Author's Note: This was originally to be posted after CII's story Halo: Civil War was fully completed. However, as she has started other projects which she needs to focus on she may be unable to finish that any time soon, so please bear in mind that this will contain enormous spoilers for that story. Just thought I ought to give you fair warning in case you were holding out for it.

Also, please bear in mind that this is still in-progress, so new chapters may be slow in coming.

MASS EFFECT 3: THE CYCLE

Prologue: The Eve of the War

1335, October 31, 2560 (Military Time)\Classified Location

The UNSC Infinity moved slowly through the grim silence of this vast, empty region of known space. The immense, grey, oblong-shaped ship was once hailed as the pinnacle of the military achievement of the United Nations Space Command, a flagship behind which all their other ships would follow into glorious battle. In its present state, floating through the void, looking rather like a lonely twig drifting on a calm ocean, scarred with blast burns and holes in its hull, it now looked somewhat less glamorous than the Office of Naval Intelligence probably intended.

Captain Thomas Laskey was sure that he would feel the heat for ordering his ship to retreat from a battle that he knew they would never win; like many in the UNSC he had heard of what happened when one human tried to save his people by surrendering to the enemy during the Covenant War; that poor man's entire family had been blacklisted ever since, and it took a fatal sacrifice by his granddaughter to finally clear the family name. He thought bitterly about how his superiors seemed to prefer having martyrs to survivors, but then again if no ship had escaped from the battle they had just faced then none would be alive to spread the word of the threat to the entire galaxy. He had seen the face of the new enemy once already, and fighting just one of them had been bad enough. There was no way that they could have survived a fight with an entire armada. He ran a hand through his short brown hair, his face relatively young but now looking haggard and world-weary, as he thought about what the demons that had declared war on every sentient creature alive were doing now.

He was stood on the large bridge of his ship, watching the hologram displays of her schematics, checking the damage and hoping that it wouldn't get worse. They hadn't had time to fully refuel the ship, and if they didn't find somewhere to dock soon they were surely done for. He only hoped that they had gotten away quickly enough so that they were not being pursued. He tapped on the hard-light controls before him, relaying coordinates to his helmsman, an approach vector which he hoped was as good as his very important passenger said it was.

"Steady as she goes," he said into the intercom. "Stay on this course." He turned to face his most important passenger, who stood there checking his hard-light Omni-Tool, wearing a blue dress uniform. "Not that I want to show lack of confidence in our allies, but are you sure this will work?"

"I've seen this in action with my own eyes, Laskey," said Admiral Stephen Hackett, his aged and scarred face looking no less resolute. "Trust me when I say this approach vector is good. Just stay on the course our allies are giving you."

"Hate to be a Negative Nancy, but the Captain's got a point," a voice said from Laskey's terminal. A hologram of a figure dressed like an early 20th-century pilot, complete with flying cap and goggles, was stood on the display, looking at the senior officer with a wry expression. This was Roland, one of the last Artificial Intelligences created before the stringent Council regulations on AIs came into effect. "There's nothin' out here bigger than a speck of dust. You sure they haven't just bugged out?"

"You saw the videos from the Citadel, didn't you?" asked Hackett. "Then you'll know what they're capable of. If they say they're around here, you'd better believe that they're around here."

"Just hope so, sir," said Roland. "Otherwise we're gonna look pretty foolish floatin' in the middle of nowhere waiting for a space cuttlefish to come along and tear us apart." Admiral Hackett just shook his head, wondering what sort of programming code was used that let AIs be so sarcastic.

Things were quiet for several minutes, as Roland and the ship's pilots guided the Infinity along the course that had been set out for them. It was then that Laskey ordered an all-stop, much to the surprise of the rest of the bridge crew; if the enemy had followed them, they were now sitting ducks. Laskey himself looked uncertain, but didn't say anything upon noticing an encouraging nod from Hackett. He couldn't help but admit that he was slightly excited by this; he had seen the footage from the Citadel when their new allies had revealed themselves to the galactic community, and in spite of the catastrophe he had just endured, he found himself looking forward to seeing what these beings were capable of.

All of a sudden the sensors on the bridge went crazy, as what appeared to be an electrical storm suddenly erupted outside the ship. The scanners showed that something enormous was slowly materialising out of thin air, enveloping the ship. Hackett's eyes were the only ones which didn't go wide as a gigantic vessel formed around them, the Infinity now taking up a tiny space in one of the hangar bays. Roland's holographic avatar reappeared, looking as spellbound as the human crew members.

"This thing is massive..." he breathed. "86 kilometres long, 37.8 kilometres wide and-"

"55.2 kilometres high," Hackett finished, failing to suppress a sly smile. "I know." He turned to Laskey as the ship suddenly trembled, loud thudding noises coming from outside as something locked the ship into place. "We'll have to get everyone down to the floor using the shuttles. The most serious casualties get priority; they'll get the best medical treatment possible. We'd also better get down there to let our allies know what's happened."

"Uh... Yes, Admiral," stammered Laskey, still hardly daring to believe what had happened. He decided that this would be the last time he questioned anything about their new allies ever again.

A few minutes later, a shuttle vessel had taken Hackett, Laskey and several people on stretchers bearing horrific injuries down to the floor of the vast chamber that the Infinity was anchored inside, secured in place by large docking clamps hanging from the high ceiling. As large as the ship was it was dwarfed by this chamber made of black stone and filled with golden angular designs. Golden and blue lights ran along the golden plating, while curly lettering of an alien, yet familiar, sight to some of the humans ran along the walls. Laskey's mouth fell open as he and Hackett stepped onto the black floor. It rippled slightly like water with each step they took, but remained solid and firm. The medical teams wheeled their patients outside, all of them looking agog.

Almost as soon as the shuttles took off back to the ship to collect the next group of passengers, Hackett and Laskey heard footsteps approaching them, echoing all around the chamber. They turned to see the source of the noise approaching them; a number of large figures were marching in a disciplined formation, most of them wearing ornate golden combat armour, their faces concealed by draconic helmets. Electricity seemed to pass between all the figures, filling the chamber with a brilliant golden glow, and there was a smell of ozone in the air. All of the figures towered over the humans, even though Hackett knew that they were not their true size. The tallest of them was wearing luxurious robes of violet, scarlet and royal blue, with golden-brown hair that was bundled into dreadlocks, tied in various bobbles and ornaments that glowed blue, and which cascaded down his back. His hair at the front was separated into two long bangs that framed his face, each having a broad stripe of white hair. His face looked like a cross between an Eastern dragon and wolf, covered with coppery-golden scales, with branched horns of gold growing out of the top and fleshy coppery tendrils growing out of the upper lip. Broad golden wings with ruby membranes were folded to his back, while a long tail snaked behind him, lined with two rows of ebony spines and tipped with two spikes that looked polarised, like the points on an electrical plug. The figure's eyes glowed a vivid cyan colour, with three triangular markings visible on each of his cheeks and ghostly blue cords which looked like fine threads draping over his large mane. Hackett and Laskey recognised these as the markings of a Technomancer, and a very powerful one at that, as no human Technomancer could stay connected to the Array like this for such a long period of time.

Laskey of course had seen and read the reports about the Precursors, the beings that had taught humanity how to harness the power of Technomancy for themselves, but he never imagined that he would actually be meeting the leader of them in-person. He did his best to look professional, his arms behind his back as the entourage approached them. Hackett looked more relaxed, but very grave. The Precursor leader's face, meanwhile, carried an expression of enormous relief as he approached Hackett, towering over the human as his claw shook Hackett's hand.

"You're safe," Emperor Xi Kedzuel Draconis said. "When you sent your message, we feared the worst."

"I'm just glad you were able to give us that flightpath to the Shi'lithra," said Hackett, referring to the enormous ship that had so easily contained the Infinity in its great hangars. "We were damn lucky that the Reapers were too busy to notice us slip away." He saw Kedzuel nod before turning to Laskey. "This is Thomas Laskey, Captain of the Infinity. Captain Laskey, I believe you've heard of Emperor Xi Kedzuel Draconis of the Blitzardi."

Kedzuel simply nodded, and offered a claw for Laskey to shake. The human stood there aghast for a moment, before slowly raising his hand and taking that claw, apparently completely at a loss for words. Kedzuel looked rather uncomfortable as he pulled his claw away.

"Please don't look at me like that, Captain," he said, shaking his head. "You make me think that I'm my uncle." His face darkened when he mentioned his uncle, Cerenath-Khan Draconis, a name which was mud as far as he was concerned for several good reasons.

"I'm sorry, Your High-" began Laskey, but paused when he saw Kedzuel give him a hard look. It seemed that he did not approve of being addressed by a formal title, so he coughed and began again. "I'm sorry, sir, but this is my first time meeting one of your people up-close. I look forward to working with you during this campaign, sir." He gave a quick salute, which Kedzuel returned.

"I only wish we were meeting under better circumstances," sighed Kedzuel. "Excuse me a moment." He turned to his entourage and gave orders to his guards in the Blitzardi tongue, a language that no electronic translator could recognise.

"Tesh'thwut gan'thar shu'edei," he said, his voice sounding even more alien and hollow as he spoke the strange, ethereal language of his people. "Do'yshi shat'ij."

"Echeso, Ru'hashi," one of them replied with a swift, and obedient bow.

Kedzuel turned to face Hackett and Laskey again, the younger human looking confused.

"I've told them to take your wounded down to our infirmary," the Emperor said with a kind smile. "Don't worry about them; they'll get the best medical care in the galaxy and beyond."

The wounded humans could only moan piteously as the Blitzardi guards escorted them from the chamber, more arriving to take their place. Pushing past them, however, was another figure that Hackett knew very well indeed. The figure looked like a bio-mechanical dinosaur, wearing an immaculate dark suit over gleaming silver combat armour, a long tail snaking behind him. His head was reptilian in shape, covered with grey scales and with emerald-green dreadlocks made from the synthetic muscle tissue known as bio-syntech. Like Kedzuel, he looked extremely relieved as he approached Hackett and shook the human's hand firmly.

"Mr. President," said Hackett, addressing the figure by only one of several titles he had gone by in his lifetime. "Good to see you had the sense to be on this ship too."

"I'm just relieved that one ship made it from Arcturus Station," sighed Kiryuu Knight, looking up at the vessel with an expression of pride. "We've got at least one human ship for the battle to come, at least."

"It won't be much of a battle with just one human ship," said Laskey. "With all due respect, sir."

"I know, Captain," said Kiryuu, "and no offence was taken." He turned back to Hackett. "How bad was it at Arcturus? The last transmission from there sounded dire."

"It got worse," said Hackett, his eyes narrowing. "The Reapers turned up there in bulk. Our forces didn't stand a chance. Any humans that weren't slaughtered got captured. I hate to think what the Reapers are doing to them now, especially after what we saw..."

He went quiet as the shuttle landed on the floor again, sending the black floor rippling once again as the passengers stepped out with more medical gurneys. As the guards escorted the human medical teams, Kedzuel and Kiryuu saw that one of them bore a figure who was the only non-human on board the ship. This was a Batarian, a humanoid figure with brown leathery skin, four dark eyes, ribbed faces and noses, and mouths full of sharp teeth. The figure groaned, clutching a wound in his shoulder, his face burned and bleeding from several cuts. He looked a mess. While Kiryuu had never liked the Batarian race as a whole, the state of this figure reminded him of just how dreadful the current situation was, and of just how much worse it was going to get.

"That's Governor Grothan Pazness," Hackett chimed in. "He was exiled from the Batarian Hegemony for preaching co-operation with the other races in the galaxy. He'd been claiming sanctuary on Arcturus Station since just before the attacks in Batarian Space started, continuing to preach to anyone who'll listen." He took his hat off and ran a hand through his short white hair. "From what we've been hearing, however, very few of his people listened. We've been getting reports of Batarian refugees flooding the Citadel, but it's still only a fraction of their total population. The Hegemony, from what we've heard, has been completely destroyed." He then shivered slightly, groaning. "We saw what the Reapers have been doing to them on Arcturus Station. It's not something I would wish on anyone, but it'll be happening to everyone in this galaxy soon enough."

Kedzuel watched as Governor Pazness was escorted to the infirmary, sighing. His face showed deep regret. Beside him, Kiryuu looked very grave, his arms folded. He knew that things would get bad quickly, on this day which he had hoped would never come.

"I should have given the Batarians the Ultimatum," snarled Kedzuel.

"You know they would never have listened," sighed Kiryuu. "The entire Hegemony was a group of xenophobes, and that influence spread to almost their entire race. You would have ended up having to destroy them, and that would not have gone down well with the Council."

"Still," Kedzuel said, taking a deep breath, "it would have spared the Batarians from this either way."

Kiryuu's face looked grave as he turned to face Hackett and Laskey once again. "How many were you able to get out of Arcturus?" he asked.

"Too few..." Laskey muttered.

"We got as many out as we could," said Hackett, though his voice made it clear that he had wished for a better outcome. "It's mainly servicemen and support staff, though. Master Chief John-117 is on board, as are Commander Sarah Palmer and Fire-Team Crimson. Most of our Spartan-IVs weren't so lucky though, and the Alliance Parliament has been wiped out, along with many of ONI's higher-ups."

"There was no way we could have taken down those... things," said Laskey. "I know we should have stayed and helped, but I made the call. I felt that we had to save as many as we could, so I ordered the ship to evacuate. As far as I know we're the only ship that made it." Laskey sounded almost argumentative, as if he expected Kiryuu to chastise or berate him for his decision. However, the mecha had a sympathetic look on his face.

"I understand completely, Captain," said Kiryuu. "It was more important that you save as many people as you could than it was that you become a martyr." He turned back to Hackett. "I've tried to mobilise the fleets, but the communication lines are in disarray. The Reapers must be attacking the comm. buoys. We've developed technology that may give us a workaround, but it's only installed in a few select places. Besides, the fleets still haven't recovered their full strength after the Battle of the Citadel." He sighed. "We definitely are not equipped to take the fight to the Reapers by ourselves."

"What about the Shi'lithra?" asked Hackett, turning to Kedzuel. The Precursor stood for a moment, looking thoughtful, before turning to face Hackett.

"She's combat-ready," said Kedzuel, "but the Reapers have arrived in full force. Even one of our ships can be torn apart if it gets swarmed, and your fleets are not strong enough to provide any form of protection." He shook his head, looking grim. "What I'm more concerned about is that the Shi'lithra is the only battle chariot we have been able to get fully operational. We're close, but I thought we would have more time..."

"It's also reasonable to assume that the Reapers' first target is Earth," said Hackett, his arms folded. "They'll want to get their Human Reaper built as quickly as possible. I have no doubts that the bulk of their forces are already heading for the Sol System. Once they're established on Earth, the rest of the homeworlds are sure to follow..."

"Then we've got no time to waste," said Kiryuu, narrowing his eyes. "We've got to get the call out, start calling in favours. Not even the Council could ignore the reports that have been coming in from Batarian Space over the past month. We've got to get them, and everybody else involved in this fight, talking in the same room."

"That's not gonna be easy," sighed Laskey. "There's a lot of bad blood out there. Getting all those races to work together, given their history, is asking for a miracle."

"Luckily, Captain, I know a few miracle workers," said Kiryuu. "I'll contact Admiral Anderson and the Sangheili High Council as soon as I can. They may be able to get the people who can make this work moving. I know it sounds like I'm putting my eggs in one basket, but if they can't get the peoples of this galaxy to stop arguing for a moment then no-one can."

Kedzuel listened carefully to the discussion, then looked over at the Infinity's shuttle, which had landed once again while they had been talking. He looked at the crowds of people emerging from the ship; the biggest casualties were now being seen to, but the humans still looked too hurt, too weary, to notice the chamber all around them. Indeed, many of them, their bodies streaked with dirt, looked thoroughly shell-shocked, as if they had lost all will to live. He wondered if they knew that things were only going to get worse before they got better, if they got better at all. There was no doubt in his mind that more and more, not just humans but all the other races of the galaxy, would join this sad, painful exodus, as the Reapers, the greatest threat that this galaxy had ever known, began their rout of civilisation, their massacre of all sentient life.

He closed his eyes and sighed deeply. In spite of all that he done, he couldn't help but feel that Kiryuu was right; when all was said and done, with all of the factors of the situation taken into account, the irrefutable truth was that the fate of all life now rested on the shoulders of just a few individuals...