Finally tweaked and worked on this idea enough that I'm making it a full fic, separate from Chaos In The Cosmos. Second chapter should be up by the end of the week and I may start a thread in my forum dedicated to serving as a Codex of sorts, outlining differences in technology between the Systems Alliance and the UNSC.

IMPORTANT NOTE: This story changes the date for the Human/Covenant War to 2479 to 2507 and ignores the events of Halo 4. The Forward Unto Dawn was never located… Other changes will be detailed as story progresses.

Another chapter, another attempt to entertain you all. I honestly do not have anything else to add, so on with the show!

Halo belongs to Microsoft Studios

Mass Effect belongs to belongs to Bioware

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XX Colonial Capital; Shanxi, Shanxi-Theta Cluster - 2757 XX

"Dammit, where's our tech support?" Quentius Qui'in, a squad commander within the 43rd Marine Division, roared at his Communications Expert. The Turians had been fighting tooth and claw for nearly six months, taking territory street by street and room by room.

This new race, Humans, were a contradictory race from what he'd seen. Their weapons were crude and basic, the mass accelerators overheating quickly and their barriers being a joke. Their military seemed pathetic to Qui'in, but their transport and communication technology was impressive enough. To say nothing of that trice damned AI.

"Command says engineers are on-route, we're to hold position and disable the defensive turrets." Lantar Oraka, Communications Expert and second-in-command, reported once he got off the radio. A quick beeping indicated that a transition was being sent and Lantar back away from the corner, around which several human built turrets began firing if anyone got to close, and took it. "Good news, Sir. Those Salarian programs worked. We've hacked into human communications and data transmissions."

"Took long enough! We've been here nearly six months and they've only just broke the encoding, what took so long?" Quentius spat as the turrets gave off another warning volley.

"It's that damn AI, it codes all messages and is so alien our VI programs can't deal with it." Lantar explained as one of the squad members got caught by turret fire, he hadn't ducked back behind cover fast enough, and was torn apart. "It's taken the programmers this long just to find a way to listen in without the AI finding out and bombarding us with false results."

Before either could continue the building above them trembled as something heavy impacted it. A quick check in with troops stationed outside the building led to the team making a tactical retreat as it appeared that Command had decided to launch a debris strike down on their location without warning. As they reached the building's main lobby the sounds of gunfire rang out. Readying their weapons and rushing forward the Turians found their fellow soldiers dead and roughly three dozen humans in heavy grey armour waiting for them.

"By the Spirits." Quentius gulped as the wreckage of a Turian cruiser burned up in the atmosphere, its silhouette disenable in the sky above. Shuttles, human design, descended to drop off squad after squad or to strafe turian positions. Large metal pods, either orbital strikes or some kind of quick drop for supplies, raced across the skyline to crash down in groups of five or six.

"Take cover!" Lantar screamed as the humans opened fire. Their automatic weapons suffered from the same disadvantages as other human weapons, poor cooling and weak kinetic transfer, but the shielding was something else.

Rather than the traditional blue pulse, blue pulse failure the standard human soldier's shielding had shown these troops came equipped with some kind of alien energy shielding. The sand grain sized projectiles the turian rifles fired incinerated on contact with a yellowish burst of electrical energy. As the turian troops took cover back inside the building's lobby the humans advanced. Some moving from cover to cover up the front, to draw attention and fire, while the others either flanked to the sides or took up a defensive position covering the rear in case of turian reinforcements.

As their weapons overheated the humans either discarded them for the weapons of fallen turians or swapped out for auxiliary ones carried on their person. Turian troops don't break, normally, but Quentius' troops were tired, they were shaken and they were facing troops of a much higher calibre then than had been faced before this. As the advancing troops gained more and more ground Quentius considered ordering a retreat back into the underground tunnel system, at least until the flanking enemies breeched in through the walls behind his position and opened fire into his men's exposed backs.

"Where's our support? How are these troops getting planet side?!"Quentius screamed Lantar only to see his comms expert go down as over a dozen rounds pounded into his shields, punched through his armour and shredded his skull and brain.

XX Orbit Over Shanxi, Shanxi-Theta Cluster (Fifteen Minutes Before) XX

The first sign the captain of the turian cruiser Honourable Duty had that something was wrong was when half of her analysts started frantically moving their talons over holographic displays and yelling at one another about things like 'high-wave spectrum radiation' and 'distortive anomalistic readings'. The second was when another of the techies began screaming that nearly a dozen unknown vessels had just appeared out of nowhere less than two thousand kilometres off their starboard bow. The final clue that things where well on their way to being FUBAR was their helmsman firing the thrusters to get them out of the way as these unknown ships opened fire.

"Enemy vessels on display now!" The captain ordered. The main holographic display, which normally showcased the ship itself, switched over to displaying the enemies. Unlike the long almost starfighter shaped turian vessels these enemy vessels resembled a series of hexagons that increased in size as one moved from the bow to the stern.

"Another anomaly detected, significantly larger!" A techie reported before replacing the dozen or so enemy vessels with a single image. A solid ring of energy, almost five hundred metres wide, that turned pitch black for a split second before a hulking kilometre and a half long monstrosity of a ship emerged.

"Is that a one of their Dreadnoughts?" Someone asked softly, no effort to hide the awe and fear in the speaker's voice. The voice expressed the hidden concerns amongst the crew, who or what could build that? There was no way the humans, whose Mass Effect technology was so primitive, could have constructed such a vessel and… And the way it had emerged from that void… Had the Hierarchy provoked war with some unknown advanced race by attacking humanity, some kind of client race?

"Energy build-up detected emanating from the enemy dreadnought!" Someone warned.

The Honourable Duty's helmsman tried to her the ship out of line with the enemy Dreadnought but when whatever the energy had been was discharged the ship shook violently, warning sirens screamed and the ship lost all manner of propulsion. Drifting dead in her captain screamed for a status report.

"Shield strength down to twenty sev- Twenty fo- … Shields down to under one/fifth power." Someone gasped.

"We've lost thrusters!" Another reported.

"I know thrusters are down, tell engineering to get them back online.!" The captain ordered.

"No… I mean they are gone! Completely destroyed!" The techie snapped back in panic. "Engineering as well!"

"We've got hull breeches on decks six through fifteen in their stern sectors. Sensors on decks one through five and sixteen through twenty are down as well." The captain had didn't even bother to register who said that, she just tried to process it. "Deck twenty one has partial sensors and is showing temperatures of…. T-That can't be right…"

"What!?" The captain demanded to know. She needed to know what had happened to her ship.

"Over twenty-seven hundred degrees, Ma'am." That reply did what four tours against Terminus slavers, two colonial insurrections and a violent husband had failed to do. It broke the captain.

"H-how…? It was a… It was a glancing blow… How?" It was all she could ask, how? How could a race with weapons like that exist? How could the Hierarchy fight ships like that monstrosity? How?"

"Captain! Captain our orbit is decaying fast!" it was the helmsman. He was saying something but she wasn't paying attention. She was just watching the holographic displays, that showed more and more anomalies opening and more and more ships emerging.

Someone was ordering a general evacuation, saying they were a sitting target, but she wasn't listening. A talon gripped her forearm, it was her second in command and he was telling her to move.

"How? How….? How, how, how, how…?" The captain repeated, over and over, as she watched the screens and resisted his attempts to get her out. She didn't want to survive, she didn't want to survive if it meant facing a war against these unknown beings.

"Sorry Ma'am but we need to go NOW." Her second apologised before punching as hard as he could and knocking her out cold so he could get her to safety.

XX London; Earth, Sol System – 2772 XX

"John Shepard, you have been found of assault, aggravated assault, assault with a deadly weapon, assaulting a police officer, destruction of public property, unlawful behaviour, resisting arrest, unlawful assembly and membership of an illegal grouping." The judge announced as he looked down upon the youth before him.

One of nearly forty people arrested following last month's Block War. The dossier provided with the case included that he was suspected of more than twenty weapons charges and shootings but there was insufficient evidence to charge him.

"According to your file you turned eighteen yesterday, congratulations." The Judge noted snidely. As such you are no longer in State Care… Normally kids in leaving the foster system have to serve mandatory military service for eighteen months but it looks like you'll be spending the next few years in prison… Do you have anything to say?"

"I think some of my stitches reopened." John muttered. The bruises and cuts that covered his face made it painful to speak. "You wanna hurry the hell up?"

"Looking through your record, I see quite a list of achievements." The judge sighed as he brought up images from the rioting. "You took part in a Block War, putting a lot of people in hospital, and then you led nine police officers on a two hour chase. Put four of those officers in the hospital and even managed to take a seven year veteran hostage… If the floor hadn't given way beneath you I don't think you'd be standing here today, do you?"

"No, what's your point?" John asked, glaring at the judge with his non-swollen eye. "And I hope the city gets a refund for Heavenly Haven, building code ain't up to scratch."

"You're looking at sixteen years, minimum, for this as you are unwilling to testify against other members of the Reds." The Judge explained as he replaced the images of Shepard during the Block War with several pictures of high ranking members of the Reds gang. "If you agree I could remove years from the sentence, last chance."

"I'm no snitch." John all but spat, he wouldn't turn. Reds had been good to him, he owed the gang. "So sentence me and get it done!"

"Sixteen years minimum, seems like a waste… Is it the violence or the sense of belonging that made you join up with the Reds?" The Judge asked as he banished the images and began to enter the sentence. Not bothering to wait for an answer he continued on. "In recognition of your capabilities, and the need for able bodied soldiers, I sentence you under the Task Force X Act 2743 to serve on the front lines in support of our Sangheili allies against Jiralhanae expansion. Your sentence is to be commuted to five years of service, time added or deducted based on deposition and action."

"Ha, a 'Suicide Squad'? Bring it on." John said in between harsh laughs. "I'll serve my five years and be back on the streets before you know it. I ain't afraid of a little violence."

"Spoken like a fool who's never seen real battle." The Judge snorted as he signalled to security to remove John from the court. "I wonder if that bravado will make it through basic training."

XX Unpronounceable Jiralhanae Controlled Planet (Nine Months later) XX

Shepard's Penal Squad took cover as Kig-Yar snipers opened fire on their position. As rounds ripped through the rubble the squad had hidden behind, Shepard saw their CO take a hit to the throat.

"Dammit, fucking Jackals." Spat Corporal McArthur. The man was the only actual UNSC marine left in the squad now that the Sergeant had kicked it. Rising from cover and opening fire, McArthur screamed insults at the Kig-Yar before two shots to the chest did him in.

"Fuck." Shepard muttered before crawling over to McArthur's corpse and taking one of his grenades. Watching for enemy fire, Shepard found where one of the snipers was hidden and tossed the grenade through the hole the Kig-Yar was firing from. Diving back behind cover and moving quickly to avoid shots from the other snipers, Shepard was rewarded when the grenade's bang was accompanied by a shriek of agony from the Kig-Yar. A moment later several more grenades detonated, taking out the rest of the snipers.

"Not bad kid." Called out Corporal Jones, most senior remaining member of the squad and now de-facto commander. Moving out into the open, Jones signalled for the others to move up. As Shepard followed, he stopped to pry a particle rifle from a Kig-Yar's hand. Turning to see what was keeping him, Jones nodded. "Good idea. Right boys, find their corpses and grab any weapons you think you can use."

As the squad moved down a deserted street Shepard was ordered to take point. Trying to watch every window at once, Shepard realised that their location was a perfect ambush site. Holstering his MA-ICWv4, Shepard activated the scope on the particle rifle and scanned further down the street. What he saw made his blood run cold. A dozen Jiralhanae making their way towards the squad, led by a chieftain wielding a massive hammer.

"Corporal… We got incoming." Shepard gulped as he offered the rifle to Jones.

"What is it?" Jones asked as he took the rifle and tried to work its scope.

"Dozen Brutes, plus a chief." Shepard told him before pointing to the surrounding buildings. "If they keep coming this way we've in a good position to ambush them."

"Right, take that rifle and get up high. Find somewhere that you can see everything and when I give the signal blow that chieftain's brain out." Jones ordered before directing the rest of the squad to take positions.

Rushing to get up above the street and find somewhere to shoot from, Shepard climbed up rubble from a damaged building and hunkered down. As the Jiralhanae grew nearer, Shepard lined up a shot on the chieftain and waited for the signal. As the Jiralhanae passed where Shepard split from the squad, several grenades came flying into view. Taking that as the signal, Shepard dropped the chieftain and aimed turned to fire at a nearby Jiralhanae. As the Jiralhanae scattered for cover and came under fire from his squad mates, Shepard looked up from the scope to search for another target and spotted another group of Brutes rushing down the street to reinforce the ambushed group.

"Ah fuck me." Shepard cursed before opening fire on them. Two died before they spotted his position and began weaving to avoid him getting a bead on them. One disappeared into a doorway only to emerge a minute later with a fuel rod gun levelled at his position. Diving for cover as the Brute fired Shepard cursed again. "Oh fuck me sideways."

Down below, the rest of the squad found itself struggling to deal with the additional Jiralhanae. But as more of their kind died, the remaining Jiralhanae began to go berserk and rush from cover only to be gunned down from several positions. By the time Shepard recovered from the explosion and made it down to ground level both sides were mostly dead. Targeting one of the two remaining enemies, Shepard opened fire with his MA5E. Jones and another private targeted the other, emptying the last of their magazines into the beast. With all visible hostiles down, Shepard holstered his rifle and made his way over to the others.

"How far left to go?" Shepard called before something to his right snarled. Turning Shepard could only watch as a wounded Jiralhanae lashed out with its Spiker, the bayonets slicing through his helmet and cutting deeply into his face. Turning the enraged Jiralhanae fired off a barrage at Jones and the private before turning back to the injured Shepard. As it raised the Spiker to impale him, a bright blue orb struck its shoulder. The stolen plasma grenade detonated and saved Shepard's life.

"You alive kid?" Jones called out as he made his way over. Crouching beside Shepard and removing the injured man's helmet, Jones inspected the damage. "Shit kid, that thing cut deep."

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I'm dyslexic, so please point out any mistakes in spelling or grammar [I spell things the way they do in England and Ireland, so some things may look off to Americans]. Please leave your opinion via review or send them via PM, I'd like to know what you think.

Well, I think that's everything I've gotta say so, hope you enjoyed the chapter.

This is Highvalour saying bye and thanks for reading