Title: The New Guy
Author: Theano
Rating: T
Summary: The slipspace bomb over Reach has some surprising effects. Noble Five becomes part of Jane Shepard's team.
Disclaimer: Bungie and 343 Industries own the Halo franchise; BioWare owns Mass Effect. One day soon, they will rule the world, and I will be their willing slave. (Wait a minute, I already am...)
TECHNOPHILES BE WARNED: I play fast and loose with Halo/Spartan technology here. This is deliberate and part of the plot.
In the Mass Effect universe, physics are different. Not so different that humans can't exist - but please note that in ME1, Kaidan mentions the fact that Alliance FTL research was a dead end. A slipspace drive would not work in the Mass Effect universe; therefore, neither would much of the technology that turns a kid into a Spartan. However, I can only ruin so much of Jorge's tech without killing him, and I'm obviously not willing to do that.
If you can't live with a story that changes Spartan technology (in a different universe, no less!), then this isn't the story for you.
I. Reach
He watched her fall, but it felt like himself falling, tumbling in the void with nothing to hang onto.
He closed his eyes for a moment. It wouldn't be long now.
Jorge-052 secured his helmet over his head; it wouldn't provide any protection on this one-way trip, but he was going out as a Spartan. The indicator light on the detonator flashed, reminding him insistently that he had a job to finish.
He keyed in the sequence and uttered a prayer he didn't remember learning.
"Joker! What just happened?"
"Taking damage! Something just - appeared! - off to port, about two hundred kilometers, Commander. Lots of radiation, our shields just blew!"
Shepard raced into the bridge, catching herself on the pilot's seat. "Tell me something I can actually use, Joker!"
"Working on it - crap!"
Another jolt hit the ship, almost knocking the commander to the floor. "EDI! What the hell's going on?"
The AI's display popped up, its clamshell mouth moving in time with the metallic voice. "Unknown radiation source. Unknown energy signature. Commander, I suggest moving away from the object to avoid more damage."
"No, ya think?" Joker snapped. "If you've got any more suggestions, Captain Obvious..." Joker's fingers flew across the glowing control panels, triggering holographic keys in a quick sequence.
"I hold no Systems Alliance rank, Mr. Moreau," EDI replied.
"Can you get the Normandy back under control?" Shepard asked.
"Repairs will take some time, Commander - " EDI started to say.
"Done!" Joker crowed, and waved a fist at the AI's holo display. "That's called human ingenuity, tin man - uh, woman - uh, whatever..."
The deck rumbled smoothly as the Normandy moved out of range of the strange object. Joker maneuvered her expertly, then pulled up the forward view. Whatever it was, it had sustained a lot more damage than them. It was big, at least as large as the Destiny Ascension.
"What do you think it is?" Shepard asked. No one replied.
The object might have been part of a ship, once upon a time, something with smooth lines and a predatory aura. Now, though, it looked like some unimaginable giant had taken a bite from one end, leaving a ruined mangle of struts and cables and flashes of energy.
There was a final pulse of that unknown radiation, and the object went completely dark, tumbling with exquisite slowness in the black.
"Hold station here," Shepard ordered. She turned to find Miranda and Garrus both behind her, staring at the object in the forward screens.
"Garrus - diagnostic on our shields. Miranda - contact the Illusive Man. I want to know if he knows anything about that thing out there. Both of you, meet me at the shuttle twenty minutes from now, and bring the doctor."
He hadn't thought being dead would hurt so much.
Jorge groaned and cursed, slowly picking himself up. He leaned against the Pelican, shaking his head to clear it.
His armor was pinging audibly, a shrill complaint that drove icepicks through his temples. The heads up display blinked a few times, then disappeared, along with the blasted alarm. Jorge straightened up, staggered away from the ruin of the dropship, and looked around.
"Isten draga," he swore.
The Pelican was half the ship it had been; where the starboard half had been was a void. Even the burned out slipspace drive had been bisected. Jorge backed away from the dropship, and the empty edge where half of the Covenant corvette had simply ceased to exist. He wondered if the same thing had happened to the supercarrier he'd docked at before triggering the slipspace bomb, if the shell of that enormous ship still contained this one.
He sat on the burned-out husk of a plasma battery, and looked at his hands. The gauntlet armor was blackened, with a few strips of paint remaining. Joint servos whined and coughed as he moved, and he realized his stiffness wasn't only due to injuries. His MJOLNIR armor had taken a hell of a beating.
But he couldn't remove it - this scrap heap of bloody armor was his only protection from sucking vacuum. Or it would be for another - he checked his air supply display, but it had gone as dead as his HUD.
No air out there. An unknown - but limited - supply of air in his armor. Jorge shrugged. He'd faced worse missions before.
Step one: Get off this Covvie rattletrap and into something with atmosphere. Step two: Find out where in the universe he was. Step three -
He spotted movement outside, a strange-looking shuttle or transport of a class he'd never seen before, on an approach trajectory for the gaping hole in the bay. Not UNSC. Maybe not even human.
Step three: Kill anything that got in his way.