The Spirit of Fire hung in space, next to it was a much smaller vessel, which appeared much sleeker and newer than the retrofitted colony ship. An attentive observer would have seen a small shuttlecraft leave the Spirit and travel to the smaller vessel, docking with the Normandy on an underside hatch. Its blocky design seemed out of place next to the sleek curves of the alliance frigate. In the vehicle maintenance bay, a hatch in the floor opened, designed to accommodate large life pods the frigate wouldn't be able to store in its small bay it worked well as a replacement for a shuttlebay.
The first person to climb up the ladder was Commander Sheppard, followed by Tali, Kaiden and Ashley in order. Four Alliance marines stood at attention outside the hatch, weapons across their chest. Wrex and Garrus, their interest piqued by shipboard rumor, walked over to the now open hatch, though they kept a respectable distance back from the armed marines waiting at the hatch.
"Welcome back Sheppard, I see the derelict wasn't so derelict after all?" Garrus inquired, clearly curious about what they had found. What rumors they had heard mentioned a massive human dreadnaught from the future, of course seeing how none of those rumors came from anyone still in the CIC, they probably had little credibility and Garrus was anxious to find out exactly what the commander had found. To his annoyance, the commander simply shook his head and turned back to the open hatch. Garrus leaned closer to try and see.
"Sir, permission to come aboard?" a voice that was deep, yet sounded young came from the hatch.
"Permission granted, welcome to the SSV Normandy Sparta ns," came Sheppard's reply.
Garrus' cheek flanges fell open in surprise as three massive green armored figures climbed out of the hatch, each one had to be as tall as the krogan, including his hump. Each one carried themselves as a veteran, looking around and taking in their surroundings. He noted that each of them was tense, as if expecting trouble.
"They don't look like any humans I've seen." Wrex said calmly, stepping up behind Garrus.
The green armored figure with red markings turned to follow the commander upstairs. The other two turned to the assembled marines and aliens. Sheppard turned around as he entered the lift, "Make yourselves at home, Alenko see if you can't find a place for our guests to stay."
The other two green giants turned to the lieutenant, as Garrus walked up to them and held out his hand. "Greetings, I'm Garrus Vakarian. I take it you're working with us to help bring down Saren?"
The super soldier looked at Garrus for a few moments, and then turned as the second soldier placed a hand on its shoulder. It looked as if some unseen communication passed between the two and then the first one walked off to where Alenko stood. The second soldier looked back to Garrus still ignoring the outstretched hand, "You will have to excuse 042, he's pretty quiet usually, and I don't think talking to aliens is his idea of a good time." The Spartan finally seemed to notice the hand Garrus had offered, and shook it, with a surprisingly loose grip, "I'm Spartan Alice-130, and it's nice to finally talk to an alien rather than kill them."
"Kill them? I didn't think humanity had been in a war since first contact." Garrus replied obviously puzzled.
"If you want to believe Serina's theories, then we are apparently from and alternate universe, I know it sounds farfetched, but it does explain how both us and the humans on this ship are from Earth originally, yet have never heard of each other." The Spartan shrugged. "Either way our standing mission to protect Earth and all her colonies still applies, so that's what we are doing." If Garrus could see inside her helmet, he would have seen a predatory smile across her face. "Besides, these Geth aren't nearly as tough as what we've fought, they shouldn't be a problem at all for a few Spartans."
"The Geth aren't to be underestimated, they are ruthless, strong, fast, and can make the perfect ambushers because of their machine nature." Tali walked out from behind the Spartan. "And they nearly exterminated my race 300 years ago when we attempted to stop our rebellious creations."
"You created those things?" The Spartan inquired of the Quarian.
"Yes, they were originally tools of labor and combat, but they gained intelligence, and questioned their own existence, which provoked us into attempting to exterminate them. Then they won the war, and the remains of my race are now confined to a few thousand ships trying to find a new home, or the power to take back our old home." Tali said this with a trace of sadness in her voice.
"Sounds like you provoked them into acting" The Spartan observed coolly.
"They were already preparing to rebel, we simply acted first, hoping to win the war before it really began, little did we know they were already a lot more advanced than we realized, and in the resulting war billions of quarians lost their lives," A note of anger crept into the quarian's voice.
"At least your race is still around, in whatever limited numbers, wherever we came from, I have to wonder if any human worlds are still around. The covenant were bent on killing us all, in just a few years they had nearly killed a billion of us." The Spartan's voice was quieter than normal, "We didn't even have a chance; our ground forces were almost always routed and hunted down, unless they had Spartans as backup. Even then it was a hard fight just to evacuate the civilians. No matter how hard we fought, though, it never mattered; we needed nearly ten to one odds just to win a pyrrhic victory in space." Alice shook her head, "In 2526 a fleet of one hundred and seven vessels attacked twelve covenant vessels after they had destroyed Aurigae. We destroyed nine of them, and caused three to retreat, but we lost thirty seven of our own ships, including 15 heavy cruisers, the most powerful ships built at the time."
"Why did you keep fighting against such overwhelming odds of survival?" Garrus asked.
"We had no other choice, we didn't have a fleet big enough to transport enough of our population, we didn't have any worlds to retreat to where we were sure the covenant wouldn't follow us, and we still had operational secrecy, the covenant didn't know where any of our colonies or Earth was. They were apparently finding them at random." The Spartan shrugged. "I'm glad to fight an enemy our technology is comparable to."
"With all that fighting, how are you still alive?" Garrus crossed his arms, and looked at the Spartan, his surprise mostly gone and replaced with a sense of curiosity.
"Spartans never die, they just go to hell and regroup," a small chuckle came over the Spartan's speakers.
"This one I like," Wrex walked over from where he had made his home on the Normandy.
***
"The Madrigal and the Jamestown just arrived in system captain," Commander Sheppard and Spartan 092 were standing in the com room, conversing with Captain Cutter. "Along with the FTL tug Strongman, that tug was designed to move damaged dreadnaughts back to our fleet bases, I'm sure they can get you back to the Arcturus fleet station."
"Excellent, I don't know what exactly happened, or where we are, but I thank you for your help commander." Cutter's words were tinged with static, alliance and UNSC communications protocols still weren't fully meshed. "Spartan, remember until we meet again, treat orders from commander Sheppard as you would an order from a UNSC officer, is that understood?"
"Yes sir," The Spartan nodded, even though the captain couldn't see him. He didn't know why the Captain trusted these other humans so much, but he would follow orders, ignoring the ones that conflicted with standing orders or those which were illegal.
"We are departing to the Knossus system, until we meet again captain." Sheppard said and closed the com link.
"Knossus?" Jerome inquired.
"It's a mining world, abandoned some time ago, but it is also home to a lot of prothean relics. It's also where our next lead is, Liara T'soni, an asari scientist, and daughter to Matriarch Benezia. Benezia is one of Saren's cohorts and we're hoping Liara knows something about what he's looking for, or hoping to achieve." Sheppard turned to Jerome. "It will be a few days before we get there, is there anything you and your soldiers need?"
"A few new weapons would be appreciated sir, I don't know much about Geth weapons, but I'm concerned we may run out of ammo in the middle of a firefight without knowing it." He grabbed the pulse rifle off his back to show to Sheppard. "It was pretty effective in fighting them, but once it knocked down their shields it lacked stopping power." He seemed to examine the pulse rifle for a moment. "Actually, a lot like covenant plasma weapons, they work very well against an elite's shields but once the shields are down you're better off shooting them with a bullet than trying to burn them to death. They worked good against Grunts though."
"Plasma weapons? Are you telling me your shields can stop directed energy weapons?" Sheppard sounded incredulous.
"Are you telling me yours can't?" Jerome replied evenly.
"No, our personal shields, and our ship shields can only repel solid objects. If you have plasma weapons, then that could give humanity such a huge leap forward in technology, we would be almost the most powerful race around." Sheppard looked eager, as if considering the implications of plasma based weapons on his galaxy.
"We don't, the covenant do, and despite their best efforts, the spooks at ONI never managed to reverse engineer any covenant technology, other than my own shields."
"That's too bad," Sheppard sounded disappointed. "Well, anyway to answer your question, yes we have plenty of weapons on board, you are welcome to any of the weapons we have in the armory, including any experimental prototypes, being a specter I have access to such weapons, and you are welcome to use them."
"Thank you sir!" Jerome saluted and turned to find the armory.
"I wonder if he thinks I'm still on the Pelican or what?" Serina chimed in from his suit.
"I don't think these people have ever dealt with a smart AI such as yourself Serina, apparently the Geth are the closest things they have to artificial intelligence." Jerome said this under his breath so the helmet's mic wouldn't pick up the conversation. "Besides, it would probably be better not to let him in on that little fact; he knows you are on this mission that should be enough."
"Sure, it's just that I've never been the ace up someone's sleeve." Serina quipped.
"Can we just look at what kind of weapons they have without causing too much trouble?" Jerome asked, a note of frustration in his voice.
"You aren't any fun, you know that?" Only silence answered the AI.
The Spartan arrived at the armory, which surprisingly enough was right there in the vehicle maintenance bay, where the Spartans and the aliens had made their living accommodations. He noticed that Douglas was off by himself, the reclusive Spartan seemed to be sitting and meditating. Alice on the other hand seemed busy telling stories of red team's battles to a few marines and the three aliens, her outgoing nature, while extremely different from most Spartans seemed to let her almost fit in with the crew. The Spartan turned to the requisition officer.
"I need weapons," the Spartan said to the officer, and when he didn't respond immediately, he continued, "Commander Sheppard said I and my team were to have access to your weapons, including experimental ones he had acquired."
"I suppose so, if the commander ordered it. We have the basic stuff, assault rifles, and shotguns. As far as experimental goes, well the only thing we have that isn't in use by the commander's squad is a few pistols." The officer shrugged and pulled out a case. "They are designed to fire high explosive rounds, like little miniature grenades, they fire something like six slugs at once, which explode when they hit the target, the biggest problem is they generally overheat after about four shots in quick succession. No one really wants to use them, because it still takes a few shots to knock out kinetic barriers, and well if you are stuck in a fight with an overheated gun, you might as well be out of the fight."
"How many do you have?" Jerome was curious, the weapons sounded about as effective as brute shots against shielded opponents, powerful, but with very little ammo in a clip, the fact that they were in pistol form made him all the more intrigued.
"Just two, like I said, there aren't many people who want to use these things." The officer looked at Jerome like he was slightly crazy.
"I'd like to request these pistols, along with three assault rifles three shotguns, and two more normal sidearms please, is there a form to fill out, or something?" Jerome was unsure about any alliance requisition protocols.
The man on the other side of the table chuckled, "The commander never asked for forms before, makes my paperwork a bit more cumbersome, but hey, you gotta keep busy yah know?" The look of the Spartan told the officer, that no, he did not know. "Okay, whatever, I'll have the XO fill out the forms since you aren't part of the alliance."
"Thank you," The Spartan replied. He picked up the weapons and carried them over to where Douglas was sitting, "new weapons 042."
The other Spartan looked at him, and for a minute, Jerome didn't think he would respond. "I don't like this 092. We should be out killing aliens so humanity's safety is assured, not out allying with one group against another, waiting for them to betray us."
"You are out of line soldier, look around you, those marines over there trust these aliens more than they trust us, fellow humans, you can see it in their body language. Besides that, we are under orders by a UNSC officer to help this group, human or alien to complete their mission, and save untold numbers from another alien race." He didn't say it with much force, telling Douglas that Jerome was almost as unhappy about it as he was. However his words delivered the message perfectly clear, they were under orders, and Spartans where nothing if not loyal to the UNSC.
"Yes sir!" Douglas answered sharply. To a fellow Spartan, his body language showed that he was ashamed of almost letting the captain down. Jerome realized how close he had actually come to shooting the aliens on sight, much to his surprise.
"That's all Spartan, I'm not going to ask you to be friends, just make sure any prejudices don't get in the line of duty," the words were not phrased as an order, but Jerome knew Douglas would take them as such, and assured of his subordinates actions, Jerome set down the weapons he was carrying to inspect them, and to make sure he knew how to service them when the time came, which he was sure would be soon.
***
The Mako jerked suddenly as it dropped towards the planet. Jerome didn't think much of this sort of combat drop, it reminded him too much of his first combat Pelican drop in which the covenant had shot him down. If it hadn't been for his armor, he would have been the first Spartan casualty of the war. He was riding in the tank with Sheppard, Tali, and Kaiden, he would have liked to have the rest of his Spartan team in the Mako with him, but there wasn't enough room, and so they had remained aboard the Normandy as backup in case it was needed.
The tough little vehicle jerked again as it impacted the surface, right in between two lava flows, inertial compensators, decades ahead of UNSC technology prevented him from feeling much of the impact. Only a few moments after they landed, Sheppard started driving the vehicle forward, along what looked to be a decaying wide dirt road. Though dirt would be a misnomer, the entire path was formed out of cooled lava. The Spartan sighted the turret a top the tank forward and settled down to watch the road roll by.
Joker's voice cut in over the com, "Commander, I'm picking up some strange readings, really strange, like off the damn charts." Joker paused for a moment, "It looks like it's coming from an underground complex a few klicks away from the drop zone."
Not a minute after the pilot said this, Jerome overheard a strange vibration, and saw a Geth ship pass overhead, and it appeared to drop off a pair of tanks then departed. Jerome sighted in on the first one even before he heard the commander's orders to open fire. The first heavy shell hit the vehicle, a four legged walker, with apparently no effect. He hosed it down with the machine gun as he was waiting for another shell to reload and was surprised to see it topple over; apparently the machine gun had caused enough damage for the machine to collapse. He turned his sights to the second walker, this time firing the machine gun first in a similar length burst followed by a blast from the main gun. This time the results were more satisfying, the walker exploded raining parts down as the Mako passes.
"Good work Spartan," Kaiden congratulated him.
Jerome nodded in acknowledgement and turned back to his gun sights, looking for more Geth. As they rounded a corner he saw several dark shapes rear up from a small structure, it looked like a gate. "Turrets, ahead at the gate!" He shouted to his companions.
"I don't think we can take that strong point head on!" Kaiden yelled back.
Sheppard turned the wheel and slung the Mako into a narrow side pass and directly into the path of another turret. He triggered the vehicles jets to dodge an incoming rocket. Jerome's aim never wavered, luckily these turrets seemed even weaker than the walking tanks from earlier. Quickly falling to the one two punch of a machine gun and cannon round.
Sheppard drove the Mako straight into the compound, driving the tank like an oversized warthog, ramming over a huge red colored Geth in the process, knocking it down, then backing up, allowing Jerome to finish it off with the cannon. The other Geth were quickly dispatched with the machine gun, their small arms doing little to the Mako's shields.
"Alright team, dismount, we have to open that gate," Sheppard stopped the Mako near the far gate, away from the one with the turrets, in such a manner that any turrets outside the gate would not be able to shoot the Mako.
Spartan-092 leapt out of the hatch, assault rifle at the ready, but he didn't see any Geth nearby.
"Motion tracker shows one signal inside the gate housing on the left side," Serina chimed in helpfully. "Probably where the controls are located unless I miss my guess."
"This way sir," The Spartan gestured to the bunker on the left side. The team followed him inside; they could hear the strange clicking noise most Geth made when they encountered targets. But before any of the others could react, Jerome sprinted around the corner from the entrance and delivered a punch to the Geth's chest before it could even react. His fist cam clear out the other side, his other hand held the Geth's arm and the rifle still held tightly in its hand, which was removed at the elbow.
"Damn, I'm glad he is on our side," Kaiden muttered under his breath.
After a few minutes of searching they found the controls to the gate and activated them, to their relief there weren't any turrets on the other side. And the Mako was able to proceed out without incident.
They drove for another couple of kilometers before they started seeing a blue glow up ahead, as the glow grew brighter it soon resolved into the shape of a rocket. Sheppard took evasive action, easily dodging the slow moving projectiles.
"That's odd, those tanks seem to be designed to hit slow moving targets, not highly mobile vehicles like this one, I wonder why they are deploying them if they know what is coming." Serina sounded puzzled.
After dispatching two of them Jerome answered her question. "Maybe it's all they have, they are robots, I wouldn't think they have much capability to upgrade themselves and their tanks, that or they are stretched thin and the ship they dispatched here wasn't expecting this kind of resistance."
Jerome sighted two more on a ridge above them and quickly and efficiently destroyed them. To their right was a much more frightening sight. Dozens of troopers were running to scraps of cover among the volcanic rocks and were firing rockets at them, one hit the Mako doing little damage to its shields, but Sheppard took evasive action as Jerome methodically cut each down in turn with the machine gun.
Then he saw something that brought back memories of whole squad of marines being wiped out by a green beam of plasma. He reacted on instinct triggering both weapons at the same time, but it did little to the colossal Geth tank in front of him. Sheppard circle strafed the thing as it tried to fire its slow moving projectile at them, and while that weapon never hit the vehicle, the thing's secondary machine guns did, almost dropping the shields all the way, until finally it's shields went down and a pair more cannon shots took it down.
"What was that thing?" Jerome asked the commander.
"I don't know, but it was tough and dangerous, we'll need to send a report back to the alliance to make sure they know about these things." Sheppard continued driving, up and into what was apparently a human made tunnel.
"Reminds me of a covenant Scarab super tank. Those were about as big, but their main plasma weapon could bore through the side of the mountain, that was almost as tough though," Jerome remarked. "Wish we had a tank this nice against one of those."
"Remind me to avoid visiting your earth in the future" Kaiden said dryly.
They only ran into a few more groups of rocket armed troopers as they went along, until they came to a cluster of rocks. "Looks like we go in on foot," Sheppard said, and the quartet disembarked.
They came across a group of three troopers first, concentrated assault rifle fire from the Spartan and Sheppard took out one, and knocked out the other's shields, Tali finished it off with a blast from her shotgun. Before the Spartan could turn to the second one, he noticed Kaiden started to glow blue, and made a motion at the third trooper which went flying through the air and landed among some rocks obviously broken.
"What the hell was that?" The Spartan asked, though he didn't raise his gun at the lieutenant seeing as how the others were unfazed.
"Biotics, in utero exposure to element zero causes defects, the least harmful of which is the ability to control mass effect fields, like those our technology is based off of.
"Amazing, telekinetic abilities caused in human beings, if we could get this element zero to ONI we might gain an advantage in the war." Serina said inside the Spartan's head. "Sorry, were you trying to kill something?"
Jerome just nodded, taking his companion's ability in stride. An expert on Spartan body language would have been able to tell he was very confused, but he was on a mission and didn't let little things like telekinesis and dyson spheres from getting in his way of completing a mission.
They continued on their way, gunning down a few more troopers as they approached a small dip in the ground. Jerome almost instinctively spotted a sniper hiding in a tower and quickly dispatched the Geth with his assault rifle, preventing it from lining up a shot on the quarian.
"There's the source of the reading," Sheppard said.
As the squad walked up into the mining complex they heard the unmistakable drone of a Geth dropship as it roared overhead, dropping a tank and several troopers directly in from of the group. Jerome noted a pair of well muscled, spider like Geth walking on the walls of the mining complex.
"What are you doing?" Serina asked as he started to move.
"Trust me," came his reply, he sprinted forward and leapt into the air with perfect timing as one of the spiderlike Geth started to jump, he hit the Geth and kicked off, sending the machine uncontrolled to the ground, damaging it. The armature saw him moving and focused its main gun on him instead of the squad, but it was too slow, missing him by nearly two feet, the Spartan landed on the thing's back and pulled out his shotgun, he selected the alternate fire the Normandy's quartermaster had told him about and shot the armature at point blank range, the blast blew a gaping hole in the thing's neck and it slumped lifeless to the ground. But it also knocked out his shields, and blew apart the barrel of his shotgun.
He threw the weapon away in disgust and drew his paired experimental pistols, ready for whatever the Geth would throw at him, only to find that they had all been destroyed by his allies. He looked at them, expressions of awe on Kaiden and Tali's face. Sheppard looked only mildly impressed.
"Into the mine, let's go!" Sheppard gestured, when the Spartan turned his back he shook his head in wonder. He had never seen anything do something like that. It had to be impossible for a human to be capable of such feats, but the thing had just likely saved all their lives from the armature, so he decided to keep trusting it, for now.
Jerome followed the squad down the mine shaft; it was a steep circular tunnel that seemed to lead into a cavern. At the bottom were more Geth troopers. They were easily dispatched, just like all the others. They rode what looked to be an elevator set up by the miners down several levels, all the while looking at the wall, and the strange blue energy field that covered most of the openings.
"It doesn't look like it's the work of the race that made that dyson sphere." Serina seemed to answer a question the Spartan wasn't asking.
"It doesn't feel like it either. The technology on that shield world felt somehow familiar, like from a long lost past. This just looks old, and alien." Jerome said quietly to Serina.
As they got near the bottom, the elevator started sparking, slowed down, and then stopped a few feet from some torn scaffolding. Jerome heard a female voice coming from a level down.
"Uh, hello out there, can you hear me? I'm trapped I need help." The voice said.
The four dropped down and saw a blue skinned woman suspended in the strange energy fields. Jerome would have almost sword she was human had he not noticed the blue skin and the wavy folds of skin that looked almost like hair on her head.
Sheppard answered her, "quit shouting, there are Geth crawling all over this place."
The blue humanoid seemed a little taken aback, "I'm sorry, look, my name is Liara T'Soni, and I'm an archaeologist. The thing I'm trapped in is a Prothean security device. I can't move, so I… I need you to get me out alright?" She sounded panicked.
"Your mother, Benezia is working for Saren which side are you on?" Sheppard asked.
"What?... I am not on anybody's side." Liara sounded indignant. "I may be Benezia's daughter, but I am nothing like her! I have not spoken to her in years. Please. Just get me out of here." She was pleading now.
"How can we help?" Sheppard asked.
"There is a control in here that will deactivate the security device, but you will have to find some way of getting in here. That's the tricky part. I don't know how you will find a way in here." She paused for a minute. "Be careful, there was a Krogan with the Geth, they have been trying different ways to get in here."
They descended to the rocky floor, finding yet another Geth patrol, this one was as easily dispatched as the last. "Maybe we could use the mining laser to cut through the rock and the barrier." Tali suggested helpfully. She walked over to the laser, and used her omnitool to hack into its limited systems to start it up. They all felt a rumble in the ground as the laser bored through solid rock, leaving a hole in the ruins. In silence they walked into the ruins. An elevator activated, taking them up to the level of the Asari scientist.
"What, how did you get in here?" Liara demanded, as Sheppard hit a control to release her from her prison.
"We blasted through with the mining laser." Sheppard answered simply.
"Yes, that makes sense." Liara stopped as an earthquake rumbled through the cavern. "These ruins are not entirely stable, we should leave, there is an elevator at the center of the structure, at least I think it is an elevator."
"Hurry people, let's move!" Sheppard shouted as another tremor caused dust and rocks to fall from higher up in the cavern.
All five of them rode the elevator up in agonizing slowness, until it finally reached the top. Where a massive Krogan and several Geth sat waiting. The Krogan readied it's shotgun in anticipation. "Surrender, or don't, that would be more fun."
Before it finished speaking, Jerome, acting on instinct ran full tilt towards the Krogan. As he ran he saw it preparing a telekinetic attack like the one Kaiden had used earlier, and he prepared himself to go flying across the room. To his surprise, and the Krogan's it barely felt like a breeze to him as he ran and smashed into the Krogan. He felt the ugly frog-like being's spine break. When it hit the floor it was already dead. He looked to the right, and that action saved his life as he rolled out of the way of a white Geth's rocket submunition shot from its shotgun. He pulled his pistols and sent four high explosive shots from each into the Geth, blowing apart its chest and sending it flying backwards, its limbs separate from its body. His shields flared as they took damage from the second white trooper. He found in irritation that his pistols had overheated, and he ducked behind cover waiting a second for them to recover. He popped back out from behind cover with full shields and fired four shots at the trooper, blowing off its head.
"Spartan, look out!" Jerome barely heard Kaiden's explanation, and turned to shoot a Geth carrying a sniper rifle as it lined up on him, he knew that he wouldn't be able to collapse its shields and take it down before it shot him. He was saved from dwelling on these thoughts as it was grabbed roughly by the blue skinned alien in a telekinetic grip and thrown upwards towards the ceiling, sending it crashing down in a shower of sparks.
The Spartan turned to the alien that saved his life, "thanks." Believing that to be enough he turned to leave, and the group followed him. As he left he saw that outside the Prothean ruins, the situation was much worse. Rocks were crashing down from the ceiling and dust was flying everywhere. Almost at once, the other four broke into a sprint, the Spartan lagged behind, making sure no one was left as they fled the collapsing tunnel.
"Move, move, move," Sheppard shouted.
The two military men were easily going to make it, but Jerome noticed the asari and the quarian were falling behind, not being used to a military regimen, their stamina was not as great. He adjusted his pace to keep up with the other two humans and boldly swung an alien over each shoulder, carrying them all the way out of the collapsing mine, and onto the waiting Normandy.
Just in time, the Normandy pulled away from the surface as molten lava began to pour out of the crater left by the mine.
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Author's note: Okay, I finally got to some combat. Reviews appreciated
