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.

6. 0-6: Single Step - Great Journey

Two weeks. That's all that they had to discover, on their own, the measure of this universe and everything that they had to take as simple, basic fact. They weren't given leave, but it was something similar as Anderson had accompanied them down on a shuttle from the Montenegro.

"So, we know that you weren't exactly Earthborn Chief Durante." He spoke to the uneasy JD, given a change of civilian clothes. "However, we can reasonably expect that your Luna had a certain demographic of immigrants, same as any other colonies. What were you?"

The shuttle's path had depended on it.

His leg had vibrated in anxiousness. He was more used to breaking atmosphere in a pod, not a shuttle. The longer you stayed in the air during the drop, the longer it gave the Covenant time to shoot down a pod.

He stumbled for an answer. "Uh, well. I don't know much. I'm the second generation of my family born on the moon…" He led off. Luna was mankind's first experiment in colonization of beyond Earth in the 2080s, and, despite this, wasn't exactly the most ideal location. The Lunar States and Cities were more often than just giant cities, sprawling beneath its surface and in the giant craters: sealed from the vacuum. Efforts to give the Moon an atmosphere had once been talked about, but the war had overrun such ideas in favor of defense initiatives. Here, the Systems Alliance had been following the same steps in local terraforming of the moon. "My Nona, she told me that we immigrated from West Virginia."

"So you're an American?" Anderson picked out. The United Republic of North America had been a big societal basis for many colonies, Luna among them.

Just based on how he talked alone: yes, he was an American. He nodded, running the flannel sleeves of his change of clothes up his arm.

Mai had been given something similar, albeit it had taken longer to acquire. Finding clothes that would fit her had been an issue. Feeling comfortable in it was something she also was having trouble with. For the first time in her life ever since she had been a child, she wore the clothes not meant for Spartans or the military. It culminated in track pants and a hoodie, and, although not the classiest assortment, it fit her.

Their lives had been eviscerated and then replaced in a heartbeat, new points, concerns, reevaluations of their situation given to them like enemy fire. All they could do was react.

Only now however did thing seem to slow down.

Anderson had typed a message to the pilot on his orange omnitool, reminding both of the passengers he rode with that they too had their own now. Manifesting in a cuff they wore on their left arm, omnitools had become the defacto utility tools in the galaxy. In use by humans and aliens alike. On top of getting used to the interface, they had to get used to another factor:

Humanity had gone to the stars and, instead of drawing the card of the UEG, they found aliens willing to co-exist.

---

"I'll submit my application. I will serve. Give me my mission."

Mai had said this with all the intensity she could.

Hackett raised his hand as he took over for Anderson. "Not so fast." There was a smile behind it though. "There will be a process to this. Things need to be taken care of and both of you will need to be brought up to speed on the norms of this society, along with integration at the very least into the Alliance."

Both of them nodded almost in sync, understanding, Mai reeling herself in.

"But there is one thing I need to make clear, Private, Lieutenant." He used their actual ranks and they tightened up again. "Mankind has not been victim to a genocidal war against any alien species in its history. We have gone to war with some, yes, and occasionally our military does get into scuffs with pirates and rebels, just as your UNSC once did, but we have been given a different plate than you."

It was a word often talked about by those who had lived before Harvest, before that infamous message was transmitted claiming humanity's death, but once upon a time peace was the rule of the known galaxy for humanity. It was something the two of them had never known until now.

"We understand Admiral." JD stated.

"What about the Covenant that were brought with us?" Mai asked fiercely, still wary. "What has happened to them?"

Hackett blew a breath. "Right now Altis has become quarantined. Nothing in or out, and the information regarding the Covenant species is under an information blackout until we and the power that be find a way to respond. God knows we can't keep it under wraps for long, but by that time we'll have a story to tell coherently from our end."

"But what about them, Admiral." The Spartan pressed on.

Hackett adjusted his cap. "We've sustained casualties pacifying them, a few dozen men, but it appears a leader of the survivors has called for a ceasefire as long as we remain out of sight. Talks are beginning. Those in custody we're running through the usual first contact protocols, we've done this before mind you. We've translated the language of the species known as Sangheili-"

"The Elites?" Mai seemed surprised.

"Yes." Hackett answered back. "Those in custody seem to understand that we're not the UNSC. Some of them have even begun piecing together that they ended up in another universe, but conversations are tense and, unfortunately, they're still dealing with humans. Fighting has ceased, and that's good enough for now."

The fire in Mai's eyes returned as JD was almost, equally, unsure. It was the Covenant that this humanity was dealing with. The Covenant. "Do not trust them for one second. They've killed so many of us I don't think it matters you're different."

Hackett straightened his lips and his own stance, narrowing his eyes. "We are different, Lieutenant. If we need to pacify them absolutely we will, but we will give them a chance here."

"Respectfully sir-"

"Do I make myself clear?" Hackett's voice hardened, and the soldier in both of them returned as they straightened their forms.

JD answered for both of them as Mai sucked in a breath. They had no choice. "Sir. Yes sir."

Hackett nodded. "We're still continuing to scavenge through the debris field over and on Altis, but you have to understand that you will have to operate alongside our standards eventually, consider most of the gear you're familiar using not in your frame anymore."

Mai had hardened at that. "You're going to have to make an exception to that Admiral."

"Your armor?"

He knew what Mai was referring to as she nodded, JD following up. "Respectfully, sir, I'd like to at least be in possession of my BDU and armor. If Alliance technology is not able to be applied to it, so be it, but the ODST battle armor has served me well these last few years."

It took a moment of nodding, but Hackett wouldn't be the one to talk. It'd have to be the engineers and quartermasters that would decide that.

Mai had almost been urgent in her words. "Sir, my armor is what many in the UNSC consider the pinnacle of human combat technology. Without it I lose much of my combat effectiveness. I'd be willing to put my life on the assumption that my armor is superior to anything you would be fielding. You know what it can do."

If everything she said was true, he was in no place to argue. They'd seen her first hand become bored as she survived an onslaught of Marines and N-candidates wanting to get back at her. MJOLNIR simply wasn't fair.

"We'll have to see, but both your gear is currently going through HAZMAT and cataloging. I'll give the order to retrofit them if possible and delivered to you during your deployment with Anderson, but I will hold no promises."

"Minimal retrofitting, please, sir." JD was, secretly, a little amused that Mai had been begging on behalf of her armor. He couldn't judge however. Energy shields, if he or any number of his fellow ODSTs had had them, he might've seen a lot more live… That being said he knew energy shields were not the only thing MJOLNIR gave her.

Hackett nodded again, but on the uptake, he returned a statement. The two squared their forms. "The Admiralty has unanimously declared that, until further notice, your backgrounds, who you are, where you've been and what you've done, is classified. Nothing about the Covenant, the UNSC, your training, your armor, or your augmentations Mai, is allowed to be known by those without clearance. Is that understood?"

JD had rattled in his mind for a moment. Had he already broken this new veil of secrecy by having the knowledge she told him? He knew that augmentations had been done to her for the sake of battle. Her bones were coated by metal and her very veins so different they fired off faster than their own bodies could handle without even more augmentations to compensate.

For what little she had let on to him during their time on Arcturus, he was now her confidant.

"Sir, yes sir."

"You will be issued a cover stories. A life lived here. You will be active military personnel in the Systems Alliance Navy, and you will have a command to answer to. But if your nature is ever questioned, and if your background is ever needed, you will answer only to me through Captain Anderson. Is that understood?"

JD allowed himself to tilt his head at Mai, and, uncomfortably, if only because she was breaking form, did she look back into the man's eyes. He was scared. He wasn't in fear, but he was scared, unsure. Ironic that it was being at peace that was unnerving him now.

"Sir, yes sir." They finally answered.

Whatever grievances they had, it could not be allowed.

"Then your mission is this: Get acquainted with the Alliance, our society, make your transition as seamless as possible, and when you are ready, we will take you in as best we can."

---

"And Chief Gul, where'd you hail from? If you know?"

A strike of embarrassment had erupted in her core. Questions of herself she could not input in. She could've told anyone the trajectory and adjustments needed to land a 4000 meter shot from a stationary Hornet hovering in place to a human sized target. She could've plotted slipspace courses on her own with nothing but a calculator and pen and paper. What she couldn't tell people about, not out of classified information or other secrecy arrangements, but rather pure lack of knowledge, were items like what her favorite food was, her measurements, whether she knew how to drive anything that hadn't been designed to kill, if she had any money to her name; and, most disheartening, who had been her family.

She knew she was brown. She knew she could reasonably guess she was ethnically Arab from her name and appearance.

She didn't know anything else.

Not even her mother's name.

Her silence was that of being unable to answer. That much JD could tell as she bit her lip from the inside. Finally, she did give one. "I am… unable to give that information, sir."

Anderson had gleamed hints of the unusual social ticks that Mai had. They screamed at him an answer that he himself was unable to cleanly give: She was developmentally incomplete. Not mentally challenged, far from it, but rather no one had taught her how to live a normal life.

"Okay. There's an Alliance military post and recruiting station along the American-Canadian border. In New York. We're taking you there. I presume the American states remained the same in your reality?" JD nodded, he was the only one that would know. Mai had, vaguely, heard of "New York" before from a Marine speaking loudly in a ship she was posted to one deployment. "Well it's right along Niagara Falls. Would you be okay spending two or so weeks there while we attend to preparations for the Normandy? Given your orders you should be able to keep busy."

They couldn't say no.

This shuttle was fast. Pelicans were bulky, well armored, gunned up, but all too easily shot down by intercepting Covenant fighters of anti-air. The Kodiak had its merits. The Alliance tech, as so far known to them, had its merits

Mai had turned over her left arm until the chip in her bracer detected it was being looked at, the omnitool lighting up orange as it showed its blank home screen. Her datapad embedded in her armor had been more familiar, more utilitarian in its design, but evidently this was more civilian and privately designed than the blue screen she used.

"This carries my ID, biometrics, and a fabricator?" She moved her arm to show Anderson. He nodded.

"Main interface device in all the galaxy. Do anything from hack weaponry and machines, to surfing the Extranet." He affirmed, flashing his own.

Mai had curiously looked it over, feeling her fingers physically touch the device as if it had been a hard, physical object. With enough force she had been able to press through, but the sense of tactile feel was impressive. Only on ops well behind enemy lines as a Headhunter did she see Prophets and their Prelates use such equipment that had used such "hardlight". It hadn't been Covenant technology. It had been the technology of their gods. She overheard one of handlers, so many missions ago, mention, off hand, during an object recovery op their name: Forerunner.

The galaxy, as she knew it, had its fair share of secrets. Too busy with the war, she had doubted humanity put much into such efforts. She would never know however. Her galaxy was gone, and any mystery she had a lick of, would never be answered. The end of the war, the fate of Reach and Noble Team: all would be hidden from her for all time now.

JD opened his omnitool up, slowly, but surely, opening up a map of the shuttle's path down. Both of them had felt the shuttle break atmosphere, and its current trajectory put it right where Anderson said it would be: on the New York-Canadian border. There was a landmark on the omnitool's screen that had been identifiable to him: Niagara Falls.

"Permission to speak freely?" JD had asked, closing the omnitool. Anderson nodded, honestly put off by the man's rigid adherence to brevity. "I'd hate to feel like glorified tourists, sir. Especially on your- I mean our homeworld."

Anderson gave a small smile. "Oh don't worry. A generation has gone and lived without Earth, you wouldn't be the first. Hell, we even have some Turians and Asari here."

They were both reasonable people when they realized that fact: No one had outright confirmed it till moments after they enlisted, but they had picked up small details, pictures and photos, words and spoken comments that there was another something that they had to account for.

There were more aliens there. Aliens not related to the Covenant. Aliens that didn't want humanity dead.

If they hadn't any ill-will against humanity, what were they to say? It was an impossible thought to them that there were aliens that were not on a war path to end them, but it was something they would have to deal with in the coming weeks. They didn't kid themselves, privately, they didn't know how they would react when seeing one of those aliens native to that galaxy.

They would have to play it by ear, one step at a time as they felt the shuttle slow down to a crawl, its door open while still in flight and Anderson raise himself to hold one of the bars on the roof for stability. What was revealed to JD and Mai had been a city not unlike those they had known among the colonies. A little more glass, a little more steel, the design aesthetics. The cold nip of air, a bright, blue sunny sky.

Mai had leaned over, peering out, seeing the landscape of a continent that had yet to see galactic war. She saw the dirt of Earth for the first time, right where it should've been.

JD would've thought it funny to hear her thoughts on Earth dirt. He once had dropped on a colony at the far reaches of human space, and there, in some visitor center, there had been a vial of dirt that had come from Germany, Earth.

That was the measure of how importance this planet was to some.

The city hadn't been as big as say, New Alexandria or Arcadia, but it was a city nonetheless, with an oddly familiar name to JD. No sky scrapers, but there were towers, seemingly built over the shell of 20th century buildings. "City's called Buffalo. Ever hear of it?"

JD rocked his head back and forth, crudely giving an answer. "Buffalo Wings?"

Anderson chuckled. "Something like that."

The Kodiak shuttle was something like the Pelican, the general purpose, and in this case, military shuttle of humanity. What the Pelican was to them, the Kodiak was to Anderson, Mai had gandered a look, her height just barely coming opposed to the ceiling. Her blood had heated and cooled in one moment, her mind fighting its wiring. It felt as if she had been going to the now open side of the shuttle to open fire below. Her better angels had won however as all she did was look out, look down, and see what a human city did when it hadn't been in the process of being attacked.

Miniatures of humans, of people, just going about their day as airborne cars flew into sky lanes, leaving the ground blissfully clear of everything but men and women and children living the lives promised to them.

Loose strands of hair fluttered in the wind as she looked down to see faces. Her sight was good enough, even fifty or a hundred feet up, to discern features. That this was no trick. That this was Earth, and there were humans here.

"We've made arrangements for you to stay at a hotel adjacent to the recruiting post, there it is now." Anderson pointed out at a building that had relative height over a larger complex. Nature had intermingled with urban development: perhaps speaking toward a wanted synchronization between humanity and nature. Space travel tended to paint introspective looks upon, at least, greenery in more than just the aesthetic sense.

Below, as they made their swooping landing approach, they passed over men in military formation in their PTs, the yard in that complex open. Grunts and officers there, going through drills perhaps, or maybe, just maybe, initiation? The echo of a group of new recruits had echoed up into the air, the ghost of a memory coming up to JD's forefront as he simply sat and awaited to land. His oath had been something he remembered by heart:

"I, being of legal age, of my own free will without coercion, promises, or inducement of any kind, after having been duly advised and warned of the consequences of this oath, swear to uphold the institutions of the Unified Earth Government against all enemies, foreign and domestic; to protect and defend Earth and her colonies; to obey lawful orders of the High Command of the United Nations Space Command, I hereby accept responsibility for the defense of humanity. So help me God."

He didn't remember if he prayed recently, but God probably had a hand in his situation he shrewdly thought. That is, if God remained the same. A difficult, existential thought surely.

He was never a good Catholic anyway.

Most Marines tend not to be.

Religion went out the window when fighting an alien empire who believed themselves the servants of gods, especially if they had the firepower to prove it. Though, he had to wonder about Mai. He had seen her bare, in that locker room, saw her skin in places that wouldn't be polite in their acquaintance such far. He remembered the scars, the bruises, the wounds, but he also remembered the string necklace and the wooden wheel that had sunk and be almost hidden in her cleavage.

He had, vaguely, recognized it somewhere in his knowledge. What exactly, he couldn't tell, but it was something he could place a name on.

In his stomach he felt the pull of Gs, the shuttle moving down until, all at once, it stopped in mid air a foot off the ground.

"This is your stop, Chiefs." Anderson spoke to both of them. JD had risen but not before Mai had cocked her head to the side.

"You're not coming with us sir?"

Anderson had shook his head negative. "I'm going to be pre-occupied with arrangements on the Normandy, is that going to be a problem?"

Mai shook her head. "No sir."

He knew what she was getting at however. She needed directives. "You have everything at your disposal to make yourselves comfortable. The rest is within you."

JD had stepped off, only to see a neatly dressed young man walk toward them. One scan around and it was apparent where they were in a landing zone for Kodiaks attached to the buildings around them, lousy with military signage they could hardly decipher.

That's when Mai had heard it: above the sound of the Kodiak's jets. It was the sound of a civilian populace just beyond those walls: of a street being used benignly at a city going through its day. That was where Anderson was leaving them.

"You have comms with the Normandy. Bounce it up there if you need me, Chiefs."

"But why sir? We're…-" Impossible to describe, surely. Mai had, for once, been afraid of being alone for a reason that tore at her self, her lungs, and her mind.

"It's not my place to guide you like children. You're adults, a free man and woman. If I do this anyway else you'll become dependent."

Thrown into the deep end, and it was the orders.

They saw his point as they both rendered salute, and only when he had returned it had the doors closed on that Kodiak and it had disappeared back into the sky, leaving them alone.

That neatly dressed young man had arrived within talking distance. Not military, and any military personnel in their area, and there had been quite a few, had paid no mind to them. They hadn't looked out of the ordinary. It wasn't a military uniform that young man wore, but rather that of a hotel concierge. "I've been instructed to lead you to your accommodations. Welcome back to Earth sir, ma'am."

They'd never been, and consequently, never left. All JD could do was nod and offer a hand gesture for the boy to lead the way. "Plain clothed huh? You guys must really be some deep operators." He made a remark on their clothing and, vaguely, JD knew what he was talking about. Once long ago, on the battlefields of Earth where the first insurgencies were, centuries ago, the idea of the most elite combat operators were that who wore casual clothing like them.

They walked on concrete and steel, with sneakers, dulled footsteps taking them under the shadow of that looming building attached to that compound. A distinctive type face near its top: Marriot.

The concierge had his own omni-tool, flashing as the glass doors they approached verified it was him. "Normally we don't enter guests this way, but then again most guests don't come in through via the landing pad. Usually we're just a dust off point for deployments, either that or a place for Marines to stay while they get their stations figured out."

It explained those Marines they'd seen coming in as they came in through the backway of the hotel. When they broke through to the hotel in its actuality, they were presented with a sight they hadn't seen in years or been unfamiliar with entirely: a lobby that hadn't been used for a triage or caught up in a war. Just a domestic view of life through almost painfully bright lights and modern décor. Air conditioning that was almost too comfortable had entered their lungs as they were lead through a door into that lobby.

"Six-thirteen Anne." He had spoken across the room to one of the employees behind the desk. She had flashed a thumbs up at the young man. In that lobby had been the guests themselves, or rather, guests to be:

There was a theme, and it had been families with, typically, a young male just barely younger than JD and Mai in dress blues.

"Ship-date for some of these guys are coming up, so they're gonna be shipped down to Parris Island in a few days from here. Families like to be around for that." The young man explained as he led the two into an elevator.

Nearly a second they had both stepped in they had been coaxed out. Six floors wasn't much for an elevator in the 22nd century. Still looked like a hotel however as the hallways still were of that homely, very much hotel looking corridors with doors going down as far as they could see.

"Any extended stays?" JD asked him.

He pondered for a bit in his face as he slowed his walking, coming to a door: 613. "A few. I think one private security recruiter stays around here for when guys get back from deployment. Picks 'em up, and all that. My dad's a lifer in the Navy, so he won't even look at him when he comes visits."

Mai's face shriveled at the thought of that. Maybe it was her aversion to such human mercenary groups in general, most of them falling underneath the Insurgency or hampering UNSC efforts, but to serve for something other than service itself was still a foreign subject to her. She was trained one way, and that pure devotion grinded at her.

The young man's omni-tool flashed again, the door's internal lock opening with a subsequent pull of the handle. Of all the places they had been pulled through, as if drunk and in a haze, this was the place that sobered them now.

"But yeah, this hotel is used for families to stay at before we either ship out the new recruits or for would be Marines with cold feet." The attendant had answered simply, with a little snark. "Usually they don't tip well."

JD had gotten the hint. "Oh- uh. How do you-?" He had tried to gesture his left arm, trying to turn on the omni-tool.

The attendant rolled his eyes. "It's alright, I'm just joshing you bud. Hope you enjoy your stay."

Without knowing if there was any ill-will, he had left, leaving the two alone with two beds that had been looking all too enticing. JD had known these types of hotels well: places for families to stay in before they lost their children to the war. His mother had stayed in a similar place on the other side of the moon, too emotionally exhausted to even take a shuttle back over to home. Civilian bedding, slices of domestic life afforded by the hospitality business. It served a purpose, undoubtedly: to ease them back into a civilian life at some point. JD remembered it well. The macabre sense of humor that pervaded the corps replaced with wholesome life of neighborhoods and people filling up those lunar urban life. Bodegas, fresh coffee, clothes that had been designed to be fashionable instead of in a firefight, food not meant to increase caloric count but rather to be enjoyed. Cigarettes and sleeping in, nine to five jobs and children and teens to be dealt with on the day to day acting as if nothing had been wrong in the galaxy. Crudely, but still very much true, no fear of physical relationships getting stomped out by regulation and uptight officers.

This hotel room meant, in a way, life could be enjoyed: not fought for.

If only he could give that meaning to Mai as she had immediately opened up the balcony blinds and looked out, scanning, only to sit herself in a corner of the room opposite of the door and wrap her arms around herself, uneasy.

Fighting Covenant in bogs was familiar. Shooting Insurrectionists in sewers was familiar. Flying combat aircraft and killing dozens pass by pass was familiar. Sitting in a hotel room, with no mission, no weapons, and no idea of what they were in, that was not familiar to the Spartan.

She wasn't scared, she just didn't know what to do, and it, in a small sense, paralyzed her. Nothing could've trained her for this. She was not raised, after all: all she had was training.

It was a word he didn't want to entertain. Either because he didn't want to even consider if he could've had it, or anyone he knew could've had it, but in all likelihood perhaps her tendencies, her lack of knowing might've compounded with something that killed more men than even the Covenant. There were words for it throughout history: Battle Fatigue, Post-Vietnam syndrome, Shell Shock, PTSD. Now they were faced with the post part of it.

"Mai. You can sleep first. I'll stay awake."

I'll take watch. Get some shut eye.

That's how soldiers slept in the field, and for Mai, and even JD to an extent, they were deep in the unknown. This was their normal.

---

They returned their equipment, they returned their dead.

This was the first time they had ever seen this from humans.

In steel caskets, their bodies cleaned of battle. From Elite down to Grunt, they were all given the respect the UNSC would never. The Covenant, bar a few Grand Admirals, had never been the ones to give the humans respect in the war. Only death, and nothing ceremonious about it. So the humans never showed any respect back, lowly tactics and decisions taking Covenant lives away, and certainly never giving their dead back.

It was hardwired into all of their minds that every single human was a heretic, a virus upon the Great Journey that had to be cleansed. Either by the light of the Sacred Rings, or by the Covenant themselves. Times had changed, evidently. Time and place that is. There were mostly humans, but other aliens had helped as well. Willingly, begrudgingly, it wasn't uniform, but they abided in the name of peace.

The more things change, the more they stay the same however. "Some bodies lost in ocean. Might be unrecoverable. Sorry for this."

Professor Mordin Solus had been more than willing to talk directly to the Covenant, his regard for xenoscience studies ranged from urban to agrarian, studying species such as the Turians, Asari, and Batarian. Some would say he was the very model of a scientist Salarian, though those who truly knew what he had been might've agreed that he was more than qualified to deal, up close, the unknown aliens of the Covenant.

Usze had been right alongside, immediately having gone to work with his men to oversee the transfer of the dead back into their hands on the docks of the Altis colony, ferrying them back to the Solace via Phantom. He wasn't ignorant. If the events as told to him by the Shipmistress were true, these aliens would've kept some bodies for themselves to study.

"Unavoidable, Professor." He said, arms crossed across his crimson armor plates, a Carbine in his hand. The faces of the dead had passed by them all solemnly.

"Great deal of revelation revealed to you. Has it not?"

Usze considered the "Salarian" as he spoke. He was right. A great deal of revelations had come to pass, as was the reason, for the first time in his own life, he had been within slashing distance of humans and not swinging. For now, they were no longer fighting, and it screamed against him as humans helped cart over the dead. He was born to fight, and his true purpose felt… squandered.

He held his Needle Rifle close to his chest, but not at risk of being aggressive. Not with Professor Solus by him.

The good Professor reminded him of an Ascetic he knew, how, privately, that particular patron of the Ascetic beliefs had sought back to a time when Sangheili designs ruled Sangheili crews. It was something lost to the Covenant: that is, the Sangheili being reduced to the warrior caste of the Covenant. Where had their scientists, engineers and philosophers had gone? History of course.

Which was to say gone.

"Taken in interest in me, have you Professor?" Usze asked plainly. He had been given command of the usual affair: several lesser Minor Elites and the usual assortment of Grunts and Jackals, but they paid no mind to their conversation as they carted caskets.

Professor Solus only smiled innocently. "Would you not be if in my position?"

"It wouldn't be in my interests. I'm a warrior, not a scientific analyst." He answered.

"Something forbidding you to do both?"

Usze blew air out of his nose. "Hmph." He knew what the good Professor wanted: just a plain reaction to this in his own words. It would never be in good judgement to proclaim how a First Contact would go with a species, but Usze understood: it wouldn't look like this, and this was not normal at all. Not only did he feel it just by the fact he could see humans within arms reach and not slash them apart, but also just rationally.

What "Admiral Hackett" had told him had weighed much upon his mind, and, given that he had ejected everyone in that room but him to tell, it was a secret that was told for the sake of convincing him to help cooperate.

This was not their world, and anything that happened now because of it merely in light of that revelation.

Usze gave no more bait to the Professor as he simply stood and kept looking over each coffin. Even that however the Professor had taken details from as he began something he was known for with his mouth, finger at his cream colored chin:

"Surprisedtobecollectingdead, heightenedtensionaroundspeciesunalignedwithCovenantingeneral, butespeciallyaroundhuman. Initialconfrontationreportsasgleamedfamiliaritywithhumans,butnotfriendly. Almost all soldiers? Noscientists,civilians,orotherwisediplomaticmeansseeninothermilitaryshipsinknowngalaxy. Assumenoneed. Why no need? Nodiplomaticconnectionairsalternative: conflict? Conflict. Prolongedwar? War? With Humanity? Peace no longer an option? ButSystemsAlliance, ornoknown humanelements, knowntobeengagedinprolongedconflict." Tangents gone as fast as slipspace travel. Usze had wondered if one of the lower prophets concerned with the sciences would enjoy listening to this. Usze didn't, not as Professor Solus began to, just by inference alone, air very close to something impossible. "Atwarwith humanity, but, notthishumanity. Andnotraceofelementzerodetectedonanyof you, equipmentorevenships, which, evenbybasicgalacticcontaminationcomeanyspacetravelinknowngalaxy, impossible. Where. Did. You. Come. From?"

Solus's hands made a chopping motion in his other, directed at Usze, the man frozen as if waiting his turn. Usze had been caught up in a literal wave earlier and it had nearly drowned him. He felt the same pressure now as he felt like he needed to take a breath for the both of them. The answer he could give was hardly satiating to Solus, but understood. "If you were in my place, would you understand I cannot answer these questions of yours?"

The Professor's form seemed dejected all at once, but he sprung back up like a child's balloon, a smile still on his face as he nodded understandingly.

"Your name at least. Is there societal/cultural pattern to it? Why are you named as such? Usze Tahamee?"

Usze made small nodding motions with his head, relaxing, just a bit. This he could entertain. "Usze is my given name, Professor, and Taham is that of my family's, my clan's historical holding."

Solus seemingly wrote an entire page of it in his data pad. "And what of the -ee?"

Usze looked toward the Solace, abuzz like a hive. "It is to designate that I am a warrior of the Covenant, nothing more, nothing less."

"And what are you without Covenant?"

In another universe, in another time and place, under the leadership of an Arbiter that would come from the victory at Reach and the desecration of a Holy Ring by a Demon, Usze Tahamee, but then Taham, would know that answer.

This was not his place however.

"Personal question. Sorry. Not now." Solus understood as Usze processed that question and the absurdity of it. "Usze Tahamee. Wish to keep correspondence or work with you down the line. Are you opposed?"

Usze furrowed his brows, his mandibles airing out as they do when in thought. It was very easy to say no. "If my superiors clear it, Professor Solus."

Most likely not, he figured.

"Ah. I see." When Professor Solus reached out his hand some of his troops on security had freaked, the move fast, but Usze knew what it was. A handshake. This time he was obliged to return it after calming his men around. It was in best emulation of a handshake he could give, based on the statues of humans he had seen while they had been on the attack in the colonies, commemorating some event or another. What had taken him off guard was what the professor said before letting go of his hand. "Humans trustworthy here. Not all good, not all bad, as usual, but can be trusted. Moral species. If Covenant is religious hegemony then know that humans spirituality highly ingrained in their hearts. Would know, have explored recently. See you down the line." There was a hint of sadness behind that that even Usze could catch over his translator.

The Salarian had left before he had elaborated, off to observe some other mystery that he could attend to. The Professor, evidently was a busy man because he wanted to be, and feared not what would happen because of it.

"This is Shipmistress Karonee to the Shadows. Lieutenant Major Tahamee?" Her voice had been soothing, to say the least. It hadn't been the frantic, or bombastic, air of command in her words. Things had calmed down, and she had adjusted after brilliantly barging down a side of a building with a Scarab.

He turned away from the collection line progressing, holding his earpiece in his helmet. "Go ahead, Shipmistress."

"Are the casualty collections going smoothly?"

---

"Are the casualty collections going smoothly?"

It wasn't the Solace, but it was familiar. She was going to end up on this ship anyway in order for her to be shipped back to her actual flagship. The Blood of Union was, evidently, loss to her forever now.

The Ardent Prayer had been recovered by the Brute, Mercaius, and he had stood next to her now as the ship bobbed lightly in the current of the waves in the shadow of the Solace. It was dragged back by Phantoms as well, and, after a through sweeping of blood and bodies: remnants of the battle that had seized the vessel, they had preformed a checklist of what was required to get the Ardent Prayer flying again.

Evidently not much.

It suffered structural damage that the Huragok had been more than happy to bend back into place via the Solace's remaining engineer facilities, brought back out on the water.

"No complications Shipmistress. We should be done within the hour… Could be done without me even."

Usze spoke back to her. She looked to Mercaius as he ran through the bridge consoles for anything of note, pulling up security cam footage of what, exactly, had happened to them all. In the end it didn't surprise any of them: Demons had come aboard this ship in an act of subversion and trickery, arming one of their Slipspace drives to disrupt the Solace by removing it from the equation over Reach. It was always the Demons, and seeing one had gotten the blood pumping between the Brute and the Shipmistress. The Slipspace Drive was still present in the hanger. Battered, but, as far as the Huragok could tell, still functional. Battle reports from the front during the initial planetfall had revealed that the Demon and at least one of her Imps had survived as well, a fact that Usze would be sure to corroborate.

"Good. I want you to stay in position and await pick up by me personally. We're going into orbit and the Shadows will come with me."

"Of course, Shipmistress." The line went dead after.

The Shadows were the unit of Covenant Spec Ops deployed to the Solace, and he had been their most junior officer. Now, evidently, their only officer. It turns out he had been the only one on the ship at the time of the Slipspace rupture, the rest already deployed on planet, or yet to be found among the bodies that had either been lost in orbit or still floating among the waves.

Command restructuring had been going well ever since contact had been made with the Alliance and the so called "Council". Without the ever-present threat of being bombarded from orbit, it gave the Covenant time to get settled and to reorganize. For the time being in regards to Spec Ops, Usze was all she had in that department.

"Tell me my Decanus," Karonee spoke to the Brute. "How're your people?"

Mercaius crossed his arms, his white face paint crinkling with his face. "We would be better if not for all this water, Shipmistress. We are not natural swimmers."

"Hah." Karonee forced a laugh as she ran her hands again over the command console of the Ardent Prayer. It was cleaned of Sangheili blood from the Demon thankfully. "Spaceflight doesn't befit your people either, does it?"

A jab. Elite vs Brute, as old as the Covenant itself seemingly.

Mercaius shook it off promptly, answering properly. "We didn't lose many in the planetfall. Only those on duty in the loss sections or in the lower decks. The loss of our Chieftans however weighs heavily, and we would be quick to exert that anger onto the humans."

Karonee nodded as she toyed with the console, beginning power transfers from axillaries to main systems gradually. Some more bridge crew had been recruited out of necessity, Elites, Brutes, and even Engineers among those quickly given a crash course in how to command a ship and given their duties. They performed admirably, astutely, as those that shared the bridge with her now began to confirm her orders and brought the ship back to working order, it bobbing in the waves.

"How have they taken the news? Of our… situation?'

Mercaius tightened the grip on his Gravity Hammer. "It is hard to believe, Shipmistress."

"As it should be, but is there anything happening that would make the processions… more difficult?"

Mercaius grunted. "As always the Brutes will follow the lead of the Hierarchs, and if the Prophet of Destiny shall see it fit that we will speak to the humans, we will do so."

Not only had the Covenant needed to contest with the fact that they had simply been out of their universe, but also that any hostilities against the humans would now be ceased until further notice out of the pure inconceivable fact that the humans now were not the same as they had waged war against.

What was the difference? As asked one Brute. They all look the same anyway.

The difference, as said Destiny, lie in their intent.

Had the humans in their world simply accepted that they were to be exterminated, Truth had once mused during his sermons on High Charity, perhaps the Covenant would've taken the effort to integrate them in.

Regardless, even if they wanted to fight, there was no recourse for them to do so realistically. Ground combat analysis had only meant so much when support from space was a factor, but even then the reports of human combat tactics from the "System Alliance" had been… crude to the human's disadvantage. A lack of combat experience it all spoke to.

The UNSC knew how to fight Covenant on the ground to a standstill, and so that was the difference that many, even before their reality changing revelation, had found out if they were engaged with those humans after the crash.

"Shipmistress. Energy readings are green. The Engineers report that repairs to the ventral stabilizing wings have been completed and the ship is being drained." An Elite bridge crew had said. "What are we to do with the human equipment?"

Human space craft, arms, and, of course, bodies had been within the Ardent Prayer, and during clean up they had been hauled over to a cargo space. Initially it was thought that, just for formality, they would transfer the bodies back to the humans, but that thought was quickly shot down upon remembering that these humans were not of the same sort. The fight craft that had been on the Ardent Prayer's upper deck had been mostly picked apart by the Jackals belong to the Ardent Prayer's crew, as was most of the human gear in general, however there was one item that had been kept where it had been:

The human slipspace drive.

Immediately upon its discovery in the hanger Karonee had ordered a team to check what the humans had done to it in order to have brought them so far from home, but the answer came fast and no solution to their predicament had come: it had just been a slipspace drive that had operated without a destination solution with its safety parameters turned off. It more triggered an act of nature than it had been responsible for their current location. No one had planned this, and it would've been impossible to plan for.

"Keep it quarantined, however, if there is any damage… repair it."

"You are very easy to accuse of being heretical, Shipmistress." Mercaius had voiced the shock of some Elites who had heard that order.

The Elite form of a shrug had come over Karonee's form. "In these circumstances I believe any in my position would be. Would not we all be heretical for not laying waste to the humans right now? Even in the face of our death?"

"Should I proceed to make movements to?" Humor from a Brute was hard to catch, but Karonee caught it.

"If it would help your nerves, Decanus."

It was hard to notice, but she wasn't a Shipmistress without earning it. Even on her ship there had been Brutes, and so she read them. Mercaius had been anxious, unsure, everything about how tightly he held his hammer was evidence to it.

She couldn't blame him. He had been now de facto chieftain of nearly a million brutes and that either meant he had that responsibility or was liable to be challenged to someone who did want it.

"I am able, Shipmistress." He said, wanting no doubt in her mind.

There was none. "I know, my Decanus. Then you would again assume temporary command of this ship when I am off of it?"

She was soft spoken when no one was looking, person to person. Perhaps that was how she communicated her trust: giving those believed unworthy into command.

Her grace was rewarded with Mercaius performing admirably when she had led the assault on the Colony to recover her men.

"I concur with Shipmistress Karonee." His voice broke through like reverb as the entire bridge crew went to their knees. Destiny on his grav chair had been escorted in, his slender Prelate guard besides him along with an amalgamation of Brute and Elite Honor Guards.

Never before had Brutes held the title of Honor Guard in the Covenant, but now were extra ordinary times as Destiny skipped groping Karonee this time and instead just motioned all of them to rise. She was grateful. "Even without these circumstances, I know Truth and Regret often spoke of giving Brutes more resposnbility, even on the High Council."

That suggestion had betrayed Karonee's ears. She wanted to speak out against such things. No Brute would be able to seriously handle such motions in the Covenant, but alas her mouth was shut as Destiny came to Mercaius, waving a finger over him like a blessing.

She looked, briefly, to the tower prelate. This was how large, or rather, how tall a San'Shyuum could've been. More than three times her height, and no face to put to it but a dark visor of a helmet.

Destiny had been onboard the Ardent Prayer for this: through careful communications diplomatic contact was to be established in person onboard the dreadnaught "SSV Kilimanjaro". By what measure: five shuttles. The Alliance however had never told them how those shuttles were to be transported.

The Covenant would not be mere welp, not with a fully functioning corvette (the size of one of their frigates apparently) about to be brought up to speed.

Even then, back in the colony, their forces had been chest to chest with the Alliance and the "Council" which had explained the other aliens aligned with the humans. Tensions had cooled as Covenant forces got used to being so close to human, or any non-Covenant. It wasn't as if the Alliances or the Council would do anything.

Still, just in case, the Brutes were at times held back from those patrols or positions that put them in contact with the opposition.

"Are preparations ready, Shipmistress?"

She shook her head up and down once, going to her console and pressing a single button.

---

On the bridge of the Perugia Shaw had made a note to himself to personally wipe down the seat of his chair at some point. This was as he was getting changed into his dress blues in his quarters. Both his previous outfit and the chair was lousy with sweat and he'd be hard pressed to make a crew member clean it out of pure embarrassment.

"You look good sir." His XO said plainly as she handed off a datapad of guidelines on how this diplomatic contact was going to go. It was from both the Council and the Alliance First Contact Committee.

Both of them totally at odds with each other.

"I look like a balding, fat, angry man."

"So you look like a good captain." She responded back again.

He might've kept throwing the conversation back and forth, for it was the most normal thing to happen in the last few days, however he was reminded he was in the thick of it as a member of his crew screamed out in alert.

"Object Delta reemerged from Covenant operation zone! It's under power and air-worthy!"

The two officers remerged from his quarters just in time to see a ship that had just recently sustained a planetfall rise up again.

"No use of eezo?" Shaw had sat back into that sweaty chair, regretting it with a wince. "Is there any Element Zero at all being emanated?'

"Negative! Scans show zero."

On the view screen the Ardent Prayer had, dripping wet from its bottom, resumed flight as it slowly made its way toward the colony.

---

The Elite Hunter, a Fuel Rod Gun over his shoulders. He was taller than Usze, older, greyer than he. He spoke with an older baritone that didn't' echo, but drawled. A tired voice. One that Usze heard as the Elite approached him. He had stuck nearby the First Lieutenant out of lack of other orders. "Would it matter to you, if I told you my opinion, Lieutenant?"

His armor was silver: his helmet, that of a glass dome revealing his face behind it. Usze knew it as the battle armor of the Rangers. EVA-capable and jump jet trained soldiers meant to rain death from above.

"I would like to hear it."

"I was there, on the human world of Harvest, when the humans took it back. I was assigned to an Arbiter's force."

The campaign which resulted in the humans taking Harvest back had been two decades ago, and the last Arbiter had been on planet with a force in regards to Forerunner artifact retrieval. He knew this because Ripa Moramee was a cautionary tale for all Spec Ops Elites in terms of bloodlust. Capability and ability is easy to abuse with lust of battle, and that Arbiter had cost him many men and his own life.

"You were there?"

The Elite nodded. "I was a young Minor then, my unit wiped out during the final days of our occupation there." He seemed distant, thinking back to a Covenant failure. "When the humans have the advantage, they do not squander it. We would all be dead if this were the Galaxy we know."

"There are many ways one can be taken advantage of."

As was why many of these bodies would be checked for trackers or other surprises.

The older Elite had touched Usze's shoulder. "There are forces here I think, that even the humans are accounting for."

They saw, in the distance from the shadow of the solace an SDV-class ship raise up, and then move toward them steadily as onlookers on that harbor and all over the city, both Covenant, Alliance, and Council looked in awe. This was the pickup which Usze was expecting.

"Are you tasked with a group at this moment?" He asked.

The Elite shook his head, remorsefully. "Again, I find myself without my unit." The war had done much to him, and most Elites who had risen to such a rank had held some sort of melancholy. Either that or they were themselves lusting after faith and fatalities.

The Elite was experienced, obviously entrusted with great weight and skill given his armor and armament, and now was not the time to stand on ceremony. "What is your name?" Usze asked softly.

The Elite sniffed the air, clearing his nose. "Ke Nazhumee. Major. Ranger Battalion of the A Long Night of Solace."

Usze nodded once. Of all the actual decisions he had to make as a newly minted Spec Ops officer, this one was within his ability. "Ke Nazhumee, you are hereby conscripted into the Shadows underneath my jurisdiction given the circumstances. Have you any objections?"

Ke had tilted his head up, flaring his nostrils once, eyes squinting at the younger Elite. "No." he said, albeit cautiously.

Usze had offered one finger to Ke to follow, and he did as the troop transporter on the Ardent Prayer went alight as it approached them, sending a beam of light down to step into. Onlookers unfamiliar with such a beam ran for cover, but there was nothing to fear. They knew the feeling well, and all the Professor Mordin Solus could do was watch from the distance as, like the old Earth stories of alien abductions, the two Elites had ridden up into the air, levitated, and disappeared into that ship before it rose off into the atmosphere.

---

"Rise, young officer." It wasn't his first time he had been in the presence of a prophet. Being groomed for the Honor Guard, those on High Charity often picked favorites among the stock and would-be Honor Guards such as Usze. So he took his first meeting with the Prophet of Destiny in stride as he had reemerged into the Ardent Prayer in a hanger full with what he recognized as a regular boarding complement, anti-matter charges and all. "You have done the Covenant well, despite the… abnormality of it all."

Destiny touched his finger along the scar on Usze's face, ragged, slanted, left by a Demon. "I do so for the Great Journey."

"That is good. It is a shame you are not safely on High Charity now. To have you lost in… our circumstances is a loss for all the Covenant."

So the general reports were true, and the crew of the Solace also had believed: transported away from their known reality and plopped down there.

"The humans know." Usze reported from his chat with the Admiral Hackett.

Karonee had been there besides Destiny, the two sharing a concerned look. How would they?

Perhaps it would be made clear in the coming conference, but for now, Usze had his orders.

"First Lieutenant," Karonee started, Usze returning to ramrod straight. Nazhumee had already been given his new orders underneath him, organizing newly assigned troops into order into Phantoms and Spirits. "You are to provide the Prophet of Destiny and myself escort as we make diplomatic contact with the Systems Alliance and the Council. Standard boarding procedures that are otherwise… changed given the non-hostile skew of this."

Destiny had been given his best robes, and Karonee had also been appropriately garbed, her sword proudly displayed a little more forward on her hips than usual for the sake of it being worn to see.

The real attention grabber however had been the black clad Prelate standing over Destiny.

He had heard rumors of their ability that would put even a Zealot to shame, but wouldn't inquire.

He had orders to follow through with. "I understand."

"When we're in the ship, full escort duty and tactical command is given to you. I cannot sacrifice any of my thoughts to it. Do you understand?"

"Of course, Shipmistress."

She tightened her jaws. "I'm sorry for throwing so much at you, Young Shadow."

Usze had no reaction. "I go where I am deemed necessary. I shall preform as best I can."

Destiny could only smile at Karonee. Usze had been a real choice Elite.

The smell of a firefight days ago had still lingered, and the fact that the Ardent Prayer itself was still in use spoke to a desperation that the Covenant hadn't before been in.

"Is it wise for us to be entertaining the humans, or anyone else, at all?" Karonee asked Destiny privately.

"We cannot fulfill our duty to the Gods if we are dead. And besides, should they come to see us as trustable, as inquireable and communicateable, they shall hear our messages too of our Great Journey."

And that was that as Usze simply reloaded and adjusted himself, finding the Phantom he was to lead in. When he was sucked up by its beam his complement was already in the position, all the transports ready and waiting in that hanger: the ground zero for many an event those last few hours.

Bullets holes and plasma scoring had still been lousy for when the Demons had been there, and it burned his scar to think of the one that got away.

Nazhumee had placed a hand on his shoulder as he found his feet in that darkened bay of the Phantom, men lined up appropriately. Spec Ops like him, and Honor Guards. They both exchanged a knowing nod, one was appreciative, the other was affirming.

Usze hadn't minded being caught up in order after order, duty after duty. It was how he best operated: on autopilot, his feet taking him between the rows of his men as each stood straight in his presence, awaiting his judgement, his orders.

He gave them.

"When we joined the Covenant, we took an oath!" Usze walked through the line of troops with him. He recognized none: the remains of the Spec Ops complement of the Solace. More would be dredged up, conscripted, trained and pressed into service, but for now this is who he had.

"According to our station! All without exception!" The Spec Ops troops roared back.

Usze curled his hands, speaking the words of Rtas, of any Spec Ops officer worth his steel in the missions that took the Covenant above and beyond. He knew these words well, and knew it in his heart. Now however was the first time he had led the chants.

"On the blood of our fathers. On the blood of our sons. We swore to uphold the Covenant!"

"Even to our dying breath!"

Per mission, there was always differences, tailored for what they were about to do. And what they were to do now? It was inconceivable, impossible to prepare for. They were still in the thick of it however, and they weren't dead yet.

"Even across the galaxy, across the stars, nothing has changed. The holiness of the Writ of Union is unwavering, wherever the Covenant goes! All that matters are that the Gods are in their heaven, and so all is right in the world! Let us continue our march to glorious salvation!"

---

Ardent Prayer rose past the clouds, into the heavens, into the stars as every ship in orbit trained its sensors on it. Perugia especially:

"Contact. Scans confirm it to be Object Delta. It's space worthy."

"So, it begins." He said. "Get me my shuttle to the Kilimanjaro."

"Yes sir."

---

The human ships were smaller than previously encountered, but then again, this was a new brand of human. At least the dreadnaught of the humans was able to accommodate every shuttle at once as its hanger bays opened, platoons of Marines and soldiers from every Council race and humanity there either formally at attention, or with their rifles out and on security.

Shaw had observed as he had made his way there before the Covenant ship got into range, meeting with his Council appointed delegation.

Admiral Sirixo had been the Salarian designee, General Tailus for the Turians. Both had been about equal with him in terms of experience, and that, private, Shaw was glad for. The Salarian had dark skin for his kind, but that was all Shaw could differentiate with in the hanger as he shook Talius's hand.

"Forgive me shouting earlier at you, General." Shaw spoke to him in regards to telling the Turian to have his ships stand down.

Tailus looked unhurt, some of his fringes seemingly burnt off, his skin pale. "You did what you had to do, Captain."

Shaw could only nod as he looked around. "Is there an Asari representative?"

Sirixo had adjusted the cuff on his sleeve as he nodded his head. "Just arrived from out of system, she was the closest Matriarch."

A Matriarch? Shaw had then now been upstanded. Then again all of them were if a Matriarch had been there.

"A Spectre escorted her too actually." Sirixo seemed hardly concerned with saying that. Shaw however saw it differently. "First time he's shown up in a while actually."

"Oh trust me," Tailus began, standing straight, but turning over to the door that lead into the hanger as he heard metal footsteps. "He's the person to be busy."

Static filled the air as that door opened: a darkly clothed, almost sinisterly dressed woman had seemed to float in given how her dress covered her legs. Shaw wasn't sure what she had on display was what the Asari needed to give during their first contact, but he had kept his eyes politely squared on her face as Sirixo greeted her first. "Ah, Matriarch Benezia. It is an honor to make the acquaintance."

"The pleasure is my own." She bowed to both Sirixio and Tailus, and then, finally, offering a hand to Shaw to touch upon. He did, and he couldn't help but feel the static in the air compounded by dampness, choking at him as he pressed on her fingers and let go. Her form was hiding the source of what pricked at his skin like a thousand bugs:

It was almost like his teeth were showing, skull bared. One eye replaced, but the other all blue. His skin was wilting like that of a hornet's nest, but, for some reason, the Turian General greeted him warmly. "Saren Arterius, in the flesh. Thought you were busy with more important assignments."

Benezia returned to Saren's side briefly, almost to affirm that he was with her. Asides from his head and collar, nothing below had revealed his flesh. A cloak, heavy armor, his face was stone cold as he looked at Tailus and spoke in a voice Shaw could only compared to a razor against violin string. Shaw knew who he was. The most famous Spectre in all of the Council.

"I deemed this situation to be of merit to attend, especially in such dangerous circumstances." He spoke like Ryder, Shaw noticed until his mind went blank. Saren stared directly at him. "Why are the humans, at all, involved in such a delicate meeting?"

Shaw's mouth went dry. "It's- It's our space, Spectre."

"Is it now?" Saren removed himself from Tailus, leaning in toward Shaw ever so slowly. Shaw didn't smell anything from Saren. Nothing at all. "Can you truly call this planet your own if you humans cannot even hold onto it in peace?"

Sirixio said nothing, and Tailus was liable to agree. Still Benezia had put a hand on Arterius's shoulder, pulling him back. "Now now, remember that the humans are a young species. They have much to learn."

The Spectre turned up his head. How odd, Shaw looked at his form, or rather, lack thereof hidden behind his cloak and armor. He didn't look... regular? He did look tall, for he was tall, towering over him as he turned away, disregarding Shaw entirely along with every other human in the room. "Or maybe they need to learn their place." He turned to Tailus before he left back where he came. "I'll be commandeering our forces here, just in case."

"Of course."

Without delay five unknown shapes had appeared right at the Kilimanjaro's hanger, pulling Shaw out of it, and into position. Benezia however had said one last thing to him, into his ear. "Pay no mind to him, Captain, we need you here and now."

Five shuttles, two different types. One looked as if it had been designed after a Hanar's head, the other a tuning fork. Purple in their coloration they hummed with an uneasy vibrato. They each had a turret on their forms: locked for peace's sake, but still visible as the shuttles, after settling into the hanger, opened up in their own ways.

The Hanar-headed shuttles on their sides had opened up, revealing a bay and more turrets mounted by the smaller aliens. Doors and hatches were opened, purple lights at the bottom of the shuttles opening into a ring-like apparition only to spit out troops.

Thirty troops each, five shuttles in total. One hundred and fifty and then some then. That's what had flooded out of each shuttle as uniformly as they could. There was no rush, no heat of combat, but there was a rigid tenseness that was felt the second the first Elites had hit the steel ground of the hanger with stars to their back. Under any other pretense, they would be raiding this ship and burning through it with practice only gained through combat.

They came with that equipment: with weapons and organizations meant for everything to go South. That was not their intent however, even as the first of Usze's Elites hit the ground and he drew his sword, igniting it. Each time an energy sword was ignited it meant nothing less than blood; the promise that, if combat was to happen, the sword would taste flesh.

He hadn't even turned when he felt the slamming of two Hunters hitting the deck, their fuel rod guns charged and primed as they alone drew the gaze of many a trooper there.

For the Covenant, there had been no one of the opposition that had been too out of their knowledge: all of them, Turians, Salarians, Asari, bipedal and human like. It was a simple proposition that did not hinder, at all, how they deployed.

It was a different case for the Council however.

The Grunts came by the dozens, their squat bodies filling in the spaces of squads as each carried with them a weapon to support those that came with them. To the Jackals, this was just another day of fun: boarding a ship with all the bravado as one could expect from a race that had made its own name as pirates. On each Phantom, two Jackals had remained on the boarding ramps along with the Grunt gunners, beam rifles held by them as all the other Jackals activated their energy shields and dropped down in front of the Elites.

This wasn't, in practice, a widely performed maneuver. The Turians especially had seen the way the Jackals had formed a shield wall in front of the Elites as they hit the ground of the hanger: like the ancient warriors of Palaven's oldest history, the formation they took in was that of a warrior culture especially.

It was a miracle of discipline that it had all come together like this. It was another miracle still that the Brutes, when they emerged, did nothing but play their part by forming the backline.

From the balcony of the hanger Marines and Turian alike had adjusted their aim, unable to know their target priorities just by how varied the incoming security force had been.

There had been talks, amongst the council that, perhaps, maybe one day, that there could've been one unified military that acted on behest of the Council. To the humans this would've been most analogous to the UN Security Forces of the 21st century. But what that meant was that Asari and Turians, Salarians and Humans, and then whoever else would come to sit on the Council would send their best to be commanded by the joint leadership of the wider galactic community. It might've looked something like the array they saw now, but alas they wouldn't be ready for it.

Not now, and, in another universe, in another historical path, only when an extragalactic killing force far beyond their comprehension would come.

How impressive it looked, General Tailus thought as his personal guard all furrowed their brows, the safeties on their pistols turned off. How did it all work? He thought. How many different command hierarchies and pure cultural, societal differences had to be accounted for in such a union where nearly a dozen species were involved? Chaos incarnate, he might've thought.

Though "Covenant" implied something far greater than blood or individual societal or species bound quirks. It spoke to a greater power. A shared religious destiny. That by itself might've explained it.

Captain Shaw grit his jaw as he stared dead ahead, through the masses and the Covenant troops, all neatly forming into a battle line without fear. He knew this was all just foreplay: A red carpet to be rolled out in preparation for whoever represented this Covenant.

An Elite had floated down from the center of the Phantom onto the ground, and, as if she had been Moses, the sea of combat troops had all made way for her: the empty space between the Council, Humans and Covenant now open to her. Its armor had a platinum sheen to it, almost white: a half cape over one shoulder, tinged in purple and gold. Unbeknownst to the observers, the design on the cape had been the crest of her fleet: now lost to them, still over Reach.

The name of that fleet was crudely "Shaded Justice" as transcribed to humans, but in Sangheili it was more eloquent. "Justice without Recognition" or "Judgement with no Factors". The name of the fleets had been chosen with value and reason, most often than not a reflection of their Fleetmaster, or, in this case, Fleetmistress.

Seylu Karonee cared not for her gender and what it meant in a patriarchal society. Where for every one hundred male Sangheili in service to the Covenant, there had been one female, she had risen to the top by merits that could not be defined by being a female.

It mattered not who commanded ships who burned human worlds. All that mattered was that they did it well.

If anything, she did it perfectly.

Even in a fair fight, it always seemed as if she was cheating. That was her confidence, her aura. Might made right, and the justice and divine salvation she practiced by her command was without vain as so many of her fellow commanders had fallen into on behalf of religious destiny.

She did what she did without celebration, without expectation, and, as she stood there before her troops, walking before them and being the spear of that wall, she made it clear to the humans that she had been in command of that situation. Even as, behind her, a strange being in a gravity chair floated down from that same hole in luxurious red robes and a wreath as a crown.

Whatever sound emanated from the Covenant ranks silenced.

This species was observed only from the bodies. None had been collected, but their forms had been quickly collected by the Covenant when the Alliance had backed off from the initial confrontations.

Stringy, to say the least, long appendages and skin as befit an annelid, they were obviously derived from worms, and only now had the Alliance or Council seen one alive.

Proceeded by a processing of red and gold Elites, the gravity chair slowly made its way toward Karonee. Usze had stayed vigilant, patting the shoulders of two of his men to follow behind the Honor Guard.

Destiny's name was right. If this was his course in life all he could do was take it with stride, a smile on his face as he came besides Karonee and the two walked forward to the center of that dead space. With the feeling in her gut Karonee had felt at least twenty guns on her, however there was nothing she could do as her boot clinked against the metal floor and walked, slowly, to the middle.

Asari up front, Human directly by her side, while the Salarian and Turian representative had the flanks. There was an order to that, a reason. Whatever silent prayers to Gods, Goddesses, or Spirits existed, it came and went as Benezia took in her own breath, closed her eyes, and then wiped her face with a serene look.

With her step forward, they followed.

Only then did a black stick figure of a mystery also come forth from the Phantoms. It was Destiny's prelate, hovering the very back of the Covenant procession as, finally, peacefully and officially, the groups made contact with each other face to face.

Destiny had started first before the awkwardness of who went first sent in. He too had been trained as a Prophet to delegate such things.

"I understand that you have translated the language of the Elites, but you will have no difficulty with me. I know the language of humanity well enough." To see an alien speak pure human, it still kept Shaw off guard in a way that his omni-tool translator could not cover for. The alien spoke warmly, with open hands and arms. "I am the Prophet of Destiny, and I represent here the Covenant. Holy and righteous."

This was how it would've been, years ago, on Harvest. If Truth, Regret, and Mercy had not held onto that secret of humanity being the chosen of the Forerunners, if the Librarian's wish did not go against the Covenant power as it were, then now, here, was how the UNSC might've met the Covenant. It was a secret that Destiny heard in rumors and whispers. He was devout however for the most faithful reason. Not for power, or, at least, power that went contrary to the Great Journey.

That was the privilege Captain Bernard Shaw, General Vera Tailus, Matriarch Benezia, and Admiral Sirixo had entertained.

Arterius looked down from the balcony, and, for once in his life, he had to stomach being next to humans as they all stood equal and in awe of this event.

There was no need for individual introductions to each species. That was the reason for the Covenant. They were all Covenant.

Karonee had dipped her head respectfully, her half cape flowing as she moved her shoulders. "I am Fleetmaster Seylu Karonee of the Fleet of Shaded Justice, Shipmistress of the Blood of Union and now A Long Night of Solace."

Shaw had nodded at her back. "As we hear from the transmissions." He held out his hand, and, for the second time that day, a handshake was offered to a Sangheili. Karonee however knew what it meant, so she had returned it, not taking his hand, but rather his forearm in a deep hold. He had returned it as the entire hanger held their breath as, for the first time in her life, Karonee touched a human and did not proceed to kill them. "My name is Bernard Shaw. I am a Captain of the Systems Alliance, on behalf of humanity."

Soft, as always, she observed. She was smaller than most Sangheili, but still larger than most humans. If anything she was the size of one of their Demons.

Matriarch Benezia still had that graceful face on her, her hand also gingerly held out, this time to the so-called Prophet. "I am Matriarch Benezia, an Asari from our Republic. With me are General Vera Tailus of the Turian Hierarchy, and Admiral Han Sirixo of the Salarian Union." She gestured to each as lightly the Prophet took her hand and squeezed. Perhaps, if this alien conglomerate had been more… alien, more unknown, Benezia might've melded right then and there with the Prophet.

There was a danger in knowing however. In secrets not learned one way, and instead taken by another. Not every secret in the galaxy could've been ripped from the mind by embracing eternity, and perhaps that was for the best.

She would know that more than anything. Only Saren, looking down upon her knew better at that moment. The secret they carried within them now, together, had, only now been momentarily cast asides as something almost equally as… intriguing as their own dark deeds recently had come about.

The Galaxy got on just well enough without their conspiracies, and this happening was all that they needed to remember that.

"I take it all of you are held together then by your own… agreements?" Destiny rose a ridge above his eye.

"Ah yes. For all of us here but the humans, we represent the Citadel Council: a governing body whose goal is cooperation throughout the stars. Even then humanity is acquainted with us and work hand in hand with us."

She thought Destiny had smiled. "Admirable. The Covenant exists in perhaps the same manner, except our goal is far more… direct."

Arterius had glowered as he heard those words echo through the space, dead silent but for them. Malevolence he felt just by the air of his words. Whoever this Prophet was, he knew to preach, and to speak before God, for God, always had its failures. He had clicked his comm device twice, sending a signal to General Tailus to move it along. If there was a firefight there then at least the VIPs should've been out of the way.

Tailus had immediately dispensed with the pleasantries. "If we may. Let's move to our designated diplomatic accommodations. A hanger is no place for us to be… acquainted at."

Karonee turned around, spying Usze. The two had shared a knowing nod. He was in charge of all of their safety and he had the prerequisite. Even the Honor Guard respected him, despite his choice to not be one of them.

"We would be accompanied by our escort detail?" Karonee made a point.

Tailus soured, but he had no choice. "Within reason." He sent three clicks back with his comm device subtly. To Saren it simply meant observe and contain.

The Spectre was more than comfortable to just sit and stare at the menagerie as one the procession of VIPs moved into the ship through a line of at arms Marines, inward to the ship. Six Honor Gaurds and Usze had followed with two men, Nazhumee one of them.

The Honor Guards had been as regal as ever, their vibrant armor and scaled helmets pulsating glass. Their spears and staves all ready to be used at a moment's notice to swipe out at the Marines that were so, so very close to them. They had no problem being that close to humans. The problem they had was they keeping the urge to kill them in check.

They all had memories, individually of going through human corridors, killing any who had looked human without resistance in the light of their skills. Mission details however, at that very instance, had dictated their behavior by the skin of their teeth.

---

Ready rooms on Hackett's flagship had been spacious to say the least. Initially Alliance engineers had been so concerned with simply making a dreadnaught sized ship they hadn't been too concerned about what was within it. Hackett would've been there to personally comment on it to Destiny as his gravity chair had, unfortunately, not been able to fit through the door way to that ready room, but somehow something more important than first contact had come about and caused him to find his way on an Alliance training vessel.

Shaw could handle it however as he opened the room and several diplomats were already there. He recognized some of them from Udina's affairs, and from Shastri's office, however there had been two he hadn't: A man with a cleft on his lips and one who wore sunglasses indoors. They rose to attention as soon as the procession came in.

"Oh pay no heed to that. I am more than capable of walking myself." Destiny had touched the arms of two of his guards to stand by of the gravity chair as he dismounted, an notable hunch in his back as seen in most Prophets at even his age. The Prelate too had stayed with the chair. To walk was not something he did lightly. To those unacquainted with Destiny it might've been as if he was a homely, wise, elder of sorts. He was young for a Prophet, but for the rest of them he had been seventy.

"Are… are you sole representative for the Covenant? Prophet of Destiny?" The head human diplomatic aide to Shaw had spoken aloud, making sure seating arrangements were in order.

There were human, Asari, Turian, and Salarian guards in every corner of the room, and with the arrival of the Covenant guards they all had to stand uncomfortably shoulder to shoulder. It was a bonding experience to say the least, for those soldiers who had weathered a first contact war before.

The staves of the Honor Guard had been as straight as them.

Destiny looked to Karonee, shaking his head. "Shipmistress Karonee shall also be representative, especially in the military sense."

The human diplomat nodded as a chair was brought to her.

Human chairs had barely fit her, but she did relent as one by one the diplomats and representatives found their place at the table and sat. Unsurprisingly, mostly human given the territory, but those with the most weight had been the Council.

Shaw had sat directly across from Destiny, the table round, he flanked by General Tailus and the Council to his right, and Sunglasses and Cleft-Lip to his left.

Chairs rolled in, hands and arms moved to a comfortable place. Cameras were on somewhere as the image of a proper first contact was had.

Destiny was even smiling, Karonee folding her hands on the table politely.

Just to get dialog going again, Shaw had started.

"As started before, I am Captain Bernard Shaw of the Systems Alliance, and I have been chosen to be representative of humanity here today. I am joined by the honorable General Tailus, the honorable Matriarch Benezia, and the honorable Admiral Sirixo."

Hidden beneath the clothes of the Matriarch had been a transmitter beamed directly into Arterius's head, the man outside with his guard procession, more intent on listening than attending.

"On behalf of the Covenant," Destiny held a hand to his chest. "We are gracious for your civility, especially given our… rocky, starts. You must understand our people were scared and… unaware of your intentions upon our first contact with you."

A divide existed that went further than aluminum and glass. There were two layers of knowledge in that room: those who knew, and those who would know. That barrier was about to be broken down at some point.

Cleft Lip and Sunglasses alone had knowledge in that room among the humans and the Council. They had interviewed the Spartan and the OODST, and knew what the Covenant could do. Shaw hadn't been briefed, and the two intelligence operations were sure, sure as shit, that even the Salarians had any intel form them about it. It was the reason they stayed quiet, wariness in their breaths as they let the appointed talk. They were just here to observe.

"Regrettable, surely," Benezia had started in her motherly voice. "But here we are despite this, and we are glad that you are."

Karonee nodded in concert. "We also appreciate you returning our dead, and we would do the same for you with any we acquire without our current territory."

Territory. Tailus noted the word. It meant it was there's now. His mandibles grinded against his plates as he crossed his arms. "Your ability in ground warfare is… noted, and your honor also so."

Karonee had gone to speak, but Destiny raised his hand to speak for her. "The Sangheili, or Elites, are very much known for their honor. They are the warrior hearts of our Covenant."

Benezia understood. "Ah. Just as the Turians are for the Council."

Connection. Asari understood what that was more than anyone.

"Still," Tailus continued. "Surely you must noticed that battle lines have been drawn at the moment that deny us movement in those zones. Would you not let our people in so that we may collect any dead ourselves? So that we shall feel… safe?"

Karonee was allowed to speak again. "We would feel, uncomfortable, admittedly, General."

That was all she said, which was a polite no. Tailus heard it. "But are you aware that by claiming this as territory it is, in a sense, an aggressive modus operandi on land that is not your own?"

Shaw spoke up. "Excuse me, General Tailus. I am flattered the Turians have a vested interest in human sovereignty on its colonies, however given the circumstances I believe safe spaces are what we all need right now in light of this… shall I call it disaster? That has grounded your ship."

Shaw lost three men. Three Marines to the Covenant. He knew it demeaned him to speak as he did for the sake of civility, however humanity knowing the bigger picture had been abundantly clear ever since the First Contact War.

"It is, a long story, surely. One you might not understand, but alas we are grateful to have ended up here. I'm sure you humans have understood now by what our… circumstances are."

The three representatives of the Council had turned slightly to look at Shaw.

Cleft-Lip and Sunglasses held their breath. They could say nothing.

"I-" Shaw truly didn't understand. "I don't believe I follow, Prophet of Destiny."

"Ah. I see. Is it not odd then, that we have picked up radio transmissions that designate that we Covenant are very familiar with the human race?" Indeed this was something all of them noticed. Council, Covenant, and Alliance. "We have our own explanation of course, given you humans are not, in turn, familiar."

Karonee crossed her own arms, wary of the Turian. She recognized a soldier when in the presence of one. "By what manner do your ships propel or create energy? Our scanners indicate…" she remembered the briefing by her Engineers via their handlers. "An unidentified element perpetrates through nearly all forms of equipment as deployed by all of you, one that, if in play, effects mass readings."

Sirixio had finally spoken. "Element Zero. It's, when subjected to an electrical current, releases dark energy which can be manipulated into a mass effecting field, raising or lowering the mass of all objects within that field. As you can understand this has huge ramifications in space flight."

The very fact that he was explaining this was taken with great shock, great awe. It meant that-

"Ah. Our propulsion and space flight technology are without such material. Ours, at least, outside of FTL, is more… conventional perhaps?"

"You are… without element zero?" Benezia seemed confused. "The entire galaxy is exposed to it. To mean you are unaware, or even untouched by it would mean… you do not originate… in this galaxy?"

She went along that thought process. Element zero was present in all of the known universe. She needed to think bigger.

"It's impossible-" Shaw had regretted using that word, but continued, "to achieve meaningful FTL and spaceflight without Eezo. How-?"

"FTL is then a concept we are both acquainted with." Karonee was delegated to talk of the more pragmatic subjects. "Our FTL is, how you say… intermingled with matters of space and time. Dimensional even."

Cleft-Lip and Sunglasses remembered when they had recounted how the FTL of the Covenant and the UNSC worked. Its ramifications were large enough to throw the entire galaxy on its head.

"Dimensional?" Talius dug deeper. No mention of the Gates had piqued him. "What do you mean?"

"Our FTL, gifted upon us by our Forerunners," Destiny began to speak with his holy reverie. "Uses dimensional understandings and gaps so that we may cross large distances of space in fractions of the time. We cut into the fabric of reality and go as far as our drives can take us. Anywhere."

"Without… without prepositioning or paths?" For Benezia, this meant more than the tactical response derived from how Tailus salivated. Without the Relays, expansion, or attacks, could come from anywhere.

"Indeed." Destiny affirmed.

Karonee had recounted a very basic summary of how they ended up here. "Know that we may not be from this universe due to… accidents in regarding our FTL methods."

Shaw ruined another seat with his sweat as that revelation hit everyone in that room hard. The Covenant came from another dimension. Another reality. Another universe. Whatever it meant their rules of physics were different. They were different fundamentally.

The full breadth of such revelation could not be taken in one shock, like a punch. Its full effect could be felt only in time.

"Such knowledge would be… dangerous, given our own FTL methods-" Tailus was still hung up on the idea of Slipspace however, cut off by the Salarian Admiral.

"There is much to learn, to decipher, and to understand surely, but that is not the purpose of this meeting." Sirixo said fast. "This meeting is to declare that we would pursue such efforts."

"Which is of course, a denunciation of any hostilities and alternative recourse." Tailus pointed, one of his talons tapping once on the glass table.

"Would you agree, then, to a joint statement, declaring such? The extent of those processes and what we will learn from each other will be discussed, surely, however now it's important to establish that civility between this… galaxy, and the Covenant. We hope to do this in good faith, and for you to also respond as such." Shaw had made his case as he tried his best to hold in a breath too big for him to handle. Indeed, the Galaxy held in a breath at that room.

There was no need for conference for Karonee and Destiny. They came here with a goal: an assurance that they wouldn't be blasted out of the sky and Ocean. This was exactly what they needed. For all the politicians, diplomats, and representatives there, ready for a verbal and delegative fight. There was not one.

Destiny went, one better.

"Of course." The entire procession breathed a sigh of relief. "And to start, before we do such things, I would transfer to you data about each species we have in the Covenant. Biographical and biological."

Karonee had smirked inwardly. She had seen said packet before. It was highly doctored to remove any such mention of the human purification, but still it was needed to get across. It would be better for such information to be delivered instead of extracted.

The Salarian seemed almost estatic, thrilled. "Oh my."

Destiny could only smile back. "There is much to do! Much to do indeed. So please, how may we make this statement to declare our intent?"

The only hint that this was going better than expected came from the roundabout look that Shaw gave to his fellow diplomats. It was going better than expected and, as he stood, arms in the air, "Okay then, follow me. This ship has a press conference room."

"Splendid." Destiny replied in turn.

Everyone but two men had left that room. Sunglasses and Cleft-Lip, waiting for something promised. They had data on the Covenant, and getting information from them directly, they needed to compare instead of observe.

The information packet had been received tense minute later, and Sunglasses dipped his shades down, revealing his eyes. Within his irises had been circuitry, blue as electricity itself. The Elites had been the species he had been most interested as per the Spartan's testimony, and it was theirs that he combed over as fast as he could before finding a galactic map placing the location of the Elite homeworld. Surprising that this would be included, of all things.

Cleft Lip had frowned as he looked at the supposed coordinates of Sangheilios. The Milky Way, the stars above, the Covenant shared them with where they were now. They understood the stars perhaps better than them, and that meant, that naturally, the stars did align. There was ever, only, one planet that matched the description of Sangheilios and its general location in the galaxy. The coordinates buried it in a place in the galaxy long relegated as lost.

"Oscar," Cleft Lip started, Sunglasses looking up from the data pad. "Do we have communications with the Migrant Fleet?"

---

One shift each. Six hour sleep for the both of them. It led them through the night and into the next day. It was JD that had gotten the tail end of the forty winks as he had blinked himself awake, sleeping on top of sheets, looking up at an unfamiliar ceiling.

It was a trade: sleep for surveillance. They ran their shifts and saw, not any intruders or those that would do them harm while4 they had their guard down, but they saw each other.

Their faces frowned and twitched in their sleep, both of them plagued by the war that had been yesterday. The dead were lucky, said an ODST once to JD. They never had to deal with the dreams, the nightmares, that were the only distraction from a horrible war. He was an easy sleeper ever since he joined the Corps, and he was thankful for it. Anytime, anywhere, he could plop himself down and sleep. It came with a trade off however as Mai silently observed:

Every once and a while, just to remind him, he had a dream. He dreamt of battlefields he had gone before, battles lost, comrades dead. He was there, again, on the field with an M7S in his hand charging against some enemy or objective that would surely kill fifty men before it could be tackled. It changed every time, it always snuck up on him, but when it came to him he always knew he had dropped into a nightmare.

He saw it: Men swallowed alive in plasma explosions, soldiers sinking into dirt or quick sand or a sea of bodies reaching their hands out screaming to him.

"Help me!"

They all pleaded for their lives.

JD would've. He would've.

But his hands became heavy, his legs never moving, the battlefield around him disregarding him as he bore witness to men and women around him cry out to him for help, but he being unable to do anything.

The dreams never ended abruptly or with a snap. They took him into the black as, every single time, he remembered that the reason he had those dreams were abundantly clear: He was always the survivor, the lone man who, perhaps, could've done something.

JD had been haunted by what had been done to him.

Mai had been haunted by what she had done.

He had never seen someone's hands and arms move so much as her body rolled, her eyes behind her lids scattering everywhere as if she was still in the middle of a fight.

She dreamt of the knife twisting into human flesh for eternity. She dreamt of a Covenant Elite who, no matter how much she tore apart, stabbed, shot, and beat, it would never die. She dreamt of the kill, and nothing else, and when, every time, she realized that was what her life had been resigned to, she woke up.

"You okay there, Marine?"

He heard her voice as he sat up in bed. He moved his head right, and she had still sat in that corner, keeping the door in her vision. Her hands had been tucked into her arms, crossed over herself, the realization that there truly was nothing there coming to harm them creating an emotion on her face like that of a moon in a starless sky.

He shook his head yes, moving the spit in his mouth, getting rid of the cotton feeling as he reaffirmed where he was: A hotel room, on Earth, a universe away from home.

"We were displaced by a Slipspace anomaly, placing us in another reality, and we are now in the hands of an Earth government called the Systems Alliance." She said those words aloud, as if for no reason. "Is that it? Is that truly what has happened to us?"

A hard pill to swallow that only the processing of sleep could let them take.

The blinds were closed, and he had made a grab at them, letting the natural light of a town at (he glanced at the clock built into his omni-tool) mid-day. Mai had wanted to advise him that, maybe, there were Jackal snipers maybe about to take his head off. She reeled back however. It simply wasn't true. They were impulses however she could barely ignore.

Out distantly JD could see past the modern, urban development of steel buildings and glass had been the mist kicked up by a tourist destination he knew of: Niagara Falls. Couldn't see the falls, but saw what it kicked up in the distance, the moisture getting kicked around by the System Alliance's form of shuttle. It looked like any other busy day in a smaller metropolis. He never spent much time in such cities. That is, he hadn't spent much time in cities that hadn't been in the middle of being glassed or invaded.

"Played around with the omni-tool. Apparently, we're wired into some sort of Systems Alliance Expenditures Account. These things act as our ID and payment method apparently."

Good ole service allowances. JD had, for a moment, soured at the thought he had left so much extra cash in his account. The last he remembered in his will, if he were to die any of his possessions would go to half-way homes for kids whose parents had been locked up or otherwise missing, so he hadn't minded what would happen to the funds. It wasn't as if he used it anyway. He lived simply.

"Did you…" He wondered where this conversation was going to go as he let the sunlight warm him. This was his first time underneath the sun on Earth and he had wanted to feel it, opening up the glass door to the balcony, but not stepping out. "Did you receive a pay as a Spartan?"

Her face went blank, staring unknowingly beyond the hotel room, into her own deep knowledge of her own affairs.

"I was never concerned with money." She answered truthfully. It wasn't the answer he was looking for.

"Wasn't what I was asking." JD said back, and she understood. The UNSC, ONI, the Spartan Program, surely that they had cost their members a great deal. What did they do in return? A formality of pay at least, he thought, but apparently not.

"I don't know." She answered back. With the idea of money considering he could only remember the obnoxious mark up for hotel food. They both needed to eat eventually, to get ready to fulfill Anderson's orders. Better get started than let it come out of necessity.

"Well, I'd rather we go out to eat now that we're both up. Or at least, I dunno, hit up some bodega and grab some food so we can, I dunno, lock ourselves in here and get reading."

"Bodega?"

To be fair even some of his other ODSTs hadn't known that word. The cities of Luna often drew from New York City in a way. Then again JD hadn't talked much, if at all to them casually. "Convivence store, I mean."

"Ah." She breathed before looking down at her feet. She hadn't removed her boots even as she slept, always ready to move at a moment's notice. "Hey."

"Yeah?"

"Can you-" She had trouble putting this into words. "Could you… assist me in-"

JD rose an eyebrow, lifting himself off the bed, his muscles and bones creaking, unused to sleeping on a proper bed. It was certainly a nice experience to say the least. He hadn't tried to complete her sentence, guide her, it wasn't his place he thought. What that meant however she struggled.

"It's been a while since I've… walked the streets in this manner."

Even that sounded contrived. He didn't know however; didn't know the life she was denied. Any oddity in her interactions with people he had summed up as simply an effect of the war: of forgetting how to deal with other people in lieu of surviving the Covenant. He understood that very much. He had spoken more in the last few days than he had in a year, but however he was so painfully wrong.

She wanted to somehow explain to him that, yes, she had never been a civilian per se. That the UNSC had taken advantage of her at a period in her life where she was supposed to know how to buy groceries or start forming adult relationships.

Who could've faulted her though?

How easy was it admit that you were broken, incomplete to not only yourself, but to another person?

How easy was it to admit when that particular information was top secret?

A matter for later as JD understood enough that she was asking for help in some way, going for the hotel door himself, opening it a crack and seeing, neatly, a green and grey square of folded clothing, tossing it over to Mai. She caught it without realizing she did.

"I rung up house service while you were out. Got you something a little more useful then sweat pants and a hoodie."

It was just a BDU's underlay. Not unlike the green layer JD had beneath his ODST armor. A little more utilitarian, rugged, than usual casual clothes, combat pants and a shirt with it, but it was wearable out and about in an area with a military facility in it. If anything, it was something she would be comfortable wearing he thought.

"Save that current outfit for sleep anyway. I think the hotel staff will handle laundry? I don't know."

Mai had her hands already on the folds of clothes and, again, without pause, her clothes had been off. Standard issue underwear had been hiding her for the most part this time around, though still, JD had looked away after he realized what she had done again. Every time however he gathered something new about her body:

Faded scars, along her wrists, her spine, her neck, as if she had been once exhumed and came out of it. JD had seen scars before, seen the wounds that make them, but seeing hers there was a pang of worry in his heart. What had the UNSC done to her?

Haphazardly she folded her discarded clothes, the t-shirt she wore unable to hide the scars.

JD had slid off his flannel to her, offering. She didn't understand however.

"Why would I?"

One of his fingers traced along his own veins, and Mai, perhaps for the first time in a while, had seen what he was referring to. She hadn't exactly remembered the last time she had been out of her tech suit for long enough to concentrate on what was beneath it. He could see his point: People would've stared.

She took his flannel, a dull red and grey squared affair. Tight, but it fit. She didn't look that bad, and the jeans and white shirt for him was lazily fashionable hopefully. The presumed TV screen which had been ingrained into the wall was black, off, but still reflective on its matte. The dull image of himself had been odd: He didn't look like a Marine. He looked like his father on weekends.

He would always be a Marine though, regardless of his impromptu posting as a Navy Chief.

That was true as he had made the hand signal for her to rally on him, albeit only with his hand and not with his arm.

If he had been told a week ago that he'd be, somehow, leading a Spartan, he would've very much dismissed the notion.

Then again everything about the last few days had been out there, logically.

He had half expected when he went to sleep that he would've woken back up on the Savannah for another drop on some place on Reach currently under siege by the Covenant. That hadn't happened however and so all he could do was take in a breath and hope that this reality could be kinder to him.

More importantly, he thought, perhaps more kind to her.

She had moved closer to him, enough that he had to look promptly up to look at her face and to see if she was going to follow him. Her face was hollow with emotion, none there, her eyes stealing his own gaze with just how their color seemed so electric it was impossible.

"Would you rather stay? I can go out myself and get what we need?"

Her face contorted again as if she fought a battle within herself in that millisecond. "No." She said promptly. "I want to go with you."

'I need to get used to this' It sounded more like to both of them.

In truth that was what JD had intended to do as well. This wasn't a quick stop to the ship's commissary for some melatonin when his mind screamed at him for sleep but his body wouldn't allow. This was just what he would've done if he were a civilian again, and one day would be, and had been too lazy to go grocery shopping.

It almost felt like they had been prepping for a drop themselves as they looked to the door. That was the pressure building in their minds as they were to embark on something so benign as a food run. It would be a step toward accepting that, maybe, just maybe, they truly were freed from the war and whatever that meant.

That door represented more than an exit to that room. It represented the way to the rest of their lives.

JD's right hand rose up in a first, looking at her again.

She nodded back, her own fist risen.

One pump, two pump, three pump.

Rock beats scissors.

The ODST looked dismayed when he lost, but Mai knew better. He had deserved at least two out of three.

Rock still beat scissors however. Twice.

She had tilted her head at him. "Really?" She wanted to tell him.

He shrugged. Paper could be played another day, and it meant that Mai was on point. It was a little less painful stepping into the hall this time.

---

After asking the attendants at the lobby, the nearest convenience store was just down the street.

New Buffalo had expanded quite a bit from Buffalo, up to Niagara Falls even. It meant a healthy pipeline of tourists to the economy and, promptly, a fair enough domestic trading post between the former independent Canadian states and the United States. The history of Earth was something they had to consider, to know, if there had been any ethical or theological differences that Mai and JD would have to take into consideration. If, for example, this humanity had turned into a group of functional cannibals, there would be a problem.

As far as they could tell though the democratic, utopian like ideals of the UEG brought by space flight was the same here with the Systems Alliance.

That much was abundantly clear when they emerged out into the street in front of the hotel to a busy foyer and entrance, sky cars being cycled out from guests leaving or arriving, chauffeurs and attendants bringing luggage and guests in as JD and Mai walked out to the cool air.

"Thank you for your service!" They heard softly from a older woman they passed, chasing, slowly, after presumably, her grandson in his own dress blues as their family entered the hotel.

JD's dog tags could be seen through his white shirt, and Mai had dressed obviously military like.

The lady meant well, but there was a hint of uncomfortableness that shrunk the two of them as they were bestowed with that comment. As a Spartan, Mai needed no thanks especially. As an ODST that, more often than not, was meant to die behind enemy lines, to be thanked for that service felt… unneeded.

They brushed it off eventually as they found the sidewalk out of the hotel, following the street as their eyes began to unconsciously scan the rooftops, the windows (open ones especially), looking down alley ways and placed they could find cover in or at. JD had caught himself doing it, frowning as he walked. That was how his mind had been now programmed as they brushed past civilians who had not yet known what a war in their species was like.

For a flash, he hated himself for it. It wasn't normal.

Mai found nothing wrong with it. If anything it comforted her to know that she had enough tactical options if, for some reason, a Hunter had burst out of a sewer drain.

The only thing she realized when they had almost gotten to the corner down the street was that this was, indeed, her first time, her first taste, of being an adult outside of military activity. There was nothing military about what they were doing. Nothing about how she always had an itch to twist her head around and check her six, or how she hugged the buildings closer than JD even if it disrupted the flow of foot traffic.

She was a giant, comparatively, anyway. No one would get in her way.

She wondered, in the portion of her mind so unused she had doubted it existed, if this was what she would've been like if the Covenant War had been won, back in their universe. What would've been done to her?

She gaffed at it however. She doubted she would've lived as long to see the end of the war. And besides, she knew, she felt in her heart, the Insurrection would always return in some way or another, and there would always be a need for her.

It was comfortable to think that, as a weapon, she would always find use.

It was purpose that only the luckiest to live life would hardly ever know.

It was drifting away like sand through a sieve as she saw the windowed buildings she was basically hugging in their walk give way to a corner store:

"Indian-Hispanic Grocery!" It exclaimed on its shaded windows. "Best Chopped Cheese and Buffalo Chicken Bites at our price!"

'The hell is a Chopped Cheese?' A question she never thought would cross her mind as JD, for some reason, understood and figured it was too early for such a thing.

"I'll stick by the door."

I'll take up security.

Her words always had different meaning as she struggled to tear away from military rhetoric. JD knew better the intricacies of talk and words. Words meanings always could change based on their circumstance, and more often than not, was the reason why his father could deduct so much from an off hand comment that literally saved lives.

'No need.' He mouthed as they entered the bodega. She stayed by the door anyway and, for a moment, he thought that whoever employees were inside of this small store might've interpreted this as a stick up.

An ethnic man had been, lazily, at the counter, a cup of coffee he had made for himself from a machine in the store barely steaming. He looked up from his omni-tool, some crude viral video being displayed on it as he smiled simply at JD and Mai, acknowledging their presence before returning to his vid.

Mai certainly wasn't going to be the one to start going through that rustic looking store for food, so, with a hardened sigh, JD had gone onto it and the meek handful of aisles and adorned shelved walls and freezers the store offered.

It was a simple matter of not knowing what the hell branding any of it was. He recognized none of it initially as he walked up and down, the realization that he might not recognize anything internally scaring him straight and awake.

Words like, dextro-amino, levo had been plastered on some stickers of things that looked like sliced meat, and, vaguely, the food items he had been familiar with had been still around though labeled oddly at first glance. Bottles of seemingly goo-like sustenance packages along with vegetables infused with words he had barely recognized, 100% GMO promises clashing with "grown in zero-g" or being sourced from planets he didn't know. His mind had played tricks on him, finding what was unfamiliar first, a vague panic attack on the verge of taking him as he felt the sweat on his face.

Simple food, he told himself, simple food. Peanut butter and jelly. Need bread.

'None of that chocolate spread. It'll make you fat, and you were a fat baby already.' He heard Mom in his head chastise a younger him for basically lathering a piece of toast with desert.

He wished his Mom was here now. It was an odd thought that seized him as his body moved on auto-pilot, as if his mother was guiding his body. He hadn't thought of his parents, of Mom, like that for a while, and especially when he had been scared out of his mind because of the war at times, on battlefields where he was sure that he was going to die at.

It made sense though vaguely, he never grocery shopped alone before. She always handled it. Perhaps that was why he had thanked his mother in heaven when he found himself back in the bread aisle and something directly in front of his vision, eye height.

It was a beacon of hope that was summed up in the saying that the more things did change, the more some stayed the same: Wonder Bread. A loaf, packaged in plastic, just like it had been for, to him, the last five hundred years. He had almost wanted to cheer when he recognized it before, again, the existential question came:

How much history had they shared with the Systems Alliance?

A question he hadn't given time to think as he started to recognize the brands and, each time, a victory was given to him:

Skippys! Smuckers! Cheerios! Pop-Tarts! He looked over to the refrigerator: Coca-cola and Monster! Pizza-Rolls!

Each name he recognized was a relief. The branding might've been different, fonts and colors, but the item was the same.

With almost too much pride he had arrived at the counter, an armful of bread loaves, peanut butter and jelly jars, and packaged slice meat. Not even a shopping basket. To feel those familiar items against him was nice and he was sure if he were to admit that to anyone he would be in the loony bin as soon as possible.

"This all?" The cashier asked as he turned off his omni-tool's video player, only to swipe the device over each product.

The ODST went to say yes, but a flash of color, harsh, but also familiar had appeared on a box hardly the size of a wallet behind the cashier. Behind a glass cabinet alongside similar objects that one needed to ask for.

Marlboro Reds. Same as they always were. He hadn't been a smoker by want, but rather by need. It wasn't the tobacco dependency as much as it had been the cigarette's ability to keep him awake during choice moments in the war, when his body just wanted to drag him screaming to the black. Either way he smoked, and he saw the benefits of something familiar to be in between his lips.

"Can I have the Reds?"

"Yeah, sure. New in town?" The Indian clerk had asked. JD could only nod as he passed the box of cigarettes over the counter first. The food came after.

"Something like that."

The clerk had rung up his device on his end, and the omni-tool on JD's arm had rung and vibrated for but a moment. The man had seized up for a moment, not expecting it. He had immediately ascertained it to be something benign and normal, but the guise of being used to such a sensation had faltered beneath an uneasy smile he gave the concerned looking clerk. JD mused that, perhaps, he looked like some doped out junkie with his flannel and bed head and shakes.

"Coffee really hitting ya, huh?" Fortunately, the clerk hadn't seen it that way as JD shot a look at Mai, she herself making a mental note that the omni-tool would do such a thing when processing a purchase. It didn't help that the clerk tilted his head at his device, the ODST immediately fearing he did something wrong. It wasn't that however. "I see you're servicemembers. Are you staying at the hotel by the station?"

JD bobbed his head.

"May I have these sent to your room?"

"Uh, yeah. That'd be nice." He caught the cigarettes first however, safely in his hands. "Room 613."

"Got it, it'll be there when you get back. Have a nice day."

"You too." It was odd to simply leave the groceries he had just bought, but he had taken the man's word for it as they both exited the building and back to the street. What had been five minutes felt an hour, and breaths they both held unknowingly were let go as if they were being tested.

To be around so much food, Mai was almost overwhelmed. On one hand her senses of just bare food filled her nose that even a UNSC mess hall couldn't. Foods that hadn't been military standard had often been prized among Marines, and she smelled so much candy, so much snacks, it had almost overwhelmed her.

There was another bit to her however, one that made her swipe the sleeve of JD's flannel over her forehead and seeing an uncomfortable amount of wetness on it. Once, long ago, she never had enough to eat. Despite the efforts of her own mother, they couldn't afford food from even a convenience store. This was once a wealth and luxury that a Mai before her Spartan life couldn't imagine and was outright denied.

Remembering that had iced her heart in a way she hadn't felt in years, when she was new to the armor, to her role, and still holding onto what she once was.

A wrapper was ripped open and the smell of tobacco had filled her nose as she turned over to JD and saw him open up a pack of cigarettes.

"You smoke?" There was a hint of disapproval in her voice.

He did, as was why his body naturally moved as if he was going to reach for a lighter in his pocket, realizing that he hadn't, leaving him with an unlit cigarette in his mouth. "Mhmm." He grunted, aggravation grinding his quiet voice. "I don't think smoker's lung will be the thing that'll get me, Mai."

He only knew the word cancer because of his recent medical training. Cancer had been some archaic disease that had been mostly eradicated by the 2500s, and the genome for it to exist at all had more or less disappeared, which, by all means, meant that JD was safe to smoke for what benefits tobacco had at the risk of tar.

What otherwise he was implying, and meant more likely, that he was to be most likely killed by an alien, not an illness.

She didn't know of any Spartans who smoked. None from the IIIs, or the IIs.

A handful of times she had worked with IIs, them unaware of her, either because she hadn't been seen by them, or because they had only assumed she was a II they hadn't been particularly close to.

She didn't see why a Spartan would, smoking disrespecting the body, and the body of a Spartan's, or even any servicemember's while active, was not their own. It was that of their military. Even then she could only assume what a Spartan would be like if they smoked. Too strong were the impulses of tobacco and the taste of smoke that it might've overwhelmed them and their own "improved" senses.

That alone she had felt as she smelled the secondhand from JD as he puffed his first puffs.

"I-" He paused. He didn't know why he was telling her this. "I usually don't smoke before eating something but-"

She nodded at him before he finished. It's been a long few days.

Civilian foot traffic around them had been, unnerving at first. As usual people had taken a look at Mai for one reason or another, either for a look in one sense, or a look in awe of a woman who had appeared so built, so tall, that it defied feminine notions. She hadn't noticed such lookers, she never had known of it, never cared, but in any eventuality the presence of crowds of people and their talk and just simple existence had been weathered as they stood there outside of that bodega.

"Could go for brunch." Another word she didn't recognize. He had recognized the face on her when she had a question. "…You know, lunch and breakfast. Brunch?"

She bared her teeth, almost in a frown as her arms drew around herself again, crossing, shrinking herself almost. "And, it could, you know, give us a lay of the place. We are going to be here for two weeks."

Observe our battle space. Find contingencies. Account for what ifs.

Her gaze softened. That she could agree to as she opened up her own omni-tool. She was also busy while JD slept, revealing a map and opening, JD mirroring the steps she had used to open up that app. "Diner, three hundred yards north east, back past the hotel."

It was an odd way to say "there's a place here we could go" but he understood, pocketing his cigs, leaving one in his mouth as he led the way.

They walked in silence, obviously together, but uncomfortably so, strangers in their own skin as they contested with average people going about their day and dressing so very differently than the civilians they knew. The outfits in popularity fit tighter, more hugging of the figure and, ironically, futuristic than those JD recognized.

Given that certain brands still existed he wondered if the designers of clothes here had existed back home, and that simply the luck of the draw had made them be popular over those who he knew had been.

Then again, they were several hundred years in the past.

That mystery would be for later. Now they just needed to eat as they entered a down and dirty diner, JD done with his cigarette and discarding it before entering. "Preserved from the 2050s! In the style of the 1930s!" A sign on its glass read.

Red and whites, bar stools and leather seats and booths.

Paper hats and the smell of grease. It was just after lunch. Enough of a crowd left over from that rush, but enough for it to be comfortably occupied. Not too full or empty. At least for there to be two open bar stools at that diner's main counter, a grill and staff behind it.

"What can I get ya darlings?" A woman about forty years too old and three different accents away from saying that without drawing some sort of odd reaction to first-timers had greeted them. She meant it purely however, with a smile, her apron with stains, smelling of coffee and bacon. She slid two tablets their way: a digital menu offered.

Prices. Mai had seized again for a moment. Fortunately credits had been, at least name wise, the same for the Alliance as it had been for the UNSC, and JD at least had the knowledge that twelve credits (or 11.99 credits) of bacon, eggs, and toast was about what he expected in a tourist destination in a clearly novelty diner. For Mai however, it was all so- so… expensive. So expensive it stole the air from her lungs. She wouldn't know prices. She never had to buy anything in her life as a Spartan, and before she had become one, a two-credit soda was a treat she could only have a month.

That is if they were lucky.

It felt irresponsible to buy this it felt to her. It felt wrong. She felt ashamed as she looked at the big, juicy, twenty-eight-credit steak, eggs and poutine meal and, maybe, just maybe, she would buy that. It fit about half her regular caloric intake for the day, but she never seen food with a price label next to it before.

For twenty-eight credits, in another life, her and her mother wouldn't have gone hungry for an entire month if they were smart and the food bank was kind and the store owners who would let vagrants like them in would allow them to buy and-

These were the questions that she was to face now. It hit her hard. More like it would come and, for that moment as she looked at a order, she had the asinine thought of ordering up a battle and a pistol and to see if she could fight instead of eat.

Silently, and even with her misgivings, she had tapped the steak meal and the lady behind the counter had nodded, taking a notepad and writing it down with a pencil. "Oh it's just for show, don't worry about me getting it wrong." She winked at the two of them. She was referring to using a notepad for taking an order. "How would you like your steak dear?"

"…What?"

She was unfamiliar with the question.

"You can have it rare, medium-rare, medium, well done." She said fast. So fast that even Mai had problems comprehending words that made no sense to her.

"Uh. Well-done."

JD could only cringe as he saw a Spartan ruin a steak and he could do nothing about it. God help him if that was truly how she preferred her beef.

"And you?"

"Hash, salted, covered, smothered and peppered. Waffles, and a side of bacon… Coffee too, dark as you can."

Mai heard JD place his order and more words she didn't understand.

"Coming right up… did you want anything to drink?" The server threw Mai back into the deep end.

"Uh-" Unprepared. "What he's having."

"Ah, drink what the sweetheart drinks now do ya?" She teased. "Oh I was like that with my first husband, all we drank was hazelnut iced coffee… with a shot of whiskey. Anyway coming right up!"

She screamed the order to a cook barely five feet away and their order was on that classic grill, leaving JD and Mai to process what the woman said as, five seconds later, she returned with two mugs and a dark pot of coffee, filling both cups and passing 'em over.

The steam from it was pleasant to Mai as she felt the hotness in her hand that would've otherwise burned a regular person. She could stand the heat.

"Back when I was young," JD started as he looked into his own mug. "I used to drink what the receptionist had on the pot for all the detectives and officers at the station… it was, strong, so watch out."

"-'ve never had coffee." She murmured.

JD blanked at her. "Not even the powdered stuff from MREs?"

She shook her head. "Never needed it."

The lingering effects of the tobacco rush had mixed well with the coffee as he took his first sip. Still too hot, but what his throat needed. Mai hadn't expected how it burned, but not making a fuss out of it. The only way JD had noticed was from the way she grit her teeth and tensed the hand holding her mug. She coughed as she tasted the linger flavor. Her face had flashed with a hint of disgust.

"It's a- a required taste."

Just by being there he had gleamed that Earth here and the Earth he knew had, likely, shared the same 1930s aesthetic. It helped that this kind of nostalgic throwback had been imbued with comfort and smells that were meant to warm people. Even the TVs were retro… albeit a little anachronistic for the theme of the diner. They were, supposedly, old CRT models but with new inners.

The UNSC often beamed the military stations to the ships and bases he was stationed on alongside regular civilian networks, and now, the TVs had shown just about the same content. One TV had shown some animal racing event, "Varren" they both could glimpse. The beasts fit the name. Another had been good, human Baseball from a planet called "Terra Nova". The last one had been interesting however: Alliance News Network. Talking heads spoke indistinctly over the diner's volume as a banner below them read: Incoming remarks from the Alliance Admiralty and Council at the top of the hour.

Top of the hour was fifteen minutes.

They were both interested, even without mentioning it to each other. They had a hunch it might've involved them.

Food came first however, and it came well.

---

"Military discount, right?" The server lady had asked them, smudging her lipstick as she bit the pencil and instead going for her omni-tool that emanated from a bracelet on her arm.

"Uh- We can pay full price. Don't worry."

The server winked at them. "Military discount it is then, enjoy your meal!"

Utensils had appeared out of thin air next to the ceramic plates, the food before Mai silencing her as if she was looking at a body. It was a lot of food and a big plate compared to JD's. Even with the diner saving space on it by almost layering poutine and the egg on top of her t-bone steak. JD's meal certainly looked a little more presentable.

Then again, they could hardly care as JD had ceased with the pleasantries and took hold of said utensils. Same hard light as the omni-tool apparently. He ate comfortably, having eaten before at restaurants surely. It was an experience that Mai herself hadn't known. Not as she uneasily looked around her shoulders, looking for some excuse perhaps to not eat. It didn't seem right.

Only the realization that she had paid for it that overridden such a feeling, chowing down and, almost disregarding of taste, knew what steak well done, dark coffee, and cheese curds and fries tasted like together in her mouth.

Wasn't the best taste, but again, to her, it was hearty and tasted well enough.

She ate for consumption, not for taste anyway. MJOLNIR fed her her own shit and piss anyway so anything was a step up.

This wasn't to say that, eventually, as she realized she wasn't eating how everyone else was eating, that she didn't enjoy the food.

"We're not in a rush, you know." JD quietly spoke, making triangles of his waffles, biting intermittently at the paddy of fried hash.

They were done with a few seconds to spare before that news alert at the top of the hour came about, JD more than happy just to finish off his copy and find out how to actually tip on his omni-tool as it happened. He was occupied with the rigors of omni-tool usage that he hadn't seen Mai's gaze go deep into the television before she, by the skin of her teeth, barely contained herself.

"-It is unclear whom or by what means information about the situation over the colony of Altis has spread over media and social networks, however we are here to address that now."

"This is Captain Bernard Shaw of the SSV Perugia, and, amazingly, what appears to be a new alien species besides him. Let's watch." Said the newscaster

The words 'new alien species' had been enough to floor everyone in the diner to immediately direct their attention to the TV with the ANN on, the grills and other TVs flipped to synchronized.

"You know it was inevitable." Said one patron of the diner. "Damn Attican is so big there's sure to be new species around."

"Ugliest one yet it seems." Another patron responded casually.

It was only because that they had been both special forces that Mai and JD recognized the species that stood alongside Shaw and several other alien species in a press conference room, televised to the galaxy. That earthily skinned, shriveled, long neck son of a bitch had been a San'Shyuum. A holy leader of the Covenant. A Prophet.

If this was their world the sight of a Prophet alongside a human speaking cordially would've been madness.

Here it was business as usual as the words the Prophet spoke droned out to JD and Mai upon the realization that the Alliance had made some sort of agreement, some sort of peace, with the Covenant. Their blood boiled hotter than their coffee as the thought of it rang in their ears. If they had listened, the Prophet of Destiny alongside representatives of the Council and the Systems Alliance had said this:

---

"I am the Prophet of Destiny, representative of a holy alliance known as the Covenant. As you would understand it, we have been space faring for a period of time since before the Human Race's formation of a modern civilization. However, despite this, only now have we been introduced to you and this galaxy at large now over a planet in Systems Alliance space called "Altis" due to circumstances to be elaborated on later.

We are new to this world of yours, but we are not young. From where we hail we possess such great power and knowledge of our domain that you must not mistake us for a collective which has stumbled its way into spaceflight and communication with you. Consider us rather, lost.

Who we are will be made available in the coming times, in this… Age of Reclamation, however know that we come in peace, and, despite early setbacks with first contact with both humanity and then the wider galactic community known as the Council, we seek nothing but understanding.

Though I may be one species, San'Shyuum, know that I represent eight, nearly now doubling the amount of spaceflight capable species recognized in your galaxy by the Citadel Council.

There is much to take in: our names, our beliefs, our history, but know that we too are now faced with the same thing from you, and I can only say so much in this one transmission.

For the time being, we submit to the Systems Alliance and the Citadel Council in cooperation and a mutually beneficial partnership as we, graciously, let the Galaxy assist us in finding a place in this universe!"

---

As if giving a holy sermon, Destiny had risen one finger up to proclaim this: "Every Great Journey begins with a single step."

That was the final image as that press conference was dispersed and folded back to the ANN news desks and the correspondents as speculation started flying. The same speculation started flying through the diner as patrons spoke of the excitement, and wariness, of a new races being introduced to the galactic community.

JD wished that, at that moment, like some detectives did, he had some whiskey to insert into the remainder of his coffee as he, as a soldier does, deferred the decisions of high command onto themselves. He trusted they knew what they were doing.

Mai wouldn't have it as he heard her seething, in breath, through her teeth.

"Why don't they just kill them all. They should know what they bring." To hear infuriation from her, it bordered on fire from a woman who was not used to holding it back. She was constantly boiling beneath her skin, and this was the first time she was denied it, humanity telling themselves a lie.

She turned away from the screen, lifting herself off the seat before JD could do anything.

She was out the door before JD left his seat, and, frantically, he had taken off after her. The fact that it was known that the diner had TVs didn't help him on the way out as people on the street flooded into the diner to gleam a look of the news. Images of the Covenant species were thrown up on screen, as provided by the Covenant themselves.

The first time that images of the aliens known as the Covenant had been broadcast in human space, it had come with a message:

Your destruction is the will of the gods, and we are their instrument.

He spotted her over the crowd, heads taller, but far away. She was going somewhere he knew. She wouldn't be someone to storm off without a place to go to.

He fell back into his old maneuvers as he broke through the crowd trying to get in.

He was more his father's child than anything.

"Become a cop, my dear." Said his mother. It would've deferred him from service in the UNSC. "Your father taught you everything her knew."

Stealth training or not, even by a grade of a Spartan, it was kept up with as JD followed with his intuition. That and she was constantly a head taller than anyone else in a crowd she had manically tried to phase into, trying to wade away. It wasn't a chase. He was just tailing her as the buildings melted away into forest, and the rush of people was covered by that of water. The city had become busy in an uproar as, again, humanity had come to face another alien species. To any other person it would've been a huge event, historical, and the usual xenophobic, xenophilic, militant, isolationist, or accepting thought would come.

Only two people on planet Earth hadn't cared.

One of them was concerned for the well being of the other as he found himself on a hiking trail.

He wasn't necessarily hiding, but maybe he should've as he tailed Mai from several dozen yards away. Only when they were pretty deep in the trail did she finally look back and, even from that distance away, locked eyes with him. She knew he was following, but wouldn't do anything about it.

She just needed to be away from a people who responded the wrong way to the Covenant. It would've made her vomit just to be in the presence of people who were staring into the faces of those who would doom the humanity she knew with, not skepticism, but rather peace.

He had panicked for a moment as she took off that beaten path, trees overhead having replaced the buildings. She moved fast, and far enough, away that nature surrounded them in its continental fervor of cool colors and foliage. He lost sight of her, but quickly found her as he kept her presumed bearing into the forests to the edge of a river bank, rocky and undisturbed.

---

He couldn't ask her why she had just bolted off. He knew why very dearly.

She sat in the water, her combat pants waterproof, but unable to beat back the soaking as she let the cold feeling go through her backside and legs, curled up into her chest. The bank was hardly deep, even with a rather fast river just beyond the safety of it.

These were the rivers that led into the Falls further down, and right now Mai's mind had been that of a waterfall.

She began to speak. "We spend these two weeks finding out how FTL works, basic mechanisms of their shuttles and ships. I was a pilot, I can fly. We procure weapons, find a way to get my armor back. Chart our way back to Altis, and then get to work. This Alliance, this humanity, is making a mistake."

"Mai…" JD stepped into the banks himself as he tried to move closer to her. She hadn't moved where she sat but she still kept her back to him as she continued to speak darkly, husk in her breath.

"We were trained to do this. Kill Covenant. It's what we have to do. It's the right thing to do. The Alliance will know what they've done wrong once th-"

"Mai." JD said again.

"-ey find out that dealing with them is only them gaming their unfamiliarity. If they gain space transport with capable FTL then we lose track of any hostile elements. They'll scout, find a place to regroup away from their eyes. We've seen the tactics and equipment the Alliance uses they are in no-"

"Mai."

"WHAT?!"

She snapped at him, standing up, fists curled, one motion toward him. He was a traitor, treasonous to even entertain letting this be. Those thoughts blew through her head like a bullet as JD backpedaled on one foot. A Spartan had stepped to do him harm and he had never felt less like a soldier then and there. Fear striking his heart like lightning as Mai saw it in his open mouth, his eyes, the way his arms were just short of moving up to defend himself.

Frozen in time with the environment around them going on its merry way. Only a strand of hair knocked by the breeze had moved on Mai as she bared her teeth in anger at JD before realizing what she was doing.

It was so easy to transgress against fellow man for her. It was a reason why she had been Lone Wolf. Working with other people was… dangerous for her, and for them.

Seconds passed. Minutes. Spartan Time kicked in for her. She couldn't control it when her mind called for it. JD had wiped the look of fear from his face in slow motion to her, eyes narrowing, jaw tightening, a gulp of air passing by his throat as he looked at her in disappointment as well.

"Mai." He said again, softer. His voice slackened her own form as she realized what she had just done.

"I-… I."

No words needed to be said as she breathed again air that people on other worlds would pay a premium for. It was the purest air she ever breathed. The air she breathed from her suit was processed, filtered, unnatural but serving its purpose to her. She could only remember that she was on Earth now.

"Slow down. Calm down. Please."

He wasn't talking to another human at that moment, he was talking to a monster made of man.

More black strands of hair fell onto her face, her eyes widening as she began to nod to herself.

Yes. Yes. He was right.

She turned back to the river, her fists uncurling, trying to let nature calm her.

Wet footsteps. The ODST walked forward, just barely behind her, and yet besides her at the same time.

"I'm used to fast. I am. I move fast when I'm alone." It was a hollow explanation. An explanation nonetheless.

Everything, everything about the last few days, it was fast for what it was. To be picked up, deposited into another reality, told everything that they knew was wrong, and told to leave their old lives behind, it all went by them like a blur. If they had been shot dead on Ardent Prayer, or blipped into non-existence, that would've been easy.

What they had been just assigned to do, wasn't easy. Far from easy. The speed of the events didn't help when they finally slowed down and forced to deal with their actions, to deal with themselves. The waters of the Niagara River had been clear, reflective of both of them as they stood on the edge of that inlet, rocky bottoms coming in slowly to dryness. They stood in the middle of it, their shoes wet, but not submerged.

"We can't move that fast you know. We shouldn't." He responded, hardly any emotion in his voice. Maybe a hint of understanding. "We have orders."

It was peaceful, and it stung at them like a feeling unknown, a cold burn coming in through their noses and into their hearts.

"I always end up alone, you know." The man said after some time, letting Mai take it to calm herself. JD had reached down to a rock, a skippable example, throwing it out on the waters and lost to the current. He had an arm from throwing grenades, not throwing ball with Dad. Mai had looked at him from the side as he spoke out to the waters, picking up a handful of rocks in one hand, slinging them across the waters. Four skips. Three skips. Then four again. Never five. He shot for five as he skipped. "I don't know why, though I always am."

"Luck?"

According to Ambrose, all the luck in the universe was taken by one man, and JD would've agreed. He cringed at her insinuating that, hurt to his core.

"I didn't believe in God before the Corps, and maybe I still don't now, but I have to believe that the only reason I'm alive is because someone upstairs has made it so I have to die for someone else. That's the only thing that makes sense to me." He was running out of breath, the rest of the rocks dropped back into the river as he grit his teeth. He sounded crazy to himself. "It's not luck that I'm alive. There's nothing lucky about being alive after what I've been through."

Mai had kept her silence, her blank face, eyebrows still furrowed at herself as she backed up a bit only to find a dry spot she could sit on rock and dirt.

"You're awfully complex for a Marine." She stated flatly, but hopefully she saw the line she cast out for him. "I'm sorry I said that… I'm sorry for snapping at you."

He chuckled in return, turning over to look at her. "You're awfully interesting in general. I thought you New Jerusalem-types are all godly and preachy and stuff. So I hear."

He bit and was glad for it, turning back to conversation that they needed: one that hadn't been heavy with existential purpose.

"It's- ah." She stumbled as she had to return the conversation back. That's right. She did tell him that. That she was born on a colony in the Cygnus System. Her training had told her to leave the life she was born into behind, and to instead concentrate on the now: becoming a Spartan. For the most part, she did, and she did it well. She became one of the best of her clan. She became a Spartan and forgot that, once, long ago, she was a little girl. "I never got caught up in New Jerusalem's… inner politics."

JD nodded, a little thankfulness in the movement. New Jerusalem was one of those planets where Earthly issues had come with its colonists. It would've been part of the Insurgency if it hadn't already been a goat rodeo enough to not form a united front against the UEG. Ethnic, religious, societal, economic issues creating divisions in its society that hurt any who hadn't hardlined a particular viewpoint. Its chaos was perhaps a reason why the UEG, and then the UNSC, needed hands on in the colony.

"Caught in the middle?" He asked.

It wasn't like the interrogations by Cleft-Lip, Sunglasses, and Ryder for her biographical details. She would give them nothing, not when it was in the name of intelligence services or cases. With JD however, it was… different.

No one had ever talked to her like this, despite knowing she was a Spartan.

It was easy to talk to him.

Something was easy.

"I was just… poor. Me and my mother, we were getting tossed in between shelters. Too busy surviving to really weigh in."

Not many of the colonies were particularly well off, especially not one always in turmoil.

"Join the service to find a way out then?" JD had heard of that story so many times, even in the apocalyptic war. It wasn't the one that she was familiar with, far from it as she brought her knees up to her chest. She shrunk back down, back into the water, to sit. On bad nights, when her mind wandered in her sleep, during periods of cryo-sleep that didn't afford her complete mental shutdown from the world, she saw it.

She saw her mother get sedated in that dark alleyway by the men in black as she was led away into a van. She looked so beautiful, her dark hair flowing as she dropped to the dirty concrete next to a dumpster. It was her last sight of her as the ONI Agents did the same to her. When she came to she was already in slipspace, having left her city, her planet, for the first time, toward Onyx.

"I was taken."

"Huh?"

"We were all taken."

These words alone would've ended humanity. If spoken, made public knowledge, they would've destroyed the UNSC, ONI, and any semblance of faith behind the Spartans against the Covenant. It was the dark secret of the Spartan program, born from acts of sin. If any citizen in the UEG knew this, let alone any of the colonists, riots would've broken out as the price of survival became too high.

JD replayed the last few seconds in his heads. His question to her, and her answer.

Did you join because of this reason?

No. I was taken.

The Spartans were known all to be comrades, combat veterans of the war given special treatment in order to boost their capability. They were all, presumably, consenting adults who wanted nothing more but to bring the hurt to the Covenant. The truth was far worse.

"Do not think less of me."

JD interjected before she even spoke more. "I hardly know you Mai. I only know you as a Spartan. You basically kept us all alive, together." He went to throw another rock as he spoke, not believing she needed to hear this. He spoke of all the Spartans as he understood it: armored monsters of men and women who had given their all for humanity willingly, their sacrifices bringing survival.

"JD." She stressed. For some reason she reached out to him with one hand, he was turned, never seeing it as she pulled back. "Please, what I am about to tell you, think of what you will of the Spartans, but please do not think any less of me."

Why did she care? She thought. It was a question that passed by her mind unanswered.

He turned after hearing her plead, nodding his head, looking right at her. "Okay." Softly spoken, truly understanding.

ONI would've killed her for saying, and him for knowing. The Colonies would've risen up in rebellion again, even with the Covenant on their doorstep. Halsey, wherever she was, would have to answer to a question that the average salt of the earth person would not see her way. The Spartans were never meant to fight the Covenant. The Spartans were never meant to be reintegrated into society. The Spartans were never meant to die.

"We were kidnapped as children and made into who we are." JD stared at her blankly, eyes widening as the words came at him like death, finally come to collect. He mouthed words he could not say, trying to find a way to fully understand what she was saying.

'We?' He wasn't sure if he even said it, but she answered.

"The Spartans. All of us. We're war orphans, children of bums and street rats, or, at worst, kidnapped from families outright from the outer colonies where no one would look."

It was a common idiom in the ODSTs to state that they, when dropped, were the desperate measures.

This, the revelation that would've rightly caused the outer colonies to wage war again against Earth, was truly desperate. His face saddened, unmeasurable sorrow and depth thrown bestowed upon him, as she saw this woman he had hardly known for a few days from another angle. He had been so careful himself to think of her not just as a Spartan. His father taught him that one lazy day at the station:

"Behind every criminal is a person with hopes and dreams, Jay Jay." The elder Durante told his son. "I deal with humans every day, not titles and abstractions."

"How old were you?"

No one had ever pitied her before. No one knew. No one was supposed to know. She did not need pity in her life, she was too strong for that, but distantly she thought better of JD. He wasn't giving her pity. He was giving her an outlet.

JD wasn't a great talker. Listening was more his forte.

"I was fourteen." That was old for the company. Only Carter had been an older Spartan-III.

She didn't even know her own age, cryosleep skewing the number. 27, 26, maybe 25. She didn't really know.

"That's-" JD couldn't say anything. He thought he had been a young Marine at 17, however that was- it was insane.

"It was mostly younger, for the Spartan-IIIs, and the Spartan-IIs."

IIIs and IIs. He heard her mention the classes back at Arcturus. He picked up the rocks again from the water, noting how different each was despite being formed in the same place.

"What's the difference between them? What were Spartan-Is?"

She looked back into her memory. "Spartan-Is were, I think, a prototype project. First attempts at military bio-augmentation. Unremarkable. Some ODSTs still alive today were members, I think, and don't see it as anything special." That thought was interesting to JD. He might've served with Spartans before then. Mai continued however, and the rabbit hole had gotten bigger. "the Spartan-II project was where the ones you hear about are from."

"The Chief… was a Spartan-II?" The ones all the UNSC knew. Changing the tide of battle with lethality and effectiveness only rivaled by fairytales and comic book heroes. Champions of the human race in battle.

She nodded. "Heavy bio-augmentation. Even with the Spartan-I project before it, half of the seventy strong class died."

It was a number he had been given: There had only been about forty Spartans in that galaxy from the class, a lot to take in as he realized that, against a galactic empire, forty Spartans did much. Forty men and women against billions. He realized something though. "You're not a Spartan-II though?"

Again she affirmed with a head nod. "Spartan-III. Mass production. Program which never existed. Bio augmentation rate was nearly 100% survivable compared to the IIs, but, because of that, not enough gear to properly equip us with… that wasn't the plan anyway."

"What was?"

"Suicide missions." How ironic that now, she wanted one. "Give us armor that was a step up from regular issue, send us deep behind enemy lines or toward heavily fortified locations of tactical value, and sacrifice us all for the sake of humanity."

Three hundred at a time. Three hundred young girls and boys pumped full of chemicals, given a mission for revenge, and told to die for their species. She would've been one of them gladly. Instead she was now the only proof they existed.

"But… you're still here. You wear that armor." JD kept trying to tie together the details, as to why she was who she was.

"Only because I was told that I was… the best. At least as good as the Spartan-IIs. Better even… maybe the best. I didn't deserve to die in a suicide mission… Special treatment comparable to the IIs." It hurt her so much to say. It had seemed so cowardly and egoistic of her to say that she was the best of the Spartans save one, however the data all backed it up, the analysis by those who had access to her after action reports, and that from all the Spartans.

For all his life JD had been told that the Spartan-IIs were all consenting adults who had known the war. To think of them the same as Mai…. A dangerous question. One that he had to ask.

"Do you know how old the Master Chief was?"

Humanity's savior, the Reclaimer, 117. She knew that answer. Not because Ambrose had specifically told her, but because it was a slip of tongue. Kurt once mentioned he had been the same age as John, but somehow, he had been more of a leader. She knew what age Kurt had been conscripted into the program.

What that meant that was John-117 had been-

"Six. He was six."

That was the price humanity had to pay to fight a losing war. Kidnapping children, essentially babies, from their homes or taking advantage of them and forcing them to fight a war that was lost. For many, that was a price too great.

"Please. Don't say anything. Don't reassure me or- don't." She stood up in her stammering. She never even thought of what it would be like to say these things. To say it to anyone else? Impossible.

Spartan Time kicked in. A thousand variations of what type of person she imagined JD to be and then his responses played in her head. Empathy, pity, disgust all common themes. Maybe he would be glad that he left the UNSC behind then, cursing the ONI devils as they were. Maybe he would end up emotional for her, crying.

Every guess was wrong, not when he quickly said to her: "Do you regret anything?"

"No." A kneejerk reaction, as quick as she was on the trigger. No, she didn't regret a damn thing about what she had become.

JD clasped his wet hands, granules of dirt and stone on his skin as he then unclasped, opening them as if airing them out. "Okay then."

What?

Mai had looked at him confused.

There was a smile on his face as he went back to skipping rocks. No elaboration, no reasoning. Just he continued to do so, leaving her there on dry rocks, only for her to, after a minute of silence, her walking forward to join him.

"Here." He handed her over a few stones. "I never skipped rocks until I was deployed to Persei. No ponds on Luna."

She took his rocks without word, holding them in her palms and feeling how well rounded they were by nature. Perfect skipping stones. Every time he threw a rock he had been able to fight the current for a few skips, at max four, but always at least two. She could do better, she thought. That was until she did it overhand and ended up just dunking the stone.

Immediately JD saw what she did wrong, even if the stone had been fast and somewhat skimming the water.

"All about technique. Wrist action. Like a Frisbee." He demonstrated once simply.

"Frisbee?" She hadn't known the word.

"Ah uh, just copy me."

It took a few tosses to get acclimated to his form, but when she did, she was throwing them record distances. He didn't expect anything else as he hid a smile from her at the success of teaching her how to skip rocks. She was fully engrossed in it as she continued to without his prompting, giving him time to dry his hands in his pockets.

After a while, and he knew he couldn't have left their conversation at that, he returned to it.

"I don't judge, you know. Judging is for judges."

Internally she smirked. He was really showing off his "Dad was a cop" upbringings.

"I won't judge you for what you've been through, or for what you've done." He said calmly, not turning to her. "I mean, I think it's disgusting that people would ever think of that: kidnapping children to fight the Covenant."

She grumbled. "Wasn't for the Covenant."

"Huh?"

"The original Spartans were made to fight Insurrectionists."

Another pang in his moral soul, but he shook it off. He could deal with those thoughts alone without her. "Still. I can never judge. Not if you've made your peace with it, and not if you've saved lives none of us could."

Again, he was running out of breath. Maybe he needed to practice talking more.

They looked at each other's faces now, past the avoiding, not needed now. They took each other in because they each deserved nothing less at that point.

Admiration was in his words. The first she could cleanly get from him. It was familiar, many a Marine or servicemember she had been in the presence of tried to deliver to her. She always blocked them out until today, until him.

How many Marines had been like him, she wondered, the urge to speak a language to him reserved only for Spartans coming over her and passing in one moment. No helmets on, no armor, no war. All that meant was that she wanted to say something because she felt something.

Nothing could be said however, not as JD turned away and spoke again.

"I told you that whole stuff, about me being alone, because you're around now." She tilted her head at him as he couldn't bare to look at her. "I don't need you going off on a suicide mission, or getting court martialed, and leaving me out alone. Even if I know you can go out there and deal with all of them. That's not what we do now. Not again."

She understood now. Nothing hidden. Nothing to hide. Marines were straight shooters and he was a good Marine. He knew orders, and he reminded her that she had orders to follow too. "Thank you, JD." Quiet, like the wind.

He skipped out another rock. Five skips this time. That was another victory today. "I say if we're starting our lives over, I figure I start fresh with you too. The mission was a coincidence, this I'd like to be intentional."

"Hm?"

"We don't have to be friends, I just want to know you as you are and to know I can talk to you. We're the only people who could understand what we've been through."

She looked at him. Really looked at him. Not to tactically analyze him. Not to see if he had been hurt. She looked at him to see him. He had faint frown lines, his face seemingly permanently placed into a somber look, the ends of his mouth too used to frown or tightening his jaw. He was an image of a young man, ready to die for his people, and he very much carried with him those that had already within him. How heavy had been the weight on his shoulders?

How heavy had been the one on her own? Numb to feeling after all those years.

She knew what had made her: training, a childhood in poverty.

What had made him however? What made him tick? What made him a man?

"I…" She had never formed this sentence before in her head or anything like it. "I think we'll be friends."

That was the first time she saw JD smile, and, unknowingly, that was the first time JD had seen a Spartan do the same.

That was how they spent the rest of their first day: skipping rocks till sunset.

---

They walked the streets of Buffalo alone at night. Nip in the air, Thanksgiving almost upon the American states. No cars however. Cars had become somewhat of an antiquated subject in terms of the commute, replaced by those that hovered and flew to places.

They emerged back into New Buffalo back toward their hotel long after the night came and they learned how to use their omni-tools as flashlights. The streets were very well lit, hiding nothing but the monsters in plain sight. That was how spooked the two of them were as, unknowingly, they had been approached from behind and regretted letting their guard down.

"Hi! Me and my girlfriend were just wondering where we could get some peace and quiet! Away from all this city-stuff. I mean it's great and all but I wanted to see some of Earth's best locales at night, and I heard the rivers that lead to that Niagara Falls are some great stuff!"

He looked like dinosaur and she looked like a blueberry, and, because of that, Mai had held a breath so deep in her lungs her fingernails had dug into her palms. Eyes wide, fighting so desperately against herself. There was no lie: she was a born and raised xenophobe. To the Turian with the Asari on his arm, she looked like as if she'd seen a ghost in them.

JD wasn't much better as his mouth went dry and he struggled for words as they appeared too close to the too fast. His hand floated near his hip, but there was no pistol. All of this just automatic response. He knew, so deeply, that no pistol was needed and this was normal. He screamed at himself: This was normal. The new normal. It didn't help that he had felt a hand almost crush his left arm painfully at the elbow. It was Mai, and right now he was her anchor. Without him she would've done something: an unknowable something that would've ended her new life before it began.

This JD felt, quite literally, in his bones, pressed to do something.

"Uh- Go- go that aways. You'll find a forest and a- a path. Can't miss it. On the shore of a river, it's nice. Quiet." He spoke unsure, his speech translated instantly through his omni. In the dark of night and barely illuminated by the street lamps it hid the sweat on his brow and the tightness in his throat. Perhaps it was well enough that the Turian and Asari were a few drinks in and wanting to bone privately in a public space that hid what JD and Mai would now remember as their first contact.

Before he felt relief, he felt pain from his arm.

Burning, like sandpaper on a paper-thin surface, her hand had dug into his skin as he very much tried to twist away. Hotness and pressure emanating from her grip as she drew a blank gaze and was lost to her mind. It was almost as if she was overheating. Not even a hit from a plasma rifle had hurt that much, and he had known what that was like as he felt the bones of her fingers and palm almost touch his own through their skin. The tightness of it robbing his breath as, in one final play he used his entire body, his free arm barring across her with a push. It took a lot for her to be pushed off and it stole his breath.

"Mai-! Mai!" His final loud yells had broken her out the trance before something had broken. She hadn't even given him a breath to settle before Mai had realized what she'd done as he held his arm painfully.

"I didn't mean to-!" She went to hold his arm again, but he had backed away, his other arm out with a hand that read stop, walking five steps back.

"What the hell is-?!" He asked a question he had answers to:

She was a genetically trained super soldier raised from nothing. All she knew was how to hurt people. She was a freak, unfit to live outside of war and a purpose.

What the hell is your problem?

It hurt like hell as he swear he felt his bone bend, his hand replacing where hers was as he tried to smoothen it out.

She stepped toward him again, wanting to help, but again he stepped back.

"I- I-." He tried to form words as he felt the adrenaline. Pain meant battle. Battle meant war. War meant he was there. He couldn't stop it as he felt the rage, the anger meant for combat be inadvertently directed at me. "I understand the Spartans a little better because of you, Mai." He spoke coldly, frost on his breath. "But because of that, I think you have to learn how to live again."

"I didn't mean to!" She had both tried to whisper and yell, desperation run ragged in her voice as again she stepped toward JD. Again he stepped back. "Wallah, I'm telling the truth Jon."

She heard her mother say that once, exasperated. She hadn't said that word in years. Not since the American English of the UNSC became her standard accent, her standard voice.

All JD heard was his name, his face softening. He was making her beg for understanding, forgiveness. She of all people didn't need to beg for that.

"Please. Help me. I don't want to do that again. I don't know- I don't know why- how-." Words sputtered out, away, illogical, emotional. The most emotion he had heard from her. Human emotion. Not that of being a soldier with anger and ferocity.

Lone Wolf. That's what they called her. Ackerson's personal Grim Reaper. B312. Spartan. The Master Chief's equal. Hyper Lethal Vector. Noble Six. Majestic One. Headhunter. God's very own anti-son of a bitch machine. Ideas, concepts, abstractions that all had to be lived up to, fulfilled, but at the end, eating away at the person beneath.

She was the result of what happened when ONI, the Spartan Program, had eaten someone alive and spit out what remained. Her hands shook, her very bones feeling more brittle then they had ever been as she felt her knees go weak and a shake in her voice.

A realization for both of them: she was never supposed to live.

She didn't know how she'd die. Whether by Elite, or Insurrectionists, or herself. All that she knew in that moment was that she was a Roman Candle and never meant to last. For if she survived she would in the end have to fight the one enemy that she had been trained to forget her entire life: Herself.

This wasn't who she had wanted to be. This wasn't who her mother wanted her to become. Her knees hit the stone ground of the street, and out from her shirt had been a necklace. JD remembered it now even in the worst of lighting in the worst of times:

It was a dharmachakra. The wheel of Dharma.

Life. Death. Rebirth. Liberation upon liberation. A Noble Eightfold Path followed by those who practiced.

In this life Mai Gul, daughter of a vagrant, was reborn into a killing machine for the sake of humanity and the irony was burned onto a wooden wheel that had been the only thing left of who she once was.

She was only human. JD let the pain in his arm fade as the guilt replaced it for backing away from her. She was only human.

It was a fact that he had been so hard trying to imagine her as, to see her as. It was revealed to him then and there that, perhaps, perception was not enough as he had slowly walked back to her. "I will."

Nothing more he had to say. Nothing more he could say. His words were a promise without saying. They were people of actions, not words. Of the near sob taken back and the tears held back; of the hand offered and the hand that came up to, this time softly, take it and use it to raise herself up.

She wanted help, and he gave it. He was only human.

---

Two weeks. That's all that they had to discover, on their own, the measure of this universe and everything that they had to take as simple, basic fact.

If they were anything to judge, they had done well for themselves as they stood in their newly minted Alliance uniforms and awaited pick up with a shuttle, each with a ruck sack over their shoulders. A formality really. They owned nothing but whatever creature comforts JD had, at the last minute, splurged on, along with the bare minimum of clothing.

"Tell me a little about yourself, Jonathon-Jameson Durante." Mai had repeated for the hundredth time in the last twenty-four hours, they standing rigid next to each other, but comfortable. It was an exercise in cover story.

"Born in Harper's Ferry, West Virginia, before moving to New York City when I was kid. My father was a detective in Queens, however before I became of age both my parents died because a Turian stabbed them in a home invasion. I joined the Systems Alliance Navy with no other realistic recourse after that." It was an odd choice, to integrate a reason for their xenophobia, but it was a needed buffer. An excuse, a reason for an uncomfortableness that no wiki article could break away in their days and days of studying. Whatever the case it was a designed cover story from the Admiralty's staff. "There I proved myself an able Search and Rescue operator, deployed on many classified mission taskings in the Terminus and Attican Traverse."

"You in the N Program?" Mai continued.

"Classified ma'am." She still thought it odd that he addressed her so formally at times, even with their equal ranks, but she still aired of superiority to him and he could only respond as he should.

"You don't have to, you know."

"One step at a time." He said one sleepless night as they toiled over early human spaceflight history.

"And, you, Chief Gul, what's your story?"

It wasn't the first time she had assumed a new life. This was the only time it had made her a human however. Details rehearsed like mission information and intel, gone through her mind a million times:

She sucked in a breath before beginning. Hadn't faced him, talking shoulder to shoulder, looking out at the cloudy sky. "Mai Gul. I'm 26 years old, and I was born in transit on a cargo vessel also carrying chartered colonists. Parents put me up for adoption and I was bounced from home to halfway home until I joined the Systems Alliance Navy and, given my natural ability, to a special warfare division. Dealt with a lot of… aliens. Developed certain opinions on them."

"Are we acquainted?"

"By coincidence. We served in different units, but always ended up in related ops. I know everything which you just reiterated, Chief Durante."

A crack of a smirk, a smile, on the ODST's face. "JD is fine, Mai." Jon or James wasn't yet, apparently.

She had been to a dentist in that two weeks, getting her tooth replaced finally, and then, discretely, to a walk-in esthetician. The scars around her skin were covered up as best they could, and no question was asked. She looked a little more normal, but she only bothered for the sake of looking normal to the crew.

They were to return to the Normandy, Anderson's ship, via a shuttle inbound from the West Coast and then up to an Alliance space dock in Earth orbit, probably with other crew.

In the time they had waited for this, that being the two weeks before hand, they had answered questions sent their way from Anderson and Hackett's office in terms of gear and their needs, along with other questions to help their transition. Being near an Alliance outpost had helped as they tried to point out any discrepancies between the UNSC and the Alliance forces, but, surprisingly, enough was the same, and they had enough time on the range to know what the Mass Effect based weaponry was like.

Element Zero was something had could barely understand, but, alone, they knew it was something they never had. One of the only things that was new.

The stars were still the same, roughly. A few new faces among them, something they had to account to, but they were confident. They had to be.

For the life they left behind, either it be a curse or a blessing, and for themselves. They'd been to war, they were veterans, and, hopefully, they were strong enough to take on that galaxy.

A blue Kodiak had wandered into view past the clouds, quickly coming down as they stood rigid, together, only turning their heads away as the hovering shuttle kicked up dirt and debris before landing entirely, it's shuttle door open and revealing a woman clad in a uniform that displayed a solid rank.

That rank mattered to them as they both saluted her. With one dip of her head she acknowledged them with her own salute. "At ease. Report?" A deeper voice for a woman, confident and strong, but still feminine.

"Master Chief Petty Officer Durante, at your service Lieutenant Commander."

"Master Chief Petty Officer Gul, ma'am."

She rose an eyebrow. "Two Master Chiefs with us on this cruise? That's an odd combination."

"Our orders ma'am." JD spoke, eyes straight still.

She had chuckled, blowing air through her nose. "Ah, I'm not complaining Chief." JD had a twinge at her calling him that, but he had hid it as the red haired woman held out her hand. "Lieutenant Commander Shepard. Glad to meet you."

Lieutenant Commander Jane Shepard

A Reaper in the Flesh

Reclaimer

The first handshake was regulation, a formality. Firm, two pumps, drawn away. The second handshake had been hard, tight, surprising, and yet soft.

There was another object, asides from the bear pelt, that the two had their eyes drawn to as she moved away from her seat in the shuttle, touching the concrete so she could converse with them. Out in the light another object across her back was seen. For JD and Mai, it had been the oddity in seeing a firearm as they knew it: with gun powder and brass as opposed to electronics and Mass Effect fields.

She noticed as she let it sling off her back, proudly displaying it in her hands. "It's a heavy barreled .458 on a Mauser action. Scope's even 20th century original."

It was a wooden rifle. Mai had only seen these types with the more desperate Insurgents.

"Not standard issue, ma'am." She spoke.

Shepard had nodded, aware of it very much so. "Never know when this will come in handy," she had taken it off her back, rolling the action, making sure there was actually no rounds in it. "Besides, if there's ever an insane situation where I do have to use this, it's basically a pea shooter with the barriers and shields in play… Now come on, don't want to keep the Captain waiting, do we?"

She seemed friendly. Personable. Her entire form though, it spoke of someone who knew what she was doing, even for a Systems Alliance personnel compared to them.

They felt good in her presence. That was as good as anything when being introduced to their new XO. It was what every soldier desired at some point.

"No ma'am."

Every great journey began with a single step, the two remembered from the Prophet's words. When the Lieutenant Commander stepped aboard that Kodiak, they, for once, knew what the Covenant had been talking about.

The Great Journey they would embark on wouldn't be the one they were destined for, but it was the one they were in. Their lives had been reframed, and their duties reoriented, but no matter what they remained who they were: soldiers of humanity, no matter what kind. The path they had taken was now one shared this Shepard.

---

In the year 2148, explorers on Mars discovered the remains of an ancient spacefaring civilization. In the decades that followed, these mysterious artifacts revealed startling new technologies, enabling travel to the furthest stars. The basis for this incredible technology was a force that controlled the very fabric of space and time.

They called it the greatest discovery in human history.

The civilizations of the galaxy call it... MASS EFFECT.

In another universe: humanity takes a different path. Intelligent alien life eludes humanity for centuries as they colonize the stars beyond the Sol System. Over two hundred years pass of pure human expansionism over the Orion Arm creates a human civilization of nearly a thousand colonies and outposts, unbound by the dimension bending Slipspace drive.

In 2525 humanity makes first contact with an alien alliance known as "The Covenant". With the Covenant viewing humanity as a heretical species to be purged, war begins and quickly becomes a slaughter against the humans.

In the year 2552, humanity is losing.

The Covenant had burned hundreds of worlds, killing billions in their genocidal campaign.

Among those guarding humanity are a group of biologically engineered super soldiers, trained from birth, and made to fight: "Spartans".

In defense of one of humanity's last bastion worlds, a Spartan using a trojan horse to deliver a jury-rigged Slipspace bomb to a Covenant super carrier sacrifices herself to buy humanity more time.

The bomb doesn't kill her or the Covenant however.

Ferrying her and the Covenant across alternate universes, they find themselves in a reality defined by Mass Effect, carrying every desperate measure of a war built on galactic genocide.

What happens now because of them will mean nothing less than All the Stars in the universe.