Lament

Chapter 1

Hey, some of you may have read my previous story, Ruinous DXD. Sorry to say that the story is being discontinued as I have simply lost interest in continuing the story. If anyone wants to pick the story up let me know and go for it.

Now this story is going to focus on my OC Sergeant James McCoy, an ODST who's drop goes awry and he gets sent to the Mass Effect Universe. So, without further delay, let's get started.

"Officer on Deck!"

I snapped to attention as did the rest of my platoon as our Commanding Officer walked into the briefing room.

"At ease," we all sat down in our seats getting ready for the brief on our next mission.

The CO stood behind the podium and a projector displayed an image of what was once a great city. Now the city had been reduced to rubble, with signs of fighting still going on. "Good evening everyone, word just came down from Command. We got ourselves a suicide mission, today."

Everyone either grinned or laughed lightly. All of our missions were suicide missions. We were part of Kilo Company, and we had a reputation for completing all of the missions that were said couldn't be done.

"So, of course nothing new. Now our job is simple. We hold off the Covenant until we can get all the civilians we can off-world. This won't be an easy job, the enemy outnumber us 10-1 and they have a lot of momentum. They pushed off the Marines, quickly and have been blazing a path of destruction ever since to the space port." He switched the slide to what was left of a space port. "We'll drop down and set up a defensive line around the compound and hold off those bastards for as long as the civilians need to get off-world, and then you'll catch the last shuttle you can fit on out of there. If there are no shuttles, you know what the plan is."

We all gained dark looks on our faces remembering a story we had heard not too long ago about a squad of Marines defending a space port similar to our situation. They got all the civilians off-world but there weren't enough shuttles to get them out as well. They stayed and from the radio transmissions, they put up a hell of a fight.

"When's is the drop, sir?"

I turned my head to find my friend, Gunnery Sergeant Steve Griffith. Me and him went to training together and had been friends ever since. He always gives me hell for the fact that he outranks me though, bastard.

"0545, be ready at your SOEIVs by 0500 in case you need to drop early. Any more questions?" No one said anything. The CO turned off the projector and gathered up his materials. "Go get ready and take care of any business you need to. Good luck." He left with a grim look. Like he was sending us off to our deaths, which he probably was.

I stood up and began walking towards the mess hall. I always had a tradition of eating a large meal before a jump, you never knew when you'd have time to eat when you're out in the field. And from the sound of this mission, it might be a while before I get to eat again, if I ever did. I grabbed a heaping portion of food and sat down to eat. Before I could even get started someone sat down across from me with their own tray. I looked up to find Corporal Amanda Deitrick. We called her BUGS, stood for Boobs Under G Suit. We called her that for obvious reasons. We all joked that she should've taken up a job of modeling on recruitment posters to get more volunteers.

"Sup Spades." I nodded at her and continued to eat my food. They called me Spades because I have an Ace of Spades painted on my chest plate. "Always the serious one I see. You need to lighten up man." She said before digging into her own meal.

"I tell you what, you need to get laid man. It's been what, 6 months since we've had shore leave." Our medic, 2nd Lieutenant Grove, sat down beside up. We called him Pointy cause one time he had to inject one of our squad members with some pain killers in a hurry and basically just stabbed him in the thigh with the damn needle. Unfortunately, the guy didn't make it, poor bastard. " Hell, I bet he hasn't even been laid yet, you scare off all the girls with that angry face of yours." He joked.

I stopped eating and looked up at him crossing my arms. "Thanks you very much, I've been laid before. Believe it or not in high school I was downright popular with the ladies, sir."

Grove stared at me for a few moments before busting out laughing even more. "Forgive me if I find that hard to believe Sergeant. You don't have what I would call and attractive personality." He continued laughing before he composed himself. He pointed over BUGS with his thumb and said, "Maybe BUGS over here can show you the ropes before the mission starts, although I wouldn't want her to be sore during the mission. Need everyone at their best."

Deitrick blushed heavily and tried to cover it up with little success. It was well known in our unit that she had a thing for me and I knew it too. She had come up to me before and asked to have a few drinks at a bar before when we were on leave. I politely turned her down saying that it wouldn't be right considering I outranked her and I didn't want a possible relationship to compromise the mission.

She punched him in the gut, hard. It was also well known in the unit that she had a mean right. Grove recoiled, grabbing his stomach, and collapsing on the floor, doing his best to keep his food down. She turned to me still blushed. "I'm so sorry Spades." She apologized profusely.

I held up my hand and motioned to her that it was fine. "It's alright BUGS. But I may have to report you for assaulting a superior officer." I grinned.

This time her face went from heavily blushing to deathly pale. I could see her start sweating and there was obvious fear in her eyes.

I started laughing at this sight. Believe it or not I can be laid back when I want to, in contrast to my usual serious demeanor.

BUGS frowned and was clearly frustrated and crossed her arms and huffed. "Come on Spades, why do you do this to me." She picked up her tray and began walking away.

I grinned, and continued eating. 'Maybe in another life Amanda, maybe in another life.' I thought to myself. I finished and picked up my tray and began walking away before remembering that our Medic was still writhing on the ground. I set down my tray and crouched down next to him. "You can stop acting so much LT. BUGS is gone."

He stopped writhing and opened a single eye, looking at me before picking himself up and continued to eat. I grabbed my tray and began walking to the hanger where all our gear and SOEIVs were stowed. I went to my locker and looked at my armor. It was the standard issue ODST gear painted midnight black. Except on the chest plate there was a stylized ace of spades card. On the large Spade in the center of the card the punished symbol was painted within it. I started to get all of my gear on. Some pieces of my armor would have the same logo on it. On my knee pads, shoulder plates, and the back of my helmet. On the visor of my helmet I had a grinning skull painted on it. I had painted it on in such a manner that it wouldn't impair my vision. Took a few tries but I finally got it just right.

I left my helmet in the locker and went to the armory to get my weapons. I had been qualified in many different weapons so I had my pick on what to bring. I had studied the map during the brief and it looked like the battlefield was a fairly open area with occasional spots of cover outside of the space port. I chose to take the M7 Silenced Sub Machine Gun. I also chose to take M45D Tactical Shotgun just in case anyone got too close. For my sidearm I chose to bring the M6G Magnum for the large punch that it packs. I also picked up a number of grenades and headed to my pod. I strapped in my weapons to their respective spots and went back to my locker to grab my helmet.

Scratched into the side of my helmet was a tally for the l drops that I had been a part of. On my left bicep, I had a large bowie knife strapped. I pulled out the 12-inch blade and placed another tally on it making it 13. I looked at each individual tally and remembered each drop. The friends I had made, and those that I lost. I looked at them for another moment and then slipped on my helmet and sat on the bench waiting for the mission to start. I opened one of the many pockets I had and pulled out a deck of cards and began to play solitaire. This was how I got my nickname, before every mission I would play cards by myself or with other squad mates. I sat in this same place and played solitaire until the platoon commander walked in and announced that we would be dropping early. I gathered up the cards, placed them in their package in my pocket and got into my pod. The door closed and after a few moments the pod shook and the drop began.

Just as most other missions began one of our squad mates, Musicbox as I recall, played an old classic by ACDC. Thunderstruck began blasting through the radio in the pod. I looked outside of the window of the pod and saw a sight that I always dreaded to see. The UNSC navy ships in orbit were being torn apart by the Covenant forces. I had seen this sight many times on the drop, and it never got any easier to see. After a few seconds the music cut off, in the middle of the song. I looked around in confusion. Something was wrong, we never stopped the song.

"Covenant Cruiser has just come out of slipspace below us, brace for impact!" The voice of our CO came through the comm. This is what Helljumpers dreaded. A ship right under them during drop. I gripped the restraints in my pod tightly bracing for impact. I heard through the comm voices of squadmates making impact with the Cruiser.

The pod crashed into the Cruiser and I was jolted out of the restraints as I began to roll along the hull of the Cruiser. I prayed that I wouldn't get stuck on top of the Cruiser as that would be a sure death sentence. The pod began to slow down it's roll and I could finally make out where I was. My blood ran cold as I realized where I was. The ship wasn't fully outside of slipspace yet and I was rolling towards the area of the ship that was coming out of slipspace. I prayed that the ship would get out of slipspace fully before I crossed the line.

My prayers were not answered as I continued to roll along the hull until I had crossed the line into slipspace. Conveniently soon after I had crossed the line I fell off the side of the ship into god knows where. The portal closed off and the only light that I was given was the lights of the various electronics in my pod, but soon after they shut off and I was left in complete darkness.

I let go of the restraints could feel the weightlessness of zero gravity and the harsh cold that soon set on. I punched the side of my pod, hard. I pulled back my hand and shook it out, trying the relieve the pain from punching the hull. I began to shiver heavily from the cold. 'This would be a pretty lame to die, in the cold of, wherever the hell I am.'

I sat there for God knows how long, waiting for death to find me. After a while I saw a light that nearly blinded me from being in such pitch black for so long. My pod was travelling towards it. I readied myself for whatever would happen. As I went through the light I was blinded by the light of a sun. as my visor adjusted for the light I could see once again. Thankfully my pod was headed straight down and I was not spiraling out of control as I thought I would be. Unfortunately, the instruments in the pod were going absolutely haywire. My compass was spinning out of control, warning signs flashed everywhere. I looked out the window and could vaguely make out the sights of combat between a group of soldier and what looked like robots. And it looked like I was headed for the biggest one. It stood on four legs and had an elongated neck with a single light in the center of it that I assumed was its way of seeing. I braced for impact and readied my weapons. "Beidh mé eagla aon olc, an scáth de mo chuid, agus mar sin tá an glean. I will fear no evil, for the shadow is mine, and so is the valley" I silently prayed, just before my pod hit the ground crushing the large machine underneath.

The door to the pod shot open and I rushed out firing on the first machine I saw with my SMG. I noticed the first few rounds bounced off what appeared to be a shield before it collapsed. Once the shields were down I put a few rounds into the machines chest and one in its head, blowing off its head. The machine dropped and I found my next target. This one had what appeared to be a flamethrower. I prioritized this one. I decided to take a risk and let it get closer to me as I hid behind a broken-down pillar. I pulled out my shotgun and waited for it to get closer. I peeked out of cover to see the machine less than 10 feet away. I rolled out of cover just as the machine lit my previous position aflame. Before it could react to my departure I raised my shotgun and shot it squarely in the chest. The machine staggered back and I could see that there was no damage done to it. Before it could recover I shot it again, this time ripping its chest cavity open revealing circuits and wires. The light on its head hadn't gone out yet so I put another round, this time in its head.

Not wasting another moment, I switched back to my SMG and scanned for more enemies. Rounds peppered the ground behind me thankfully missing me as I dived behind cover as soon as I could. I poked my head out from the cover and saw a group of about half a dozen of those machines firing in my direction. By now I had assumed that each of them had their own personal shields. I took two grenades off my belt and pulled the pin on the first one. I threw it at the machines and it went off. None of the mechs had been seriously damaged, but I had broken through their shields. I pulled the pin on the second grenade and threw it at the group, blowing them all apart. I looked around and didn't see any more of those mechs. I did however spot the group of 4 people I had seen being fired at during my drop. I saw that they didn't seem hostile. I lowered my weapon and walked towards them, however still wary of them. They started walking towards me in a similar fashion that I did. Weapon down but ready to strike at a moment's notice. When I reached the man that was obviously in command, he had an air of authority around him.

"Commander Shepard, SSV Normandy. Thanks for the assistance…" He ended the question asking my name.

I snapped to attention. "Sergeant James McCoy. UNSC Marines. ODST Helljumper sir."

The commander gained a confused look on his face and looked back at his two companions, one being an alien with skin that looked to have plates all over it. It had a humanoid appearance save for the plates, and the lack of hair. It also has three fingers instead of 5. He, I assumed it was a he, simply shrugged.

He looked to his second companion, a woman wearing a black suit with a hood that hid her face. I could only make out the bottom half of her face from under the hood. She had a similar reaction.

The Commander looked back at me and asked, "Sergeant, can you tell me what year it is?"

"Of course Sir, 2552."

The commander locked his rifle to what appeared to be a mag lock on his back. "Sergeant I've got some bad news for you. It's not 2552. It's 2183."