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.

8. 1-1: Shepard

All the Stars

By: Matthew "BlueWay" N.

---

The Beginning of Mass Effect 1

---

"I didn't leave Earth until I was eighteen."

Those were words that JD had heard before. Words that he could say himself, albeit replacing it with the object they had been looking at through the window provided by that model of Kodiak. They came from a woman, pale skinned, red hair that had almost been as dark and deep as the one on the animal skin she had, somehow, folded neatly besides her. Freckles had painted her face warmly, her lips full, and, surprisingly, a hint of some lipstick on it. Indeed, her vibrant green eyes were sunken and just so tastefully highlighted by some light touch up, circles on face, laugh lines shaping her mouth.

She wore her casual BDU, sleeves rolled up, exposing muscled arms that would be impressive, if not for the fact Mai had immediately beat her in that regard.

"I thought it was just a cliché," she began, her head rested on her hand, arm leaning on her ruck. "But I didn't realize how tiny I was until I left Earth."

There was wonder in her air, fiery, and sincere. "Every time I leave Earth I just get this chill."

She spoke like a rookie ODST, JD felt, and yet…

They had been alerted to her name just recently and cursory Extranet searched had revealed someone very remarkable. The type of person who would very much use a rifle nearly two centuries out of date and lug a rug made out of a bear she had personally hunted to her new posting.

It felt rude to look up, but she had a public record, definitely. One they could both respect.

How she stayed so chipper despite what she had done was… rare.

The moon stared back at them as the shuttle rose into space. Mai privately thought of JD and how it was a shame that he hadn't tried to even visit the moon, his home, again. She had hinted toward him, one lazy breakfast in their hotel room, PBJ sandwiches being made for what felt like the twentieth time, that he should've made travel arrangements before they were deployed.

He answered with something he had held as much true now in this universe as he did in his home. "There's nothing left for me there."

"It was my first time on Earth, ma'am." Mai commented. Smalltalk. He had seen JD grace through the smallest of talk when they visited that diner again, speaking no more than single words a time in between dozens with other patrons. She tried to emulate. She would have to become used to it.

Shepard turned her head toward Mai, her form much too tight, too straight, for her to be comfortable at all. "I thought I told you to be at ease, Chief Gul." She tried to slack her shoulders, but nothing would do it as Shepard simply smirked at her attempts. The Lieutenant Commander knew the sort from her time in Special Forces: men and women wound too tight that they would never stretch, even when ordered. She wouldn't give Mai a hard time however, not with a shake of her head. "How'd you like Earth? Where you been?"

"New Buffalo ma'a-" She caught herself halfway. "Shepard." She had instead replaced on the fly. Even that had made her internally cringe. It didn't feel right.

"Oh? By the Falls, right?"

JD nodded, sparing Mai the awkwardness. "Yeah. Had to stay around the city though."

"Shame. So much to do on Earth you know."

"Maybe next time, then?" Mai whispered more to herself than Shepard. She noticed however.

"Well, what suits your fancy?"

"Pardon?"

Shepard had looked out the window again, wistfully, but adventurously. "Travelling down the Rio Grande, hiking in Appalachia, sledding in the Yukon, surfing on the dunes of Arabia… come on, any of that sound exciting to you? I'm personally a fan of blue ways."

She was an outdoorsman by heart and soul, that much JD could tell, and it was a questioned posed by her new XO that Mai had to contend with as she sat back and, looking down at her boots for but a moment, answered: "Farms." Shepard tilted her head, but not in judgement, just thinking of her own experiences to see if she could understand. "I like farms."

Shepard nodded in agreement. "Ah yes, I remember when I was in Tuscany as a kid, the wheat fields were about the most beautiful thing I've seen in the boot."

"Grew up in Tuscany?" JD posed.

A few shakes of her head. "I got around when I was a kid. Hitchhiker. Started when I was 13 in San Francisco. By the time I enlisted at 18 I lived and breathed that old creed… You know what I'm talking about, right?"

JD was a Marine. Not a Frog.

Mai did however. Whereas she had been a Spartan assigned to the UNSC Army, the Spartan-IIs had been assigned to the Navy's special warfare group. She was familiar with, hopefully, something that only the most traditional of special forces in the UNSC Navy had held onto:

She began to speak, like a machine warming up, but finding her stance as all Shepard could do was smile at her warmly:

Been around the world twice, talked to everybody once.

Seen two whales fuck, been to three world fairs, and I even know a man in Thailand with a wooden cock.

I push more peter, more sweeter, and more completer, than any other peter pusher around.

I'm a hard bodied hairy chested, ruttin' tuttin' shootin' parachutin' demolition double cap krimpin' Frogman.

There aint nothing I can't do, No sky too high, No sea too rough, No muff too tough.

Learned a lot of lessons in my life.

Never shoot a large caliber man with a small caliber bullet.

I drive all kinds of trucks, two by, four by, six by, and those big motherfuckers that bend and go "CHHH CHHH" when you step on the brakes.

Anything in life worth doing is worth overdoing, moderation is for cowards.

I'm a lover, I'm a survivor, I'm a Navy Special Forces fighter.

I'll wine dine, intertwine. Then sneak out the back when the re-fueling is done.

So if you're feeling froggy then you better jump. because this Frogman has been there, done that, and is going back for more."

It was a recitement of her life up to her enlistment, so Jane Shepard felt at ease among the Navy and the SOF. "I'm glad you know that Chief Gul. Must mean you've earned how much black ink is in your bio."

Mai had stirred uncomfortably. It was the same thing, time after time, officers she had been assigned to remised to have her file: only to see that there was nothing there they could read. They all would ask questions she could not answer. Shepard would be different however:

"Mai? Am I saying that correctly?" She said it like the month. Most people did.

"Mai." She responded back. Like 'my'. She didn't even remember why she had known that was the correct way to say it, but it was what she felt right.

The commander nodded. "Mai." She repeated. "Heh. Just looking at you, I can imagine you know your way around a deployment… and, of course, you too, Chief Durante."

The two had felt comfortable in her presence. As if they had known her all their lives. That was how casual Shepard felt, how open she was. JD couldn't help but shake his head in good jest. "I suppose my file isn't much better?"

Shepard affirmed with one head nod. "I've got a feeling you're my new one and two for away missions."

JD pursed his lips once before shrugging. "Could be. Our orders are from Anderson, and if we're your naval liaisons on the ground, so be it."

With that, Shepard couldn't be anymore pleased, or, at least, she seemed to be. "I trust the Captain's judgement. He's done more for the Alliance than I ever could, and if you two are Master Chiefs, well, I have no reason to doubt his judgement or you." Her gaze drew onto Mai's hands, balled into each other:

She had held her hands together, fingers rubbing over her own knuckles. They were calloused, and worn, scabbed over and worn down to the bone, again and again. Mai noticed, unconsciously running her own thumbs over her own soft hands. "Now Captain Anderson forwarded me bios on most of my crew, however I'd rather hear it from the horse's mouth."

This, vaguely, was what they were training for.

"We're not awfully interesting people." Mai had admitted. It was a lie, but Shepard seemed very forward. She leaned in from her own seat gently, slowly, eyes locked with both of them at a time.

"Well, I just like to get to know who I'm serving with. In the long run, I think it helps. Unit cohesion and all that… unless of course, you want to wait for those first cringy ice breakers in the mess of the Normandy."

JD had sat through enough of those in his life, and it writ on his face.

"Tell me a little about your self Chief Durante… Is Jonathon okay?"

He breathed out, rubbing the back of his head before relenting. "JD is fine ma'am, or Chief Durante."

"Okay. Where you from JD?"

He came, both in a lie, and by his heritage, from almost-heaven. "West Virginia."

"Ah. I'm a California girl myself… You an outdoorsman too?"

"Eh. I don't mind a hike."

"Fair enough. And you Mai? Where you from?"

She straightened her back. She was not used to lying. "Don't know ma'am. Was born on a chartered freighter and left at an orphanage. My early years are a blur, truthfully."

Her first memories as a Spartan trainee had been her first memories of her coherent mind: the time with her mother on New Jerusalem having degraded with age and war. She damned it, but it was the reality of her life. She remembered being strapped with a backpack and told where to pull when the time was right, she remembered the dark of a planet unknown below her with dozens of other different children and young teenagers like her. Most of all she remembered being pushed out the back of the Pelican and told to rendezvous (as if she knew what that word meant at the time) at a set coordinates or else face death.

Shepard's face has softened. "You seemed to turn out well for yourself however."

"Thank you ma'am." Mai spoke dryly.

JD had told her the same, days ago. She really had.

Mai didn't know whether or not she would appreciate the praise, the compliments. She was still processing it in her head. She was a person who lived without thanks, and the sudden change now, she didn't know if it had been truthful or not.

"What brought you into the fold?" The service she meant.

Mai didn't even have a choice, but she had rehearsed her answer in her head for a few nights now: "I saw little else I could do with my life."

"And, well," Everyday the news would come in on Luna of more and more colonies falling, the death toll rising and rising. Maybe it was a little selfish of him, but JD had never wanted to fight the Covenant on his home turf, it would've broken his heart so. So he took to the stars as a Marine and never looked back. "I just felt it was the right thing to do with my life."

"You two were flagged for xenophobic tendencies." Shepard had outright said, JD and Mai immediately feeling their spine tighten and straighten. "Mind if I ask why? I don't get that often, and with who, it makes sense… you two however, I don't think you're the type."

Mai had an answer before JD could even politely respond. "I've fought aliens all my life, ma'am. I'm hardwired, unfortunately."

"I'm- I guess. I try not to be but I'm the same way." JD relented. He didn't believe what he was saying, but it was what he was.

They watched videos on the extranet, documentaries detailing different alien species, how they were, are, warnings for humans if they were tourist on their world, however it wasn't enough.

"Elysium? Torfan? There during the Blitz?"

Mai had been right there with opsec. "We are not currently disposed to talk about any operations on those worlds, if indeed they did happen."

"Spec ops?" Shepard had gleamed.

The silence was their answer.

"I have a feeling you would've met us there."

She was there, of course, as JD pointed out.

As Shepard had been everywhere on Earth, she had been everywhere in her early years in service. "Ah, so you know me?" She said with a raised eyebrow and an amused smirk. "What do you know?"

"Lieutenant in 2176, on shore leave on Elysium when a combined force of Mercenaries and Pirates backed by the Batarians launched a siege of the colony. With little in the way of military or militia assets Elysium would not have survived the attack… that is if you weren't there to intervene and organize a defense." JD had read her file the most. Mai hadn't been too interested in who commanded her, as long as she had been commanded, it was no matter.

Shepard's confident gaze softened, looking to the floor reflectively. It was her first real combat as a Marine, in over her head with the fate of a colony on her shoulders. "I didn't know what else to do but to lead. Everyone was trying to save their own skin, and not each other. If we fell apart, people would've died."

To hold ground to him, as a Marine in the war against the Covenant, it was a death wish, but yet the most noble thing one could do. He continued to recite her story. "After rallying the defense and fending off the raiders, you were put on a Marine task force that put you on as QRF for colonists and colonies up and down the outskirts of Alliance space. One of your missions took you to Akuze."

Shepard looked up at him, a raised eyebrow. "That's not public info."

It was true. JD had asked Anderson for details more about Shepard. He licked his lips, waiting a second, clasping his hands and giving her time to come to terms with the fact that he was still going to speak:

"Sole survivor. Thresher Maw. I'm sorry." He made it painless. "And after that, to Torfan."

Loss after loss, defeat after defeat. Shepard clasped her own hands. "You know, sometimes, when I'm on civilian stations in transit, people will come up to me. To thank me for my service, for an autograph, advice, help, whatever… Just doesn't feel right."

It was a sadness that was familiar to JD. To survive when others didn't. She had survived nearly 120 of her soldiers, and, in the end, despite how many Batarians or Mercenaries she piled up in retribution, her losses carried with her.

Perhaps she lived as hard as she did for them, JD thought.

How odd it was, Mai had known of Shepard, for her to carry a title. Butcher of Torfan.

It was something she was used to having herself.

The cold sweeped over Shepard once, a memory she lived every day, her failures forgotten by the populace in lieu of her successes. It went away in a rumble of the shuttle. Docking. The rumble felt like the explosives used by the Batarians to smash her advance with her men. They always aimed high, hitting the men behind her, always, always missing her. War was the same for any species, especially in practice, and Shepard was no stranger to War and what it had done to souls.

JD and Mai would be thankful that Shepard did know what, but they would mourn for her because of it all the same.

Earth Space Dock where the Normandy was hosted for the last two weeks, they had just entered one of its shuttle hangers.

She stood, slinging her rifle over one shoulder and her bag around the other. "Have you been taking steps to deal with your xenophobic tendencies?"

JD nodded intensely, but Mai was unmoving. "I have," he said. "I really don't want to be but sometimes… it just-."

"I know." Shepard said, the doors of the shuttle opening. "I don't blame you, with the lives we tend to live, but we can do better." There was a strive in her voice, a desire.

Mai had stood, her own ruck slung as if it had weighed nothing. "Yes ma'am."

"Good, now one of you on each arm. I want to feel special."

They each knew the steps: of knowing where they were going. A new ship was on their horizon as they stepped off that dock and into the filtered air of the station, dozens of shuttles, military and civilian, coming in and out from what had also doubled as a port of commerce. First time around JD and Mai had hardly the time to look around, however now they were given the view of a clean station that handled itself well in natural orbit around Earth.

Again, the blue light of Earth had painted itself over the three of them as they stepped out, the hanger door leading out to space breathing in that light.

Mai still looked as unnatural, yet graceful, in it as she did the first time JD noted.

They had naturally formed into a three-man formation out, Shepard at the lead, the two of them just behind to her left and right. Several military personnel took note of Shepard and rendered salute, she giving her own down as the shuttle, upon their disembarking, took back off toward another duty today.

When Shepard walked, so did they, carrying them through the hallways and corridors of the station toward the larger military docking stations.

"Last time for some fast food, want any?" They passed by one of the food courts on the way, Shepard thumbing at it as they slowed their stride.

Mai, hit with a brick wall of fried food and oils in her nose, might've been tempted to say yes. In the end however it was just a distraction, so she shook her head along with JD.

"You guys are no fun." Shepard snickered. "Didn't have enough Happy Meals growing up?"

JD made a mental note that McDonalds still existed then. Somehow, in the rush of things, details like that kept him grounded to it all. And he, of all people, would know what it meant to be grounded.

---

She was still there, right where Anderson had left her

Named after the beaches of a continent, Mai had only known that name from studying combat tactics from a war long ago that took place on those beaches. JD, vaguely, remembered in his youth having played a few videogames which depicted the Battle of Normandy.

To them, that battle had been half a millennium- half of a thousand years- before their time. To Shepard it would've been only a century and a half or so. Still what it meant and why that name was given to this ship was understood all the same. The righteous, carrying justice, going off on the shores to save, to be victorious, against the evils that may be. That was what was imbued in this ship as they approached its HAZMAT and decontamination station in its nose from a ramp. Crew around them, also prepping to board, had been conversing and saying their goodbyes to their families. It was like any other deployment. Quiet, organized, emotional.

It was different though. Mai felt it on her finger tips, and JD felt it in the aura of the place. It felt so much different to be at peace than it had been to be at war. Every time a ship left docks carrying service members, there was always a feeling that the ship would be their tombs. That was how the war was going.

Here there was hopefulness.

To go off on a starship, it wasn't a death sentence. It was an opportunity.

Shepard hadn't flared her omni-tool to open the crew entrance initially. She instead reached out her hand, touching the steel hull, holding her palm against that cold steel.

"They tell me," her eyes had been closed, her only attachment to reality then was the feel of that cold in her hands and the low vibrato of the station around them. "They tell me this ship will go far. Go places where even the Council doesn't go. It'll be nice for humanity to lead the way for once."

Who was out there in that galaxy? It was the same question she shared with JD and Mai, unknowingly. What were they doing? How were they living? Did they need someone to save them from their sins? From themselves? Would they let her help them?

"A lot of pressure, ma'am." JD spoke quietly, looking back, hoping no one else had been coming. It looked like ritual what Shepard was doing so he had made no comment.

"It's what I want though."

Mai had known pressure. The weight of the human race had been on her shoulders once, and she did it with no thanks, with all the cruelty it meant that only now she had seen reflected from JD's gaze in the time they had known each other.

"Why?" The Spartan asked. She would've chosen her life again, without complaint, but now a piece of her born now had thought that was only because she was conditioned into being a willing machine. She wanted to know what it really was.

Shepard gave her answer, turning around, looking Mai dead in her eyes, firm, yet soft. Knowing, yet understanding. Her eyes had been that of a woman who had lived a good life. "After Akusze and Torfan, I did some soul searching."

Mai tilted her head, almost like a dog, eyebrow raised. "What did you find?"

Shepard twitched the corner of her mouth, unsure. "I don't know… but a Mongolian man said this to me one day when I spent a summer tending horses in East Asia: Sometimes people need to save, in order to be saved."

There was wistfulness in Shepard's voice, goodness and darkness all the same. JD could've counted, on his two hands, how many men and women he had known as an ODST that joined the service to do that: to save. A war gone on for thirty years and a lot of hate was made, bleeding through the society until it took heart. Good men and women were not supposed to go to war, were not made in war: the best of humanity was the ones that were supposed to be saved.

She was an N7, like Ryder.

It meant that she was one of the best humanity could offer they both remembered.

This was what that goodness looked like.

This was the type of humanity they were denied because of the Covenant.

Shepard's omnitool flashed and the door opened upwards, revealing decontamination, the trio stepping in finally with the SR-1 on the door looking at them like a face. The electronic voices went through its processes, keeping them informed on the clean they were going through as the air became heavier for a moment, but then lifted.

This was it: the rest of their lives in front of them, phasing through them like the laser scanner wall that went through them in its blue light.

"Decontamination Sequence Already Completed."

Still in that triangle formation, JD reached out, bumping Mai's free wrist discretely.

Ritual. What they shared between them. It was something. Odd, and yet something all the same. Something that was shared between them not because they came from a different reality, a different universe, but something that was shared between them because JD was JD, and Mai was Mai, and they were gradually, very gradually, stepping into being acquaintances.

Discretely, they pumped their free hands three times.

Paper beat rock. JD won that time.

JD would give himself a victorious smirk every time he won and she would be on point to go through a door. Mai wouldn't do much of anything.

She did take pride in her victories however, Shepard leading the way through to their new postings.

"Officer on deck!" Cried out one of the crew men. All those in eyesight had snapped up straight to attention.

The Normandy was an odd ship to JD and Mai: Frigate according to the Systems Alliance, but, to Mai, it was more like an ONI Stealth Sloop. It was the first ship of her class, with more on the way, a new type of ship built as a sign of cooperation between the Humans and the Turians. The Turians were more than happy to receive new medical equipment from the humans in exchange for further cooperation on the project.

Mai knew this type of resonance. Her shields, her active camo, they were all reverse engineered from the Covenant Elites. To think of aliens giving up whatever designs that led to the Normandy was a thought process she would have to become comfortable with.

Shepard looked proudly, to her left: the cockpit without a pilot currently, to her right, a command deck past comm, navigation, and sub-system consoles. A full complement. Men and women ready to set sail into the stars. A view of the galaxy in all of its holographic glory was displayed in the middle of that deck, surrounded by more consoles and crew.

Some had recognized who their new XO had come with, but said nothing about it. There was danger in knowing sometimes, and any who had been assigned to that ship had known a thing or two of secrets imbued within the military.

In an hour or so, the first "official" shakedown run of the Normandy was to take place. Though it was a lie. Altis had come up instead of the Normandy being delivered to Earth via the Kilimanjaro.

"At ease. Return to your duties." Shepard nodded down once. "Alert Captain Anderson I'm onboard."

"Yes ma'am." A voice rang out from those substations.

The thrill, the unease, the tension of stepping aboard a new ship had been dulled to both JD and Mai. To JD: every single ship he had been deployed on, no matter how big or well-armed, had been destroyed. Thankfully his drop pod had doubled as an escape pod in a cinch.

To Mai, it was different: she never found a home on a ship as did most UNSC servicemembers. Ships were merely transportations or hubs from which she was deployed out behind the frontlines. She could hardly remember their names, let alone what they had actually been.

Shepard however, she had breathed in that filtered air as if it had been air from Eden itself. It rejuvenated her, her eyes bright, a smile on her face. She loved it very much: both the ship, and her life. Within reason of course, she did not block out the pain of her past, but she beamed of rising from it.

Her elbows had each nudged into the two soldiers on each side. "If this ship is like any I've been on of this size, your lockers should be in the bay. I'll talk with you later chiefs."

---

They both had their own ways of removing themselves from a conversation curtly: with Chief Gul, it had been a nod with a stone, too serious face. With Chief Durante, it had been flash of a smile before his own face returned, sunken deep with thought. Though in the end, they went off together, immediately walking step in step with each other.

Those two had been familiar with each other, friends perhaps. That's how much Shepard could surmise of them as a pair. Individually however, they were interesting: held back and reserved. They were veterans, faded scars and mannerisms, where they looked when moving, it all told the tale of people she had learned from, and then eventually, became herself. They weren't Ns however, she would've been alerted to that when she had received the crew manifest.

Still, it was odd, seeing JD dive into conversation when Mai was taken aback, or, perhaps, paused. He was covering for her… compensating?

When free time came up, she'd inquire more. She was honestly interested in them as people.

A few of the crew had stared at Shepard a bit longer than she had liked, but there was, of course, the fact she had lugged a rifle and a bear pelt on top of her own ruck. It was no bother to her however as she stepped into the empty cockpit, stations around her buzzing, but non-threatening in their idle. The stars above Earth were seen, the Normandy still attached to the space dock. She looked out at them, through the viewing ports allotted to the pilot. Piloting in this day of age didn't rely on sightlines. It was all digital, through screens and visualizers, however a window was always nice when it came down to it.

The dossier on Flight Lieutenant Jeff Moreau had noted him to be a man who would prefer windows, if anything. He was eccentric enough to have stolen the Normandy during its first test flight and prove himself able to fly a ship of this caliber. She could appreciate that drive.

She never learned how to pilot, either a shuttle or a fighter. She was offered once, as a younger woman, during her time as a wanderer, to fly an old model, propeller driven aircraft she was riding during a hitchhiking session of hers over Old Russia. She declined, and always thought of it. She always thought of her missed opportunities, tracing her fingers over the headrest of the pilot's seat.

"Commander Shepard." A voice of a man behind her. She turned.

"Yes?"

Well built, sideburns a touch too long for her preference, but his hair neatly fluffed. He looked tired, squaring his back before looking at her. "Captain Anderson is waiting for you in his quarters, just behind the CIC are stairs that will take you down there."

"Thank you." She said first. "Your name sailor?"

"It's Marine, ma'am. And Staff Lieutenant Kaiden Alenko. Honored to serve with Lieutenant Commander Shepard."

He offered his hand, and she took it, shaking once. "Ah, so you're the one who reports ground team hijinks to me?"

Alenko rolled his head left once, straightening his mouth. "Hopefully none to be said. Not many Marines on this boat compared to other ships this size."

"What's the complement?" She knew how many, she just wanted to know if he did.

"According the Captain, sixteen Marines, me and you included. Some pull double duty with other shipboard activities."

Mai looked around Alenko to see if Mai and JD had still been in view. They weren't. "Are Chief Gul and Chief Durante included?"

Alenko sucked in his jaw, Shepard very much noticing as he too looked back to see if they were there. "Anderson briefed me on who they are actually." Shepard had heard that line before. If you had to be briefed on a people who would normally be beneath your jurisdiction, there was always a catch. Usually it had been VIPs with political connotations, people with codenames rather than actual names.

"What'd he say?"

"They are "Special Forces Liaisons from the Navy"."

Shepard tilted her head. "Really? If there would be any special forces contacts here, it would've been me or Captain Anderson himself."

Alenko agreed with a nod. "Yeah, that's what I thought." He and Chakwas. They were the only ones that knew that one had been more than human, and the other a soldier from a different war. That's not what they were told of course, but what they had guessed. Mercenaries perhaps, deep in the Terminus that dredged up the Covenant, or the blackest of Alliance Black Ops that had no record and only kept alive in word and word alone. Naturally any speculation was forbidden, and that their true nature, as told to them, was top secret. What Anderson said to Alenko was then the truth for all purposes. "They specialize in covert operations, search and rescue, behind enemy lines."

"Hmph. I see." Shepard took in these new facts rather well. To know that she had more special forces onboard was always a treat, tactically. She knew how hard and cold the type could get however. She was once faced with that road down into alcoholism, edgy outlooks, and general cynicism that made people hate life. She refused. "If I can call you Kaiden, will you call me just Shepard?"

Kaiden could only smile at that. "Of course, Shepard."

Lugging her bag, more comfortable around one shoulder again, she smiled back before moving. "I should go, Captain's waiting for me."

---

"Lieutenant Commander Shepard in the flesh." Captain Anderson had been more than happy to see one of humanity's best, rising from his desk in his quarters. His humanity, that is. He of all people had been reminded recently who the best had been, and where they had come from. Her pack had dropped to the floor when the doors closed behind her, not out of clumsiness, it was out of respect. A salute given and her face straightening to regulation blank. "At ease."

Her feet spread, one hand behind her back, the other held on the sling of her hunting rifle. "Permission to speak, Captain?"

"Granted."

She reached down to the floor, to the bear pelt, folding it over her arm. It was large but she had been able to drape it well, rolling it out to its full area. It was a rather sizable display, enough to fit comfortably in a mess hall as a distinct conversation piece. "Am I allowed to offer this as a gift to you and the Normandy?"

Anderson had been impressed, folding his arms, one hand to his chin as he observed the pelt.

It wasn't perfect. It couldn't have been, not with how many stab marks and bullet holes Shepard had put through it, but it added character. It was a testament to her ability. "Caught this yourself, Commander?"

She tilted her head side to side, thinking to herself. "If you were there, you'd be tempted to say it caught me, but I'm 100% condition green sir, and I have something to offer for it."

Anderson rose an eyebrow at the had-been hunter. "It would be very easy for me to call you out for doing something as so out of regulation as… this, you know. One might think this a tad childish? Offering something so… dramatic as this."

"Are you not satisfied sir? Alliance regulation makes no specific reference toward crew members decorating one's own ship outside of duty and service stations, such as the mess hall or sleeper pod areas." She said, resuming her regulation voice, squaring her back again.

Anderson softened his gaze. "Oh no. I'm just posing the question Shepard. I think the crew would enjoy something like this. I'll see to it that it finds a place itself. Thank you."

"May I offer this rifle too? So as to avoid processing of a personal weapon into the ship's armory? I have no intent to use this, given how outdated it is."

Anderson smirked. If this was any other XO he would've grilled them, but then again Shepard was special. Who was he to say anything about an officer that wanted to provide something as small as décor for their ship?

"We'll see. But for now, attention." He said casually, and she squared her feet again. "Welcome aboard Commander. Have you been briefed on the ship?"

"Yes sir."

"On the crew?" She hesitated for a moment, but relented.

"Yes sir."

"Your duty rosters and duties yourself?"

"Yes sir."

"And the nature of this shakedown run?"

"No sir."

That was the discrepancy she thought odd. Everything about her deployment orders had seemed as per usual, even if it had been on the Normandy, however no information regarding where the ship was going or her activities as expected of her in regards to where it was going was not given.

Anderson expected this. "I know you would have these questions. But for now, stay these thoughts, as you should understand some details are left to be diluted down the chain of command when the time comes."

"I trust you sir."

That was good to hear for him, even if Shepard, privately, would think of what questions she would ask of him. "Are there any matters you wish to discuss that do not relate to the shakedown run?"

Some would be allowed. "Sir, on the transport up I was accompanied by two Master Chief Petty Officers also assigned to the Normandy. Chief Gul and Chief Durante. Do they answer to me?"

Anderson had expected this question, looking back to his desk and the data pad there. Day by day more information about the UNSC and their history had been coming in. The Covenant had made no mention of the UNSC, or another humanity in general, but it was purposeful.

In the days since the Prophet of Destiny and Shipmistress Seylu Karonee declared their intention to cooperate with Alliance and Council authorities and begin integration into the galaxy at large, they had played what they knew of themselves close to their chest. Very little tactically, less regarding their religion, but details of how they organized each species, that they were very capable of defending themselves on the ground and (hopefully in the future) in space. The dead Alliance Marines were mourned for, and, as usual, xenophobic and militaristic cries for reparations and blood for blood were had by the galaxy and humanity, however there always would be those cries regardless.

The one point that made First Contact with the Covenant different was difficulty in itself to understand: that they weren't new to the stars, and knew what it was like to have a galactic empire. Some had thought it a bug in translation, and some hadn't cared, but for the Council, it meant a challenge at some point down the line.

For Anderson, even that was put into the background as the two humans that came with the Covenant were put to question by the Marine deemed to be Humanity's Spectre.

"Yes. They do. But if there are certain topics which they have to defer to me if inquired and needed."

"Special forces though?"

"We're a deep recon frigate, Shepard. Clandestine operations are within this vessel's purpose."

It took a moment, but knowing that those two had answered to her in the end, that was all she needed for now. Still there was a certain unease within her. She liked knowing things, as much as the unknown inspired awe in her to go seek it out, her lower teeth biting into the back of her top lips as she sucked it in. A nervous tic if anything that, once she felt sting, brought her back to reality. "I understand sir."

"Good." Anderson stepped over to Shepard, gesturing to the rifle, she gladly handing it over. He wasn't quite sure on how to use it himself, and Shepard saw it as he rotated it around his hands, unable to comfortably hold without a pistol grip.

"Ah, here, sir." She took it back. "Back in the day a striker primed by this-" She pulled back the bolt with a rack before slamming it forward. "Shot a conical bullet." She pulled the trigger, a dry firing click heard.

"Hmph." Anderson took it back, pleased he knew this knowledge now. "I'll see to it I get a mount for this thing, mount it over, maybe, the weapons lockers downstairs."

"I think that'd be lovely sir."

"Okay. Go get yourself geared up Commander, we're launching soon."

---

Steps they had taken before. Albeit at gunpoint and with restraints on. They knew the way down, and some would recognize them. As they were waiting for the elevator on the ship's mid-deck to arrive it was no wonder that they had, both, again the pleasure of seeing the aged woman that had been the Normandy's doctor through the window of the med bay at her desk.

She didn't seem particularly surprised to see them again dressed up as crew, flashing a smile and a wave at the two. JD meekly waved back as Mai gave her nod, stepping into the elevator doors and arriving at the lower deck fast enough: the bay occupied by lockers and, most namely, the infantry fighting vehicle known as the Mako.

A touch more heavily armored than the typical Warthog, and carrying a little more punch, the Normandy had one ready to deploy. Sparsely the Marines of the Normandy had been on one side of the hanger, a handful of them already on board, stowing away their personal equipment in these lockers. Personal ones had been back on the mid-deck.

Strangely enough their lockers had been by the Mako and a utility bench station, separated from the rest. Their rucks dropped to the floor in front of them they had begun the process of moving in. Not that there was much to move.

It was their duty kits, ready for them as they opened the two standing lockers. The weapons at least. Given the particular, odd, mechanical nature of them many weapons could be carried on a single soldier, almost negating designated fireteam assignments. Old habits died hard however, and the requisition forms which they had transmitted prior to arriving on the Normandy made clear that they were best to be good at one weapon, then be average with four.

Well, one designated weapon and a sidearm.

Wasn't the same as his M7, but the M12 Locust SMG was similar in ergonomics as JD found the weapon's case ready for him, the protective foam encasing it even within that case. It was odd just seeing his weapon in his locker, but the Normandy hadn't the room for a dedicated armory, as was why he had reached in and laid his hands on the metal body, holding it and giving a once over to the design. He had fired a similar variant back on Earth at the New Buffalo Alliance Marine Station, and it was, as he understood it, an SMG in earnest. Fast fire rate, lower punch, and controllability as he expected.

There was another aspect that he and Mai however had to get used to, but were already somewhat acquainted with:

These weapons didn't need to be reloaded in practice, much like the Covenant plasma weapons. Each weapon was, in essence, a rail gun: a mass driver not unlike the MAC guns on the UNSC starships and starholds. The limiting factor of them had still been recoil and the internals: overheating possible after prolonged use.

He held the black submachine gun in his hands, aiming to the floor out of not wanting to flag anyone else in the hold, feeling the stock against his shoulder as he had, after getting comfortable with it, went for the black tube that came with the case.

A suppressor, threaded on. He might've been a shock trooper, but staying clandestine was something he was good at.

Mai had seen her single weapon now too: From a distance she might've mistaken this as a BR-55 perhaps, but it hadn't been. Clad in grey like the popular Avenger Assault Rifles in use by the Alliance, the M-13 Rifle was what Mai had been designated. A DMR in practice.

If anyone could cover the full breadth of a battlefield, it would've been her, and this particular weapon had been versatile enough for her to, theoretically, be comfortable having as her duty weapon. A medium to low powered optic sat on its top rail, she peering into it as she also held it against her shoulder and adjusting as usual.

"Turian design, that rifle." A sailor with a beret had moved to the utility station, placing a few boxes down and under for storage. He pointed out to Mai's rifle. "When this ship was being built, we traded a few things here and there with the Turians as well. That rifle was the result of one of those trades. One of the first of its kind."

"You armory officer?" JD asked the man, still holding his SMG idle. He had been struggling to find a place to mount a sling, but there had been none.

"Reacquisitions, so in a way yes." The sailor answered, fanning his head with his beret. "Keep track of inventory and all that. Welcome aboard. Your stuff is back over there, I would've moved it to your lockers but it's, well, I would've asked Kaiden for help."

It was near the center of the bay, unmoved since a loader probably dropped it off. Mai went to rectify that as they both automatically moved to it. If it was theirs then, both secretly hoped, it contained pieces of themselves that they didn't feel whole without.

It was hardly the most proper way her armor had been carried, and it was her armor, the weight alone confirming it. In a steel box large enough, and heavy enough, it very much required a loader. Fortunately, Mai had known the weight as she had dragged it over to her cot and the lockers by the Mako.

It drew the eye of the crew to see her lug it across, however she had wasted no breath in it, not as it was dropped and hit the floor again, she opening its door and revealing something old, familiar, and yet renewed all the same.

Side by side, it was explained why it felt heavier than she expected. "JD." She spoke as the man had tightened the threading on his SMG's suppressor, putting it back and into his locker as he came over to see what she did.

The recquisitions officer thought it odd he hadn't minimized it, but paid no mind to it as he moved away. The two of them, to him, smelled of clandestine spookiness that he thought it best not to interfere with. Especially as Mai rose a portion of an item out of the box.

Their armor, ripe as rain, and, hopefully, mostly unmodified.

There had been a datapad attached to the door of it. She had read it, a time lock of its self-destructing, data wise, nature making her speed through it:

---

-FOR YOUR EYES ONLY-

Alliance Armorers confirmed: MJOLNIR technologically far beyond any comparable armor system in galactic usage. Combat effectiveness as observed and theorized deem it to be the future in human armored warfare systems. Chief Gul, you are responsible for maintenance and cataloguing of said maintenance of this armor for future operations, and eventually, RD into native development as gleamed from this suit (and from Chief Durante's BDU). Listed below are modifications deemed necessary.

-From the Desk of Admiral Steven Hackett, Fifth Fleet

---

She had looked down at said modifications. Nothing too egregious:

Her blue data pad had been removed and quarantined for study in its contents, which she understood, replaced with an Alliance military mode omni-tool bracer. Otherwise, on top of her energy shields, a supplemental kinetic barrier had been on top of it. Two pronged shields, which was enjoyable. Otherwise the biofoam reserves in the techsuit and armor had been emptied and retrofitted with medigel instead. Even her knives were returned. She carried two. One in her chest holster, the other on her hip.

One for each hand if it came down to it.

It often did come down to it.

She rose the torso piece out of the locker, the smooth feeling of a new layer of paint, protective layering, and sheen in general hadn't been too out of place with standard Alliance infantry armor. Color alone had hid its… otherworldly nature.

That wasn't what she had been looking for however as she turned it over to the back piece.

She was satisfied. The module used for her active camouflage was still there. Reverse engineered from the armor systems of Elite Spec Ops, she had used it to much success and. The clarity provided by it had been tenfold the effectiveness of common military issue active camo in the Alliance, at least according to her eyes, and the fact it remained, it gave her solace.

While she was busy looking over her armor, JD had gone for his, taking his helmet out, also observing that new paint job. On both of their armor had been some signage toward them being Systems Alliance, but nothing particularly branding. Perhaps the most notable one was the grey that had once gone down JD's helmet in a stripe. It was replaced: replaced with the blood red.

The emblem of the N7s were red for a reason: they symbolized the blood lost by pioneers and heroes for humanity. Perhaps this was a clue to his capability to the casual observer without outright stating he wasn't an N7.

He was told, during that prior week, he had been judged to be of worthy merit to be an N7, but could not be. He was better than them, perhaps, according to his combat footage provided. A new designation perhaps would be made accounting for him and anyone who could match. Perhaps, more importantly, was the consideration by the effectiveness, of the grade, that Mai had now put.

Humanity had not had people that could match the Matriarchs of the Asari, or the Battlemasters of the Krogan. Now however they did in the form of a woman named Mai.

A Spartan.

She was a Demon in plain sight, the urge to put on that legendary armor of hers and keep it on for the next few years tempting, but something she beat down as she placed it all back into the locker. With JD's armor removed the locker itself would be fine enough for storage between missions. At least his could fit in his locker.

Mai herself just could not fit in much of anything, both in the military and now, as she had learned in the recent weeks, the civilian world. No sleeper pod, the Alliance's version of cryogenic stasis for the longer trips, had been able to be provided to her, and the solution to her plight being a cot (or rather two), placed next to her locker. Even in the hotel she had to scrunch up and sleep diagonally.

Anderson had alerted her of this and requested on behalf of her arrangements for a pod that would fit her, but it was all on short notice: an oversight. She told him to not bother. She would adjust.

JD looked it over in all of its plain bareness, frowning. "Could req a pillow you know." Not even a sheet.

She shook her head. "Don't need it."

"Well," he started slowly. "If not for you, me. I never really needed cryo or that stuff. Opted out."

And just by that measure alone he had ended up looking older than men he had, chronologically, been the same age as. At least a year more of natural time progression having done him in during the war.

"Volunteer skeleton crew?" Mai tilted her head at him. He nodded.

"Ship is quieter. And I don't need cryo to just knock myself out."

He was right she knew.

They had still rolled through sharing shifts for security, one awake, one not during their stay in New Buffalo. Either out of comfort or just pure curiosity keeping the observing one awake, those nights had often been lonely, if not informative based on Extranet reading.

Despite that, they still learned little bits and pieces about themselves. Mai learned that JD could literally just close his eyes and fall asleep, and JD learned that she had been a stomach sleeper after her tossing and turnings from the visions in her sleep. The ones he had as well.

"Do you have night terrors?" Mai asked one night as he woke up, before she was to go to sleep herself.

He paused at her, a flash of sorrow on his face, hard realization, before he tried flashing a smile her way unsuccessfully. "Yeah. Not that bad though…" he paused for a bit before looking at her, still staring at him as if expecting more. He gave her that. "Do you know about yours?"

She nodded, an eyebrow raised. "Is it…. Not supposed to be like that?"

God no. It wasn't.

"Do you mind if I… uh-" What was he saying? "Ah nevermind, I'll just get used to the sleeperpods."

She didn't get what he was about to ask, and so she let it go, closing her locker, the container with MJOLNIR just to the side. She had flashed a looked at JD's locker before reminding herself that this was his first time using it as well. There would be no information she could gleam, glimpse, find a hint of. The decorations and amenities of a locker on a ship often told much about a Marine: pictures of loved ones, either pure or full bearing, places from before the war, things worth fighting for. Marines loved to be reminded of things.

JD never had been one however to carry in his locker. After his third ship was destroyed after a Drop, he never bothered with holding onto trinkets with the knowledge that permanence on a duty post would always end up in disaster for him.

Things were different however, this time around.

He reached into his helmet, beneath the thermal and ballistic underlay.

She was blonde, a cute bobcut on display in that candid photo of her in a sundress. Same age as him, and generally, for her profession as a dock worker handling loading and unloading cargo, on the smaller side. Her eyes were bright, shining, her face that of the sun itself it seemed based on the lighting of the picture he had taken.

They might've been casual sex partners at the very most, but he couldn't deny that she was beautiful. Something that was, if anything he had, worth fighting for (or, at least, looking forward to).

He had caught Mai staring, she quickly, failing to persuade him that she was doing something else, looking away vaguely.

He smirked at her embarrassment. "Her name's Dawn. Met her on shore leave on Cascade about two years ago."

At a bar naturally that his ODST squad at the time dragged him to.

JD had, at Dawn's insistence, admit to himself that he was conventionally attractive for a Marine. Of all that had been done to him nothing had hurt his handsome face: one that hadn't been macho and masculine as one expected from a shock trooper, but was a face one could describe on country boys and sweet summer children grown into adults. He looked "Safe", whatever that meant from her.

Mai had, vaguely, blocked out whether if he had talked about this person before. They had a lot of information to process those last two weeks and she couldn't exactly remember if this person was among them. Talk of their reality was sparse.

"Was she a soldier?"

JD shook his head. "Civilian sector. Ran a detail on one of the space elevators."

"Are you…?"

JD never had any family to explain this situation to in that clunky, awkward way. When pressed by his fellow ODSTs he could use the course and rude language that would have made any sort of revelation to blood relatives somewhat crude.

He shook his head. "We were…" he tried to dance around using the term fuck buddies out of politeness. "Casual acquaintances."

"A friend?"

"A physical friend."

"Physical…?"

She wouldn't have known, JD kept reminding himself. Any sort of intricate social relationship that was imbued with the overarching context of how normal people developed and dealt with each other had been robbed of her, all the way to knowing that casual hookups were a thing.

"Whenever I had time off I would spend time with her for physical pleasure's sake."

Mai's eyes had widened for a moment before her face returned to its neutral, a hint of processing still lingering. "Do you miss her?"

He missed everyone. "Not more than anyone else I've seen come and go..." Any answer he could've given was cold, but with the war, death was always on the doorstep, everyday: one's last. He paused, putting her photo on the shelf in his locker. Part of her draw to him had been simple: she had wanted to join the Corp so badly, but every time she had gone to a recruiting station she had backed away and was sick of herself. She was scared. She wasn't a bad person by any means, and he'd been afraid if what little he let on had painted her like that. "I think of her sometimes. When I need the peace."

"Oh." Was all Mai could say quietly, like a breath. She didn't make the move to, but her right hand twitched where it was, the impulse to reach out and touch upon his shoulder present, but not acted on.

It was no matter. Not when JD had put that discussion away as he had gone to his armor again, looking to the chest section: the padded armor plate. Wedged between the steel plate used for protection and its sheath had been something else:

Fabric, torn and faded, barely survived, gone from its days as a thick ceremonial piece. Red and gold fibers had been dirtied by dirt and his own blood, time and time again. He hadn't known if it would be prudent to pull it all out, but he at least needed to show her. To let her know that he would always know what he was:

He had beckoned her over with a finger, and, oddly, she nodded before moving over. It was if she was responding to an order, not an ask.

Sliding it out of his chest piece it had been revealed:

An ODST flag. A blazing drop pod, emblazoned with a skull and a unit: 7th MEU. 7th Marine Expeditionary Unit.

"It's nice." She offered comment, and he taking it with a nod as he slipped it back in.

He'd used it to pay respects in battle, to place it upon dirty mounds used as graves. After so many of his fellow ODST, fellow human, had died for him, in combat with him, this was the only way he could not go insane: To give them the respect they deserved, even if he had to claw their plots with his bare hands, even if he had been the only one to attend their funerals, sometimes a dozen at a time as he laid the flag over their bodies and gave them moments of silence.

If he had shown her that then, maybe, at the very least… give and take. That's how she had imagined how the most basic of human relationships worked. 1:1.

Her hand drew into her shirt, pulling the string around her neck, feeling a hastily made necklace come out.

He wanted to ask, but didn't want to insinuate he had been looking where it lay. Not that he was looking anyway. Military uniforms naturally did their best to hide whatever was desirable to Marines a long way from home, both in this world and their own. Still Mai had been nurtured to be as big as she could, and her body grew like wise. Only her armor could really, truly contain her.

He knew what she was going to pull out before it had come.

"When they took me-" She still hadn't even believe she was uttering those words to someone, and she stumbled. JD had understood though as he waited patiently, closing his locker, no one else within earshot. "When ONI took me for the Spartan program, they didn't allow any of my life to follow… burned the clothes I was in at the time."

She felt winded, talking about it, turning her body around, back against their lockers, head up and at the dim lights of the bay.

JD found a stool, dragging it over, sitting on it. It was important for her, and to her, to talk about this. That alone he knew. If he were in the same position he'd hoped someone would be there to listen. He had listened all his life, to every story spoken to him by other ODSTs. From raunchy to heartfelt, personal to jokes, he remembered what they wanted to tell him, and thus, he remembered their names.

Major Anna Duquette, 112th Helljumper Division. Left behind her children, and her wife.

PFC Silus Iglesias. 54th Marines. Owned twenty rescue dogs by the time he died.

Lieutenant Youji Itami. 7TH MEU, Delta Company. He was like JD in many ways, and for that, they were bunk buddies. Read a lot of comics to distract himself. He hoped that Itami survived the glassing of New Ginza.

The names went on and on, most dead, some unlucky to be alive, but he remembered them all, and, no matter what, he would remember Mai Gul, Spartan B-312. Born on New Jerusalem, kidnapped and conscripted to become a genetically enhanced super soldier. She missed her mom.

"I remembered my mother…" she drifted off still. "She had a necklace like this… but metal." She had been almost quick to point out.

"You remembered it?"

She nodded once fiercely, putting it back. "I know what it means. It's religious. But I don't think… I don't think she saw it that way." JD tilted her head, urging her to go on, to say it aloud. "The wheel means, I think, it keeps turning. Renewal, regardless of where you are on it…"

"The next life, if you lived rightly, if you lived as best you can, will be better."

Once, in another world, in another life, Mai was a dirt-poor vagrant, looking upon it now with a life in between.

Right then and there, there was no indication that she had been that, or JD had been an ODST. They blended into where they found themselves, and the only ones who knew really who each other were were themselves. A realization that came in inches, not declarations.

"Wake me when you need me." For now, with nothing to do, nothing left to do in his routine of getting acclimated to new ships, JD made his decision to simply put his back to the lockers as well, sit along the floor, and close his eyes. According to their duty roster they had no duties assigned other than be ready.

Mai had wondered if it was indicative of a serious medical condition on how easy JD fell asleep, but he had the second he closed his eyes, but she could imagine how it would be craved after by many a restless Marine. She herself had trouble sleeping, not used to lulling herself asleep by choice. It was either exhaustion in the field where even her body couldn't take it, or by the urge of creeping cold by cryosleep.

As they did for the last two weeks Mai did the only thing she felt obligated to do: keep watch as JD slept.

---

Shepard entered into the bay via the elevator, taking in the smell of steel that the electricity of the ship's core very near. It wasn't time for a tour of the ship, but she, at least, was getting a lay of the land and where she would get her guns.

Her quick eye had observed Chief Gul present with a dozing Chief Durante, the former not so gently kicking the man in his side and spurring him to his feet at observance.

"Officer on deck!"

One of the Marines cried out.

Her eyes had been glued to the two Chiefs however as she emerged out of the elevator, the weight of who they were drawing her to them like gravity, as far as gaze was alone.

JD woke up as men of readiness always do: panicked, fists clenched, and sprung.

"At ease." Whoever was presented relaxed, however her voice rose loud enough. It was the voice she used for orders. "Captain's telling me to suit up. That means everyone else too, you read?"

"Oorah." The handful of the Marines in their responded. They were already up and at it. Putting on armor would be no hassle. It was Shepard's first orders to them, and there was no break in period really necessary. The Marines had cause to trust her.

She was, to everyone but herself, a good officer. One people dreamed of serving under.

Those orders came and hit Mai and, if it hadn't been for conditioning, she would've been giddy.

JD's locker had opened as soon as the orders came down. The jumpsuit that was worn on top of his duty clothes had been zipped up fast, both by practice and by experience, sealing himself in, making anything that hadn't been his head able to deal with any EVA or similar environments. After that everything else had been slap, clack, and rolling. The armor plates of his torso, shins, boots, shoulders, donned in a flash as he had summed it up with his helmet being put on and, for the first time in the longest time he had gone without it, the standard HUD of a UNSC ODST came over him in a wash.

"JD." Mai's voice had him turn over. It took him less than thirty seconds to don his armor. Putting on his armor during a Covenant boarding raid had made it so he had done it that fast after that even had happened.

Combat couldn't prepare him to, again, see Mai naked.

Shepard had been halfway to her locker when she spared a look toward the other side. No armor system she had known, required the user to get buck naked, which was why she stared and saw an unbelievably formed and toned woman strut her stuff, either on purpose or without caring, and slip into an undersuit that she had never seen before.

Shepard wasn't the only one who saw this happen, and, soon enough, as Marines finished and realized that their was something to look at, they had seen a sight not many humans had been liable to see in their universe, and from where those two came from.

Taking off MJOLNIR her own was by itself a unique skill, inherited from Ambrose during her training. Putting it back on was, again, a more difficult, unique skill. One she mastered, even if it meant she would need, at the very least, ten minutes to do so on her own, twisting and bending about her own body to make sure all the joints and pins were able to connect and be forced together by her own strength and not a tool.

Having another person there would've helped. Having JD there, to learn, she thought, was worth it.

Her armor came in pieces, front and backs, halves to the whole. The only thing that really hadn't been like that was her helmet, and that had been last.

"Clasp each one around where it needs to go until you feel a magnetic charge kick and seize. I'll do the rest." She said hurriedly, unnaturally, stuttering during it. She never asked for help in her life, and now she wanted it.

It was vulnerability that came and swept her as JD, in a nod, did what he was asked, collecting from the box that stored her armor, piece by piece, collection by collection, as she bent down after her techsuit sealed itself around her form and went for her arm pieces.

It left JD with the waist down to work with.

She stepped into the suit's armored boots easily enough, JD, in the same movement, forcing the shin guards over her legs until they latched on by a force he couldn't see, grooves in the tech suit hooking on as hissing and matching began to echo through pieces of the suit that were being attached to her.

Shins, knee-pads, thighs, even her groin.

Like this, JD thought Mai, unconsciously, more as a machine, even with his hands places that would make other people definitely uncomfortable. He did what he needed to do, and for that, Mai was thankful. Not that she would've seen what he had been doing and where his hands had been going any other way, he clamping his hands around her right thigh and squeezing the armor till it clicked on. There were holes, inlets, almost for screws and ports, he had seen. Small, obviously needing some sort of proprietary tool. Surrounding said holes were scratch marks, almost as if-

In all of its glory, her armor had been on, but not tightened, the process not complete.

He heard a knife being drawn out from her hip and he backed away, standing up, only to see Mai replace him and take the knife to herself to those ports.

As she found each one she had twisted the knife into those ports, her titanium armor settling in and hugging tight with the final steps she had learned to subvert completed.

He found his helmet in her hand, picked up without him even realizing it. Her hair was already in a bun so now, all that was left was-

She reached out, almost seizing it from JD, but as half a tug came violently she stopped herself. Her mouth opened for a moment, her eyes to her helmet, and then to JD. His helmet was depolarized but for the first time in her life she had tried to see past it.

"JD can I please-…" She asked. Truly asked. Courtesy.

"Yeah, yeah. Here." He let go, and she had it, placing it over her head, the black visor filling her vision before it clicked around her, layering over the neck portion of her techsuit and sealing.

When she opened her eyes after a blink her vision returned to her, her HUD was there, and her life as she knew it was returned to her.

She was, and always would be, a Spartan. Despite the last two weeks this particular moment and how she felt so alive in her armor, that would always remain with her. It was the rest of the implications of her being a Spartan that JD wanted her to work on; that he wanted to help her with.

They looked at each other, almost chest to chest.

Just shy of four minutes that took. She was satisfied for now.

"Did I do everything right?" The ODST asked the Spartan.

Her helmet bobbed up and down. "Yeah. You did." They both heard footsteps approach, but before they turned she decided he had deserved this much: "Thank you."

JD couldn't respond as they found an armored up Commander Shepard standing before them, their bodies standing rigid straight again in their gear.

The commander looked to JD, then to Mai, to JD, but then, expectedly, remaining on Mai. The entire damn hanger was. They might've thought her big before but she now stood at a six-foot-nine in that unknown armor. Nearly seven feet. JD himself was a healthy 6'1, but yet standing next to her he seemed dwarfed in every dimension.

"Good god." Shepard finally let out. As if she was staring at a pair of Machiavellian statues. "What did I drag onboard this ship."

It wasn't said in malice, in expectation. It was said in curiosity, in awe, and, in all honesty, amusement.

Mai looked down on her. "Ma'am, are you not briefed on us?"

Shepard ran a gloved hand through her red hair. "Not as much as I'd like. But as I said before, I'd like it from the horse's mouth."

When JD and Mai depolarized their visors Shepard was shocked for a second. She'd never seen something like that before from Alliance issue helmets.

Chief Durante, wearing the colors of the N7s down his helmet (she knew that red very intimately), his armor, even by their standards, seemed thick and utilitarian. Less about metal protection and more about insulation it seemed. Faintly, reflected in his eyes, she saw a HUD, a goodness to honest heads up display that even she wasn't issued often.

"This…" JD remembered how they had called her out for the old rifle of hers not being standard issue. He could taste the irony in the filtered air of the helmet. He had a script, or at least, a guideline as provided by Admiral Hackett on how to proceed. Tell the truth, but not the origin. "This armor is a prototype all in one system for Alliance special forces and, more specifically, shock troopers."

"You're a shock trooper?" Shepard asked. "May I see your helmet?"

Reluctantly, but not seeing a reason to, he had relented, unclasping it and handing it to her. She felt it in her hand, feeling the paint, hiding how old that particular helmet actually was. There were new revisions of the ODST BDU he could've filed a request for, but he saw no use. He was comfortable with that particular model and so no need to upgrade.

It would've been a breach of personal space for her to put on that helmet, she knew, so she relented after running her hands over the polycarbonate, fingers touching upon glass that was surely hardened before she handed it back. It went on again.

"Yes ma'am. Shock trooper. That role in itself is… experimental, but I know the doctrine and training very well."

"I see… still, I wonder what type of missions were going to be in if we need a shock trooper. Historically those type of troops are used only for deep ops or hardened position taking." Shepard said skeptically.

Both of which he was experienced with (or rather, had survived before).

"This armor looks pretty cool, if I say so myself." Asides from the fact that there had been a giant red mark where his head was that would've otherwise given snipers a target, the blacks and greys that had been originally on it were renewed by whoever in the Alliance handled it recently. He was inclined to agree with her assessment, but he was not to be the focus of that shakedown. Shepard gazed upon Mai, unmoving, looking straight ahead. "But what is this I wonder? Also experimental?"

Mai's script given to her was a little more… comprehensive. That and she stuck with almost to the dot. "I am equipped with a Skunkworks project known as Project MJOLNIR: a prototype armor system which combines multiple classified elements in order to explore force effectiveness in the field for future and currently experimental Systems Alliance infantry-based combat systems."

Shepard was unsurprised by the answer that came with Mai. "I was wondering what armor was going to fit you. I thought my measurements were always difficult, but yours?"

"This armor was designed, specifically, for me ma'am."

"Right." Shepard nodded along, beating back the impulse to reach out and just touch her chest plate. "Anything you can tell me that isn't classified? A summary perhaps? Just so I know what I can expect."

"This armor system is comprised of, at a basic level, an outer titanium shell coated in special materials to help it deflect or absorb weapons fire if the energy shields go down-"

Shepard rose her eyebrow. "Energy shields?" Not Eezo.

"Yes ma'am. As I said this suit is experimental, and one of the directives of the project was to create an armor system that runs without Element Zero."

"What? This thing must weight a ton, then."

"It is a ton ma'am, with me in it." Shepard's eyes widened, looking to the floor, hoping it could take it. To be fair to her, on that day of all days, it wouldn't be the weirdest thing she would come to know. Mai continued. "Beneath the titanium shell is a techsuit underlay, itself layered with several designed linings which enhance my strength, combat impulses and actions, and survivability."

Shepard glanced back at JD. "Is your armor of the same capability."

He shook his head. "No ma'am. We share a general HUD software, but nothing more substantial than that."

"Hm." Shepard thought to herself, looking back to Mai. "Enhanced reaction time and strength?"

"The nature of which is classified ma'am."

A clue, whether Mai meant it or not. Shepard tapped her head with a finger. "You know, I have an L3 Implant, so I know what it's like to have improved senses… and I know, sometimes, if I go overboard, time slows down for me, because my body can't handle it. The human mind was never meant to race as fast as some biotics do." She was a Biotic. Not a particularly strong one at that, but she had potential. She prided herself more as a rifleman, but, here and there, when the situation called for it, she used the abilities given to her as best she could. Some of her hair had fallen onto her face, touching upon the freckles on her nose as she looked back to her men, casting their nosy gazes away when she did. She swept those loose strands behind her ear, gracing over the scar left behind from that implant surgery. "Have you gone under the knife for the sake of combat effectiveness? I don't see why the Alliance would put work into muscle suits again, last time they were a thing they proved more trouble than they were worth."

The smallest of flinches on Mai's part. "Classified ma'am."

"I see. So I suppose you're nearly seven feet naturally, right?" No comment. Behind the visor Mai grit her teeth. Shepard meant no harm, but she had a way with words. JD had picked up on it fast. She prodded like his father. Getting information out of people when they didn't realize it. "So if he's a shock trooper, then what are you?"

"Whatever you want me to be ma'am. I'm at your discretion."

Spartans were not people. They were weapons. JD felt a pang in his chest that Mai, again, even in a world away, fell back into those grooves.

"Hmph. I've got a feeling you're a type of bad ass I've not yet seen in this galaxy, Mai… might be good though." Shepard drifted off. "I hear the Covenant on Altis are pretty deadly, and you might be what we need to go stop them if they're intentions aren't peaceful."

If only she knew.

There was one last thing, Mai suppose she could've been straight with Shepard with. "Ma'am. This suit is equipped with a prototype stealth system. Due to a lack of Eezo, it has a considerable charge and breadth of usage."

"And here I was thinking you'd only be good at kicking down buildings." Shepard said with a good-hearted comment. Mai could do that too, but she wouldn't say then. Shepard had enough to chew on. "Is there any way you could explain?"

The switch for it was in her right hand, on the back of her right thumb, easily pressed by her right index finger.

JD had seen this done once from her, back on Altis. She disappeared into thin air, refractions of the air barely revealing her as in the dim light she became invisible and Shepard, impressed, stepped back, looking to where the figure of Mai had been and then scanning. Some of the Marines who hadn't been paying attention had did a double take as they saw that massive women disappear from view. Only to reappear behind Shepard a good minute later.

Invisibility devices for combat had been around recently, but clunky, lasting barely a few seconds. This was something else.

Then again that could've been said for both JD and Mai in general, Shepard clapping with her hands once or twice as she turned back around and stood chest to chest with Mai. The commander was 5'10, Mai having a foot and then some on her in the armor, but yet she was not intimidated at all, if nothing else, if anything at all-

"I've got a feeling, on the ground, we're gonna get along just fine, Chief Gul, Chief Durante."

"I hope so ma'am." JD politely uttered. Mai said nothing however, looking down on her. She was impressed. Lesser men, even her would be allies in the UNSC infantry, would be scared to death, menaced by her this close. The Alliance had reacted the same save for, and there was a trend here, the N7s.

Something which Shepard very much was. "Tell me JD, are you and me cut from the same cloth?" She turned back around to him, his hands behind his back held.

"For my own safety, I'm not predisposed to discuss anything of that nature, commander."

"I see." Shepard finally relented, knocking her fist gently on Mai's armor, feeling the metal of an armor system that was probably as important as the Normandy itself to the Alliance. "You responsible for fit and care for this?"

"Yes ma'am. I'm the only one who knows how."

The commander backed off finally after getting her feel. "Well, I hope I have the privilege of knowing how you perform soon… hopefully not at the cost of life though."

Mai nodded. It was a position she was going to take based on Shepard's advice in the shuttle, and the commander was pleased she did.

"Testing…. Testing…. Testing 1-2-3." The ship's PA blared on, too loud, then too soft, but then just right. "I can't believe they gave the pilot access to the intercom on this ship!" It was a joyous voice, that of a man who was having his fun. "Now no one can avoid my insightful and witty dialog."

Shepard rose the omni-tool on her wrist to her mouth. "Lieutenant Moreau?"

"Aw shit-" The voice on the PA cut off, only to reappear from Shepard's wrist. "Is this the channel for the Normandy's XO?"

"Yes." Shepard was a little annoyed, but then again it was what she expected. "I'd be careful with your usage of the ship's comm systems you know. Never know what we could hear."

"Ah- uh. Right commander. Anyway, come up to the bridge. We're dusting off right now and figured you'd like a look."

"On my way." Shepard walked backward slowly toward the elevator again, gear now on, just as ordered by the Captain, but who was she but proper with conversations? "I should go." She left them with. "But I'll talk with you too later over combat tactics!" Her words echoed as the elevator door closed, as if she was a kid wanting to get a view of a parade she went off toward the helm.

Left alone, the Marines in the bay leaving them be, it was a state JD and Mai were getting used to with each other. Eye to eye, through the visors, words were spoken without voice.

Mai felt the Normandy detach from the station, flying off, through her feet. She wasn't particularly enthralled by it: setting off now on a new journey.

'Are you okay?' Said with a motion of JD's palm.

'Yeah.' A nod in response, Mai returning to him, pausing at his side, but continuing back to her locker pulling her rifle out and to the utility station. Working on her weapons, modifying, making sure it fit her completely and without question, this should could distract herself with, back turned to her ODST. She didn't want to talk, a stool which strained itself under her weight sat in. Shepard had, then and there, been exhausting.

Maybe, if this were a UNSC ship, JD would've let it be and gone off to the other side of the hanger, introduce himself, at least in name, to the other Marines and learn theirs. To soak in who they were, but at an arm's length. To know what names to listen to in battle. Though this was a new ship, new crew, new service.

Things would be different, even if who they were was the same; whatever that was going to do to them, complications and all.

It meant that, standing there by himself, JD did the only thing he really knew how to do and walk to Mai's side, to his locker, and then put his back against it and doze off in her shade.

Oddly it was comforting, to him and her.

In the coming days he had heard from Hackett and Anderson, patches to the software in JD and Mai's helmets would be offered and installed. It was to account for their new operating procedures and who they were fighting with and against, but for now as they were, JD falling asleep with his helmet on, he heard the faint broadcasts from the cockpit from that Lieutenant Moreau go through procedure. It was almost like white noise.

"The Arcturus Prime Relay is in range… initiating transmission sequence."

---

A/N: I usually keep author's notes on the top, but I didn't want to mess with that oh so clean formatting.

So yeah, here we are again, beginning of a story, shout out to my Manifest Destiny readers who are also one this. I'm using this story to destroy any writer's block I have with it so hey, win-win. Also, as usual, because I love reusing characters, Hitman will show , for those of you who are just becoming acquainted with me: as the profile says I am a a military-oriented writer. I understand military procedure and all that tacticool language to use it believably and I have a feel for combat scenes at this point. I'm a fighter, I'm a writer, and in bed I'll probably bite her.

Jokes asides, it just means there will be a certain element of writing you don't see elsewhere, as in adherence, or at least, acknowledgement to military norms and staples, along with etiquette and brevity.

I also use A/Ns to answer any reviews that I think are worth also answering publicly, so here are the first batch:

Halospartan - "Throughout the story I have seen the you have JD/Rookie's rank wrong according to the halo wiki he is a Lance Corporal. Now what I have said does not mean I don't like the story I do like it just was pointing out an inaccuracy in your story. That's all."

JD wasn't a Lance until he came back to Earth, at this point, as evidenced by the Halo Short Story "Dirt", he is still a private.

Guest - "Very rarely have I wanted to call someone an idiot, but you make me want to call you such. Six based on any and all Spartans, aside from Soren would have fought the removal of the armor and more likely informed the folks of the SA that if they continued, she'd set off the fusion reactor and blow the armor and her to shreds. Especially as a Spartan 3, who are even more suicidally loyal to the UNSC. It makes no sense what so ever, for her to even allow that. Sorry mate, even at the expense of dying she wouldn't. That's how serious they are. Anyone's SOD holding up after that, needs to see a doctor."

Tad bit rude, aren't ya? But as people like Uberch01 and Halo Star Wars X-over fan have said, the Spartan-IIIs are by no means as you understand them. Even just by observance to the games, that suicidal loyalty you seem very protective of is cast asides by the Chief in Halo 4 and 5 in response to him siding with Cortana. And, if anything, if you read, you'll understand why the Spartan-IIIs, why Mai, would falter in such loyalty at all, if not any of the Spartans. If anything you help me demonstrate a point: you misunderstand the Spartans as these crazy death machines who themselves are willing to die in such a way, betraying their humanity.That One Guy - "I've said it once I'll say it again: this fic is by far my most favorite on this site. The amount of detail that goes into this is incredible! Also, your writing style makes this fun to read, keep it up!

Nitpicking here, the Covenant aide of the story is my not so favorite part (maybe it's because I'm more of a HFY kinda guy). But don't listen to me, you do what you feel is best for this story."

Thanks for the kind words! But I implore you, keep in touch with the Covenant's side of things. They'll collide down the line, surely, just as the Arbiter and the Chief did. Same goes for you JapaneseOptics. As I stated in the Foreword, a lot of Halo's magic is lost if the Covenant and the Forerunners aren't in the equation, so they have a place in this galaxy, and this story.

Guest - Just a question... With your mention of the migrant fleet i got the feeling that you plan to have ranoch (im doubting i spelled that right) be the same planet as Sanghelios, but arent both the covenant and UNSC almost solely in the Orion arm of the Milky Way or am I wrong there? Cause if so, Sanghelios wouldn't be able to be Ranoch

Okay, like some of the reviews asking me questions such as reverse engineering and things of that nature, I usually won't respond to them because, well, it's a story, find out by reading, if I can respectfully say, but this question steps on another topic: sources. Well to be honest I am not that neck deep into Halo lore and extra material, and what maps I have of the Halo Galaxy aren't the best or most understandable, but from what I've been able to interpret is that Rannoch and Sanghelios fall, well, close enough. For the purposes of this story, especially one where I have a lot of parallels and allusions, roll with it, please, promise it'll be worth it.Thanks to all of the shining reviews! My door is always open if you want to talk! Any feedback will be taken to heart!