All the Stars

by BlueWay

When the Long Night of Solace is evaporated over Reach via the weaponized usage of a Slipspace Drive, it ferries with it in its swallowed sections the Covenant Empire and, more horrifyingly, the desperate measures that the UNSC used to fight them. When they are found in a universe on the precipice of their own history, the meaning of the term "Mass Effect" will change forever.

3. 0-3: The Future They Had

A/N: Publish when tired. Edit when rested.

---

Amul Shastri had been the Prime Minister of humanity's representative body among the stars: The Systems Alliance. Created by Earth's most able nations, they represented humanity as a whole amongst the stars and, most importantly, with the Citadel. He was a former pilot in the Systems Alliance military, leading a fighter squadron during the Skyllian Blitz. War Heroes had a way to sway public opinion polls in order to be appointed into positions of power, but it hadn't been unwarranted. Having a tough man be the head of government was what the Galaxy needed more than ever, and the reports that had been filed to his desk that day had just continued to stack up. The reports had went like this:

First, a presumably space faring coalition or union of Aliens suddenly appeared over the Human Colony of Altis, not with ships per se, but the remains of such. Losing flight capabilities en masse, they had made planetfall while also somehow being the cause of an Alliance cruiser's loss of their Mass Effect field. Because of that not only was the Altis Colony to be evacuated and vacated (the colonists already on station at Arcturus), but conserved hostilities were had throughout the planet fall site and the debris field on Altis.

Second, as a follow up to the first report, this was also a First Contact situation. A First Contact Situation which none of the new aliens had any intention to also understanding.

Third, there were eight unknown species that were acting in concert as such.

Fourth, they spoke Human naturally and recognized the human race.

Fifth, two humans, anomalous, had showed up during that planetfall and were unable to be identified.

And, lastly, just freshly delivered to his desk, one of those humans was, in laymen's terms-

"She's superhuman?" Shastri asked as he had combed through her record.

His advisor nodded, hands behind his back. "First reports from the Normandy en-route via their ship's doctor has stated that she's been very much subject to biological engineering, and, from her hypothesis, from an early age."

An MRI scan of the woman's body was had. That is, the MRI scan had been completely scattered and unusable. As if her body itself wasn't playing ball with the MRI machine on the Normandy.

"Some of the things I'm seeing here, that's in violation of Sudam-Wolcott, isn't it?" The rather recent act outlawing genetic therapy in express interest of adding new abilities had been rather prudent, one of the many laws adopted by the Systems Alliance in order to please the Council.

The advisor nodded, his goatee being stroked anxiously. "It might be. We're still digesting this information, but however it is it very much toes the line and is very dangerous… if not outright impossible. No Alliance doctor would be practicing such things."

Shastri placed the report down as he saw some of said details, imagining what it would be like if he had what those scans had implicated. Maybe he would've been a GI instead of a pilot. He certainly would've been able to punch above his weight… Hell, punch a hole through a god damn battalion.

"These upgrades," he started, hands rubbing his eyes for a moment as he tried to take everything that had transpired those last six hours in. That morning he had just gotten off the horn from the Citadel with Ambassador Udina. Another damnable update of some effort he thought would improve their chances on seat status on the Council. Given recent events he was sure he would have to call the incessant politician again. Not that he didn't enjoy his insight or efforts, but Shastri was reminded that he had once been a soldier who was supposed to detest politicians. "They are nigh impossible to pull of correct? I don't even think any of our Biotic programs or gene therapy clinics are able to change the composition of human bone."

The advisor nodded, as much at a loss as the Prime Minister. "Sir we're looking into extra-governmental organizations and criminal organizations: the Blue Suns, The Red Line Institute, Cerberus, and even Salarian and Asari research groups, however we don't have anything like this on record."

"Have they been accused of any crimes yet? Are they responsible for bringing this situation on Altis?"

"Unknown sir, however they were fighting them. Not in murder, but rather in a military engagement. They were predisposed to fighting when we found them, and they seemed like they were in their right to kill any alien they came across."

"Any contact with Citadel Species?"

"No sir." That was another big question. How would they react to any other alien species?

In the distance, towards the turning Mass Relay of Arcturus, a ship had blipped through, unbeknownst to any in system. The stealth systems of the Normandy worked both ways.

"They're inbound, correct?"

"Yes sir."

"Our diplomatic section is clear correct? Volus cleared out yesterday?"

The Advisor nodded, pulling up his data pad. "Next person will be Nihlus in two weeks before he transfers to Earth to begin Spectre evaluations along with the Eden Prime situation."

"Alright, set them up there and convert a conference room for questioning. Get Intelligence Command alerted and have them bring over one of their questioners."

"Yes, Mister Prime Minister."

The Advisor had left, bowing out silently. Hardly a moment passed when the doors to his office sealed and he had groaned, slouching back in his chair. In the years he'd been Prime Minister he thought, at some point, this would all get easier. It wasn't so as he had walked to the side of his office to the table that played host to his vodka and glasses. A quick sip was all he needed to calm his mind. The only solace he could take was that the Council would be too busy dealing with the aliens on Altis than to be concerned with the humans that had been extracted and currently inbound. That and, for the most part, this would remain classified.

---

JD had pressed his arms forward, just short of shoving them to Ryder and Anderson's chest. He was a fair man, believed in bearing the burden his fellow servicemen had weathered. It was only right. That was the price of his survival this long in the War. That extended even to the Spartans.

The first scans of her had been the reason she was binded, shackled, cuffed and restricted. Not free of her own movement save the movement of her torso and head.

JD was not given the same treatment, and he thought it wrong. Six had remained silent ever since Doctor Chakwas had did her scans and delivered the news to the command staff. More troops had been around them then, even one without a gun.

"Lieutenant Alenko," Anderson had started, looking at JD's face and realizing that it was either bind him the same as the woman, or he would force them to. "Tie up our guest here. Let us respect his solidarity.

Six had been surprised, if not disappointed. There was no reason for JD to be tied up, it gave them less options if push came to shove and she wouldn't have that. She wouldn't let anyone drag themselves down to her level. She opened her mouth to say but JD had already given him a glare at her.

'Don't even think about it.' He had read in his eyes as the bracers were clamped onto him by Lieutenant Alenko. Alenko had a shapely, handsome face, but it was that of a man who'd been through rough times. Even as he had done the deed he had given JD a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. Anyone could respect what he was doing.

"This is to keep all of us safe, don't worry about it." He had given a glance to Six. She flared her nostrils for a second, obviously not agreeing.

The Normandy had come into one of the hanger bays of Arcturus Station, its deployment ramp put down and extended as a procession of Marine Gaurds outside had lined the way out and into the station. Ready to transfer them had been Commander Anderson and Commander Ryder. A giant station it had been, of steel and stainless metals that made it glow in the darkness of space. It was bigger than some of the MAC Defense Platforms, but this station was meant for a different purpose.

For what purpose Six couldn't figure, not when she felt her entire body seize up, frozen. In the corners of her vision she saw a blue aura surround her. She went to yell but even her mouth could not move.

"Alright, she's not that heavy." Alenko had said with abrasiveness in his voice, cool and calm taking him over as JD turned over and saw what he had been doing turn onto him. A distortion of reality itself seemed to manifest in his hand and then, around him as he felt himself being lifted.

It had been the same kind of blue "flame" he witnessed during the firefight. It saved him from a Brute when he ran out of ammo. For the few seconds as it happened to them, JD and Six had allowed themselves to think that magic was real. Despite their stasis and manhandling, having been lifted up, their eyes still moved within their sockets, and they both found each other's.

That Ryder had noticed as the ramp finished lowering. "Not how you thought your last tour with the Alliance was going to go, huh?" Anderson had patted his back, drawing his attention away from the controlled chaos in that hanger all meant for them.

"Who says I'm retiring David?"

"You have your wife to attend to. I know how it is sometimes."

"Hmph."

A man with a goatee in civilian clothing had been at the bottom of the ramp, waving at the two commanders and their guests. Kaiden had followed the two as they went down and met the man, Marines at the ready, helmets on, rifles armed.

"Commander Anderson, Commander Ryder?"

"Yes," The civilian man had given Anderson and once up and down, followed by JD and Six, frozen and very much not wanting to be so. "I'm Advisor Dawes, special assistant to Prime Minister Shastri."

"Didn't think I'd need to see you again Dawes." Ryder ground out, hands at his hips and obviously not interested in hearing from him.

It was understandable. Ryder's wife was dying. Not a quick death, not an easy one. A long death. A disorder that ate away at her very body and used her body's defenses to break her down. A painful death that came by inches, and she was still being dragged there. Ryder wouldn't have it. No. He'd fight teeth and nail, bone and blood, for her to live. Lawful or not he had tried to find a way to save her life, and when the line was crossed, Dawes was one of the people to stern him on his methods.

The discussion didn't go well.

"Don't give me this Ryder. We have bigger things to deal with than you your AI talk." Dawes had said, leading the group through the procession of Marines toward an open door. "Orders are to deposit them in the VIP section. It's been just cleared and ready for them. Anderson you have a briefing with Prime Minister Shastri on the situation instead of Admiral Hackett."

"You have them Lieutenant Alenko? Commander Ryder?" Alenko hadn't seem that weary just lifting these two, he shaking his head. Ryder had only answered affirmatively. "Very well, see you in a bit."

Kaiden Alenko was a biotic, that was a fact that Six and JD had been made abundantly clear of as they were held like statues. However the amount of focus that was needed to channel such energy. His senses could still pick up what had been on the fringes. That comment about Ryder's wife however, he couldn't miss it, stewing it over in his head.

He knew the name Ryder, albeit from a different person than the commander before him.

He was a friendly guy, tried to be anyway, and so as he and that Ryder walked down the halls with two frozen people, Marines ghosting them, he had spoken to a Commander that was not his own.

"I'm sorry about your wife, Ellen, Commander Ryder." He said, a little strained, given his duties at the moment.

It was odd small talk during their walk down those halls, one Six and JD didn't catch as they were still petrified, literally and mentally.

Ryder hadn't turned his head as he led the way.

"Did you know her?"

Alenko had given out a breath fondly. "She helped install my L2 Implant, and I've talked to her regarding the side effects of it since. I owe her a lot as a biotic." Alenko's final word had been something Six had been able to pick up: "Biotic". Is that the reason why he had been able to do what he was doing to them? Even the Covenant hadn't anything or anyone able to do this with their anti-grav tech. "If there's anything I can do, please tell me. I'd like to help."

"You can help by not talking about it, lieutenant."

It'd been the longest five minutes in the Spartan and ODST's lives, but eventually both of them had been entered into a room, their bindings and cuffs lost, but their forms still frozen. When they heard the door close behind them they had then dropped to the floor in their presumed new cell, turning to the door to find it locked.

It wasn't a cell they were dropped in. Far from it.

After a moment of disorientation, they had scanned the room they were dropped in and were presented with something neither of them had been in for years without it either being destroyed or broken into: an apartment.

---

A woman lay on the shores of a frozen lake. Her skin was pale, but pleasantly so, she'd never been able to weather a tan, but her skin was thick anyway. It was reddened both by the freckles on her face, and the body's reaction to the cold. Frosty breaths came from her mouth, green eyes the only real vibrant color on her form as the rest had been concealed by snow white ghillie and actual snow. Those green eyes stared right into an old model scope from a hunting rifle. Not of mass effect field propulsion or thermal coils, but rather of metal and steel and wood. It was a firearm from Earth's past, but it never fell out of usage for those who walked the last of Earth's frontiers, where development had just stopped and nature remained miraculously.

That frontier, specifically, as she was buried in snow and cold, laid on her stomach perched on her view point, was the Alaskan wildlands.

She wasn't trained a sniper. No. Special forces yes, but more a regular operator, a rifleman with a pedigree, but a rifleman all the same. In that leave she had been granted for the last month she had been tempted to take a sniper rifle and try it out, and she had started at a very archaic form of it. 'You never knew when you would have to pick up a sniper.' She reasoned.

The weather, the snow, she didn't mind. She was an N7 for a reason and went through every number behind that with flying colors.

That's why her educated guess was right.

With her own eyes she saw a buck walk into view on the other side of the lake. The lake had been frozen solid, as were most of the streams and tributaries, save for that one corner of the shore that had been punched in through the glassy ice from a fallen tree. Not many animals had been in the area to take advantage of it, however she had known that one might've.

14-and-a-half-point buck.

She'd been tracking this buck for a few days, a refresher on her tracker skills from the Academy. Usually command had already identified the target and all she needed to do was get to it. A refresher was good however.

It had walked to those snowy shores with grace, scanning the area, big black eyes seeing everything but the woman. She hadn't known if it was her only streak of xenophilia, but she had appreciated the looks of Earth animals more than those on alien worlds. Even on Shanxi or Terra Nova.

It was a shame though, she thought, putting her cheek to the wooden stock and dipping her head down, putting snow in her mouth to hide her breath.

The buck had walked forwards to the pristine waters, dipping its head down, one lick of water was all it had taken before it raised up as if it was alerted. By corollary she had been too. She understood why though. Two other deer had come into view from the snowy trees, going to the shoreline and sipping. A doe, and a younger buck.

At some point in Earth's past more than three quarters of the animal species had toed the line into extinction, rampant industry and ecological destruction making that so. Humanity knew better now as they looked outward physically, but inward spiritually. Mother Earth could be outgrown, but always be their home.

It wasn't a matter of preservation that made her be asked that question of why she hadn't put a bullet through a buck that was presenting her a perfect target silhouette.

She knew why she stayed her shot as the animals sipped at available water.

She was fast on the shot, but not on the trigger. Time was something that could be given in every single situation if she was in the lead. The ability to Control, the ability to Destroy, the ability to find something in between. These were all choices she had understood to be cardinal in her leadership, and only time could give her the ability to make the best choices among them all, in every situation. She waited and bided her time.

This time it didn't take long, as opposed to when during the Blitz she had waited an entire night for a Batarian outpost to become a meeting point between Batarian pirate leaders. There was a time and place for everything, especially her actions.

Suddenly the three elk had went to the very edge of the shores very suddenly, the male elk, damn near size of half a Mako, taking position in front of them very protectively. The wind had blocked what noise she could hear down the way, but she got her answer as four-legged canine walked forward, teeth barred. Grey fur, fangs.

A lone wolf.

The hunter immediately adjusted his aim, aiming at the wolf, peering through her scope.

Her finger had touched the trigger of her old hunting rifle but settled herself. Even now she wouldn't take a shot before she saw, not a target, but what was happening.

The wolf was shaking, which was odd for the animal here. She zoomed in her optic and she saw its ribs to the bone.

Hunting hadn't gone well for this wolf apparently, and it was starving to the bone. She realized just then that she hadn't been the only one using that watering hole as bait.

The wolf had, despite its hunger, had used its desperation to step far more forward than any wolf would've against a big buck like the one it squared off against. The hunger was in service to another hunger: that of survival and tenacity. The larger elk had opened its mouth and air bellowing defensively as the Wolf growled and assumed pouncing position, unaware of another predator among them: a high-powered rifle reminding her that this was the reason she was on top of the food chain here.

Shoot the buck, she would've done the wolf a favor.

Shoot the buck and the doe, hopefully the wolf would've gone after the doe and she could've recovered the buck.

Shoot all three because leaving a young deer to itself and a wolf, in the middle of this winter, and she would've kept that poor thing in suffering.

Shoot the wolf, and it would get that family out of harm's way. Put the wolf out of its suffering, even if it had a chance now, or later.

Do nothing, and nature would play its course.

She knew what to do.

The Butcher of Torfan had always made a decision, and, more than that, she committed to it. Owned it.

She took in cold air into her lungs and held as she made her shot.

---

She forgot to wear hearing protection, the report of these old 20th century firearms had been a great deal louder than the mass effect-based weapons of now. There was power in sound however as she approached her target, rifle in hand, bolt already cycled and .458 cartridge in her pocket. The cost of these old, artisan bullets had been a little too high for her to even afford to use that much. Only two mags had been with her, and this was her first bullet used.

A smirk had been beneath her fabric mouth cover, the white beanie on her head taken off and her fiery red hair let flow free in the Alaskan breeze. Her small nose had erupted with more frosty breath as she pulled her mouth cover down, her teeth and tongue alight with the cold nip.

For how expensive these rounds were, they certainly did the job as she stood before her deed and felt bad.

The small tree near the animals that she had hit had erupted in shrapnel and branches, bark marring pristine snow.

Yeah, she nodded to herself. The shot had scared both groups off. She could live with that.

It wasn't up to her to decide the course of nature, but she was a part of it nonetheless.

It might've not given her a trophy for her new quarters on Commander Anderson's ship, or hell, a lunch, but there were better things to waste bullets on than bucks and wolves.

Thunder. Not from her.

She snapped her head to the north, toward Mount Chamberlin. Distantly, the cry of a beast up in the mountains. A bear brought out of hibernation? Perhaps, she thought. It was certainly worth going after, and she had the tags for bear hunting. As far as leaves go, this was one of her better vacations.

She looked to the stars, towards the relays, towards Arcturus Station. She was thankful that down here on Earth on her own frontier, alone and in solitude, she was left away from the politics, the wars, the conflicts that had given her enough medals eventually forget what each one meant. It was comforting to be on her own for once, and, as her assignment from Anderson came in to her before she had embarked on her hunting trip, more peace and a less complicated life was ahead of her.

With one grateful breath of fresh air, she had covered herself in white again, and took off.

---

The first time they were separated in the last twelve hours has been for a guessable reason. Questioning. Even with uniforms out of line Six and JD knew what spooks looked like. Six had known them all her life, and their identification lied behind their smiles. All fake and formality. She was an ONI Asset for most of her Spartan Career.

She'd been under direct command of Colonel Ackerson at one point, so she knew ONI or those who would be their agents as well as any.

She'd been the first to private go and, for her troubles, she'd at least gone without bindings, only cuffs.

Before she had left however JD had strained his voice as Marines kept him down sitting in their new "quarters".

"What's your name?"

Six wasn't her name. He wanted to set it straight before he had gotten it in his head that she was only "Six". She hesitated with an answer in her head, and she didn't have the time before she was led out.

When she returned two hours later she couldn't give it still as JD was taken and gone through the same process. Walking those halls, silver and blue, it was obvious that this space station hadn't been a black site. There was too much traffic outside the windows, too many plain clothes that he had passed on the way to wherever he was being led and they didn't pay any heed to him. It reminded him of the space elevator stations where civilians had access and commerce. In the plain English the room he was being led into was a conference room, the green holographic interface on the door activating and then opening it. He didn't fuss, didn't shuffle, didn't fight against those that led him here. Cooperation was his aim, and he did try his best. The same Marine had escorted him. Alenko, he remembered. He had carefully taken off his cuffs before pointing down to JD's boots.

"You've seen some action man."

Before he could answer, verbally or otherwise, JD noticed three men at the end of the table. Ryder was one of them. Two men in some sort of suits, formal, black officer caps on their head. No pen or paper, no physical recording device, but he doubted they needed one. The room was probably bugged, chairs and wooden table in the middle as he felt rug beneath his feet.

Ryder was centered in the middle of the men, still in armor, the two men in black patiently waiting. One opened up his arm. "J. J. Durante," JD paused, hearing his name uttered by these men. "Please take a seat."

He couldn't give Alenko a response, but he understood. "Good luck."

To that he could at least raise both his eyebrows and smile farcically.

When he sat down he realized that these hadn't been chairs of the military. No, these chairs were nice and soft, supported civilian backs for the business life, not his type. It was warm however. Six had kept it ready for him.

He ran his hands through unkept hair. He had a full head of hair, unlike his father, fluffy and liable to move on its own at the right walking speed or wind shear. Couldn't grow a beard worth a damn however.

"As you must understand, for you and us, the last twelve hours, and undoubtedly the next twelve hours to come, will be full of confusion and questions both on our part and yours." One of the men in black said. He had a cleft on his lip, seen some fighting. The other had aviator sun glasses, hiding most of his eyes. Cleft Lip went on, offering the chair on the other side of the conference table to J. J. Durante. "So we're gonna ask you some questions." It wasn't a large distance, for the room was small, but it kept the two sides separated as JD looked around further. The walls were glass, but one had been mirrored. It was asymmetrical in a room that had been symmetrical, unkind lights above beaming down on him. It wasn't an interrogation room, just, apparently, some cut rate conference room for anyone staying there.

They really weren't prisoners. Nor were they free. Just something in between.

"Don't I get answers then?" The ODST asked.

Sunglasses had smiled. "See it took this one only a minute to talk."

'Then how long did Six take?'

Cleft-Lip had looked at Ryder, whom shrugged, before continuing. "We'll answer your questions in due time Mister Durante," JD Cringed. It'd been a long time since anyone had called him 'Mister'. Private had fit better to him at this point. "However, I think we're entitled to ask questions first given the circumstances which you were picked up."

Sunglasses reached out with his hand for a moment. "Oh don't worry, you're not a prisoner, or being charged. You're, well, in legal terms I guess a person of interest… even if no crime has been… uh, committed."

Ryder had still been staring a hole through him, arms crossed. He had been perturbed. Six's doing probably, JD imagined. She had no reason to play ball with him, though that had raised a question. He was a soldier clearly, a fighter… but an interrogator?

"So if we could start, what is your full name?"

He could play this game. His father, while also bald, was also a cop.

"Jon-James Durante." The three men had seemed pleased he was talking at all, and his tone was neutral, an equivalent of a shrug. Yet then and there JD had told them how to speak while not saying anything at all. Their enthusiasm had went down as his mount continued to move, his quiet voice replaying information that could've just as easily been found on his dog tags. "11282-31220."

Name and serial number. That was all they would get.

"Oh come now. We don't have to-"

"Jon-James Durante. 11282-31220."

"Well at least he's confirming his name at least."

"Jon-James Durante. 11282-31220."

"It's also confirming he's got survival training. Regular ex-grunts usually don't recite this." Ryder raiser a finger. JD shrugged, admittedly. It was a nice catch. He was special forces. Maybe not the most extreme, but being called a shock trooper was more than just a hooah factor.

"Jon-James Durante. 11282-31220."

His father brought in a deserter once who had somehow made it back to Luna, going on to Earth. He had killed a man on the way, accidentally, but when his father was on the case they didn't know that. When the body was dug up underneath a crate of SPUNKrs, he pressed the questioning. The deserter responded as he did now, and he saw the irony.

"You a prisoner of war, son?" Ryder was annoyed.

"Jon-James Durante. 11282-31220."

"Are we the enemy?"

JD let them have something, shaking his head no. Still he went on.

"Jon-James Durante. 11282-31220."

They three men had gone on for a while, taunting, trying new questions, talking amongst themselves openly. Spoke about dinner, cabinet stylings, their guns. Wasn't anything JD wanted to hear. So it went on for a while.

Part of N7 training had wandered into this sort of situation however, as odd as that was. At a certain point N7s were expected to answer calls that brought them out of combat, but into the extra-ordinary. Situations where word and trust became more valuable than a gun and aim. In laymen's terms, he was trained to talk. Even when he didn't enjoy that aspect of it, he kept it in his back pocket.

It meant that he recognized every time that JD spoke his name and serial number, it meant that he was waiting. The rules of combat could carry over to the rules of conversation.

"What do you want to know?" Was Ryder's interrupt to action.

JD stopped in the middle of his recitement, a smile of his own. "Systems Alliance. You keep saying that name but… I've never heard of it before. I mean, you operate your own navy it seems, your own intelligence service, but I've…"

The two men in black looked at each other as JD went on. He wasn't good at words, but the question was asked. "If you let us know what the "UNSC" is, we will let you know. That okay? Give and take?"

"You don't know what the UNSC is?" His talk was slowing. He didn't believe he was running out of breath. Then again he hadn't need to talk so much ever since he had enlisted. His guns and his superiors talked for him.

"Yes. Simply. Do you mind elaborating? Is it a colony government? A mercenary group? The United Nations Security Council has been disbanded since the early for centuries."

"What?" JD questioned their sanity. "The UNSC, the command and military agency for Unified Earth Gov?"

Sunglasses raised an eyebrow. "United Earth Gov? What's that? We haven't heard of that political faction on Earth."

Had things changed while he was in the outer colonies? He hadn't been entirely invested in the politics of Earth and the Inner Colonies given a war was going on, but it was unlikely there had been a coup or some sort of political revolution that came without him knowing. "It's Earth's main representative body, for Earth and all her colonies."

"Well that's simply not right. The System Alliance has assumed that responsibility while the governments on Earth maintain their own sovereignty and political affiliation."

Were these guys the aliens? JD thought as if they were crazy. They were speaking of Earth. The homeworld. If they knew of Earth of course they knew of the UNSC, of the Covenant, of the War and of everything.

"When was the last time you were on Earth, son?" Sunglasses asked, carefully, prodding.

"I haven't back to Earth-… I haven't been home, to Luna, since '47."

"2147?" Cleft-Lip almost laughed.

His hearing was sharp. Sharp enough to catch an actively camo'd Elite in the foliage. Sharp enough to hear a man tell him the last '47 was four centuries ago. "What."

Sunglasses straightened his mouth. "We've been meaning to ask you that. We found some dog tags in that transport aircraft you occupied and, well, some of the dates put the birthdate of whoever those tags belonged to into the 2520s and the 2510s."

JD's eyes sunk in, staring holes into all across from him. They'd taken even his watch from him, but on his watch had been the date on its digital interface. It was August 14, 2552. It had to be, for his sanity, for anything to make sense.

"What is today's date. Earth Standard Time?"

"Hm? On Earth? It's November 13th. 2183."

As Six knew liars, JD knew when a lie had been told. He spent his childhood with his father in the station at Cirsium City, been through a thousand revolutions and revelations in regards to criminal cases via his detective father. So he knew a revelation when he felt it course through his bones and blood, straight to the very front of his brain and caused a great explosion of thought. What these men in black said, wasn't a lie.

They said it too fast. Too concretely. Rolled off a date and a year like nothing. Didn't take them off guard, an answer delivered as if they were stating their name and the weather.

He stood up, palms on the desk, Ryder responding like wise. "I need to get back to the quarters. Talk to Six about this."

"And why should we do that?" Ryder had been stern and ready to kick his ass but it hadn't been anything he hadn't dealt before from ODST platoon leaders who had kicked the bucket five minutes after the drop, leaving him alive for the following month-long campaign.

"We'll talk. I promise. We'll start talking."

"Or you could just be getting a fantastical story straight with her."

"Ten minutes commander. Ten minutes and we'll give you what you need."

He was already out of his seat and Ryder had already regretted not chaining them to the table. This wasn't a proper interrogation room though. It was a shame they weren't officially being interrogated, so he couldn't exactly place that same pressure.

It was allowed.

---

At some point, between JD having left for thirty minutes and him returning, Six had been provided sweat pants and a hoodie to hide her figure. It made JD do a double take as he returned, seeing her adorned with the emblem of the Systems Alliance. Obviously, someone had gone to the Gift Shop for her decency.

She had raised her eyebrow. He was back fast compared to her.

"Do you know the current date that these people are using, Six?" She had narrowed her eyes at him, head tilted. No, she didn't know. She didn't say a word as they sat there and tried to ask questions for two hours. She didn't give them the time of day.

"Are you okay, Marine?" Her voice returned to that of how Spartans usually talked: that of military diction and superiority. He'd been in battle before, been to war. He had been left alone behind enemy lines against a genocidal alien empire as a sole survivor, and when he had emerged into friendly hands they asked the same question. Then and there, he answered yes, truthfully.

"No."

He went to the window of that apartment, looking at the stars. She too had already done that trick with her downtime. ODST and Spartan were given astronomy lessons, star gazing techniques that could be used on many planets. The way the stars outside were arranged however, it spoke to something very scary, and yet, very familiar. The star of that system had been burning bright: a red giant, and in a familiar cluster. The stars looked-

"This is Alpha B."

Very early on after the advent of the Shaw-Fujikawa Translight Engine and humanity's initial push out, refueling stations needed to be put up to keep travel going. The star of Alpha B had played host to one of the largest ones, and, as technology and efficiency of sublight travel progressed it had been turned into a UNSC refit station.

It was something that Six had already known. They were very close to Earth then, and where they were now, wasn't supposed to look like this. She had been slow on her words, JD catching his breath. "Do you know the basic principle of slipspace travel, JD?"

Explained to everyone at some point in their life as early as elementary school: it had been the method of human space exploration and expansion. As important to mankind as the conical bullet, agriculture and, perhaps, the Spartans.

Take a string and then tie it into a knot, and then tie that knot into a knot, and then again, and again, and again until a path that one could follow with that string becomes almost infinitely maze-like and uneven. To get from one end of the string to the other by simply following the path of the string on the way meant to deal with the detours and twisting turns which could've been all been bypassed by simply, while still in contact with the string, bypassing or going over the knots. That bypassing, that loophole in travel, was what humanity had known as Slipspace Travel.

A crumpled piece of paper, jumping over a gap, tributaries and streams… the analogies went on in describing slipspace travel, but, simply, as Tobias Fleming Shaw and Wallace Fujikawa had discovered, using extra-dimensional planes of space as a method of transit from one distant location to another.

JD nodded at Six's question.

"And you know that we used Savannah's Slipspace Drive as a weapon to destroy that Super Carrier, right?"

It was all in the mission briefing. Another nod.

No destination solution. No proper safety accommodations. Desperate times called for desperate measures, and this was how it played its hand to the ODST and Spartan, and the millions of Covenant that had come with them. Slipspace travel hadn't been 100% safe, nor the drives that used them.

"Do you think…?" Six asked.

Jon-James Durante was silent: a quiet man. That was very different from being at a loss for words as he was right now.

All he could do was reiterate the intel he had to her.

The year was 2183 AD. They were in a star system they both recognized, and yet was utterly different. They had been taken custody by a human alliance who had no idea who they were, or any of what had identified them as. The System Alliance knew not of the Covenant, nor the thirty-year war that had made their two new guests who they were. They had arrived after the usage of a piece of machinery and engineering which played with a not-quite-well understood concept of extra-dimensional travel. They used that machinery improperly, without a destination solution set, and still, as the charge of it ran out, did not reappear over Reach.

For the ten minutes that he had been given, there was nothing to say. To say anything meant to accept an impossibility, and as the doors open again revealing Ryder and Alenko to escort one of them back, they hadn't moved from that window. They were silent, biding their time, a war in their own minds running through them. Some thoughts shared, some thoughts not.

They turned to face them, only to turn away again, last words, hushed whispers.

"I'm going to cooperate." JD said, resolutely.

"That quick?" Six seemed disappointed.

"If what I think happened, has happened… We're just lucky we're in the hands of humans." He licked his lips, turning back around. "Can we have five more minutes?"

"No." Ryder answered immediately. "Who's first?"

"I'm not going to talk. There's still too much we don't know." Six had said, back still turned, words to the wall.

"We have to give some to get some. This is a negotiation for our lives."

Six shook her head subtly. "My life is not mine."

Just because JD had seen her without her armor didn't mean she wasn't a Spartan anymore. There were still mysteries about her like a fragrance. Though he could guess those mysteries as he had reached out and touched her shoulder. She recoiled away, still he went on. "ONI, the Corps, the UNSC, the Covenant. I don't think they matter anymore. They're not here Six." He was pleading, and he felt himself getting winded again.

"This could just be some Insurrectionist ploy. Some trick."

"Then why didn't you blow your armor?" Six was surprised that this ODST knew of that capability of MJOLNR. "You know Cole Protocol is clear."

She grunted. "Only applies to the Covenant."

Ryder had been getting impatient as he entered the room fully. "Will you talk?"

"One moment." JD had just short of ordered to the man who had rank on him. "What other explanation is there? I know it sounds crazy, but so is Slipspace travel. Tell me that it doesn't not make sense, right here, right now."

He didn't strain his voice with her. He spoke lowly, carefully. He spoke life his father questioning a witness who had everything within them to break a case.

"Say it to me." He barely heard her, but he did.

"You know what it is." He whispered back.

"Please. JD." Her voice dropped, she sounded normal, she sounded pleading. "Say it."

Had others lost in Slipspace accidents suffered the same fate? Those missing in action and lost to the void? Is this what had actually happened to the Spirit of Fire?

Questions that still floated in JD's head, but put into word and sentence and statement for Six.

"With what we did with that Slipspace Drive, without a destination solution considered, we were dropped into a dimension not our own. This isn't our galaxy, or even our universe. We're a long way from home, and I don't think we can ever go back."

Six would take part in a self-fulfilling prophecy, spoken to every UNSC servicemember who looked to the Spartans for hope and prayer in that long war. There was a saying that had been official policy, and a standard for all those who had the title of Spartan: Spartans never die. They're just missing in action. And so that was what she had become, alongside an ODST who had survived for far too long.

She looked at him dead in the eyes. A thousand-yard stare turned into a thousand years. Spartan time kicked in for her.

She knew what a liar was like, and JD was not one. She saw only the stars reflected in his eyes. She curled her lip, head shaken once. A decision far harder than making the decision to kill, to leave men behind, and become a Lone Wolf had crossed her heart. As hard a decision as it was when she sacrificed herself on behalf of her mother to become a Spartan-III. It went against the very person she had been today, her training and conditioning screaming at her.

Conditions had changed though and, she hated this, hated that JD putting it into words had made it sound more like the truth than a false narrative, did what she needed to do.

She nodded at him and snapped around to Ryder. "I'll go first."

The N7 had affirmed, Alenko putting himself in between Six and JD for safety. The Commander had grabbed her arm and begun to lead her out. "Yeah. I've seen some action."

The man was surprised he answered and remembered. "Yeah. I can tell when people have fought Batarians."

He didn't know.

As Six began to be lead out JD had suddenly moved past Alenko, just short of reaching out. "Six! What's your name?!"

The door closed before she could give an answer.

---

Another round of questioning, and this time, it had gone well. JD fought against his own training surely, but he had made his mind up. There nothing left to do but tell them who he was.

Sunglasses' questions had been more political in nature. Cleft-Lip: Military. Ryder, both of them thought, had been there for security, however they realized that wasn't entirely true. He knew how to talk the talk: piercing questions that made them uneasy.

It didn't help for the first question he had to answer now with everything on the table had been what Six's name was.

"Look, we only met like, 13 hours ago. I don't know her, and she doesn't know me."

"The way you two communicate begs to differ." Ryder had been more observant. "The way you too read each other's faces, your eyes. Not many people can do that so intensely."

JD rolled his eyes. If only people said he and his last girlfriend had the same connection. "We wear helmets 95% of the time. We're good at reading movements, faces if we can. Covert operations and that. Hand signals and orders, language of the body, it's useful to pick up."

---

I was trained to be non-verbal. The enemy can often speak the same language, so we spared our breath. That and, well, there was a certain type of language that people like me often used. It's a shorthand communication system that is something of our own and, some of them are easy to pick up. I think he was able to.

….

No. I don't know his name. I just call him JD. He's a Private too. But I can't tell you much past that. I met him about twelve hours ago and… separating would be not ideal in this situation.

---

Glasses and Cleft-Lip had been ecstatic that they were now talking, and there hadn't seemed to be any pretenses of falsehoods. To assume that someone was telling the truth was dangerous, but the truth was easy to say to those who knew it as fact. They weren't saying it to save themselves. They were saying it because that's how they thought it was. For that very moment the two agents had assumed that it had been fact, even if what it meant something incredible.

"We're glad you've decided to cooperate, and as the situation in Altis begins to be uncovered, we have been advised to take your word for it in the meantime. If you're a man of the-… A Marine Corps, we trust you must have the honor to stand by the words which you say."

He nodded. Ryder had told the two men in black that he hadn't said anything when captured initially. He chose his words carefully.

"For the sake of the lives on… "Altis" then, I want to talk about them first, not me-"

"We have the situation well in hand Mister Durante." JD cringed again, but he let it pass. "And seeing as we have you before us we actually think that you're the most pressing matter we have." Cleft-Lip explained.

---

"No. Whoever is on that planet right now is in danger. You have ships in orbit, we saw. Evacuate your men from the surface and just bombard that wreckage and any alien species you see down there. Do it. The Covenant needs to be wiped out right here, right now, while they're down, there's not going to be another shot if they recover and start mobilizing."

"It's not in Alliance policy to bombard a planet's surface from orbit, especially habitable ones. And especially not any species that we've just made First Contact with"

"First Contact? Don't worry about policy or diplomacy. You. Need. To. Kill them All. They will not listen any other way."

---

"Respectfully I disagree." JD rubbed his fingers together, anxious. "The Covenant-"

"The Covenant." Sunglasses had parroted. "Both you and your friend have referred to all those aliens down there as such. That implies religious zealotry is their main motivation."

"Your destruction is the will of the gods, and we are their instrument." Words quoted from history, to the first responders of Harvest, spoken by Prophets. It was what JD had said now, chills from the decades lost coursing through his skin. "You can't reason with them, you can't deal with them. It's them or us. You have to kill them all."

All three questioners had made their mental notes on both of them: They'd probably hailed from a militaristic society indoctrinated on xenophobia. Whether it was because of prejudice or the justification of an alien crusade was yet to be seen. Reports coming back from Altis didn't' seem to push in either direction.

"Is that your official recommendation as a Private?"

"Yes."

---

"I'd do it myself."

---

Cleft-Lip leaned in, a familiar pair of tags in his hands. "So then, where you came from, what did you do to add to that effort? You are a Marine, correct?" A Devil Dog, surely. He had gestured as if to throw, and JD had opened up one hand ready. It jingled as it tossed, and when it landed in his hands his tags still were the same as ever. They went around his neck, mouthing a thanks.

"For the last eight years I've been in the UNSC Marine Corps. One year as a regular infantry, the next seven: a shock trooper."

"Your armor, even compared to your friends, was very interesting. "ODST" is very prevalent on it. Is that what you are? An ODST?" Cleft-Lip spoke.

JD started slowly, thoughtfully, gaining speed and strength as he toyed with his fingers, but not bothering him. "I'm an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper. We're first responders and deep strike oriented forces. We deploy directly from shipboard to the ground in less than five minutes. They drop us in specially designed pods we ride alone, and when we hit ground we come out swinging. What we do? Well, a little of everything. Clandestine operations if it was any human radical groups, and otherwise, against the Covenant, we just know how to punch hard and in the right place."

Cleft-Lip, Ryder, and Sunglasses seemed confused. "Shipboard to ground in less than five minutes? How?"

"We're dropped."

---

He's what I know as an ODST. Orbital Drop Shock Trooper. They're the desperate measures of the Marine Corps, they come in when reinforcements need to be deployed in an area regular transport can't get to, or for special ops. They're as surgical an instrument as anything the Marines have, even when he's literally dropped from space in an iron coffin and smashing to the ground. I've ridden an ODST pod down a handful of times and it's rough, to say the least.

---

Ryder had tapped his fingers on the desk, thoughtfully, looking to the one-way window. There was still a question on his mind, a question that was more personal than most.

"Then what is she?"

"I told you already I don't know who-"

"Not who. What."

JD was caught half way into his breath as the question crossed his mind. Every Marine, every human who had seen the vids, the images, the reports of them asked the same question. Armor clad monsters of men and women, who came to the outer colonies and bested the Covenant when no one else could. Shrugging off cannon fire, plasma shots, explosions and the might of an alien enemy so lethal extinction stared them in the face. It was only until, amazingly, a few hours prior did he ever see a Spartan in the flesh, and it had been six of them come from a detachment of the UNSC Army.

"Her rank, her name, her unit, that armor she's wearing. We need it all." That is what Cleft-Lip said. He wanted it. Wanted it bad.

It was still very hard to let go any of this information, because it felt like he was still letting go to the Insurrectionists. But these weren't Innies. They knew very well of what the Spartans were, at least when they were on the field. There was something that the Covenant had called them all, and, he wasn't quite sure if it was some sort of propaganda to make the UNSC feel good about their chances, feel good about the Spartans, but she was… she was-

"A demon." JD let slip from his lips. Ryder tilted his head, concerned.

The Covenant, the Elites in particular, had called the Spartans demons. In an organization which prided itself on its faith, to be called a demon was perhaps a compliment in some way. It only served to make the Spartans so much more mysterious, so much of an enigma, than was humanly possible.

JD sputtered, coughing, shaking his head to dismiss the last thing he said. "She's a Spartan. And that's all I can really say."

---

Ryder asked her the same question, about herself, but she said nothing. Her lips tightening, her jaw clenching. She knew who she was, that much was sure, but there was an apprehensiveness in her to tell that aloud that made Ryder know that it was a secret.

"Where's my armor?" She said instead.

"It was delivered with the Normandy, along with Mister Durante's armor."

---

"I don't know her name. Don't know her rank. Don't know what we called that armor of hers…" JD drifted, thinking back to the battles he had heard before his time as an ODST, of a group of green armored Spartans deploying from Pelicans into the middle of embattled city centers and lifting the siege, saving the local populace. "But all I know that she was one of the only people that would've stood a chance to save us all from the Covenant."

Ryder wanted to pin JD to get an answer out. "But why then, what makes her special? What is a Spartan?"

There was a darkness within JD, one brought upon by surviving the battles he had fought and realizing that he could do nothing to win that war as much as Six could. "I don't know where they came from, but the Spartans are supersoldiers, a hundred times a soldier than you or me could ever be. They fight faster, shoot harder, kill harder than anyone has right to. If it wasn't for the fact they were on our side, I'd be scared of them." The words flowed out of him without even thinking.

"Are you scared of her then?"

JD sighed. "A little bit. But I know she's human."

"Surely this is just exaggeration, her capabilities. If we take away her armor, what would be left?" Sunglasses opened his hand to the air.

The ODST shook his head. "No, you don't understand. These Spartans, rumor has it they've been doing this since birth. Maybe they were some UNSC black project, our final resort when the Covenant first appeared, but you take away her armor, it still remains. She's still a Spartan. She will kill you, if you cross her, because that's all they do."

"Is she that dangerous?"

"To the Covenant yes."

In another file, different from the ones the men in black were putting together, in another universe, was a one put together by those who made the Spartans. Doctor Halsey's analysis of Six had been that of a "Hyper-Lethal Vector." Had JD known Six had made entire insurrectionist colonies disappear, maybe he would've said differently. Though Doctor Halsey's file had been more important, impactful. She knew what a Spartan was, and Spartan B-312, from a Spartan program she did not endorse or even have knowledge of, was very much equal to her best. What that meant was the culmination of human history and survival.

"More than human." That's what Doctor Chakwas declared her. The first time JD had even known that the Spartans were biologically different in a way nature would not allow.

Humankind had a next step, and she was already down the road.

Ryder leaned back in his chair. Six was very much dangerous. Among the corpses his fireteam had found on that island, many of them had been done in by knife alone, and the one that they had found clasped into her armor as an attachment on her hip was very, very well worn. He wondered if she kept it dull on purpose.

"Is the Covenant deserving of such a danger?"

"They are genocidal aliens, commander. Out for all humanity." JD's voice was quiet, held back, flat and polite. That's how it usually was, no threat in it from a man who'd spent a decade as a Marine in a conflict that spanned over a thousand worlds. That question alone yielded passion from him. If they knew who he was however more as visitor from another place, they would know that the passion came not from him. It was the grit in his voice and the sorrow read in his eyes, the way his molar clamped for one second as it held an angry man back. That passion came from nearly 800 men he had, alone, been the survivor of. Platoons, companies, entire battalions and ships, all had only him to survive through in the war. How many drops gone wrong had he survived? Too many. How many men and women slipped away in his arms and had to bury with nothing more than a torn up ODST flag he kept in his chest piece? He didn't even start out as a combat medic, either in the ODSTs or as a regular grunt, but he became one just a year ago because he was sick of not being able to do anything to save those around him. He was a terrible medic, but he'd get better or die trying.

"How can you prove that? The situation on Altis right now seems contained, and this "Covenant" doesn't seem interested in combat."

His hands laid flat against the table, the urge to flip it grinding through him like chalk on concrete. He knew they were genocidal because he'd been to war. Entire armadas of their most advanced ships, cut down by forces a third their size: hundreds of thousands of lives lost in a blink of an eye. Millions, huddled together in shelters and coffins, buried alive and glassed without mercy. It wasn't a war. It was a slaughter, and he was on the losing side. Before he had actually taken that table to flip he had drew in one breath before letting go.

"My helmet is laced with recording software. Cameras, data records, and internal memory banks that go back as long as I've had that helmet."

"Which is how long?"

This was his second helmet. "Five years."

For him, he realized, as always, it was better to show than to tell.

Sunglasses had his omni-tool flare up, typing in commands to probably get his helmet to a secure location for cracking.

JD spent the next two hours in that room, spilling his guts and his memory onto the table for everyone in there to dissect and hear. He had gone after Six, and Six had spent three hours before him going through the same process.

What had been revealed in those meetings and all of the subsequent ones that had followed had become one of the most classified secrets in the galaxy, if not galaxies. As high in tier as the Asari's Prothean Secret in Thessia, or the Shadow Broker's identity. As classified and underneath black tape as the true origins of the Spartan Program or the identities of those Spartans. To the men in black, it sounded as if a fleshed-out science fiction world held in the mind of a brilliant author had been reiterated with perfect memory to them: a genocidal alien power come to test all who did not abide, FTL without the Relays, a war unimaginable with casualties that had been more than doubled the current population of the Alliance. It wasn't fiction however. To Six, and JD, it was real. It had been their reality. It was their reality that they had been taken from. In each of them a drive to go back: to finish the fight.

That was how good of a soldier they each had been.

Even Ryder had been impressed, but also the questions that engrossed everyone who knew the situation finally took him over. He didn't care that it was his final tour with the Alliance. It didn't matter. He thought the ODST would be the same: the war wasn't going well at all and he just had to ask, why even bother? There would be lesser men to fill his boots.

"But why, Private? Why suffer for as long as you have? It seems like you could've been transferred off the front to train other shock troopers."

JD scoffed at it. "There will always be someone better than me. And if I can save their life in exchange for mine… If I can save anyone..." He held a hand to his face before dragging down, digging dirt and sweat and whatever grit had accumulated on his eyelashes out. "I have to believe that we will win this war because we've saved lives. Not ended them. Eventually someone is better than me, surely, will save us all. I just have to believe."

Cleft-Lip had scratched near the cleft as he figured a response that was brewing as JD said that. Something that would give them an answer to a question that hadn't been asked yet, but would present to Six. "Someone like the Spartans? Like her?"

Throughout these meetings, as each was cycled back and forth without rest or time to confide in one another, one thing was abundantly clear: their want for the aliens on Altis to be blasted to ash.

They were insane, said Ryder during the lull in between one session, no one would want to actually blow away a million souls. The footage revealed from JD's helmet however had revealed all after his identification code.

Five years of combat footage, seemingly from another reality, had manifested in a collection that had shown the man's status as a veteran. It would take years to dissect all that footage. The fact that the helmet had five years of combat footage on it had been a technological marvel unto itself, scarier still then, as the scientists and engineers looking into the ODST's kit had said, the armor of the woman had alone been almost eldritch in implication.

Six had offered no access to her helmet or anything related to the armor, when asked after JD had gone ahead and offered his during the first real session. She wasn't comfortable with that yet.

But with JD's footage alone now on the table and seen they had begged them. "Kill them. Kill them all."

Whoever they were they were ready to do so on their own, with nothing more than rocks and twigs and their own two hands. The Alliance however was not ready to become genocidal in response to those who committed genocide. The lessons of the Salarians and Turians put upon the Krogan had been one learned every day a Krogan acted out against Council space.

Everything about them, about that request, was them on their knees begging them to go to war against a species that they had just entered First Contact with. They would do it themselves and they begged for that as well.

"We'll keep it in mind, but we won't go to war on your word alone." The men in black said.

That wasn't enough for them.

"We are not winning this war." There was sorrow in JD's voice. He remembered where'd he come from. He remembered what it was. Reach: Humanity's fortress world. Second only to Earth. "I think we've lost." He sounded so broken, and for all the determination and focus of the Spartan, she was broken the same, if not more.

"I'm sorry, but this war does not exist here." Sunglasses made clear to both of them, reminding of their acceptance of their situation. "Not here."

Six disagreed however. Disagreed with the taste of blood in her mouth and a million Covenant dead in her service to humanity. The war was still here if there was Covenant alive. For that however, she offered something that changed their minds.

---

"The Alliance doesn't have enough men to fight the type of war describe, nor are we morally able to given our conventions. Out of our thirty colonies, hardly half of them are above a million. That isn't enough to sustain any sort of war against anyone quite frankly."

Sunglasses said.

"Only thirty colonies?"

"Yes… why?'

"If you heed our warnings, if you just listen to us. Please. I will give you something that'll make it worth fighting the Covenant for."

Eyebrows were raised, disbelief on their faces. What could make humanity throw that many lives away? To commit such great atrocities such as an intergalactic war that burned entire planets?

What Six had offered was something that the Council could never do, if not stopped them from doing. What the conventions of their FTL method had done was something that Six did not need to consider. Not with her history.

Six had offered them the world, in a manner of speaking.

---

They were returned to, as per their cooperation, not a cell, but the regular quarters they were dumped in. Understandably they had to share one. It hadn't the dark dorms of a UNSC starship, or the barracks planetside of any number of military bases. No, it had been civilian accommodations inside the seat of human power in the cosmos. For the first time in a long while, ever since their enlistment with the UNSC, JD and Six had been civilians again and treated as such. There were no locks on the door they found out (to the alarm of the posted guards), no cameras around, just a quaint room to share and to take hold of the situation.

In between sessions they had hardly any time to scope the room more than once to check for cameras or bugs, but in reality, it didn't matter. What rest they could get was taken when one or the other had been brought in to be questioned.

Time had been indistinct in space, and no clock was given to them. As far as Six could guess it'd been another twelve hours since they arrived, and all of it was spent either getting terrible sleep or answering questions that seemed condescending to them, trivial, but eventually, understandable.

For the first time in that day they had been left alone, not traded out or tapping each other in. There was relief and comfort in that.

They'd met only still a miniscule amount of hours prior, but they were each all that they had.

"How did they all go, past all of our history stuff? They asked that right?" She finally asked, having taken a corner of the room to stand in, one nearest the window, looking out.

JD shrugged. "It was more you than me."

"More you than me…" Six parroted, a finger at her lips, scratching the skin around, pulling on tabs of losing hanging lip skin.

He went to the sink of the kitchenette of the room, pulling on the faucet as hot water instantly came out from its spout. He had looked through the metal cabinets, pulling two plastic cups out before filling them with cold water. A cursory glance toward the supposed stove had revealed some form of luxury, a quick peek inside of the refrigerator revealing nothing but save some sort of unidentifiable package that seemed to hint toward keeping the refrigerator clean. He was a little disappointed. It'd been year since he'd cooked for himself, been year since he had something that hadn't been field rations or mass produced meal sets meant for Navy.

"Here." He offered her the cup, and she took it, her hands still covered by that one body suit. The texture of it revealing the gleam of scales and metal almost. Titanium perhaps, JD thought. She nodded in a thanks as she drank in the liquid, clearing her throat.

The ships that they viewed through that one view window was revealing, the station below coupled with the busy fleet maneuvers of those ships on patrol or on their way out to somewhere else. Their geometric, blocky designs, although reminiscent of human designs as they knew it, weren't the same. White and reds, not grays and blacks. If it was different to them, it screamed foreign, hostile. That was not the case though and, sooner, rather than later, they realized where they were and how deep they were in. They were far deeper than anyone had ever been: in another universe, far, far, far, impossibly far, from home.

They talked without looking at each other, not ready for that yet. To speak while staring at each other's face, especially in their type of work, carried a certain connotation. It meant that you were willing to remember someone's face in the war, and if they had died that face would haunt the survivor's dreams. "They told me your name, you know."

He had asked them that after so many sessions in, not being able to talk to Six and get an answer. They told him.

"Yeah?" She asked. Back against the wall, eyes closed. She wasn't comfortable with that.

"I'd like to hear it from you though. It's only right."

There was a strained silence. A Spartan talking to a regular man. It was disconcerting, but there was no choice. Whatever came next they'd be bonded together by circumstance and chance. They came from the same place, and that meant more than anything now.

Still, she resisted, keeping the silence, keeping her name to herself.

The water in their glasses was sipped at before anyone talked, and it had been JD. "It's your word against theirs. And I trust you more."

She shook her head, setting her glass down. She'd already broke one glass today just on her grip strength. She didn't know how to handle gentle objects like common household objects. Her strength played both ways in a fashion she'd never expected. "It's just not a question I'm asked often."

JD went to his dog tags, patting them against his chest once silently before rubbing his chin. "Name's not really, uh, Jay-Dee, you know. I'm sure that they've told you. I had to clarify that when they asked me my name." Six gave him a side glance, letting him continue. "My name's Jon."

Her ears perked up. She had known a John before. That John hadn't known her, but then again, everyone knew of John. John-117.

"Like…?" She started. Jon nodded, a small smirk on his face, remembering who he was talking to.

"Yes. The Master Chief. No H though." It was a common name, to be fair, but that name had weight as if it couldn't be shared. "One of my old squads, used to tease me about it all the time. One day they painted my armor up green. Said I was their own personal Master Chief."

"Just as good?" Six wondered. He shrugged at what he assumed was a joke.

The Spartan-IIs were still an enigma in some ways, even if she was one. It was only in idle chatter between missions while talking to one, Jorge, during her miniscule time with Noble Team, that she had insight that hadn't been outright classified to her. He didn't reveal much about him, but there wasn't much else to be said but- "We grew up together. He was always special. Halsey had her eye on him, always. Of everything he was, luck was always on his side... A natural leader."

She refused to talk, even vaguely, about the Spartan Program. Bits and pieces, not ready to explain why her bones were coated in metal and her nerves and neural pathways had obviously been tampered with based on scans. She gave barely anything away about her black under suit or her armor, vaguely hinting that any tampering would detonate it (a half truth).

She gave up the war, the history of the UNSC, what she was capable of ("Don't test me"), what humanity had to sacrifice and the nature of the Covenant. But she did not give up herself.

"Well, I've got a two parter." JD rolled his head on his shoulders with the technicality.

"Huh?"

"Hyphen." He drank his own water, looking out of the window. "That's the reason my name comes up weird on the HUD as "JD"."

"Is that so?"

He nodded. "Jon-James Durante."

When was the last time she had a conversation like this? One that wasn't steeped with either in regards to the mission, the circumstances of a mission, her gear or anything remotely related to military operations. She hadn't cared, but she didn't know otherwise. She didn't remember.

"Why is that?"

JD shrugged. "My Mom wanted Jonathan. Dad wanted Jameson."

Six fidgeted at the talk of parents. "How are they? Your mother? You father?"

JD also twinged, but his face softened. He dealt with this pain long ago. "They've passed."

"Oh… I'm sorry."

"Don't be. Not unless you killed them."

"Were they active?" Servicemembers that is.

He shook his head. "Dad died of food poisoning. Mom of a broken heart after they reported me missing in action during Persei." He wasn't there for both of them because of the war, so he damned the war, and damned himself for a time. There was nothing he could've done however and he'd made his peace long ago.

"Do you miss them?"

JD smiled to himself. Of course he did.

He had looked at her for a fleeting second, nodding. "I'm only human."

A pang in her chest had arisen, dark and cold. What did that mean? To be human?

"What about you? How about your parents?"

"Don't have any." There was a difference between telling a lie and being wrong. Unfortunately JD had seen Six had said both at the same time. He grunted through his clenched jaw.

"Well, I don't know about Dad, but in my experience…" He considered his words for a second. It was a little racy but it was his experience. How many underprivileged youths had his own Dad brought in? Sons and daughters of single parents? It was those who, despite the situation, and had Moms, that often grew out of crime that brought them away from his father's station. "Everyone's got a Mom. Every man, woman, and child."

Six knew it true. Knew it true deep in her heart. If they had even stripped that under suit from her they would've seen something that had been so tightly pressed between it and her skin it had left an impression on her flesh forever: a gift from her own mother. In the shape of a wooden wheel it was all that she had left of her Mother, and thus it laid over her heart and stayed there.

Silence stayed. Half a minute, a minute, half an hour, an hour. They weren't sure. Only the sound of the station's humming persisted until JD spoke again. His voice was becoming hoarse, though he figured he have to get used to it now. No one could speak for him but himself where they were. Not unless the Spartan before came to know him.

One step at a time however.

"What did your mother call you Six?"

Six had chuckled, leaning her head back, her black hair padding contact with the metal wall, cool and calming to a headache she hadn't felt in a long time. No, she wasn't avoiding giving him her name. The problem was she had no answer to really give without fighting herself. She was waiting within herself for an answer.

To JD it felt like she had been avoiding however. Though he was fine with that. Spartans would be Spartans. That wasn't his utmost concern however as he finished off his glass of water, placing it into the sink.

"Look, if they're gonna continue drilling us like this, I think it might be right if we rehearse with each other." He sat down on one of the chairs, head in hands, brown, layered hair run through by his fingers. "My security clearance might not exactly play well with the ONI spooks, but, ONI doesn't exist here, and we're the only people who will know what we're talking about outright."

"It'll feel a little more wrong to you. Because you know what you should and shouldn't know."

A breath JD was holding let go. "I get that." He played with his hands again. "I'm hiding things from them you know. I'm sure you are too. Given our circumstances though we shouldn't be hiding things from each other."

She glowered at him, a frown on her face as her eyes went half lidded. "I'm not your responsibility Jon… Is Jon alright?"

It was nice to hear his name he admitted to himself. Every single unit he had been assigned to gave him some sort of stupid nickname. "Ah, uh, JD is fine. Only people who I'm close to ever call me by one of my first names."

She mouthed 'okay'. "Still though. I'm not your problem."

"You wouldn't be a problem." He spoke firmly. Said what needed to be said and nothing else. It saved his breath. "You weren't a problem when you detonated that bomb without alerting anyone, and you weren't a problem when I came back to back you up from those Elites. UNSC doesn't exist here, but we were both its troopers."

"Thank you." she blurted out. It caught both of them by surprise, and it took a moment for Six to know what that knee jerk thanks was for. "… for coming back."

He opened his hands, nodding once. No big deal. She would've done the same, right?

Lone Wolf. That's what they called her and she embraced it.

"That lone wolf stuff stays behind, clear?" That's what Carter told her not that long ago. She didn't listen. Not when she cast Jorge back to Reach and planned to complete the operation herself. She wondered why Carter had asked her that. Was it because of pure tactical philosophy behind being a part of a team? Or was it because he cared? She never doubted that Carter cared about those who he commanded, but did he care for her as a person? On a fundamental level that Spartans were told to have with each other, but supposedly unable with a regular Marine? A regular man?

The reason why she was protesting she felt and knew why. It was because she wanted to be that Lone Wolf.

Their world had literally changed though. Moments of silence passed, minutes of thoughtful consideration and peace. The adrenaline was only now starting to settle. She was hard to kill, but not intractable. A Spartan had to be flexible to survive. She agreed with herself. Yeah, that was what it was, adapting to a new field.

She sucked in her cheeks, the spit in her mouth, swallowing and taking in air through her nose. The filtration system in this room hadn't been as good as some UNSC ships, this Systems Alliance? They had a great deal to learn.

Their eyes had caught again to talk and she let go.

"Mai." The Spartan looked him dead in the eye. "My name is Mai."

Spartan Mai-B312.

She was the woman who would've carried Cortana to the hands of Captain Keyes and the Pillar of Autumn, and forward to the Master Chief. Her actions would've led to the end of the war, from Halo, to the Ark.

She had given her name to the ODST who would've helped uncover The Artifact beneath New Mombassa. She would've been gun down after completing her mission, stabbed in the gut by an energy sword while in a dirty ditch, left behind as the Great Journey started without her. The ODST in question would've suffered a similar fate, shot in the back of the head by another human in the name of some extremist cause pushed asides by the Covenant. They both didn't die well, they didn't die painlessly, and it wasn't quick. That was the future they had in another universe, a part to be played by a history they would never see to.

Whatever had happened by their loss, their removal from their reality, would perhaps never be known.

Yet, despite it all, they were who they are.

"When were you born?" She asked him. He didn't look old, didn't look young either, but look as if a man in his prime, ready to get cut down.

"2525." He answered. "Was born on Luna… how about you?"

Her training told her everything which she was about to do was wrong, but her military did not exist her, her service holding no value. What values she did carry could be only that of a soldier's. Regardless, in the end, they were all human there.

It began. It was better to practice with him, to say her history to someone who could understand, than to the intelligence services and the soldiers of this reality.

---

"Mai Gul, 26 years of age, Arab ancestry tracing back to something very analogous to West Asia, and, more specifically, Palestine. Born in the year 2525 on a colony called "New Jerusalem". According to her that would mean that planet is within Council Space. As far as she can recollect she was born into abject poverty and never knew her parents and thus, according to the Spartan-III program which she claims to be a part of, that meant she was an ideal candidate due to her lack of familial ties. Further notes on her home life can be found in the supplementary data, but in summary we have a colonial with nothing to lose and everything to give. She's been a trained killing machine her entire life, and to what she knew of her own biographical details from her military's intelligence, she was the best killer in their ranks."

The N7 had thrown her new file onto the table after he read it, unsure of what to do with it. He wasn't the only one however. For having been requested out of the blue to handle a First Contact situation, he had handled everything well enough, both Hackett and Anderson decided.

Admiral Hackett wasn't one to be speechless, but in the recent events of the day he was reaching for words. "In a universe where humanity was able to expand to over 800 colonies, she was the best soldier they had?"

He was communicating them via video conference from his quarters in the SSV Kilimanjaro, the events over Altis still unfolding as more and more Council ships jumped into the area. There had been some heavy developments, but nothing disastrous. If anything progress was being made.

In that room had also been the two questioners from Alliance Intelligence, their names not even known to Ryder or Anderson.

Ryder had nodded, thumbing his chin. "All, save one, and she wasn't quite sure if he existed in reality."

She was a conundrum, an enigma, greater than even the legions and legions of prisoners they had taken from the Covenant they fought against.

The three men were unable to understand. By what possible way could they quantify that? How could something like lethality be able to be quantified that made Mai become, supposedly, the embodiment of death itself in the galaxy that she came from. What qualities did she have that they could not see or have did not know yet? Matriarch Benezia, Nakmor Drack, Saren Arterius, these names floated in their heads as they considered people as deadly as Six apparently, and they had either age or mandates behind them. Yet with every implication of Six's skill and ability, it felt like that she was greater than them still.

The Covenant regarded her as a Demon. Unholy, without bounds. She was not someone to be underestimated. They didn't even give any of their own men any respect.

"Do you vouch for her skill Ryder?" Hackett asked the man who had been in contact with her the most.

He crossed his arms, remembering how the death glare she gave looked every time he had transgressed on her in any way. He remembered the bodies left behind. He remembered her answers to their questions. "Without testing her. No. She's trained, deadly, and her armor as we're lead to believe is unlike anything we've ever seen."

Anderson nodded in agreement.

"It's not an exosuit?" Hackett inquired.

Anderson shook his head in the negative. "Our techs, using Durante's credentials, have been able to access his video recordings. They extend five years via some compression algorithm that progressively shrinks a video file until it's called upon, however the events of the last twenty-four hours from his point of view is currently being dissected. What it caught of Gul's abilities in battle, her suit is unlike anything we've ever seen."

The Kinetic Barriers and Biotic Shields that the Marines fielded were coming up as ineffective against the Covenant weapons when the Covenant had engaged. It cut through men, and only the plating of their armor was able to barely stave off pure penetration and instant death. That was only with those that wore the bulkiest of issued armor. When the Turians tried they had ended up with three casualties as their scouting party was cut down by a squad of what had been labeled as "Grunts" by JD and Mai.

They were outnumbered twenty to one, and they came back in critical condition, within an inch of their life.

Salarian snipers that had set up were pinned down by the scavenger race of "Jackals", and it certainly didn't help that the Covenant had taken home field advantage.

The Asari hadn't tried a military solution, but they were reluctant to meld, especially if a common language was already established. Still they had been the saving grace of the Covenant. The Turians had deployed what ships could be allowed with Human space as per security agreements made after the First Contact War and were raring for a fight. JD and Mai would've been pleased, if not joined them, but everyone else had been quick to remind that they would be bombarding a human planet, regardless of the occupants.

Had another war-like species like the Krogan come? Should contact be cut off if the Alliance's reports are to be believed?

The issues that arised in this was that the Council task force arrived in preparation of a First Contact. All pretenses of First Contact however were lost. This situation was new.

Hackett would handle that however, being onsite. This meeting was about Private Jon-James Durante and "Spartan" Mai B-312.

At least the Covenant realized they were in the same boat as Mai and JD found out on their own, and their religious crusade had to be on pause as they figured everything out amongst themselves. The first of the Asari who insisted on mind melding with the prisoners had been kept back the Marines. For the first time in the Council's history, the Asari, nor the translation software of the galactic community, was not needed to communicate.

"Why?" they asked.

The answer had been the reason the Prime Minister, Admiral Hackett, and Ambassador Udina had been suddenly confined to their respective offices and grilled with a million questions that all could be answered with: "We don't know."

That was the answer they had given, but now they did know in all actuality thanks to the two humans recovered. The wrecks of the "UNSC Savannah" and anything that had remotely been UNSC had been quickly brushed under the rug by the Alliance as the Task Force from the Citadel was immersed in Object Alpha, taken in and hidden by the Fifth Fleet. They'd been small enough to hide, and as they hid Alliance survey teams had been going through them.

"They've been becoming more reactive. Mai is still holding back some details about the Spartan Program, but we're getting enough out of her gradually that we're not concerned about her keeping that closed indefinitely. It all matches up with Durante's too." Sunglasses had reported promptly, as if a report from the factory line.

Cleft-Lip had balled his hand into a fist, holding it to his cheek and leaning. Everyone had a reason to speak, but he wondered what their reason was. "But why would they tell us anything at all? If what the scientists are saying is correct, their form of FTL travel did indeed throw them a dimension away from home. Why would they even entertain us?"

Slipspace travel had been the dream of any military tactician in that world: The ability of the Relays to dictate space travel, had also been the ability to dictate how warfare was practiced. The Mass Effect Relays controlled inbound and outbound space traffic, and given that the civilizations of the galaxy had been spacefaring, both in civilian and military aspects, it meant that chokepoints could be established. Points of defense built up, honed over years and years with no ability to take them on save sabotage, espionage, or pure overwhelming force that one had thought feasible.

No one had thought feasible and practiced until two veterans of a thirty-year war that a humanity was involved in was had.

The UNSC had waged a war that had, in number alone, just on the human side, had been deadlier than every single war waged ever since the Asari had came upon the Citadel. A war so horrible, so insane, it was like looking into the abyss and having it stare back at them in the form of two soldiers who spoke of mistake after mistake, loss after loss, for thirty years.

There was a section of footage, in JD's video footage. It screamed of insanity.

It was footage of a world, pristine like Earth, green and vibrant, cities higher than any colony seen on their Earth. It was footage of a city center that the analyst had first thought as a riot, but no, everyone was running in the same direction. Even JD. He had a rifle in his hand but it was no use. Not when a ship whose body language was so much like object Alpha's had been out in the distance and above.

Its great bulbous head had emerged from the clouds like a monster, and the screaming and shouting had only intensified as everyone had ran into a building. Hundreds and hundreds of people. All human. JD didn't follow them however. The building had been some sort of town hall or capital building, and he found ample platform to hoist himself on to.

When he had turned around the vision of the video saw those who had been dressed like him. More ODSTs. He had reached down to drag them up and they had done the talking for him: Yelling for people to get inside as the ship in the clouds inched closer and closer. The stream of people were endless, and it hadn't been clear what they were running from.

Six and JD, they didn't ask questions of where they were yet. Not when they knew they were among the Alliance. That would come later. But if they did, the conversation would've drifted to the justification of Six's existence. Why did she need to be that deadly?

She would say she wouldn't ever be able to be deadly enough. She had been kin with the Krogan, for the Genophage, for Tuchanka, and all that it meant.

From that bulbous head of the Covenant ship, a bright, vibrant light burned. Burned hot from its emitter. Bright as the sun, hot as a star.

When it hit ground, miles away, it took the breath away of those who saw the footage.

What it had done to JD was worse:

One of the ODSTs that had gotten with him on the platform had looked at him dead in the eye: his back to the beam. He didn't want to look as fire and fury came down the street and evaporated hundreds of people in a cloud of destruction. A blast, destructive. Worse than a nuke even. A nuke was fire and forget. Whatever this was ("It's what the Covenant call Glassing.") it was pure hatred made real, made into a weapon, and it threw the ODST onto JD as he bore the brunt of whatever it was.

Helmet to helmet, visor to visor, JD had seen a man lay on top of him as the building collapsed and shielded them from that cloud of destruction. But because of it he had to see a man burn to death, to skin and bone, and he could do nothing about it.

This was the price they had to pay for humanity.

"Because we're human."

"Explain Captain Anderson." Ryder looked to the man on the other end of the table.

The good captain picked up the folder, thumbing through the digital pages of the data pad.

"They just came from a genocidal war against a species that threatened to obliterate humankind. If the Council hadn't stepped in during the First Contact War we might've been the same as them. No factions, no differing beliefs, just us against them." He blew breath from his mouth, looking to the ceiling. "It was us against them. Without fellow man, they stood no chance against this Covenant. They trust us because we are human; to them, we share blood."

Captain Anderson knew what that meant during the First Contact War, face to face with an alien species. The Turians would know what it meant to fight against humans; humans who had just been given the answer that they were not alone in the universe and, perhaps, from that time forward, they'd be fighting for the rest of their lives. If the battles during Shanxi in that three-month war felt like a lifetime, the three men there remembered, they couldn't imagine what it must've felt like to the shock trooper and the Spartan that had come to them. A quarter of a century, with no end in sight.

Hackett darkly looked out to the stars, remembering the words that came out of the shock trooper's mouth in regards to the war with the Covenant. "We were losing."

"What did Prime Minister Shastri talk to you about Anderson?" Ryder asked, as if it was something that wouldn't be classified.

Anderson aired the top of his head by taking his cap off briefly. "Reports about the… "Covenant" on Altis and how we're able to fight them if they end up as being something more we can handle. The Council Task Force has said that because it's in Alliance territory we would have to lead the response."

Cleft-Lip had groaned. "And the only ways that we've been advised right now is from Private Durante and Mai." Which wasn't an option.

"Leave that to me gentlemen, let's just run through the facts again."

The pad was reclaimed by the two men in black, but they didn't need to read off of it. They were good with details like this, Sunglasses and Cleft-Lip taking turns.

"The UNSC is, according to our guests, the military, exploratory, and scientific agency of the Unified Earth Government. The UEG is pretty much their equivalent of the Alliance, established in 2075 by the United Nations."

"The UN?"

"Yeah." Sunglasses nodded. "We're trying to find a point of divergence, but there's nothing concrete from their knowledge of their history that sticks out other than their FTL method... more on that later."

"Anyway, the UEG is the civilian government of Earth and all her colonies, and the UNSC is supposed to be under them."

"How could a government that big exist? We have enough trouble managing our colonies right now and we have only a fraction of that number." Ryder had pointed out a fact that also stared at them like an impossibility:

The number was staggering to them. Over 800. Over 800 human colonies spread out across the galaxy, and every single one became a battlefield for a war beyond their comprehension. How many billions dead had they failed to save? How many rounds fired in anger and needless death thrown at the feet of survival? They might've been human, but they were human in a way that spoke back to man at their most primal.

Perhaps what had been harder to swallow was that before the Covenant, Earth and her Colonies had been at war with themselves. That's why they had been so wary of them at first: they thought they had been "Insurrectionist". Those that had try to carve away from Earth's rule.

"Maybe we'll have to find out for ourselves eh?" Sunglasses rolled his head. There was mischief, opportunity, in his voice.

Mai's elaboration on the Spartan program was still topmost priority when it came to her, but there was another item she offered in the interim: it had been the most cooperative she'd been for some reason.

It was one that had ultimately pushed the Admiralty and the Intelligence Agents that had been Cleft-Lip and Sunglasses be patient over to keep them. It was a promise too large to imagine, yet so dutifully true as the first astrological scans from deep space outposts and glances from the long-range sensors could confirm to her.

"We will give you the locations of every single planet that is capable of being colonized by humanity."

There were conditions to consider, but the sampling she had given was beyond words.

"We can't even reach half those planets you know." Ryder had very much tried. For his service as one of the first through the Relays with Jon Grissom, he had been given the resources to search for more planets for humanity to colonize. The FTL method that had defined all space travel there had been constraining though. This wasn't the case for the UNSC or the Covenant.

"Not yet." Sunglasses thumbed at them like a cold fact. As if tomorrow they could.

"Their FTL method does not rely on Eezo, or the Relays. If anything, Element Zero was no factor in their universe. They weren't bound by it. An entire division of Alliance scientists had been waiting for the trigger to be pulled by the Prime Minister to start working toward such ends given the wreckage related to the UNSC over Altis.

Hackett had decided it well to mention this now. "Preliminary results of Debris Object Charlie are in. Gul and Durante identify it as the Frigate Savannah and, judging by identification engraved on on the inside we believe that's correct."

"Anything interesting?" Anderson leaned in toward the vid screen.

"We've yet to fully dissect what's left of the ship, but recon teams are reporting a lot of dead human crewmembers, along with weapons and gear that match Gul's and Durante's. The wreck is recent too, plasma dispersion and heat tests shows that it was only destroyed for two hours before they blipped into the system."

"Human? Without doubt?" Anderson pressed.

"Remains are in fact, 100% human. Those two are same as us."

"Any survivors?" Doubtful, but Ryder hoped there was someone who could also elaborate on Durante's and Mai's circumstances. Not that it'd matter, but more voices always helped.

"Negative. So no one who can confirm their stories." Hackett confirmed.

"Confirm that one is a god damn shock trooper who's dropped from space in a metal coffin, and the other is some sorta… genetically modified super soldier." Sunglasses and Cleft-Lip, they hailed from a place that made Six very weary about them. Ryder could tell. Military Intelligence was an oxymoron, but they weren't military intelligence. Occasionally, when internal matters of Earth had been in question about humanity, not in relation to anything about the galaxy or the Council, the Alliance had its own division of their Intelligence agencies dedicated.

Those two men had hailed from them.

"What do we do with them?" Ryder had been uneasy, but not inactive. For what they were, they were only two humans at the end of it. "I think keeping them buried would be unreasonable. They have no reason to act against us… Can't just drop them in a regular company though, not even an N-warfare group." Said their manhandler. It meant something.

Hackett nodded. "If what I'm reading about this… ODST is correct, he's as capable as any graduate from the N7s. He's seen more combat than perhaps even you two, and, if all indications about his record is correct that he would be a war hero here."

"But he was only a grunt." Ryder shot back.

"As far as it seems every soldier in that war is a hero. But if he's the man that his record indicates, even if he was just a regular soldier in that war in the broad span of things, if he were here… well I can only think of one other person who would match his steel."

Anderson rose an eyebrow. "Who?"

"Your new XO."

All the men there gradually nodded, understanding, finally putting an equivalent, a gauge, to the shock trooper.

"Then what about the Spartan? How about her?"

She was the unknown quantity, a mystery to be unfurled and what they could see so far wasn't particularly easy. She was the response to the Covenant, and what that meant implicated so much.

"The two of them are getting along just fine now. They're both quiet, the recording equipment in there is barely registering their voices. Not that they're particularly talkative. But as far as we can tell she's as much an unknown to us as she is to him. She won't talk about the Spartan Program even to him."

They'd never seen a soldier like her before: a shadow cast over her darker than the blackest unknowns, heavier than the weight of the stars. Every morsel, every ounce, every breath she took had radiated with the ability to kill. It was only because of his training did Ryder even be able to weather it all himself and how she made him unwittingly clench his jaw. She was a solution to an unthinkable question: the answer to genocide.

"They way that JD talks about her, about, them," Cleft-Lip was uncomfortable. "It's something more than bodies and battles. And, from what we've seen of his cam footage, she's impressive, but it's not all of it."

"Don't talk about their capabilities. Talk about them and their allegiances. You saw how they wanted so badly the Covenant dead. Maybe Mai wanted them dead personally a little too much, but still both of them, they wanted them dead for our sake."

That was one of the questions of the hour. If the Covenant hadn't been busy recovering from planetfall, would they stand to cause destruction amongst them? Or did they deserve help? Even if they'd killed their own, scared and afraid contrary to what Six and JD said?

The helmet footage said otherwise but it was always in the back of their heads.

There was a several century difference, but surely, the technology they had was all relative. They still used guns with casings and bullets after all, whatever that meant.

Anderson had a spark in his eye. "They're loyal however, their initial response to us says as much… would they be to us?"

"Slow down there." Ryder was quick to say, but the ship captain had hardly slowed down.

"Give them to me, I can handle them. It won't do them any good if we keep them under wraps. They might get suspicious, think they're gonna be imprisoned for the rest of their lives just for being in the wrong place in the wrong time, or Hell, even used as a science experiment."

Ryder looked disapproving. "Still building the crew for the Normandy?"

"Mission's important. Once we settle them in, I don't see where else they could go but the service. I know that Spartan, she's definitely not fit for civilian life.

Anderson had agreed, unknowingly, with ONI. She wasn't a person. She was a machine to be used. If pressed he wouldn't say that about her. He wouldn't anyone, but it was what he subconsciously thought. It's what they all thought.

The UNSC, the Alliance, the Colonies, Humanity in both universes. It was only the Covenant that had given her the graciousness to be something that was alive.

"Anyone can be made an ally. Just gotta talk to them. See what they want." Anderson remembered what brought him there. He wasn't that different from Ryder he like to think, just with a better conscious. To be out among the stars, and to defend those that came out there. "Everybody wants a mission."

The omni-tool on Sunglasses' arm had rung. With one understanding nod the two men in black had risen and looked to Hackett. Sunglasses and Cleft-Lip had raised up in salute to all in presence. "Admiral Hackett," Cleft-Lip regarded the video wall. "We'll be seeing you shortly."

Sunglasses adjusted his sunglasses, looking over the two Commanders with them. "Good luck on what you'll decide to do with the Spartan and Private Durante." They had slid out as slick as they slid in. Not a name given, only a goal. They had been assigned the case of First Contact with the Covenant and the two humans. Just two men. Still no one doubted them.

Despite this the two Commanders were charged with deciding recommendations on what to do with the two humans.

"Gentlemen," Hackett remained, but made to leave and get back to matters at hand. "You want my recommendation, give them some time, and go through as much observation and analysis as you can on this matter. Anderson I know the Eden Prime Situation is coming up, and Ryder I know you're technically free of your duty come next Wednesday, but you men have hands on with everything and so I defer judgement on them to you. Is that understood."

Ryder held his own head in his hands, tipping his head. Anderson had been more vocal. "Understood Admiral."

"Good. Hackett out."

They were two Commanders given a mission, both of them among the first N7s. Worthy to make a decision, but unsure of each other. They could be cordial however, and there much discussion to be made before they could leave that room.