A blue and black portal opened up in the baleful light of a hypergiant star and out slid a nearly kilometer long, white and blue vessel with the words SSV Einstein displayed proudly along port side of its sloped armor.

Around it, more blue tinged black portals opened up, spilling forth more white and blue vessels, though none nearly as large as the Einstein. Two cruisers and six frigates formed around the large carrier, providing cover for the Einstein as her own doors opened and fighters spilled forth from her launch bays.

Aboard the large ship, Rear Admiral Kahoku stood with his arms clasped behind his back as he watched a flight of Sabre class fighters zipped by the bridge's large windows, "Report."

"Three hundred billion kilometers from HG-71X," a crewman started, "The Ames is launching probes into close orbit of the star."

Turning from the window, the Admiral watched as the light cruiser of the 4th Expeditionary Flotilla, a fleet put together to explore the star clusters between relays with the new slipspace technology, fired several autonomous probes from its main gun into a close orbit around the massive hypergiant star from the three dimensional fleet display. Inboard thrusters on the drones slowed them down and settled in at different orbits, the closest one being six hundred thousand kilometers and the furthest one five hundred million kilometers.

"The star is old, for a hypergiant," a science officer stated from her position at one of the sensor stations, "Around fifteen million years."

"Time till it goes?"

"It probably has another five to ten million years before it goes supernova."

Kahoku sighed, in comparison to most stars, hypergiants shined for only the blink of an eye, and yet humanity would likely have evolved into a few completely new species by the time this one, a hypergiant so old it could be considered to be in its final moments, would die. His time leading this new fleet had really put the scale of the universe into perspective.

"Sir, Element Zero readings in the asteroid belt two hundred and fifty billion kilometers from HG-71X," the crewman from before reported.

"Send Valkyrie squadron for a flyby, tell the Lexington to accompany them," the admiral directed, "I want the Phoenix to take three squadrons and hard burn for the other end of the solar system. Any gas giants or planetoids with Element Zero, I want to be told.

The bridge was alive with chatter as his orders were relayed throughout the fleet. His CAG in particular was rattling through his orders, trying to arrange the cruiser SSV Phoenix's escort while ensuring Valkyrie squadron knew exactly what rocks they were supposed to run a fly by of. With the massive distances being discussed, it would take some time before all orders were completed, but some information was already being relayed.

"Sir," Captain Thompson said lowly as he walked up next to him, "The Phoenix has eyes on a gas giant on the far side of HG-71X."

Kahoku turned to look back out the window at the massive hypergiant star, though it looked no bigger than a golf ball at his current distance, "Any evidence of our mystery race?"

"They're not close enough to have eyes on any satellites, natural or otherwise, but they have confirmed element zero readings in orbit of it."

The Rear Admiral sighed in frustration, "Hopefully they're just natural deposits on moons, or-"

"Sir!" a crewman called, "Valkyrie squadron has visual feed from the asteroid belt, you're going to want to see this!"

Both the admiral and the captain looked to one of the large vidscreens above the holoprojector currently displaying the solar system and the fleet's movements in it. The picture on the flat screen cut from engine and power statuses to a view from Valkyrie 1, showing a few large asteroids surrounded by smaller ones floating serenely in the void, and Valkyrie 2, one of the new Sabre class interceptors cut across the view, Valkyrie 1 turning to follow the triangular fighter.

With that maneuver, the subject of the vid came into view. A planetoid, perhaps half the size of Earth's moon, dotted with jagged rock formations and deep, dark canyons. All of that was quite interesting to a geologist, but what caught everyone in the CIC's interest was the large square located on one of the flatter portions of the planetoid. Its right angles were an affront to the random edges and irregular lines of nature, and the fact it was clearly made of metal, rather than the light gray dusty rock of the asteroids around it, all spoke to the true origin of the structure. The admiral just hoped that the jagged scars across the metal was from meteorite impacts.

"Einstein, are you reading this?" the pilot's voice came through.

"This is the Einstein, we are reading," Kahoku responded as he stepped closer to the vidscreen, "Anything you can tell me that the cameras may not be catching?"

"On our first pass, we noticed several ruins around the outside of the structure," as if to prove his point, Valkyrie 1 swung his Sabre interceptor around and passed by the surface of the planetoid at low altitude, "Plenty of meteorite impacts on them, but I recognize gun barrels when I see them, I think they used to be mass accelerators."

Captain Thompson stepped up next to the Rear Admiral, "Sir… I think we're looking at a hangar door. I think there might be a base in that planetoid."

Valkyrie 1 seemed to agree, "I think he's right, Admiral. I'm seeing a four seems in the flat structure, some of the scarring seems to go all the way through. I'll have to make another pass to see if I can see anything inside."

"Negative, Valkyrie 1, pull off," Admiral Kahoku ordered, "Lexington, place a beacon on the structure, we'll bring an archeological team to check it out like we did at YD-19F."

Cutting the channel, the Admiral walked back to the window, watching a flight of the older Trident fighters fly past.

Captain Thompson walked up next to him, "I don't suppose there's any chance those element zero readings orbiting the gas giant are natural deposits on moons?"

"I'll bet you a bottle of Terra Nova '28 the Phoenix is going to find ancient orbital H3 refineries… or at least pieces of them."

Captain Thompson sighed, "And I suppose these wreckages aren't Prothean either?" he shook his head, "Still, element zero, mass accelerators, artificial structures. There must be a relay in this star cluster somewhere."

Kahoku nodded, "Agreed. When Phoenix reports back from the gas giant and we know this system is secured, I want Captain Jin to take the Ames, Concord, and Verdun to the white dwarf system seven lightyears to the galactic north, the Pheonix will take Hastings and Midway to the yellow dwarf 10 light years to the north west. I want a squadron of Sabres to go with each of them."

"Are you sure, sir? That will leave us without any of the Sabres."

"Tridents aren't FTL capable, Sabres can keep up with our cruisers and frigates in realspace FTL, and the Einstein isn't going anywhere for a while."

The captain nodded and walked off to relay the Admiral's orders to the fleet. Kahoku turned to the Commander of the Air Group and walked up to the man as he coordinated patrol flights, "Two patrols on the outer edge of the system, the rest I want running tight patrols on the Einstein, Antietam, and Agincourt. We'll be running mineral sweeps of the asteroid belt."

Rewriting galactic history was important indeed, but not as important as feeding the hungry shipyards of the Alliance all the titanium, iron, tungsten, and platinum they could scrounge up.

…

"We got this," Corporal Richard Jenkins said to his friend and superior officer, Kaidan Alenko, "Right? We can handle this…"

The biotic nodded back, nervousness quite apparent in the Lieutenants face as sweat ran down from the man's black hair and down between his dark eyes and right off the tip of his nose. If it was from nervousness, or the heat of the subdeck aptly named 'Hell's Waiting Room', one couldn't say, "Sure. I mean the Drop Trooper Corp already has over a thousand graduates. They all survived this…"

Jenkins and Alenko both looked over at the small black drop pods, coffins as Commander Emile had called them when he had informed them their final test before admittance to the Drop Trooper Corp was coming up. Feet First Into Hell was emblazoned on the black pods with white paint, hanging over the red and orange flames someone had taken the time to paint onto the disposable SOEIV's.

Statistically, the drop pods had a success rate of ninety four percent, provided the enemy didn't have any anti air. They were deployed throughout the Skylian Blitz, providing immediate relief to embedded colony defense forces and establishing beachheads on offensive maneuvers like Torfan. The DTC was small, only a thousand strong, thanks partially to being a volunteer force, but also thanks to the intense training and constant tests anyone wanting to become a member had to go through. The results were hard to argue with, however, as your average Trooper was extremely effective, tearing through the batarian slavers during the Blitz with little mercy or hesitation. Even on Torfan, where all but one of the Droppers had been cut down, they had been extremely effective, cutting down scores of slavers before the first shuttles filled with marines had landed.

Kaidan and Richard had both been going through the physical training for the past six months, volunteering for the force directly after Elysium and being told they were not allowed to accompany Emile to Torfan. Alenko had been through a fair bit of the N program before then, so he had plenty of experience with tough training, but even that had left him sorely under prepared for what he was to experience over the next six months. He had only just passed the PT requirements in the last month, and only qualified high enough on his marksmanship tests the previous week.

Jenkins had had an easier time passing the marksmanship tests, qualifying as expert on assault rifles, heavy pistols, submachine guns, and shotguns, all staples of the DTC's arsenal. He had a harder time on the PT tests, though he still beat Alenko in qualifying, something the biotic blamed on his L2 implants giving him migraines mid run, but what the Corporal really struggled with was the tactics and live fire exercises. More often than not, Jenkins found himself getting gunned down quickly in tactical simulations, and peeking out of cover when he shouldn't be during live fire exercises. As the Master Sergeant in charge of training them had said, Richard was overly aggressive, normally a good trait to have in a Trooper but taken to the extreme in the corporal. Eventually he was able to get it under control and stay smart while staying aggressive.

Now was their graduation.

Most branches had graduations with speeches, drinks, dinner, and handing out deployments to the graduates. Drop Troopers got to rocket down to a mock battlefield in a tiny metal coffin and fight their way through dozens of mechs armed with live ammunition and capture a base on some humid little mudball.

What fun.

"Yeah… I'm sure we'll be fine," Lieutenant Alenko reassured his younger friend, wondering why the hell he let Jenkins talk him into volunteering for this. Now he was in command of the entire platoon in training, for this exercise at least.

His sergeants had all received their orders from the lieutenant and were getting their squads armed up. For this mock battle, that held the very real threat of death and injury as the mechs were programmed to shoot to kill and were armed with very real guns, the entire platoon was to be armed with the prototype MA5 Heavy Coilgun. Emphasis on Heavy as the biotics of the platoon in training liked to grumble.

The weapon had already seen frontline usage by Commander Emile already, very effective usage at Torfan, but the Colonel wasn't yet convinced it should be the standard issue rifle of the DTC. So, Jenkins, Alenko, and everyone else in the platoon in training were all trained on the usage and maintenance of the advanced railguns.

Large (they didn't fold up like M8 Avengers did), heavy (they were shrouded in a titanium sheath that protected the internal workings), and power hungry (each magazine carried not only the .30 caliber projectiles, but contained the battery needed to power the electromagnetic coil to fire all thirty two bullets), it certainly didn't seem like an ideal frontline weapon.

But it was accurate (1.5 MOA out to five hundred yards on single fire), robust (you could run it over with a Mako and the rifle would suffer no loss of function), and powerful (it will kill a krogan in five shots and overload most barriers in just a couple of rounds). The weapon provided an overkill advantage for the user against modern barriers and armor, it handled like an assault rifle, and hit like a sniper rifle with every bullet.

Jenkins, still jittery about the drop and subsequent battle, went back to running checks on his own rifle, fiddling with the 1-4x holographic sight that could be smart-linked to the user's visor. Kaidan recognized that all the corporal was doing was changing the color of the targeting reticle by tapping the button at the base of the mount cut into the barrel shroud containing the advanced heat sinks that controlled the thermal release of the heavy projectiles ripping down the barrel.

That reminded him that he needed to set the smart link for his own scope, a 1-8x scope designed for longer range engagements, a distance that the lieutenant was planning on staying at in most battles. His biotics were mostly used to control the battlefield with lifts and throws, leaving his enemies open for his guns. When up close he used his tech attacks to disable his enemies' weapons and shields, leaving them open for his guns.

Sliding his helmet on, Alenko brought the onboard system on, cycling through IFF, night vision, thermal vision with a flick of his wrist holding his omnitool. All functions confirmed he quickly linked his scope and was greeted with a view of the top of his drop pod as the rifle had already been stowed in the SOEIV. Another flick of his wrist shut the view off in his visor, keeping the link open, but shoving the scopes view away so he didn't get nauseated.

He wasn't supposed to throw up until he was halfway through the atmosphere.

Suddenly, Hell's Waiting Room went dark before red floodlights and flashing yellow lights came on.

"Sixty seconds to drop," a VI's voice resounded through the cramped and hot drop bay.

"Get everyone in their pods," Kaidan said to the First Sergeant and turned to his own, slapping his hip to make sure his Phalanx was folded up on his hip and his Hurricane was folded up on his lower back before hopping into his own bod and closing the door.

Before the door shut completely he could hear his platoon's five sergeants shouting at their soldiers to get into their pods and the sound of many pods sealing and closing around the bay. He could also hear more than a few soldiers praying and just a few puking their guts out in anticipation of their first drop.

"Thirty seconds to drop."

Trying to steady his breathing, Alenko checked his armor once more, making sure his barriers were off, it wouldn't do for them to activate and start smacking them around his pod, but ready to activate once the door blew. All his plates were strapped on, tight enough to hold, but not too tight to restrict his motion. Magazines in their holsters and thermal clips in their pouches. Medigel dispensers online and full of the life saving substance.

"Ten seconds to drop."

Green lights were coming in from his own command squad and the four other squads in the platoon, meaning everyone was in their SOEIV and had signaled ready for drop.

Alenko brought up the tactical map of the battlefield they'd be dropping into so he could adjust his own trajectory and quickly slaved all fifty pods to his own, making sure nobody accidentally piloted their coffin into someone elses.

"Dropping in 3… 2… 1…"

He didn't hear the word GO, but he felt it, just as everyone did, as the SOEIV rocketed out from the bottom of the SSV Shanghai. Almost immediately their pods were struck by turbulence as they slammed into the upper atmosphere of the miserable mudball they were descending upon. Adrenaline spiked and Kaidan's vision blurred from a combination of a shaking pod and nausea. In his helmet he could hear the entire platoon cursing and pleading with whatever higher power they could for a safe landing, but the lieutenant knew that it wasn't a higher power that was responsible for a safe landing, it was him, so he forced bile back down his throat and looked at the map.

Quickly he adjusted their course so that they would land half outside the mock base's defenses and inside, just as he had been instructed to do. Supposedly, that would mean they could sandwich the outer defenses before the inner defenses could reinforce them and then overwhelm an out of position garrison.

Alenko just hoped he survived the landing. He could worry about the fight later.

His pod shook extra hard when the thruster engaged, obeying his course corrections and rattling through the stratosphere.

"Chutes in ten… nine… eight…"

Kaidan gripped the hand rails inside the pod.

"four… three… two… one…"

The helmet was the only thing that kept the biotic from suffering whiplash, as it, combined with heavy padding around his neck kept his head relatively stable, even as he felt his all of his internal organs migrate to his toes. It felt like his pod was going to shake apart, but the systems status of his pod read green across the board. Hopefully that stuff wasn't just there to make a guy feel good.

"Mass effect core engaging."

The disconcerting feeling of suddenly weighing a tenth as much as one should overcame the lieutenant, though as a biotic he probably was dealing with it better than the majority of the other Droppers, but they better suck it up, because if the mass effect core was engaging…

BAM!

Again his armor saved him from whiplash or a broken neck, or whatever horrible thing was bound to happen as the pod smashed into the ground, spraying mud and grass all around it. Kaidan only had seconds to realize the fact he had landed before he felt the mass effect core disengage and watched the explosive bolts on his SOEIV's door pop off, sending the heavy titanium door right into a LOKI mech and crushing it beneath its bulk.

Instincts that had been hammered into him since the first moment he had joined the Alliance Armed Forces and even more so over the past six months training to be a Drop Trooper activated, and the MA5 was ripped from its scabbard in the pod and into his arms. A small electronic whine could be heard for just the barest of moments as the safety was disengaged before the thundering of supersonic bullets roared from the muzzle, each one exiting in a flash of thermal release before soaring over the muddy grass and ripping through a pair of LOKI mechs, their skeletal frames no match for the heavy armor piercing rounds.

More pods hit the ground, their doors blowing off and Troopers in training rushing out, spewing hot steel rounds into skeletal mechs. Corporal Jenkins came out blowing the head off of a pair of mechs before reaching back into his pod and pulling out a pair of long tubes containing anti tank rockets.

Quickly the platoon formed into squads and the fighting stepped up in intensity from individual firefights to all out warfare as the troopers engaged the numerous mechs and the base's plethora of automated defenses.

"Turret, ten o'clock!" someone called out.

Kaidan whipped his omnitool in the direction of the three barreled emplacement and overloaded the shields with one command and sabotaged the targeting program with the other. The turret, defenseless and unable to identify any targets, was quickly dispatched by the high explosive grenade launched from someone's underslung forty millimeter grenade launcher.

"Lightning squad, take care of those turrets, Command squad, with me, we're looking for heavy mechs, sergeants, call out targets."

Affirmatives rang through the comms as Alenko slapped a fresh mag into his MA5 and grouped up with Command squad, frowning as he saw one of the privates sporting some blood on his left arm.

"Status?"

"Flesh wound, LT, armor has it sealed and medigel has me feeling just fine."

"YMIR, coming from the main bunker!"

Alenko quickly spotted the hulking mech, "Corporal, with me, everyone else provide cover fire, lets go!"

"Want me to hit it with the heavy stuff, LT?" Jenkins asked, hefting one of the heavy tubes.

The lieutenant shook his head, "Not yet, I don't want shields to interfere with your rocket, I'll overload them first, then you hit them hard, got it?"

The corporal nodded as the biotic slapped his MA5 onto his back and withdrew his Hurricane loaded with a disruptor ammo block. If there was one major advantage mass accelerators would have over the coilguns for a while yet, was the wide availability of specialty ammunition, and with a quick twist of his omnitool, the overload EMP washed over the towering mech as it attempted to suppress the rest of Command squad, softening the shields for the veritable storm of electrically charged mass accelerator rounds coming from the lieutenant.

Just as the thermal clip was about to overheat and stop the gun, the shields popped, "Fire, Jenkins!"

A flash of smoke and suddenly a 105 millimeter High Explosive Anti Tank round screamed out and slammed into the thick armor of the YMIR, sending pieces of the normally nearly indestructible heavy mech everywhere.

The sound of gunfire reached a fever pitch as mechs continued to pour out of the base. Turrets and heavy mechs provided the heaviest resistance, but Kaidan had picked lightning squad to deal with the turrets because it was comprised of two combat engineers, who knew perfectly well how to overload shields and sabotage delicate electronics. And as far as heavy mechs were concerned…

BOOOOM!

"I fucking love my job!"

… Jenkins enjoyed anything that came with an HE in its description.

A few times Alenko found his barriers popping off under sustained fire from the mechs, but his armor proved sturdy and reliable the plates reliably stopped the mass accelerator rounds and let him find cover for his barriers to recharge. They were heavy and uncomfortable, but all that PT wasn't for nothing, as even after a half hour of running and gunning through the battlefield, the biotic found he wasn't tired at all, despite the heavy armor, the heavy rifle, the heavy munitions, he was feeling just fine.

Finding another LOKI's head in his scope, Kaidan let loose a two round burst, ripping its head clean off. With action that had become as smooth and as natural as breathing, he switched targets to another mech, this time sending a three round burst through its chest and dropping it with ease.

"Lieutenant Alenko, Alliance Intelligence has identified valuable intel within the main bunker of the compound. You are to secure that intel and extract it. Be advised, air space is too hot for landing, we will be dropping transport instead, how copy?"

Kaidan frowned as he heard the VI give him orders. This wasn't supposed to be part of the scenario…

… which he quickly realized was the point of this, to put the platoon in training under duress and change the plan on them to see how they react.

"Copy, Command, drop transport on green smoke!"

"Green smoke, copy."

"First Sergeant, take over for me, Corporal Jenkins, you're with me, we've got to hit that building and grab some intel!"

"Yes, sir."

"On my way, LT."

Jenkins, anti tank rockets spent, pulled out his Crusader shotgun as he stacked up on the door with Alenko. With a series of commands from his omnitool, the lieutenant had the door open and the corporal was through the threshold, already blowing mechs apart in close quarters with the Crusader's hyperdense slugs.

The biotic followed quickly afterwards, sending more energy than necessary into a lift, launching the LOKI into the ceiling and smashing it to pieces against the steel barrier. His Hurricane's disruptor rounds made short work in close quarters of a few more mechs as he and Jenkins pushed through the defending robots, quickly and efficiently clearing rooms of the shambling automatons.

They were so fast, Alenko didn't notice his barriers were gone until he felt a sharp pain in his shoulder as a mass accelerator round found the space between his armor plates and pierced the Kevlar with ease.

He must have shouted in pain as Jenkins shouted, "LT, you good?"

"Got between my plates, still have my arm."

"Well that's good, I think I found the intel."

"You sure?"

Instead of verbally answering, Richard held up a large briefcase with the word 'INTEL' crudely spray painted across the cover.

"Alright, that doesn't leave much room for doubt."

Exiting the building, they found that the firefight had not died down in intensity as mechs had started advancing from the muddy forest surrounding from the base. No doubt the 'reinforcements' meant to turn the attacking Troopers into defending Troopers.

But that wasn't his problem anymore, as right where he had popped green smoke, a new transport shipped dubbed the Pelican flew by, low and slow, and dropped their four wheeled transport directly on top of the still burning smoke signal.

"Warthog, now!" Alenko ordered, "I'm driving!"

Jenkins laughed as he tossed the 'intel' into the passenger seat and hauled himself into the back and grabbed the controls of the three barreled turret, "I always preferred big guns anyway!"

As KAidan hit the ignition on the hog and felt the hydrogen reactor roar to life, he turned back to the corporal, "You know that thing has a VI and is capable of shooting itself right?"

"The same VI's you guys were disabling with a flick of your wrist?"

The biotic shrugged, that's a fair point, and smashed the accelerator. The engine roared and the tires tore the mud from the ground as the warthog launched forward and sped off down a convenient path through the trees.

They weren't even a quarter mile down the road when the hog's gun started roaring, firing .30 caliber rounds in the same fashion the MA5 did, though it didn't need special batteries, as the engine powered the weapon and the rotating barrels kept themselves cool by reducing their duty and alternating which barrel was firing. Of course the recoil of over a thousand rounds a minute of 150 grain bullets flying out the barrel at over twenty three hundred meters per second would have been enough to really torque on the hog, but through an ingenious use of mass effect fields, the weapon's recoil was entirely mitigated. Meaning Jenkins could hose down their pursuers with contemptuous ease.

"Did I tell you I fucking love my job?"

An explosion echoed through the forest as Kaidan rounded a bend, the suspension and highly tuned mass effect fields keeping the vehicle even despite the mud wanting to slip and slide beneath them.

"How about the drop? Did you love that part?"

A floating platform came out of the trees ahead of them, attempting to cut off the two Troopers in the hog. Kaidan simply ducked into the tree line, using the incredible agility of the warthog to navigate the trunks and slipped right by the hovercraft and then shot back out onto the road. A sustained burst of gunfire and an explosion announced the end of that particular threat.

"Ya know, it wasn't as bad as my imagination made it seem. A guy gets used to that, and I think the DTC can be a real game changer all across the galaxy. I mean, reinforcements from orbit in less than a minute, surprise attacks from space. There's no such thing as away from the frontlines whenever we're in play. Any time, anywhere, we can drop in on someone and give them a real kick in the nuts."

The lieutenant smiled, "That is the point, Corporal."

"Aren't you glad I talked you into it?"

"Hell no, I still can't believe I let you do that!"

Jenkins laughed, "Are you kidding me man? Have you seen your biceps lately? Your abs? Ladies will be all over you! That alone has to be worth it!"

"You sure it's the ladies who will be all over me? You seemed to have been paying a lot of attention to me in the locker rooms."

"Just art appreciation, sir, I'm just sizing up the competition."

"With those ears, Corporal Dick, you never stood a chance."

A belt of laughter erupted from the turret, "Ouch, LT. That one's more than a flesh wound."

"Approaching extraction."

Sure enough, as the hog tore around another bend, another pelican was waiting for them, this time with the Colonel standing in the troop bay. He waved to them as Kaidan pulled to a stop, the tires tearing the grass and mud up as it slid up next to the drop ship. Jenkins stayed on the turret, scanning the trees as though the enemy could burst through them at any time, and Alenko pulled the briefcase from the passenger seat and ran up to the pelican's troop bay, hopping up the ramp and presenting the 'intel' to the Colonel.

"Sir, we have vital intel to present to Command."

The Colonel, an older Hispanic man with a regulation mustache smiled wryly, "So you did. Do you know what's in it?"

"Sir, no sir."

This time the Colonel huffed a small laugh, "Why don't you open it and find out?"

With a confused look on his face, the biotic did exactly as he was ordered and set the briefcase on the floor and popped the latches. With a sense of apprehension, he flipped the lid open…

…and was presented with twelve cans of beer in a bed of ice.

"… uh… Sir?"

"Congratulations, Lieutenant, Corporal, you boys are Drop Troopers now," the Colonel said with a proud smile under his mustache.

"Sir… permission to crack one open?"

"Granted."

Jenkins was quick to rush over and grab one can, ripping his helmet off and cracking the seal, clanking his can with Kaidan's.

"Mmmmmmhhhh…." They both groaned as the carbonated fermentation of wheat slid down their throat.

"Holy Hell that hit the spot," Richard Jenkins said as he pulled the beer from his lips, then seemed to remember the company he was keeping, "uh, sirs."

"At ease Corporal, you earned it."

Alenko looked back the way they came, "Sir, what happened to the rest of the platoon?"

"Relax, Lieutenant, they're all 'looting' the compound as we speak."

"Sir?"

This time the Colonel out and out laughed, "What did you think those mechs were guarding?"

"Liquid gold, sir," Jenkins answered.

"Casualties, sir?"

"The mechs are synced up with all of your vitals, any time someone takes a bad hit, the mechs leave them alone. There are more than a few flesh wounds, yourself included, but the onboard medigel injectors are more than enough to take care of those, and anyone seriously hurt is being airlifted. Nobody's going to die, relax, and enjoy yourself while you can. The real work starts tomorrow."

…

"Interesting design," Shepard commented as she guided the new DT-77 Pelican around her new posting.

She was certified for UT-47 Kodiak's, but she needed her certification for the newer dropship that was designed for hotter drops and more versatile roles. Whereas the Kodiak could really only transport people, and granted it did a good job of it, it lacked the ability to transport armor or bring firepower to bear in an air support role.

The Pelican was bigger, more heavily armored, and didn't have FTL capabilities like the Kodiak did, but it could transport tanks, APC's, and a lot of other, lighter vehicles with ease. It also could be loaded up with half a dozen air to air or air to surface missiles as well as a twenty millimeter chaingun mounted on the nose of the craft, resulting in a ship that could clear its own landing zone, drop armor, and an entire squad of marines all in one package.

The Kodiak wasn't going anywhere. Its FTL capabilities and ability to carry up to fourteen passengers made it perfect for shuttling large amounts of troops from place to place, but the Pelican was made for hot landings and was scheduled to completely replace the Kodiak in frontline roles in just a few years.

"It's a turian design, right?" her 'flight instructor' asked from the seat behind her. Emile seemed to be certified in literally every craft known to sentient species, and certainly every hand held weapon that had ever been designed.

"It's a hybrid of turian and human design. The engines are human design, and the main fuselage is human design. The wings are turian, obviously, and the CIC is laid out in a very turian manner," Shepard explained to the Spartan as she finished her pass and swung the pelican down, facing the cargo bay.

"I don't get it."

"What don't you get?" Jane asked, genuinely curious as she waited patiently for the cargo bay to finish opening.

A deep sigh came from behind her, "What's the point? I get the need for a stealth frigate, I even understand incorporating turian designs, if they work, but why are we co building this thing with the turians?"

The door was finally open, and with a flick of the controls, the redhead flipped the drop ship around and backed into the cargo bay.

"I don't know, what's the point of a main battle tank on a stealth frigate?" she countered as she watched the rear cameras to position the rear of the drop ship just right, and released the sixty six tons of titanium and high explosive firepower, dropping it onto the cargo bay floor and then taking off out through the still open cargo bay door, "I still can't believe you got Anderson to requisition one."

"Never know when you'll need the firepower," the super soldier countered back, "and stealth ships make insertions into active battlefields all the time."

"Ok, I get the argument for firepower, and believe me, I want nothing more than to drive that monster through a target rich environment, but we're already going to be packing the Mako."

Speaking of which, it was the next vehicle to be loaded up and the deck crew of the carrier SSV Hawking had one for them lined up all nice and pretty for her to pick up, "It's got that new gauss cannon, there isn't much armor out there that can withstand a shot from that thing."

"Firstly, its an APC, not an MBT, the gauss is to combat light armor and for self defense because the Mako's main job is to get a squad of marines as close to the battlefield as possible," Emile argued back, "It doesn't have the armor to go toe to toe with heavy armor or heavy gun emplacements."

Jane settled the drop ship over the Mako, the Spartan very subtly correcting her positioning when she went a little too far back on the APC and almost smashed the front of the vehicle into her troop bay door.

"Ok, so how do you exactly expect to be deploying heavy armor? Do you want to deploy right away with it?"

She could feel him shaking his head behind her as he activated the mass effect field that sucked the Mako into the Pelican's clamps.

"No, I want to deploy a small team in the warthog, or a large team in the mako, and advance the mission until we run into enemy heavy armor, or heavy gun emplacements, then we'll clear an LZ out the hot zone, pelican drops the scorpion, and then we can roll on."

"Okay, you've convinced me, its important. You know what else is important? Our relationship with the Hierarchy."

The cargo bay was still open and Jane had no problem backing the pelican into the bay and dropping the mako right next to the scorpion main battle tank. By the time the warthog and the two ghosts set down along with the pelican itself, the cargo bay was going to be looking a little cramped.

"Yeah, the turians proved to be such great allies during the Blitz," Emile grumbled as he released the clamps and used the mass effect field to softly set the APC on the deck.

"They took over several patrols so we could launch our counter offensive. The fleet that hit Torfan had to be pulled off of colony patrol and the Hierarchy deployed their own battlegroup to take that over. There's more than one way to provide support."

"They'll hold back their support if we ever go to war with the Hegemony."

Shepard snorted, swinging the drop ship around and this time opening the troop bay for the deck crew of the Hawking to drive the two ghosts into the troop bay even as Emile sucked the warthog into the pelicans clamps. The ghosts were technically supposed to go there as well, but since they could fit into the troop bay, that would work well enough for transport, especially since they didn't have any troops back there currently.

"I doubt the citizens of the Hierarchy would let the Primarch get away with a decision like that, especially after what you did on Torfan."

Shepard turned to look the huge man in the eye as they waited for the deck crew to finish loading the ghosts, "I still see the picture of you and all those marines exiting the tunnels at Torfan, the unconscious woman in your arms, your big skull helmet directly in center frame. I've seen edits where they put angel wings coming out of the back of your armor."

The loading crews finished their work and Jane was cleared to exit the Hawking's shuttle bay, but she kept eye contact with Emile, watching the discomfort grow in his striking emerald eyes as Shepard let him know just how much of a hero he was.

"Did you know that the Hierarchy publicly interviewed those women after they got back to Palaven? They were all former military, full citizens. They were doing private security for a volus business in human space when they were taken. They ripped the Hierarchy up and down for not being more aggressive with the Hegemony over their slavery. And they wouldn't stop talking about you."

The Spartan's uncomfortably bright eyes narrowed as they focused on hers, "You'd think the Spirits turians worship had coalesced into a single being and became you by the way they described it. They called you a hero, they called you brilliant, and daring, and amazing. Those women love you, and a lot of turians are starting to like you as well."

Finally, Jane pulled the pelican out of the Hawking's shuttle bay, "And the closer we work with the Hierarchy on projects like this, the more turians in the Hierarchy will feel comradery with humanity and the Alliance."

Silence reigned behind her, and the redhead thought she had impressed her point upon the super soldier.

"They'll cut and run, when the going gets tough, when they get a bloody nose. They'll protect their own and leave us in the middle of a war we were dependent upon them to win."

Shepard sighed, backing the pelican into the cargo bay a final time, "You really think that?"

"I've seen it. Batarians, krogan, vorcha, turians, even though they all fight together, you can see they don't really care about each other. They don't really think of each other as people."

Jane stood from the pilot's seat, her bad leg throbbing in protest after being at rest for so long, and leaned over the copilot's console to get a good look at the enigmatic Spartan of Elysium, the Demon of Torfan, and the Hero of the Blitz.

"What about those women you prayed with?" she asked gently, "Were they not really people to you?"

Shepard hobbled out of the cockpit, grimacing lightly at the stiffness in her bum leg, "Come on, lets go meet up with the Captain and the Hierarchy engineer, Octavio in the CIC."

She had only made it a few steps into the troop bay when she realized she was going to have to climb over the two ghosts to get out. Sighing, the redhead was getting ready for the discomfort and pain of having to clamber over the up armored hovercraft when she felt herself get scooped up from behind.

Barely turning a screech into a squeak, Jane felt herself fall into the bridal position and looped her arms around her benefactor's neck for stability as Emile easily stepped onto the first ghost and quickly and easily walked over the uneven terrain and out the back of the troop bay. The super strong super human showed no strain even as he had to bend over with a weight in his arms as he overcame the last ghost and walked down the ramp into the cargo bay. He didn't stop to set her down even as he walked over to the elevator, punched the command for deck two, and waited for the doors to open.

"As comfortable as this is, and as… um…" Jane suddenly blushed, "I don't think this would be an appropriate way for us to introduce ourselves to the Hierarchy representatives."

Shrugging, Emile gently placed the redhead on the ground, her leg throbbing lightly as weight was put back on it, but in significantly less pain than if she had been forced to climb over those hovercraft in the pelican. Smoothing out her uniform, she swiftly stepped into the elevator as the door opened and turned.

"Coming?"

They had three levels to go to get to the CIC as the cargo bay was the bottom deck, engineering was deck four, crew deck was on deck three, and the CIC was on deck two.

"Lift seem a little slow to you?" Jane asked, looking over to find Emile staring straight ahead, as patient and stone like as ever.

Sighing, she pulled out her omnitool and engaged the override, speeding the lift up and shooting them past decks four and three and bringing them swiftly to deck two.

"That override is for emergency use only," the Spartan commented quietly as the doors opened up, revealing the CIC.

"I'm sorry I didn't want to wait five minutes just to ascend a couple of decks," Shepard snarked back as she strode out towards the galaxy map where Captain Anderson and Octavius were waiting for them.

Emile didn't reply and quickly saluted the Captain when he came to a stop next to Jane, prompting her to salute as well, lest she look bad in front of the Hierarchy engineers, "Sir, reporting as ordered."

"At ease, you two, Octavius was just about to run us through the Normandy's specs. I'm sure you've run through them before, but now we actually get to tour the ship and ask questions," David Anderson gestured to the tall, dark plated turian with bright red facepaint, "So without further ado, I think we can get started."

"Of course, Captain," the avian alien responded with his species characteristic deep dual toned voice, the vibrations of the secondary tone felt quite pleasant in her chest at this distance.

As it turned out, the Normandy might wind up being the most advanced ship in the entire galaxy. Two hundred and sixteen meters long, ninety six meters wide and twenty four meters tall, it was a little undersized for a frigate, but had a mass effect core and a pinch fusion reactor meant for a cruiser. This gave the ship unmatched speed, both in sublight as it was able to muster an astonishing one hundred and fifty G's and in real space FTL, pulling nearly thirty light years per day, and the advanced IES stealth systems, they could drop in and out of FTL without anyone in system being the wiser, something the much faster slipspace drive couldn't do.

Speaking of stealth, the IES stealth systems had been quite limited in terms of their ability to be used continuously, but with recent advances in capturing and mitigating heat, the Internal Emission Sinks could run for a full day before the Normandy started to get a little hot inside. They could drop into a system undetected, fly around for a full twenty four hours through enemy controlled systems in complete comfort, and jump out without anyone ever knowing they were there. And that wasn't even including ways to extend the stealth drive's effectiveness, such as loitering on low power, which could conceivably mean the Normandy could hang around behind enemy lines for a full week before either having to bug out or be discovered.

And while all that was great when it came to going undetected by sensors, Octavius brought their attention to the photoreactive paneling covering the Normandy, allowing the ship to literally change color to blend in with its surroundings. So not only could they hide from a batarian cruiser's sensors, they could fly up and dock with the ship and anyone who looked out the window would be hard pressed to see the vessel approach in the inky black space until it was too late.

Of course, stealth for reconnaissance was all well and good, but Jane could have sworn Emile's lips turned up just a little bit at the mention of weapons. The Normandy was fully loaded there, with disruptor torpedoes for breaking enemy shields, javelins for breaking their armor, and the new main gun, or guns rather, were the two, one hundred meter long Mark 15 Breakwater Coilguns, capable of launching thirty kilogram projectiles at high enough velocity to match a light cruiser spinal gun's firepower. Without any prompting, the Spartan laid out the way the Normandy could be best used as a stealth warship in an active warzone.

The Normandy could sneak up on enemy vessels, dump their entire complement of disruptor torpedoes cut open a hole in the enemy's shield, and with pinpoint timing, facilitated by the new and highly advanced VI 'Aunty', the stealth frigate would crack the enemy vessel's armor with a flight of javelins and punch through the weakened plating with a double barreled blast from the Breakwaters. Even a dreadnought's shields would experience a temporary disruption from half a dozen disruptor torpedoes in one location, and while the reactor core may be too deep in the ship for the Breakwaters to reach, even with javelins softening up the armor on the outside, the Normandy could cut the spinal gun and neuter the heavy firepower of the vessel, or if the bridge was located on the exterior like they were on human, asari, and batarian ships, the could cut the head right off the beast and render the ship, and likely the fleet, leaderless.

It was high risk, because there was no guarantee that the Normandy could safely bug out after launching the surprise attack, but the powerful barriers effected by the ship's massive mass effect core and super powerful reactor would ensure they could take a few direct hits from capital grade weapons, and the new titanium A armor plating beneath the photoreactive paneling had proven its ability to withstand directed energy weapons.

"This is one hell of a ship," Jane finally said as she, Captain Anderson, and Emile finally ended their tour in the war room behind the CIC on second deck.

"She's fast, she's strong, and most importantly, she's sneaky," David Anderson agreed, "and with Element Zero prices dropping through Alliance Space, and our ships ability to get the same performance with a smaller core, we might just be looking at one of these ships in every fleet within the decade. Plans are already being drawn up for an SR-2 with a heavier emphasis on long range reconnaissance and less on heavy firepower."

"Why less firepower?"

"The only reason this ship has the big guns it does is because of the turian engineers helping to design it," the Captain explained, "Octavius in particular insisted. He asked what the point of all these big new guns the Alliance was designing if we didn't put them on our ships, and what was the point of a military ship if it couldn't kill the enemy."

"Well," Emile spoke up for the first time since laying out how he would utilize the Normandy's stealth systems in conjunction with its powerful weapons. His emerald eyes locked with Shepards, "At least something good came of working with the turians."

Jane scoffed, and rolled her eyes, "You and turians both like big guns, so now you're glad they're helping co-design the Normandy? You are such a guy."

A lot of exposition in this chapter. I wanted to flesh out the Drop Trooper Corp a little bit, still not sold on that name, but I found that I was basically just taking the names of shit in Halo and just shoving it into the mass effect universe with the warthog, the pelican, the scorpion, even the Mark 15 Breakwater Coilguns are literally just ripped from halopedia and thrown into this story. If you guys have suggestions on names or changing anything like that, let me know and I will try and change some of that stuff.

And just for the record, the ghosts I mentioned in this chapter will operate very similarly and occupy a similar role to the covenant ghosts, but they aren't pink, they don't run on plasma cores or anything. When they come up in the story I'll give more exposition and information on them, but I figured that with element zero, the Alliance would have no problem recreating the performance of the ghost without needing to create any crazy plasma technology.

Now for some information regarding MAC's, tell me what you think of this. So the information on the Super MAC's used by the UNSC during the human/covenant war is given to us in a book and widely accepted as the most solid numbers we have on any of the MAC guns. It's a 3000 ton projectile shot at 4% the speed of light, now ignoring a lot of the advanced physics, what with the perceived mass of an object increasing the closer that object approaches the speed of light, that's 50 gigatons. IE, a lot of fucking energy. We are also told in that same book, that the Super Mac that can kill three CCS class battlecruisers in a single shot.

Now one youtuber, Installation 00 who generally does a fantastic job on the lore stuff, broke this down in a silly way and assumed that the 50 gigatons was spread evenly between the first two ships, which were completely destroyed, and that the rest of the energy was just enough to mission kill the third ship, which is what the book states, the first two CCS's were completely destroyed and the third was heavily crippled and mission killed. So he came up with a number that 21 gigatons of force is necessary to kill a CCS.

I disagree with his number, because projectiles don't spend just enough energy to go through an object, they expend as much energy as they can, especially when they are going at incredibly high speeds. My thought, is that the SMAC probably vaporized the first ship, expended 90% of its energy, cored the second ship, destroying pretty much everything vital inside of it, probably blowing 50-70% of its remaining energy, and then lodged deep inside the third ship, wrecking its weapons and power systems, mission killing the CCS.

Now the reason that's important, is because we know that the Pillar of Autumn, a retrofitted Halcyon class light cruiser, was able to kill a CCS with three shots from its MAC, something that would be incredibly hard to do with a standard Halcyon, but the Autumn was fitted with capacitor banks allowing it to fire three shots in rapid succession by recycling the expended charge of the MAC gun. So with my previous numbers, I've come to 1.75 gigatons to 2.5 gigatons to mission kill a CCS, though I'm leaning towards 1.75. Divide that by three and you get 583 megatons per MAC round from the Autumn, which was a Halcyon, which had a LIGHT Mac gun.

These numbers are fucking absurd, but they do provide the Alliance a reasonable chance at fighting the Reapers conventionally. Now they're outnumbered, and MAC guns are really slow to recharge, around 45 seconds, but if they utilized precision FTL jumps they could jump in on the flank of a bunch of Reapers, destroy half the ships there, and jump out. They wouldn't be able to hold up in a stand up, knock down, drag out fight, so they'd still have to surrender orbital supremacy to the Reapers at earth, but they could run guerilla tactics and possibly wear down the numerically superior squids, or just open holes in the Reapers fleet around Earth and other colonies so they could land support like fresh troops, armor, even evacuate civilians.

All of that provided Reapers are equal or lesser in their defenses to CCS Battlecruisers. Unfortunately, while a lot of the numbers in Halo are not expressly available or written down, they are a veritable goldmine of information in comparison to the Mass Effect universe, so for the purposes of this story, a Reaper = CCS Battlecruiser in shield strength and armor. If you have any more concrete numbers on what a Reaper is actually capable of, defense wise, even offensively, I would love to hear them so I can amend some of my numbers.

Onto the romance, some people have been asking me if it was really necessary, and I have to say it kind of is. Mostly because I want one, and ultimately I will choose which one I want, partially because it is a large part of the Mass Effect games, and also because Emile is a Spartan III, his hormones are all there and for the first time in his life he is in a situation where he actually has time to spend around the opposite sex in a casual environment rather than under a hail of plasma fire. He will start to notice that he is physically attracted to some of the women around him. Now he is exceptionally disciplined and obviously inexperienced in this realm of activity, but a proactive woman, such as Jack or Kasumi, or even Tali after a pep talk from her pseudo big sister Ashley, would likely overcome that barrier. Now Tali and Kasumi wouldn't jump his bones, and Jack would probably get her head ripped from her shoulders if she tried, but they be able to lead him down that, or in Tali's case, explore that path together.

Now I've gotten a fair amount of support for Emile/Tali, which surprised me, I had figured you guys would straight out tell me no, but I like that if I do decide to go with that, not everyone will turn on me. This is likely the last you will hear on this for some time, as I just wanted to get a feel for the reader's opinions on this one, and I honestly won't be pursuing any actual romance until after ME1 is complete, as any romance with Emile will probably have to be a slow burn anyway.

Also, I will be deer hunting for the next few weeks, so for sure you will not be getting a chapter out of me for those next two weeks, which considering many of you guys have been holding out for years, that's no big deal, but I just wanted to let you know that quick updates are probably not the norm going forward.