Shepard leaned against a wall in the cafeteria; his armor patched and repaired with parts from ODST issued body suits. Joker was similarly attired, but sat at one of the mess hall tables fiddling with his new artificial leg. One of the aliens, Liara, being the same size and shape as a human, wore a complete set of ODST armor. Tali wore her normal envirosuit, but she had thrown on a few pieces of marine body armor to supplement it, mostly the parts containing storage compartments or oxygen supplies. Shepard was pretty sure that Odeg hadn't ever removed his armor.
The reason they were all dressed in armor, was simply that the slip space engine couldn't work without a very specific part. Shepard didn't understand the physics behind it, but in short it was the equivalent to a crankshaft, just dealing a lot more with quarks and micro black holes and other gibberish, so they couldn't just make a replacement.
There were plenty of slip space engines drifting in and among the debris field, the only problem was Artemis couldn't remotely detect whether or not they had this 'crankshaft' part. He was drawn from his musings by Joker complaining about something, again.
"Stupid AI didn't even have the nice models of artificial legs." Joker complained loudly.
"Please! That leg replicates the functions of your old leg perfectly, so what if it looks like a metal skeleton?" Artemis retorted.
Joker crossed his arms, "Yeah, but it would have been way, way cooler to have a grenade launcher built into my leg."
Shepard laughed at that, "Or you could, you know, just carry a grenade launcher."
Joker's expression turned thoughtful, "I might, I could put it next to the cup holder I keep meaning to install."
The group broke out laughing, Artemis stopped suddenly, mid laugh, "There's a signal coming from Reach."
"Impossible, everyone is dead… It's been months, the covenant are nothing if not thorough." Joker turned to regard the AI.
"Apparently not, it was a single transmission, not on a loop, and obviously recorded less than two days ago. I'll play it."
This is Lieutenant Colonel Rodriguez, UNSC army. Don't know who blew up that ship in orbit, didn't think there were any more survivors. I'm sort of stuck down here on the planet in a nuke shelter. I'd appreciate a pickup… If you're a bunch of covies listening in on this. I'd appreciate you coming down here so I can kick your ass.
"Well, he's certainly human…" Artemis commented.
Shepard furrowed his brow in thought, "If there is a survivor down there, we need to pick him up. Artemis, could there be any more?"
"It's highly unlikely that any are actually on reach… I almost have my doubts about this person actually being alive, that and why did he wait two days to send that? It is conceivable that some of the ships with cryo tubes could still have survivors aboard. Like Joker said though, the covenant would have likely found them. There have been ships in and out of reach since the end of the battle, poking around and essentially using surviving wrecks as target practice. It was only a few weeks before you showed up that the covenant seemed to fully pull out."
"Well then, how likely is this to be a trap?" Shepard asked the AI.
"Considering the content of the message, and the lack of subtlety the covenant generally display… Well, it's beyond unlikely. There is almost a one hundred percent chance of a survivor being down there."
Shepard focused on the AI's avatar, looking her in the 'eyes'. "Now I guess my only remaining question, is can we trust you to pick us back up if we go after this survivor?"
Artemis' avatar looked up to the ceiling and started whistling.
Shepard leaned back and crossed his arms.
Artemis stopped whistling and her avatar took on a serious look, and met his eyes, "No commander, you don't have to worry about a thing."
Shepard didn't know if he was consigning his group to slow starvation or asphyxiation on Reach, but he trusted the AI for some reason. "Okay, Joker, I'll want you to pilot the pelican, I will go down as well. Any of you three that wants to can come as well.
Odeg stepped forward, followed by the other two. Shepard nodded his head, "Alright Artemis, hold down the fort while we're gone." He gestured to the group with him, "Let's go ladies."
Shepard had to try hard not to laugh at the reaction the elite showed at being called a female.
ooooooo
Tali rode in the antiquated seeming shuttle for a second time. The ride was vastly smoother than the first, testament to the pilot's skills over Shepard's. As the shuttle continued to the planet, her thoughts drifted back to the AI. It was strange… what if the quarians of three hundred years ago had made the Geth that way? Would they have rebelled, would the quarian people still have their homeworld?
She shook the questions from her mind. What ifs were useless bouts of nostalgia.
She looked around the passenger compartment. Shepard and Joker were riding up front, which left her with Liara and Odeg'Delus. The sangheili was a mystery to her. The hulking warrior was apparently a man of few words. She had gotten to know something about the humans, she figured now was the time to learn something about the sangheili, or elites as Shepard and Joker called them.
"So…"
At that simple statement she found the elite looking at her expectantly. She almost lost her nerve, somehow she managed to continue asking, "I don't know anything about your people."
The alien's reptilian head turned to the side, "That makes two of us."
When he didn't elaborate, Tali felt the need to push him, "What do you mean?"
Odeg regarded her again for a few moments, "If you discover that the past three thousand years of your species' development was based on a lie, ask me that again."
He turned away, making it clear that the conversation was over.
She debated walking up to the cockpit; at least humans seemed to be good conversationalists. Before she could get up a small light came on, her translator showed it as a reentry alarm. Instead of standing up she tightened her restraints as the small ship began shaking a little as atmospheric drag started heating up the outside.
After a few minutes of shaking, she felt the ship level off. The rear hatch began to open, showing a blasted landscape behind them. They were flying about a hundred meters above the tortured ground.
A small alarm went off in her helmet, which she quickly silenced. It told her the air now filling the cabin wasn't safe to breath. Her suit had switched to a combination of internal supplies and what little oxygen that could be scrubbed from the air. She was glad that she had the foresight to attach extra oxygen supplies from a set of human armor.
The terrain seemed to change suddenly; there was a lot more blackened ash. It was hard to tell, but before the bombardment Tali guessed this might have been a forest.
They eventually passed over a small hill; Joker brought the ship around for a landing. They slowly began settling down; Tali could make out a small metal door in the side of the hill.
The pelican shook from an explosion and went spinning. The centripetal force caused her to be pressed against her straps. She felt something tear, then the odd sensation of freefall. Tali saw the sangheili fly past her, having not strapped in, then she saw nothing.
ooooooo
Tali woke sometime later in a daze. She quickly checked to see if her suit was breached, almost as reflex. Fortunately it seemed to be intact.
After getting that out of the way she took in her surroundings. She was lying down in a small depression. The surface she lay in was hard and slightly translucent. She didn't take the time to study it further. Voices came from not far away, she couldn't quite make them out, and so she crawled to the lip of the crater.
She heard a faint mechanical whine, but couldn't see anything. A dust storm had apparently been brewing; visibility was less than two dozen meters. She took a chance and stood up, walking towards the voices as quietly as she could.
Two dark figures stood over a single prone one. At this range Tali could overhear their words.
"I can scarcely believe my own eyes. A zealot working with the humans?" One remarked to the other.
The other was slow in replying, "Such heresy, end his pathetic life before he wakes. A traitor such as this does not even deserve a proper death."
Tali didn't know who the two figures where, but she could guess who they were talking about. She brought out her shotgun and fired a blast at them. As expectedly they both whipped around and charged at her. One was firing what appeared to be blue bolts of plasma at her, the other held a blade made of energy, like the one carried by Odeg when she first met him.
They were quick; she had to give them that. Tali fired a second blast at the one with a gun before breaking into a run. She didn't have any more tech mines, just her guns… and… she holstered her shotgun while running and tapped a few commands into her omni-tool.
A small ball of light and mass effect fields popped into existence behind her. Omni-tool drones, having no solid form, were mostly useless, they needed direct line of sight to an omni-tool to function, and were a significant waste of power, but they could provide a good distraction if used right. Mostly because they could mimic the look of a combat drone, which definitely could do something.
In this case it proved life saving. She heard her pursuers yell in surprise, glancing back, she saw them switch to attack the drone, giving her time to duck in and hide behind an outcropping. As soon as line of sight was broken the drone disappeared. The two aliens pursuing her let out a cry of outrage.
Tali knew it was only a matter of time before they found her, so she started sneaking along behind cover, back to where she thought Odeg had fallen from the pelican.
A few tense minutes later she found herself standing above the gold armored warrior. She didn't know how to wake the sangheili up. There were no chemical injection ports, so she simply guessed. Tali took the alien's head in hand and shook it, "Wake up!"
A deep voice came from behind her, "Ha ha! I knew you would come back for the traitor!" The voice belonged to a sangheili like Odeg, initially there was nothing there, then a black armored sangheili materialized from some sort of active camouflage. The alien strode forward, and in two steps picked Tali up by the throat, holding his plasma gun to her chest. The warrior cocked his head to one side, "You aren't human…"
Any further thoughts were cut off and twin glowing white blades stabbed through the sangheili's chest. Tali collapsed to the ground choking as the black armored alien died and released his grip, "thanks." She managed to mutter to the zealot.
"So, the traitor is awake. Good, I was hoping for a fight." The second black armored sangheili, drawn by the noise, stalked into view from the cover of the dust storm.
Tali readied her shotgun, Odeg held his sword at the ready, neither side moved.
"You do not know what you talk of fool. The prophets have betrayed us. Once their pet brutes are finished with the human home world, they will march on our own." Odeg tried to reason with the other warrior.
"Bah, lies from a dishonorable coward!" The other one snarled.
Tali could see it took a huge amount of self control for the zealot not to leap at the other warrior.
"I have seen it myself, on the streets of high charity, as the brutes slaughtered our women and children, then as the flood came, and the bastard truth fled our once great city in the forerunner's own dreadnaught." Odeg's words were laced with bitterness. Tali realized he was speaking from personal experience.
"I will hear no more!" The other ignited his own sword and charged.
Tali shifted to the side but missed the warrior with her shotgun. Odeg, in an impressive display of skill, diverted the other sangheili's blade and sliced him in half in a single motion.
Instead of a roar of triumph, Tali simply saw him shake his head, "What a waste."
Tali decided not to comment; instead she brought up her omni-tool. Thankfully she detected the small IFF signals Shepard told her they used for their motion detectors, "This way," She gestured in the direction of the rest of their team.
Odeg nodded, "Yes, there maybe more of my people that were left here, we must stop them."
ooooooo
The two dreadnaughts closed in on the turian fleet. Kuril watched with apprehension. Two cruisers near the edge of the fleet began maneuvering rapidly. Then they disappeared from the display.
A transmission followed their deaths, "Be warned, enemy is using some sort of guided plasma weapon. Kinetic barriers ineffective."
Kuril had an idea, considering how far away the previous ship had engaged… he began shouting orders, "Open fire, I don't care how far out of range we are. Just start shooting!"
He didn't feel the ship shudder as the cruiser's main gun opened up, their compensators were too well designed. He was rewarded with reports of multiple hits on the enemy vessel. The other ships of the fleet took his example, even the idiot admiral of the Void Hunter. Soon the first of the two dreadnaughts was in the middle of a withering hail of mass effect cannon fire, including that from another dreadnaught.
The enemy vessel merely shrugged off the weapons fire. Two more cruisers disappeared from the display. Leaving only four cruisers and the dreadnaught, with only thirty six frigates as escorts. That changed as the frigates attempted to close into guardian weapon ranges. The two dreadnaughts tore half of those from the skies as soon as they got in range.
Kuril was left standing at his command post in open flanged astonishment. Two ships had destroyed half of the remaining fleet, and their shields were still up.
"Another two plasma charges fired. Both are heading toward the Void Hunter."
Kuril watched in morbid fascination as the mighty dreadnaught simply disappeared from the display, "By the spirits…" he breathed.
"Orders sir?" One of the bridge crew turned to look at him.
Kuril snapped out of his state of shock, "Order all remaining vessels to regroup at the mass relay. We'll be back, to rescue our comrades on the ground, or to avenge them!"
ooooooo
Nihlus walked into his frigate, which was landed amid the army transports. After the mission he was hoping for a short time to relax. A messenger ran up to him, telling him already that wouldn't likely happen. "Sir, we received a transmission from the fleet, unknown dreadnaughts were sighted, and they are engaging the enemy."
"Any more information?"
"None so far sir. Increased chatter on human frequencies, we still haven't decrypted it. The fleet stopped sending updates on the battle a few minutes ago, we know they lost two cruisers and several frigates before they stopped transmitting."
Nihlus nodded and changed his course to where the human prisoner was being held. The door opened and he stalked in, ignoring the guards, he grabbed the human by the collar of his worn down armor and lifted him up. "You will tell me how many ships are left in your fleet."
"I miss you too buddy." The human replied snidely.
Nihlus smacked him and sent him flying to the ground. "Now!"
"What's the rush?" The human kept up the sarcastic attitude.
Nihlus tapped a few commands on his omni-tool bringing up a few random intercepted transmissions, text only ones. He brought them up on a display. "What do they say?"
The human didn't even bother to look, "I dunno."
Nihlus snarled, ready to resort to less pleasant measures. "You will decrypt these for me now, or I will start rounding up your civilians and executing them right here in front of you." Nihlus personally didn't want to resort to such a disgusting tactic, but if the fleet was lost this might be his only chance at saving turian lives until reinforcements could show up.
The human gave him a hate filled stare for a few moments, and then turned to the display. "I'll need one of our computers to decrypt it,"
Nihlus gave an order to one of the guards, and five minutes later they brought a small but heavy portable computer of some kind up to the cell.
Nihlus roughly shoved the computer into the prisoner's lap. A few minutes more and the prisoner began reading. "Winter contingency has been… shit."
Nihlus was adept at reading many species facial expressions. The human's expression was no longer one of indifference or hate, but of fear.
"They're here, oh god they're here. Hell! Shit! Damn!" The string of expletetives continued on. Nihlus' sense of urgency was only heightened by his curiosity.
Nihlus waited for the human to take a breath, "Who is here?" He demanded.
"The covenant…" The human stood up suddenly, "Remember when I told you to watch out for a big purple ship? You might want to check to see what's in orbit."
Nihlus just about pulled his pistol and shot the man, he was obviously treating this as another joke, "Do you want me to shoot your civilians?"
"You'd be doing them a favor if they send the jackals down. I'm deadly serious. Get a telescope and point it at the sky, now!"
If anything the sheer vehemence in the man's voice convinced him.
He walked out, and glanced towards a window. It was dark outside; when he had entered the frigate it had been sunny...
He stepped up to the window and looked up. A massive ship hovered in the sky above the turian landing zone, what looked like a swarm of flies came out of its hangar bays. Guardian defense turrets opened up, and were just as quickly destroyed by either the ship itself or the smaller fliers.
His radio crackled, "All turian forces, escape and evade. Enemy has orbital control. Repeat…"
Nihlus recognized Kuril's voice in the transmission. That told him things had become very bad in orbit. Not that the dreadnaught somehow hanging above the landing site hadn't proved that already.
He ran back to the prison cell, "Get you're weapons and move! Outside, we're being invaded." The two soldiers were too well trained to ask questions. They merely shouldered their weapons and ran down the hallways.
Nihlus turned to the human still sitting in the chair, "What is this covenant?"
"Genocidal, alien, monsters, they've already destroyed over a hundred worlds. If you want to live we're going to need to work together. You've got a few ships, and we have an army here. If we can fight the covenant off on the ground, you might be able to force them to retreat in space."
Nihlus nodded, seeing no other option at the time, "If we still have a fleet."
ooooooo
AN: Well, here's the next chapter, I had planned for them to get to earth at this point, but I decided I wanted a 'team building exercise' before that happened. Also I wanted to introduce a few OCs, one of which was suggested by one of my readers, Just a Crazy-Man (he's also the reason we aren't at earth yet, blame him ;) ). Originally this was supposed to happen on earth, but I think it has/will turn out well. If you need to ask, yes I will get to ME1 story eventually, I'm just not going to skip over much at all.
Also, I have to point you over to Gobbles the Turkey's story, Halo: The Incursion. Just as he admits in his author's note that he's my creepy stalker (considering I don't think we've even communicated besides reviewing each other's story... yeah...), I have to say his story is one of my favorite halo/ME crossovers here, I draw plenty of inspiration for my own story from his. Even if they have different plotlines.
One last note, if you want to know why I've underpowered the MAC guns in my story look at Wannabecriminalman's profile page. He has a nice well thought out argument against over powered MACs. I don't agree with every bit of his ship stats section, but it does make for a good argument.
Well, before my AN gets longer than my story, I'll just say that reviews are appreciated.
