To those interested, the human ships are two Halberd-class light destroyers and one Phoenix-class Support Carrier.
The Turians have thirteen Corvettes, twenty-two Frigates, fourteen Cruisers, and one dreadnought.
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"One of my contacts has told me about something."
"Something good I hope?"
"Depends on your take, it is something that changes your itinerary."
"Not even a month of being awake and now I can't stay on Omega for longer? You are truly evil."
"Heh, as creative as ever, your second squad member didn't shake your personality it seems."
"Garrus has always been one to follow what I say, so I'm still pretty much the same."
"Good to hear that, I need you in peak condition."
"Implying that I am not currently on my peak."
-Cerberus' head didn't quite enjoy the comment, for it was using time, time that Shepard needed to use in something much more productive. –
"I originally wanted you to recruit some other people first, but you can kill two birds with one stone this time; you'll go to the Migrant Fleet."
"To the quarians? You planned to ge-"
-Before he could keep talking, the man lifted his hand in gesture for him to shut for a second.-
"Yes, Tali'Zorah, but things moved and now there's a race for a ship as big as the place I am currently standing on; with no eezo to speak of, that's more important than your friend."
"Sounds rather primitive, why is it so important?"
"Shepard, the ship was two and a half kilometers long and could move at the same speed as a 16th generation cruiser, whatever the quarians have built is a marvel of engineering, the means to have eezo-less construction in such a scale for people with so little resources would mean a revolution for the rest of the galaxy, or better yet, humanity, if we had such knowledge."
"I am no engineer to try understand plans."
"I know that."
"But if this means that it could help in the future, I'll do it."
"And I knew I could count on you to try and get information."
"When do I go?"
"Whenever you are ready, Mister Moreau already has the coordinates."
"Now, any resistance to this?"
"Yes, the Turians, they have taken a surprising interest, I assume that when you are to arrive at the system they would already have taken measures to contain that ship and investigate it; but I know you can manage to set things straight."
"You have a lot of faith on me."
"Of course, you are human, like me."
"See you later."
"Until then."
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"Do you want anything to eat?" – Asked the captain.
"We can't, we have a different biology than you."
"How so?"
"Dextro-protein-based system, you are humans, so you are levo-based."
"Huh" - Captain Cutter left out, weirded at this knowledge until now they had only met species that could eat the same things as themselves.
Miss Daro mentally noted that this Tali girl was pretty experienced with the new kids on town, the other quarians though, those who had been permitted to take a guided trip to the Spirit of Fire along with the Admirals and Tali; were more interested in taking photos with the human engineers and soldiers that permeated the zone, creating entire albums of marines holding their rifles posing for the quarians.
And the Spartan between the group walking through the main vein of supplies of the Spirit of fire, past the large storage bays and training quarters for the troops; decided to lift his hand to speak.
His commanding officer nodded, giving him permission, and so he spoke concisely.
"That doesn't make any sense."
Miss Tali took a personal offense to that, she knew her facts, neither Turian nor Quarians could eat human food due to their difference in DNA composition.
How dared this tall, armored, strong, deep-voiced, and so quarian like human contradict her?
Shepard once tried eating dextro-protein-based food and he got intoxicated, she knew what she talked bout.
But before she could reply, she got another phrase from her green-titan.
"For example, ethanol has neutral chirality, and is edible for any species if some of the comments about alcohol from our visitors have merit, in reality, you should be able to eat our food even if the chirality is different, only a family-sized meal should be able to inflict any kind of damage to your systems; if your systems are any like ours."
He spoke with certainty like he had studied these things. Tali still felt offended, so she looked to the Admirals behind her, only to notice that they were amazed at the fact that this 117 soldier had spoken for the first time in the four hours that the Quarians and 'second' humans had made contact.
When she realized this and her eyes went wide open; the human Captain, Mister Cutter, grabbed his hat to mask his laughter.
"But we are not like you!" - The ashamed Tali replied.
"You are humanoid, and some of the pictures the quarians have shown clearly point to a striking biological similarity."
His tone was pretty annoying for Tali now, but she noticed what was this 117 falling to notice. - "We had a bit of a problem due to living in a contained living space."
Without words, he understood that, nodding to the alien and then keeping on walking behind his now recovering officer.
They in such a short time had shared a lot, from the basics, like what were the other species, and who were these new humans, to more intricate things, like the lack of eezo usage for these novo humans, something unbelievable for the quarians even after sensing no trace of it on the ship.
Stuff that seemed impossible for each side was promised to be explained when they met again.
Then, the rest of the higher-ups remained in silence, and some of the other guests kept asking questions to the humans in weird body armors that didn't exactly cover their entire body as the normal trooper armors did on the council species' space.
The war they waged, the culture these humans had, the difference between themselves, the notions of individuality yet common goals and hierarchy were felt, this was weird for the quarians, yet so familiar, so like them, and they knew this was reciprocal.
Comments about how the humans didn't expect this were commonplace, with explanations of the war they had was brutal and had shifted them to expect all aliens to be... evil in a manner that was unspeakable.
Of course, these comments also mentioned ships two times as big as this one for the humans and one twenty kilometers long for their enemies, so they took it with a pretty big grain of salt.
For the visitors it was still a blast, aside from the photos and questions that they asked they were amazed by their similarity to these humans, not in physique, that was a thing that directly went into flirting territory for both sides, but instead, things like when they went past one weapons bay, in which they all watched with great interest how they took the weapon from an 'M-35 koo-ga-er' and put it on a 4 meter-tall mech, and placed a grenade machine gun on the IFV's new room.
This was simply wonderful for the hundred or so guests that came, who were recording every second of this time, and Tali hoped that the humans that entered the Rayya were being courteous and didn't make any mayhem, but if they were like the humans she knew, then they would probably try and flirt with some of the quarians and get intoxicated with their food.
Because, they look awfully desperate for something to happen, something bad like they had never seen something other than their own species, or as if they hoped that they were different from the aliens they had encountered but still were wary.
Yet at the same time, they seemed as if they were longing for kinship with people that didn't attack them at the mere sight of 'em.
Was that the effect of war on their general population?
And important to note for her the contrast was that some humans, especially those who wore all-black or green, with light-blue or grey visors in their helmets, the so-called 'Oh-Day-As-Tee' and 'Run-Yerks'; almost seemed to hold a gun prepared to shoot them in every step they took; all the while the rest seemed to look at them with curiosity, asking about who they were, a bit of history, what were their gadgets, and some even commented on that they seemed to have mammary glands, ew.
Then, Mr. Cutter stopped laughing and looked to his chatter, afterwards he sighed and directed himself to his guests.
"Anyways, I think it is time to get you back onto your ship, isn't it?"- A small smile showed on his face after saying that. - "I know that your bellies must be pretty empty."
His tone had no malice, he genuinely was preoccupied with their well-being, and that was noted by the higher-ups of the Migrant Fleet.
Tali wanted to say no, for she still hadn't seen the armory or one of the systems for those gigantic point defense guns the size of shuttles, but his dad stopped her before she could express herself.
"I think we are." – Admiral Rael answered with honesty, looking to his fellow officers for agreement, which he got.
James Gregory Cutter put on his hat again, cleaned his shoulder pads which still had the decoration of the CMA embedded next to his Captain insignias, and then shook the hands of every single one of the Admirals before making a salute.
"Then I dismiss you all, thank you for visiting the UNSC Spirit of Fire." – Then he relaxed, indicating to the Spartan to move with them. – "Mr. John will escort you all to the hanger where your shuttles lay so you can go back home, we'll get our boys moving here too in a moment."
The higher-ups nodded, but all of those quarians accompanying them booed this decision.
Nevertheless, they all moved, and soon enough, the exchange was coming to a close.
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Once the last pelican had left the hangars of the Rayya, the main ships of both fleets saluted each other, and the swarm of cruisers that surrounded them dispersed, allowing for the three human ships to begin moving to exit the veil of the quarians.
From the bridges all captains sent their regards, the Admirals made final questions to the humans, and Tali'Zorah sent a message asking if John was really the name of the green-armored titan.
It was a pleasant experience, recounts of bar fights and flirting between species proved this further, it was like they were two separated species; made for each other.
It made things all the more interesting for when the humans were going to meet the second humanity that inhabited this new galaxy.
This news shook up the crews and filled with more rejoice than anything, for instead of something that flooded them with fear it was a very pleasant surprise, new yet familiar faces, for most of the quarians, save the ones that flashed the humans and the odd-one-outs, they never got their purple or blue masks off for the humans to see; an uncanny action to be sure.
And the fact that this new humanity was there, waiting for them, lifted hopes, they would probably be friendly and would help their brothers in the fight that they were imbued on.
Though even if this endeavor was for neigh, the exchange and the provided training with these 'Omni-tools', accelerator weapons, and they had access to this 'Codex', basically the encyclopedia of this galaxy, and varied tech which offered countless possibilities to the UNSC to win the war that for now seemed like a slow attrition battle until every light on human territory was shut off.
HIGHCOM would probably give a raise to every single member of this operation and would put their names on the most bombastic monument ever.
This was hope that they were delivering; just like they had given the quarians the ability to have the means to feed thousands more of their people.
Cutter was ready to give the order to open the slipspace portal and go home like victors.
Just like-
"Contact."
"The actual fuck do you mean?" – Asked the First officer of the Spirit of Fire, the first to react to this notice.
"Language!" – Reprimanded Cutter, who moved to immediately look to the console of Petty Officers James Eremus, the one in charge of the sublight bow AESA radar. – "Any information?"
"Fifty contacts." – He spoke, clearly nervous.
"Serina!?" – Cutter shouted, and the AI instantly showed a tridimensional projection of their area, and just a thousand kilometers above them and the migrant fleet were the fifty contacts.
"Mother of…" – He realized who these might be, from his conversation with the Quarians. – "Get me a line with the admiralty!"
"They were trying to contact us first." – Serina, whose avatar was putting symbolically a Marine armor over her normal 'attire' said, while presenting a frequency wave screen, which would mean that there was audio from the quarians to be heard.
The representation of a man, Admiral Rael, who they didn't recognize if it wasn't by the voice, spoke once Mr. Cutter got in front of the holographic projector. - "Captain James Cutter, I am sorry to inform you the Turian hierarchy, they are asking us permission to board your ship."
"That's stupid." – Commented the first officer, Mister Tiresias, who adjusted his gray officer jumpsuit to look next to Mr. Cutter. – "Have you told them this is our ship?"
"We did, they still insist." – Admiral Rael explained. - "It seems that they have a special curiosity in your main ship."
A glance between the two officers of the Spirit of Fire told it all.
"Can you relay comms for us?"
The quarian nodded.
The man disappeared and the spectrogram of the audio of the Turian's officer came.
"Hello, I am sorry for intruding in the middle of your movement, but we are tasked by the Primarch Fedorian themselves to search for your ship due to a possible involvement in the destruction of a freighter and it lacks identification all the while surpassing the limit of length for ships settled by the council."
A snotty tone accompanied the message, but it sounded weirdly feminine like it came from an old woman.
It left the crew dumbfounded, did these turians really believe they had authority over them? Or that they were quarians?
And even then, what right did they have to rule over their welcomers?
"You say it sir?" - Commented the First officer, getting a grin from his commanding superior.
Mr. Cutter cleared his throat before speaking to this unknown alien officer, who presumably was on the dreadnought 'in front' of their ship.
"This is the Spirit of Fire from the UNSC, and I am sorry but you won't land on our ship, we don't welcome strangers to our homes without greeting them first, and we have no idea of what you are talking about."
Ahh, the blunt sincerity that could only come from this man and the semi-legendary Admiral Preston Cole.
"You quarians have a fun way to do things, but we aren't planning on attacking your fleet, we just want to examine your new weird ships, we have orders to do so." - She insisted.
"And you aren't going to do it, otherwise we will answer with lethal force."
Then, comms closed.
Admiral Rael waited for something, he had heard the short exchange but didn't know what to say.
"To hell with this, we are going to solve it by ourselves, go take cover." – A friendly advice, he didn't by a single moment want these friendly aliens to get flabbergasted by these fuckers who dared ruin things up. - "If what you told us about them is true, then they need a beating to understand things."
"We are going to get into war with another alien species?" – Asked Serina, half-mocking, and half-preoccupied.
"No, we are humans, we are not part of this particular galaxy, but we will not be stomped by another set of aliens again, they will have to face us if they want to step on our ships."
"Yes!"- Screamed an overzealous deck crewmember, followed by nods from the rest of the bridge.
Apparently, the nerves of the quarians possibly being hostile for the time they spent with them were going to be directed to the Turians.
"I want all guns prepared, every single missile ready, they are fifty so I want the remaining 76 archers to be on waiting to whatever bastard survives."
"MACs?" – Asked the first officer, who was speaking to one of the men in charge of the batteries.
"Twenty percent charge on each one, be prepared for a sudden rise to fifty, I want the slugs to reach them in a second."
"Targeting priority?"
"Bigger ones first, not the command ship though, the one-click one, go against the five-hundred meters ones."
"Any electronic countermeasures?" – Serina herself asked this time.
"Can you get in their systems?" – Counterasked Cutter.
"Oh, you overestimate me," – The avatar then looked upwards and blinked multiple times. – "I would need help from more super-advanced AIs like me to do that."
Then the images of two others, a small kid wearing a baseball player attire and a 22nd century-looking teenage girl holding a first-generation chatter.
"Oh, right, we have two destroyers to help us!"
"Good, then, remember, let's talk first, if words don't work, we'll give 'em hell, in a pretty good homecoming."
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"Any luck?"
"They keep saying that it isn't their ship and that they won't answer for it, that we should speak first."
"Why are they so fixated on that?" – General Septimus coped with the lack of cooperation. – "We are literally seeing the ship facing us, it isn't geth, it isn't human, and it clearly has the lack of finesse that only the Quarians have."
"Pretty racist," – Admiral Ravis Kandros commented. – "but you are right, seems like we have to board it."
"Are you sure you want to do that?" – The old officer asked, still fearful of creating an unnecessary conflict.
"I even told them about the investigation, we have a reason to do it, we probably are going to tow this ship to Palaven."
A few seconds of pure silence between the two incurred, the deck officers in their consoles, circling the plateau where the two maxims of this AdHoc fleet stood; also kept silent, facing through the heavily armored viewport of their bridge and the sight of that ugly yet magnificently big enigma ship.
"It's nice to know that the quarians now finally made a ship with a visible bridge like us." – Commented Septimus again.
"What?" – Miss Ravis asked, dumbfounded, not understanding what he meant by that.
"See?" – The man pointed to a section on the top of the ship, above the main cannons.
"Huh, they finally made good ships, it just lacks a shield then and it would be the second-best ship in the galaxy." – She smiled after seeing this, genuinely contempt. – "But… We have something to do."
Septimus nodded. – "Deploy the Marines."
And so they did, and hundreds of shuttles deployed.
It was going to be a boarding action.
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"No life signals detected."
"Basic energy barrier for entrance."
"Seven aircraft inside the hangar, three different designs."
"We entered!"
"Oxigen-nitrogen atmosphere, breathable!"
"Move, move!"
Unopposed they landed in a hangar; they surprisingly weren't shielded, nor was any active aircraft waiting for them to make a surprise attack.
The ship hadn't moved, they had let them all land safely for some reason, giving them an empty welcoming.
Of course, there were weird crafts of various sizes, but they all looked empty or sealed.
Troops walked past boxes with unarmed missiles, machinery to refuel, and toolboxes from which they saw logos and words that some could recognize, but the 'UNSC' part they did not understand.
Weirdly enough, all craft in there, all the vehicles, were sitting like they had all left in the middle of repairs, refuels, or general operations, probably as a measure to not directly contact with the boarders.
This was happening in each bay on the three incognito ships.
All flooded by Turian soldiers, all examined by them.
It was interesting how primitive they seemed to be, the powerplants on some things were just combustion engines, admittedly, very efficient ones given the size, but nothing like the miniaturized fusion reactors that they had on their armors, the quarians had clearly cheaper out on this.
There was no trace of eezo so they declared them to be empty, they had probably garrisoned on the middle of the ship; it was to be expected, this vessel was simply ginormous.
Sargeant Triarto was the one who lead his party right in between two massive gunships towards a large tunnel/door which led to a sort of central highway, similar to the landing ships of the Turians which they used on the contact war with the humans.
His M-15 was prepared with stun rounds, he didn't want to kill any quarians, and neither did the other 19 members of the squad, but they had their normal grains of tungsten to fire prepared just in case they weren't cooperative.
They went past the shuttles, recognizing these numbers as the numerals that humans used, with their same 'lae-ten' alphabet too, but they couldn't open the bays of the 'Pae-li-kan-es', remaining a mystery for them even as they could see the shells that they used to feed the cannons they armed their aircraft with.
The rest of the equipment was free to play though, they got on the cockpits of some oddly designed craft that looked to try and compromise the designs between your average exo and endo-atmospheric fighters.
In those small examinations, they noted that they seemed to have gotten a lot of supplies from the Alliance, since things like the control sticks, and tools, were made for five-fingered hands, and the lack of eezo immediately made asari involvement impossible.
Nevertheless, they advanced following instructions, taking point near the entrance to this highway, it felt massive and empty.
The Sargeant ordered his marksmen to place themselves, a team to go forward down the highway, and another to keep investigating, leaving only him and nine men together as a fire unit.
But when his sniper team was preparing the Krysae Rifle to have coverage for their forward troops a voice came from above them, with it probably being the intercom system of the ship.
Most impressive is that it spoke in full Turian, with no need for their omni-tools to translate.
"Good day uninvited new crewmen!" - The voice was eerie, it felt real, like a real turian woman was talking, yet so robotic, like a VI, even worse was the obviously sarcastic tone it used to communicate. - "I hope your stay has been wonderful, sadly, we didn't give you permission to stay."
"Vesanio, your team, to the back, I want no people coming from other entrances" - The sarge said, and the corporal moved her four fellow riflemen to gorm a semicircle around the squad centered on the supply highway of this massive ship. - "Xavitus, your team keep on there."
"So I will offer you an entire minute of stay before we fill you with lead, go to your ships, stay there, or be sure that your armor can withstand more than four thousand joules!"
[Four? Most rifles are tuned to two thousand, the quarians are that desperate to kill the geth?] - Thought the sargeant.
This message might have worked as an intimidatory tactic in another species, but they were trained for this. They were marines of the hierarchy, counterwords from their NCO weren't needed, and no one was going to flee.
The hierarchy was going to get this ship one way or the other, and they were going to be the ones to make sure of that.
Thus they let a minute pass. Adjusting their guns, preparing sensors, turning on flashlights.
Until screeching came on their comms from the teams that went to the cruisers.
Then, silence from them, as if they had all disappeared. No long firefights.
The Friend or Foe indicators went off for the other squads, their radio communications one by one screeching with loud explosions followed by requests for support and then their disappearance.
Eventually, when more than fifty teams were lost one by one, stressing the living hell out of the Turians on Hangar 27, the lights went out.
The troops on the highway were also left without light.
Immediately they all turned on their different filters, some infrared lights, others used thermal, and the sarge himself went for the latter.
"Take care of everyone, they might have biotics hiding." - He advised, making the troops in the hanger look everywhere, meanwhile those on the highway kept going down.
Kruk.
Something metallic fell down.
It was behind them.
The team that was kept there went immediately to investigate, and those in between them and those taking point had to divide their attention.
Clank.
Again, more metallic sounds, sudden, and then, footsteps.
No Friend or Foe indicators, no eezo, the quarians must've gone dark.
And most importantly, they apparently had hidden on those massive gunships, as the slight note from a motion sensor told.
"Regroup! Get away from the craft!"
His orders were heard, again a circle was made on the entrance to the hangar, they surrounded themselves by boxes, their light machine guns prepared, biotics ready, and even some vigilance drones were up to light them, creating dim sources of photons from where to enhance their ability to see on such dark places.
The three pelicans, four fighters, and some twelve assisting vehicles were now ridden with sounds of movement, but the turian troops couldn't use their normal ways to sense them, for again, there was no eezo, and no thermic image, everything here was a good dissipator, like it all was made to counteract plasma or heat-based weapons, again pointing out that the quarians were preparing against the geth.
"Do we go back to the shuttle?" - Asked a private, not a single note of fear on his voice even if his message showed otherwise.
"Even if we had to, we have to wait for the point team." - The sarge explained.
And it was true, the four that had gone forward were still going towards them, their transponders the only source that they were still there aside from the marksman seeing them with his more powerful sight; and the radio comments from them.
"Something is coming." - One of the members of the point team commented, followed by the sound of a gun being dropped.
Immediately they saw how their tactical map showed this soldier moving faster than his teammates towards the rest.
"You got scared Xavitus?" - Asked their superior. - "What did you hear?"
"Something is coming!" - He shouted in answer, accelerating even more.
Triarto approached the marksman and his spotter, trying to get some insight. - "Anything on what he's running from?"
A negative nod was what he got.
Then, one of the IFFs of the soldiers went off.
Next, one moved suddenly to the left and went off.
The third began moving rapidly, on the radio, pants of running from the private were heard with attention by every troop there.
Until it suddenly disappeared too.
At the same time that Corporal Xavitus was faintly seen by the thermal imaging system of the Krysae. - "Got image of him."
"Our boy or what's following him?"
"Xavis."
"Alright, now, give me a link to your image feed."
And so it was done, the visuals from the rifle got on his helmet's HUD, he saw how his subordinate was running, desperate, forgoing even his add-on armor to go faster.
The six feet (1.82m) troop was desperate.
But no sound other than his own steps were heard.
"Open fire!" - Xavitus screamed.- "I am not alone!"
The squad didn't know what to do, but their sarge didn't give the order, so they stood on their ground while they saw their teammate running.
Next to them, the assaulter of the team, carrying her shotgun, looking at one of the aircraft, got notice of a blur, so she pointed her flashlight there with some of her teammates following suit in the search of whatever was lurking.
"Nothing." - She heard next to her, but the weird thing, was that her omni-tool acted up, it was a translation.
And when she rotated her head to look at what was that, she met how a humanoid figure, black, with a blue-colored crystal for a face, held up a knife with an incredible edge against the throat of one of her teammates.
The last thing that she ever saw was this exact same figure moving its left index finger towards the middle of its face, like silencing her, followed by a small flash, and then darkness.
Once the identifications of her and his teammate went off, the rest immediately turned to face six humans in weird armor, less covering than that of the Alliance's, but far bulkier, and with a patch that said 'Helljumpers'
The weapons looked primitive, but that didn't stop them, for fire was immediately exchanged.
Sargeant Triarto stopped paying attention to Xavitus and took his M-15 to shoot at these humans, not even caring that they were supposed to be fighting quarians.
Their accuracy was incredible, and the power advertised by the intercom's voice wasn't a lie, in a mere second he saw how two bursts broke the shield of one rifleman and a single following shot broke his skull, which lacked a helmet to protect it.
The sound of the bullets going out surrounded them, like there were even more helljumpers hidden.
From seventeen present (counting the snipers) in the entrance to the supply highway they were dropped into twelve in less than five seconds, and while the shots of the turians landed it was obvious that the human's armor was made to stop the same calibers that carried thrice the strength of the Turian rifles.
Thank god that the crates they had moved were able to stop these bullets with surprising effectiveness.
That allowed their two biotics to create a pull upwards, making two helljumpers levitate and get shredded by tungsten pellets.
Not to be undone, the human that had attacked with a knife moved quickly, with agility that seemed equal to an asari hunter, all to tackle a turian soldier, dropping her shield in the act, before slamming the edge onto the crystal of her helmet.
One troop responded to this with a burst of shots to the attacker's chest, just to be answered by a weird pistol shooting bullets that broke the shield with just two shots, as they seemed to explode, disabling the second armor thanks to thermal transfer; and a third shot with stopping power such that it broke the turian's ribs and left him knocked out.
To have this effectiveness, these troops had to be N7 humans, it was the only rational assessment given their qualities, proved again when they spread out before the set up light machine gun could open fire on them directly, using the darkness of the hangar and their seeming lack of thermal footprint.
They had reduced them to nine, forcing them to use the drones to search the hangar.
Left them with a 5 to 1 ratio of losses.
But the event left them vulnerable to one thing.
A hand grabbed Xavitus' right shoulder, making him trip and fall before he screamed as a fist crushed his flesh and poured it onto the ground.
Fwoom.
One single bullet pierced through the air and burned through the air of the highway, running with the speed of a starship, all colliding with the top part of the helmet of a human, armored, green, and almost robotic.
It screeched as it melted the strengthened titanium that made up his armor, but the angle and sheer durability of it stopped the antimateriel round.
No armor ever had done that.
Just what kind of things had these quarians... No, humans, done?
And now the titan raced, at incredible speeds, more than ten meters per second, the steps without major sound.
In a blur it already had grabbed the head of the spotter of the Turians, just to dislocate it once he used it as the point of leverage to throw her against another soldier.
The sniper, who was waiting for the weapon to cool down, received a stomp on his back that broke his spine.
An assaulter dispensed a round from his shotgun onto the armored beast, but he was knocked out by a single punch that trespassed the speed threshold of the shield and hit his lungs as the armor couldn't adapt to the area of the fist.
It was like two tons of force slammed onto a single attack.
The Sargeant then understood that the helljumpers were a distraction, this was the weapon to clear them out.
No Krogan was equal to the amount of power this unit could dispend, someone who could take on punishment like an omni-blade straight to the chestplate without feeling the pain.
His strikes were clean, temperate, fast.
He still didn't stop firing his M-15, his shots so close to his target that none failed to hit, but none even slowed him down.
Eventually, he grabbed the throat of the machinegunner and snapped his neck, a merciful kill before he sent a punch towards the sargeant, who rolled to evade, just to end up next to the body of one of the assaulters.
He quickly got up, and fired two shots, but a fist struck his left shoulder and broke him, leaving him to fall again to the ground, where he was plummeted by a single kick.
The squad was reduced, and the lights of the hangar lighted up, revealing the other four members of the eight-men-combat team of ODSTs who had given fire support to those who served as bait.
John cleaned himself up, the blue blood of the turians clearly reminiscent of that of the Sangheili.
He exchanged looks with the shock troopers and nodded in acknowledgment.
Afterward, he sat down, for there was a ship-to-ship combat about to begin.
And spartans for all the good that they were in the ground, they couldn't do as much in space.
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"The boarding parties are falling like birds."
"I am seeing the images, you don't have to say it twice."
"Seems like we'll have the first conflict against a quarian ship since they lost Rannoch."
"It does."
Of the hundred shuttles, only twelve responded, and they were surrounded, apparently all ambushed not by quarians, but humans.
Maybe they were mercenaries, helping bolster the lacking numbers of the migrant fleet.
Still, it was a weird image to see bullets in use.
It was true that they had more power behind them, but the logistic issue was heavy, and unless these humans were strong enough to carry hundreds of bullets it would mean that they could always outlast them in battle.
This entire situation was an oddity.
Luckily, this was a ship battle of fifty against three, so the odds were better.
The Primarch had ordered a victory, and he would get one, the failure of the boarding just meant that they were going to scrap the ship.
"Corvette squadrons, all begin screening duties, three hundred meters from their ships, frigates, lead, cruisers I want constant battery fire, all link to our console for concentration of fire."
And so, the requests of each one of the ships arrived in the crewmen's consoles.
Until a 51st reached them.
"Miss, uh... Can you come and see this?" - Asked a deck officer.
Admiral Ravis walked towards the station and looked to the petition of transfer of gunnery data of the dreadnought.
But it had the identification of no ship, instead only saying "Get DDoS-attacked :D"
Goddammit, the quarians had invested heavily in hacking it seemed.
All for underestimating them.
And suddenly, thousands of petitions of various precedences and motives came, flooding the systems, almost causing them to crash
The windows of the bridge clearly showed how the corvettes of the fleet moved forward, just to then stop moving, their lights going out.
What kind of supercomputer did they have to fuel a VI capable of trespassing the security measures of the Turian fleet?
Worse was the surprise of reports of shots from the enemy ships, followed by the loss of seven ships, all cruisers.
Miss Ravis ran towards the front of the bridge to have a look at said ships, discovering how they were now fireballs, severed by the middle like they had just been rampaged by an accelerator round so powerful that they kept going towards the emptiness of space.
Next were the countless flashes from the ships, missiles, all of which were directed towards the corvettes, - "All frigates, screen our smaller vessels!"
But all the consoles of the turians ship suddenly flared the message "No :D"
Just as the GARDIAN systems failed to connect against any of them, letting them impact against the unshielded hulls, making short work of thirteen ships.
Those who didn't impact any corvette were redirected towards the frigates, who, shielded, were able to withstand many, although the thermal transfer of the attacks made four be destroyed, and two severely damaged.
There were now twenty-two turian ships alive, eight cruisers, the dreadnought, and the rest frigates.
All having to contend against another volley of missiles.
"Disconnect automatic targeting measures, go manual, forget the connection to other ships, purify the systems!"
The screens showed a single sad face before showing the normal targeting data, raw inputs from the guns of the dreadnought and the dreadnought alone.
The flight of lasers and mass accelerator rounds flying now went out of the Filai, themselves impacting against the hull of the magnificent big ship, creating impressive holes on it, but then counterfire from the mass accelerators on it made sure so that it didn't go unpunished.
It was a slug fight from which none could run from, if the Filai stopped firing its main gun, it would have to still take the shots from the enemy, which had obviously way more powerful weapons.
And at the same time, it had to down the missiles coming to it and the remainings of the fleet.
The admiral knew she could get a hit good enough to destroy the prow of the enemy and get it to explode.
But they just kept coming, the systems counted more than two hundred already sent by their enemy, who hadn't even used its cruisers.
Until they moved, fast, soaring through space, just to go and take punishment from the frigates, managing to destroy the engines of one of them and leave it dead on the water just a hundred kilometers away from the Dreadnought Filai.
But the one who managed to slip by sent a surprising ordeal of power, from multiple ports came some four hundred missiles which were quick to slam themselves onto the remainder of ships, eliminating all the frigates and a cruiser before being shot multiple times by the main gun of the THS Coleo, forcing it to turn and send a single missile before stopping dead on the water out of severe hull damage.
This missile though was shot down mid-flight, a mere thirty kilometers from the dreadnought.
It was a thirty-meter-long missile.
And it had markings which read 'Shiva'.
Boom.
The magnificent sight of a nuke going out in space, sending radiation so heavy that it disabled the electronic systems of the turian dreadnought, letting the fire of the Spirit of fire be focused on the other turian ships; it was all a sign of something, the defeat of the Turians which was signed by one thing.
Hundreds of shuttles and fighters coming from the enemy Support Carrier.
Now they were going to be boarded.
And the cheers from the quarians could almost be heard by the crews of the incapacitated ships of the hierarchy.
Just what kind of things had arrived in this galaxy?
Sparatus, for once, just prepared himself, he had surrendered and took a single sip of wine before accepting his destiny.
The crew did so too.
For the first time in so long, the Turian navy had been defeated.
Their pride was their downfall.
Now the galaxy had another actor, a second humanity, and they weren't going to be under the foot of two alien entities.
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A/N: I am sorry if the battles were clunky, I am still adapting to Halo again, I will try and tweak the chapter in the future, but I think this was good enough to read and advance the story. I hope you all enjoyed it though!
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Answering reviews :D
1) Brother Bov: I see battle brother, and I thank your gentle assestment and out-of-bounds loyalty, I will forever be grateful.
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2) shaeon5ping: I think I answered you on Ao3 ;)
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3) Andres DMB: Maybe not soon, but eventually you will see them against the covvies, though we both know how that'll play out without human help, and thank you mate.
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4) KingOfSummer 245:
-First two questions are wayyy too far into the story to give you a direct answer, but I assure you, there will be two extinction level-wars going on.
-Then, Asari and Quarian alike are related to humans, later on I'll explain, just have in mind, Asari have an affinity to humans due to biological reasons.
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5) Silent23: Thank you mate, and here it is :D
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6) Chronus1326: Whoooo, nope, thank you!
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7) Hamilton406: Good point, Turians don't have a way to shield themselves from Slipspace anomalies, but the UNSC needs to contact these aliens to have a better chance against the covenant.
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8) Zarulzaklyn: ;)
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9) commander 117: I updated just now :D And sorry, but the planned pairing is Tali x 117, Cortana will, unfortunately, not appear on this story. And
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10) Zero: We will, eventually, one step at a time, mate.
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11) Call to arms 1234: If you mean powerwise, then no, the UNSC will have the clear firepower advantage over the Mass Effect universe, made some calls basing the dreadnought's power as a scale and toned it to the assault rifle and the 'grain of sand' (About 80 micrograms) and used a speed of 7000m/s to reach that their Assault rifle shots are slightly above the power of an M885A1 round, that means a third of the power of the UNSC's .308 rounds (Assuming a low end for the evolution of their ballistics, considering their 14.5mm APFSDS)
Also, Mass effect ships are nimbler, not faster, because we've seen halo shuttles do triple-g maneuvers without breaking a sweat, but yeah, it'd be like that.
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11) Azrael the deplorable: Yeah, but these are the same guys who didn't build more cruisers to stop the reapers and were left just crying, for them this is seeing a space station with engines, still leaves them dumbfounded, but not so amazed that they can't react.
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12) Villa32: They moved the whole infrastructure there, that's why they moved the Eridanus fleet too, they ain't taking chances with this one.
And it stopped them because the covvies tampered with things that they shouldn't. I won't say more for the story's sake.
And thank you mate.
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13) Luke: You are right mate, they have 'em, though they donated one to the quarians.
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14) marisares76: Yup, I write fanfiction to get better at writing (and also cuz it's fun making these stories), but don't worry, once I have more free time (probably Friday) I'll get to check things up on the previous chapters; for me, as long as things are 7/10 and up, they are ok.
And don't worry, we all know lukewarm reviews are kinda hurtful to the morale, but they exist for a reason, once they soak in, you've gotta see at yourself and try things, I ain't gonna stop writing this story any time soon.
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15) pau456: Awww, thanks mate, and yup, the quarians will be the anchor of the UNSC to the ME verse, but this will take a lot, since you don't just mix different universes on a whim... Or yeah, I could, but that wouldn't be more interesting, would it?
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Guest reviews:
- I don't think it is useless, for one, they have commonplace miniaturized cheap power supplies. The UNSC grossly outweighs military-wise any of the council species, but they have a manpower advantage and one of power output. Also, they have shields, and thing (omni tools) that are insane for logistics.
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- Because it's a formatting thing, those gaps are for sections that do not relate directly to the previous conversations, this story would be a lot longer and boring if it was centered on just one point of view.
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- Noble six is still months old, but yeah. The flood will be a major threat, though I won't give out more spoilers ;)
Also, thank you very much, mate.