Something, something, something, comedy, something, something, I don't own halo/ mass effect. -Vomits into adjacent trashcan- hmmm... I dont remember eating anything green. Curse you, cold!

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"Lights are green across the board, you are clear to launch, Mule." The operator on the other end of the radio announced to the pilot of the UNSC Mule, third fighter of Nguyen's Work Horses.

"About damn time." The Ensign flying the craft murmured under his breath as he flicked the trigger guard up, and pressed the button cycling up the engine to his longsword GA-TL2 interceptor. His XO at navigation whooped as the G-Forces from the sudden acceleration glued him to his seat, and the engineer looked a little green in his own chair. The GA-TL2, as necessity dictated, had artificial gravity to counteract the accelerations and sudden maneuvering, but in combat situations the pilot often accelerated too high or maneuvered too quickly for the dampening effect to catch up, which was why his crew was currently strapped down to rather cushiony seats.

The Mule shot down the long black hallway form-fitted to only the longsword class of interceptor, propelled by Magnetic Acceleration like a bullet from a gun in the half second while the HR engine spooled up, throwing The Mule to a safe distance right as the reactor finished its start-up phases and began violently hurling its waste reactants out the rear of the vehicle giving propulsion. The Mule fell into a wall formation with the other three deploying fighters, two vertical columns of two fighters presenting a solid wall flanked by formations of its nimbler cousins, YSS-1000 Sabre, and even ten fighter formations of Hieratic Seraphs.

The pilot gasped at his scope, arrayed behind him was a fleet such as he had never seen, but then again he was rather young still and had been in less then a half dozen engagements. There were three Infinity class cruisers screened by twelve Minotaur class destroyers, thirty Artemis class frigates, backed by a Marathon cruiser, six Gorgon class destroyers someone had saved from the salvage yard, and two fleet carriers. The The fifty four human vessels, he could see had rendezvoused with another thirty seven Heretic vessels, looking to be two cruisers, ten destroyers, thirty one frigates, and a carrier.

All in all, it was a rather formidable force, but he couldn't seem to see the enemy fleet. "Nav, I'm getting some odd readings on the plot, can you confirm? Opposing screen appears have punctured a color packet or something, I'm seeing all red." The ensign asked.

"I got nothing Skipp, mine showing that way too. Parkens?" The navigator asked the engineer.

"Already on it" Parkens said as he began to rise from his seat to check their systems.

'Belay that' LieutenantNguyen's voice broke through the radio. 'The red is the enemy fleet, I say again, the red is the covenant.' And with that, a group of the red began to break from the larger formation. 'All units, engage! HIT 'EM!'

Archer and Plasma missiles raced out from the combined fleet as the fighters accelerated, rushing to meet the foe. Over ten thousand missiles were rushing in behind the Work Horses, and the fighters had closed to less then a light-second when over a hundred MAC rounds disgorged from the human fleet and the signal was relayed to the Navigator. "Nav, deploy PEN-aids." The ensign piloting the fighter said, and in concert with the one-hundred nineteen other Longswords, the Mule launched four seemingly innocuous missiles that merged with the main volley that had just overtaken the fighter fleet.

At fourty-thousand kilometers, just out of interception from the enemy fighters, the four-hundred eighty suddenly erupted in an electronic cascade of interference, multiplying the incoming missiles to their sensors by the hundredfold, to the point where not even the allied fleet could have told which ones were real, let alone the loyalist Seraphs that were trying to shoot down as many as they could before they hit the covenant fleet.

Over the all-hands circuit came the command from the wing commander 'GET ON 'EM! GET ON 'EM!' as the Sabre's began their reverse acceleration, and the Seraphs hit their impulses to slow before meeting the fighters and prolong their engagement window.

Then came the order that the UNSC Ensign Pres'Thayley had been waiting for. 'Forward heavy brigade, charge for the guns!' the mock quote. The ensign cracked as close as he could to a smile with a split chin and mandible, as he gunned the human made ship's engine, engaging it's chemical emergency rockets to interpose and pass through the combating fighters and intercept the hundreds of incoming plasma torpedoes.

=================
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Team leader Mamu was curled up sleeping in the methane barracks with the adjustable wrench that he retrieved from the incident in secondary engineering, dreaming of his home on one of the new colonies founded under the expansion program lead by the humans who insisted that all races that could needed to share an equal part. He was just skipping down the stone path to his parent's house when out came a a wild boar and tackled him. "Gah!" he screamed in his high pitched voice right as Sysu, one of his teammates pushed him again. "Why you do that!?" He asked, brandishing the wrench at Sysu threateningly.

"Human at hatch. He want you!" Sysu cried as he turned and scurried off just before as the wrench connected with his tail, producing a yelp.

"That never good..." Mamu said as he headed to the aforementioned hatch. He grabbed his harness from the wall just outside of the airlock, and stepped through. He waited inside the tiny chamber as the interior door closed, and the methane retreated as a nitro-oxy atmosphere replaced it. Sure enough, on the other side of the exterior hatch, as it cycled open stood a marine.

"Hey, you Mamu?" the marine asked, looking bored. Mamu nodded, and the Marine continued. "Chief Engineer Raley says you're late. He sent me to fetch you."

"Late? For what?" Mamu asked nervously.

"No idea." the marine said uncaringly. "C'mon, lets go midget. What's with the wrench?"

"MINE!"

Mamu followed the marine to a plain hatch where he stopped to open it and Mamu entered to see a large oval table with elites and humans sitting around it, with one empty seat oddly proportioned to fit a grunt right next to the elite from earlier. Mamu scurried up to the seat, and looking embarrassed sat down.

The moment Mamu's behind touched the seat, the seat shot up so that he was level with the table, him squealing with fear. He stood in his chair and started beating his seat with the wrench, only to stop as he realized that the entire assembled group was staring at him, and he meekly sat down.

The human at the head of the table cleared his throat awkwardly, and began to speak. "Now that the last of you are here, let us get down to business." At the center of the table there was a small circular platform that began to glow blue, and what appeared to be a human wearing some sort of bulky suit appeared, covered head to toe. The suit was very poofy looking, and had a rather large golden visor, and on the right arm was a red and white rectangle. "This is The Spartan's AI, Neil. Neil, these are my department heads and their XOs." Neil raised his arm and wordlessly waved.

"Now, since this is the first meeting, lets get down to some brass tacks, and figure out just what we have to work with, Neil here has the schematics, and the personnel files of our complement to display on the screens in front of you, so lets go over some duty rosters to start wi..." Mamu started to zone out, whatever this human was talking about, it was rather boring. He started playing with the wrench pretending it was a heavy cruiser, destroying loyalist fleets on its own. The Kikrita was the finest vessel around, and had just hulled it's third super-carrier when Mamu was snapped out of his reverie as a hand closed about his fine vessel.

"Ah, and this must be the missing wrench from Secondary Engineering, thank you for finding it... Mamu." The human who had been at the head of the table said, trying to take it from mamu.

Mamu pulled back "No take Kikrita!" He cried in his high pitched voice, and a tug of war began.

"No..." The human said, pulling it back. "If you would just..." as Mamu regained advantage. "We need..." As he pulled it back. "I jus- OOF!" as Mamu pushed it into the human's gut with all his might.

Then, using the temporary weakness, he pulled it back freeing it from the human's grip, and sprinted from the room to the angry cry of. "FourTEENTH!"

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Anderson awoke feeling sore all over. He looked around and saw that somehow not only was he alive, but he was in a hospital gown, lying in a plane white room, with a nurse adjusting the curtains. He tried to pull himself to sitting, but stopped, clutching his ribs letting out a low hiss. "Oooh, that smarts..."

The nurse turned, surprised, but her gaze immediately softened. "You'll want to be careful Captain, you still have three broken ribs."

"Captain?" He said, regretting it instantly as he felt a sharp pain against his lung.

The nurse rushed to him, and pulled him to a more comfortable position. "Captain, you still have three broken ribs. They didn't heal in the last few seconds" She said, as if reprimanding a child. "I'll go get the Colonel, he's been waiting on you to wake up." She began to walk out the door, only to pause and turn back at the frame. "Oh, and your girlfriend left you a letter on the table."

'Captain? Girlfriend? Just what happened while I was out?' Anderson wondered as he turned and looked, and sure enough, there was a folded piece of paper on the table.

Anderson.

I wish I could have stuck around to properly thank you, but... I'm a bit busy. I looked into you files, and I pulled some strings. I couldn't get you Spartans, honestly, I tried, but your genetics... not only would you react poorly to the chemicals, somehow you're actually allergic to most of them. Certain death.

I found this experimental program, its supposed to create super-ODSTs, or something along those lines. Ordinary men and women who show extreme courage and natural skills to be a cross species special operations branch. You'll be training alongside Zealots, Hunters, Grunt Majors, Spartans, and other normal humans like you. This is something not even every Spartan gets accepted into. Its something... Special.

You've already had the N-1 level training, so youve gone through the prerequisites there, and you've got the necessary battle field commendations. The only thing that you lack is the number of deployments necessary, but when you get to where I am, you get to bend some rules. Maybe we'll even meet again.

-E

'What? Well, that leaves more questions then answers.' As he put down the note, in walked a full bird colonel.

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Dr Carlson was sitting patiently waiting for Anderson to wake up. He had been out for just over twelve hours, but she hadn't left the side of the man who had saved her life. She had contented herself with looking over his data file, and she was very impressed. This man… what he had already done was the makings of a legend.

She had heard of a new unit being formed of Special operatives to go into situations that the Spartans would have difficulty operating in. The Spartans, especially those that were left from the S-II program were stunning individuals, and equal to anywhere from entire battalions in the case of the S-IIs to at least worth a squad for the S-IVs per Spartan, but they were limited in many ways. The S-IIs had less than five remaining effectives left, the S-IIIs maybe a hundred, and their training was far more limited to conventional warfare, and the S-IVs, while plentiful were simply basic infantry on steroids.

What was needed was a new generation of S-IIs, but ethical complications aside, there was no time to grow soldiers from the age of six to fight in this life and death struggle, and with the introduction of the Spartan class vessels ground warfare would soon become even more important to land boots on the ground. With air power, you can bomb them, you can strafe them, and you can cut off their supplies, but without actual manpower to go down into the holes and make the enemy cry uncle, you could never win.

Anderson. He would be a perfect candidate, he had even been through NewSparta, NS, training. She steered her PDA through a few forms and entered the data, forwarding Anderson's service record to the head of the project with a personal recommendation. The response was near instantaneous, yes, if he chose to Anderson would be able to join the program. It wasn't the Spartans, but it was what she could pull.

She had something to tell Anderson now when he finally woke, the doctors had said maybe another hour or so. She heard the door open, and looked over in curiosity as a Colonel entered the room. Probably someone to give him a medal or something, she thought, until she heard the fateful words. "Dr Carlson? The Security Council needs you."

At first she didn't understand, thought maybe he had misspoken as the Military Council which ran the Weapons Board that she worked for, was often mistakenly called the 'security council' as it was responsible for the security of the UNSC. The actual Security Council though, was a remnant o the original UN, and was the leading group within the UNSC, and consisted of some of the most powerful people in the Galaxy, and a full colonel was unlikely to make such a mistake. "I… see. I was hoping to greet Lieutenant Anderson when he woke, and tell him that he had been accepted into the NS program?"

"We already know about that ma'am. I'll tell him myself as well as of the promotion for his swift actions. It is absolutely essential that the Council see you now ma'am."

When he phrased it that way, the doctor didn't have much choice. She quickly rose and exited the room. Her new Spartan escort fell in behind her and the two jogged down to the parking garage. He had obviously been briefed on the situation, as when they reached the subbasement he took the fore and led her to a black SUV with tinted windows and a pair of ODSTs behind the wheel in full combat gear.

As soon as she was buckled in, the car accelerated up the ramp and hooked the turn. She peered over the headrest of the seat ahead of her and was alarmed to see that the speedometer was redlined as they drove through the deserted night streets at somewhere over a two hundred kilometers per hour. She glanced up at the flicker of motion in the mirror and saw police lights blaring right as the siren cut it. "Uh… the police…" She began awkwardly.

"Already on it." The ODST behind the wheel stated calmly before he mumbled something to his radio. She was shocked as in a matter of seconds the high speed police interceptor swerved into the empty oncoming lane, accelerated even harder, and neatly pulled ahead of them providing an escort. Whatever was happening was big.

They pulled up to a nondescript grey building and the two ODSTs, a police officer, and her Spartan piled out of their vehicles tactically weapons at the ready just before the Spartan reached back, pulled her bodily out, threw her over his shoulder, and sprinted up the steps. She could feel every bump on the way, and spent the entire time eyeing his assault rifle that was now magnetically clamped to his back inches from her nose.

As they entered the high security building, she expected him to slow, maybe even let her down, so it came as a bit of a shock as they vaulted the first counter without the screaming protest of the rather large amount of Marine guards. Obviously someone had called ahead. She was raced up over forty stories of stairs at a much higher speed then any elevator could have managed before she was finally lowered to now weak legs, all battered, bruised, and very dizzy.

Before she could recover herself a woman in a pantsuit who seemed to fill the role of a secretary ran out to steady her, and lead her through an oaken pair of doors. Fifteen men and women sat around a table that looked like an oval with a line cut down the longer axis with everything towards her from it gone. All the people gathered before her were seated in plush red chairs and dressed in simple elegance that belied their enormous personal power and wealth. "You are Dr. Erica Carlson, the team lead of the Mass Project." A deep voice from the man at the center more stated then asked.

"Yes sir, I am." She replied still weak at the knees from the journey and wondering just what could have brought this on.

"What is the timetable for the deployment of the Spartan's sister ships?"

"Well, we laid down the hulls almost immediately after the designs were drafted, but we have been proceeding at a slower pace so that the Spartan can finish her shakedown cruise first and give us valuable data on the systems. On the current schedule we are looking at a combat deployment in just under sixteen months of the next six, and another ten just four months after that."

"And if the ships were put on highest priority?"

She fished through her memory trying to come up with an answer. "I suppose if we were to increase the construction crew sizes, pull supplies from the second wave of ships, and reroute crews from older classes of ships, the first six could be deployed in… a month and a half?" She answered uncertainly.

The voice of a woman from her right broke in. "You've said multiple times that the Spartan will revolutionize our space warfare capabilities. I've looked over the numbers in your reports though, and they look far from what would be needed to win the war."

Dr Carlson got rather angry, but kept it under control in such august presence, even if they were insulting her baby. "Ma'am. According to all out modeling, the Spartan has a sixty/forty chance of outfighting an Infinity class heavy cruiser. This frigate boasts a crew of one-hundred-thirty-five navy files, and is just over six-hundred meters. The Infinity, by contrast is five kilometers, and has a crew in thousands. No, the Spartan is not a miracle ship that can defeat fleets on her own. She is however, pound for pound, the most deadly ship in the galaxy several hundred times over."

The council looked suitably impressed, and sat for a stunned second, before the man in the center asked "And if those ships were not there? Say if San-Swasan were to fall?"

She thought for a moment before remembering the last Sangheili shipyard. "Well then, we'd be in a rather bad sort, until numbers are up into a meaningful size, the Spartans will depend upon support from the rest of the fleet to keep from being overwhelmed by sheer numbers once they run out of ammunition."

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ugh. I debated whether or not to post today, I was nearly done writing and had yet to edit when I became overcome by a cold. I reasoned y'all would prefir an unedited chapter to none, so here we are. Inshallah, I plan to have an edited version up in 2-3 days, along with retroactive gramatical, formatting, and spelling edits to the previous chapters. And another chapter of Dragons up by Monday, and chapter 5, which is looking from source like it might approach 7+ thousand words up by next Saturday. Yeah, don't be surprised if I don't manage all that... -curls back under covers shaking from chills.-