Hi guys, scorp is back with another update. I'm really glad I got this off this fast, but for any of my viewers, don't expect every day updates. Expect a once week sort of deal until the end of summer. As usual, I do not own any of these franchises, which include Halo, Mass Effect, Star Wars, etc.

Somewhere, in the emptiness of space, a lone ship shot across the darkness. Racing behind it was a insectoid monst. The pilot spammed every button, red-lined every reactor, and forced every thruster past its peak. Fires and electrical sparks flew everywhere. The pilot knew that none of those nuisances would matter if he didn't escape, but he could only stall for so long. A ball of energy slammed into the ship and then...all hell broke loose and the pilot saw no more.

6 Years Before

"Sir-uhh, mam, we're exiting FTL in a few minutes"

"Good, lets hope this is the right place", Saar Caora replied.

An exploration fleet had arrived at this location. Command didn't give details, but they told her that this was important. Well, exploration fleet was an understatement. Apparently, the Council wanted this to be secret so they sent one ship, the Havuu.

They had stumbled upon this system using an unmanned exploration probe using traditional FTL instead of mass relays. Eezo was getting rarer these days and no one wanted to start another Rachni war opening a relay, so this was the next best option.

"Exiting FTL right about...now." Mere moments after Len, the pilot, spoke, streaks of stars slowed down and objects became visible. The normally smooth transition into normal speed was extraordinarily bumpy, like they landed in an asteroid field. Immediately, everyone on the bridge looked out of the windows to find to culprit.

Saar, closer to the windows than most, was surprised. Bewildered even. The husks of dozens of ships were floating in a tightly spaced clumped mass. It didn't take long to notice that there were two distinct types of wreckages intermingled into the graveyard. About a third had purple hulls and bulbous, organic-like structures. The rest were dull gray. 1 kilometer boxes of gray alloy with weapons strapped to every space, these were utilitarian to say the least. What was more amazing was that these gray ships had what seemed to be built around giant mass accelerator cannons. If size alone indicated they power of the cannons, then these would be extraordinarily powerful.

Everyone stood in stunned silence. It was Saar who filled the silence. "Get us closer to the gray ships. We'll see what information we can recover from scans."

As they approached the largest gray ship, which was 1.5 kilometers long, the letters U.N.S could be seen. They were written in another language. But most of all, what chilled them to the bone was the planet nearest to the dead ship. It was burnt to the ground, like the crust was flipped inside out. "How old has this wreckage been here?"

A scientist stated, "Based on the radiation being emitted, this ship has been here for about 70 year."

Silence. Only 70 years; very recent in a geological timescale. Although the ship looked like a child put boxes on one another and added engines, it looked like it take a beating and still steamroll enemies. Everyone knew that whatever destroyed the ship must have been immensely strong.

An ensign broke the barrier of silence. "The hull seems to be a strong, yet flexible titanium based alloy. It seems to rival Silaris armor coatings."

No, that couldn't be possible. This massive ship, all the gray boxed shaped ships, used armor equivalent to the galaxy's best armor. And they had meters of it no less. Those must cost millions, if a billions, of credits to make.

Suddenly, the ensign's face went from surprise to shock, his mouth opened, and closed, speechless. "What is it?!" Saar demanded

"The-there's not any eezo.." he stuttered.

Saar thought of what to do. Eventually, it was time to inform the crew of her plan. "We must obtain that technology. With the threat of whatever destroyed these ships, we need to be ready. There is no FTL with no eezo, therefore this is their homeworld. A very, very dead homeworld. Isix, Neeri, and security team 6, come with me, we're going to board this ship"

Saar mind raced. With two scientist, Isix and Neeri, they would be able to get information out of the alien database for later translation. She couldn't risk sending any more scientist lest there were hostiles in there. Even with their best security team, anything could be inside, waiting.

"Get life support gear and mag-boots. We can't take any chances, most likely, all chambers will be depressurized. Get our best weapons. If they are anything like Krogans, I don't want to be surprised."

Thirty minutes later, the 10 person security force joined up with the 3 scientist. As Saar's team walked towards the Drop Shuttle, she could hear to the scientist excitedly whispering to each other.

"...Did you see that writing on the hull…"

"...I wonder if this is a new race…"

"...Maybe they're a long lost colony or…"

"...No, that can't be, that ship is higher tech than ours…"

"...are primitive. No eezo was detected…"

"...Then how are ...ships so big…"

"...Yeah, and initial scan revealed that…"

"...Do you think that armor has tungsten in it? That might explain how initial test show their high heat resistance…"

Uhh, she would never understand. Her job was to follow orders and protect the Council and all its species, not drone continuously about tungsten and how amazing it was. This continued on until they reached the shuttle and even when they flew through a massive hole breach.

"It's time. I don't want to hear you gossiping about how these aliens are midget sized krogans. If you talk, it better be for a good reason. Otherwise, I'm sending you back to the ship."

Isix and Neeri shut up fast, none wanting to waste this valuable opportunity. As expected, there was no atmosphere or artificial gravity. Of course there wouldn't, Saar thought, they haven't even discovered element zero, why would they have artificial gravity?

As they floated through one of the passageways, Saar began to notice scorch marks on the walls. It was like someone, or something, tried to take over the ship, but the only species that used heated weapons, like plasma, were the Geth. Her body involuntarily shuddered at the thought of the Geth moving outside of the Perseus Veil.

The Team floated around the dark hallways aimlessly with their helmet lights on, mapping the interior, sometimes finding a breached door. Saar's tactical mind began to notice something...interesting, to say the least. Every hallways, every intersection, even every "decoration" had one purpose. To defend against boarding parties. Choke points, kill boxes, you name it; this ship had them all in its hallways.

This species must have been very, very desperate to have designed a ship this way. Either that or their culture put little emphasis on anesthetic. Then again, who in their right mind would build a ship with structural designs with the specific task to repel boarders in a time of peace?

After one hour, they came across a closed door. Red and blue stains covered the walls leading up to this door. Scorch marks were present. Whatever lay behind this door must have been important.

"That looks like a control panel," Saar noticed, "Can you open the door with it?"

Isix replied, "I can try, but I'm not the best at hacking devices"

"Do it"

After what seemed to be days Isix cursed, "I can't open it. Whatever is defending this door from my cyber attacks is vastly superior to anything we know of. Whatever defense system they have in there actively changes the encryption key and counterattacks my attacks. Already, my Omni-Tool is barely functional."

"Does anyone else know how to open this up?" Saar asked.

"Why the hell didn't you ask earlier, I have some explosives with me right now," replied a security officer.

Another guard snickered, "She isn't talking about your cruddin' fart you so-"

Saar sighed on the inside, why were military men always like this? "Cut the chatter. You, place a breaching charge on the door, but try not to destroy anything behind it".

Minutes later, an explosion appeared on the door. Fire erupted and sound waves expanded, only to be consumed by the nothingness of space. By the time all the particles had settled, the door had been obliterated and they were ready to enter.

The guards stepped through first and as Saar began to look at the room. The room resembled an oval made of lines with large, thick windows on the far side's wall. She heard him whisper, "What the...".

Wondering why, she began to look. While focused on the back room, she didn't notice all the blood and weapon damage. Bullet dents lines every wall and scorch marks were burned onto almost every surface.

When Isix and Neeri entered, as they had never seen war, they began to look sick. Neeri looked like she almost threw up in her biosuit, which would result in her drowning.

Through unspoken agreement, the team began working. Most of the security team began establishing a defensive perimeter while Saar looked over the equipment, cataloging small devices and even a small projectile weapon. Hmm, she thought, no element zero. How primitive.

The scientist back on the ship would have a field day with these objects. Isix and Neeri, however, were more interested in the computers. As Salarians, they had an affinity with such objects, so naturally, this was heaven to them.

"Hmm," Neeri mumbled, "My omni-tool won't interface correctly with these devices."

"Mine's dead, so it looks like we're going to have to do it manually." Isix replied.

"How do we do that?"

"Just press buttons." Isix began to stab keys, hoping to get something. Seeing this, Neeri began to do the same.

Saar began to stop them, "I don't think we should do that, what if you do som-"

A deep rumble was heard across the ship. The floor started shaking. It was like a monster had awaken.

"What the shit did you just do!" the security team captain yelled.

No one replied. No one could. They were all too captivated by the events surrounding them. A low pitched drone gradually went higher in pitch until an artificial voice sounded in the middle of the room.

A mechanical voice was heard saying, "Emergency lights online. Backup generator online and working at 17 percent. Activating artificial gravity. Repressurization initiating. Unknown intruders detected. Bio-signatures unknown."

Gravity returned. Saar head forcefully kissed the floor with a thump along with most of the crew and a few doors could be heard closing. Shortly after, a faint hissing noise was heard.

Saar said, "According to my scanners, this atmosphere is breathable, but how is th-"

The mechanical voice returned. "Sending self destruct messages to all UNSC ships. Fleet-wide reactor overloads commencing, T-minus 10 minutes remaining."

None of the crew could understand any of the words, but as soon as the sirens began to scream, they knew something catastrophic happening. The ship's smart AI didn't know who exactly was on this ship, as all the visual sensors were destroyed, so he assumed it was covies, and frankly, he didn't care. He felt nice knowing he'd go down in a blaze of glory.

A guard ran to his radio, "This ships is gonna blow or something, get us the hell out of here!"

The crew aboard the Havuu vessel replied, "I'm sending a transport; meet it at the main hanger. I'll get it there as soon as possible, Havuu out."

The team ran as fast as they possibly could to what seemed to be the main hangar, but in the confusion, forgot most of the samples they collected. With artificial gravity turned on, they could move much faster. I wonder how they did this without element zero? Gah, now's not the time to think about that. Saar glanced at her omnitool to look at the map they created with wandering the hallways. Small sparks and fires littered the hallways

Seven and a half minutes later, Saar and the rest of the crew were fleeing as fast as they could. Behind them, they saw multiple explosive spheres expanding outwards from all the gray box-like ships engulfing all the debris, including the purple ships besides them.

Saar, having been surprised too many times to count in a span of mere hours, looked on with a spaced out expression. All that new technology, ships that didn't use element zero and giant wormhole makers, lost. The only evidence left were small scrap of material, none bigger than a Krogan's brain.

She knew she would be punished. Only time world tell how severely. On the month long trip back to the nearest mass relay system, she would have to hope for the best.

{====================}

Title: Incident 343

Security: Top Secret - Code Black

Subject: Artificial Space Debris Discovered

Details: An expedition ship, the Havuu, was led by Asari Saar ordered by the Citadel Council to explore Prothean ruins. The ruins, however, were not Prothean, but something else. There were two distinct ship types. Upon questioning, Saar claims that one was organic and purple was the other was gray and box-like in shape, confirming external video recordings. Later STG expeditions showed that the nearby garden planet had been burned; details will to discussed shortly. Virtually no data was gained besides basic scans made from the Havuu. These scans will be examined in a later date.

Nearby Planet: The nearby garden world had been bombarded from orbit. The surface was covered in lechatelierite, a glass-like substance. In addition, massive amounts of heat emanated from the ground, creating miniature volcanoes that dots the landscape. And finally, the oceans have been reduced to ash-filled puddles and most of the atmosphere has been burned away. It is more than safe to assume that all previous life has been destroyed.

Threat Level- High

Special Notes: This planet may not be a homeworld. Resources on the planet are not sufficient for the production of Group Alpha ships (see below).

Gray Ships (Group Alpha): These ships are protected by a titanium based alloy that is super-resistant to heat. Initially scans state it rivals Salaris Armor. The ship is utilitarian, no decoration at all. The boarding party leader, Saar, tells us that even though no element zero was detected, artificial gravity was activated at some point. We have no clue on to how this is possible. No kinetic barriers were detected along with no element zero.

Threat Level- Low to Moderate

Special Notes: The ships have massive mass accelerator cannons, but lack kinetic barriers. If spotted, allied ships are advised to take evasive action against the massive cannons while returning fire at the group alpha ships. The lack of shielding will make their destruction exponentially easier.

Purple Ships (Group Beta): Not much is known about this faction as they were destroyed before all scans could be complete. What is known is that these ships were superior to Group Alpha ships and were most likely the attackers. 66% off the hull material is unknown to us. Likewise, no element zero was detected

Threat Level- Unknown; estimated at Moderate

Suggestions to Counter Threat: Increase cover exploration in nearby systems in an effort to locate more ruins for further research and testing. Avoid contact if found. Two species are most likely at war and although we are technologically superior, we are not ready for a long war. More information is needed for further action. Recommend secret production of more security ships.

Replies to Reviews:

PyroSolracIII - Yes, I agree with everything you have said about the UEG and Separatist Covies progressing too fast. This was intentional. If I had it my way, this story would have taken a century or two in the future. However, this would have made the USSC's military and economic might much too overpowered compared to Citadel's. The story would basically be, "Sir, the reapers have shown up!" "Wow, only a 4:1 numerical disadvantage, too easy!" "Use the Super Nova!". I'm thinking of introducing the Reapers not through the Citadel's point of view. Remember those insurrectionist that left?

- Thanks!

Alex M. - As with what I told Pyro, I agree that the timeframe is too short. And that while it is true that making a huge superstructure in a century may be improbable, it is not impossible. With access to the Ark Portal on earth, it is possible to create a modified (no life-wiping-out-explosion) Halo ring. With a decent understanding of Forerunner technology and materials, all you have to do is give the Ark commands and it will churn out Halo Rings. Also, I really wanted a counterpart to the Citadel.

I'm not sure if I should add the Force as the counterpart of Biotics. Your opinion on this matter would be awesome, so just give me a review on it.

And to those people who wanted a action-y start with the USSC and the Citadel races, sorry. The next few chapters will be about another race and their encounter with Reapers. But don't worry, this race will have some involvement later with the USSC.