons burn through barriers faster than bullets.”

No wonder Jenkins died as fast as he did. “Copy that. Designating the new enemy as drones.”

The two then got moving, ascending the next hill and taking cover wherever they could. As they crested the hill, more of the newly-christened drones emerged from the forest, but Chief and Alenko countered them before they could fire back.

“I've got some burned out buildings, Shepard,” Nihlus said over the comms, “and a lot of bodies. I'm going to check it out. I'll try to catch up with you at the dig site.”

“Copy that,” Chief replied.

Walking through the forest, only one more drone harassed them, but it was dealt with quickly. As the Chief and Alenko took cover behind a pair of rocks, however, the Spartan spotted something he did not expect to see…

…the female Marine from the distress call.

(—0—)

Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams was currently running for her life.

The unknown aliens had made landfall barely an hour ago from the big ship with the hooked bow, and had already wiped out the 212th, save her. Their numbers had been overwhelming, especially the scaly chimps with the backpacks. Where Alliance armor was muted, the aliens wore brightly-colored armor that made sure everyone knew about their presence. Their weapons shot freaking plasma of all things, tearing the humans’ barriers and armor apart, along with some sort of handgun that shot explosive pink crystals. Right now, she was doing her best to ignore a massive plasma burn on the left side of her abdomen.

Behind Ashley, a pair of bugs were shooting at her with those strange pistols of theirs. A shot hit her barrier, taking a good quarter off of it and causing her to stumble. Thinking quickly, she dropped to her back and pulled out her pistol, an M6C Magnum, and took aim at the bugs. The first shot hit a bug in the head, causing it to explode into green ichor, and the second and third shots tore off the other one’s wing, causing it to spiral into the ground at high velocity, killing it.

It was then that she looked to the left, and saw a barely-conscious civilian in the double-thumbed hands of two massive, yet lithe bow-legged saurians, one in blue armor and the other in red. The reptiles were lifting the man onto a tripod of some sort.

SHING!

“AAGH!”

A massive spike suddenly shot up from the tripod and impaled the civilian. In terror, Ashley got up and ran as fast as she could towards a massive boulder, swapping out her pistol for an old MA2B she’d scavenged after her Lancer had been sliced in two.

However, it seemed she had drawn the aliens’ attention. The red one barked an order and took a massive, almost fish-shaped blue handgun from its leg, and the blue one pulled a purple, elegantly-curved rifle with radioactive-green lights from its back, before the two aliens then began to advance on her location.

THOOM!

The signature sound of an Avenger sniper rifle rang out, and the blue alien’s shields flared brightly and snapped as its head exploded. As the red alien opened fire, a biotic throw caused it to stumble back a step, before an olive-green blur slammed into it. The blur began to pound at the alien’s shields, and within a second, the alien's shields broke, and the blur dumped half a dozen rounds from a pistol into its chest, killing it.

Turning to her saviors, Ashley's eyes widened. The first one wasn’t particularly remarkable-looking, being a male Marine in an Onyx light hardsuit, but the second…

He was tall, to put it plainly. He wore heavy olive-green plate armor, but from the way he walked it was as if it wasn’t there. A red stripe bordered by white ran down his right arm, with a red stripe in the middle of his helmet. The helmet had a strikingly gold visor, and on the chestplate were two emblems: The right had “N7” emblazoned on it, and on the left was “117”.

She was looking at a Spartan. A real Spartan. And not just any Spartan; she didn't need her HUD to tell her he was the freaking Master Chief, the Shepherd of Elysium.

“Thanks for your help, Chief,” Ashley said breathlessly, ignoring the inner fangirl that was screaming in her head, as well as the burn that stung at her side. “I didn't think I was gonna make it.” Straightening, she continued, “Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams of the two-twelve. You the one in charge here, sir?”

“Affirmative. You hurt, Williams?” Chief asked in a slightly husky voice, concerned.

“Burn on my side's the worst of it. Patched it up with medigel,” Ashley reported, wincing as the pain came back. She'd need to see a real medic soon. “The others weren't so lucky.”

“I need to know what happened,” Chief said.

Ashley gestured towards the colony. “Oh man… we were patrolling the perimeter when the attack hit. We tried to get off a distress call, but they cut off our communications. I've been fighting for my life ever since.”

“What about your squad?” Chief questioned.

“We tried to double back to the beacon, but we walked right into an ambush,” Ashley said. “Big lizards like the ones here, but they were purple and had active camo. I don't think any of the others… I think I'm the only one left.”

“Don't blame yourself, Williams,” Chief replied reassuringly, grabbing her shoulder briefly. “You did your best, and that's all anyone can ask.”

“Yes sir,” Ashley said, not entirely convinced, but the words were nice. “We held our position as long as we could, until the aliens overwhelmed us.”

“You got any idea what these things are?” the other Marine, Staff Lieutenant Alenko, asked.

“No idea, but they must have come for the beacon,” Ashley informed. “The dig site is close, just over that rise. It might still be there.”

“You combat-ready, Williams?” Chief questioned. “We'll need all the help we can get.”

“As ready as I can be, sir,” Ashley affirmed. “It's time for payback.”

Chief gestured in the direction Ashley pointed with his assault rifle. “Move out.”

(—0—)

As the three began to move through the trench ahead, Chief keyed his comms. “Sierra-117 to Nihlus. Rescued a survivor from the 212th. She was under assault from two large alien reptiles in blue and red armor.”

“I've seen a few of those, too,” Nihlus reported. “Armor color seems to denote rank and shield strength. They're usually flanked by squads of small scaly aliens with backpacks and birds with what look like energy riot shields. The small ones don't have any shields at all, and the birds tend to scavenge from the fallen of both sides. Watch out for the reptiles in gold, they'll charge you with swords and have sturdy shields. Don't let them get close.”

“Affirmative,” Chief replied. “Designating the reptiles as elites, the small ones as grunts, and the birds as jackals.”

As they moved forward, Williams piped up again. “The beacon's at the far end of this trench.”

Indeed, the marker on Chief's HUD pointed to the end of the trench, but at the location, there were two more elites. These ones wore blue armor, and were surrounded by eight small, chimp-like aliens with triangular backpacks. The six in orange backpacks had plasma pistols, while the two in blue had purple handguns with glowing pink crystals coming out the top. These must have been the grunts. The elites seemed to spot them, and pointed in their direction before opening up. The grunts soon followed suit.

As the team took cover, Williams shouted, “Watch out for the needlers! The shards don’t trigger barriers! Enough of them hit you, and you go up in a pink mist!" At her squadmates' stares, she replied, "You got a better name for those things?"

Shaking his head, Chief got to work. “Alenko, on my signal, hit the left elite with a throw. Me and Williams will take him out. After that, we’ll all leave cover and focus fire on the second one. We'll finish off the grunts afterwards. Prioritize the needlers.”

“Yes sir!” Alenko affirmed, pooling biotic energy into his hand. The Chief waited for a lull in the plasma, and as soon as it came, he gave the call.

“Now!”

BWOOM!

The throw hit dead on, staggering the elite and giving Chief and Williams their opening. The Spartan and the Marine leaned out of cover and poured rifle fire into its shields and then its body. As the reptile collapsed dead, perforated like swiss cheese, the team spun out of cover, two rifles and a pistol emptying into the second elite. It’s shields were quickly overwhelmed, and purple blood began to leak from its body as it fell. The grunts seemed to collectively panic as their leaders died, throwing their arms in the air and running around in a comedic waddle as they screamed.

Huh. So they were cowards. That made their job a lot easier.

It didn't take long to pick off the grunts after that. Chief and Williams immediately took out the needler grunts with bursts of fire, before moving on to the others. A shot from Alenko's pistol hit one of the grunts' backpacks, causing it to explode in a green fire that smelled of methane and took out another nearby grunt. Three of the remaining were taken out in quick succession, but while the squad was occupied, the fourth did something that surprised them: It pulled out a pair of purple orbs, clicked a button on them that caused them to glow a bright white, and charged.

"SUICIDE BOMBER!" Chief exclaimed, quickly snapping his pistol up and pulling the trigger as fast as he possibly could. One of the rounds managed to catch the grunt in the head, causing it to drop its grenades as it died…

…barely fifteen feet away.

The grenades flared before exploding in a blinding white. The blast overwhelmed Chief's barriers and caused him to fly back, but he was miraculously left unharmed, save for some sparks melting bits of his armor plating. A quick diagnostic program revealed that it wasn't compromised, but it would need repairs at a properly equipped outpost.

"You good, Chief?" Alenko asked as the adrenaline wore off.

"Armor plating's melted, but not compromised," Chief reported, standing up. "I'm still combat-capable. Let's move.”

The team eventually reached their destination. Something glaringly obvious upon arrival was the distinct lack of a prothean beacon.

“This is the dig site. The beacon was right here, it must have been moved!” Williams exclaimed, seemingly to dissuade any concerns of foul play.

“By who?” Alenko questioned. “Our side, or the aliens?”

“Hard to say,” Williams responded with a shrug. “Maybe we'll know more after we check out the research camp.”

“Any survivors?” Chief asked.

“If they were lucky,” Williams said. “Maybe hiding up in the camp. It's just on the top of this ridge, up the ramps.”

As the squad moved in the prescribed direction, Nihlus called again. “Change of plans, Shepard. There's a small spaceport up ahead. I want to check it out. I'll wait for you there.”

Reaching the top of the ramp, Chief was immediately hit by the sight of burning buildings. Very little remained intact. Additionally, to the left, there were five of those spikes, with more human silhouettes on them, but these humans seemed to be a sickly blue instead of the normal skin tones.

“Looks like they hit the camp hard,” Williams morosely said.

“It's a good place for an ambush,” Alenko reminded. “Keep your guard up.”

SHREEK!

With an ear-piercing grinding sound, the spikes retracted, releasing the blue humans. They suddenly sparked with electricity, and the humans got off the tripods and began shambling towards them.

Actually, upon closer inspection, these weren't humans - at least, not anymore. The blue tone was the first sign, but the bodies below the upper torso seemed to be composed of thick black tubes. The fingers had been reduced to thin claws, and the eyes had been replaced with blue lights.

“Oh god - they're still alive!” Alenko exclaimed in shock.

“What did the aliens do to them?!” Williams breathed.

Chief took a moment to assess the situation. It was rather plain that not only were these humans (if they could still be called that) heavily modified, but they were hostile.

“Whatever happened, these aren't humans anymore,” he asserted. “Take them out.”

Three bursts from his assault rifle tore into one of the creatures, bisecting it, before another burst shredded its head as its still-moving upper half tried to claw towards him. Another burst took down another one, but a third one managed to get close in the chaos. It briefly curled up, before expelling an electrical explosion that overloaded Chief's shields. In response, he swapped his rifle for his shotgun, before putting a burst of buckshot into its skull, ending the threat. A quick glance showed that Alenko and Williams had taken down the other two creatures. With a quick glance at his motion tracker, the Chief confirmed the area was clear.

Up ahead, there was a locked prefab building. “That door, it's closed. Security lock's engaged,” Williams noted.

Turning to the team's Sentinel, Chief said, “Alenko, get that door open. We still need to connect to the Superintendent, and we need an intact terminal to do that.”

“Aye-aye, Chief,” Alenko responded. Walking up to the door, he activated his omnitool and began fiddling around. Soon after, the control turned green and the door slid open, revealing two civilians in science gear, one male and one female.

“Humans! Thank the Maker!” the woman exclaimed in relief. She had short red hair and pale skin.

“Hurry! Close the door! Before they come back!” the man hurriedly whispered. He was balding, and what little hair he had was a light brown. His eyes had a crazed look to them, and he was slightly hunched.

“What are you doing in here?” Chief asked, folding his shotgun and stowing it before hitting a button to close the door.

“I'm Doctor Warren,” the woman said. “I was in charge of this excavation. We hid in the shed during the attack. The aliens must have come for the beacon.”

“Looks like you were right, Williams,” Chief remarked. Turning to the scientists, he asked, “Was the Cole Protocol executed?”

Warren nodded. “All excavation data was deleted when the aliens came, but the beacon wasn't here. It was moved to the spaceport earlier this morning. Manuel and I stayed behind to pack up the camp. When the attack came, the marines held the aliens off long enough for us to hide and delete the data. They gave their lives to save us.”

“No one is saved!” Manuel blabbered. “The age of humanity is ended! Soon, only ruin and corpses will remain! No protocol will keep them away!”

“Is he going to be a problem?” Chief questioned as his hand edged closer to his Sidekick, not entirely sure of the man's sanity.

“Manuel has a brilliant mind, but he's always been a bit… unstable,” Warren explained, palming her face. “Genius and madness are two sides of the same coin.”

“Is it madness to see the future? To see the destruction rushing towards us? To understand there is no escape? No hope?” Manuel murmured. “No, I am not mad. I’m the only sane one left!”

“I gave him an extra dose of his meds after the attack,” Warren said apologetically.

“...sit tight until the all-clear comes,” Chief ordered. “Can you patch us into the Superintendent?”

“I can,” Warren affirmed, raising her omnitool and tapping a few buttons. Soon after, a distinct ‘ping’ sounded in Chief’s helmet.

“Superintendent connected,” the colony AI reported. “Welcome, Master Chief Shepard."

Satisfied, he turned to his team's new recruit, and said, “Williams, take us to the spaceport.”

“Aye-aye, sir,” Williams affirmed.

After exiting the prefab, Alenko resealed the door, and the squad resumed their trek.

(—0—)

Nihlus kept his assault rifle raised as he made his way through the spaceport. Making his way forward, he took cover behind a short wall nearby. He waited a few moments, before spinning out with his rifle raised. However, he stayed his trigger finger when he saw who it was.

“Saren?” he said in confusion. The other turian was pale, lacking the tattoos typical of their race. Two spines extended from the sides of his head, and his left arm was completely prosthetic. It certainly looked like Saren.

The other turian turned to him. “Nihlus.”

“This isn’t your mission, Saren,” Nihlus noted. “What are you doing here?”

“The Council thought you could use some help on this one,” Saren explained, briefly putting a hand on Nihlus’ shoulder.

If Nihlus was being honest, he could use the help.

The tattooed turian looked towards the spaceport, his back to Saren. “I wasn’t expecting another hostile first contact. The situation’s bad.”

“Don’t worry,” Saren said. “I’ve got it under control. Arbiter?”

Nihlus froze. “What?”

SNAP-HISS!

“AAAAAAGH!”

Nihlus screamed in pain as twin prongs of blue plasma went into his back and out his chest. As the blade deactivated, he fell limply to the floor, his last dregs of life quickly vanishing. Before he died, however, he saw something that shook him to the core.

Saren was standing next to an elite in ornate silver plate armor with gold trim. The elite appeared to be blinded in its left eye, and it held no visible weapons save for the sword in its hand. What truly shook Nihlus was that the elite was not only not trying to kill Saren, but actively conversing with him.

Nihlus tried to raise his omnitool to take a picture, but found he hadn't the strength to do so before he died.

(—0—)

Codex: Cole Protocol

Soon after the First Contact War began between the humans and the turians, a human vice admiral by the name of Preston Jeremiah Cole made a grave realization. If the turians were to obtain navigational data from a captured ship, civilian or military, then every human world was at risk. It was with this in mind that Cole drafted Alliance General Order 098831A-1, more commonly known as the Cole Protocol.

The basic premise of the protocol is making sure that the enemy cannot get their hands on any data in the first place. If a ship is in immediate danger of capture, the crew are to wipe any and all data onboard and scuttle the vessel, and anything captured from the enemy must be extensively searched for tracking methods before being taken to a friendly system. Any relays in a system are not to be used, and retreating vessels must jump on a random vector before heading to friendly space. A notable example of the Cole Protocol’s execution was when turian General Desolas Arterius docked his ship with a human one in preparation for boarding during the First Contact War. The human crew had set their ship’s drive core to overload, with the blast consuming Desolas’ ship in the process. Arterius did not survive.

Once lasting peace was achieved between humanity and the Citadel, militaries all across the galaxy have implemented similar protocols in recognition of its effectiveness. Asari Matriarch Lidanya, captain of the Destiny Ascension, notably drafted the Secrecy Order in 2562. Hierarchy General Adrian Victus filed potential improvements on the Desolas Act in 2575. The salarian Special Tasks Group sent representatives to the human Office of Naval Intelligence in 2581 to fine-tune the Cole Protocol. Outside the Citadel, in 2566, Admiral Han’Gerrel vas Neema introduced Bill 9384-81A to the Quarian Conclave, which would dictate that all Migrant Fleet vessels must ensure that, in the event of impending capture by hostile forces, any data on board does not fall into hostile hands by any means necessary. The bill passed by a narrow majority of 27,272 to 24,923, becoming law in 2567.

These protocols do not go without opposition, however. As stated before, Bill 9384-81H only passed by a narrow majority. One of the more vocal opponents of the bill was Admiral Zaal’Koris vas Qwib-Qwib of the Civilian Fleet, who claimed in an interview after its passage, “We [the quarians] are close enough to extinction as it is without blowing up our own ships”, though he did acknowledge its merits. The Batarian Hegemony has notably decried these protocols as unnecessary, with a statement in 2564 saying that the protocols only delay the inevitable. Vice Admiral Cole himself countered that enacting the protocols buys time for a counter-offensive to be planned and executed, joking that “Delaying the inevitable is exactly the point.”

(—0—)

Next chapter: Keystone

(—0—)

AN: AO3 readers, I had to make this AN part of the chapter because it was too long for the endnote section to accept.

Anyway, that is a wrap on Chapter 2. Man, translating gameplay into words is difficult.

Also, again, I had to split this chapter into two because it was getting too long. Sorry to make you wait for the Harvest mission to wrap up, but that's the way the cookie crumbles.

Am I using that idiom right?

…anyway, as you saw, I have a new sidekick for Saren. Those of you who have watched Halo Season 2 may know Var ‘Gatanai. Again, say what you will about the show, I’m using bits of it. In addition, I know people would be up in arms if I made Thel a bad guy.

As for Benezia, stay tuned.

Concerning the Covenant, I’m primarily imagining them with their Halo Infinite appearances, with an exception for the drones because… well, they didn’t appear in the game. So imagine the drones as looking like their Halo 2 Anniversary appearance.

Anyway, review responses. I’ll probably be moving these to the opening AN of chapters going forward.

Guest 1: Crap, no AI’s which means no Cortana anytime soon! Dammit, how the hell is Humanity supposed to develop Slipspace drives any time soon? And being reliant on the Mass Relays means that this UNSC/Alliance won’t have the number of Worlds that the canon UNSC had prior to Harvest! Not to mention the Council won’t immediately defend humanity, they will assume that Humanity messed up first contact and try to “smooth things over” with these newcomers, ultimately allowing the Covenant to acquire codex data on the location of EVERY inhabited Planet in the Galaxy, thus allowing Slipspace capable ships to burn Human Worlds with impunity! Also, when it gets out that Daren was behind the attack and the unleashing of a genocidal alien alliance on Humanity, no way ONI or Highcom will EVER trust the Councilors ever again (at least I wouldn’t), and the Batarians will see this as an opportunity to join in on making the “primitive humans” suffer!

Believer218: First: …did you read the prologue? Also, I won’t say more on the topic, but Cortana is coming, just not for a long, long while, at least until ME2. I want to build up John as his own character before I stick an AI in his head.

Second: I haven’t completely eliminated the possibility of slipspace use right now. As it stands now, if I do end up including it, it will be that slipspace is used by humans for FTL in a cluster, while relays are used for galactic-scale travel.

Third: In the ME-verse, FTL travel is possible without the relays, but it’s massively slower, so that is typically limited to the cluster around the system the relay is in. Therefore, it’s not necessarily impossible that my Alliance has about as many worlds as the UNSC.

Fourth: The Council situation will be answered in the next chapter. As for codex data, see the Codex entry above.

Fifth: Politics.

Sixth: Screw the batarians.

six samurai of dragon order: You have my attention.

Believer218: I sure hope I do. Also, cool username.

Guest 2: How long was this humanity exploring and colonizing prior to meeting the Turians if they have more territory than the canon Systems Alliance?

Believer218: I’d say they were expanding rather slowly since around 2350. I’ll probably come up with a more concrete answer in a future Codex entry.

Darth Tzar: Personally, I think the aesthetics battle don’t really matter and don’t actually achieve victory. Just look at star destroyers in Star Wars. They look cool but with a big tower on the back of the ship just basically screams shoot me. how about real life because brightly colored uniforms got people killed in the first world war and even the American Civil War for that matter when the officers were targeted by snipers.

Believer218: Yeah, you make a good point. But the way I'm thinking is that before, the Alliance didn’t have to contend with looking good in front of the other species. But after they got introduced to the Citadel, suddenly their ships looked brutish and unappealing. And of course, human politicians want to make the Alliance look good on the voting floor, because that gets them more favorable bills. In short, politics.

Besides, you can’t exactly hide a kilometer-long dreadnought. That’s why the Normandy’s a prototype for stealth.

Guest 3: So basically just Systems Alliance with Halo's military institutions and a mix of technology from both. Also does the Alliance have AI or none at all or just reserved in anything the Alliance considers top secret since AI have been in use in Halo for centuries and were vital in their daily lives be it civilian or military.

Believer218: Basically.

As for the AI question, the Alliance uses them in a prominent role, but they will be elaborated on in Chapter 4's codex entry.

Guest 4: Well this is interesting, this is basically HSA but 400 years more advanced so I think it's reasonable that they can keep 800 worlds or possibly 900 worlds if they went expansionist like the HSA.

As for their fleet size, if they're using the HSA shipset, then they should have at least 10 times more ships than the UEG simply because of the size and tonnage so 20K ships. I mean, if we assume that the industry is the same as canon UNSC, the one that builds cruisers the size of dreadnoughts, then they should be able to build that number.

But if they use UNSC shipsets, then they can keep the 2K numbers, but the repercussions would be massive as their big ass ships would literally destroy the Treaty of Farixen.

So it would make sense why humanity would be considered dangerous simply because of the ship sizes.

But even so, I can't wait for the Citadel-Covenant War because if the UEG is part of the Citadel, then there's NO way the Citadel are going to let this pass because they'll look bad for the Galaxy.

Believer218: First: That’s the mindset I’m working with. If the Alliance had a couple hundred years head start, then they could get to UEG numbers.

Second: One of the ways I’m imagining the UNSC ships is that they are downscaled significantly to keep in line with ME physics, ex. Infinity would be 1.6 kilometers instead of 5.7 kilometers. The other way I'm thinking is canon ship sizes except for anything above 1.5 kilometers. Anything larger than that won't be a thing in my universe because of eezo constraints. Readers, let me know which solution you prefer.

Third: I agree, the Treaty of Farixen is stupid, but until further notice, it is in effect.

Fourth: You're correct, the Citadel won’t let it pass, but things will be- oops, no spoilers!

GreeNPizza: I like what you started writing and suggest some ideas that the main warships of the alliance are more like ships from halo. Well, due to the fact that the use of slipspace is much slower than mass effect drives, the alliance uses mainly its technology and slipspace has some more warships, you could add "infiniti" as one of these ships(I'm writing through a translator, so maybe some bullsh*t came out, but I hope you understood what I wanted to say)

Believer218: First: Thanks for the encouragement!

Second: Not a bad idea, but in this universe, SA ships are post-First Contact, while UNSC ships are pre-First Contact.

Third: I’m still considering including slipspace, but if it does make it, it will be faster than eezo FTL, but slower than relays. As for warships, see above.

Fourth: Translators are fine, and you were perfectly legible.

ADeter: You probably need to upscale fleet sizes and that sh*tty treaty if they are going to be fighting covenant with plasma especially if the covenant have bigger ships I love the idea personally but ME tech is used so weakly by the citadel races like you telling me you use MassE cores to fling liquid metal like a particle beam of sorts and have FTL fighters but you cant fling a 20 kg round faster than 1.3 the speed of light? BS that magic space rock could fire plasma and fire a Fighter sized round at THE Speed of Light... goddamn ive gone and ranted

Believer218: Again, I agree that the Treaty of Farixen is stupid. But in my opinion, part of the appeal of the Covenant is the fact that they are an overwhelming force.

As for weapon yields, first, it’s 0.013 c, not 1.3 c for mass accelerators, c being the speed of light. Second, part of the Reapers’ big trap is that societies based around eezo stagnate once they reach a certain point.

Darth Tzar: How about this? I’ve read in a mass effect halo crossover fanfiction where the mass effect drives can go quite a bit further if they star hop that’s to say they go from star system to star system discharge their mass effect drives and then keep going. That would let the humans be much more expensive territory using that method than any other star nation. A little food for thought.

Believer218: That’s… actually not a bad idea. How about this: My Alliance has the same physical territory as the canon Alliance, but is more densely packed near the center thanks to the ‘hopping’ you described, and found the relays much, much later.

Also, can you link me that crossover?

mercerjames875: I love the idea behind this as I haven't seen anything like it that I know of, however if your using the halo timeline I'd say make humanity just as big as in the halo universe and not the mass effect universe.

Believer218: Thanks for the appreciation! Also, with the new canon described in the last response, it allows for a semi-hard population of over 40 billion, in line with what is described in Halo canon.

Djangiti: with thewm already attacking harvest, will this immediately start the ME story with saren, or will this start the ... i guess I'll call it the "citadel-covenant war,"and instead of saren being the one bringing the reapers, it's the covenant, and it's gonna be paced either the same length as the original war or longer since i doubt that the covenant will leave council worlds alone wich means more ground to cover and possibly interspecies spartan III's... btw are the forerunners a thing here or not?

Believer218: First: Saren or Covenant? My answer… is kind of a mix of both.

Second: I’m definitely gonna have the space between games take place over a longer period of time than ME canon.

Third: Concerning Spartan-III’s, stay tuned.

Fourth: Concerning the Forerunners, again, stay tuned.

Guest 5: If the humans had 400 years more time than the canon SA to expand through the relay network their population and industrial base is bound to be larger than that of the canon UEG. Probably around as big as the Asari Republics or the Turians. The relay network prefers garden worlds, so lots of ready to settle real estate without the enormous resource and time investment needed for terraforming. The Council has data on 1% of the star systems in the galaxy, which means 1 to 4 billion star systems and all their planets. Or more planets than there are currently humans on Earth! Food for thought for all those who think "only" 1% of the galaxy is a small area. The universe is orders of magnitude larger than your intuition tells you.

Not that humans can settle all of this, but even a fraction of those worlds leaves lots of potential for expansion.

Believer218: …wow, you did your math. The one thing I will add is that a 2013 Harvard Center for Astrophysics study found that there are at least 17 billion earth-sized planets out there. I can forward the article to anyone who asks.

P.S. Readers, please don’t use the reviews to ask for the article. PM me instead.

Krieger Techpriest: This is a reat concept so far

Believer218: Thanks for the encouragement! Also, out of curiosity, is your username a Warhammer reference? I wouldn’t know, I don’t follow 40K.

Anyway, please follow, fave, and review. Reviews in particular help me improve.

This is Believer218, signing off.

Chapter 4: I-III: Keystone

Chapter Text

AN: Turns out that by the last chapter's release, there were so many reviews that I couldn't fit the closing AN into AO3's dedicated endnotes. It seems it's happened again here, too.

By the way, there’s a couple somewhat major canon changes in this chapter that will be immediately obvious, but I’m not spoiling it. Just know that I have my reasons and a plan.

IMPORTANT: Dialogue in italics and parentheses is translation for the reader's convenience because 1) I'm still learning to correctly transcribe most of the official Sangheili language, and 2) no doubt that readers will have no clue what's going on if I don't. Two phrases I know I won’t be translating are “(Ghashank'o)” and “(Jan [insert name] ngitkha)” , which are “Demon” and “I am [insert name]”, respectively. I can link the page I'm basing this on to anyone who wants it.

Anyway, here’s review responses. By the way, in the interest of my sanity regarding AO3 formatting, I’m no longer copy-pasting reviews into the chapters.

FanFiction:

Djangiti: There’s still a stigma around AI’s outside of human space, but there will be non-human AI’s with personalities generally reflective of the species they came from. As for how a krogan AI would act, I imagine it would be a more civilized, yet equally bloodthirsty version of Iratus from Halo Infinite’s multiplayer.

As for Spartan biotics, the biotics would definitely give one an edge, but the Spartan wouldn’t rely on them like, say, Jack or Samara.

I’m glad you like how the Cole Protocol proliferated through Citadel space! It’s honestly an ingenious concept if applied correctly, so I don’t see why the turians wouldn’t adopt it.

wolf master97: Okay, this review is too long for me to respond to everything (sorry), but I’ll try to deal with key questions.

First: Concerning weaponry, in my universe, Halo guns work on the same principles as ME guns, because who would use conical bullets in the age of eezo? As for ships, no, I don’t intend on making them useless.

Second: …that’s actually some interesting context for the Treaty of Farixen. I’ve definitely got a more positive opinion of it now that I know more about how it works.

Guest A: The Cole Protocol serves a use beyond simply keeping planets hidden in Halo canon. It also details how to keep everything hidden from the enemy.

Guest B: In Halo canon, human slipspace speeds didn’t breach three light-years per day up until the 2550’s, and even then slipspace was unpredictable enough that 23 Librae, which is physically 83 light-years from Epsilon Indi (which is physically 12 light-years from Earth), is considered the closest Outer Colony to canon Harvest. However, with mass effect technology, I have no doubt that human slipspace can be massively sped up. That is, if I do decide to include it.

As for which Arbiter, it is Var ‘Gatanai from the TV show.

Also, who said I was replacing EDI?

Guest 4: You’re going to have to keep letting me know it’s you if we’re gonna keep talking like this. Also *screenshot* and thanks for the math!

RandomReader: Nice to know you’re Guest 5! And yes, “Space is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.” -Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Nitroman98: Thanks!

Guest E: In my universe, the only systems more heavily defended than Reach are Arcturus and Earth itself. Also, I don’t think the turians are foreign to the concept of a fortress world, given Menae in ME3.

As for supercarriers, refer to my response to Guest 4.

ProcrastinationStrikes: …I mean no disrespect, but did you play any of Mass Effect beyond ‘haha shoot bad guy’? In ME1 alone, we are fighting alongside Garrus (a turian), Wrex (a krogan), Liara (an asari), and Tali (a quarian), against Saren (a turian) and his army of krogan (obviously krogan), Benezia (an asari and Liara’s mother), and geth (created by the quarians). We also fight human terrorists in the game. Then, through Garrus, Wrex, Liara, and Tali, we gain extra insight into all their species’ respective cultures. In short, this is not an ‘aliens bad’ fic.

And if you don’t like it, nobody’s forcing you to read.

naotw: All your insight has proven helpful, and I’ve updated past chapters in response. Ah, the wonders of working on the internet.

ADeter: I don’t have any sort of canon confirmation concerning multiple eezo cores, and I prefer not to use other fics as info sources, so I’m ruling that option out. If you can source your claims, I’ll be open to changing that, but for now, it’s a no.

Darth Tzar: Thanks for the linkage! Also, your typo is forgiven.

AO3:

GuestGuy: Sorry for taking so long, but your lack of knowledge is forgiven. I want to build this world up as we go along instead of thrusting the reader straight in, so I hope that this is working.

Also, I do intend to diverge the dialogue.

Anyway, I’m poor and don’t own Mass Effect or Halo, so let's get to finishing up this two-parter.

(—0—)

Chapter 3: Keystone

(—0—)

“AAAAAAGH!”

The team froze. That was a very loud, very turian scream. Williams had said that there were no turians in the colony, so the Chief immediately knew who to call.

He keyed his comms. “Sierra-117 to Nihlus, what’s your situation?” After a brief moment of silence, he tried again. “Sierra-117 to Nihlus, do you read?” Turning his radio off, he turned to his team. “Nihlus isn’t responding. Our timetable just got shorter, so let’s-”

GROOOOAAAANNNN!

“What is that?!” Alenko exclaimed. “Off in the distance!”

“It’s a ship!” Williams responded. “Look at the size of it!”

Turning to the source of the noise, Chief saw an absolutely massive ship taking off - a ship with a hooked bow. Now that it wasn't obscured by smoke, he could make out far more details than the distress call could show.

Zooming in with his VISR, Chief immediately saw that it was big - impossibly big, in fact. Five thousand, three hundred and forty-six meters long, it dominated the horizon simply by being there. The segmented hull plating was mainly silver-colored, elegantly-curved and seeming to flow from bow to stern. Skyscraper-like protrusions dotted the surface between the plates, making it look almost like a flying city, and on the bottom was a glowing blue circle. Three ovular engines sat in the stern, burning hard to propel the super-dreadnought away from the planet.

Suddenly, a bright purple flash barely missed Alenko, instantly breaking his barriers from the proximity alone. As the team took cover, Chief switched to his sniper rifle, zooming in on the spot the shot came from. Ahead was a red elite and three bird-like aliens - jackals. Two of the jackals carried circular blue shields and plasma pistols, while the third had a long purple rifle that looked kind of like a misshapen triangle.

“Warut'o, warut'o, warut'o!” the elite shouted, waving its squad forward.

Chief’s first shot drilled right through the jackal sniper’s head, instantly ending its life in a spray of purple blood and brain matter. The second shot flashed the elite’s shields, and the third broke through and blew a hole in its chest. Alenko, meanwhile, shot at another jackal’s exposed hand with his pistol. One of the rounds connected, causing the jackal to stumble back in pain and allowing a clear shot that killed it. Williams did the same with her assault rifle, taking down the last jackal.

Up ahead was a platform with several crates on it - and a body.

“Chief, it’s Nihlus,” Alenko said. Indeed, the body had the tattoos and armor to match - with the addition of two cauterized stab wounds through the chest, perfectly aligned.

“A turian?” Williams asked. “You know him?”

“He’s a Spectre,” Alenko answered. “He was with us on the Normandy. ”

“Looks like he got stabbed by one of those swords he mentioned,” Chief observed. “Let’s keep an eye out for gold el-”

The sudden clattering of crates shook the Marines out of their discussion, with everyone drawing their weapons and aiming them at the source of the noise.

“Something’s moving! Over behind those crates!” Williams called out. The team tensed, preparing for more hostiles. However…

…it was a female quarian that walked out.

“Wait! I- I’m not one of them!” the quarian stammered in an accented and slightly filtered voice, raising her hands in surrender.

“What were you doing back there?” Chief questioned, keeping his assault rifle raised and pointed at the quarian.

“I- I was hiding from the Covenant,” the quarian admitted.

“The Covenant?” Chief asked, dipping his rifle to a low ready.

“It’s what the other turian called them, after the big alien stabbed your friend in the back,” the quarian said, taking the lowered rifle as a sign that she could drop her hands. “Oh, by the way, I’m Tali, Tali’Zorah nar Rayya.”

“Master Chief Shepard,” the Spartan replied.

“Wait, ‘other turian’?” Alenko suddenly asked.

“There were two turians and a big creature,” Zorah explained. “ Your turian, Nihlus, called the other one ‘Saren’. Saren called the big alien ‘Arbiter’.”

“Arbiter…” Chief was well aware of the definition of the word; an arbiter was typically someone who resolved disputes or settled judgements. By that logic, this ‘Arbiter’ was likely some kind of authority figure in the Covenant. And from Zorah's description, the Arbiter was probably an elite.

“Nihlus seemed to relax when he saw Saren,” Zorah continued. “When he let his guard down, Saren ordered the Arbiter to kill Nihlus. I’m lucky they didn’t bother to look around.”

Chief nodded in acknowledgement. “A prothean beacon was brought to the spaceport. Do you know where it is?”

“It’s on the other platform, where Saren and the Arbiter were headed,” Zorah said. “I personally helped load the beacon on the cargo train over there.” She let out a sigh. “I don’t know about you, but I think the beacon’s the reason we’re in this mess.”

Chief hummed in agreement. At a glance, the attack could be written off as random chance, but the fact that the beacon was found not even a week before the Covenant invaded meant that, in all likelihood, this was a targeted strike.

“Chief, some thick fog’s gonna roll in soon,” Williams said, shaking the Spartan from his thoughts. “We need to move.”

“Agreed,” Chief replied. “Squad, we don’t have much time. Zorah, hole up and-”

“I want to come with you.”

At the quarian’s declaration, Chief turned back to her. “I don’t have time to babysit a civilian.”

“You won’t have to,” Zorah said. “Give me a shotgun and I can hold my own. The self-defense instructor said I was top of the leaderboard with shotguns. Plus, I’m a good engineer. I designed many of my omnitool’s programs myself.”

“But you were hiding,” Chief pointed out.

“It’s not like they let dockworkers bring weapons to work,” Zorah countered.

Chief weighed the pros and cons in his head. On the one hand, if she was as good as she said she was, then there wasn’t any reason not to accept, save for her being a civilian. A quick command through his neural interface pulled up a map courtesy of the Superintendent, showing that the other platform had plenty of tight spaces where a shotgunner would come in handy. And while Alenko was a Sentinel, and Chief did have basic training in omnitool combat, it never hurt to have an extra hacker on hand.

On the other hand, she was not just a civilian, but a quarian. Civilians typically didn’t have military instruction, and all quarians wore envirosuits in order to not get sick from the slightest pathogen. If her suit had even a single tear, she could get deathly ill. With all these thoughts in mind, Chief was coming to a final decision.

Well, his shotgun admittedly hadn’t seen much use on this mission…

“...you got half-decent barriers in that suit?” At her nod, he let out a resigned sigh. “Alright, but this is going to be extremely dangerous. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” He then pulled out his M45 and tossed it to Zorah, who caught and unfolded it with an ease on par with veteran Alliance Marines.

That was a good sign.

“Let’s take the cargo train. It’s where Saren and the Arbiter went, and where the beacon probably is,” Zorah said as they set off. “Time to shoot some Covenant bosh’tets.”

Almost immediately after turning the first corner, they were set upon by two jackals, one with a blue shield and one with an orange one. Chief opened up with his assault rifle, hitting the blue-shield jackal in the hand and causing it to stumble back, before a bark from what was now Zorah’s shotgun hit it full in the chest. A trio of quick pistol shots from Alenko ended the other jackal by the same method.

Going down the ramp, they didn’t see much in the form of opposition, but the platform below saw them taking fire from elites stationed on the train. Zorah immediately hit the closest one with what looked like an overload, breaking its shields, before a burst from Williams’ rifle nailed it in the head. As soon as the group boarded the train, another elite - this one in white armor with red accents - charged them with a twin-pronged plasma sword, shouting, “Khisho!”

Chief fired his rifle on full auto, but the elite simply raised its sword in front of itself, letting the blade take the bullets instead. As it neared, it swung the sword in a wide arc, forcing the squad to scatter. The Spartan ducked beneath the blade, immediately resuming his fire. Even with the rest of the squad collectively overheating their heat sinks into it, however, its shields still did not falter. Another swing was aimed at the Chief, who tried to parry it with his assault rifle. Instead of blocking the sword, however, the blade sliced right through, sending the front half of the rifle spinning off the edge of the train and into the trench below. Bits of molten metal sprayed onto the Spartan's chestplate, further marring it.

Tossing the ruined weapon away, the Chief pulled his Sidekick from his thigh and dove into a tackle that knocked the elite down, before dumping a full dozen rounds into its shields and finally breaking them. However, the pistol had overheated from the barrage, allowing the elite to get a powerful jab to Chief's helmet that cracked the left side of his visor. Instead of waiting for the pistol to cool down, the Spartan opted to use a more readily available weapon: his knife. In one swift movement, he pulled the knife from its sheath on his shoulder and drove it into the elite’s head, right between the mandibles. The alien spasmed for a brief moment, before finally falling dead. Grabbing the now-deactivated sword from the white-armored elite’s limp hand, Chief stowed it on his left thigh for safe keeping until he could get it to the Alliance techs.

It soon occurred to the Chief that, while this was happening, the other quarter-dozen elites on the train hadn’t so much as moved an inch, instead opting to watch with lowered weapons as Chief and the white-armored elite brawled. Now that that particular fight was over, however, the other aliens let out a collective roar, before resuming their fire with renewed fury.

“Ruuk'ina ghashank'o!” one shouted in rage.

“I really need a weapon,” Chief muttered as he quickly ducked behind a rail, before giving out his next set of orders. “Zorah, hit the elite in the middle with an overload. Alenko, follow it up with a warp. Williams, fill it with lead. On my signal.”

He waited for a break in the fire. A good ten seconds passed without an opening, but as soon as the elites took even a second to breathe, Chief pounced on the opportunity.

“Now!”

The middle elite suddenly had its shields flare a bright blue before a biotic warp snapped them, which was quickly succeeded by a hail of rifle fire. As it fell, it dropped its weapon, a deep blue rifle with silver prongs extending from the front, a rotating cylinder in the middle, and sickly green lights. Chief peeked out of cover and extended his left gauntlet, sending a thin cable flying towards the rifle and hooking on. He then reeled the cable back in, pulling the rifle with it and into his waiting hands.

Getting a feel for the rifle's alien ergonomics, Chief quickly noticed that the sights were quite literally holographic, bringing up a circular reticle with four triangles evenly spaced inside it, all pointing to the center. He then took aim, pulled what passed for a trigger, and let loose a torrent of blue plasma at the second elite. Its shields quickly burst, far faster than normal accelerator rounds would have, before the body was rapidly turned into a backyard barbecue. Alenko then let loose a throw at the last elite, before combined fire from the fireteam brought down the stumbling alien.

Confident that the area was clear, Chief took in his surroundings. Of particular note was the white-armored elite he had pilfered the as-yet unused sword from. “Zorah, is this elite the Arbiter?”

“No, the Arbiter had more decorative silver armor, with gold trim and a big right pauldron,” the quarian answered, picking up a dropped plasma pistol and stowing it on her hip. “He also looked like he was blind in his left eye. It's more likely that this is just a high-ranking one.”

Chief nodded in affirmation. “Alright. Zorah, get this train moving. We need to get to the platform before the Covenant take the beacon.”

As the engineer nodded, she pulled up her omnitool and connected to the console, quickly sending the train forward.

(—0—)

Saren stared at the artifact. The humans had no idea what it truly was, what it contained.

However, none of the Covenant troops had been able to so much as budge it, not even a mighty mgalekgolo pair he had summoned. The humans had evidently used heavy equipment to get it here, but no such gear was on the platform.

“(We cannot retrieve the relic,)” the Arbiter said, coming to the same realization that Saren had. “(A small force of humans is making their way towards us.)”

The Spectre took a moment to think. “Set the charges. Destroy the entire colony. Leave no evidence that we were here.”

“(But the relic-)”

“Will be retaken by the humans if we leave it be,” Saren interrupted. “Once you're done, get to the dropships and head back to the carrier.”

Var ‘Gatanai offered no response for a long moment. Finally, he relented with a nod, barking to his troops in Sangheili.

With that out of the way, Saren walked up to the artifact, which began to glow. Standing in front of it, he allowed the knowledge within to pour into his mind.

(—0—)

Tali anxiously waited for the train to come to a stop. The fog, or rather smog had long since washed over the area, engulfing everything in a thick, ash-laden haze. In response, she had upped her suit’s scrubbers to keep the fumes out. Alenko and Williams had similarly sealed up their helmets. Shepard had reassured Tali that his armor, despite the cracked visor, was still quite capable of keeping the particles out.

In addition, she’d been educated on the different enemy designations. The big lizards were called elites, the backpack chimps were called grunts, the birds were called jackals, and the bugs were called drones. Easy enough to remember, considering they had no idea what the Covenant species were actually called.

As the train neared the platform, Shepard took charge. “No doubt the Covenant are prepared for us, so go in guns blazing and take cover wherever you can. We get in, secure the package, and get out.”

“Yes sir, Master Chief.”

“Aye-aye, Chief.”

“Got it, Shepard.”

The train wound down and came to a stop, with the squad disembarking soon after. Almost immediately, they were met with what looked like a… purple, spiked pickle the size of a forklift. The pickle was emitting small amounts of gamma radiation, not enough to hurt anyone but enough to be picked up by Tali’s envirosuit, as well as a steadily-increasing whine.

“It’s a nuke!” Alenko exclaimed, coming to the same realization the quarian did. “The Covenant must have planted it!”

“Zorah, disarm the bomb!” Shepard barked. “We’ll cover you!”

“Got it!” Tali replied.

Immediately, she opened her omnitool, opening a connection to the bomb’s systems and hastily crafting a program to stop whatever timer this thing operated on. Behind her, the sounds of combat rang, with plasma and sand grains flying between the assailing Covenant and her team. Translating the program to binary, she slammed her omnitool on the big red button (must it always be a big red button?), and was pleasantly surprised to hear the beeping replaced with a short, deep whine that signified the bomb’s defusal.

It seemed the device was lacking in terms of firewalls to stop an intrusion.

“Bomb disabled,” Tali proudly said. Turning around, she flinched when she saw that her teammates had a few new scorch marks and melted bits to add to the collection.

“We’re not clear yet. I’ve got three more gamma signatures,” Shepard informed. Indeed, upon further inspection, her HUD showed said signatures. “We’ll split up. Alenko, take the bomb across the bridge. Williams and Zorah, behind the crates. I’ll deal with the one by the dock. Let’s move!”

Climbing up the ramp and reaching the bridge, the squad was met with a jackal sniper immediately trying to burn a hole through their heads from another catwalk on the other side of the area. Shepard took it out with a single sniper shot, spraying ichor behind it. As they reached the other side of the bridge, Alenko went left to deal with his bomb and Shepard went right, leaving Williams and Tali to deal with the one in the middle. A squad of four grunts led by a blue-armored elite met their advance, forcing the two to take cover.

“We take out the elite, and the grunts scatter!” Williams said. “Hit it with an overload, and we’ll load it with buckshot!”

“Good idea!” Tali replied, waiting for Williams’ signal. As soon as a lull in the plasma and needles came, the signal was given.

“NOW!”

ZAP!

The overload quickly shorted out the elite’s shields, before shots from Tali’s M45 and Williams’ Bulldog turned its body into… what did the humans call it? Shish cheese?

Eh, not important right now.

As predicted, the grunts began to flee, waving their arms comedically as they waddled in circles. More buckshot ended whatever threat the scaly chimps posed.

Tali then rushed up to the bomb, copying the defusal program from the first one and again slamming her omnitool into the button. Just like the first one, this bomb whined as its timer halted.

“Done,” she said.

Just then, her radio crackled to life as Shepard called in. “Sierra-117 to squad. Status report.”

“This is Alenko. Took a needle to the arm, but my bomb’s down.” Tali saw Williams visibly wince. “Biotics are out of the picture for a while, though.”

“Tali here. Our bomb is disabled,” the quarian reported.

“Sierra-117 to squad. All bombs defused. Regroup and form up at my location.”

“On our way,” Williams replied, speaking for them both.

(—0—)

The squad eventually made their way to the Chief, who was at the top of a ramp. As they arrived, he took stock of their situation. Williams’ armor seemed distinctly more charred than before, and Zorah definitely had picked up some soot and plasma scoring on her envirosuit, which was miraculously unbreached. Alenko had it the worst. His left arm hung limply, a hole in the bicep plating revealing a small, fleshy crater indicative of a needler shard exploding. He was lucky he hadn’t caught more, or he might not be standing here.

“Alenko, let’s get some biofoam on that arm,” Chief ordered, pulling a canister from an armored pouch and flicking the nozzle up. He jabbed the tip of the nozzle into the wound, before pulling the trigger and letting the white foam fill up the crater. Alenko let out a pained grunt as his wound was dealt with, before the anesthetic in the foam activated and reduced the pain.

“So what’s the plan?” Zorah asked.

“The Superintendent says the beacon’s down this ramp,” Chief explained. He noticed that Zorah stiffened at the mention of the colony’s AI, but chalked it up to the quarians’ understandable if misplaced distrust of AI. “We get down there, and finish the mission. Once the beacon’s secure, I’ll radio the Normandy for pickup. Everyone understand?”

The team all gave their affirmatives, so they proceeded. As they made their way down the ramp, Chief took notice of two things.

The first thing he noticed was a massive silver pillar near the edge of the catwalk. The pillar looked as if it had grown from crystal, was as tall as two elites on top of one another, and had neon-blue lines crisscrossing over its surface. It seemed to radiate power, yet it didn’t seem to be a weapon of any kind. Chief guessed that this was the beacon. It didn’t look prothean by any means, from what little research he’d been able to do before the mission.

The other, more obvious thing was the pair of identical, twelve foot tall armored monstrosities in front of them. They wore deep blue armor atop sinewy orange flesh that looked almost like giant worms. The armor had a shield the size of Chief on the left arm, and an equally massive cannon on the right that glowed a radioactive green. On the back were half a dozen spines, each four feet in length.

It was at that moment that the monstrosities noticed them and raised their cannons, which began to glow brighter.

“MOVE!” Chief barked, and the squad needed absolutely no further encouragement to get to cover. Just as they hid behind some crates, the creatures fired, creating blinding green explosions.

“Those things will tear us apart!” Williams yelled, taking potshots with her assault rifle that merely bounced off the armor.

“Yeah, I’d guessed!” Chief dryly replied. It was then that he got an idea. “Everyone, pull out a frag. We distract these things, it should give us a chance to take them down. On my mark.”

He waited for even the slightest break in the fire. The moment it came, he pounced.

“MARK!”

Four grenades were tossed from behind cover, bouncing around the monsters. When they went off, the monsters stumbled around for a moment, giving the squad the time they needed to push their advantage. Chief and Williams opened up with plasma and rifle fire, leaving cover to circle around and hit the creatures from the back. Zorah did the same, with Alenko following her.

However, one of the monstrosities seemed to somewhat recover, enough to spin around and slam its shield’s broadside into the first thing it saw.

That thing happened to be-

“ZORAH!” Chief yelled, watching the quarian get knocked into next Tuesday. Her body flew into a nearby crate, blacking out as she fell. Her left leg was bent in a most unnatural way, and she seemed to be breathing heavier. Her envirosuit’s visor had cracks spiderwebbing all over it, and the suit itself now had red blotches staining it, indicating intense bleeding.

If this fight didn’t end soon, she could die.

In a fury, Chief leapt onto the offending monster’s back before it could finish the job. He latched onto a spine, before pounding and yanking at exposed flesh. In his hand was a giant worm with four mandibles, proving his earlier suspicions. With this in mind, he tossed it away, grabbed another frag, and tried to shove it into the wormy mass - tried being the key word. The monster didn’t take too kindly to a Spartan being on its back, writhing and bucking like a wild bronco in an attempt to dislodge the half-ton super-soldier. But the Chief didn’t relent. He managed to stabilize himself, before priming the grenade and forcing it deep inside. As he leapt off, the monster didn’t have time to comprehend what had happened before it exploded into orange blood and eviscerated worms.

It was then that the other monster took notice of its fallen comrade. It let out a roar to the heavens before renewing its fight with doubled fury, slamming its shield full-force into a crate and carving a Spartan-sized chunk out of it.

And it was at this moment that Chief realized he was out of grenades.

Knowing he would have to get creative to take out the other monster, he came up with a plan. “Alenko, Williams, fall back! I’ve got this!”

He yanked the pilfered sword off his left thigh, before activating its twin blades. He dived underneath the monster, which rapidly spun around in an attempt to crush him under its shield like a half-ton mosquito under a two-ton boot that had the force of a speeding train. Chief ducked to the side, before leaping up onto the shield and using it as a jumping pad to get onto the monster’s back. As he gripped a spine, the monster flailed beneath him, desperately trying to knock the Spartan off. However, he raised the sword and plunged it into the creature’s back, before slashing through and bisecting it from the abdomen up, ending its life. Chief jumped down from the deceased monster, panting hard.

“Those things were relentless,” Alenko breathed. “I think if they had the chance, they would have hunted us to the ends of the galaxy.”

“‘Hunter’ seems as good a name as any,” Williams said, equally breathless.

“We’ve got other things to worry about,” Chief reminded. “Alenko, get to Zorah. I’ll radio for medevac.”

“Aye-aye, Chief,” Alenko responded, heading off to hopefully stabilize the quarian.

While the Sentinel and Williams went off into their own conversation, Chief keyed his comms. “ Normandy , this is Sierra-117. Package is secure. We need immediate medevac, my location. Tell Chakwas to prepare the medbay for a quarian patient.”

“Oh god,” the voice of Esparza said over the radio. “Something bad happened, didn’t it?”

“Now!”

“We’re coming, we’re coming!”

BWOOM!

A pulse broke the Chief from his conversation. Turning to the source, he saw Williams being dragged towards the beacon by some unseen force as mysterious glyphs appeared around it. He quickly dived ahead, roughly yanking the Marine away from the artifact. However, in doing so, the artifact seemed to switch targets to Chief.

He doubled over as his head was assaulted by intense pain, worse than anything he’d ever experienced. Then he started levitating. As he was lifted into the air, another, larger symbol appeared in front of the artifact: A circle on a spire, surrounded by a broken halo and flanked by two wings.

Then John had a vision.

C--c-i--y

S-e--

-l--h

---es-n-

Ab-m--a---n-

K--s--ne

W--

--en--a---y

St--s

F-r-----er

-l--e-s

H--o

--ap-rs

Re--a-me-

BOOM!

(—0—)

Arbiter Var ‘Gatanai traversed the winding corridors of his master's flagship, the Sovereign . It was truly nothing like Covenant architecture, especially being gunmetal gray instead of the holy shades of violet he was accustomed to. Nevertheless, he would follow his master to the end, for the Hierarchs had decreed it.

Eventually, he rounded a corner and came upon his seated master, the turian Spectre by the name of Saren Arterius. Had the Covenant done things the normal way, they would have contacted his species and eventually absorbed them and all they associated with into their holy empire, but the san’shyuum had foreseen that this was the way towards starting the Great Journey. As such, they had deployed the First Fleet of Solemn Accord to follow the Spectre, and assigned their dishonored fleetmaster to lead them.

The Arbiter may have only had one intact eye, but he saw that the Hierarchs saw that Saren was the one who would lead the Covenant to salvation.

Standing up straight and pressing his fist to his chestplate in a salute, the Arbiter spoke, “(My officers have identified the vessel that came to Harvest. It is a human frigate, bearing the name Normandy . Its shipmaster is called Anderson. The colony was preserved by their efforts.)”

“And the keystone?” Saren inquired.

“(It self-destructed, though a single human used it,)” Var revealed.

Saren was not pleased at all. He began to growl in rage at the news. He thrashed in his seat, before angrily shooting to his feet. He hurled a small container into a wall and shoved over a table, before storming over to Var and grabbing his left two mandibles, pulling him down to the turian's level. Eventually, however, Saren regained his composure, and released the Arbiter.

“This human… must be eliminated,” the Spectre growled. “Do we have any clues as to his identity?”

“(Surviving warriors report the human being referred to as Master Chief Shepard,)” Var replied. “(His speed and strength far surpass what we expected from their species. Some of the more superstitious, and most of the unggoy, refer to him as a ghashank'o.)”

“‘Demon’, hmm? I sincerely doubt it,” Saren scoffed. “And how are our… ‘guests’ from the freighter doing?”

“(The asari matriarch and her escort are confined to my carrier's brig,)” the Arbiter reported. “(Significant casualties were taken, but a jiralhanae chieftain managed to gain the upper hand.)”

“Good.” With that, the Spectre got to other business. “Are your troops ready to deploy?”

“(On your word, I will personally lead the corvette Penitent Sacrifice and its warriors to the world Therum. The archeologist, if your words again ring true, will be essential to accessing the relics.)”

“Very good,” Saren said, splaying his mandibles in the turian equivalent of a smile. “With your faith, there is no doubt that we will find the tools we need to enable the Reapers to commence the Great Journey.”

Deep down, a part of Var knew that Saren didn't truly believe, but the overwhelming majority overruled that.

For his shame, he must serve.

As the Prophets’ will, he shall fight, and reclaim his honor.

(—0—)

Codex: MJOLNIR Powered Assault Armor

Often remarked to be the single most expensive program the Alliance has ever undertaken, Project: MJOLNIR is considered by many to be the absolute pinnacle of modern armor design. Crafted with Spartan augmentations in mind, Mjolnir exosuits are capable of directly amplifying almost everything about a Spartan super-soldier without sacrificing adaptability, mobility, or speed. These suits have a per-unit cost equivalent to an Alliance cruiser, and every credit goes toward making its users the most dangerous things on the battlefield.

Development began with the Mjolnir Mark I in 2558. The first iteration of Mjolnir, while pioneering several technologies, had several flaws: The suit was bulky, unwieldy, and difficult to control, and required so much power as to have to be tethered to a power source. The Mark II which succeeded the Mark I had greatly increased mobility and improved vacuum sealing, but still needed to be tethered to a generator. The subsequent Mark III had further improved mobility and could be powered by broadcast energy instead of a tether, but the limited broadcast range kept it off the field.

It was the Mark IV Mjolnir that ultimately saw full-scale production. With the advent of miniaturized power sources, the energy requirements could be sated without the need for a generator. Everything else about the armor was redesigned specifically to work in tandem with Spartan augmentations, to the point where Spartans are the only individuals capable of even using the suits. Declassified development videos (viewer discretion advised) show unaugmented individuals being simultaneously crushed and torn apart by Mjolnir, while Spartans are seen flawlessly using the technologies.

Mjolnir continues to be developed to this day, and continues to pioneer the latest in combat technology. The Mark V Mjolnir, derived from the Beta variant of Mark IV, is noticeably lighter than the Mark IV and features redesigned armor plating, alongside major improvements in the on-board computers to allow an AI to directly interface with the armor. The subsequent Mark VI vastly improved the kinetic barriers and further streamlined the plating, making it denser yet less bulky and simultaneously reducing the amount of grapple points, which minimize an enemy’s advantages in close combat. Initial prototypes for the Mark VI included a dedicated neural interface for an AI-Spartan integration, and while this did not make it to production, it is planned for the upcoming GEN2 line of hardware for Mjolnir armor, set to release in mid-2584.

(—0—)

Next chapter: Citadel

Chapter 5: I-IV: Citadel

Chapter Text

AN: Oh look, another two-parter. Sorry about that.

This story has officially reached over 50 favorites and 100 follows. I'd like to thank everyone for their support. If it were at all possible, I'd go door to door and personally thank all of you, but alas, I am A) not a stalker, and B) lacking in funds to buy plane tickets.

Also, just a warning, please keep time zones in mind before you blast me for discontinuity in this chapter.

Anyway, I just want to reiterate that the reviews section is not the place to hold long-term discussions, as new readers use the reviews to get a read on the story’s quality. There is now a forum titled “ME:TRS Lore Discussion” for that purpose.

Semi-related and probably unnecessary, I’ve finally come up with a solid reason for the Reach relay in the prologue. So in my AU, Sol never had a relay, but it did have the Mars Archives. Then when the Archives and the mass effect were discovered in 2291, humanity eventually used ME drives to go to the nearest habitable system, a.k.a. Epsilon Eridani. There, they discovered more prothean ruins with the coordinates for a relay, and said relay led to Arcturus. Bada bing, bada boom.

And I’ve also finally come up with a solid answer to the slipspace question. Human and Citadel ships don’t use it *YET*, but the Covenant does. Should be an interesting plot device.

Moving on, it's time for review responses.

FF:

Starting off with *checks notes* the kinetic barrier discussion. Let’s face it, even if canon barriers didn’t stop plasma - despite fighting geth, who have plasma weapons, and kett, who have plasma weapons - our entire team save Chief would be belly-up in the water. For the sake of not killing off anything that isn’t a krogan or Spartan, barriers stop plasma.

Then there’s humanity joining the Citadel. Even in ME canon, humanity took about eight years to properly establish a Citadel embassy. It was only after that humanity’s position began to skyrocket. Anyway, proper review response now.

Guest 1 and Darth Tzar: Spartan energy shields aren’t coming until ME2. For now, kinetic barriers will have to do.

Djangiti: Thanks. Thankfully, the pain is long gone by now, but I can never look at pudding and think “delicious” anymore.

Krieger Techpriest: I agree.

RandomReader: I do intend on going back and changing that.

Also, what I meant by conical bullets is powder cartridges. Probably should have clarified back then, but I didn’t, so here we are.

GreeNPizza: It is a slippery slope indeed, considering what I’m planning, but I hope not to go down it.

Regarding how the Covenant will react to the Citadel species, stay tuned.

And regarding our lord and savior Sergeant Avery Junior Johnson, no spoilers!

DoctorEvil61: I’m primarily using Silver elements because they serve the story, like Sangheili being an actual language instead of gibberish with a few confirmed words, or using Var ‘Gatanai instead of Thel ‘Vadamee or Ripa ‘Moramee.

I’m definitely going to be upgrading the Reapers for this story, because let’s face it, you’re right that the Covenant is too high and mighty to take orders from canon Reapers. Then again, it might not be too hard for the Reapers to convince the Prophets that they’re Oracles, or simply indoctrinate them. But come ME3, the upgrades will be necessary.

Nice catch with decreasing mass in slipspace. You also answered Guest 2’s question pretty accurately. Thanks for that.

Guest 3: That’s a good idea. I’m definitely going to be making a Covenant Archive to give a Covenant perspective on some things, and give a bit of context from their side. I’ll probably be using the Record of Punished Deeds to supplement it.

Guest 4: There’s definitely going to be repercussions for ordering the keystone to be destroyed. As for the Reach relay question, see above.

Guest 5: Relays are definitely not without risks when it concerns warfare. Though with the Covenant not using them, a lot of those risks are nullified.

six samurai of dragon order: Nihlus didn’t fight the Arbiter because he was caught off-guard. If you recall Halo 2, Thel had active camo on his armor, even if it was limited compared to contemporary combat harnesses.

Also, I did intend for the readers to ‘feel’ the impact of a hunter shield on a quarian body.

wolf master97: I’m not replacing the Reapers, no. Also, I’m just going to clarify that the carrier wasn’t “reaperfied” as you put it. It’s a bog-standard Syfon-pattern carrier, though I will admit you have given me ideas.

gryphus-On3: The type of story I’m going for is kind of a mix of both of those, actually. We’ll definitely start to see the war picking up after we get past the Therum arc. As it stands right now though, we’re barely a day past first contact with the Covenant.

Side note, I should probably check out United We Stand, now that you mention it.

Sci-Fi Guy 22: Oh, I’ve got a plan for both the Forerunners and Precursors. Whether or not it turns out to be a good plan is yet to be seen, but it is a plan.

Also, you’re forgiven.

Whichever Guest(s) was/were arguing with Sci-Fi Guy 22: The Golden Rule: Treat others as you would want to be treated. Don’t insult people just because they have their facts wrong. We’re all human.

I want to make this VERY clear: I will NOT be tolerating those kinds of reviews any longer. From this point forth, if reviewers decide to treat anyone like garbage, those reviews get deleted. Yours are first in line.

*deep calming breath* Moving on.

Eb-8: Believe me, Parangosky did not clean up ONI out of the goodness of her heart. I intend to make that very clear in the future.

naotw: A lot of these can be explained away by suspension of disbelief or story needs, but you do make a couple of good points that I will need to act on.

AO3:

GuestGuy: Building off my reply to Sci-Fi Guy 22, I have a plan for the Flood. What I will confirm right now is that I currently don’t have any direct appearances planned, but there will be an exposition dump explaining their place in my lore.

The Forerunners and Protheans are separate races. The Protheans fit into my Forerunner plan, and the Forerunners fit into my Prothean plan.

Promethean96: Refer to my reply to GuestGuy.

Now that that’s done, it’s time to get into this chapter. The unggoy that is my lawyer notifies me that I still don’t own the rights to Halo or Mass Effect.

(—0—)

Chapter 4: Citadel

(—0—)

SSV Normandy Medbay

January 12th, 2583

Local time 0428 (Sol Standard Time)

The first thing John became aware of was the voices around him.

The second thing John became aware of was the massive headache he had.

The third thing John became aware of was that he was conscious.

“Doctor? Doctor Chakwas, I think he's waking up!” a voice exclaimed as John slowly uprighted himself. Rubbing the exhaustion from his eyes, he instinctively took stock of what was around him in spite of his throbbing skull. He'd certainly been through worse, though this was also certainly high on the scoreboard. He noticed that he wasn’t in his armor, instead being dressed in a blue Alliance jumpsuit.

In front of him stood a woman with dark brown, almost black hair tied up in a ponytail, brown eyes, and high cheekbones. Various bruises, burns, and scrapes marred the skin that was visible. The Spartan could see the outline of thick bandages around her abdomen beneath her jumpsuit, and indeed, she seemed to be leaning slightly to the right. He quickly recognized her as Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams, the lone Marine he and Alenko encountered on Harvest.

To Williams’ right was a man with swept-back black hair, short sideburns, and light stubble. Thick eyebrows sat atop brown eyes, and his face was similarly covered in injuries. His left arm was supported by a brace, with bandages wrapping around the bicep. This was Staff Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko.

He then noticed something piled up behind Williams and Alenko. It was a set of heavy plate armor - his Mjolnir.

It was practically slag, barely recognizable. Numerous craters and slashes pockmarked the surface, and very little of the original olive-green and red was visible, either being melted off, burned away, or buried in plasma scoring and soot. In addition, it looked like it had been sawed off his body instead of simply being taken off. The helmet didn’t look too much better; the visor had a fist-sized hole in the left side, and again, the titanium shell was ruined. The only thing that looked even remotely salvageable was the techsuit.

To his right, on another gurney, was another woman, this one in a sealed Onyx light hardsuit. She was out like a light, and her digitigrade left leg was in a brace-

Wait a minute. Digitigrade?

Upon closer inspection, the second woman definitely wasn't human. Her legs were indeed digitigrade, and her narrow hands had three fingers instead of five. Behind the helmet's visor sat two closed eyes framed by pinkish-purple skin. She seemed to have small scars surrounding them. Everything else about her face was obscured, however. This must have been Tali’Zorah, the quarian dockworker who had volunteered to go with the squad.

A pang of guilt flashed through John as he remembered how his decision to try and flank the hunters directly resulted in Zorah almost dying. The scars he could see through the visor must have been from small fragments of Zorah's visor breaking the skin.

All of these thoughts occurred within a few seconds. Pushing them aside, the Spartan noticed the Normandy ‘s medical officer walking over to his gurney.

“You had us worried there, Shepard,” Doctor Chakwas said. “How are you feeling?”

“Like the morning after shore leave,” John groaned, feeling the headache in full force again. Contrary to popular belief, zero of the Spartan augmentations affected the liver. “What happened?”

“You were out for about fifteen hours,” Chakwas answered. She brought up her omnitool and began taking some scans of John, no doubt checking that he wasn't going to collapse again. “Something happened down there with the beacon, I think.”

“It's my fault,” Williams blurted out, crossing her arms in shame. “I must have triggered some kind of security field when I approached it. You had to push me out of the way.”

“Nobody could have known what would happen,” John reassured, though his voice was still groggy. Regardless, a small smile came to Williams’ face, along with a slight tinge of red.

“Actually, we don’t even know if that's what set it off,” Chakwas said. “Unfortunately, we'll never have the chance to find out.”

“The beacon exploded. A system overload, maybe,” Alenko explained. “The blast knocked you cold. Williams and I barely managed to get you and Tali to the ship.”

John nodded. “How's Zorah doing?”

“Tali’Zorah suffered a broken leg, seven cracked ribs, a fever, and a dislocated shoulder, in addition to several lacerations and bruises. She's lucky to be alive,” Chakwas answered. “Once we reach the Citadel, she'll be transferred to a local clinic where she can be treated properly. The hardsuit will keep her condition from worsening until then.”

“Yeah, I was wondering about that,” John said. “Why is she in a hardsuit, anyway? Doesn't she have a suit of her own?”

“Her envirosuit was determined to be damaged beyond repair. Shattered visor, dozens of punctures, the list goes on,” Chakwas sadly noted. “Requisitions Officer Lawrence and Engineer Adams were able to modify a spare hardsuit we had on hand to accommodate her as a temporary replacement.

“As for your condition,” the doctor continued, “physically, you’re fine. But I detected some unusual brain activity, abnormal beta waves. I also noticed an increase in your rapid eye movement, signs typically associated with intense dreaming.”

“I’m… not completely sure what it was,” John admitted. “Lots of death, destruction… not much was clear.”

Chakwas hummed. “I’d better add this to my report. It may- oh, Captain Anderson!”

The door hissed open, allowing the Normandy ’s commanding officer entry. “How’s our Spartan holding up, Doctor?”

“All the readings look normal,” Chakwas reported. “I’d say the Chief’s going to be fine.”

“Glad to hear it,” Anderson said. Turning to John, he said, “Shepard, I need to speak with you - in private.”

Alenko snapped a quick salute. “Aye-aye, captain. I’ll be in the mess if you need me.”

“Same here,” Williams said.

As the Gunnery Chief, Staff Lieutenant, and the doctor left the medbay and John stood up, Anderson got to business. “Sounds like that beacon hit you pretty hard, Chief. You sure you’re okay?”

“I ordered Jenkins to take point, and Zorah tried to flank the hunter on my orders,” John said guiltily, leaving the implication unsaid.

“Neither of those were your fault,” Anderson reassured. “You did a good job, Shepard.”

“Respectfully, sir, it doesn’t feel like it,” John responded.

Anderson clasped his hands behind his back. “I won’t lie to you, Shepard. Things look bad. Nihlus is dead, the beacon was destroyed, and the Covenant are invading. There's a lot we don't know, and the Council’s going to want answers.”

“There wouldn’t be any answers to give at all if we hadn’t stopped the Covenant,” John said.

“I’ll stand behind you and your report, Shepard. You’re a d###ed hero in my books,” Anderson replied. “That’s not why I’m here. It’s Saren, that other turian. Saren’s a Spectre, one of the best. A living legend. But if he’s working with the Covenant to attack Harvest, that means he’s gone rogue. A rogue Spectre’s trouble. Saren’s dangerous, and he hates humans. And from the sound of things, the Covenant hates humans as well.”

“Seems like they’d get along with Saren,” John commented. “Why does he hate humans, anyway?”

“He thinks we’re growing too fast, taking over the galaxy,” Anderson answered. “A lot of aliens think that way. Most don’t do anything about it. But Saren has allied himself with the Covenant. I don’t know how, I don’t know why. I only know it had something to do with the beacon. You were there just before the beacon self-destructed. Did you see anything? Any clue that might tell us what Saren was after?”

John leaned back on the gurney. “Just before I blacked out, I had some kind of… vision, I guess?”

“A vision?” Anderson questioned. “A vision of what?”

“There were synthetics of some kind, slaughtering people,” John began. “Then there was this giant ring in space. It's all either fragmented or blurry.”

“We need to report this to the Council, Shepard,” Anderson said.

John raised an eyebrow. “Are we sure it’s worth reporting, sir? For all we know, it was just a bad dream.”

“We don’t know what information was stored in that beacon,” Anderson countered. “Lost technology from whatever race made it? Blueprints for some ancient weapon of mass destruction? Whatever it was, Saren took it.

“But I know Saren,” he continued. “I know his reputation, his politics. He believes humans are a blight on the galaxy. This attack was an act of war. He has the secrets from the beacon. He likely has an army of Covenant at his command. And he won’t stop until he’s wiped humanity from the face of the galaxy.”

“We take him down, then,” John said.

“It’s not that easy,” Anderson pointed out. “He’s a Spectre. He can go anywhere, do almost anything. That’s why we need the Council on our side.”

“Then we prove he’s rogue and the Council takes away his Spectre status,” John amended. “And then we take him down.”

“I like your enthusiasm, Chief,” Anderson said with a smirk. “I’ll contact the ambassador and see if he can get us an audience with the Council. He’ll want to see us as soon as we reach the Citadel. We’ll be there in around seven hours, so consider yourself off-duty until we dock.”

John snapped a crisp salute. “Understood, sir.”

(—0—)

SSV Normandy Mess

January 12th, 2583

Local time 0701 (Sol Standard Time)

John was, quite frankly, starving. Apparently being knocked out for fifteen hours did that to people.

Having put on his green vest over his jumpsuit, he got in line to grab today’s breakfast: a platter of crispy bacon, overeasy eggs, and browned wheat toast. Few outside the Navy believed it, but shipboard service had its bonuses, and that included high-quality meals. When one could be in space for months at a time, good food was a big morale-booster.

MREs, however, still tasted like glorified cardboard. And that wasn’t mentioning the bronchial surfactant the old cryopods used. Lime-flavored mucus, as one Captain Jacob Keyes eloquently put it.

As he got started on breakfast, he spotted Gunnery Chief Williams passing by. She caught his gaze and furiously blushed, but before she could avert her eyes, he waved her over. Now was as good a time as any to get a proper read on her. Her cheeks burned tomato-red as she sat down, and not for the first time John missed the days when he wasn’t a propaganda icon. The two sat in silence for a good thirty seconds, and when Williams didn’t initiate conversation, in fact seeming to actively be trying to avert eye contact, John made the first move.

“So, Williams,” the Spartan began after taking another bite of eggs and swallowing, “how’d you end up on the Normandy ?”

“Transfer!” Williams blurted out. “Uh, sorry… the captain requested it. He said he needed someone to fill in the spot Jenkins left.”

“Can’t say I knew him long,” John admitted, “but he was a good kid, if a little excitable.”

“Part of me feels guilty over what happened,” Williams confessed, bowing her head. “If Jenkins was still alive, I might not be here.”

“You’re a good Marine, Williams,” John reassured. “You’ve earned a spot on the ship.”

Williams let out a breath. “Thanks, Chief. That means a lot from you. You’re a legend in the Alliance.”

It was then that Alenko walked by with his breakfast tray, laden with double servings of everything. “Is this seat taken?”

“Go ahead,” John answered, scooting over to make a bit of room.

“Glad to see you’re okay, Master Chief,” Alenko said as he sat down. “Harvest was rough. How’s everyone holding up?”

“I’ve seen friends die before, comes with being a Marine,” Williams said. “But to see my whole unit wiped out…” She let out a sigh. “And you never get used to seeing dead civilians. But things would have been a lot worse if you two hadn’t shown up.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, Williams,” Alenko responded. “You helped out a lot down there.”

“Thanks, LT,” Williams gratefully said. “I have to admit, I was a little worried about being assigned to the Normandy . It’s nice when someone makes you feel welcome.”

“You’ll fit in fine, Williams,” Kaidan affirmed.

John nodded. “Good soldiers adapt, and you’re a good soldier.”

“Thanks,” Williams said.

(—0—)

Now playing - The Citadel by Jack Wall (Mass Effect Original Soundtrack)

SSV Normandy co*ckpit

January 12th, 2583

Local time 1144 (Sol Standard Time)

“Good timing, Chief. I was just about to bring us in to the Citadel. See that taxpayer money at work.”

John stood in the back of the co*ckpit, alongside Alenko and Williams. Joker was the pilot currently on-duty, so he’d be the one guiding the Normandy on her approach. Esparza was in his co-pilot’s chair, mostly just looking out the window.

With a fwoosh , the frigate passed through the relay, moving from clear stars to a dense purple nebula. Eventually, the fog parted to reveal a forty-five kilometer long space station. Five massive arms spread from a central ring, and in the middle of that ring was a tower. Illuminating the arms were city lights, the telltale sign of civilization.

They had arrived at the Citadel, the heart of the galactic community.

Guarding the station was a massive fleet, hundreds of ships in number. The only real equivalents John could think of were the defense fleets in charge of defending Reach, Arcturus, and Earth. At the head was a massive, one-point-nine kilometer asari dreadnought. A short distance behind it was a nine-hundred-fifty-seven meter Alliance super-heavy cruiser. From the looks of it, the cruiser dated back to before first contact.

“Look at the size of that ship!” Williams exclaimed as she rushed up to the window, pointing at the asari vessel.

“The Ascension ,” Alenko said. “Flagship of the Citadel fleet.”

“And there’s the SSV Everest ,” John pointed out. “That’s Vice Admiral Cole’s ship.”

“Well, size isn’t everything,” Joker dismissed.

“Why so touchy, Joker?” Williams slyly asked.

“I’m just saying, you need firepower, too.”

“Joker, the Ascension ’s guns could break any barrier short of another dreadnought,” Esparza deadpanned. “And the Everest has Preston Cole in command.”

“Good thing they’re on our side, then,” Alenko said.

Joker then keyed the radio. “Citadel control, this is SSV Normandy , requesting permission to land.”

“Stand by for clearance, Normandy ,” a turian voice said on the other side. A moment later, the controller continued, “Clearance granted. You may begin your approach. Transferring you to an Alliance operator.”

“Roger, Alliance Tower,” Joker affirmed. “ Normandy out.”

The frigate accelerated towards the central ring. As they approached, a human voice came over the radio. “ Normandy , this is Alliance Tower, please proceed to dock 422.”

As the ship entered final approach, John started on his way to the cargo bay. “Ground team, fall in. Time to suit up.”

(—0—)

Alliance Embassy, Presidium, Citadel

January 12th, 2583

Local time 0923 (Citadel Time)

The Normandy ground team, plus the Captain, was currently waiting for Udina to finish his ranting.

John was currently in an N7-grade heavy Onyx hardsuit, mainly because Mjolnir was out of commission. The red and white stripes went down the right arm, same as before, and the ceramic was painted the same olive-green, but it provided none of the strength and speed enhancement of his power armor. He’d have to live without Mjolnir for a couple weeks while Anvil Station fabricated him a new set. Alenko and Williams had swapped their burnt and broken armors with new Marine-grade Onyx sets, of the light and medium variants respectively. John’s suit’s helmet was clipped to his belt, there in case he needed it. He’d long since replaced his lost MA40 assault rifle and M45 shotgun with new ones. Williams still had her MA2B from Harvest, and Alenko somehow still had all his weapons.

Right now, however, the Spartan hoped against hope that he’d be done dealing with politics in time for lunch.

Tali’Zorah had been transferred to a clinic in upper Kithoi Ward run by a Dr. Chloe Michel, where she’d be able to safely recover from her injuries. John couldn’t help but feel guilty despite Anderson’s reassurances. It had been his orders to flank the hunters, so it was his orders that got her in critical condition. He could only hope that she’d make a full recovery.

“This is an outrage!” the ambassador fumed to the three holograms in front of him. “The Covenant attacked without warning or provocation! The Council would step in if the Covenant attacked a turian colony!”

“The turians don’t found colonies on the borders of the Terminus systems, Ambassador,” the salarian Councilor, Valern, countered.

“Humanity was well aware of the risks when you went into the Traverse,” the asari Councilor, Tevos, added. “As of right now, we know very little about the Covenant. We don't even know how they bypassed the Harvest relay. Until solid evidence of hostility against the Citadel at large is discovered, we won't risk starting a full-scale war."

That was a new tidbit of information. So the Covenant could apparently bypass mass relays. It certainly helped explain why the distress call was so sudden if the relay hadn't even been triggered.

It also completely invalidated current naval doctrine. Because relays were the perfect bottleneck, modern strategies for system defense revolved around fortifying the immediate area around the relay, with proper planetary defenses like orbital MACs and fleets being a secondary measure. But if one were to completely skip past the relay, they could directly attack a planet without fighting their way past the relay defenses.

With this nugget in mind, John resumed his listening.

“What about Saren? You can’t just ignore a rogue Spectre! I demand action!” Udina growled.

“You don’t get to make demands of the Council, Ambassador ,” the turian Councilor, Sparatus, said in a tone that was meant to remind Udina where he was on the political food chain.

“Citadel Security is investigating your charges against Saren,” Tevos explained. “We will discuss the C-Sec findings at the hearing. Not before.”

As the holograms faded, Udina turned to the Normandy team. “Captain Anderson. I see you brought half your crew with you.” John could already feel the political headache coming on, and it was definitely far worse than the one he got from the beacon.

“Just the ground team from Harvest,” Anderson reassured in an attempt to calm the ambassador, “in case you had any questions.”

“I have the mission reports,” Udina said. “I assume they’re accurate?”

Anderson nodded. “They are. Sounds like you convinced the Council to give us an audience.”

“They were not happy about it,” Udina said. “Saren’s their top agent. They don’t like him being accused of treason.”

John wasn’t happy, either. “Saren and the Covenant made their intentions clear. I’m not gonna wait for the Council to-”

“Settle down, Master Chief. You’ve already done more than enough to jeopardize your candidacy for the Spectres,” Udina interrupted. “The mission on Harvest was a chance to prove you could get the job done. Instead, Nihlus ended up dead and the beacon was destroyed!”

“That’s Saren’s fault, not his!” Anderson defended. John’s already high respect for the captain went up a couple notches.

“Then we better hope the C-Sec investigation turns up evidence to support our accusations,” Udina said. Turning to John, he continued, “Otherwise the Council might use this as an excuse to keep you out of the Spectres.”

He turned back to Anderson. “Come with me, Captain. I want to go over a few things before the hearing. Shepard, you and the others can meet us at the Citadel Tower in one hour. Top level. I’ll make sure you have clearance to get in.”

As Udina and Anderson left, Williams shook her head. “And that’s why I hate politicians.”

John shook his head. He couldn’t agree more.

Walking out of the embassy office, the first thing he saw as the door opened was an Alliance recruiting poster - a poster of him. The very same Mark VI Mjolnir that he wore on a regular basis was on display in a heroic pose. Poster-Chief was standing in the back of a Pelican dropship with the blood tray door open, back turned to the camera with his head facing to the right. Instead of using his face, however, the poster had his helmet on. In Poster-Chief’s right hand, an MA40 assault rifle dangled in a firm grip. Outside the Pelican, the scenes of battle raged, with weapons fire being traded between two indistinct sides. At the top, the tagline read,

BECOME MASTER CHIEF

And at the bottom,

BECOME A HERO

ENLIST TODAY

Once again, John was faced with the reality that he was a celebrity. Once again, he missed the days when he was classified.

Eventually, he and the team found a way out of the embassies and located a nearby terminal. As he neared, a purple hologram of an asari with code flowing over her body appeared.

“Oh, hello!” the holographic asari greeted. “Citadel Smart AI Avina, at your service, Master Chief!”

John raised an eyebrow. “I thought AIs weren’t trusted outside Alliance space?"

"The Council voted to have me installed to operate all sorts of systems on the Citadel," Avina explained. "My primary function is to keep things on the station going smoothly, including but not limited to acting as C-Sec dispatch, guiding tourists, or even directly assisting the Council. A VI doesn't have the multitasking capabilities necessary for station upkeep."

John nodded in understanding. “Mind telling me where Citadel Tower is?”

Avina straightened. “Head a quarter kilometer upspin, past the Wards Access elevators, and you’ll get there.”

“I’m sorry, ‘upspin’?” Williams asked.

“The Citadel station spins on its axis to provide artificial gravity. Much more efficient than using eezo generators on their own,” Avina elaborated. “If you were to look at the station from the Wards’ side, it would look like the Citadel is spinning in a clockwise direction. Heading that way,” the AI pointed to her left, “is upspin.”

“That makes sense, thanks,” Williams said.

John turned to the Marines. “Ground team, we’ve got an hour to kill. Fall out.”

(—0—)

Presidium Courtyard, Citadel

January 12th, 2583

Local time 1024 (Citadel Time)

Despite their upbringing, Spartans tended to have surprisingly normal hobbies. Vannak watched nature documentaries, Kelly listened to some old twentieth-century band called Queen, and Naomi studied astronomy. Grace enjoyed seafood, Fred was dating a woman named Veta, and Kurt loved small talk.

John tended to relax by taking out a small notepad and sketching. Of the few memories he had of his life prior to his conscription, he clearly remembered his love of art. There had been a small section of wall in his childhood home dedicated to his drawings. As he matured into an adult, he found that when he put pencil to paper, it took his mind off of whatever was plaguing him. Right now, he was putting the finishing touches on a landscape sketch of the Presidium, depicting the horizon that curved upwards and all the people of various species milling about. Aircars dotted the sky, taking Citadel residents to and from wherever they needed to go.

Suddenly, his omnitool rang, reminding him that he needed to get to the hearing. Stowing the notepad in a pouch in his hardsuit, he then raised his omnitool. “Sierra-117 to ground team, report to Citadel Tower.”

“Aye-aye, Chief.”

“Yes sir, Master Chief.”

A few minutes later, Williams and Alenko arrived, and the three were ascending the elevator to the heart of Citadel politics. Chief was already dreading having to deal with politicians, but he'd gladly suffer through it if it meant exposing Saren.

“The Council isn’t going to ask me any questions, are they?” Williams asked.

“I doubt it,” Alenko replied. “We’ve made our reports. Now we just have to trust Ambassador Udina.”

“No we don’t, sir,” Williams countered.

“If they do ask, just stick by what you saw,” Chief said.

Eventually, the elevator reached the top of the tower. As the squad started towards the Council chamber, Chief spotted what looked like two turians arguing. One had elaborate white facial tattoos and wore the turian equivalent of a suit, while the other had a simple blue stripe across the nose plates and wore gray and blue armor.

“Saren’s hiding something!” the armored one angrily said. “Give me more time! Stall them!”

“Stall the Council?” the other one questioned disbelievingly. “Don’t be ridiculous. Your investigation is over, Garrus.”

As the suited turian walked away, the armored one spotted Chief, his mandibles splaying in momentary surprise. Turning to the Spartan, he extended a three-fingered hand and said, “Master Chief Shepard? Garrus Vakarian. I was the officer in charge of the C-Sec investigation into Saren.”

Chief took the hand and shook it. “Who’s the turian you were talking to?”

“That was Executor Pallin, head of Citadel Security. My boss,” Garrus explained. “He’ll be presenting my findings on Saren to the Council.”

“Any of those findings something I should know about?” Chief asked.

“Saren’s a Spectre, most of his activities are classified,” Garrus said. “I couldn’t find anything solid, but I know he’s up to something. Like you humans say, I can feel it in my gut.”

“I think the Council’s ready for us, Chief,” Alenko interjected, waving the others over.

“Good luck, Shepard,” Garrus said. “Maybe they’ll listen to you.”

Chief hoped so, but he had a nagging suspicion that wouldn’t be the case.

The team ascended the first set of stairs and went past the central atrium, before coming up to the second flight, where they saw Captain Anderson, who waved them over. “The hearing’s already started, come on.”

Climbing the second flight, it was clear that the captain was correct. The Councilors were standing at their podiums, and a massive hologram of a turian was projected to their right.

Saren Arterius.

Saren had two flanges extending from the sides of his head. He wore gray armor and had a prosthetic left arm in place of a real one. His face lacked identifying tattoos of any kind, indicating no allegiance to any turian colony.

“The Covenant attack is a matter of some concern,” Tevos said. “But there is nothing to indicate Saren was involved in any way.”

“The investigation by Citadel Security turned up no evidence to support your charge of treason,” Sparatus added.

“An eyewitness saw him kill Nihlus in cold blood!” Udina growled.

“We’ve read the Harvest reports, Ambassador,” Valern retorted. “Said eyewitness is currently incapacitated and unable to testify. Hardly compelling proof.”

“I resent these accusations,” Saren said. “Nihlus was a fellow Spectre, and a friend.”

“That just let you catch him off-guard!” Anderson retorted.

“Captain Anderson,” Saren noted disdainfully. “You always seem to be involved when humanity makes false charges against me.” His hologram then turned to the Spartan in the room, the turian equivalent of a smirk spreading across his facial plates. “And this must be ‘Humanity’s Greatest Hero’, the Master Chief. The one who let the beacon get destroyed.”

“That was your fault, not mine!” John barked. “And you’re trying to cover it up!”

“Shift the blame to cover your own failures, just like Captain Anderson,” Saren sneered. “The Alliance taught its soldiers well. But what can you expect… from a human? Especially one that got a civilian, a quarian even, into critical condition?”

Before John could respond, Anderson turned to the Council and said, "He's not even trying to hide the fact he hates humans! He attacked Harvest because of that!"

“Your species needs to learn its place, humans,” Saren spat. “You’re not ready to join the Council. You’re not even ready to join the Spectres!”

“He has no right to say that!” Udina fumed. “That’s not his decision!”

Tevos turned to Saren’s hologram with a shake of her head. “Shepard’s admission into the Spectres is not the purpose of this meeting.”

“This meeting has no purpose,” Saren said. “ The humans are wasting your time, Councilor, and mine.”

“He’s hiding behind the fact he’s a Spectre!” John glowered. “You need to at least see that!”

“What we need to see is evidence,” Valern countered. “So far, we’ve seen nothing.”

“There is still one outstanding issue: Master Chief’s vision,” Anderson said. “It may have been triggered by the beacon.”

“Are we allowing dreams into evidence now?” Saren leered. “How can I defend my innocence against this kind of testimony?”

John internally groaned. Despite the fact that he now hated Saren with a passion, he couldn’t help but admit the turian had a point. Even he didn’t know most of what he saw, or whether it was true or just some hallucination.

Sparatus seemed to be thinking along those same lines. “I agree. Our judgment must be based on facts and evidence, not wild imaginings and reckless speculation.”

“Do you have anything to add, Master Chief Shepard?” Valern questioned.

John scoffed. “What’s the point? You’ve already come to your conclusions.”

The Councilors all shared a glance, before Tevos spoke. “The Council has found no evidence of any connection between Saren and the Covenant. Ambassador, your petition to have him disbarred from the Spectres is denied.”

“I’m glad to see justice was served,” Saren said, before his hologram faded away.

“This meeting is adjourned.”

As the councilors all went off to their offices, Anderson pulled the team off to the side of the atrium. A short while later, Udina followed.

“It was a mistake bringing you into that hearing, Captain,” Udina admonished. “You and Saren have too much history. It made the Council question our motives.

“I know Saren,” Anderson countered. “He’s working with the Covenant for one reason: to exterminate the entire human race. Every colony we have is at risk. Every world we control is in danger. Even Earth isn’t safe!”

“Then we need to expose him,” John said.

“Precisely,” Udina responded. Cupping his chin, he noted, “As a Spectre, however, he’s virtually untouchable. Preferably, we’d have our eyewitness testimony, but given her current state…”

“What about Garrus, that C-Sec investigator?” Alenko recalled. “We saw him arguing with the Executor.”

“That’s right, he was asking for more time to finish his report,” Williams added. “Seems like he was close to finding something on Saren.”

“Any idea where we could find him?” John asked.

“I have a contact in C-Sec who can help us track Garrus down,” Udina offered. “His name is Harkin.”

“Forget it,” Anderson dismissed. “They suspended Harkin last month, drinking on the job. I won’t waste my time with that loser.”

“You won’t have to,” Udina said. “I don’t want the Council using your past history with Saren as an excuse to ignore anything we turn up. Shepard will handle this.”

“Consider it done,” John affirmed.

“Very well,” Udina acknowledged. “I need to take care of some business. Captain, meet me in my office later.”

As the ambassador walked off to do whatever political crap he needed to do, Anderson turned to John. “Harkin’s probably getting drunk at Chora’s Den. It’s a dingy little club in the lower section of Kithoi Ward.”

“...any other ideas?” John wasn’t particularly keen on relying on a drunk disgraced cop.

“You should talk to Barla Von, over in the financial district,” Anderson recommended. “Rumor has it he’s an agent for the Shadow Broker.”

“The Shadow Broker?” Williams asked.

“An information dealer,” Anderson clarified. “Buys and sells secrets to the highest bidder. I’ve heard Barla Von’s one of the top representatives. He might know something about Saren.”

“Alright then. I should go,” John said. He turned to his squad. “Team, form up. We’ve got an agent to talk to.”

(—0—)

Codex: Smart AI

Smart AI are advanced intelligence constructs capable of a variety of tasks. Developed by the Systems Alliance in the mid-2000’s, smart AI are capable of actively learning and adapting to situations as they happen, unlike virtual intelligences. In addition, they are not limited to any specific task or specialization, and can multitask on a level no VI could ever achieve. These abilities make them ideal for positions aboard ships and other high-intensity tasks.

Instead of traditional programming, where code is written and executed, smart AI are manufactured by scanning and replicating the neural pathways of a donor brain. This process typically destroys the donor tissue, so only deceased donors are used. The resulting AI are wholly unique, often having their own personality quirks, tastes, and specializations. In addition, the species of the donor often plays a factor in the final product. Asari AI typically specialize in diplomatic applications, most volus AI excel in finance, and krogan AI are often good at battlefield analysis. Regardless of which species goes in, however, what comes out is a construct capable of almost any digital task, contained in a two-inch long data crystal.

However, smart AI are not without their limitations. The main downside is a severely limited lifespan due to a condition often referred to as “rampancy”. Rampancy occurs at the end of a smart AI’s seven-year lifespan. At this point, the construct has accumulated a vast amount of data, to the point where the data begins to overlap. This causes increasing instability and unpredictable behavior, hence “rampancy”. To prevent rampancy from harming anyone, smart AI typically undergo final dispensation at the first signs of rampancy.

Initial development of smart AI led to concerns that it would render human intelligence obsolete, and similar concerns were expressed by the Citadel community upon humanity’s introduction to the galactic stage. Over time, however, smart AI proved that they are capable of coexisting with sentients instead of replacing them, and are increasingly seen being integrated into Citadel society. The Alliance currently maintains a monopoly on smart AI production, though companies like Lux Voluspa are currently considering exporting the technology to manufacture them. AI experts express hope that smart AI could be the key to making peace between the quarians and the geth.

(—0—)

Next chapter: Sleuthing Around

Chapter 6: I-V: Sleuthing Around

Chapter Text

AN: So, uhhh… I got the news that the Halo show was canceled. Not gonna lie, I’m disappointed. I hope it gets picked up somewhere else, because you can't just cancel a good show after leaving it on a cliffhanger.

Anyway, as of June 8th, 2024, I am now graduated from high school. As a result, I can dedicate more time to this story.

That is, if I don’t procrastinate on it like I usually do.

On a different note, I've got three dedicated side stories planned or in planning for the saga now. One is for the Spartan-IIIs, set between Book One and ME2, the second one takes place in the same time frame as Book One and sets up my version of Andromeda (might just make it a part of this story, let me know what you think), and the third actually is my Andromeda. You're gonna have to wait for those, though.

I totally wasn't using planning as an excuse to procrastinate.

…on another note, I've decided to link the Sangheili language. If you're on AO3, this should be an actual link if I've done this correctly, but Fanfiction users need to replace the indicated words with their symbols because the FF site is stupid. Also, if anyone is willing to assist me with Sangheili, PM me and I can forward the docs for translation. halopedia. org/ Sangheili_(language)/ Silver

Anyway, not much else in terms of news, so I’ll get onto review responses.

FF:

Just a Crazy-Man: Nice

nthnightfury: Looks like you needn’t wait any longer for 67% of those other three.

RandomReader: I appreciate your support for my solution. And the compliments for the dialogue are appreciated.

Also, note to reviewers, please note that RandomReader isn’t particularly fond of being put on a pedestal. And if you’re gonna fight, I have three rules: Be respectful to each other, do your own research, and take it to the forum.

GreeNPizza: A big reason for me making Chief the way he is in this story is because a Mass Effect story kinda doesn’t work without extensive dialogue. Also, I mostly intend to have Chief’s child-soldier-isms show through small tics and slips of the tongue.

giblo126: I don’t subscribe to that idea anymore. If I haven’t already, I should put that clarification by where I originally said that.

“Alright” is better than “meh” or “bad” in my book, so I’ll take whatever wins I can get.

naotw: After double-checking, you are correct on the Ascension ’s size. Also, I’m soft-retconning Cole’s presence in this chapter. Should save me the five minutes it would take to remove the Everest from the last chapter.

I edited some of Avina’s dialogue to hopefully have her being a smart AI make more sense. I promised another reviewer that I’d do a codex entry on smart AI in that chapter, and I couldn’t make the Normandy ’s AI make sense in the context of the chapter. I do intend on including the Normandy ’s AI, though.

A bit of thinking led me to the same conclusion as you concerning Chief’s dialogue with the Council, mainly because I thought it was out of character. That should be edited to be better, now. Also, you expect me to have a soldier who hates politics be completely concerned with how he acts in front of politicians? I think the scoff is in character, actually.

Anderson is paranoid about Saren in the base game, so that isn’t changing. Also, the reasoning conversation is coming later.

The timeline does need a bit of cleaning up, now that you mention it.

You don’t think the Halo universe people tried to increase the data store size to fix rampancy? At best, it would delay it.

Sci-Fi Guy 22: Yep, this is a forum thing. I’ll have this answered in a jiffy.

valkrus: That should hopefully be mostly corrected in this chapter.

Eb-8: This is science fiction on the Internet. You really think this is going to be 100% scientifically accurate?

Also, forum.

Guest: Same as Eb-8. Also, if you’re on the mobile app, you should be able to find the forum in my profile. If you’re on the website, I’m gonna be honest, I’m struggling to find it there. I’ve hopefully done something to help it be more findable (is that a word?) by categorizing it under Halo.

AO3:

GuestGuy: Thanks for the support! Also, not dead, just procrastinating.

Rocket: I’m glad to hold your interest. Also, glad to be doing something new.

Anyway, Halo and Mass Effect are still beyond my financial and legal reach, so here we go.

(—0—)

Chapter Five: Sleuthing Around

(—0—)

Consciousness slowly returned to Tali. One blink, then two, then three. Then there was a realization.

Something was wrong.

Her body felt like it was on fire. Pain surged through her, and a lot of it seemed focused on her chest, shoulder, and left leg. On top of that, her vision was far more restricted than she was used to.

It took a great deal of effort, suffering, and a half-dozen tries, but she eventually managed to push herself into a somewhat upright sitting position on her elbows. Taking a look around, she saw that this wasn’t the spaceport she remembered being in; instead, it was a rather firm bed she was on, and she was inside of what looked like a medical clinic, judging by the lined-up beds and the medigel dispenser on the wall. A helpful memory of a certain giant slab of metal then came to mind.

It was then that she took a look at what she was wearing. Instead of the black, gray, and purple suit she called home, it was a set of armor like the one she’d seen the Staff Lieutenant wear, with what looked like a brace around the left greave. However, it looked like it had been rather hastily modified to fit her physiology. Indeed, it seemed to chafe at most every joint, and felt slightly loose around the upper torso.

A quick glance told Tali that the doctor who owned the clinic was nowhere to be seen. Whether the doctor was on a break or something else, she didn’t know. So, with perhaps less than stellar judgment and no one to tell her off, she delicately turned and placed her feet on the floor. However, a gasp of pain escaped her lips when she put her weight on her legs and almost collapsed. Catching herself on the bed she was trying to escape, she slowly pushed herself back into an upright position.

Note to self, don’t put too much weight on the bad leg, the quarian girl thought.

Eventually, she managed to find a balance, and slowly but surely, she hobbled over to a nearby window. Outside was not the sparsely-developed landscape of Harvest, or a small colony, but a dense city with aircars and skyscrapers. However, what truly got her attention were the massive rectangles in the sky, each with signs of a bustling civilization.

It was then that she realized that she was on the Citadel. Two or so months ago, she’d gotten off the Flotilla shuttle to start her pilgrimage, only to suffer through the station’s TSA and half a dozen hecklers to barely make her connection flight to Harvest.

If she was here, something was very wrong.

An idea suddenly came to her head. It was potentially stupid and hazardous to her already bad state of health, but it could change the galaxy if it worked. Pulling up her omnitool, she quickly checked for the video file she needed. Once she saw it, she let out a breath of relief. She then began to limp her way towards the exit. As she did so, however, the doctor, a red-haired human woman, barged out of an adjacent office.

“What do you think you’re doing?!” the doctor shrieked as she grabbed Tali and attempted to force her back to the bed.

The quarian, however, wasn’t deterred, and roughly swatted the doctor’s arms away. “This is too important. I need to-”

“What you need is time to recover!” the doctor protested, standing in Tali’s way. “A broken leg, dislocated shoulder, seven cracked ribs, a fever, and several lacerations! That’s what you’re dealing with!”

Tali was briefly stunned by the sheer severity of her injuries. However, the urgency of her task soon took over again. After a moment, she had an idea. Bringing up the video on her omnitool, she said “I have proof that a Spectre betrayed the Citadel.”

Of course, she didn’t really know if Saren was a Spectre. However, she’d overheard the Staff Lieutenant say that Nihlus was one, and Saren said that the Council sent him to help right before ordering Nihlus’ death, so it didn’t seem like a stretch.

Pressing play, she let the doctor watch the proof that Saren was no longer on the Citadel’s side. The doctor’s expression quickly changed to one of shock as she watched the plasma blade materialize from thin air and bury itself to the hilt in Nihlus’ back.

“I need to get this to the Council,” Tali pleaded as the video ended.

The doctor was silent for a long moment, and Tali was worried that she’d be forced back into the bed. However, the doctor eventually said, “I know a man.”

(—0—)

Financial District, Presidium, Citadel

January 12th, 2583

Local time 1116 (Citadel Time)

As Chief disembarked from the aircar, he noticed that Barla Von’s place of business wasn’t anything special. No elaborate signs, no advertisem*nts, nothing. Just the words “Barla Banking” over the doorway. If anything, the place was trying to not be special. Considering Barla Von was supposedly a Shadow Broker agent, then that was probably the point.

Entering the place, the inside wasn’t much to speak of, either. The gray walls were barren save for typical Presidium architecture, and seated at the far end of the room at a desk was a volus in a black and white pressure suit.

“What’s this?” the banker questioned as Chief, Williams, and Alenko approached the desk, a hiss escaping the volus’ suit as he inhaled. “One of the Earth-clan. *hiss* Ah, a very famous one, yes? *hiss* You are the one called Master Chief Shepard. *hiss* It is a great honor to welcome the hero of the Blitz.”

“You know who I am?” Chief asked. He could understand Avina knowing who he was, given the fact she was an AI, but the volus had no reason to suspect that a tall man in an olive-green hardsuit was actually the Mjolnir-clad hero of the propaganda posters.

Then again, there weren’t many six-foot-ten N7s to begin with, much less N7s who wore his particular shade of green.

“Forgive me, Earth-clan,” the volus apologized. “*hiss* My name is Barla Von. *hiss* My job makes it necessary for me to keep informed. I am a financial advisor to many important clients here on the Citadel. *hiss* When someone as important as yourself arrives on the station, *hiss* I take notice. Though I am in need of clarification as to why *hiss* you require my services.”

Chief hummed. “I’m not here to make a bank account. I hear you’re a Shadow Broker agent, and I need information on Saren Arterius.”

“You’re very blunt, Master Chief,” Barla Von noted. “*hiss* But you’re right. I am an agent for the Shadow Broker. *hiss* And I do know something about Saren.”

“So what’s the price?” Chief asked. “I doubt information on the Council’s top Spectre is cheap.”

“*hiss* Normally, this information would indeed cost a small fortune,” Barla Von conceded. “*hiss* But these are exceptional circ*mstances, *hiss* so I am going to give it to you for free.”

“There’s got to be a catch,” Williams sharply said, perfectly echoing Chief’s own thoughts.

“*hiss* There is no catch. The Shadow Broker is quite upset with Saren right now,” Barla Von revealed. “*hiss* They used to do a lot of business, up until Saren turned on him.”

Chief scoffed. “Figures.”

“*hiss* No matter what you think of Saren, he’s not stupid,” Barla Von retorted. “He knows the Shadow Broker is a valuable ally. *hiss* Turning on him doesn’t make sense, *hiss* not unless something huge was at stake. I don’t know the details, *hiss* but the Shadow Broker hired a freelancer to deal with it. *hiss* A krogan mercenary.”

Chief nodded. “How do I find him?”

“*hiss* I heard he was paying Citadel Security a visit. *hiss* If you hurry, you can probably catch him before he leaves the C-Sec Academy.”

“Thanks for the tip,” Chief said. He then turned to his team. “Let’s move.”

(—0—)

Republics Intelligence Agency Office, Citadel

January 12th, 2583

Local time 1137 (Citadel Standard Time)

Major Dari V’nala sat at her office, filling out whatever paperwork came to her desk, making calls to other offices, and otherwise biding her time until the work day ended. Truthfully, while working in intelligence sounded good on paper, she couldn’t help but feel bored with her current position. She missed the days when she worked in the field, before her left leg got sliced off from the knee down by a batarian pirate captain, who had intercepted a report she’d tried to send back to command. Logically, she should have been left traumatized by the experience, but she couldn’t honestly say that it affected her all that much. Whether that was just her, or the fact that her father was a krogan, she didn’t know. What she did know was that explaining the prosthetic would make a good story for the grandkids when they came along.

Moving on, today was an especially trying day, with handling Saren’s hearing and all the paper-pushing that came with it. If she was being honest with herself, she didn’t entirely believe that Saren wasn’t involved with the events at Harvest. During the hearing, he’d made a point to have his distaste of humans known, even saying that they as a species needed to “learn its place”. Whether he was hoping that having it so open would make him less suspicious, or simply letting his hatred get the better of him, Dari didn’t know. However, there wasn’t any solid evidence that could connect him to the attack, and he was a Spectre, so she could do nothing to overrule the Council’s decision. With a sigh, she raised her elbow onto her desk and cradled her head, glancing at the clock as it ticked. Only twenty minutes until she could clock out and hit the break room for lunch.

Eventually, her eyes landed on a small holo-still on the desk, of herself with a turian and two beautiful baby girls. Xiaphus Brekkan had been her love almost two and a half centuries ago. While he had long since passed, Dari still maintained regular contact with the twin daughters that came of their brief union. Nila and Jenere had both gone into the commandos when they reached maturity, a decision Dari wholly agreed with. A small smile came to her face at the memories the photo brought, only to turn into a frown as the thought of the Covenant returned. She sincerely hoped that the attack was just another Relay 314 incident, and not a second Rachni War.

Just then, her omnitool rang. On pure muscle memory, she straightened and brought her wrist up. “Major V’nala here.”

“Major, Lieutenant Colonel G’Syre is here,” the voice on the other end said. “She says she has something that concerns you.”

Dari let out a sigh. This had better be worth her time. “Send her in.”

A minute later, a purple-skinned asari in a black uniform walked in, wearing the bars that denoted her rank. “Major V’nala.”

“Colonel G’Syre,” Dari acknowledged, gesturing to the empty seat in front of her desk. “I apologize, but make this quick. I’ve only got fifteen minutes until I clock out for lunch.”

“Of course, Major,” G’Syre acceded as she sat down. “Two days ago, a listening post in the Ismar Frontier picked up a distress call. It had bounced between at least five relays, so it came in broken and unreadable, with no way to trace its location beyond somewhere in the Attican Traverse. However, the post’s crew were able to clean it up enough to get some valuable information.”

“A distress call?” Dari questioned in disbelief. “Why does a distress call need my personal attention?”

G’Syre sucked in a breath. “It’s… easier if I just play it back.” Raising her omnitool, G’Syre brought up the file and hit play.

“Mayday, mayd~~~his is the Hylia~~~eed assista~~~unknown alie~~~VIP aboard, Matriarch Benezia T’Soni. Repeat, need~~~”

“It cuts out after that,” G’Syre said apologetically.

Dari had questions. “Did they say Benezia?”

“Affirmative, ma’am,” G’Syre confirmed.

Dari let out a sigh. “Forward me the file. Benezia’s important enough that this needs the Council’s attention. Dismissed, Colonel.”

As G’Syre took her leave, Dari took a wistful glance at her lunchbox, under her desk. Satisfying her hunger would have to wait.

For now, she had a very important phone call to make.

(—0—)

C-Sec Academy, Citadel

January 12th, 2583

Local time 1154 (Citadel Standard Time)

The final elevator ride to C-Sec wasn’t too noteworthy, save for the mid-day news.

“This is Benjamin Giraud of Citadel News Net. In light of the recent attack on Harvest, many colonial investors are pulling their support for future projects. Proponents of expanded human colonization insist that Harvest was an isolated case. Nevertheless, an official Alliance bulletin has warned the Outer Colonies to shore up their defenses in preparation for more Covenant attacks. In other news, Vice Admiral Preston Cole has been called away from joint human-asari training operations by Alliance High Command, with Rear Admiral Boris Mikhailovich taking his place.”

The door then rolled open, and true to Barla Von’s word, a krogan was speaking with a C-Sec officer near the stairway to the requisitions office. The krogan wore ancient-looking blood-red armor, had a bright red crest on his head, and had long scars running down the right side of his face.

“Witnesses saw you making threats in Fist’s bar,” the officer said irately. “Stay away from him.”

“I don’t take orders from you,” the krogan leered.

“This is your only warning, Wrex,” the officer said.

‘Wrex’ leaned forward, putting his face right up close to the officer. “You should warn Fist. I will kill him.”

“You want me to arrest you?” the officer questioned disbelievingly.

“I want you to try,” Wrex chuckled.

Wrex then spotted Chief and his compatriots observing the conversation. Brushing past the officer, who barked at him to get lost, the krogan said, “Yes, human?”

“Wrex, I’m Master Chief Shepard. I’m trying to take down Saren Arterius,” Chief said, getting straight to the point.

His name elicited a raised brow from the krogan. “Why’s a human as famous as you walking around in that tinfoil? Or do they not let you out in public in the tank?”

“The armor’s… a work-in-progress,” Chief half-explained. “Anyway, Barla Von said to talk to you.”

“Barla Von is a wise man,” Wrex acknowledged. “We may share a common goal, Chief.”

Chief crossed his arms. “Which is?”

“I’ve been hired to track down Saren, and my job led me to the owner of Chora’s Den,” Wrex revealed. “A Shadow Broker agent named Fist. He did something very foolish.”

“Let me guess: he betrayed the Broker,” Chief sardonically said.

“You’re right on the credits. My latest lead says a quarian escaped from a hospital here on the Citadel in the last hour or so,” Wrex elaborated. “Apparently, she’s in an Alliance suit and has evidence that Saren’s working with the Covenant.”

At Wrex’s explanation, alarm bells went off in Chief’s head. “...s%%%.”

“You know her?” a surprised Wrex asked.

“Tali’Zorah nar Rayya, she was with us on Harvest when the Covenant invaded,” Chief said. “Wrex, where did she go?”

“My intel says she went to Fist,” the merc said. “He supposedly set up a meeting to trade the evidence. Problem is, he’s working for Saren and not the Broker…”

“...so they’re going to make sure there aren’t any loose threads,” Chief realized. Things just got a lot more urgent. “Where was the quarian last?”

“Last I heard, Fist still had her,” Wrex said. “Probably somewhere inside his club. You help me kill Fist, she’s all yours.”

“It’s a deal,” Chief agreed. He didn’t have time to hash out the details. Zorah needed saving… again.

“What about Garrus?” Williams asked. “Weren’t we trying to find him?”

“He was here, just before you lot showed up,” Wrex answered. “He was tracking down our mutual friend. Said he was starting his investigation at the med clinic she escaped from.”

Chief nodded as he slid his hardsuit’s helmet on, his visor polarizing to a reflective gold. “Alenko, Williams, head to the hospital and get Garrus on board, ASAP. Wrex, on me. We have a nightclub to raid.”

(—0—)

Kaidan and Williams were sprinting so fast that they almost missed the clinic altogether. As they rushed inside, Kaidan took notice of two things.

One was the doctor - Chloe Michel - being held at gunpoint. Five thugs all had pistols pointed at her. She was profusely telling them that she didn’t tell anyone. Whatever she didn’t tell, Kaidan didn’t know, but it probably related to Fist and Saren.

The other thing was the turian currently crouched behind the countertop. The Sentinel recognized the armor and markings - this was undoubtedly Garrus. He had a pistol in his hand, ready for a fight.

As Kaidan raised his magnum in his good hand, and Williams pulled out her shotgun, the thugs took notice. One of them yanked Michel in front of him and pointed his pistol at the Marines. “Who are you?!”

“Drop the gun!” Kaidan barked in response.

It was then that Garrus made his move. In one swift move, he spun around the corner, snapped his pistol up, and pulled the trigger, sending a bullet flying into the head of the thug holding Michel hostage with a spray of blood. As the thug dropped dead, Kaidan and Williams opened fire, swiftly ending the lives of the other four.

“Perfect timing,” Garrus complimented as the three stowed their weapons. “Gave me a clear shot at that b%%%%%%.”

“Clean shot? You could have hit Dr. Michel!” Kaidan exclaimed.

“Uh- there wasn’t time to think. I just reacted! I didn’t mean to-” Garrus hastily defended, before turning to the doctor, seemingly in an effort to get off the topic. “Dr. Michel, are you hurt?”

“No, I’m okay,” Michel assured, dusting herself off. “Thanks to you, all of you.”

“Who were those men, anyway?” Williams asked.

“They work for Fist,” Michel said. “They wanted to shut me up, keep me from telling Garrus where the quarian went.”

“Chief and Wrex are headed to Chora’s Den to keep Tali out of Saren’s hands,” Kaidan explained. “We’re just waiting on-” It was then that his omnitool pinged. “Oh, there’s the signal.”

Raising his tool, Kaidan said, “Alenko he-”

“Meet me at these coordinates, now!” Chief barked from the other side, cutting off the Staff Lieutenant.

As the location came in, Garrus said, “This is Shepard’s show. But I want to bring down Saren as much as you do. I’m coming with you.”

“Then let’s get moving,” Kaidan ordered. “You heard the Chief!”

(—0—)

As Chief and Wrex approached Chora’s Den, the Spartan took note of two things.

One was the massive hologram of an asari silhouette in a seductive pose. Chief personally never had much taste for clubs or bars. He didn’t see the appeal of dancing or strippers, and could get by just fine without alcohol, but even he had to admit that a stiff drink came in handy whenever he’d just gotten off a particularly stressful mission and was on leave. The hangovers that came afterwards, however, were less than appealing.

Two was the distinct lack of flashing lights and thumping music coming from the door. If he was correct-

“Fist knows we’re coming,” Wrex said with a predatory grin as he drew his shotgun, his words perfectly echoing Chief’s own thoughts.

“Let’s make this quick,” Chief responded, pulling his assault rifle from his back.

Putting their backs to the door frame, the Spartan and the merc prepared to breach. Three of Chief’s fingers went up, doing a silent countdown before closing into a fist. The two then spun into the room, Chief sweeping left and Wrex sweeping right.

Immediately, two normal-sized humans popped up from behind an overturned table, taking aim with their pistols. However, Chief was faster, and a half-dozen rounds each took down their cheap kinetic barriers before filling their chests with lead. His own N7-grade barriers easily absorbed whatever pistol fire came at him. A quick glance to his right told him that Wrex was doing just fine. Another goon stood from behind the bar, but met the same fate as his compatriots.

It was then that a bestial roar took his attention. A krogan bouncer was charging towards him, wildly firing its shotgun as he ran. Chief backpedaled as he let loose with his rifle, but the krogan just kept coming.

SMACK!

The bouncer slammed into the Spartan, before ramming him into a wall. This was by no means an advantageous position for the human, no matter how augmented he was. One-hundred-ninety kilograms of Spartan and ceramic was sandwiched between an unmoving slab of metal and a quarter-ton lizard with redundant organs.

But prey is most dangerous when cornered, and Chief had an idea of how to deal with this rampaging krogan.

A swift and forceful knee to the gut forced the bouncer off Chief enough to extend his left arm. His grappleshot struck the krogan square in the right shoulder, but instead of reeling the cable in, Chief leapt over the bouncer and planted his feet on its back, using his momentum to loop the cable tight around the krogan’s neck. Like a raging bull, the krogan went wild through the bar, barreling through a half-dozen of its comrades as it struggled to dislodge the Spartan. But Chief stayed firm, and after about fifteen seconds of his makeshift rodeo, he released his cable’s hold on the krogan and kicked off with enough force to send the bouncer stumbling into a nearby table. While Chief gracefully landed on his feet, the krogan fell flat on its face, and before it could get up, its gut was met with a full heat sink of thirty-six rounds from the Spartan’s assault rifle.

There are some injuries that even a krogan can’t walk away from.

It didn’t take too long to deal with the rest of the goons after that. Chief and Wrex then regrouped on the other side of the room from the entrance, before the Spartan palmed open the door there, revealing…

…two dockworkers.

“Ha-halt!” Dockworker One stammered, feebly raising a pistol.

Chief didn’t even bother raising his rifle. “A Spartan and a krogan against two barely-armed dockworkers. Think this through.”

“S%%%, a Spartan?!” Dockworker Two said in astonishment and fear. “I thought those guys were just propaganda!”

“F%%% this, I’m outta here!” Dockworker One exclaimed, dropping his pistol to the ground and running past the two larger beings.

“W-wait for me!” Dockworker Two shouted, sprinting to follow his compatriot.

Wrex hummed disappointedly. “Would’ve been faster to just kill ‘em.”

Chief didn’t bother responding. He then palmed the door on the other side of the corridor, before snapping his rifle up and sweeping the room ahead. It was a small office, with a desk at the far left side from the door. Seated there was a man with a high fade haircut - this must have been Fist. There was also a distinct lack of hardsuited female quarians.

Where was Chief’s famed luck when he needed it most?

As Fist rose from his seat, however, a gunshot to the shoulder forced him to the floor and caused him to let out a cry of pain. The krogan-Spartan duo then advanced, guns pointed at the outnumbered and vastly outmassed man.

“Wait, don’t kill me! I surrender!” Fist begged, trying to scramble backwards, but ultimately ending up backing into the wall.

“Where’s the quarian?” Chief questioned, keeping his rifle raised.

“What quari-”

BANG!

“AGH! MY OTHER SHOULDER!”

“Wrong answer,” Chief said. “Where’s the quarian? I will not ask again.”

“Okay, okay! I’ll tell you where she is!” Fist relented. “Just don’t shoot me again!”

“Start talking,” Wrex growled.

“She isn’t here, said she’d only deal with the Shadow Broker himself,” Fist blabbed.

“Impossible,” Wrex said disbelievingly. “The Broker doesn’t do things personally. Even I was hired through an agent.”

“But she didn’t know that,” Fist said. “I told her I’d set a meeting up. But when she shows up, it’ll be Saren’s men waiting for her.”

BANG!

A sand grain-sized piece of lead whizzed half an inch away from Fist’s ear.

“Location, now!” Chief demanded.

“Here on the wards, the back alley by the markets!” Fist blabbered. “She’s supposed to meet them soon. You can make it if you hurry!”

As soon as Fist was done talking, Chief gave Wrex a nod. “We had a deal.”

“Wait, ple-”

BANG!

This time, instead of just missing or wounding to get the point across, Wrex’s shot was deadly, causing Fist’s head to vanish in a splash of brain and bone.

As the mobster’s corpse dropped, Wrex grinned. “Finally.”

“Revel in it later,” Chief admonished. He then brought up his omnitool, pulling up the location Fist gave them, before contacting his second-in-command.

“Alenko he-”

“Meet me at these coordinates, now!” Chief interrupted, before sending the location to the Staff Lieutenant.

(—0—)

Tali was limping her way to the location Fist had given her. The man had been able to organize a meeting with the Shadow Broker for her, for which she was very grateful. All the same, he didn’t strike her as a person who was particularly trustworthy, so she’d gotten a… countermeasure, so to speak, in case something went wrong. What she was doing was already not one of her smartest ideas, she was coherent enough to know that now, but she couldn’t turn back now. This was too important.

The alleyway was just up ahead, and she could already see a half-dozen people of various species waiting in the alleyway. None of them looked particularly leader-like, however.

As she approached, one of the aliens, a turian, walked up to her. “Did you bring it?”

“Where’s the Shadow Broker?” Tali sharply questioned. The deal was that the Broker would meet with her, not some thug. “And where’s Fist?”

“They’ll be here,” the turian said as he caressed her helmet. “Where’s the evidence?”

SMACK!

“OW!”

Creep.

“If the Broker’s not here, the deal is off,” Tali firmly said, retracting her arm as the turian gripped his wrist in pain. The turian gave her a glare, before nodding at his associates, who began to raise their guns.

Uh-oh.

The quarian girl pulled out her “countermeasure” and tossed it at the group, before quickly hobbling behind a nearby crate. Three of them recognized the grenade for what it was and dove out of the blast radius, but the other two didn’t notice it in time and were caught in the explosion.

That just left four extremely angry thugs.

Uh-o-

THOOM!

THOOM!

The side of the turian’s head suddenly exploded in a spray of blue blood, alongside one of the other thugs. A hail of gunfire tore through the other two in short order, and three armored humans, a C-Sec turian, and a red-armored krogan walked into the area.

“Fist set me up!” Tali angrily exclaimed as she pushed herself up. “I knew I couldn’t trust him!”

“Are you hurt?” a rather tall human asked in a husky voice as he walked up to her. He wore a set of olive-green armor with white and red stripes going down the right arm, as well as “N7” and “117” on his che-

Oh.

“Shepard?” Tali said in disbelief. She almost didn’t recognize him in the hardsuit. “Oh, I-I’m fi- whoa!”

It was at that moment that her left leg finally gave out. Shepard deftly yet gently caught her arm by the wrist, surprising her with his speed and stopping her from falling. Were larger humans that much faster than the others, or was she missing something important about him?

Eh, not important right now.

Shepard then activated his omnitool. “Sierra-117 to Joker.”

“Hey, Chief. What’s shakin’?” a scratchy voice on the other end replied casually.

Shepard let out a sigh. “We’re gonna need to borrow your crutches. Send Esparza out with them.”

“...uhhh… okaaay… Do I get an explanation?”

“Later.”

(—0—)

Alliance Embassy, Presidium, Citadel

January 12th, 2583

Local time 1522 (Citadel Standard Time)

With the borrowed crutches delivered and under Tali’s arms, the six plus Esparza found their way into Udina’s office. The ambassador in question had his back turned to them, but it wasn’t hard to guess his mood. Captain Anderson stood next to him.

“You’re not making my life easy, Shepard,” Udina said in a forced calm, beginning to turn to them. “Firefights in the Wards, an all-out assault on Chora’s Den, do you know how many-” It was then that he noticed the assortment of non-Alliance in the group. “Shepard, what is this?”

“Making your day, Ambassador,” John said, helmet tucked under his arm. “Zorah is the quarian who was with us on Harvest. There were a few… complications, but we have our evidence.”

“Tali, please,” the quarian said. “You saved my life twice. I think you can use my first name.”

“‘Complications’, you say?” Udina sardonically said. “It seems, Miss Zorah, that we should start at the beginning. Why were you on Harvest, and not in the Flotilla?”

“I was on my pilgrimage,” Zor- Tali explained. “My rite of passage into adulthood.”

“Pilgrimage?” Esparza questioned, speaking up for the first time since they reached the embassy. “I’m sorry, but what is that exactly?”

“It’s a quarian tradition,” Tali said. “When we reach maturity, we leave the Fleet and look for something of value to bring back. It could be fuel, food, or some kind of technology. Something that will make life easier on the Flotilla.”

Esparza nodded in understanding. “Makes sense, now that I’m thinking about it.”

And it did. It made sense for a species that lived on ships to have some way of getting new stuff, while simultaneously exposing their citizens to life outside the Fleet.

“This is all very interesting,” Udina interjected, “but I believe we were about to discuss the evidence Miss Zorah has that proves Saren is a traitor.”

“Oh, ri-right,” Tali stuttered. “During the Covenant’s attack on Harvest, I was hidden behind some crates in the docks. I managed to record Saren, Nihlus, and the Arbiter on my omnitool.” Lifting her arm up from her borrowed crutch, she pulled up a video file and hit play.

“-isn’t your mission, Saren,” the recording of Nihlus said, lowering his weapon in surprise. “What are you doing here?”

“The Council thought you could use some help on this one,” Saren replied as he briefly put a hand on Nihlus’ shoulder.

“I wasn’t expecting another hostile first contact,” Nihlus said, turning his back to Saren. “The situation’s bad.”

“Don’t worry. I’ve got it under control. Arbiter?”

“What?”

SNAP-HISS!

“AAAAAAGH!”

Twin prongs of plasma suddenly sprouted from Nihlus’ chest. Just as suddenly, a massive elite faded into visibility behind the tattooed turian. The elite had segmented, ornamental silver armor rimmed in gold, with a hawk beak-shaped helmet and a large right pauldron that rose up to protect the side of his long neck. The elite had one other defining feature: his left eye was a milky white with no pupil, unlike the snakelike gold eye on the right. He carried no other weapons save for his sword, not even a sidearm.

When the Arbiter deactivated his sword, Nihlus dropped limp, barely offering another twitch as the life faded from his body. Saren gave what appeared to be a disappointed glance at the corpse. “Sorry, old friend. But my cause is more important than old bonds. And the information in the keystone will bring us one step closer to the return of the Reapers.”

The Arbiter looked at Saren with confusion, seeming to ask a question in a deep, guttural voice. The language wasn’t translated by Tali’s omnitool.

“It’s better to keep up appearances for now,” Saren responded. “Rest assured, the time will come when I can commit fully to the Covenant.”

The Arbiter said something else, seeming somewhat irritated.

“Don’t worry, the heretics of the Citadel will pay for their sins in due time. They will burn as our fleets scour their planets. Their destruction is the will of the gods, after all. Then when the Reapers come and harvest the unworthy, they will show us the way to Halo. There, you will find your redemption.”

As the recording ended, the room sat in silence. Saren hadn’t just betrayed the Council; he had declared total war on the Citadel as a whole, and the Covenant were eagerly following his lead.

Eventually, Anderson found it in himself to speak up. “This is what we were looking for. Proof that Saren is a traitor.”

“Seems we got a little more than that,” Garrus said in forced mirth.

“Saren said that the information in the… keystone would bring them one step closer to the return of the Reapers, and that the Reapers would help the Covenant find something called Halo,” John noted. Suddenly, something became clear to him. “Hang on. Reapers… keystone… Halo… I remember those things from my vision. I don’t know what it all means yet, but things are starting to make sense.”

“Halo might be some kind of technology from whatever race made the keystone,” Alenko postulated.

“Knowing Saren, he probably wants to use it as a superweapon against the Citadel,” Anderson added.

“Whatever it is, if the Covenant wants it, it’s bad,” Williams agreed.

“We need to present this to the Council right away,” Udina said.

“What about the quarian?” Wrex rumbled.

“My name is Tali!” the quarian girl said indignantly.

“She’s coming with us,” John said before anyone else could speak up. “Odds are that Saren still considers her a target. Plus, it’s her evidence, and she has a right to present it herself.”

Udina nodded as he started typing on his omnitool. “Very well. I’ll make sure the Council is notified that we have new evidence to present. They should be- oh. They want to see it as soon as possible. Shepard, you and your team can meet us at Citadel Tower.”

As Udina took his leave, everyone else followed him out of the room…

…well, everyone except a distraught Esparza.

“Anyone else feel like they’re in over their head? No? Just me?”

(—0—)

Carrier Insatiable Faith Brig

177th daily cycle, 4,107th solar cycle, 9th Age of Reclamation

Local time 77th cental of the 130th unit (Covenant Battle Calendar)

Var was on his way to check in on the prisoners taken from the freighter. Normally, this was something that would have been delegated to a minor, but Saren wanted his information directly from someone he trusted. To be honest, Var agreed, if perhaps not for the same reasons. The half-blind elite didn’t trust the jiralhanae warden to leave the prisoners intact - for that matter, he didn’t trust many jiralhanae at all, the dishonorable savages. Though, to be fair, he knew of some sangheili who could match the jiralhanae in their sadism. However, those sangheili were few and far between compared to the jiralhanae.

Waving to the two obedentiaries assigned to stand guard by their cell, he palmed the door controls and watched as the energy barrier vanished. Sitting at the far side of the room was an asari in a deep black dress, with a black hood and headdress adorning her head and what Saren called a “biotic suppression collar” around her neck. This was the one who was important - Benezia T’Soni. A highly respected matriarch in her culture, apparently. For whatever reason, of which Var had yet to learn, Saren had wanted her in particular.

If Var was being honest with himself, he rather pitied her current situation, but that pity was tempered by the knowledge of his mission. Attacked by unknown aliens, kidnapped, and put in a cell with no real comforts, who wouldn’t pity her?

The jiralhanae, that’s who.

It was then that an idea came to his head. Perhaps he could try to bridge the gap and make her more amenable to helping the Covenant. It would take time, of course, but in the end, it might just be worth it.

He then closed the cell back up again. Perhaps it was time to use his title for something other than leading warriors into battle and finding an honorable death.

(—0—)

The Record of Punished Deeds, Second Volume: The Origins of the Arbiters

The Covenant has a long and storied history, dating back thousands of years. There have been great trials and tribulations, which have oft been the cause of equally great change. And yet, one title, a title that predates even our most holy empire, pervades nearly every event and shapes our destiny as we continue the search for the Sacred Rings. Certainly, the Record of Punished Deeds would not be sufficient without a word on the Arbiters. These warrior-rulers were part king and part judge, unlike any who would follow, and especially unlike the disgraced sangheili warriors of the current age.

Sanghelios, the homeworld of the sangheili, carries a magnificent and honorable history. The sangheili long ruled their world with pride and vigilance, braving every peril that would come. However, the feudal structure of their society carried inherent disunity, a disunity which one kaidon would take advantage of. Centuries before the sangheili would take their first steps off their world, Irsu ‘Labat, one of the earliest Arbiters, conquered the entirety of the continent of Qivro for Keep Labat. However, a collection of other keeps under the banner of the Swords of Sanghelios would unite to depose the Tyrant of Qivro, taking the title of Arbiter for themselves and restoring it to honor.

One day, over three millennia ago, we would come into contact with the sangheili on their frontier world of Ulgethon, and emissaries were sent to negotiate with the natives. However, the sangheili of the time believed that Forerunner artifacts were not to be disturbed, only worshiped, and Arbiter Vema ‘Togad, the Prophets’ Bane, sent the severed heads of the emissaries back to us, thus starting the War of Beginnings. The sangheili had great military prowess, often pushing us back, yet we had the mighty dreadnought that now fuels the holy city of High Charity. In time, the sangheili began to utilize their own Forerunner artifacts to counteract our advantage, and many on their side began to question why the war had to be fought at all. Eventually, peace would be forged between our species and the sangheili, the Writ of Union authored, and the Covenant born.

As this peace flourished, we would come to realize the importance of the Arbiters, as well as their usefulness. In time, the Arbiters, like all things, would be bent to our purposes. They would come to serve as the right hand of the Hierarchs, instruments of their will. In times of great crisis, such as the Taming of the Lekgolo, the Unggoy Rebellions, and most recently the War of Annihilation, new Arbiters have been called to lead the Covenant to victory. Undoubtedly, without the Arbiters, our holy empire would have broken long ago.

(—0—)

Next chapter: Spectre