A/N: Thanks for all of those who reviewed! It's my first time writing here, so obviously it'll take some time for everything to fall into place regarding the writing and etc.

Igfry: Yeah i know, but that's more or less the way he is written in the novel. And the way i see it, Alcatraz tends to exaggerate his own condition because he is quite bitter about what happened to him. So he tends to be very cynical/misanthropic, which may come out as "sassy".

First thing I noticed when I saw outside the window, I was in a space station. Second thing I immediately noticed after that, was the fact that I was not floating around like you normally do in zero-g, yet I didn't feel any centrifugal force nor did I notice a rotation that might have explained that. Well, time to ask questions. I turned to the one of the two goons following me around that had the most stripes on his shoulder patch. When he saw me staring straight at him, blood-red visor to face, he almost shat his pants. Somehow I had this effect on most people. "Two questions. One, where are we exactly and two, why aren't we in zero-g." I asked.

The poor 20-something boy took a few seconds to catch his breath and to process what I just said, then answered. "We are in Arcturus Station, the Alliance headquarters located in the Arcturus solar system, just a few light years from earth." To his credit, despite obviously being very uncomfortable in my presence, he managed to keep a firm voice. But the way he casually said "just a few light years" caught my attention. Really? We had a practical way to travel FTL that made "a few light years" seem like nothing? He continued: "And for the second question, we have mass effect generators under the floor providing artificial gravity on the whole station. I'll explain on the way to the Midway." And with that he led the way through corridors filled with futuristic tech and civilian and military personnel throwing me odd looks. "And by the way, I'm sergeant Snyder. I'll be your liaison during this mission. Now for the history lesson, 9 years ago we uncovered an alien outpost on Mars."

"Ceph?"

"No, something else, the Protheans. But whoever they were, they were long gone when we got here. However they left a few 'gifts' behind that propelled our understanding of physics…"

Then he went on to explain the basis of mass effect physics, element zero, mass relays… All of that seemed unbelievable. A magical element that somehow managed to manipulate gravity to the point that it made FTL travel possible and made Einstein look like an idiot? An OTHER ancient race of aliens that was present in the solar system and that left behind a network of mass relays spanning the entire fucking galaxy, and that mysteriously vanished after leaving behind a tech cache that propelled human technology hundreds of years forward? Even with my augmented abilities, I had trouble comprehending all that. Especially the physics aspect that was in contradiction with everything I thought. But hey, obviously it worked, otherwise I wouldn't be here.

"And what about the Ceph tech. Obviously they too had a way to travel in space."

"I don't know much about that. All I know is that after we won the war by using the spore against them, all their technology somehow decayed. Something to do with the way it was built using nanotechnology. Their lithoships literally crumbled to dust before we could salvage much. All I know is that they used a quantum based technology for space travel that we had been unable to replicate, but I'm not especially well versed in this whole science thing…"

That made sense actually. After all, the Ceph units encountered at Lingshan all had a self destruct mechanism.

"So how much exactly did we gain from them?"

"Well, beside the nanofibers used in my armor as well as in ship building, we got hold of some of their energy based weaponry (With that, he pointed at what I first though was an underslung grenade launcher on his rifle that was actually a plasma cannon not unlike what the Cephs used.) as well a some other more minor stuff, but compared to what we could have gained it's ridiculously little. Ah, here we are, the Midway."

We had entered a docking bay, and the ship in it could be described as the wet dream of any sci-fi nerd. Smooth, looking like an oversized fighter jet, and about a 100 meters long, with a dark grey color and the ubiquitous hexagonal shape on its exterior coating signalling it was made of nanofiber.

"It's a scouting frigate. The fleet heading to Shanxi is composed of a cruiser and 5 frigates. More vessels will be dispatched but for now they are unavailable for deployment."

"That won't stop an attack on the colony."

"We will be alone just for a few days. Besides, our job is merely to assess the threat."

With that we entered the airlock, and finally the ship itself. Overall, on the inside it looked a lot like the submarines back in my days. High-tech, and very cramped, without a single wasted space.

(A/N: Yeah, I retconned the inside of the ships from canon. Because spaceships with so much unused space is an incredibly dumb idea in my opinion.)

I was quickly led to the CIC to meet with the captain of the ship. He was currently discussing with the general Williams, and from the way he spoke I could tell he wasn't too happy about my subject. Short presentation. Then he quickly sent me to my "cabin" while the crew was preparing to depart. Apparently I was granted an officer's cabin. I figured it had more to do with the fact that it was an individual one than with any sort of respect in my regard. Anyway, it had a single bed, a desk and a chair, and even a small faucet crammed in a few square meters. I had no use for the bed. The suit made sure I was never tired. Besides, I already slept for more than a century. I turned to the faucet that had a small mirror over it, and for the first time in a long time, I pulled off my visor and stared at my face.

What the-

Damn. Apparently, the suit had somehow decided that I didn't need melanin in my body to be efficient. Because what I saw in the mirror was not what I remembered about my face. Granted, the features were the same, even if they were mostly expressionless. Except that last time I checked, I had brown eyes, brown hair and a slight tan typical of my Hispanic descent. What I saw was bone white skin, white hair and the only thing coloring my eyes were blood vessels, giving them a lovely red tint. I got turned into an albino when I wasn't looking. It made sense after all, the main function of melanin is to protect from solar radiations, mainly ultraviolets. And it wasn't like I was going to leave the suit anytime soon, so it repurposed my melanocytes to suit its needs. To what end, I didn't know yet. It wasn't the first time the Nanosuit did something like that, and all things considered, it was relatively minor compared to what it did to some of my internal organs. If anything, I was going to scare the crap people even more now that I looked like some sort of vampire. Didn't matter to me.

We left the station. Snyder came to my cabin, gasped when he saw my face, and told me general Williams was waiting for me in the CIC for the briefing. When I got there, there was slightly less activity. Apparently, we were in FTL, as I could tell from the red-shift in visible light on the viewscreen showing an exterior front view. Shanxi must have been relatively near to arcturus, because the ETA to it was just over 2 hours. Then again, I had no idea how fast exactly we were going.

Williams spoke. "Well Alcatraz, I guess now you are curious as to what exactly we expect from you. First thing you need to know is, there are good chances that Shanxi will be attacked in the next 24 hours, if the aliens hostile intentions are confirmed. The thing is, we will likely not be able to repel that attack. At least in the first phase. And we cannot evacuate the colony, the fleet is currently stretched too thin for that. Our primary role will be to observe and gather intelligence on the enemy. Who are they? Are they ceph? Why did they attack us? What are their intentions? You were once a Force Recon marine trained in this kind of operation, so you'll be dropped on the planet surface. If there is indeed an invasion, your primary role will not be to fight it, but to gather as much intel as you can, and report to me. I will be in this ship and we will stay in orbit around the planet with the stealth mode activated. As much as I hate to say it, currently we cannot do much for the colony itself. If invasion there is, the local militia and the token garrison won't have a chance in hell to repel it. So evade detection, and fight only when forced to. If these are indeed Cephs, you will have to assess the possibility of beating them the same way we did in the Ceph War. For that your suit will come in handy."

You gotta love the cynicism in that plan. The population of the colony were nothing more than lab rats to be sacrificed so we knew what we were facing.

"Any question?"

"Yes. What if they aren't Ceph."

"Then we will advise you what to do. For now, go and get prepped in the armory. We will drop you as soon as we come out of FTL."

And with that, Snyder obliged and led me out to the armory. On the way there, I asked him if he was okay with the fact that we both were going to be dropped practically without support when some serious shit was likely to come down on us. He responded that he volunteered, and that he was trained in special ops. Something about being an N7 marine, whatever that meant. Apparently, he was quite eager to see some real action. Idiot. If we indeed had to face "some real action", based on previous experience I gave him a 75 percent chance of dying in the first 30 minutes, give or take 5 percent.

In the armory, the requisition officer quickly gave what looked like some sort of camelback with a harness as long as a rifle similar to Snyder's, and a pistol of some sort. After some explanations, it appeared that the harness was a mass effect shield generator that will provide additional protection, and the camelback was in fact capacitors capable of providing additional energy to the suit. Good. Apparently they figured the main flaw of the nanosuit, namely the fact that sometimes it felt like the thing was powered by AAA batteries. Now I could store nearly ten times the amount of energy I originally could. The rifle was as I figured it, a mass effect based weapon shooting tiny bullets shaved of an ammo block at extremely high speed, supported by an underslung ceph-tech based plasma cannon for when I needed something with a bigger punch. The pistol was a standard issue mass effect based gun. The requisition officer went on to give me a harness to carry the weapons and ammunition on me when he noticed that they were already strapped to the suit. "How the… Is that some kind of magnetic lock?"

"No, it sucks."

He looked at me dumbfounded.

"No, literally, the surface of the suit is sucking the weapon locally to hold it in place." And with that I gave a shove to the pistol strapped to my leg to demonstrate my point. After that I took a ceramic-blade combat knife and strapped it on my chest, as well as some grenades, and I was set. I put the visor back in place and took the rifle. SECOND quickly interfaced with the weapons computer and gave me a nice targeting reticule as well as some additional information like the heat level, energy level and so on. The officer then pointed me to a shooting range situated in a long,narrow corridor running the length of the ship, and pulled up some holographic targets. I squizzed the trigger. Barely any recoil. Not that it mattered with the suit anyway. And all the bullets had hit the target squarely in the head, at a distance of about 70 meters. Sweet. Being on a ship, I didn't have the occasion to practice with the plasma cannon, instead I tried with a simulator. It appeared that this thing had enough punch to rival with a good old m203, with the plus side that it just used energy that could recharge from the weapon's small eezo core itself.

"Attention. Alcatraz and sergeant Snyder to the hangar bay. We are entering Shanxi's orbit and have dropped out of FTL. Stealth mode engaged." We heard from the ship's PA. We made our way there quickly, and Williams was already waiting for us.

"You're all set? Good. We will enter the atmosphere and drop you as soon as possible. It appears that the aliens are already arriving. 20 ships have dropped out of FTL in system just over a minute ago and are heading to Shanxi. It looks like your talents will be needed very soon marines…"

As he talked I could feel the tremors indicating that we were entering the atmosphere at high speed. A few minutes later, the hangar bay opened, and before we even landed I jumped out 50 meters above the ground. The suit absorbed the impact, as it always did, and soon Snyder was beside me already holding his rifle. We landed in a small clearing in a wood just 5 klicks north of the main settlement. I looked around, scanning the surroundings while a small part of my mind realized that it was the first time I landed on another planet. And indeed the vegetation was quite alien, mainly due to the unusual coloration. There was the whole spectrum of visible light (and even non-visible light, but that only concerned me and my augmented senses) in the foliage, and if I didn't know better, I would have swore this was some LSD induced hallucination.

We made it out of the wood to see more familiar vegetation. Namely, cultures of corn and wheat. Then we headed to a nearby hill where we could have a better line of sight on the settlement. It was mostly composed of what appeared to be prefabs and was relatively small, holding no more than a few thousand people at most. I could see from the vantage point that the small garrison had already set up some makeshift defenses and the civilians were most likely holed up in basements and such. I could tell from here that they were not very hopeful about their odds. They knew what was coming and they had no hope of escaping it. They weren't even aware that the small fleet I came with was present, since it was all a covert op.

Then we heard a whirring sound coming from the sky. A dozen trail of smoke were descending toward the colony. I turned to Snyder. I couldn't see his face through his visor, but I could tell from his body language that he was very uncomfortable.

"You said you were itching to see some real action? Well, here you go. Enjoy the show."

A/N: Two chapters in a day. I don't know if i will be able to keep this up for long given my occupation. But anyway, any review/criticism is welcome.