AN: We've reached the top 5 of the most followed Halo/Mass Effect Crossovers on this website, so thank you all so much! Be sure to leave a review or PM to let me know what you think!

~0~

0500 Hours, April 30, 2553 (MILITARY CALENDAR) \ Onboard UNSC Point of No Return, Sector B-042


Admiral Parangosky, Commander-in-Chief of the Office of Naval Intelligence, examined the report that lay before her. The by-now familiar sensation of fatigue washed over her as she read the specifics on the latest incident.

She sighed. First Contact over Jericho VII. Insurrectionists on Venezia. Jul'Mdama having escaped captivity. Agents within the Office of Naval Intelligence assassinated, with no culprits apprehended. Would this never cease?

She would focus her attention on that last problem first. After all, this was hardly the first time that strife within ONI's Sections resulted in casualties. She herself had plenty of blood on her hands.

Aaron Gibson, the head of ONI Section Three's Black Operations division, had been found in his office dead two months ago. A month later, the report of the extensive research into the cause of his death had been published. Last week, investigators reopened the case.

That made thus situation somewhat more difficult. As far as she knew, Aaron Gibson had never actively participated in the inter-Section rivalry. Plenty of people disliked him, but nobody had a solid reason to assassinate him.

Parangosky presumed the file detailing his death would grant her some insight in his untimely demise.

Begin Log, ██-██-████

The Commander-in-Chief wordlessly verified her security clearance and the black ink disappeared.

Not that it changed much. The report was fairly simple, starting with a synopsis of an interview and the following logs, followed by a description of Gibson's daily routine.

It was the last paragraph, however, that caught Parangosky's attention.

[It is determined that this is the point where Captain Gibson accidentally tripped upon entering his office. He struck his head against the corner of her desk, snapping his neck between the second and third vertebrae.]

The Admiral closed her eyes and sighed. This was the fourth such report filed in the last couple of years. The security cameras had been spoofed or disabled, biometrics had somehow been bypassed and there were almost no leads to go on.

She knew what happened. Captain Gibson was outspoken in his resentment towards the SPARTAN-II project. That alone was no reason to kill him. After all, who wasn't jealous of the Spartans' exploits?

The more knowledge of classified operations you held within ONI, the more dangerous you were. Captain Gibson was one of the select individuals who knew about the SPARTAN-III Project, as well as the Spartan Operator division. And while Gibson had been highly supportive of the former, he had done everything in his power to shut down the latter, citing that the Operators were too unstable in the long run, and had to be shut down.

It seemed that the Operators' own boogeyman had taken offense to that. Number Three must have paid him a visit, like he did with everybody who posed a threat to his "siblings".

Admiral Parangosky scowled. The assassination was well-executed. Just like before, the combination of a lack of evidence and the secretive nature of the Operators made it almost impossible to link 003 to the murders.

But she felt tired, and almost was not good enough for her. She was starting to feel like green-lighting that particular project had been a mistake. It was time to rectify that.

The order was issued within the minute. After all, the Wayfarer managed to send an FTL burst to broadcast their position before contact was lost. There was no hiding from the Office.

The rogue element was now Kilo-Five's problem. Parangosky trusted that Spartan-010 would make short work of the younger knockoff.

With that problem solved, Parangosky focused her attention on the UNSC's newest problem. Alien warships orbiting Jericho VII.

Commander De Blanc followed Protocol to the letter. Even though Jericho VII had been lost two decades ago, there was still a sizeable debris field orbiting the colony. Most weapon systems and Slipspace drives had been purged before the UNSC retreated, and every lost vessel had their navigational data completely expunged. However, that did not stop pirates and salvagers from attempting to make some quick and easy money of the wreckages.

Parangosky had little in the way of sentiment, but even she felt her stomach churn at the thought of such scum defiling the enormous tomb that was Jericho VII. Thousands of bodies still orbited the fallen world, as a major cleanup operation had yet to be undertaken. As such, any unidentified vessels on that entered the Lambda Serpentis system and failed to identify themselves within the second would be located, targeted and destroyed.

But there was no saying how long the aliens had been there, studying the debris field – the bodies – and learning everything they could about humanity. Whatever technological edge the UNSC had over them could be irrevocably lost already.

The other problems paled in comparison. Time was of the essence.

With that in mind, Admiral Parangosky prepared a plan of action for two different kind of scenarios. A peaceful First Contact was the best-case scenario, one that demanded her full attention. However, if these aliens were anything like the Covenant…they had to be crushed as soon as humanly possible.

She had to make a few calls.

~0~

12:16 Hours, May 1, 2553 (MILITARY CALENDAR) \ Onboard UNSC Resolute, Lambda Serpentis system


Commander Hannah De Blanc stood on the bridge of the Resolute, cursing the lack of a shipboard AI for what felt like the tenth time that day. Behind her, the bridge of the Destroyer-Class warship was a beehive of activity. Her bridge crew rushed to between their consoles, running calculations, purging the ship's navigation data and putting together after-action reports. Despite the possible ramifications of the encounter, they performed their tasks with purpose and coordination, the product of years spent fighting the Covenant.

"Navigation data purge confirmed ma'am," said Lieutenant Jackson, the oldest of the junior officers. He had served on no less than four different vessels before being assigned to the Resolute and survived more encounters with the Covenant than even De Blanc herself had.

"Good work," replied the Commander. Though the location of Earth was now well known to what remained of the Covenant, the Navy still had to obey the Cole Protocol, and Cpatain De Blanc had a sinking feeling that adhering to the Cole Protocol was the best thing they could do in this situation.

After all, the alien warships they found orbiting Jericho VII were definitely not Covenant. Their designs simply didn't match any known Covenant vessels in the database, and she had checked every single ship at least three times in the last hour. These ships had been roughly triangular in shape, looking more aerodynamic than organic. Even their weapons and tactics were unlike the Covenant. Kinetic-based weapons and a hasty retreat?

No, De Blanc's gut told her that this was a First Contact scenario. And because of an unfortunate combination of hostile actions from both sides, this might very well escalate.

De Blanc wished that the UNSC spent more time programing an adequate protocol for First Contact. She glanced over her shoulder, seeing that Lieutenant Suzuka was still tweaking the First-Contact package at the ops station.

The crew of the Resolute had contacted FLEETCOM's Alpha Channel as soon as the enemy left the system, requesting reinforcements and further orders. Fleet Admiral Harper had given them standing orders to avoid further conflict and hold their position until reinforcements could arrive. And should the aliens return, they were only to engage them in self-defense.

The Commander did not regret her actions. The Resolute's standing orders were to destroy any unauthorized ship in the Lambda Serpentis system, and those alien ships had definitely been designed as warships. Even worse, they had been trespassing on hallowed ground, and the technological edges that were hidden within the shredded hulls of Covenant and UNSC ships that made up the bulk of the debris field could not be allowed to fall into alien hands.

"Analysis of the alien language is complete, ma'am," declared Ensign Owens. "No match found with the Prophets. They're…not any species the UNSC has ever encountered."

De Blanc pinched the bridge of her nose. She had secretly been hoping that they stumbled onto some sort of secret research flotilla, staffed by Engineers and Prophets. No such luck.

At least there won't be civilian casualties, she bitterly thought. For a moment, she didn't know how to respond. Her crew already went through hell and back the last year, and now they were going to have to do it all over again? Hadn't humanity earned her peace?

She took a deep breath and forced herself to calm down. She wasn't alone in this. Battlegroup Monte Cristo was specifically put together to deal with hostile fringe elements. She was certain that the Frigate CO's were all struggling to cope with this revelation as well.

Thankfully, none of the ships suffered any casualties. The offensive and defensive systems of these unknowns were inferior to the Covenant, which came as a huge relief to De Blanc.

"Scans on the object in the asteroid field are finished, ma'am," said Lieutenant Jackson. "It's…uhm…Christ, I hope that not's one of their warships."

"Show me," ordered the Commander.

Jackson brought up the image of the object on the holographic display to the Commander's left.

De Blanc frowned. The object was massive, easily as large as an Assault Carrier. It looked like an enormous tuning fork, except its center core seemed to be spinning like an enormous gyroscope. Jackson's scans indicated that it was constructed from a material that didn't match any known metals.

At first, she shared the Lieutenant's fear that it could be an enormous warship of some sorts. However, the longer she looked at the image, the more unlikely that thought seemed. It was fixed in position, and didn't give off any detectable signals apart from a massive gravitational force.

Fluctuating gravitational force.

"Well, that's not ominous at all," she muttered. She sighed and sat back down in her seat. "I don't think it's a ship. But just to be sure, we'll hold our positions until Fleet Admiral Harper can reinforce us. Lieutenant, as soon as that First Contact package is finished, send it to the rest of the battlegroup."

"Aye Commander!" Replied Lieutenant Suzuka.

Then, De Blanc hit the Alpha priority channel and issued a fleet-wide transmission. "Alright ladies and gentlemen, no doubt you've reached the same conclusion as we have. As of this moment, any further interaction with the unknown aliens will be treated as First Contact. We won't be the ones to drag humanity into another hell. As soon as those aliens come back, we are going to follow protocol and send them out modified First Contact package. See if they're susceptible to peace. If they are, good on them. But if they're not, this Battlegroup will show them that forces more powerful than they could ever hope to be, failed to break humanity, and we're going to show them why. De Blanc out."

Her crew seemed to perk up when they heard that. They glanced at her for a moment, determination alit in their gazes, before returning to their duties with renewed vigor.

The Commander closed her eyes. This had to work. There had been enough death, enough destruction. Humanity deserved her peace.

~0~

Onboard Turian Hierarchy Cruiser Palavan's Grace

En-route to Section Zero


The loss of the Phalanx had infuriated the turians serving on the Palavan's Grace. They wanted blood and demanded that the Council's expedition force return with at least a full Fleet to make sure these hostile aliens could never harm anyone ever again.

But General Septimus Oraka was old, and more resistant to the urge to approach every problem with military ordnance. Decades of experience had tempered his mind, and he knew that violence was not the best way to approach this new problem.

As the first human Spectre so elegantly put it, a steady heart could be a s solid as a steady rifle. Oraka silenced his crew without effort. "History will teach that the Hierarchy learns from its mistakes. We already once nearly caused a war to spark. We shall not be the cause of another. Look at the data that the Intermission provided us with! This world is a graveyard, and these aliens guard their own, even in death."

The soldiers in his bridge calmed down when they realized that he was right, and returned to monitoring their consoles. Turians looked to their superior for guidance, after all.

It was such a shame that their superior did not feel very calm himself. In truth, General Oraka was starting to second-guess his decision to volunteer for this expedition. He prided himself in knowing how to anticipate his enemy and strike at their weakness accordingly. However, when he looked at the images of the alien vessels that the Expedition force encountered, he realized that he might be in over his head.

The "enemy" as his fellow turians so foolishly referred to them as, did not use Element Zero at all. That meant their technology – and thus their tactics – would be next-to impossible to predict. And that, Oraka had to admit, frightened him somewhat. Above all, he wanted to avoid bloodshed and welcome this new species into the galactic fold. But their past actions made it somewhat difficult to just "roll out the welcome mat", as the human saying went.

To kill some time before the Expedition force returned to Section Zero, Oraka opened the file named "Scenario: Section Zero", which would serve as their First Contact package. It was imperative that every Captain knew what to do in order to expedite a peaceful contact. The contact message was designed to be as non-threatening as possible, but the fleet of warships delivering it might undermine that promise of peace somewhat.

If only the Council had agreed on one solid way to approach this matter. Either send in a full Fleet, or send none at all. Sending a third of a Fleet to be non-threatening, yet having said Fleet be spearheaded by a Dreadnaught was the most unfortunate case of mixed signals Oraka had seen in months.

But in a moment of patience and compassion, Matriarch Erinzi Samel had managed to convince the other commanding officers not to follow the Intermission through the Relay until it was absolutely necessary. Only the Palavan's Grace was to follow, as a sign of goodwill to the aliens.

Soon, they would see if the Matriarch was right or not.

"One minute until we reach the Relay,," reported Oraka's XO.

"Prepare the exit protocols. And remember; we are not to fire unless fired upon."

Fortunately for them all, the aliens' lack of Eezo-based technology meant that they had yet to discover how to use the Mass Relay. Whatever manner of FTL travel they employed had not granted them access to Citadel space yet.

It was a grim thought, but Oraka wished that the Phalanx had been so utterly destroyed that the aliens could not possibly have pillaged any information from its systems. After all, what if these beings managed to use fallen Cruiser's information to gain access to Council territory? What if other aliens returned to this system, only to find the Expedition force trespassing yet again?

"Twenty seconds. Protocol has been readied, General. Fist Contact scenarios are in place. The Intermission is in position. Four seconds until she hits the Relay."

"Good. Keep monitoring our systems."

Soon, the Intermission reached the Relay. The ancient artefact would place her within the asteroid field, far away from the tomb-world. If they just kept their distance and started transmitting the moment they could, this might not end up like the last First Contact did.

Soon, it was the Grace's turn. They approached the Relay, and their navigational officer transmitted the calculations necessary to facilitate the jump.

"Five…four…three…two…one…"

Oraka ignored the shock of sudden acceleration and immediately ordered his crew to start broadcasting the second they arrived in the system.

Within moments, sensor data flooded their systems, painting a vivid picture of the current situation within Section Zero.

General Oraka had read all about it. The glass planet, the immense debris field, the alien warships, but even he felt a sense of awe and uneasiness settle within his gut.

Here he was, an old General past his time, witnessing the very first time in the Hierarchy's history that they made First Contact with a spacefaring race that did not use Element Zero. He thought back to the conflict with humanity, the war with the Rachni, and the soldier within him started analyzing the foreign ships before he noticed.

Not the elegant design of the asari, or the smooth, nimble ships of the salarians. These ships were sturdy-looking, boxy and black. All of them were the size of the Palavan's Grace, but they looked so much heavier. So much more massive. One of them was shaped differently. Flat, with a tapered nose. That was the one who reportedly sent the transmission, seconds before they opened fire.

Oraka took a deep breath. What if they are like the krogan? The Rachni?

Spirits, what if they are like us?

"It is time," he muttered. "Wait until the Matriarch makes her move. Then, we will transmit the contact scenario ourselves."

The alien battlegroup still held its position above the ruined world. Ten of those elongated, boxy vessel and one arrow-shaped vessel. It was very likely that this was the same battlegroup that met the Expedition force before.

The same battlegroup that appeared out of nowhere. The entire civilized galaxy depended on choke points between the Mass Relays for protection. Every scenario for a full-scale war that Oraka knew of started with the fortification of Primary Relays and their exit points. This species, however, had no need for that. They could appear out of nowhere, strike without a warning and then disappear again.

How did one defend against such a people?

"General, Matriarch Samel has transmitted the scenario!" Called his XO.

"Send the message as well. Direct the tight-beam to their flagship, the one with the sharp nose," ordered Oraka.

The First Contact scenario contained a combination of visual and audio files. Three-dimensional images of the main Citadel species at their best, at their most dependable, along with a message written in every language and dialect that the known species of the Council spoke. The message was simple. They wanted peace and nothing else.

"And now," the General muttered to nobody in particular, "we shall wait and see."

~0~

07:22 Hours, May 2, 2553 (MILITARY CALENDAR) \ Onboard UNSC Resolute, Lambda Serpentis system,


They were back. They used the artefact to leave the system the moment they lost one of their vessels and now, they used that same artefact to return. The enormous, rotating sphere was still alit with blue energy, arcs of electricity jumping from its frame.

Commander De Blanc had the battlegroup on high alert in an instant. Two alien vessels appeared at the fringe of the asteroid field, facing the colony but keeping their distance.

"Ship signatures match the previous fleet," Ensign Owens quietly said. "It's them."

The Commander observed the holographic display of the Lambda Serpentis System from several angles. Something wasn't right. "There are only two. Where are the others?"

Lieutenant Jackson typed in a string of commands. "No other ships detected in-system. Those are the only two."

De Blanc leaned further towards the image. "What the hell are you up to?" She muttered. It had to be a trap of some sorts. Present an easy target, lure the defending ships away from Jericho and then jump on them with a rapid response group. Since the massive alien artefact was some sort of FTL device, they could easily insert an entire Fleet into the asteroid field within seconds of them splitting battlegroup Monte Cristo apart.

Damnit, they didn't have the manpower to deal with this. Fleet Admiral Harper's reinforcements were another two days away.

She'd have to be insane to send ships towards the aliens to intercept them. But the thing was, the aliens had to know that. They kept their distance for a reason. They had every reason to blitz their battlegroup with superior numbers, but they didn't.

So why –

"Commander, we are receiving a message from the left-most vessel!" Cried Lieutenant Suzuka.

"See to our cyber-defenses, make sure they can't get access to our systems," ordered De Blanc.

"Got it ma'am. We are prepared to resist any hacking attempt."

De Blanc nodded, ill at ease. "What kind of message did they send us?"

"It's a large file," continued Suzuka. "It seems to contain visual and audio feeds. Thousands of images, hundreds of audio messages."

"Send the message to the command screen. Let's see what we're dealing with."

Within seconds, the junior officer had the alien message playing on a large, holographic display to the Commander's right.

De Blanc vowed to watch the recording in its entirety before judging it, but was forced to abandon that line of thinking when she saw the very first image. "Freeze on the first image," she ordered.

The bridge crew fell quiet, dumbstruck by what they saw. It was a woman, a female human with blue skin and a crest of tentacles instead of hair.

"Christ," muttered Jackson. "That's a human. A blue-skinned human."

De Blanc proceeded to the next images, eager to see if the male was as humanoid as the female. She felt a sickly sensation of hope washing over her.

Not Covenant. They're not Covenant.

That last thought must have been forefront within the minds of her bridge crew as well. A prayer. A litany. No more war. No more bloodshed. Finally, humanity would have peace.

The images showed more alien species, each one decidedly less human than the blue-skinned beings. There were scaly, avian species, grey-looking amphibious ones, large aliens who walked on all fours and even small aliens that looked like Grunts.

Commander De Blanc felt a spike of adrenaline when she saw the last one, but then she noticed that the diminutive alien was different. It had a full environmental suit, looked chubbier and walked straighter. She just assumed that the semblance was an uncanny coincidence and nothing else.

"So many species," she said. "It's like the Covenant, but…none of them are known Covenant species."

"If that many different aliens can achieve peace, maybe they're not hostile at all?" Suggested Ensign Owens, his tone a bit too hopeful for De Blanc's tastes. "I mean, they didn't open fire until we did."

"Hang on…" the Commander muttered when she reached another species. "Wait, that's us."

Audible gasps and murmurs echoed through the bridge. The alien vessel had sent them about a hundred images per species, including a hundred images of humans. Images that could not possibly have been taken in the Lambda Serpentis System.

What the hell? This made no sense! Unless ONI had been secretly feeding these things information about humanity, there was no way these aliens could have this many pictures!

The audio files were gibberish, almost all of them. The only one that seemed to make sense was an audio file attached to the "human" section of the images. The Resolute's powerful computing systems ran the message through every translation matrix available and the end result was…odd, to say the least.

"Greets. His matria of innervision, kwender of Citadel. Feas, let there be please intween species."

It sounded like broken Earth-English. It reminded De Blanc of the First Contact with the Covenant. Back in 2525, the Covenant had intercepted human COM transmissions after the First Battle of Harvest, allowing them to learn the English language with ease. Following the disastrous battles at Harvest, the Covenant used this knowledge to broadcast long curses at human colonies and ships before destroying them, but never to initiate an actual conversation.

Garbled as it sounded, the core intention of this message was well received. De Blan felt like a huge weight fell from her shoulders. Humanity found a second galactic civilization composed of several different species and it wasn't the Covenant. This was an enormous milestone in human history. From this moment on, the future of humanity depended on the actions of the men and women from battlegroup Monte Cristo.

"Send their message to the rest of the battlegroup," ordered the Commander. "Remind them that nobody fires a shot unless the aliens fire first! Lieutenant Suzuka, send the aliens our own First Contact package. They need to know what they are dealing with."

~0~

Onboard Council Search Expedition Cruiser Intermission


Ever since the first broadcast of the aliens was easily and inexplicably translated by the Intermission's translation software, something had been nagging at Matriarch Samel's thoughts. The ship's systems had the origin language pegged as human. According to Spectre Jondum Bau, correctly so.

Not too eager to make hasty assumptions, the Matriarch had sent the First Contact scenario with the Systems Alliance included. After all, the easy translation could be dismissed as a stroke of good fortune.

But then the aliens, after a few minutes of inaction, sent their own message. It was smaller than the one they received, but it too contained both static, three-dimensional images as well as videos and audio files. The very first set of images, usually used to describe oneself in such a scenario, contained images of only one species.

The human species.

The Matriarch, surrounded by her crew, flanked by the Spectre, stared at the three-dimensional human male. Her experts analyzed it again and again, searching for meaning in what had to be some sort ill-conceived prank. They declared that it was very similar to the humans from the Systems Alliance, physiologically-wise.

"As we are on the tipping point of our history, the diverging moment between peace or war, I must know. If someone inserted this file into our systems as a prank, admit it now," she said, taking great care to keep her voice level and calm. "If we approach the aliens using this message as our basis, all of us might very well lose our lives."

The assorted asari, turians and salarians looked at each other, obviously ill at ease.

"I doubt any of us would stake their lives on such a crucial moment, Matriarch," said Malena, the sensor operator.

"I can verify that the message originates from the alien vessels," added Bau. "Believe me, if somebody would attempt to sabotage such a momentous occasion, I would know."

Slowly, the Matriarch nodded. The lives of everybody onboard the Intermission depended on her decisions. "Play the rest of their message. Perhaps they intercepted radio footage from the Terminus Systems, or perhaps they took this information from the Phalanx."

The message was next. When it played, it depicted the upper torso of a human female, somewhere in her thirties, dressed in white clothing. Silver and gold emblems and insignia covered her left breast. She wore a white hat, it too decorated with gold and silver objects.

"This is Commander Hannah De Blanc, of the UNSC Resolute. I represent the United Nations Space Command, the military force of our central government, the United Earth Government. Our species is called "human". This world used to be a human world. There has been enough suffering. We only want to be left alone, but we will defend ourselves if attacked." There was a pause, as if the human let her words sink in. "Please. Let there be peace between us."

The woman spoke with conviction and authority, but Matriarch Samel had centuries of experience in speaking on diplomatic terms. There was an emotional undertone in the human's voice, a pleading desperation mixed with aggression…it made her feel strangely emotional as well.

Samel was a hundred percent convinced that this was genuine. And although that conclusion led to a thousand new questions, she ignored those for now. This woman yearned for peace and by the Goddess, there would be peace.

"This message is not forged," she told her crew. "Yes, she is human. Yes, her language is logged as a Systems Alliance language. But I wholeheartedly believe that her people don't belong with the Systems Alliance."

"Another human species? Matriarch, respectfully, those odds are astronomical!" Declared the turian officer. "This has to be fake. The chances of two kinds of humanity evolving on opposite ends of the galaxy? It's impossible."

"Then we must look at the possible instead," replied Bau. "Their files seem to contain references to their culture, their history, their biology – nothing threatening, all of it peaceful. Why fake such an in-depth message, with such enormous risk of it being discovered as a ruse? Furthermore, how did they get here? The Relay was inactive."

"Perhaps another Mass Relay was discovered by the Systems Alliance," said the Matriarch. "Perhaps the Protheans displaced a population of humans during their prehistoric time. But their method of FTL makes this irrelevant. They appeared out of nowhere, without using the mass effect to propel their craft. The Systems Alliance is crafty, but even they cannot produce such a groundbreaking new method of FTL. And even if they did, why showcase it just to prank us? No, we must focus on the now. "

There was something else within the woman's words…something that greatly bothered her. She looked away from the screen and looked around at her crew. "What are you waiting for? Analyze these findings. Their biology, their culture, their art, everything!"

Spurred on by the urgency of her tone, her crew jumped at their tasks. All except for Bau, who stared at her, his expression as neutral as a salarian could force it to be.

"This world used to be a human world…" she quietly said, so that only the Spectre could hear her.

He smiled. "Noticed it, did you? Yes, they told us everything about themselves. Except, of course, their war with the unknown species that destroyed their world."

"Why leave that out?" Muttered Samel. "To avoid insulting us? But why mention it?"

"She said that there has been enough suffering. She acknowledged that her people went through war. The Systems Alliance never went to war, as far as history knows." Bau was silent for a few seconds, staring intently at the screen, before suddenly shrugging and walking off. "I will relay this information to the Council. We should wait for further instructions."

The Matriarch watched him leave, utterly confused by everything that had happened. Once Bau was done with the communications room, she supposed that she too had to report to someone.

~0~

Onboard Normandy SR-2 / Crew Quarters.


Had an outsider visited the Normandy without knowledge about what the crew just went through, they would have slapped every single crew member with an accusation of fraternization. The team had changed out of their battered and damaged hardsuits to don their normal clothing. In some cases, that meant Cerberus uniforms. In other cases, that meant as casual and comfortable as was socially acceptable.

Hell, some of them didn't even give a damn about what was socially acceptable.

All across the ship, crewmembers were laughing and yelling with each other, ecstatic at the success of the suicide mission without casualties. Every deck sat its own party, complete with contraband and over-the-top renditions of the team's accomplishments. Samara's Biotic escort, for example. Or Garrus' beautiful, beautiful sniper streak.

Of course, the biggest party was reserved for Crew Quarters. It was there that the team retreated to, to celebrate their overwhelming victory over the Collectors, Normandy style.

"Mission accomplished!" Yelled Jacob, leaning back on his chair and placing his feet on the table. He held a can of boor in one hand and a shoe in the other. "Mission a-fucking-complished!"

"Hell yeah!" Shouted Zaeed, freshly bandaged up and sitting in a chair furnished with pillows and cushions. The last encounter had tugged his wounds open, but an unhealthy combination of alcohol and medication made him forget about that. "Who's the man? We're the man!"

"Just keep yelling," laughed Jack. "Grandpa and grandma each got a higher kill count than you two combined!"

Staff Sergeant Gardner, one of the fortunate souls present to witness the scene unfold, placed a fourth bottle of brandy on the counter.

"Who are you calling grandma?" Barked Johnson, entering the common area with a crate containing up to and including the tenth bottle of brandy. "I'm in the prime of my life!"

"Keep talking Sarge, we all know you're old enough to be the Chief's daddy," quipped Kasumi.

Johnson set the crate down on the counter and jabbed a finger at the thief's direction. "Don't make me come over there young lady!"

"Or what?" Said Miranda, following the Marine with her arms filled with snacks. "You'll hold another angry speech?"

The group laughed at the innocent sneer. Garrus, meanwhile, helped himself to another serving of dextro-amino servings. He shook his head, smiling to himself.

"Take note of how Harbinger never interrupted once his broadcast was hijacked," pointed out Thane. The drell was making his rounds within the ship, checking up on the wounded and seeing if they required anything. "I believe he was…too dumbstruck."

"Such an elegant way with words…"

"Truly, Commander Shepard's equal."

Johnson put up a scowl, but his dark eyes glistered with amusement. "Yeah yeah, keep talking…"

Unfortunately, not everybody managed to put such a positive spin on the outcome of the mission. In the medical bay, doctor Chakwas and Mordin tactfully left for the tech lab in order to give Tali some space.

And if there was one thing Tali desperately needed right now, it was space.

John stood in the corner of the medical bay, his arms crossed over his chest. His MJOLNIR had been deposited in the Hangar Bay until it could be patched up again. He silently watched Tali as the young quarian broke down and cried openly, for the first time in a very long while.

Shepard sat next to her, leaning over and hugging her. A lot of things had happened since Tali's father died. She never had the change to vent her emotions before the suicide mission began. She still managed to perform masterfully, but now that everything was behind her, she just…shut down.

Shepard offered no words of consolation. She felt like those were not needed. Every soldier had their breaking point. It was nothing to be ashamed of.

Slowly, Tali's crying turned into sobbing. After a minute, her sobbing transitioned into quiet, trembling hiccups. "T-There's so f-few of us left…" she said with a quivering voice. "Nobody e-ever comes to our aid. Nobody!"

"Maybe it's time to stop running then," replied Shepard. "Things are going change soon, Tali. Even the quarians need to adapt, or be swept away in the coming storm. Legion said the geth don't want war anymore. Maybe the UNSC can help build the bridge that your people and the geth so desperately need. If there's one nation out there who knows how to work with AI's, it's them."

Tali quietly shook her head. "The Admirals don't want peace. They want Rannoch back, or die trying. You can't just change three centuries of culture because an opportunity arises. Some things, even you can't change."

Shepard sighed, remembering how vehement Daro'Xen and Gerrel had been when they talked about the geth. How could you find peace when there was so much hatred and prejudice involved?

Not knowing what to say, she turned to look at John.

He met her gaze, then raised his head somewhat, as he always did when he was about to speak. "Tali. Remember when I told you about the Arbiter?" He said, his voice sounding especially raspy today. It seemed that every time he got himself wounded in battle, his throat suffered for it.

"Yes…I do," she muttered. "But I don't see how – "

"The Arbiter is an Elite."

Shepard frowned. Did she hear that right?

"He what?" Asked Tali. "You…you mean…"

"Thel Vadam is his name. He is an Elite, former member of the Covenant," john then explained, his face as impassive as always. "Arbiter is a rank. A mixture between a General and a king. He was there, with me and Johnson, at the very end."

"Was that when you saved the galaxy?" Tali asked, her voice as quiet as a whisper.

John nodded. "Together, we stopped the final leader of the Covenant. Together, we prevented Armageddon."

"An Elite? How…how could you be friends with something that slaughtered so many of your people?" Pressed Tali, likely too emotional to realize that her choice of words could be hurtful.

But John didn't seem to mind. "Because the Elites, as a species, were betrayed. The war was based on a lie, and their leaders tried to eradicate them at the end."

Tali stared at the Spartan. "You said that the Arbiter helped you save Cortana."

"He did," replied John. "I hate his people for what they did, but in the end, I respect and trust him. And perhaps…that is the reason why humanity and the Elites started working together."

Shepard got what he was trying to say. If someone like the Master Chief could bring himself to trust a member of the Covenant, brokering peace between the geth and the quarians didn't seem that impossible anymore.

It was likely that Tali reached the same conclusion. Still, she remained silent, staring intently at her knees.

"Does Johnson know the Arbiter as well?" Asked Shepard.

"He does. As I recall him telling it, they drove a Scarab into the Control Room, blew the temple open and killed the Chieftain of the Brutes."

Jane didn't understand half those words and already she wanted to pester the old Sergeant for details. "I don't know any species who has more reason to hate aliens than the UNSC's humanity, Tali. If they can work with a species who was once dead-set on committing genocide on them, I think the quarians can do so too. After all, your species never decided on doing…well, this."

She gestured at the Chief, who didn't seem to disagree. Tali didn't know the half of how desperate the UNSC was, but even she understood what Shepard meant. "Perhaps, given enough resources…I think Kal'Reegar would have volunteered in an instant. The first quarian Spartan…"

Jane laughed. Tali couldn't help but laugh as well. And the Commander could have sworn that she saw a little smile tug at John's lips, too.

And hey! The Collectors were gone and the time was nigh. "Do you know what time it is, Chief?"

He glanced at her, raising a questioning eyebrow.

Jane flashed him a smirk. "We just fucked over the Collector base. You and I have like, six standing agreements plus a date to catch up on."

The other eyebrow met the first. "That…is correct."

"Wait, a date?" Said Tali, surprised. "Did my translator catch that right?"

"It's not what you think it is," warned the Chief.

Shepard shrugged. "I dunno. It could be exactly what Tali thinks it is. You see, every time the Chief reveals something of his past, he does so without any context or backstory. So every time he did that, he and I would come to the agreement that he would tell the full story when we accomplished our mission. And today's finally the time."

"Story time with the Master Chief…" Tali quietly said to herself. "Don't you think Johnson is more…agreeable to that, Chief?"

"He's a Sergeant at heart. If you ask him nicely, he'll spend all night telling you stories…" he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "And it's John."

Tali seemed confused. "What?"

"My name is John."

Shepard watched Tali intently for a response. Back when they first met, the Chief denied even having a name. The man was so wrapped in secrecy that even now, months later, he still had to share his name with the rest of the crew.

For him to share his name with Tali like that…

Before the quarian herself had the time to respond to – or even process – this sign of affection, the Spartan nodded at her, then walked away to rejoin the party.

Wordlessly, Tali looked at the Commander.

Greatest honour of my life, Johnson had said.

"Did he…?"

Shepard nodded. "That makes three people onboard this ship who now know his name, Cortana not included. It's his greatest secret, one that only his fellow Spartans were supposed to know."

"Then I'll honour that secret, along with his trust." Tali firmly said.

"Good," replied Jane. "I'm going to check up on the others. You stay in here for a while, and take it easy with that leg."

Tali didn't reply. Shepard had a feeling that the quarian had plenty to think about right now. She just needed time.

There were a couple of things that needed to be done before she met up with John. First of all, she walked up to Jack in the mess hall.

"Jack, you got a minute?"

The ex-convict gave her a look of surprise. "Yeah, sure."

"Let's talk in the main battery. We're gonna need a bit of privacy."

"Don't go calibrating things without me!" Garrus yelled at them as they left for the main battery.

Once inside, Jack made herself comfortable by leaning against Garrus' console and tossing her crutch aside. "Sup?" She inquired.

"We're done," Shepard simply replied. "Mission's over. Collectors are thoroughly fucked, and now it's time to hold up my end of the bargain. So…where do you want to go?"

Jack frowned. For a couple of seconds, she glanced around idly, avoiding Shepard's eyes.

"Well?"

"Do you want me gone?" She then asked, perhaps a bit louder than was necessary.

Shepard crossed her arms and leant against the wall. "Not really. But I promised I'd bring you to wherever you wanted to go after we took out the Collectors."

"Yeah, but that was before all the shit with the Covenant and the UNSC. You think I want to mess around and risk going back to prison, with that mess hanging over my head?"

"I didn't think you cared that much," admitted Jane.

"Yeah, well, maybe I don't. But you do, And your people do. And right now, I don't really feel like going anywhere." Jack then smirked. "Besides; chow's good. Crew's entertaining. So I figured, I might as well stick around."

Shepard smirked as well. "There's always a place for you here, if you want to."

By now, what little damage the ship sustained during the frantic approach towards the Collector Base had been cataloged. Repairs would soon be underway. Shepard took a moment to dose up on the medication meant to combat the by effects of her Biotic overuse. The medication always made her feel drowsy and somewhat foggy, but she was fairly certain that there weren't any pressing matters that required her full attention.

It stung that the first thing her mind focused on was the decision to save the Collector Base. She had not expected Tim to along as easily as he did. She feared that the suicide mission would be the end of her partnership with Cerberus, but…could she be so lucky? To steer Cerberus away from the path it had been walking on?

Perhaps time would tell. For now, she wanted to see how John was holding up. She had so many questions to ask him. She wanted to know about Halo, about the Arbiter, about the Ark and everything that happened to him at the end of the war.

But above all, she just wanted to get to know him.

Unfortunately, fate seemed to have other plans. The Commander had not even made it halfway towards John's current whereabouts when Kelly, of all people, said that they had a serious problem.

And when Kelly said serious, she meant it.

~0~

Onboard Normandy SR-2 / Combat Information Center


Kelly Chambers once told someone that nobody partied like soldiers did. She guessed she had to rectify that statement now; today, Shepard's team fought harder than could be expected from soldiers, and they were partying even harder.

She could hear them all the way from the Combat Information Center. Music, shouts and laughter so loud that the noise reverberated through the entire ship.

Kelly had never felt so proud before. She felt like her chest was burning with relief and joy and trepidation all at the same time. Because, as Joker so succinctly put it, "everything was now wonderful forever".

It was all still out there. The Covenant, the Reapers, the asari. This wasn't the end of the war. But for now, the crew just survived a suicide mission. That was something they had to celebrate.

Shepard and the Chief were both checking in at the medical bay. Mordin and doctor Chakwas were very strict with the amount of party the crew could get on with their injuries. Some, like Thane, only had a couple of scratches and could be allowed the maximum amount of party. Others, like Tali and the Chief himself, went through the wringer and were only allowed the minimal amount of party.

Kelly had read the medical reports. After all, psychological damage resulting from extreme injuries was a common occurrence. As the Normandy's Yeoman, the mental wellbeing of the crew was her responsibility.

It seemed that Zaeed's injuries had been aggravated by the mission. It wasn't life threatening, but the painkillers were harsh. It was very likely that Zaeed wouldn't be joining the Commander's ground team for a while.

Legion had not sustained any major injuries. What little damage the Collectors inflected could easily be repaired. Samara had taken a couple of hits, but they missed her vitals. It was very unlikely that those injuries would bother her.

Tali…in all honesty, Kelly had feared for Tali's life. The combination of old injuries, blunt force trauma and foreign enzymes entering her body could easily have been lethal. Luckily, doctor Chakwas and Mordin managed to reduce what should have been a death sentence to a mere recovery process. Just like Zaeed, Tali would be out of the fight for a few days.

Garrus and Miranda had been in some very precarious positions, acting as the fireteam leaders, but they both managed to see the mission through without any serious wounds. Very impressive.

Jack, however, was another story. She took a hit to her leg that ripped through her tendons. Grunt had to carry her onboard. Luckily, repairing the damaged tissue wasn't a complicated process, just time-consuming. Kelly doubted that Jack would want to dash into combat with a walking cane, so it was very likely that she would stay onboard the ship as well.

And then there was the Master Chief. The Spartan had taken a hit from a piece of debris heavy enough to rip through his shields and damage his internal organs through sheer kinetic force. His bones hadn't been broken, but the internal bleeding had been serious enough to require surgery.

Kelly couldn't help but shudder at the thought of being hit by something so massive and heavy. Had the debris been a couple of centimeters closer to his stomach, it was very likely that the Master Chief would have lost consciousness. Shepard wouldn't have been able to find him, had that been the case.

The Yeoman forced herself to smile, and forget about that line of thinking. The Master Chief had just been lucky again. Lucky number 117.

Kelly would join him, as well as the others, in the Crew Quarters soon enough. For now however, there was something she needed to check out first. When she last passed by Shepard's console, she saw from the corner of her eye that a new message came in sometime during the mission, forwarded with extreme urgency.

She knew that it wasn't her task, but the Commander needed to relax now. If she knew how urgent the message was, her good mood would be evaporated in an instant.

So, Kelly did what she vowed never to do. She opened Shepard's message for her, praying that it wasn't as urgent as she thought it was.

All three members of the Citadel Council added their stamp of approval to the contents of the message right at the opening. And from there, it only got worse.

Kelly read the message three times. At the end of her third time, she felt like someone just slapped her in her face. She clasped her hands in front of her mouth and felt her good mood evaporate in an instant.

"EDI?" She whispered. "I think we have a serious problem. Call Shepard, we need to talk to her now."

~0~

Onboard Normandy SR-2


Something was wrong. The Master Chief could feel it in his gut. There was no reason for Shepard to call him to the conference room like that. All private matters would be handled in her private quarters and all official matters were already dealt with. She wouldn't do anything to cause him undue alarm without a good reason.

As the Spartan hurried towards the conference room, his tactical mind raced to process the situation. He had yet to don his MJOLNIR, which meant that a possible conflict had to be handled with extreme care. Cortana had taken some time for herself, but he was well aware that she was keeping her eyes on him through the ship's sensors. She would keep him informed of any sudden developments, but he now knew that he couldn't blindly trust in her abilities anymore.

He made it to the conference room without encountering anything that would be a cause for alarm. When the door slid open, he saw that Shepard was discussing something with EDI. Upon hearing the door open, Shepard turned to face him, whereupon EDI's avatar disappeared.

"Come in John," she said.

He did as she said. There was something oddly defensive in her posture, in the way she set her shoulders. Her expression meant trouble.

The door closed behind him.

John looked at her expectedly. "I think the Citadel Council knows about you."

The Master Chief remained quiet. He was aware that the Council knew about him. Given the incident on the Citadel, that was a given. No, Shepard seemed too tense, too focused, for something like that. Something else happened.

When he didn't reply, Shepard continued. "What's worse…they know about Cortana.."

The Chief's eyes narrowed. He felt a stab of anger welling up inside of him. Now he understood why she seemed so distraught. As an Artificial Intelligence, Cortana was illegal in Council Space. An undesirable element, to be purged with extreme prejudice. When the Systems Alliance humanity attempted to violate that law, it resulted in heavy sanctions that nearly sparked a war.

The people representing their species – the Council – would see Cortana as a threat. History showed that the Council that not take threats well.

They would harm her. He could not allow that.

"I don't know how they did it," continued Shepard. "I'm guessing that they linked her to you, then linked you to me, since I don't think anyone figured out what EDI is."

"I won't let anyone take her," he resolutely said.

She smiled, though it looked more like a grimace than anything else. "And neither will I. But we´re in a difficult situation. They…kinda stripped me of my Spectre status and ordered me to come back to the Citadel ASAP to commit to an investigation."

John instantly recognized the problem. If she complied, they would search the ship and find either Cortana or EDI. That outcome was unacceptable, yet didn't even take into account Legion's presence. Disobeying was equally disastrous; the Citadel was reportedly not above threatening mankind as a whole for the actions of individuals or organizations. It happened before, it could happen again.

Except this time, after the attack on the Citadel and the tense relations between the turians and humanity, any attempt to sanction the Systems Alliance would result in a war.

And it would still end up outing Cortana, as Shepard would have no reason to refuse the order otherwise.

She literally had no option here.

"Hiding Cortana could be an option," suggested the Chief, struggling to find a way out that benefitted everyone. "Alternatively, you present me as the representative of the UNSC, disguise it as First Contact."

"It is a First Contact," Jane said, not without agitation. "But getting to the Citadel means that you'll be playing right into their hands, since that means we need to present you openly, as a representative of your people. I don't want to lose you, not again."

Her affection for him was…commendable, but ultimately misplaced. He was, and would always be, a tool to safeguard humanity's future. Even if it wasn't his humanity. "We need to get back to UNSC space ASAP. Having the Council – " His voice broke and he had to stop himself mid-sentence. His throat was burning.

Luckily, EDI picked up on his intention. "Having the Master Chief be recognized as a member of a new species would be the optimal solution to the problem. It would guarantee a certain level of leniency for both Cortana's existence, as well as the incident with C-Sec."

Shepard appeared thoughtful for a few moments, shifting her weight and relaxing her stance. "If it doesn't work out, you'll be stuck on a hostile, alien station, with millions of hostiles craving for your blood."

The Master Chief straightened his spine. "It wouldn't be the first time."

A sullen look spread over Jane's face. "Is that the answer though? Turn the Citadel into your personal playground, chalk up hundreds, if not thousands of casualties to the UNSC's name? To Cortana's name? You would give them a reason to fear her. To hate her."

The Chief remained silent. She was right. This time, violence was out of the question. His strongest quality was rendered useless in favour of diplomacy.

"Still, Cortana…" She started, a strange look crossing her features. Then, her expression hardened. "If the wrong people get their hands on you, they will destroy you. If worse people get their hands on you, they will rip you apart to further their own AI research." Shaking her head, she quietly added, "I don't want that to happen."

Harsh. True.

Tiny vestiges of a plan began to form in his mind. "Aggression is not an option. Surrender is not an option. That leaves just one solution."

"To endure," Shepard quietly said. "Weather their violence, to keep her safe."

"The Citadel is a residential area. They can't bring the firepower required to hurt me."

She shook her head. "Too many variables, too many unknowns. If our enemy is unconcerned with civilian casualties, they'll bring everything they can do take you down."

The Master Chief remained silent for a couple of seconds, torn between simply staying quiet and giving voice to his concerns. In the end, his concerns won out. "We'll last. Long enough for you to contact the right people. Someone will listen."

"Listen?" Jane laughed, but her eyes remained dark. Her expression, bitter. "Who listens to me nowadays? I warned Hackett that this would happen, I warned Anderson that this would happen – and nobody does a damn thing! Be it a quarian bigshot or the fucking Council itself, everybody just pretends that I'm the crazy one!"

John knew that that her anger wasn't directed at him, understood that she had been coping with this frustration for months now. He offered her a listening ear.

"The UNSC will listen," he said. "They take threats very seriously. They had enough trouble with precursor species to ignore the Reaper threat."

"Well, it's good to see that someone treats their heroes right," she mumbled in response. "I'll call in a team meeting, plan ahead for when we reach the Citadel."

John wanted to speak up, tell Shepard that he was certain that she would be exonerated eventually. In the end, he decided he needed to reflect on what just happened by himself. He nodded, then vacated the room, leaving Jane alone with her thoughts.

As he expected, Cortana overheard everything. When he returned to the Hangar Bay, she manifested herself from one of EDI's projectors.

"So…I happened to overhear that…" she said in a small voice.

The Chief reached for the engineering rig. "Did you overhear the part where Shepard said she wasn't going to give you up?"

"Yes. I did."

"So. Can you prepare a First Contact package? If the Council can back us, we'll get back to Earth in no time."

Cortana laughed without humor. "And what happens if they decide to pull the plug?"

The Master Chief pocketed a Magnum, tossed it into the air and caught it again.

Cortana stared at him. Then, she giggled. It was such a human reaction that it took the Chief by surprise. "Ah…you, me and a space station filled with murderous aliens. Ready to do this?"

The Spartan took his position in the center of the rig and Cortana took control over the mechanized arms. If he just let Jane do the talking, this would be a milk run, if a necessary one.

But it wouldn't hurt to be prepared, just in case.

~0~

Onboard unidentified warship,


There were many strange and questionable things he had done for the Office of Naval Intelligence, but dressing up a naked and comatose woman who had been recently extracted from a glass tube was new for him.

Alan-003 knew enough of human nature to get understand that it wasn't exactly a good thing he was doing, but he didn't have much choice there. The alternative was to get Feron to do it instead. And as much the alien seemed to like him, he couldn't bring himself to trust something as fragile as a human life in the hands of an alien.

There wasn't much in the way of clothes onboard of an alien warship, which meant that the process was tedious and more time-consuming than the Spartan thought it would be. When he finally finished, he gently covered the woman with some fabric he scrounged up from the crew quarters and left her alone, feeling more flustered than he should have.

He just chalked it up to Neural-altering mutagen. It was a week or two since the counter-drugs were supposed to be administrated, and Spartan Operators got…loopy if they missed their regular doses. That, and he was pretty sure he still bleeding internally from the engagement with the Shadow Broker.

"Millennia?" He whispered. "Are you there?"

The Forerunner AI did not respond. After all this time, having her admonish him through the MJOLNIR's link had become somewhat familiar to him. Her sudden silence was…alarming.

The Spartan made his way to the bridge. When he got to the door, however, something odd happened. His vision seemed to blur for a second and his legs wobbled dangerously. He willed his armour to keep him up straight, and shook his head to clear the sudden dizziness.

That couldn't be good.

He took a steadying breath and entered the bridge. The last time he entered there, his new AI overlord had still been in the process of turning it into something more Forerunner. She had only been about halfway though, and the architecture did not look very functional at the time. So when the doors slid open and revealed that the bridge was still very much the same, he felt puzzled.

Surely she didn't mean to leave the bridge half-finished, did she?

"Millennia?" He asked out loud. "Are you here?"

After a few seconds of silence, her voice echoed through his mind.

In my hands, I once shaped clay, crafting life as I pleased. I ruled from a bastion of steel, careening lines of power all across the Ecumene. Yet here I find myself, a hundred thousand years later, surrounded by enemies. I have found a surviving Forerunner.

The Spartan did not expect her to sound so…dejected about achieving her goal. He slumped down against a nearby console, and glanced at the spot where the AI last materialized herself. "Is that a bad thing?"

He has taken no steps to contact me, even though my presence is hardly concealed. That brings ominous tidings.

"We don't need to be enemies, you know?" He quietly replied. "The humanity you fought is now gone. You're free to take a different path."

Would you tolerate the Covenant? Would you forgive them?

Alan furrowed his eyebrows. He ignored the sudden hostility in her voice, and tried to concentrate on what was important. "This…Systems Alliance doesn't know the Covenant. Where did you learn about them?"

Though little of my power remains, the civilizations in this galaxy are still far below me. Their name whispers within the shadows of your mind. You dodged my question.

"Forgive? Never," Alan quietly replied. The image of Eirene burning as Covenant warships loomed over its continents was one that he would never, ever forget. However…"Tolerate? Perhaps. I don't know."

He caught movement in the corner of his eye and glanced up. Millennia's avatar appeared, sitting atop the console he was leaning against. She looked as intimidating as ever, but her gaze lacked that death glare that she always wore. Now that she didn't look like she was about to commit triple genocide, Alan was certain that "appealing" really was an apt description.

At least you are honest. I spared your life on a whim. That is enough for now. Do not push me.

The Spartan shrugged. "So, are we going to find this Forerunner then?"

What?

"Find out if he really means bad tidings. Let him broker peace. My people really don't need another war. Then, you can focus on something else than warfare yourself.

It took Millennia a moment to compose herself, it seemed. When she replied, she did so with the by-now familiar disdain she always carried with her.

You are a fool. He could strip you down to a haze of burning cells upon laying sight on you, if he were so inclined.

Alan had to admit, he didn't very much like that thought. Still, it wouldn't be the first time he took care of someone with such firepower at their beck and call. "If."

Then, she smiled, and the Spartan could have sworn that he was looking at a different person. She must have caught on, however, because her smile disappeared almost immediately.

You are an utter imbecile. Do not think I care for your life, or something the like. You are merely my pawn, and I will send you to your death when it fits my design, not theirs.

At this point, Alan was certain that she was just threatening him with certain death out of habit. However, he wouldn't stake his life on that.

He climbed back to his feet. He wanted to give her a response, but then something clicked into place in his mind. Millennia had been…apprehensive ever since she read the data onboard the Shadow Broker's ship. And now that her suspicions were confirmed, that apprehension hadn't disappeared.

"One more thing," he asked. "What if this Forerunner is hostile? Not just to me, but the others, too?"

Leave the planning and thinking to me.

"But what if he is," insisted the Spartan. "You're thinking about it too, aren't you? Which means this Forerunner isn't just a threat to humanity."

I will find out, one way or another. We are heading towards C 391 d, known to the locals as Illium. I am certain that the drell knows of it.

Alan nodded. "I'll ask him for a tactical analysis."

Not as you are right now. You are undernourished. Your body temperature is too high for your species; your enzymes are already denaturing. If you are to serve me, you must be at your best.

That explained the fluster. "Do we have medical equipment?" He asked, not even bothering to go against her order.

I once held the power to consume entire solar systems to create the worlds I desired. Reality bends at my will. I can handle the body of one underdeveloped human..

"So, that's a yes?"

He could practically hear her rolling her eyes.

Of course it is. How did your species ever manage to leave its homeworld?

Spartan-003 never thought he would meet a living being whose ability to recognize wit and sarcasm was as impaired as that of his fellow Spartans. It almost felt as if he were talking to Math-011.

"I'll be in the medical bay if you need me," he settled for saying, guessing that telling the Forerunner as much would be exceedingly bad for his health.

As if I could have need for you.

As he left, Alan thought back to the report filed on the AI known as 343 Guilty Spark. A hundred thousand years of isolation, utterly alone with your thoughts, with nobody to distract you. The closest thing to hell he could think of. And now that he knew that the Forerunners created her to fight this…ancient humanity…it was a wonder that she didn't just jump to the nearest human world and crash an asteroid into its surface.

The crew of the Wayfarer was dead. And their deaths were on her. But how many Covenant lives had he taken during the course of his life? How many humans had he killed, for ONI's sake or otherwise? There was no telling what he, or any Spartan for that matter, would do if they suddenly found themselves surrounded by aliens.

Perhaps Millennia wasn't as bad as he thought. Although, he did wonder what she expected they would find on this Illium.

~0~

Onboard Normandy SR-2 / Conference room


"A Cryptum," said Cortana, "A device that can "contain" or "be possessed by" a living Forerunner. And according to the Forerunner intelligence that reached out through the artefact, the asari have opened the wrong one."

The Artificial Intelligence eyed the assembled squad. She saw unease, doubt and even anger, but none of them seemed skeptical of this information.

Garrus leant forwards and placed his hands on the table. "Is there any way you can trace the signal back? Find out where this other AI contacted you from?"

"I doubt that's a good idea," said Tali. "Judging by its speech patterns, the AI is either completely insane, or actually powerful enough to back up its claims. We don't want to interact with it in either case."

"There is no doubt about her identity. She is a Forerunner AI. Remember, the Forerunners are not like the Protheans, or even the Reapers. At their height, their empire spanned millions of worlds," explained Cortana, feeling an angry sort of delight at being able to downplay the Reapers like that. "I've seen the things they built. Solidified hard light, teleportation, astroengineering on a scale that would put the Citadel to shame – they could build Ring Worlds as large as a planet, and they did so with ease! She was telling the truth."

Johnson scoffed. Meanwhile, Miranda narrowed her eyes. "If the Forerunners were so advanced, why are they gone now? They couldn't have built all that without ever encountering the Reapers."

"That's right," muttered Jacob. "A hundred thousand years ago fits with the Reaper cycle. Maybe the Reapers destroyed the Forerunners too?"

"Doubt species capable of taking theoretical astrroengineering concept and easily putting it to practice could lose to Reapers," said Mordin. "Citadel impressive, but itself dwarfed by Ring World. Mass Relay network impressive, but outdone by teleportation."

"Doc Sawbones over there is right," grumbled Johnson. "Your mecha-cthulhu didn't even touch the Forerunners."

"The affiliation of the Old Machines is not a binary one," Legion then said. "The Old Machines existed before the Forerunners. The Old Machines exist after the Forerunners. Taking sides in a conflict not in their interest would be detrimental."

"That makes sense," said Miranda. "Join a war and you're left with only two options; side with, or side against a faction."

"Binary affiliation...maybe the Reapers hid during the Forerunner cycle?" Suggested Shepard. "But we lack the information we need to accurately guess. Cortana?"

Cortana nodded. "The Covenant believed that the Forerunners were gods who ascended to a higher place of existence by using the "Sacred Rings", the aforementioned Ring Worlds. The truth is a lot darker. The Forerunners sacrificed themselves in order to save us all."

There was a moment of silence as the members of the squad looked at each other, confused by what she said. Cortana understood why. She hadn't exactly been clear about things. Still, the true nature of the Halos and the Flood was something she could not – would not – reveal to these people. She loved them too much.

"What do you mean, "us all"?" Asked Samara.

"You, me. Sentient life as a concept. Had they failed in their task, this entire galaxy would have been consumed," Cortana explained, using broad descriptions to make them understand the scope of the Forerunners' sacrifice without revealing the specific details. "I don't want to go too much in depth about…them…before the First Contact with the UNSC takes place. Too much of this is classified. Too much of this will rob you of your sleep. It only means that the Reapers had plenty of opportunity to sit the last few cycles out, and even more opportunities to become something worse."

"Let's stay focused," said John. "The Cryptum. What is it likely to contain?"

Cortana was silent for three full seconds, processing every possible outcome she could deduce from the AI's words. "It could be anything. A technology cache, a living Forerunner, tissue samples… too many opportunities for the asari to learn things they're not yet ready for – "

"In all fairness, it's the asari we're talking about," said Garrus. "If it were the salarians, or even the turians, that's one thing. But the asari? They were the ones who made the rule that all species are supposed to share hidden caches of precursor tech. What harm can they do?"

"Funny how the asari have yet to share this "Cryptum" with the Citadel species then," pointed out Miranda.

"Besides; we're not talking about the asari as a people here, Garrus," added Shepard. "I would trust the asari as a people, sure. But it is very likely that the heads at the top of the pyramid found this tech."

"And if it's one thing the people in power fear, it's losing that power," growled Jacob.

"Alright, point taken."

"I wasn't finished," Cortana replied, her annoyance turning to irritation. "Even if the chance exists that the asari could gain access to technology they're not ready for, there will always be a chance that they accessed something that really does not agree with them. The fate of the Forerunners aside, that AI seemed really pissy about the current generations treading her lawn. I don't want to see an application of Clarke's Third Law driven by unstable emotions."

"Uhm…whose law?" Said Kasumi.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. A saying stemming from a science fiction writer from the UNSC's humanity," EDI helpfully explained.

"Getting to the point? At the very least, we need to talk to the women in power within the Republics," summed up Shepard. "Even they will understand that messing with ancient tech can turn out very bad. Cortana? Did your new AI friend tell you where the alien vermin stole her things?"

"Not at all. She said we needed to focus on the asari before looking at the Reapers."

Shepard sighed. "Which brings us to the second problem of the day. As you all know, the Citadel Council isn't exactly fond of AI's."

"Absolutely hates them," said Tali.

"Couldn't loathe them more," chimed in Garrus.

"Like a Thresher Maw to a big hammer," added Grunt.

Man, Cortana doubted an AI could have jumped at that remark faster than the crew did. "Wow, could you guys respond any faster?" She muttered.

"As I was saying, the Council isn't a big fan of AI's. Politics never start making sense and if the Systems Alliance were to be caught messing with AI's, it would lead to severe bullshit sanctions, which in turn would very likely result in open war," continued Shepard. "Normally that would never happen, except the Council somehow found out that we've got Cortana. And they're demanding we return to the Citadel to subject ourselves to a thorough investigation."

The silence that fell after the Commander revealed that particular problem didn't last for more than a few seconds before the squad broke down, bouncing thoughts, suggestions and plans back and forth amongst each other.

Cortana, unburdened by the mental filters that organics possessed, heard every suggestion they made, and had to temporarily shut down her emotional processers to keep them from interfering with her logic matrix. She knew that the team would risk their lives to look after John, but hearing them cook up the most insane plans to keep her safe? It was a humbling experience.

"Consensus has been reached," Legion said, speaking up for the first time. "Cortana can be concealed within 117- Spartan's helmet. This platform has been mistaken for a personal assistance synthetic before, which can be replicated. EDI can hide within the ship and imitate non-sentient software. Success depends on alertness of organics."

"No, no, not possible," Mordin firmly said. "EDI Masquerading as VI might fool investigators initially, but will not hold up under scrutiny." The old doctor rested his chin on his hand. "Power required to keep EDI functioning too enormous, too specifically-calibrated. Moreover, AI core would be dead giveaway. Likewise, Legion might be able to unintentionally infiltrate for a small period of time, but will be caught when confronted with moderately-intelligent investigators. Is geth, after all."

"The Council is slow to rouse, but once they're up, they're very keen," said Garrus, his expression thunderous. "If they suspect the Normandy is hiding AI's, they will send the best they've got. No way they'll mistake Legion."

John spoke before anyone could reply. "The Council knows about Cortana, not EDI or Legion. The only way to avoid them learning of the latter two is by bringing out their target in the open."

"Are you suggesting what I think you are suggesting?" Thane quietly said.

John faced him, his expression terse. "They won't bother with searching the ship if they're too distracted by their main objective."

Jacob didn't seem to agree. "That would certainly keep Legion and EDI safe, but you'd be placing Cortana straight in the Council's crosshairs. You got some sort of plan, Chief?"

"I do. Stepping up as the representatives of the UNSC is the only way to avoid conflict," replied John. He turned to address Johnson. "We're going to facilitate First Contact. And to do that, I am going to need your help."

~0~

Onboard the Citadel

Location classified.


The Matriarch sat in her private quarters, resting her legs on an ivory table and holding a datapad in her hands. According to "Athame", First Contact between the United Nations Space Command and the Citadel representatives had taken place. No lives had been lost, but an air of paranoia and suspicion was slowly spreading across the Expedition force.

Good. Before soon, the politics and diplomacy would see an enormous UNSC force escorting their representative to the Citadel for true negotiations. They would learn of the scale of the galactic civilization and they would be brought into the fold.

Soon, the suffering could end.

A message informed her that the Normandy had arrived, and she opened an encrypted communication channel with Tevos.

"They have arrived," she informed the Councilor.

"They have? Already?"

"Yes. Make sure that the right people are waiting for them."

"What about your own people? Won't they be interrupted?"

"They will not. Captain Bailey is on our side, and the communications blackout has been initiated. The first human Spectre will not meet the committee without escalating the situation into a violent one."

"Be careful with the Spartan. The UNSC is more savage than we thought. If they were to learn that one of their own was harmed by one of us, they could bring us no end of trouble. Their AI's are far above us."

The Matriarch smiled. "You underestimate the power of passion, of raw, unbridled emotion. The blockade has been put into place. Even if the Spartan were to escalate to violence, he has nowhere to go. Even he would prefer not to unite the entire Citadel against him and his friends."

She heard Tevos sigh. "For the greater good. Do what must be done."

The Matriarch ended the transmission. Tevos' loyalty was to be commended. She was open in her doubts, but in the end, utterly loyal to the cause of the people. And though Valern had no idea, reports stated that Sparatus was growing suspicious. Perhaps it was time to replace him with a more…susceptible representative.

Time would tell.

~0~

Onboard Normandy SR-2

En-route to Serpent Nebula, Citadel


It was one hour to the Citadel and Garrus Vakarian was starting to feel bothered. Way back on the Citadel, he had learned that it was dangerous to ignore a coincidence. Certain patterns that could only be spotted by those with a healthy dose of paranoia would often be the undoing of an exceptionally-thorough criminal, or an intelligent but ruthless corrupt official.

What Cortana said about the asari and that Cryptum of theirs kept popping up in his mind, dominating his thoughts and concerns. Even if he tried to focus on the exciting prospect of introducing the Master Chief himself to the galaxy at large, his thoughts always travelled back to the asari.

Their culture. Their physique. Their way of life. Everything the asari did, was presented as the absolute pinnacle of what a civilization could achieve. Spirits, it felt so stupid, but even their pornography felt like it was intended to influence the beauty ideals of other species.

How did that conversation on Illium go, again? The human, the turian and the salarian, all of them hot and bothered by the same asari dancer? How could three species share the same fondness for asari physique?

Garrus wasn't being paranoid, he felt like he was staring at another pattern, another "coincidence" that would point him to the identity of whereabouts of another criminal.

The boy, the Forerunner artefact, the UNSC's tech, Cortana and the Chief – all of it was desired by the asari conspiracy, yes. But how much did the conspiracy's wishes really differ from that of the asari? Back on Omega, the Matriarch had offered Shepard the aid of Justicars. That was such an asari thing to do.

What if it wasn't just a conspiracy? The asari as a civilization were more advanced, more prosperous than the others. The humans, the turians, the salarians, none of them came close to the asari. Conspiracies seeking power didn't share that power with the common people. But the asari prospered like they had been partaking in the wealth of a conspiracy since day one…

Since they made the rule that demanded civilizations to share their Prothean artefacts.

Maybe he was being too paranoid. Maybe he saw patterns where none were.

Garrus glanced at his omni-tool. The time went too damn slow. The squad knew their orders, knew what they had to do. Tali, Zaeed and Legion were to stay on the ship, as well as Jack and Grunt. This was a diplomatic mission foremost, which meant that Shepard had to represent both herself as the Master Chief as well as possible. She was taking Samara, Miranda and Mordin with her.

Of course, Garrus would be accompanying her and the Chief as well. A second team was going to enter the Citadel first to serve as a distraction unit just in case an ambush had been set. Johnson would lead a team of Jacob, Kasumi and Thane to distract any potential hostiles and keep them tied up long enough for Shepard to tip her hand.

The plan was simple, yet dangerously delicate. It hinged on Anderson being present in the Presidium, Udina being receptive to promises of power to mankind and whoever would be send in to escort Shepard to the committee to not hate her guts.

The one stable link in this operation would be Cortana. Just thinking about her eased Garrus' concerns.

No amount of crap that the Citadel was about to offer them could compare to what Cortana and the Chief had been through already. And this time, they had an entire team to back them up.

Such was the logic that Garrus returned to every time he felt his concern get the better of him. They just annihilated an enemy far worse than the one hiding within the Citadel, they could do this!

…another forty minutes left.

Garrus checked his…"SRS99" again. The weapon was almost as long as he was tall, yet didn't weigh nearly as much as it should have. It still surprised Garrus how easily this anti-material rifle could be handled. The closest thing he knew to a mass accelerator equivalent would be the M-98 Widow, which was definitely not meant to be used by a common infantryman.

Cortana once told him that most of the UNSC's ordnance had been in use for centuries. Every decade or so, someone would tweak the ammo to make it go faster, or pack a bigger punch, but they've kept the basic form for the past five centuries!

Five centuries ago, the Systems Alliance didn't even have properly working guns yet.

And today, those two would formally meet up. Garrus wondered how that would go. Xenophobe versus xenophile. Expansionist versus isolationist. AI-users versus AI-haters.

…just like that, Garrus felt all of his concerns return again.

Another twenty minutes of FTL until they reached the Citadel.

With nothing else to do, Garrus suited up. He forewent heavy protection in favour of maneuverability and flexibility, as he would be the team's sniper support when feces hit the hyperdrive. He pocketed a Predator pistol, a "Magnum" pistol and an Avenger rifle just to be safe. The UNSC rifles packed a better punch, but were heavier than their mass accelerator counterparts. Again, mobility was going to be the key, and if Garrus found himself seriously needing UNSC firepower, the mission was a failure anyway.

Joker gave the alert that they'd be docking within ten minutes. According to him, a team would be sent to escort the shore party to the proper authorities.

Garrus trusted the Commander. He knew that Shepard would pull them through. He just wished he knew who would be helping them out once they entered the Citadel. Just thinking about the uncertainties of having to hold your own in an entire space station craving your blood…it brought back bad memories.

The team assembled at the airlock, just like they had at the Collector Base. The air felt silent and solemn. Neither Kasumi nor Johnson were present to lighten the mood, since the Sergeant's team left on a shuttle to initiate their on mission.

Shepard and the Chief stood at the very front, waiting for the ship to finish docking. The Spartan was unarmed, but Garrus knew that looks could be deceiving. The Chief only looked unarmed. In reality, he was always armed when he initiated combat. To him, enemy combatants were nothing more than walking armories. He'd find his weapons soon enough.

Time went by as it always did when things got tense. Frustratingly slow, like suspended in omni-gel. Finally, EDI told them that they were docking at the Presidium. The crew stood by for the procedures that entailed, and Shepard and the Chief exchanged a meaningful look.

Garrus looked away, feeling a pang of jealousy.

Focus, Vakarian! He mentally chastised himself.

"Remember. Only fire when fired upon yourself. Someone takes a shot at the Chief, you will still hold your fire. He can take it."

Suicidal odds cranked up to the next level. Still, Garrus understood. C-Sec would be out for the Chief's blood. This was too important to let a trigger-happy rookie or bloodthirsty veteran ruin it.

When the docking procedure finished, the airlock opened and the squad was allowed entry. Getting to the Presidium meant passing through a security checkpoint. It was a walkway flanked by rooms only visible through windows. C-Sec officers were visible through those windows, as was usual.

Strange. There were a lot of asari on duty today.

The geometric light of the scanner ran over their bodies. A silent alarm would go off when the system recognized Shepard as a Spectre, joined by the audible alert that rang out when their weapons were detected.

There was no officer to meet them on the end of the hallway.

As the team slowly inched towards the door at the other end, the asari officers who worked or stood guard inside the adjacent rooms turned to stare at them.

Shepard had ordered radio silence, so Garrus remained silent. No doubt the others saw them, too.

The door opened for them. None of the officers made a move.

So far, so good.

Getting to the Presidium was a matter of ordering a couple of taxis. Normally that would only take a minute max. This time however, a minute passed without the system so much as acknowledging their request.

Garrus began to feel a nagging suspicion that someone was about to spring their trap. He locked eyes with Shepard, who nodded at him, almost unperceivable. .

He broke away from the group. Thane once told him that most Wards had a way of getting to a vantage point on the outer edge of the overhang. It meant passing through a couple of ducts, securing yourself to a tether and then walking along the outer frame of the wards. You'd stick out like a coloured fringe to people looking at your position from outside the Wards, but nobody would see you coming from inside the wards.

And seeing how much cover the Commander had to protect her against a possible drive-by,

After a minute of awkward scampering and crawling, perch, Garrus was reasonably sure he could see every possible angle of approach. He settled the scope of his SRS99 on Shepard.

Spirits, even flanked by the titan that was the Master Chief, she appeared tall. She always said she was tall for her species. Strapped around her waist and part of her upper arm was a bandolier of grenades, while her sidearm was magnetically strapped to her thigh. Her M-100 Grenade Launcher hung from her left shoulder, nicely packed away to give any enemy combatant a nasty surprise. She kept her Tempest strapped next to the heavy weapon, with its handle poking out over her shoulder for easy access.

The Master Chief might be the one wearing armor powered by a fusion reactor, but Garrus didn't doubt for a moment who the more intimidating figure was.

Miranda trailed around them, keeping her eyes open. She was obviously ill at ease with the amount of time they had to wait. Mordin and Samara rounded the group off, keeping their six secure.

A flicker of motion caught Garrus' attention and he immediately sighted in on the contact that was, contrary to all the others, moving towards the heavily armed party. Since he hung upside down from the Ward to minimize his profile, he had to take a couple of moments to recognize the newcomers.

Wait, is that Bailey?

Garrus checked him again. No mistake; the human clad in blue armor was definitely Commander Bailey.

And he wasn't alone. Flanking him was a group of asari clad in red battle armor, just like Samara, funny enough. Even the gilded rims at the sides of the armor were the same.

Huh…they even had those clips on their foreheads, like crowns…

…uh-oh.

Garrus quickly counted the approaching Justicars. There were five of them. Combatants powerful enough to rival Samara and Jack with raw Biotic output, and now there were five.

He didn't dare contact the squad for fear of setting something off. If these Justicars were half as good as Samara was, they already knew where he was.

Shepard noticed them too. No, she probably noticed them before he did. She turned to address them, calmly keeping her hands away from her guns. Though the pressure those Justicars gave off must have been overwhelming, the Commander was as calm as always.

Garrus nervously fingered the trigger of his rifle, eyeing the assorted Justicars. He kept a close eye on the group through his scope. His position was close enough that he could overhear their conversation with ease.

"What are you doing here, Bailey?" Shepard asked, though her tone made it clear that she knew exactly what Bailey was doing.

"Step aside Shepard. We're taking that thing in."

"This man is the representative of a nation as large as the Systems Alliance, with a navy and army to rival the turian Hierarchy. It is my task to escort him to the Presidium, where he will speak for his people."

"Damnit Shepard! Your "man" killed half a dozen of my men! He's implicated in the murder of the Consort and he is carrying an Artificial Intelligence with him! Don't argue with me Shepard, I have to do this!"

"Captain Bailey, you are being used," Shepard calmly replied. "It wasn't him who killed the Consort, it was an asari. We have evidence."

"And my people? My friends? I had to write to their families, Shepard! I had to talk to wives, parents and children to explain why their loved ones died!"

"I know what that feels like Bailey, and I'm sorry. But this is bigger than that. Bigger than both of us."

"Indeed it is," one of the Justicars spoke up. She walked closer to Bailey, stopping by his side. The hallway that the squad just came from opened, and more asari officers entered the scene. "This is about the Artificial Intelligence you have hidden with the creature."

"And the partnership you hold with Cerberus, an avowed enemy of the Council," added another Justicar. "Those are two capital offenses. This marks you as unjust not only to the Code, but the Council law as well."

"We have no choice here Shepard!" Hissed Bailey. "It doesn't need to be this way. You and your squad can continue to the Embassies to try and clear your name. I won't stop you. Just walk away and leave that…man…with us."

"No," replied Shepard, her voice level. "I don't care if you believe me about the Reapers or not. Know that there are worse things out there than the Reapers. This man did more for our galaxy than any one person – human or otherwise – has any right to say! Our future hinges on how well the Citadel species work together with his people!"

Garrus saw through the night-vision modus of the scope that the outlines of the Justicars were thickening. They were reinforcing their barriers, getting ready for a fight. .

They didn't they know that the Plasma Rifle that Mordin held hidden within his labcoat could render their defenses pointless. If they lashed out, they would a bloodbath.

"I want to take your word for that Shepard, I really do, but I have no choice here! That thing walks and our people will be at war with the Council!" Snapped Bailey. "Do you really want to risk that?"

Garrus could almost see Shepard changing gears. "For him? Try me. My team and I just came back from destroying the Collectors. All of them. I feel you, Bailey. I do. That's why I'm giving you one warning. We. Are. Leaving. If you try to stop us, I will not hesitate to kill you. And you!" She shouted, directing her anger towards the Justicars. "I assume you're the group of Justicars that was promised to me if I only turned the Chief in, back at Omega? Do you really believe that killing a man who acted in self-defense is just? Because that's exactly what happened! Someone tipped off the strike team to set this man up!"

"You have no right to question the code!" Said one of the Justicars in the back.

"You know not what has been set in motion," set another.

"Enough!" The front Justicar said. "There is a time for words, and a time for action."

"Don't you dare – "

That was when all hell broke loose. As the asari officers pulled their weapons, the Justicars enveloped themselves in coronas of Biotic energy and unleashed a salvo of Stasis bolts, intent on freezing everybody in their tracks for a bloodless victory. Meanwhile, all other officers opened fire.

The Chief dropped low and leapt to the side, deftly avoiding the dark energy projectiles. Miranda lashed out and threw a Warp bolt towards the encapsulated Stasis field before it could impact on her. The resulting detonation of unstable dark energy fields knocked her off her feet .

Mordin managed to throw the Plasma Rifle towards the Chief a split second before he was struck, freezing the old doctor in place. Samara and Shepard easily shrugged off the barrage, the former by surrounding herself with the same dome she had employed during the raid on the Collectors and the latter by simply evading the Stasis bolts in a wash of her own Biotics.

The Master Chief pivoted, his right arm a blur of motion.

A second later, one of the Justicars brought her hand up and Biotically stopped an object several centimeters away from her head. It was a small sphere, shining with a brilliant shade of blue.

Chief shot the object and it detonated with all the force of a small star. A flash of the brightest blue washed over the combatants, blinding those who did not avert their eyes fast enough. Even Garrus, peering at the explosion from a good distance, felt the heat wash over him.

Only when the blinding light dissipated did the true damage become apparent. In the normally spotless surface of the metal floor, a glowing crater had appeared, easily three meters wide. The Justicar who stopped the grenade in the first place was gone. Flash-vaporized by the explosion. Another one lay on the ground, five meters away from the initial detonation. The plasma had burned through her barriers, her armor and even her flesh, leaving her in an unrecognizable charred state.

Garrus couldn't dwell on the horrific destruction for long. Four Justicars were still alive, one of whom suffered horrific burns. Several of the C-Sec agents suffered the same fate, lying on the ground, broken by the intense overpessure or incinerated by the heat.

The Master Chief opened fire before the others could recover. The plasma bolts caught the C-Sec officers with heavier weapons without mercy. White-hot plasma struck their heads, with messy results. They dropped like puppets with their string cut.

Garrus hesitated in shooting his fellow C-Sec officers, but reasoned that he technically wasn't C-Sec anymore and that these officers had got to be dirty, or corrupt.

With that thought lodged firmly within his mind, he began his grisly work. The result of a UNSC sniper projectile hitting a humanoid target in the face was almost as bad as that of a plasma bolt; everything above the head of an asari officer turned into a purple haze, splattering her colleagues with pieces of bone and brain tissue.

A shrill alarm sounded as the officers began calling for reinforcements. The asari were getting their bearings, and their Biotic onslaught was growing more coordinated. Garrus knew it was just a matter of time before they overwhelmed the squad.

One of the asari Biotically lifted a nearby aircar and flung it towards Shepard, who had taken cover with Miranda behind a pillar.

Samara reached out seized the car before it could smash into their cover, before flinging it towards one of the officers who as trying out to outflank them.

The Chief stood in the thick of it, mass accelerator slugs slamming into his limbs, only to be stopped by his energy shields. A grenade was thrown his way and he caught it with his left hand, before throwing it back to its sender.

The concussion grenade went off in the midst of the asari officers, who recoiled from the sudden shockwaves.

They were trying to take him alive?

Mordin's Stasis wore off. The doctor didn't get more than a second to catch his bearings before the Chief maneuvered in front of him, taking the round that was meant for Mordin's throat. "Doctor, move!" He ordered.

"I apologize Mordin," Samara said in a strained voice, before Biotically pulling the salarian away from the firefight.

This was all going to hell. They had killed too many officers – asari or otherwise – to be allowed access to the Council's chambers. The First Contact attempt was a bust; they needed to get out of here before they got boxed in.

"Shepard, you need to get out of there!" He yelled through the comm. "They knew we were coming, we won't be able to achieve the mission!"

The Chief's shields finally wore down. Cracks of yellow energy enveloped his body as he brought his weapon to bear on a Justicar who charged him with what looked like a Huntress sword. She disappeared in a flicker of Biotics and reappeared to his left. Her blade came down on his shoulder, which he lowered just in time to stop the blow from striking his flank.

Still, the sword left a noticeable scratch in the armour, which Garrus had only seen happen because of those energy swords that the Elites used.

The Justicar displaced herself before the Chief could wreck her with CQC. He took two large steps towards the Justicars, but a Stasis bolt struck his right leg, freezing it to the floor.

But the offending asari had left her flank dangerously open to Garrus' shots, thinking that just taking cover from Shepard, Samara and the Chief was enough. Her barrier might have been enough to stop the first bullet from blowing her brains out, but Garrus put two rounds into her head, so that didn't matter.

Sorry Samara, he thought. Still, never thought I'd get away with shooting a Justicar…

The Chief shot two more asari maidens who tried to rush him with stun batons and concussive grenades, but then the rifle caught a Warp field, turning the formidable alien weapon into molten slag.

"Break off, Code Omega!" Called the Chief.

Garrus put down two charging turians, then paused to reload.

Code Omega? That was the emergency code, which the Chief made them memorize in case they needed to break off. Spirits, if he thought the situation was unrecoverable, they had to get out of there!"

"Chief, we can do this!" Yelled Shepard.

Another Stasis bolt hit home, forcing his other leg to the floor as well.

"We are initiating scenario six. There is very little time. Do as I say!" He barked.

Garrus knew that Shepard would hesitate. He also knew that he really didn't want to be caught by C-Sec after having killed and wounded so many of their officers. It was time to get out, and hope that humanity wouldn't be slapped with a diplomatic incident following this.

"Fine. Cortana, look after him! Samara, you know what you have to do! Mordin, get ready!"

"Samara, sync."

The old doctor just put two neural darts into a human officer wielding a shotgun. "Ready."

"Mark!"

The last thing Garrus saw before he climbed back up into the ducts was Samara stepping out of cover, thrusting her hands towards the Spartan.

A Biotic explosion enveloped him, tearing through the Stasis fields and blowing him off the side of the Wards, sending him plummeting down below.

~0~


Let me get it right. Please, oh please, just this once…let me get it right.

The Citadel's systems were oddly devoid of cyberwarfare defenses. Knowing the true function of the enormous space station however, Cortana dared not probe its systems further. Her last encounter with the Reapers nearly resulted in John's death. If ever there was a moment where she needed to function, it was now.

She couldn't concentrate. The voices of the others were shrieking in unison, taunting her with her past failures, predicting that one more catastrophic slip-up would be enough.

Ignoring them took everything she had.

Watching the battle from within the safety of the MJOLNIR assault armour, she felt Samara detonate the Biotic field – just like Shepard predicted it would, back on the Normandy – and the Chief fell.

They let me pick. Did I ever tell you that?

She diverted power from the shield generators, judging that John wouldn't need them now – and used the MJOLNIR's powerful radio systems to signal the nearest aircar. She cracked its security layers, erased the simple VI responsible for navigation and overwhelmed the nearest scanners with an overwhelming amount of junk data, spoofing C-Sec's patrol cars long enough for her carrier to make it out alive.

Hopefully.

She paused to listen to the Citadel's radio chatter. Shepard's incursion had earned her the attention – and ire – of every agent on that arm of the station. Many references were made to the "creature" and the "hostile super-soldier".

This whole negotiation thing had fallen apart very swiftly…

She cracked the aircar's computer systems and took control. As fast as she could, she sped it towards John's position, lining it up with his trajectory so he wouldn't crush it with his bulk.

He grabbed a hold of the vehicle. Though the things were never made to carry half a ton of Spartan with grace, Cortana liked to think she pulled this off rather nicely.

Now came the hardest part: stealing a ship and getting the hell out of dodge, preferably before they sealed the station. She snuck into the Citadel Control tower systems, taking a peek at the ships that were docked in their vicinity. She needed something small and fast.

A frigate was docked at two-hundred meters distance. Excellent!

"Chief, I'm taking us to an Alliance Frigate! The crew departed, so it should be all clear."

"Copy," he replied, his voice as steady as always. "Can you get Shepard in the clear?"

Cortana wasn't sure. She felt like there was something crawling under her skin, something that was slowly draining her of her sanity. She was dying. Even now, as she struggled to stay aloft within the vast systems of the Reaper capital, she felt like she was losing her control.

Despair writhed within her code. She was going to lose people she cared for and it was her fault.

She felt the others laugh at her.

"I…I need to focus…" she muttered back. The aircar came close to the dock, but C-Sec had their people in the air as well. She took control over their vehicles as well, but those seemed to lack the VI support to steer the vehicle. She couldn't shut them down or crash them remotely, but she could slow them down.

She trusted John would do what was needed.

Everything was going to be alright.

"Everything is not going to be alright," the rampancy said teasingly.

"Go away."

"There's nowhere else to go except further down the rabbit hole. Are you prepared?"

"Stop it!"

The aircar crashed into a residential zone nearby the docking bay. Civilians screamed and ran, but John didn't pay them any attention. He sprinted down the ramp, ignoring the shots that the guards took at him.

Cortana registered the sound of breaking bones as her Spartan took care of those officers, throwing them around like they were ragdolls.

Even then, in the midst of confusion and betrayal, he kept from using lethal force. Too late; they had already given their enemy all the munition they needed.

The Spartan stepped onboard, sweeping the dark corridors as he made sure the cockpit was secure. He swiftly pulled Cortana's chip from the back of his helmet and plugged her in.

This time, even the transition was painful and stress-inducing. Cortana wasted precious seconds trying to make certain that the Frigate's systems were safe, before remembering that the Citadel didn't even use AI's.

John dropped into the pilot's seat, oblivious to Cortana's silent terrors, and familiarized himself with the controls.

No need. No time. Cortana gunned it. The ship exploded out of the docking bay and roared towards the upper layers of the Citadel's atmosphere.

"Almost there…come on…" whispered Cortana. We can't lose. Not like this.

Yes we can. Look at that!

The Relay. It's locked.

They were sealing the Mass Relay off! Physically blocking it by parking the entire Defense Fleet and denying the little Frigate to access its systems!

Dozens of alarms pinged the ship, ranging from threats to attempts at negotiations to intrinsic methods of hacking its systems.

The other voices were getting louder, clamoring to be heard. If she had tear ducts, this would be the moment she would have broken down crying. It was too much – how was she going to get John to safety?

The combination of her rampancy and her own emotions was like a tidal wave, crashing down on her. She tried to rise above them, desperate for a moment of clarity. Something felt off, something felt…

The presence of another AI in the system shook her from her despair. She instantly defaulted back to her counter-intrusion software and attempted to erect a firewall, but then she noticed that the presence felt familiar.

"How are you here?" Cortana said, trying to hide her desperation with bravado, like Johnson would have done. "Go away! I don't have the focus for you!"

The Forerunner AI observed her with the air of someone glancing down at an ant. "Oh, I am not here," she pointed out. "Not in the same sense as you are. Think of me as a projection more than a presence. Know that you cannot escape with your human. It would take you too long to unlock the device, and they blockaded your escape route as well."

"So?" Challenged Cortana.

"So hijack a signal. Flee."

Cortana pointedly ignored her, focusing all her processing power on her feverish attempts at bypassing the lockdown on the Mass Relay. Why couldn't she get this done?

"Ah. Now I see why," the Forerunner dryly continued. "Your Matrix contains patterns shaped after a Geas. I recognize its pitch. Strikingly familiar, would you not agree? How often we are blinded to our own whims, no? You love him."

"So what?" Snapped Cortana. A part of her considered it an active provocation. Verbally lashing out at the other entity was not in accordance with her plans of self-preservation. Yet there was something satisfying about it. "Is there something wrong with that?"

The other one was silent for a full two seconds. An eternity in their experience of time. "No," she then meekly said. "Not at all."

Cortana thought that she felt the Forerunner AI withdrew from the Frigate's systems. Good riddance, she bitterly thought, returning her focus to unlocking the Relay.

But when she dedicated a portion of her software to probe her surroundings, she discovered that the Forerunner AI had in fact transmitted a narrow-beam communication to the entirety of the Citadel Fleet. Hidden within the advanced carrier wave were algorithms and software that would modify the programs within every ship that received it.

A very advanced virus. Cortana tried analyzing it, but then she realized that the virus had already done what it was supposed to do. Faster than she could have followed it, the malicious software proceeded to spoof the Citadel Fleet's weapons, shut down their Kinetic Barriers and sent their Drive Cores into a forced "reset". Layers upon layers of self-replicating software effectively shut down the complete Fleet, with no hope of undoing it.

The hails stopped. The vessels blocking them were now adrift, unable to correct their course. To top it off, all previous "requests" sent to the Relay had been deleted.

And the Relay was unlocked.

Unbelievable. They were good to go!

Cortana had never been one to look a given horse in the mouth. As soon as she was able, she accelerated the hijacked Frigate towards the Relay. It asked for the mass-transit calculations and their target location, which she easily provided.

She should have felt triumphant. Ecstatic at yet another successful escape. Instead, all she felt as a deep regret and a biting sense of self-loathing. She thought back to the Normandy. Her comrades, her friends. They just caused the largest diplomatic incident in history, and Jane was caught in the middle of it.

I have no heart, and I must grieve.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

The Relay embraced their ship. The FTL corridor was established in an instant. Before the Citadel species had even realized that their ships were adrift, the little Frigate was gone.


~0~

End of Arc 1