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"Zeta."
"Reporting."
"I've got... Notice, of something."
"What do you mean?"
"Better yet, someone."
"Still don't get it."
"Alright. Why is the navy on the sector?"
"No idea."
"You fucked up?"
"Miss, the entire Cote d'Azure system was ruptured."
"You still weren't quick enough."
"What do you mean?"
"Navy requested data once they woke up from the shock, I had to lend them the operation."
"Miss, we know nothing about this place, the arrangement was supposed to be silent, the navy doesn't know how to be nimble."
"And for that you'll still operate with them, keep your prowler active, gather information, you already failed."
"I still can intervene."
"But you won't. Let the navy deal with this, if you get in their way things will get messy, and we already have enough with the Covenant."
"What if the quarians are hostile then?"
"Expect martial court after you mine the entire Cote d'Azure Prima system."
"Nothing against them?"
"No, unless you want whatever galactic organization is behind them to swarm earth, don't stir us another war, it's enough that we destroyed a ship and contacted an unknown scavenger instead of an alien fleet, this is an unexpected opportunity, don't fuck up."
"Understood, Admiral."
"Dismissed."
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"Why are you fixing your suit like that?"
A wrench fell to the ground, the metal sound making some of the guards turn to face them.
"Because this is not a normal meeting, this is..." - He tested the new omni-blade he had just installed by swinging it, the orange blade cutting through the clean air of the room. - "A special one, dear."
With a nervous tone, she kept inquiring. - "This looks more like war!" - Afterwards the guards gave her some weirded looks, but did not speak, for they were doing their job as bodyguards with fidelity. - "What kind of meeting will you be on?"
He sighed, he understood his daughter's plead for knowledge, but she and the other hundreds of thousands who were called back to the fleet didn't have to know.
"Trust me." - Replied while holding his little Tali by the shoulders. - "I do not plan on fighting, it's just," - He stopped to deactivate his blade and adjust his add-on armor. - "a cautionary measure."
"Can't I at least go with you?"
Sorry eyes were on both's faces.
Another figure went through the door, wearing an even more ornate suit than Rael's, with a buckle carrying the insignia of her section of the fleet.
"Just take her so she doesn't keep pressing on, better to have another gun just in case." - The admiral that had just come spoke, her own bodyguards showing a mere second later.
"Understood." - Admiral Rael replied, nodding and then looking at his child, hugging her before walking to his fellow admiral.
Tali was left there thinking, doubting the situation, of what just happened, of what was going to happen.
"Are you going to stand there or are you coming?" - Asked her superior, miss Daro'Xen.
She immediately snapped up and looked to her M-22, a gift she still carried from a pair of years before; and walked right behind the two Marines that served as his father's personal bodyguards.
Just what kind of meeting was this?
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A trio of ships flew through the emptiness of space.
It wasn't a small contingent, no, this mission was far too risky to be carried out by a single prowler.
It was a Support Carrier, and two Light-Destroyers, hopefully, enough to crash land on a planet and build defenses until the UNSC came to rescue them.
They had come to this place with the hopes of finding something to fix a problem back at home, trade, and then go back; and that's what they were going to do.
They were five years into a massacre that had been slowed down due to this discovery that pushed the Covenant aback, a rift in space that disrupted the Consolidated fleet of Alienation that commanded the efforts of wiping them out.
And now they were exploiting it, moving even the Epsilon Eridani fleet and a quarter of the MAC stations on earth just to protect the entry to this place.
So all the hopes that humanity had placed on this discovery now were on the edge of a knife that if perturbed was going to cut a possible lifeline in their conflict.
That's why they selected three people to act.
"Will be they asking questions?" - An almost robotic, yet eager voice asked.
"More than likely," - He quickly put out his cigarette and looked at the towering soldier that stood next to him. - "you are not required to answer though, that's why I am there."
"But how will they understand us?" - A genuine question, curiosity from this man, a weird sight for the Captain who wasn't quite used to spartans or knew about them before last week. - "Or how will we understand them?"
"Don't we have our AI for that?" - A man with a happier tone replied ironically. He wore armor just like the towering soldier, but was smaller than him, yet he was still taller than the captain.
"Yes, and we will rely on that if the need arises, but the deal was made already, are just to finish it."
"Commanding a Heron directly to drop them the stuff?" - Again snottily asked the soldier, who put on an ODST helmet before taking steps onto the hangar they were all walking to.
"I understood that we would be seeing their leadership face to face."
While putting glass-plasteel his mask on, Cutter answered. - "And you are right John, we will go there, you will load the things to the Pelican, Mister Forge isn't as strong as you."
A laugh came from said man. - "You got me there!"
But no hint of giggle came from the Spartan, who instead looked at them coldly. - "I feel like this is a waste of resources."
Cutter snorted and placed a hand on the shoulder of the soldier. - "Maybe it is, but I think it's better to have a Spartan to kill aliens if all goes south, Mister Forge will be there mostly because he's quicker than I am to process things, so he'll translate some things better for us."
Now it was much clearer, he didn't like being left in the dark after all.
The hangar was ready, just five minutes before the crew of the Heron had departed, and the pair of Pelicans which were to serve as makeshift fighters were already out in space, carrying the missiles they borrowed from some of the fighters who were also part of the escort of the flight.
Still, the flight crew was still there waiting for the three men.
Their pilot, an eager ODST waved her hand before saluting.
When they finished loading fuel onto the craft, the crew saluted too.
"All ready!" - A member of the staff shouted, to which Cutter nodded.
"Thank you." - He said while his two companions got onto the Pelican.
In a few short seconds, they had gotten onto the machine, the technical crew stepped back and it started the engines, soon it was onto the void, to have a look at the marvels of the sight that was the galaxy; and to join the flock that was going to meet these newcomers that ONI had contacted.
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It might be risky but since she tasted it for the first time she always drank this thing on the job.
Might the humans be blessed for bringing this black delicacy to the galaxy.
"Bitter." - She said before taking a long sip of coffee. - "Ahh..." - A pleasant afternoon.
Beep.
It was probably her ex so instead she took another sip of coffee.
Beep.
...
Beep Beep.
She was going to turn off her omnitool if this kept on going, fuck Otaiha, he wasn't going to get her again.
Beep Beep Beep Beep Beeeeeeeep.
"Damit!"
She opened her eyes, her eyebrows tilted down, just to see that it wasn't the notifications of messages, rather it was:
"CONTACT!"
She screamed to the top of her lungs and then immediately put on her mask, her heart began racing but she had to maintain composure and talk to Admiral Rael.
Her coworkers at the main sensor station of the Rayya gathered at her post or began looking to the screens of their machines, there was confirmation.
"Get me a line with the admiralty!" - Ordered the Captain in command of the section.
"I am on it!" - Our Coffee-sipping quarian answered, and thankfully he picked up instantly. - "Sir there are foreign obj-"
"I know."
That alone sent the whole room silent.
The captain raced to the station and pressured. - "Sir you what?" - Her raspy voice was clearly desperate, but represented the doubt of everyone in the place.
"Tell all guns to prepare, but do not engage unless attacked first, Rael out."
Just like that, the connection was severed, they had their orders.
"Relay the data." - Begrudgingly said the captain.
And so they got to work, uncertainty in their hearts, but trusting in their leaders.
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"You told me there was going to only be one." - Daro'Xen questioned. - "Why are there more than thirty separate signals, thirty-six of which are fighter-sized?"
"Miss I-"
"If you fucked it up and brought a raiding party to the fleet, your head will be severed before theirs." - The admiral finally stopped scolding the girl that had made this arrangement.
But she was right to do so, they were promised self-sustaining food and resource equipment in exchange for varied weaponry and theoretical knowledge on things that any working government that was charted by the citadel would know.
That pointed to some gang wanting more power, or something like that.
Maybe it was a colony and they were desperate for things.
But this was way too shady.
This is why the fleet had gathered, guns pointed, ready for a brawl.
They had engaged a big turian war band twenty years ago, destroyed ten cruisers and fifteen frigates while having a third of the casualties, all thanks to concentrating the whole firepower of the fleet, so they were confident in their ability to defend themselves, but small raiding parties always did a lot more damage, especially to the liveships.
"Let's pray that it is good instead of focusing on what's already been done." - Reprimanded Admiral Zaal'Koris.
His tone was enough to quell the arguing, but not the nerves of everyone there.
Three admirals were on the room, with two squads of Marines and one of Rangers; and Miss Tali; everyone prepared for the arrival of the newcomers.
Han'gerrel was in his 'Dreadnought', a quarian cruiser reffited with pieces of some Turian cruisers, observing the situation along with Miss Shala'Raan who prepared the defenses and the line of succession if all went down south.
It was a mere minute before the shining lights of the machines were seen.
Some immediately got preoccupied, for the fighters seemed to be way too small and armed to have any pilot.
"Are they geth!?" - Screamed a scared Marine before being chewed by his sergeant.
But it was a genuine fear, only Miss Daro knew they weren't geth, for their structure did not match the style of their de jure enemies.
The weapons of the ship were prepared, pointing to every single meter between the swarm and the main hangar of the ship, where the meeting was to happen.
"Be sure to not fire first." - Advised Admiral Rael.
Yet the rangers kept their guns pointed forward, they weren't going to stutter if their visitors fucked up.
It was still amazing for them when they saw one giant machine flying towards the main ship, followed by smaller ones. One seemed like a light frigate, yet with a lot more displacement, and others were more akin to gunships.
But a small thing was noticed by the sensors, these ships didn't carry any eezo, probably because they were pretty good at hiding it.
Until one of the 'gunships' entered the hangar when they all immediately felt the pressure of such a machine pushing air out as it passed.
Easily more than thirty meters, more massive than the shuttles that the humans had introduced to the galaxy.
And it was armed, heavily, these people clearly knew warfare, for pods of missiles, ones who seemed guided and others that were more like rockets; and three guns, with a bore probably on the forty-millimeter range; which even if not accelerated by rail would mean certain death for anyone.
Some soldiers prepared their heavier weapons, launchers even; just in case.
In the background, the 'light frigate' left out something heavy above the life ship, and simply returned to the coverage of the swarm of fighters, showing that it was but an empty hull, still big, and probably well-armed, but it had lost half of its volume.
"Contact, we are examining it. No life signals detected." - The speakers of the quarians told.
They waited for confirmation as the gunship landed.
"It's moving!" - A worried exclamation was heard just as the ramp of the craft went down and its engines died out.
Sweat formed on the foreheads of the people present.
"It's expanding, call the engineers!"
Silence for a few seconds.
Tali stuttered while trying to say something, but her father pointed to the shotgun she carried.
"It's... Empty, we detect oxygen inside, a preliminary scan shows that it's like... A prefabricated section for the liveship, as if it was for colonizing."
And just as they were getting relief from that result, someone walked down from the craft.
It had two legs, and used clothing for the feet, black. It's chest was decorated in gray, with markings on the shoulders.
It's face though, was eerily similar to Tali.
"Hello everyone, I am Captain James Gregory Cutter, I believe you have weapons for us."
And behind him, two other humanoid figures stood, one bigger than the other.
They looked like quarians, but yet they weren't.
No one spoke a word, but Miss Daro immediately signaled to the ranger squad to move in the boxes they had prepared.
The man in the middle of the three humanoids moved forward along with the smaller one; whose face was visible to the quarians.
It was so similar to them, the facial structure, the body, it was just the form of the legs and hands that differentiated them, that and the lack of auxiliary air intakes and sclera on his eyes; for the difference in the skin was ignorable given that some mutations gave a few quarians the same tint.
Almost like they were a subspecies adapted to climb and do more explosive jobs.
The tallest one met the rangers, it towered over them, easily by two heads, and he lifted a heavy box filled with weaponry and obsolete datapads and computers with out-of-date information which the quarians had already replaced.
Meanwhile, this one who showed his face behind a wall of some sort of glass approached the nearest quarian, Admiral Rael.
"I know it might be hard to react, but please don't feel threatened, we are just on a short visit."
The suited migrants kept looking, baffled.
Tali didn't understand what was happening. She had served with Shepard before, she knew their equipment almost as good as any Alliance Quartermaster.
So why were these people so distinct? Why the steps of the overly armored soldier were so heavy yet lacked sound? Was this 117 a division of the N7 group?
But none said a word. The troops would speak a thing. The admirals didn't know how to react.
While the hulking soldier carried more boxes, the reports of the interior of the machine they had attached arrived. It was a sealed compartment that could easily hold some hundred people, with workshops with eerily familiar yet unknown tools, and a hydroponic farm capable of feeding some thousand people.
Some worry formed on the brow of the man in front of Rael, probably because of their lack of response, so he lent his hand. Bigger than the quarian's yet with more fingers.
"Well, the colony starter unit is yours, if you don't have anything to say..." - The middle humanoid said, with an embarrassed tone half blocked by his helmet that also covered a face they supposed was similar to the apparent officer.
{He wants you to shake his hand} - Said Tali to his father, as nervous as she was.
And he was quick to follow, surprising the officer with the firm grasp of this newcomer.
A sigh of relief from both sides as they nervously smiled to each other.
Then, not knowing what to say, the Admiral spoke: "Are you with the alliance?"
Mister Cutter arched a brow, and in some unintelligible language the middle soldier explained to him, but the doubt didn't go away.
"What do you mean with 'the alliance'?" - His tone was now a bit annoyed, and he stopped shaking the quarian's hand.
Tension rose up.
"Well. You are human." - Miss Daro explained.
The eyes of Cutter opened up and his mouth opened to show utter terror and surprise. Silently, the middle soldier reached for the gun on his back. And the hulking one stopped dead in his tracks as he carried the fifth crate, leaving it on the ground.
"Zaer?" - Came out from the tall troop, unintelligible, yet still similar enough to normal human language to be understood as a 'Sir' by the translator, as if this was a dialect of standard human English they just hadn't surveyed yet.
The middle soldier kept telling things to his superior, finally drawing his rifle and placing it in front of his belly, as a warning to the people there that he was ready to act and fire.
Cutter shook his head and babbled before finally speaking right. - "How do you know that?"
This time, none of the quarians knew how to react.
But a certain young one was knowledgeable in humans, she knew how they acted, she knew how to try and speak things up, because she could feel how the admirals got their own special way of managing things.
So Tali took a step forward, and showed her omni tool to the human.
"I think... I can explain." - She said, with a shy tone, surprising her fellow quarians.
"Then please do, Miss." - Answered the alien captain with a slight tint of relief.
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"This feels bigoted."
"We found quarian tools in a destroyed ship, we aren't saying they destroyed it, just that they are related."
"And are you even sure the fleet is here?"
"Shut up, there's still fifty other systems that they frequent."
"Whatever you say, commander."
A single second after they spoke, the patrol corvette got out of their mass effect bubble, appearing in real space.
The Gorgon system, where Shepard supposedly dealt with Rachni if the myths of the humans were to be believed; effectively hosted a large number of elements, likely the migrant fleet.
"Kairados!" - The captain, an old Turian, shouted to her subordinates. - "Get me a good scan of the system and compare it to what the records say!"
The ship's entire 15 crew members got to work.
Soon they had a map to present to their captain on the display table.
"Display the changes with red." - And so it was done.
It showed an astounding number of ships gathered in Camaron's orbit, it was the Migrant fleet after all; they could finally get them in line with the Hierarchy's International Peacekeeping and Investigation Force about the freighter's destruction.
Might this not become a crisis between the Quarians and the Turians, for the whole galaxy would get against Palaven in defense of the poor little hippies.
Still, they had to question and wait for when a investigator an a prosecutor could come to being talks.
But something caught the eye of the Captain.
"Hey, behind Slekon." - She pointed to the gas giant's representation on the map. - "What that red blob there?"
Indeed, there was a faint signal, but it was close to what the liveships of the quarians showed up like on the scan.
The navigator approached and looked at it for some moments, and so did the first officer.
"Probably rubble from a pirate battle? It would explain why the quarians are here." - Tried to convey the First officer.
"I disagree, they would be a lot closer if that were the case; maybe it's a part of the fleet, or could be some raiding party; after all, from the angle they are, they would be masked from sensors." - Presented the Navigator, with a snotty tone.
"Then why can we see them?" - Replied the First officer, slightly irritated.
"We don't have railguns in exchange for dreadnought grade sensors, and we are on the edge of the system, we have a better position than them."
"Bu-!"
"Stop arguing." - The captain ordered, silence followed, with both men nodding, a prime example of martial excellency for Turians. - "Better to be clear, bring us near the blob, we can interrogate the quarians later."
Her tone was off, like she didn't want to interact with the quarians in the first place so this was instead a distraction, but in any case, they were paid by the hour, so they would do as said.
They accelerated quickly, approaching Vectra, the sixth planet of the system, in no time.
A few minutes later and they got to watch the edge of the orbit of the planet.
"Can you give us a better view now?" - Asked the captain to the Navigator.
"Aye."
A new scan was transformed onto a picture slowly by the systems of the ship.
It still wasn't enough to get exactly what it was, but at least it showed no trace of element zero, so it probably wasn't a ship, a point for the scrap metal theory.
"Mother of god."
The height was double that of the main body of the absurdly sized mass accelerator in the middle of the Destiny Ascension, and it slowly showed more and more.
It was ugly as sin compared to any ship of the turian navy, or any, save for maybe the human one; but even then, it's lack of eezo, flashing lights, and visible sections like antennas meant that this had to be a space station; and even then the lack of mass effect fields would be almost absurd.
But the surprise came even heavier when two smaller ships showed up on it's sides, they were as massive as human cruisers, but had the size of a turian one, with the general design of one too; yet it was ugly too, functional, but it was a giant slab of armor with hardpoints, a wedge-shaped ship that looked hastily made.
Yet they were dwarfed by the thing that finally showed its real size, while it was roughly half the size, it's height and width surely made up to have no less than 70% of the tonnage of the Destiny Ascension.
More than that, the prow of the ship showed exits, three, with bores that were just massive, five meter in diameter, even if they had the accelerators of a frigate it would mean that they could send slugs with the power of at least a megaton, enough to kill any dreadnought that wasn't of the current 20th or 19th generations, or a top-of-the-line heavy cruiser.
Worse was the presence of smaller cannons, something that the Ascension didn't have, meaning that this ship alone would mean death for any single ship that defied her, maybe a flotilla or a fleet could get her, but if the quarians were doing this, then maybe they had a bigger problem than the destruction of a freighter.
"Get us out of here, we have to tell the Hierarchy, we are not getting near that thing."
None deared defy her judgement, not because they all agreed, but because they saw one of the cruisers speeding towards them.
Soon they made a quick FTL jump, to get the hell out of there and try to go to the nearest relay.
Obviously no one believed them when they reached the patrol unit at the beginning, but once they saw their sensor data, an entire fleet was mobilized to know just what the hell was that thing and how could they contain them.
This was a matter of national security now.
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A/N: Hey so, first time trying a crossover, I hope I get both universes right, I have played every game of both series, but I am more knowledgeable with Halo, yet I will try to not wank it and make it cohesive so it isn't a rolfstomp by any side.
It will be funny to try and write this, specially once the different human races meet.
If you have any opinion, comment, thing you wanna add, just PM me or leave a review, both are much appreciated.
Specially about writing and how to manage things, I really need to make things interesting.
So thank you all for reading :D