A/N: I don't own Mass Effect or Halo. Those belong to Bioware and Bungie. Note: this fic has spoilers for Mass Effect 2, Halo 3, and Halo Wars. All rights belong to the aforementioned game companies, and this fic has violence, language, and potentially an AU universe for ME3.
3-1 in favor of the renegade ending. Needless to say, I've made my decision.
Responses to reviews: How would the Alliance know about the Spirit of Fire, they don't have any presence in there, save for Ash, and even then, they can't get to it, remember the Reaper IFF? Plus, why would I support the Alliance? They're not exactly the "good guys", remember? Let's list their sins: 1. they saw need to create Cerberus and to give it instructions/funding/support/orders. 2. They refuse to believe Shepard's warnings about the Reapers. 3. They failed to even do Shepard the courtesy of recovering his frickin' body, after he saves their asses, AND gets them a Council seat! 4. They haven't given him the 2 years of pension that they owe Shepard. 5. They refused to accept the attacks as not being simple slaver or merc raids.
Cortana's been focused on various tasks since she arrived on the SR-2, so once she's safe, there'll probably be some signs of her wearing down. Plus, she's got a plan; remember the deal she made with the Geth?
Chapter quote "You might be a king or a little street sweeper but sooner or later you dance with the Reaper."
Pelican Dropship, enroute to Unknown vessel, tentatively classified as Normandy
Flight Lieutenant Darren Feagins was a little wary about his latest assignment. It wasn't that he was a coward or anything, but he had not signed on with the UNSC so he could fly his Pelican through a massive graveyard in space. It was a difficult task, as he was forced to try and dodge as much debris as possible, and in his experience, officers didn't like being shaken around like peas in a pod. That usually led to being reassigned to some remote outpost for the rest of your service in the UNSC.
He looked back at the passenger compartment. The hulking figures of 3 SPARTANs nearly overshadowed the figure of the Captain. He turned his head back forwards, and concentrated on the task of approaching the unknown vessel. Captain Cutter, was, in his humble opinion, the best CO he had ever served under. He was a fair disciplinarian, he was not afraid to fight alongside the crew if need be, and best of all, he knew how to play cards as well as any professional gambler.
He came around the wreckage of a ship that looked similar to an old Halcyon-class cruiser (1), and saw his destination. The Normandy was a lovely ship, all smooth contours and shiny paint, but he noticed that the ship seemed to have a air of restrained violence that it wouldn't take any crap from anyone.
He continued on the vector given to him by the flight controller, EDI. Apparently the hanger bay was located in probably the oddest of all locations, near the bottom of the ship, and as he approached the space, he noticed a UNSC standard issue cargo container with the numbers FFG-201 stenciled on the side of it. He said "Captain, you may want to look at this."
He heard footsteps on the metal grating, and Captain Cutter appeared behind him, and said "What's the matter, Pilot?"
"Well, sir, it seems that they've managed to find a UNSC cargo container, possibly from a frigate."
"Well, that might explain why they aren't too surprised at hearing that there are other humans out there. Hearing the story behind how they managed to find that should be interesting."
The Pelican jolted as it came to a halt, the aircraft's landing gear extending downwards from their storage places, and came to a stop, suspending the aircraft off the hanger floor. The engines slowly shut down; their loud roaring dying like a switch had been thrown.
The blast door at the rear of the aircraft opened ponderously, splitting into two separate pieces, one moving down to form a ramp, the other moving upwards, and the armored figure of a MJOLNIR, Mark IV Spartan stepped out on the hanger bay of the Normandy. Spartan -092 Jerome, leader of Red Team, looked out at the hanger bay. He noticed the cargo containers, and also noticed several piles of what looked to be M808B MBT parts, which were stacked neatly to one side, along with several tools. Following him were Spartan -042 Douglas, and Spartan -113 Alice, who were looking around the bay with interest, each scanning the area for visible threats, and were also mentally surveying the scene for potentially good cover, in case of a firefight.
Satisfied that the hanger bay was not garrisoned with dozens of stealthed Elites, they gave the all-clear sign, and Captain Cutter stepped out onto the hanger bay. The gravity of the Normandy surprised him for an instant, as it seemed to be Earth standard, and not the microgravity (2) found on UNSC vessels. He was wondering what other technological marvels this ship was hiding, when he heard the ding of a elevator and he turned.
The elevator doors dinged, and Commander Shepard stepped out. His jet-black N7 armor had been polished, removing much of the blood that had been splattered on him and most of the various scrapes, scratches and dents had been removed prior to the suicide mission. His Death Mask had just been buffed, removing a dent from where a husk back on Horizon had tried beating its head against his armored form. Behind him came an even more imposing sight, the 7 foot tall figure of a person wearing a suit of MJOLNIR armor, Mark VI.
Chief reviewed the adjustments on his HUD, making sure that they were running smoothly, and there was no strange red lights blinking on. The MJOLNIR armor hadn't been able to get much in terms of modifications, but it had been modified, but it wasn't visible from a visual glance, save for the scratches and the massive gouge inflicted from his reentry from orbit having been buffed off. Beneath the armored surface, however, was where the real modifications had been made. Namely, the biofoam injectors had been replaced with a series of medigel interfaces, and the shield system had been modified to help deal with disrupter ammo. There were plans for potentially increasing the power of the servomotors that ran the armor, and adding in a series of Eezo nodes to lighten the armor's weight, but they hadn't had the time or resources available to modify the armor fully, hence the very limited series of modifications.
Almost eclipsed in his shadow, was Garrus. He had been invited down to meet and greet the newcomers, so he had taken some time to dig out some armor polish, and had set to work. He hated being dragged away from calibrating the Thanix cannons, as they were quickly proving to be the most temperamental piece of equipment that he had ever worked with. Apparently the real reason why they didn't bother trying to install the cannons on frigates wasn't due to the power consumption and cost, but was instead because apparently when the cannons were designed, the morons who were responsible for drawing out their plans had configured the cannons to be operated in synch with another set, and seeing how the Normandy had only 1 set of cannons, the guns would routinely refuse to work without the targeting information from the other set. However, he had managed to finally get a software patch in place that SHOULD prevent it, but he would later see about getting a permanent solution devised, preferably by having Cortana or EDI divert a cycle to see about devising a software correction. (3) However, Shepard had come to him to ask for a custom detail to be added to the guns, which Garrus liked the idea of.
He managed to fix the guns and also accommodate Shepard's request, but he was now left with only 20 minutes until the other humans were scheduled to arrive. He didn't have the time to have the broken neck of the armor to be replaced; but he had managed to clean off much of the armor's scratches and had applied a homemade anti-glare coating, so as to avoid attracting light. However, it had the unfortunate side effect of turning his armor a shade of cyan than he would've normally avoided, but he had been running a bit late, so there was no time to correct it, and all he could hope was that it dried quickly enough that his armor would resume it's normal color in a quick and timely fashion. (4)
He stepped out of the elevator and moved to the right side of Shepard, while Chief moved to his left. Red Team, upon seeing a cyan colored armored figure, which bore an unfortunate resemblance to an unhelmeted Elite, reacted much the same way that many UNSC personnel would react.
This is a reference to a ME2 Easter Egg, namely that in the debris field, there's a ship that resembles the Pillar of Autumn. I myself haven't seen it, but seeing how the Collector's graveyard inspired me to throw in the SOF; I figured this would be a nice reference.
Yeah, UNSC ships have microgravity, which is below the 1g found on Earth, and seeing how I have no idea about ME's artificial gravity, I just have to assume that they have full, 1g gravity on their vessels.
That's my theory on why Garrus keeps recalibrating the guns. Remember the tech for the guns was EXPERIMENTAL. I.E. it's still not had all the bugs worked out yet.
Nope, no ominous foreshadowing here, just move along, nothing to see here.
Yeah, I like Garrus too much to bump him off. like that anyway
