Author's note: Energized and ready to post. To be honest, I had hit a writer's brick with writing this chapter. (I don't get writer's block; I get writer's brick) But now I am ready and rearing to go! So I won't keep you waiting any longer.

Disclaimer: Mass effect and the Halo franchise are property of Bioware and Bungie respectively.

Chapter 4

Retaliation

The sound of the propellers of the UH-144 Falcon rung heavily in the soldier's ears, a continuous sound of blades cutting through thin air. Along with the roar of the craft's thrusters it was nauseating to most people. But to him, it felt almost comforting. Looking through the side of the trooper bay, the soldier's golden visor peered at the rushing scenery of cliff edges and treetops.

"You ok six?"

Looking up to meet the gaze of the green armored soldier in front of him, Noble Six nodded in reply. Seated across from him were two armored soldiers looking at him, Noble Three and Noble one. One of the men, wearing blue and grey armor, spoke.

"Listen up, Noble Team. We're looking at a downed relay outpost, fifty klicks from Visegrad. We're going to introduce ourselves to whoever took it out, then Kat's going to get it back online."

"Just get me under the hood, Commander." A woman's voice spoke over the radio.

"Sir, why would rebels want to cut off Reach from the rest of the colonies?" This time, a male's thick voice spoke.

The soldier peered over to his right, looking outside the trooper bay to another aircraft with three other armored soldiers. Noble Five, Two, and Four looked back from the opposite aircraft.

"You get a chance, maybe you can ask 'em, Jorge." Noble One stated.

Noble Six steadily allowed his mind to refocus back to the hum of the thrusters and propeller. Under his visor, he let his eyelids drift over his eyes. The darkness that welcomed him made his tensed muscles ease. Only the voices of his teammates pierced the steady beat of the craft.

"Commander, we just lost our signal with HQ." Noble Two alerted.

Noble One frowned under his helmet, "Backup channels?"

"Searching... Nada. Can't say what's jamming us."

Noble One nodded, "You heard her. Dead zone confirmed. Command will not be keeping us company this trip."

Noble Six shot his eyes open, taking his assault rifle and pulling back the Bolt handle. Satisfied with the inner chamber of the bolt, six let the bolt slide shut with a click. This garnered a soft chuckle from the green armored man in front of him.

"Settle down six, you'll get something to shoot." Noble Three teased.

Noble Six looked back to his gun, seeming more interested in checking the thermal clips than interacting with his squad.

As their ship touched down on of a grassy hill overlooking a wheat field, Noble One and Six filed out of the craft quickly followed by Five, Four and Two.

"Jun, I want your eye in the sky." Noble One directed.

Noble Three nodded and positioned himself on a side turret seat. As the ship ascended into the air, Noble Six watched longingly as the craft flew off.

"Six lets move out." Noble One motioned.

Noble Six quickly fell into formation as Noble team moved down the steep hill.


Everything was quiet when the squad had first landed on this planet. The mountain ridge they had landed on was, to the commander's surprise, devoid of life. Not even an insect could be found within the immediate area of their landing zone. Shepard cursed; those brief moments of peace should have been savored.

"You get a connection with the Normandy yet?" Shepard asked.

Miranda, who was busy at an open computer console, did not look up to her commander as she spoke, " Commander, this console is heavily encrypted, and I'm no tech expert. I can't rush this."

Shepard silently groaned, letting her back lean against the small corridor wall. If only she had recruited her old friend Tali, the Quarian would have had no trouble hacking into the network.

In the room to her immediate right, a vivid blue mist swept into the open corridor. In the next room, large rectangular terminals ascended from the floor periodically. Blood and bullet holes marked the far off walls and floors of the room. The dead corpses of guards were scattered about the floors, evidence of the battle that took place an hour ago.

Shepard rubbed the back of her head, sighing. Reaching into one of the hidden side pockets, she pulled out the data pad she had requisitioned from a guard prior to entering the facility. Activation of the device made the holographic screen glow green while data transferred rapidly. After a minute the device's screen went white, a text box was replaced in the center of the screen.

The 'Password' was needed in operating the device, which Shepard felt no surprise in finding this out. Rather, she began hacking through the codes with her omni-tool. It took less than a minute for the commander to bypass the weak encryption on data pad, and when she had, she found herself sifting through uninteresting files. Shepard felt irritated at this unhelpful find and frowned. But, just when the commander was about close the data pad, a small map display of the surround area caught her attention.

"This could be useful." The commander said to herself as she downloaded data onto her omni-tool.

"Commander, I think you should have a look at this." Jacob called from the other room.

Turning, the commander walked into the mist filled room to where Jacob was typing at one of the open terminals. Looking over the man's shoulder, Shepard looked at what was on the screen.

"U.N.S.C." The Commander mouthed the letters that were displayed on the console.

The other nodded, "Yeah. I've been getting the same crested emblem on each file I enter. Commander…what if this isn't some pirating operation?"

Shepard never doubted the possibility of this, the facility they were in was something more advanced then what she had witnessed on Pragia. But even still…

"Jacob, even if that is true, we have a job to do." Shepard stated.

"Commander, we've got a link!" Miranda called from the other room.

Commander Shepard hurried from the mist-engulfed room to where the other woman was standing. Miranda lifted a small earpiece to the commander, who took it graciously.

"Again: I'm no tech expert. So the line won't be the best." The Cerberus operative clarified before exiting the room.

Shepard nodded, taking the earpiece and placing it in ear. After a moment of buzzing static, the commander heard a soft click on the other line.

"Joker, Come in."

"Uh Commander, We got a situation here!" The Normandy's pilot yelled.


In the few hours the Normandy was adrift, everything was going as according to plan. All systems were working phenomenally and it seemed that the mission was going to go off with minimal problems. But Joker knew that a problem would arise, as operations never went as smoothly as possible in the helmsman's line of work. He just wasn't expecting anything of this magnitude.

As the pilot could plainly see, spanning across the void of space were ships approaching the Normandy. An entire fleet was circling the small ship; frigates, cruiser, even ship models he had never witnessed before, were closing in around the ship.

"Joker what's wrong?" Shepard's voice pieced through static.

"They sent an entire fleet after us commander!" Joker exclaimed.

"The pirates?" The commander's voice held as much shock as the pilot's.

"Yeah, stealth systems are engaged, but we've been adrift for a couple of hours. The Normandy's has to vent, or we'll be cooked in our own hull!"

That seem like a better option compared to the damage the ships could cause. If the Normandy did not find cover soon, the fleet would be able to find them easily; all they needed to do was look out a window.

"Joker, you and EDI have to get out of there! Have EDI maintain a connection with this frequency!"

Joker frowned, "We can't commander! EDI's already combating another AI in the system! We leave, we lose connection."

For all the time Joker had known the commander, he had grown to understand that she could work quite well under pressure. So when the commander responded, he was not surprised at how calm she was.

"Alright. Joker, get out of there. We'll try and-"

Static burst through the channel, and the Normandy's pilot held an expression of shock as the terminal rang with static.

"All system's out! Running on emergency power!"

"We've been boarded!"

"Everyone in defensive positions!"


"Joker, come in! Joker!" the commander screamed into the earpiece.

The earpiece just relayed static in response. Shepard scowled as she threw the earpiece to the ground.

"Damn it!"

"Commander we should go, there is nothing we can do. We need to stick to the mission." Miranda chimed in.

Turning to face the now attentive squad, Shepard gritted her teeth.

"No. Miranda, see if you can get another signal through." Shepard ordered.

"But what about the data cache? We don't have time to contact the ship!" Miranda rebuked.

"It may already be too late for that! What we need now is to see if the our only way off this rock is intact!" Shepard retorted back.

"I agree with the commander on this one. If the Normandy's out of commission, we have no way off this rock." Jacob agreed.

Miranda frowned, her thin brown eyebrows furrowed in frustration. Her blues eyes kept the gaze blue glow of her commander's recon hood. She only looked away as she moved toward the terminal behind the commander. She moved her hand over to the controls; only to pull it back quickly when a mass accelerated slug hit the consoles surface.

Instinctively, the three surprised soldiers whipped around. From across the room, a blue and gray armored figure stood. Its orange visor glowed from the bright glow of the upper corridor lights. Its body was leaning forward as his left foot was position on a railing for support. From the gun it was holding, a thin trail of smoke rose from the weapons muzzle.

Behind the figure were other heavily armor soldiers. Shepard questioned if they were even human because of their sheer size even from across the room.

The Commander would not allow the mysterious soldiers to get another shot; she moved along with Miranda and Jacob quickly out of the entrance way of corridor just as a barrage of bullets raced after them. Shepard and her squad pressed their backs against the wall of the corridor, sparks flying around them.

Facing to the room on her right, Shepard looked in astonishment at a large goliath with mismatch colored armor holding what appeared to be a turret. The look of surprise turned to pure horror as the commander watch the pylons of the torrents barrels spin in succession.

"Shit, move!" Shepard screamed as she ordered the squad down the hallway.

As the mass accelerated slugs began to spray down the hall, the command turned, withdrawing a grenade, and chucked the explosive at the gunners feet. With a carefully aimed shot from her assault rifle, the commander was able hit the grenade causing the end of corridor to be consumed in bright light.


Noble five stumbled to his right as the small explosive detonated. His kinetic barriers had taken most of the impact, but the blast still able to knocked him off balance. Falling forward, he was able to catch him with his free hand. After his vision refocused, the soldier lifted his head to see the blast doors at the end of the corridor begin to open.

"Commander, the rebels are opening the blast doors!" Noble five yelled over the radio.

"Don't let them escape!" Noble one ordered, "Kat stop that door from opening!"

Noble one heard footsteps approach him from behind. He turned to see Noble six as he sprinted passed him and propel himself from the railing over the gap below and land on the mist-covered floor of the room. The steel colored soldier then sprinted from behind Noble five and down the long corridor, firing his assault rifle at the three intruders.

As the man moved in closer, the leader of the rebels lifted her gun to smother the impact as Noble six rammed his shoulder into her with great force.

This action caused both the woman and Noble six to be thrown through the blast doors before they hissed shut.


Shepard fell to the metal floor hard, the armored monster pinning her shoulders down. With as much force as she could, she pushed the massive soldier off of her with her legs. This threw the soldiers back into the blast door with a loud thud. Shepard quickly got to her feet, aiming and firing gun at the menacing giant. The mass accelerated slugs lit the soldier's shields making them sputter and glow yellow. When the shields sputtered and finally disintegrated, Shepard dropped the empty thermal clip. The soldier fell to one knee, giving the commander enough time to run down the corridor as best she could.
When she had reached the end of the hallway, Shepard quickly hacked through the blast door in front of her and sprinted out of the facility once the doors hissed, just as the pounding of footsteps behind her grew louder.


Joker leaned against one of the terminals with a pistol clenched in his hands. Around him, the crew of the CIC deck aimed their guns ready to fight. No word was given from the lower decks, so that could only mean that their frontal defenses had been defeated. A cold sweat formed at the back of the pilot's neck. His arms tense with each passing second. It was only a matter of time before the boarders made it to the top deck. The screech of the Normandy's speakers made him cringe.

"Mr. Moreau, I must advice you and the crew to put down your weapons." The ship's A.I. warned over the speakers.

Joker's eyes widened in surprise, "EDI? What do you mean? What's going on?"

"We've been wrong. The boarders are not our enemy. In order to avoid an armed conflict, you must put down your weapons now."

Joker flinched when he heard the elevator cart ascended to the top deck. He lifted his weapon, looking down the sights.

"Joker, please. If you and the crew engage in a fight, you will certainly die." The A.I. reasoned.

Joker was skeptical of this, "How do you know they won't just shoot us with our weapons down?" he question.

Just then, the elevator doors hissed open. Joker felt his blood run cold, as he saw the seven-foot tall armored giant stand in the entrance. The green armored soldier was poised and held the pilot in his sights, gun ready to fire.

But before the soldier to fire, the speakers broke through the tension. But the voice that carried threw was not the ship's AI.

"Hello, John."


Author's note: Ominous Cliff Hangar of Doom!

Well here it is. This actually has been making me ache to post this since Saturday. But I wanted this to wait until it was just right. I hope this makes up for the last chapter, it probably won't. On a side note, I'd like to thank all the reviews I've gotten. They encouraged me to post this chapter earlier than when it would have been. Which would have been awhile.

Chapter 5 will be up soon, I promise.

So please: leave a review of what you think and stay tuned for the next chapter.

Stay silky,

Bleachcookie