Over New Singapore, Eden Prime, June 15, 01:17 AM Local Time.

The Mammoth craft shook as an anti-aircraft shell exploded by it and turned sharply, going behind a small ridge as to avoid further shots from the Corvette's auto-cannons.

Anderson awoke from his sleep to find that they were already close to their target. He shook his head to try and wake himself up. Looking around the craft, he saw that everyone else was preparing for the upcoming fight, save for Collins, who was injured badly, and Carla, who volunteered to stay back and take care of the wounded man.

"My sniper's gonna be useless in there, it'd be better if I hang back and take care of the dipshit." She said when he asked.

Collins could only grumble something incomprehensible in reply. Probably because he was still high as a kite from all the medigel given to him.

Anderson resupplied his ammo and gear from the supply crate. He then looked at Saren, who was sitting across to him was inspecting a rifle identical to his own. The Boss probably agreed to lend the Turians some of their weapons, considering that they were pretty low at ammo.

"You going to be using that?" Anderson asked him.

"Yeah, my own rifle is probably molten slag in that crater you made two days ago, and my pistol is out of ammo." Saren answered as he flipped the weapon over to see its other side. "Besides, it doesn't seem too different from the rifles we have. One of the things they made sure we know on Blackwatch training was how to adapt, and use anything and everything to our advantage. I wouldn't worry too much if I were you."

Anderson grunted an agreement and looked over to the rest of the Turians. Hallis still had plenty of ammo on his LMG, and apart from being out of rockets, Kesarus had enough ammo on his shotgun (Razor-gun as the Turian called it) to hold another confrontation.

The other Turians were either inspecting their borrowed rifles, like Junius and Vetran, while the rest of the squad had given Kal what's left of their rifle ammo.

Anderson heard the muffled sounds of explosions, and the craft's intercom buzzed as the craft's pilot all but shouted through it.

"They knocked a hole in their defense grid. I'm dropping you folks at the top of that frigate!"

All of the soldiers got up and stood near the rear hatch. Anderson could feel the Mammoth speed up and zig-zag as to avoid getting hit by the second corvette. Out of the view port, he could see the gunships weaving through the fire like a dance. Moving in to fire a volley of bullets and rockets, then retreating to prepare for another run. One of the gunships pulled out too slow, and was cut in half by the frigate's GARDIAN laser.

The other gunships moved in together to perform an attack that would overwhelm the frigate's defense grid, just for a few moments. They flew in formation, and all at once fired an entire volley of rockets. The Mammoth flew in behind the volley, letting the rockets soak up most of the point defense shots. The GARDIAN lasers started overheating, and stopped firing altogether so that it could cool down. Out of the 43 rockets fired, less than a dozen hit the ship.

The Mammoth used the distraction and made a quick drop on top of the frigate. Hovering over it as it opened its rear hatch, allowing the N7 marines and the Blackwatch operators to drop out. The craft then left as quickly as it had come, flying away at full speed as the frigate's point defense lasers finished cooling down.

The soldiers ran towards what they had identified as a maintenance hatch. They grouped around it, then Anderson placed a high explosive breaching charge on the hatch.

"Charge set!" He shouted out as he backed away.

The Boss nodded at him confirming that they are ready to go.

Anderson detonated the charge, then Annette threw a stun-grenade into the whole that he had made. After the tell-tale flash of the device, the three Humans jumped in and opened fire on the five Batarian soldiers who were supposed to stop them. When the area seemed clear, the Boss signaled the Turians to enter the ship.

Once they were all inside, they moved on towards the general direction of their target. This wasn't Squad 13's first boarding action so they knew what they should be doing. Their first attempt at boarding Hegemony ships would be in their infiltration op on a Cruiser, docked in a Batarian shipyard above Shanxi during Operation Chain Breaker, the failed attempt at liberating the colony. Batarian ships followed a similar enough layout, which meant that they would need to head towards the rear of the ship.

As the group passed through a hallway, red lights flashed and an alarm blared. A thick door slammed shut behind them, and loud footsteps were heard stomping their way towards the group's position.

"Thought this was getting too easy" Hallis said.

The group rushed for what little cover they could get. As soon as they did, Mass Accelerator pellets started flying through the air, followed by the sharp cracks of the weapons that spat them out. Anderson found himself crouched behind a crate as the Batarians rained hell down on his position. He could feel the crate as it shook with every hit it took. He heard two bursts from a rifle fire from behind him and watched as the rounds landed way above their intended targets. Junius or Vetran had likely tried to shoot, but found the sights to be misaligned. They fixed it quickly as the next two bursts fired found their mark on a Batarian soldier.

The four Turians with rifles were suppressing the enemy long enough for Hallis to mount his LMG on the same crate Anderson had ducked under. The Turian operator then unleashed a barrage of bullets from his weapon and began shredding all those who would stay in the open. Those who were smart enough to take cover found themselves in suppressed and unable to fight back only going up when the LMG had stopped firing. In that short span of time, the boarding party had pushed forward and gained ground. The Turians found it easier to hit their enemies with their borrowed rifles as their foes aren't as far away, and did not require much compensation when aiming.

"Keep up the pressure! If their lines break we have a clear way to the bridge." Junius shouted out.

The Turian riflemen advanced again as Hallis unloaded his LMG a second time. Anderson and the rest followed suit and moved towards the enemy position. Pushing forward, the group gained much ground against the enemy, but their advancement was halted by a Batarian's own machinegun. The MG had set up it's position to overlook the corner that they would have to turn on to get to the bridge.

The entire team held up on the corner as the MG squad opened up on the corner, blocking their passage with hundreds of Mass Accelerator pellets.

"Damn it!" The Boss cursed. "Anybody have any bright ideas?"

"Speaking of bright ideas." Anderson said as he took a flashbang and a frag grenade.

The demolitions expert nodded for confirmation to the squad leader, and then moved to the front of the line. He primed both grenades, then threw them both towards the MG squad's position. The explosion silenced loud roaring of the machinegun. The Batarians had been stunned by the flash, and wasn't able to get away from the grenade quickly enough. Anderson peeked out, and after confirming that the machinegun was no operational he signaled the rest of the group and went to secure the hallway.

Passing the wreckage of the barricade that the MG and it's users had set up behind, the group's advance was blocked by a thick blast door. The door presumably lead to the ship's bridge.

"I don't have anything strong enough to blast through that thing." Anderson said after checking out the door. It was at the very least one meter thick, and made out of starship grade metal. These type of doors were new, none of the N-Class squads reported breach proof blast doors of any kind. The Batarians, despite their arrogant and sometimes foolish ways, did learn from their previous mistakes. Or at least some of them.

Vetran moved to the blast door and inspected the panel beside it.

"The door may be unbreachable, but the electronics on this thing is still at least a decade old. Give me a couple of minutes and I should be able to slice through this thing."

The rest of the group acknowledged, and took positions on either side of it. Anderson and the Boss prepared smoke grenades as soon as Vetran motioned to them that the door was nearly open. As the door hissed open, both N7 operators threw their smokes in as a torrent of mass accelerator pellets slammed into their cover. Saren seized the initiative and created a biotic barrier, creating cover for his allies to move behind as he pushed ahead.

The biotic could feel the individual impacts and ripples on the barrier, each hit slowly draining his strength. Before would inevitably loose his consciousness from exhaustion, he began to move faster, until he and the rest of the group reached solid cover.

As they all ducked behind cover, Hallis prepared his LMG. When the shooting had begun to die down, he popped up and started returning fire to the Batarian defenders. Anderson rolled out of cover and flanked the enemy. Without anything protecting them from Anderson's hail of lead, they began to panic. The rest of the N7/Blackwatch team took the initiative and attacked the Batarians as the enemy's left flank began to collapse. As the firefight went on, gunfire from both sides began to slowly trickle down, up until the point where what little fight there was on the bridge was sporadic at best.

The last Batarian marine fell with a crash from Kesarus' shotgun, the defender's corpse falling to the floor with a large chunk of his face missing. The Turian explosives expert racked his gun whilst he admired his work, whistling as he did. The bridge had become silent with the only sounds heard in the room come from the boarding party and the machinery inside it. Everything was quiet, until Kalidon broke the eerie silence.

"So, any of you know how the hell any of this works?"

-000-

I knew it would happen. I tried to fight it, but I failed. I am sorry that it took almost 4 months to update this story. Between needing to register to the government for the elections, getting my citizenship ID, end of school exams, my ISP being cut off by an asshat neighbor, changing ISPs, turning out to have the new ISP block (though my phone can open it for whatever reason), and my friends inviting me to play video games with them almost everyday on my summer break, it's been a very interesting few months.

I will make this clear to those who have doubts that I am not giving up on this story. Updates may become sporadic, or few and far in between, but always know that this story will not be ending untill I feel it reaches a conclusion to it's overarching plot. I will be attempting to put up some kind of bi-weekly writing/update. While chapters will still come out as soon as I deem it is in a good enough shape to be posted, unless some kind of major catastrophe happens to me, updates will never be more than 2 weeks apart.

Thank you for reading this and for being so patient. Once again I am sorry that it has taken it so long to bring this up. Write down your thoughts on a review or PM them to me if you feel like it, and I hope you enjoy the rest of your day