Chapter 5 - The New Ark

Author's Notes: So this chapter, and the subsequent chapters, took a little bit longer to write. They're going to be longer now, I have much of the stage set and more are coming into the light. If there are any grammar or spelling errors, I apologize. Things are picking up speed now and the two worlds are going to come together. I'll do my best to keep you all entertained.

Legal: I don't own this stuff, Mass Effect and Halo belong to their respective owners. If ya like the fan fiction, buy some of the canon books (you probably already have the games). I promise, they're fun!

For seventy years the construction continued uninterrupted. The first twenty saw the creation of the Crucible - a 20,000 km wide industrial power house that would shape and create the raw matter fed into it by the Ark Seed Fleet. The seven planets stolen from the galaxy below were reduced, shaped, and emerged from the Crucible as the worlds-sized arms of the New Ark reached outwards towards the stars. The eight arms of the New Ark were built two at a time, reaching out into the void on opposite sides day by day until the form was almost complete. Now the masses of the SSC had moved to the completed arms of the New Ark. Each arm presented the same area as Earth to the void, protected from the hard vacuum by fields of manipulated gravity the SSC scientists and engineer's technological prowess bent to their purpose. Each arm was reserved, set aside and formed for a different race of the SSC. The last two arms were being built to be put aside for joint ventures, areas, embassies (future embassies) and the spaceports. Soon,the final step upon the pedestal to stand with the Forerunners would be complete.

As the cities on the face of the New Ark expanded, slowly with deliberate care, hope and purpose spread among the members of the SSC. Many started families and let the love once discouraged to take root. New organizations exploded into being, consumer markets, schools, hospitals, and all manner of entertainment. Life for the SSC had a new home and they celebrated it by living, living instead of the existence they had within the confines of the Fleet. With the new found quality of life however, there came a new desire to protect the things that had been created. Old members of the UNSC's long-forgotten ONI established the New Ark Intelligence to serve as the watchful eye, looking outward from the SSC domain.

75 AE New Ark Time (2155 Citadel Time)

Ero Takashi looked over the data pads in front of him. The dates ranged from a year after the event (Now known among the SSC as After Arrival, AA) up to the most recent scouting reports. Some of the reports were marked as objects of interest, they outlined the findings of age-old ruins apparently glossed over by the history of this galaxy. Evidence of million - year old buildings and echos of star ship sunk into the gaseous embrace of failed stars. These things didn't concern him. Interested him, but the did not cause him to worry. The patterns that he was seeing among the planets concerned him.

Distant groups of systems would have planets with layers of well-hidden destruction covered with seemingly identical layers of geological time. The fleet thought that this galaxy was devoid of life, that there was something missing in the equations to explain the lack of life. The evidence he was finding painted another picture, someone scoured the life from this galaxy. The most concerning part was it seemed to be done with mechanical regularity. You had to look at deep scans from tens of thousands of worlds in the area of the galaxy they had scouted but the evidence connected. For Takashi, it painted a dangerous picture. Many in his life had been afraid of the man looking at the data pads. He had been in the old ONI, an organization many were glad to see expunged from active service.

While he hadn't served during the Human/Covenant War -he was born a generation late for that- he still saw his share of how the organization operated and why it was hated. Since its disbandment, he had seen a relatively boring time in the Assembly Intelligence Service before making his way into the Ark Seed Fleet. The opportunities that presented themselves since they had arrived didn't strain his skills but he found them fascinating nonetheless. Slowly that fascination had changed back to his old paranoia he had been famous for in ONI. The evidence had first been suggested by the living legend himself, Admiral Hood.

'I suppose he didn't stay where he was without seeing the things others didn't.' He thought as he turned the data pad off.

He needed a break, he wanted to chase this evidence down but given the volume of world's it was spread across, he was getting the feeling he would need scans of every damn planet in the galaxy to find all the pieces for this puzzle! He couldn't afford to go off on that tangent. He knew what to look for and would keep reviewing the data as it came in. For now, he would share what he found with his colleague, oddly enough, a Kig-Yar named Nax Guk.

Walking through the prowler 'Cerberus' he looked for Nax's room, the distance from the scanning console and the crew quarters took a few minutes. The ship was longer than wide, when he arrived he saw his friend talking with the commander of the ship.

"Nax, Sir - I hadn't expected you here this far into the night cycle." Many formalities were dropped on the long-term missions like the scouting mission they were on.

The New Ark may almost be complete but the Command recognized the value of intelligence and exploration and allowed breathing room in the regulations for extended missions.

"Ero, come in, we were just talking about the last estate planets we scanned." The commander made it a point to mingle with his crew, there were times to remain removed from the crew, these missions were not that time.

Takashi's friend motioned with a data pad, "They're a really interesting shade of rock this time around!"

With humor coloring his voice. "Actually Nax, if I could get your time, the planetary data was what I wanted to talk to you about, or rather, something I've noticed in the data." Takashi turned his data pad back in and sent a file to Nax and the commander's.

The pair went silent while they read what he had found. "I don't know what to make of it, the data points to something passing through groups of planets and doing something that leaves a trace of heavy metals and smooth bedrock every 50,000 to 60,000 years. There's not a continuous record of it from the scans the fleets have found but the geological scan shows the events happened for an average of 5 times at times ranging from 47 million years ago to as recent as 5 million years ago."

The commander looked up, "it is peculiar, too regular and spread out to be stellar events and the gaps don't coincide with any of the stellar remnants we have observed."

Nax finished reading the findings, "have you reported this up Takashi?"

"No, a request came down from Admiral Hood before the New Ark was started, there was a lot less data then, that man can spot a lot from so little."

The commander brought the data up on the room's large screen. "He is Admiral Hood..." which really said it all for those in the room.

"I'll send this up higher, I'm sure your report would make it to the Admiral but mine will go quicker, we need to keep an eye on this." Takashi agreed, that was one of the reasons he was bringing it up to his colleague, Nax.

"The most recent is still older than even the Forerunners but the scale and length it persisted is what interests me the most, interests and worries me." They closed the data pads as the commander left to prepare his report.

"I think this may have something to do with some of the ruins we've found, they fall within the repeating time frame from what I'm seeing."

This prompted some action from the Kig-Yar, moving to his desk and scrolling through months and years of reports, finally stopping on a file and opening it to display.

"This one worries me a bit in light of what you just brought up." He paused and cocked his head, he was falling into his species old mannerisms in his excitement.

"This planet had evidence of a small settlement on a single area of the world, indicative of a settlement or colony based on the outline of the buildings under the surface." Nax pointed to a radar scan map in the file.

"The ruins were estimated to be less than 200,000 years old but no older than 250,000." He blinked rapidly while speaking, swiveling his head

"This could have been a colony from a race involved in one of these events," gesturing with Takashi's data pad "it was on a system skirting the edge of our ship's scouting area, I will find the ship adjacent to our area and request their scans."

Takashi feared he knew the results already but agreed with his friend, the scans would be helpful.

"That puts whatever did this a lot closer than I would like Nax."

His instincts he cultivated in ONI began to assert themselves and whispers of his old paranoia skittered at the edge of his thoughts. "I think these scans just became more than cataloging runs, this could help us figure out what happened in this area of the galaxy. I'll be in touch."

He said suddenly as he left to go back to his station, the next planet was hours away and he SHOULD be asleep but now, just like the old days, he had to know...

The Salarian squinted at the readings that had made him literally stop thinking for a moment just seconds ago. The scans of this system were just over a century old but he didn't believe the crew of the ship taking this data all those years ago could have made such an error, things hadn't changed that much! The reason for his surprise and disbelief was the planet - sized, a gas giant weighing in at hundreds of standard planetary masses none the less, object that remained stubbornly absent even though, 97 years ago a Salarian exploratory team had mapped this system out in a routine but extensive patrol. Those old teams were not known for making mistakes.

'I will pull the records of who scanned and mapped the system to cross-reference to see if mistakes were made. Not unheard of but unlikely, still...that will explain it, am sure.'

The other members of the STG team were busy at their stations, they were observing a Volus ship that seemed to have wandered in to this system while aggressively scanning anything larger than a kilometer across. The ship had aligned to FTL to another planet and he was needed at his station. The missing planet would have to wait until later.

One week later - in Salarian space

Neman was happy, smug even, although that was usually frowned upon within the ranks of the STG, he felt it nonetheless. The Volus ship his team had been tracking turned out to have a Quarian crew that had been searching for anything from resources up to an out of the way world for the fleet to call home. While he had nothing personal against the Quarians, indeed, he admired their ability to survive with the tenacity they manage, some say they are thieves and vagrants, he respected their resourcefulness. Even so, the Counsel's standing sentence for that race for the creation of the Geth was that they not be granted a world to colonize and so his team had to apprehend, interrogate, and issue a warning to the group to be carried back to the Migrant Fleet. He had gotten in comments of his respect but the condition the leader of the Quarians was in, he doubted they believed him. He reflected on what the Quarian had said during the interrogation.

'We will always search for what we need, even a world the Counsel cannot deny us. You look down on us, we know, we don't mind, we have made it part of our strength now.' Neman had considered this briefly, 'You mistake this as a personal action, you are incorrect, this is simply upholding Citadel law. I respect your people's tenacity and ability to survive but the crimes your race committed have had a sentence passed on them. I cannot ignore that.' He had replied. The Quarian seemed to spit at him, although it only splattered on the inside of his visor. 'Sounds good enough for a Salarian's conscious. Color me impressed!'

After that the Quarian had broken down into a fit of coughing and was treated and released to his ship. Such a shame, now that his mission had been completed, he could finish looking into the administrative error that charted a gas giant where there was none. He entered his quarters and pulled up his connections, querying the crewman that made the error. He was surprised to find a perfect record. The crewman responsible for the mistake he thought had been made had actually named the planet after himself, a privilege rarely invoked by the Salarians. The report had said it was to to the pleasing shades of blue storms raging and swirling across the equatorial bands. Morton blinked for a few seconds, once again struck stupid for the second time in a much too small of a time span. His good mood faded almost instantly, this was big. No doubt about that but this was also above his pay grade. He opened a line to his superior.

"Sir, I have something that needs to be addressed...there is a planet missing."

"But Sir, I cannot understand the reason for your nonchalant dismissal of this news! A planet is missing, undeniable - evidence points to it,yet you react as if I mentioned the rain!"

Neman was furious, he had thought his discovery would have a profound effect but instead his superior officer had taken the news in stride and without comment before re-assigning him to monitoring the trade agreements between the Asari and the Volus.

"You have shown promise Neman, but this is ridiculous. An entire GAS GIANT gone? It has to be an error in the charts, have you checked for those errors?"

Another wave of anger hit Neman, he lost control, "I'm a member of the STG...sir! Of course, checked and double checked, the charts were correct, the planet was NAMED AFTER THE CHARTING OFFICER OF THAT SHIP!"

He had gone too far and he knew it as soon as the words left him, you don't move up in the STG by yelling at your superior officer.

"I see you have forgotten your place Neman, I will speak of this with you no longer, report to your next station and shut up about it, you are dismissed."

The connection was cut. That was it for him.

'After years of working for them I'm thrown at a dead-end assignment.'

He stood up straighter, this was partially his fault he thought. He didn't keep his temper so now he must pay, he would complete his new assignment and correct this.

'A whole planet missing, impossible? It must be, easiest explanation is the charts were wrong.'

He opened a channel with his new supervisor and put the missing blue planet out of his mind.

Hours Later - Citadel Tower Council Room (2155 Citadel Time)

Councilor Jareem was worried, the news brought to him by the STG was troubling, very troubling. He was going to the secure room where the other two Councilors were waiting, having been called by him minutes ago. The news that troubled him was that two planets at the edge of the galaxy had gone missing, hundreds of light-years apart. PLANETS! GONE! He felt irrationally angry just thinking about it. The majority of his anger was directed at the inability of the STG to even postulate a reason for it, they were his species best and they had given him nothing. One of the planets had bee a gas giant large enough to glow in the infrared spectrum, unremarkable outside of the blue storms that had raged across the planet, but a large planet still.

Now he had to tell the news to the other Councilors, one rocky, metal planet disappearing was an anomaly, the gas giant called for a larger action. He sighed once he reached the door and waited for the security system to cycle and confirm his identity. The doors swung open and he was greeted by Counselor Tevos and Counselor Jurius, the Asari and Turian members of the Council.

"Hello, sorry for the rush to bring you both, something has come to my attention that I need to discuss with both of you."

They all took their seats, the two Counselors waiting to hear Jareem's reason.

"You rarely call on us if it is not important Jareem, what brings us together this time?" Tevos took control of the meeting with a comment and a small smile.

Centuries of diplomatic experience made it a reflex.

"Two planets are missing."

That statement was met by blank stares from the other two counselors, Jurius' mandibles twitched in confusion.

"I believe that statement requires more explanation Jareem."

Jurius was confused, mostly due to the lack of imagination - he had no mental mechanism to process the idea of two planets just...missing.

"Within two weeks, STG teams discovered in two remote systems hundreds of light-years apart -"

he turned paused to turn on the holographic projector and display the two offending planets to scale. "These two planets, a rocky-metallic world of little value, and a large gas giant have...disappeared."

Jareem paused to see their reactions which were now moving from curious into concerned and confused.

"The last time these systems were mapped was by a group of Salarian scientists almost a century ago. They were mapping for potential Eezo deposits. The validity of the star charts is not in question, only the missing planets."

Jareem made sure to mention the STG element of the report, he wanted the other two to focus on the planets, not that the scans "might" be wrong. The Turian councilor, Jurius knew the STG had been thorough, he would bet a lot on the Salarians, he was sure there was no debris or other conventional explanation. You don't miss a planet sized debris field. Besides, a gas giant wouldn't leave just debris.

After sifting through the obvious ideas, another thought popped into his head.

"What effect does this have on us?" Jareem looked at Jarius and blinked, Tevos maintained her silence, seeing how this played out.

"Planets are missing! They had...they were...the public would go into an uproar..."

Jareem realized he had been so distraught about two planets missing he had forgotten the practical side of this, Jarius hadn't.

'Count on the Turian for pragmatism.'

"Actually Jarius, none. They were far from anyone and near nothing. We can edit the charts and pretend they never existed. Yes, best solution to this problem. Bury it and monitor."

The Salarian's speech picked up in speed and confidence. Tevos was satisfied with this although she would have her own teams look into this. A mistake HAD to have been made but it would no longer effect her, the Salarians would ensure it never made it further than these walls.

"Very well then Jareem, Jarius, I believe we can adjourn this meeting and move on to more pressing matters, we need to address the matter of the new race - Humans I believe they call themselves..."

Two years later 77 AE – in the Command's chamber, New Ark (2157 Citadel Time)

The wait was over, the final pieces placed, the last construction was done. The Ark Seed Fleet was no more, they had brought the SSC to their place next to the Forerunners and now christened their fleet simply "The Ark Fleet". Admiral Hood looked out the view screen, a window really considering they were now on the New Ark, and he could see the Human's new home. Each arm had a name picked by a vote by each species, the last two arms named more for their purpose. Humans had decided theirs would be Terra, the new home of humanity.

The other races had stuck with the names of their home planets in a more direct way instead of invoking the ancient name for their worlds. The other races were unanimous however, when it came to naming the artificial sun that gave light to the New Ark. Now, Sol shone down over the inter-dimensional races of the SSC. Even that had changed, the day the New Ark was finished it was decided it would be the "New Sentient Species Coalition". Again, the admiral thought it wasn't particularly original but the spirit of the change wasn't lost on him.

As joyous as the occasion had been, that was days ago and the celebration had died down as everyone got back to life. Admiral Hood looked at his reports and activated his neural lance to make a call.

"Diane, make sure this message makes it to the commander of the 'Forward Unseen', I have a mission for him."

The response was almost immediate "Of course Admiral, I will forward it right away."

The Admiral had a lot of work to do and he wanted someone he felt he could trust looking into the findings the commander of the 'Cerberus' had forwarded him.

The old ONI spooks sprinkled among the original fleet crew seemed to be pulling their weight in far-fetched ideas. Even if those ideas were started by him.

'I had really hoped nothing would come of that data but now that spook – Takashi – actually found something that could be serious.'

Go figure. He was glad he had picked the individual in question, 'the problems that data represents isn't the same magnitude as the Flood but I think it may be just as important. Certainly presents an explanation for what we've seen in this galaxy so far even if I don't like it...'

His thoughts wandered before long, there was much to consider.

Same Time – Uninteresting cold rock in an Uninteresting star system.

Another system down, he and Andrew had this down to a science.

"Moving to retrieve the probe swarms." Chimed Andrew, checking off another digital box.

Nick swiveled his chair to leave for the mess, it was time for food. His body didn't need much – a stipulation for him being assigned as a pair with an AI was that he underwent extensive cybernetic enhancements. Nothing radical like complete replacement that a handful of individuals attempted, although, some would argue that roughly 60% of him being built by nano tech would constitute radical. A lot of things meant for combat but also vacuum, care had been taken when an AI was involved, they were equals in society but they, more often than not, held a lot of information. Such information, or even just raw processing power, could not fall into enemy or unknown hands.

So, precautions were taken. He no longer had lungs, just efficient oxygen separators with the power core, shields, and various other equipment using the freed up space. His new lungs fed into his vastly improved cardio-vascular system. (It was still beyond the SSC scientists to recreate THAT system. Billions of years of evolution won out against the SSC's best R&D.) Liver and kidneys were gone, more efficient bio-machines taking their place. Skeleton, muscles, skin, and nerve tissue – all improved if not outright replaced with something better.

He had settled into himself just fine during the convalescent leave given to him afterwards. The only complaint he had were the changes to his digestive tract. He loved food, not being full, just the myriad of flavors and combinations the races of the SSC could offer. The changes had taken some of that from him now. Nothing major, he still had the taste but his eyes were now literally bigger than his stomach. He really only needed a nutrient paste that could come close to, but never actually tasted like, something decent. Small sacrifices he supposed.

He put the thought of food and exaggeratedly began punching the keys on his hard light console, "History will record this as yet another dreary dirt…"

He looked at the report again, pausing in his flamboyant display of typing.

"...excuse me, a COLD, rocky ball that no doubt smells like a rusty fart." He hit the enter key to compile the report for disposition and Andrew reviewed the data,

"Heh, yhea, iron and methane. You hit the jackpot on this one Nick."

A small chime went off before the report data could finish compiling, Nick sat up straight, that chime meant something interesting. "It's detecting life? That's a new one on me, must be resilient little bacteria somewhere down there."

He waited for the report from Andrew, he could do it faster.

"Actually, no microbial life on the planet but there is…one, big...thing down there." Definitely a new one for the both of them.

"Big thing huh? That the scientific name for it?"

Andrews's avatar appeared on the pedestal next to Nick and frowned a bit. "The creature in question has been kind enough to surface for us, it otherwise seems to reside underground if the radar view of these tunnels is any indication."

The view screen flickered to life and showed an overhead view of a small mountain with a radar map overlaid, detailing a myriad of tunnels moving around under the surface. The view began zooming in to show the creature in question.

"Ok, that thing looks like an angry worm, what's it doing? Do we have any scale or idea how big it is?" Nick was seeing a first as far as he knew and he was getting more excited by the moment.

A scale marking off tens of meters appeared at the bottom of the screen as the creature lunged forward, spreading something over the ground in front of it. It appeared as if it had legs along the length of it's body with fringes around its head, four tentacle protrusions stood out from the end of the thing with two larger insect-looking arms flanking them although neither Nick or Andrew could see what the "face" looked like from an orbital view.

"Lovely, it looks like it just vomited. Guess it ate something bad huh? In fact, what the hell would that thing eat?! There's just rocks and rusty fart down there."

Andrew was busy watching and analyzing while a part listened to Nick's questions and observations.

"It would seem…it IS eating. It just vomited an acid onto the material in front of it and is now –as you can see- eating anything in the area it vomited on."

Now Nick was a little grossed out, an old 20th century scifi horror came to mind. "Well, I think I should go down and see for myself this Brundlefly wannabe."

Technically he could send a robot but it had been years since he left the ship and wanted the exercise, he's sure his AI would disagree but he did have the last say in it.

"Make sure you load my module into your suit Nick, I'll want to be able to keep a higher-bandwidth connection open with you."

Nick turned to the avatar. "Really? No argument? Nothing? Just a "remember to zip up, it's cold out." I had expected some resistance from you."

Andrew had none. "You are going out there regardless of my protests, its' been too long in this ship, and believe it or not – I want to see something other than this ship too. I'll watch and keep an eye on you from here while you go meet the locals."

Surface - Cold - Hungry

He didn't have a name, he never needed one, his mind never formed a thought to label where he was, it didn't matter. His entire existence was HUNGER. Everywhere he went, he looked for food but only found vague frustration. All the times he had eaten, he knew he would be hungry still. It never ended and was always with him. He knew nothing else - so he ate.

The cold, bland, and hard things were eaten easily enough but his instincts felt it was wrong. Every time, every cold hard thing, wrong. It wasn't supposed to be cold and hard, should be warm and liquid. When he spilled the liquid that began his meal onto the anything, it was supposed to be different. He knew nothing else and so the thoughts were only vague impressions on top of the instincts that drove him. He ate.

Something pulled at his attention. Something new broke his pattern, he tasted something through the ground and looked around. Before his head could come up, that something happened. He heard a loud crack and the vibrations he tasted with his body washed over him. Prey!, food?!, cold and hard? Maybe not, something new. He looked around and finally focused on the small thing that was moving. It was new and he was hungry. It had made a mark on the ground, he turned and with his instincts demanding food - Bellowed his frustration of a lifetime of cold and hard at the small thing. It did something, moved from where it was and so, gathering the liquid in his throat, he saw the small thing move behind one of the cold and hard things he ate. He loosed the liquid at the small thing, hitting only the rock, which began to break apart. He would have food.

The small thing stood up and pointed something at him. Brightness shot from the small thing and he felt a burning pain lance into the side of his jaws, pain, and another bellow of frustration. He would hunt, then he would eat. Retreating to his tunnels, he tasted for the small thing's movements along his body and waited.

THERE! He burst from the ground, close, but the small thing shimmered and was thrown farther from him. He would move again - he would eat. Pulling himself down into his tunnels again, his eyes searched for the small thing, his eye saw the small thing, only to be greeted with more brightness and pain. His eye was gone, the small thing had replaced it with pain and anger. He thrashed in his tunnels briefly before stopping, he needed to taste for his food. There was pain and anger but it was not cold and hard. He wanted this small thing, he would finally eat. Tasting carefully for long moments, he found it. He burst from the ground only to be buffeted and deafened by a loud noise. He looked down, he had tasted the thing that had hit him, dry and harsh. he hungered for it, different, new, not cold.

Looking around frantically, his instincts screamed, his body demanded his food and his mind and thoughts were driven to obey. The small thing was no where, he looked again, bellowing his frustration at the cold, hard things he had eaten for so long. More anger rose, he looked to the sky and let loose his frustration. He was cut short, looking up, his eyes, one seeing , the other only offering pain and anger, a light appeared. For the split second he saw the light, his mind took control, his stunned instincts. The light was bright, more so than the uninteresting orb that moved out of his reach his whole life. This brightness offered itself to him, it was warm, it was liquid, and as it ended him a final thought took life,

'I won't be hungry anymore.'

Nick was thrown back, the orbital blast from the 'Forward Unseen' had obliterated the creature like a 12-story firecracker. He hit one of the rocks that was covered in whatever acidic goop the thing had spit at him, the impact overloaded his already strained shields. Some how the screams the creature let out had damaged his shields as well.

'That's what ya get for dropping from orbit near an unidentified giant worm you moron.'

He had seen the scale of the thing on the video but it hadn't been real for him until he stood up and looked at it with his own eyes. This thing had been dangerous and huge. That it could scream and hurt him was enough but the acid, the burrowing and surprise attacks. He was glad that Andrew was finally able to target it.

He took a moment to look around before it hit him, literally. The thing had come apart and now rained huge globs of viscous, chunky slop down on him. one hit him in the leg, if he hadn't been augmented it would have broken his leg. As he was now however, it only caused a stab of pain.

"Nickolas, you need medical attention, that piece that hit you pierced your suit and the medical suite in your suit is showing toxins running through your bloodstream."

Nick looked and saw what Andrew's scans showed, the suit had sealed but he caught a glimpse of the bluish-purple in the wound before the suit hardened shut.

"Crap, well, at least my body shouldn't have too much issue with it, I could survive a small flood spore infection, I'm sure I'll be fine."

Andrew began to reply, "Still I'm bringing the ship down, you need to get to medi-"

Nick lost his train of thought, Andrews voice receded into the distance as he felt himself wobble on his feet.

"Buuuut...Iiiii'mm...blue!"

As he pawed ineffectively at where a hole in his suit had been a moment ago.

'This is nice...I always wanted to be blue!' His thoughts were jumbled, why did he want to be blue?

Nick looked around at the landscape before him and saw a city with streets lined with wheat fields.

'Well, that's going green for ya, can't drive but you can make all the bread you want!' He decided he would run to his favorite store, limping away much faster than he had intended.

He was running but every other step seemed heavy. His leg, the holey leg, was having trouble. He hit something, the store! He began to search the store front for the handle before he felt himself being pulled.

His search became paniced,'there should be a DOOR!' his thoughts in disarray as he groped the surface.

He felt another pull and looked back. He froze, of all the things he could see, that was the worse.

He was staring down the jaws of death, a huge beast had risen and the flood were after him. He looked at his leg and saw the arm of a flood-infected Sangheili grasping him, pulling him into the gullet of the gravemind that had come for him. His hands slipped from the surface he held and he went into the mass screaming before he lost consciousness.

Anything was better than the flood.

He startled awake, the dream still vivid in his mind, a small scream escaped his throat as he looked around. He was in the medical bay on the 'Forward Unseen'. Relief flooded him as he flopped back down.

"Andrew, what the shit happened?!" Andrew's avatar took shape next to him, dressed as a doctor from the 19th century Earth.

"Well, the best I can tell, the things that worm-thing were eating down there changed it's chemistry to produce some pretty powerful hallucinogens. When the chunk hit your leg and punctured your suit and leg, you got a good dose of the stuff."

Nick rubbed his leg and looked down, the medical bay and his nanites had done their job, there was no scar.

"You wobbled a bit when I was telling you I would bring the ship down before you screamed you were blue and ran into one of the rocks. I admit to a bit of amusement while you were groping and screaming "DOOR!" over and over."

Nick remembered the jumbled images, "I thought it was my favorite store and was looking for the door."

Andrew processed this for a moment, "That was a potent mixture to work that fast, you resisted quite a bit too, I'm surprised your arms aren't sore, I had a loading arm in the bay pulling you in and you were dragging a large rock with you looking terrified. What did you see?"

Andrew wanted to know what could cause such raw fear in his friend. "It was the flood,"

Nick looked up at the avatar. "I saw a gravemind pulling me into it's mouth. Anything is better than the flood, that was horrible." Andrew moved to the other side of the bed.

"Well, the drugs were flushed from your system, there don't seem to be any long-term effects.

"You should probably get a report done up, I'll add my piece to it and we'll let Command know what we found." Nick turned and dropped onto his feet, reaching for the clothes Andrew had prepared nearby.

"I suppose, the first life larger than a plant and it tries to eat me and we nuke it from orbit. That's a hell of a first contact!" Nick thought it would make for good reading by the higher-ups.

"Well, I doubt they'll be too angry, the thing DID try to eat you and I don't think that was it's natural habitat. There was no other life on that planet. If I had to, I'd put my money on someone put that there."

Andrew and Nick continued their conversation as the ship pulled free of the atmosphere. On the surface of that cold world the remains of the Thresher Maw cooled and began to freeze, kilometers away a 50,000 year old artifact sat. Remaining forgotten in the dust of time.

"You have a message from the New Ark, it's marked urgent." the AI chimed in as Nick headed to the bridge.

"I guess I'll take a look once I get to the bridge, maybe I'll get a chance to send my newest report directly to higher up instead of just the 'Shining Dawn'."

That being the name of the ship his prowler had been deployed from, they kept in place as the prowlers scouted forward, jumping forward after a specific distance had been scouted.

"It's from Admiral Hood Nickolas, I'll compile the report but you need to see the message before we go regaling command with tales of heroic orbital strikes." he laughed to himself, that much was true.

He arrived at the bridge and took a seat in his chair, relaying the command to display the message on the main view screen with his neural lance. Admiral Hood's face took shape on the screen.

"Commander Austra, I have a mission for you. A pattern has been found among the data the scout fleets have been gathering and we have identified a planet that we need you to look into. I'm hoping it's nothing but it still needs to be looked into. The relevant data is attached to this message, go over it with your AI and report back to me when you are in the fleet has been notified."

The screen cut to hundreds of pages of scanning data from different planets scanned throughout the decades. After reading through the report and looking at a few of the planet groups Nick's interest piqued.

"Well, this beats surveying planet after planet and is almost as exciting as giant space worms and orbital strikes!" the AI noticed the smirk on Nick's face.

"Well, we're the only ones in this part of space, we're on the edge of the scouting area for our fleet. I'll send the data to the 'Shining Dawn' and plot our course to this planet. This could be big, curious he'd only send us though."

Nick looked up, "Admiral Hood isn't just sending us though, a prowler from each scouting fleet is moving to the area. We're to be 'methodical and thorough'. As if we needed to be told that after looking at these findings."

The pair were quiet as the prowler tore a hole in space and passed through, they would have plenty of time to look into this, after all, they had time right?

97 Years AE (2177 Citadel Time)

"Emerging from slip space." Takashi parroted the readings on his console to the bridge crew.

"Good, let's proceed the usual way, start at the first planet and we'll continue scanning inward." the commander of the 'Cerberus' replied with the usual amount of authority in his voice.

It was another round in a different system. The only difference is this is one that was pretty far back from where they had been a week ago.

The Fleetmaster had ordered his ship and crew to finally move and pick up where the 'Forward Unseen' had left off. Now the fleet was parked light-years inward waiting for one prowler to make up for ten years of scouting. The commander had heard that all of the fleets were doing the same since a prowler had been pulled from each fleet a few decades ago.

'Command wants a comprehensive scan of this galaxy and at this rate we'll all die of old age before it is seen through.'

The pace was indeed slow but they all knew they had the time, if not the patience. Good thing the Ark had been completed. The first order of business had been to assemble more prowlers and their crew to rotate out those that had spent the last almost 90 years scanning dirt and rocks.

'Small victories.' thought the commander.

His thoughts were interrupted by an alarm that echoed across the bridge.

"Sir! We've detected something in one of the icy proto-planets at the edge of this system. Scans are showing something definitely artificial buried in it."

The survey officer stated in an excited manner. "Artificial? Are you sure? Helm, bring us into orbit around the object, shields up and maintain cloak. We don't' know what it is but if it's artificial we'll assume hostile until I'm proven wrong."

The bridge crew responded the affirmative and began their tasks. They were hopeful but not naive, they would know a lot more about whatever was out there before whatever was out there found out about them.

The scans took nearly an hour due to the exhaustive nature of them. A probe swarm descended to the surface and a torrent of data was thrown back to the ship.

"It appears to be encased in the ice in a stable orbit at this systems edge Commander, the scans date the object at a minimum of 20 million years old."

Everyone on the bridge shifted, Takashi more so. There had been a few planets in this area that showed the signs he had been watching for and they dated to roughly 20 million years ago.

"Sir, we should send out some more probes to the other planets while we examine this artifact. There could be more in this system."

The commander was already working on his data pad. "I'm notifing the 'Shining Dawn' we'll stay here and examine as much as possible for now while our probes scan the rest of the system. Until the 'Dawn' gets here, once we're relieved we'll probably be tasked to scan the other planets."

Takashi had expected as much, he went back to work at his console, locking in a course that would put them in an orbit 10 km above the object. He was excited but worried, have we found a piece to this galactic puzzle?

Did he want to find out?

The 6 km ship tore a hole in space and passed through with all the grace almost 500 years of space flight could produce. The report from the 'Cerberus' had sparked a lot of activity in the New SSC. The 'Shining Dawn' was tasked with removing the ice around the object and studying it. Her Captain took his job very seriously. Khuva 'Tuzum had the honor of leading the scientific efforts to find out everything they could about the object. She had grown bored of leading the scout fleet but had maintained her discipline to her duty. Now she was rewarded with this discovery. After the reports had been read she had praised the commander of the ship that found it. A close chance and sudden mission had delayed this discovery by twenty years but it was here now and they would move forward.

"Begin operations to free the artifact and get me the data the 'Cerberus' has collected on the object and the rest of the system."

The communications officer acknowledged and went to work.

'Finally, maybe we'll meet someone else in this galaxy. It has been too long since we saw more than barren worlds.'

The Captain was optimistic, history wrote a different story of first contacts, each one resulting in war, but she had hope- they traveled with the rightful holders of the Mantle now. She put the final touches on her report and sent it to New Ark. Her superiors would need to know the information she had, daily reports would become the norm instead of the She watched as ships left the docks of the 'Dawn' and lances of light leap from ship to surface, beginning the liberation of the object.

'We will have our answers.'

Takashi looked out at the sight before him with the data pad in his hand. The device had taken months to clear and it hung suspended against the stars, 15 kilometers of ancient secrets. The Captain of the 'Dawn' had named it "Sword of the Ages", her rational being that it looked like a plasma sword her people respected so much and it's extreme age.

'Looks more like one of the old mass-drivers if you ask me. The antennae on top throw it off a bit.' he thought this as his colleague, Nax, entered the room.

"Takashi, the scans confirm our suspicions, there is evidence the surface of two worlds in this system were scoured clean approximately the same time this device was encased in the ice." he had recently finished going through the results with the on-board 'dumb' AI.

They all knew what to look for but it didn't bode well having found the evidence connecting the two.

"Fair enough Nax, let's compile the report and pass it along to Admiral Hood. We're getting closer to our answers." Takashi began going over the scan data. Two planets with the same evidence. The planet closest to the star had something different, however. The planet itself was a bit of an anomaly, it actually had life on it. Still, nothing much more advanced than plants although some amphibian species seemed to be attempting to make their way out of the planet's oceans.

While interesting in itself, it wasn't the most interesting part for Takashi. The scans had revealed that instead of the entire surface having been cleaned, only specific areas had. They were numerous but their size and location allowed his imagination to picture a bustling society. Cities spread across their globe, trading and living. The second planet showed similar signs although they were focused on on large area near it's equator.

'Easy to launch primitive space craft from the equator, much like humans in the 21st century had found.

The signs left suggested a race that had taken their first steps into the stars. Then...something had ended them. Now all that was left was ghosts of heavy metals and outlines buried in the surface of the worlds that had supported them.

"Nax, it almost looks like a group had just figured out how to travel between their worlds before being swept aside. If the SSC had found them, they would be monitored and protected, not destroyed. The patterns are starting to worry me even more."

Nax stared at the maps of the two worlds with the various scanning data overlaid, highlighting the anomalous signals suggesting cities. The third screen had the "Sword" shown in real-time.

"Whatever has been doing this has been around for at least tens of millions of years. Think of how advanced they are...why would an advance race do something like this? What would be the purpose, if the rest of the galaxy is like the areas we've scanned, that would be a massive undertaking." Takashi agreed, he wasn't sure even the Forerunners would have the ability to scour all the planets in the galaxy.

Just another piece of evidence that prevented his old paranoia from settling.

"Send the report, we'll see what the Command will do with this information." he turned back to the image of the "Sword" wondering what they would find with images of war playing through his mind.

New Ark Command's chamber, 2 hours later.

Admiral Hood had gathered the other members of the Command into the 'Reclaimed Mantle's' CIC to discuss the data they had found. Cortana and Commander 117 stood across from him while Cornelia had come aboard with her physical form resembling the Forerunner monitors, her hard light body standing next to the Arbiter.

"The reports from the 'Shining Dawn' show this-" he activated the holographic projector to reveal the "Sword" object with the 6 km long ship next to it for scale.

"We don't know what it is, who built it, why it is there, or why it has been buried in ice for the last 20 million years. What we do know is that the ice around it was as old as the signs on the two planets that suggest a civilization."

The view switched to the two planets with the scan data overlaid. "The data we've been seeing from some of the worlds we've scanned shows that around the same time this thing was covered in ice, this civilization disappeared. Study continues on the object itself. A few craft have looked for an opening to allow the Huragok to attempt their efforts to understand it. So far, we've found no opening. What we did find is one of those elements you mentioned years ago Cortana." she moved forward at hearing that, processing the data they had gotten so far.

"Yes, I see, it's in those rings on the artifact. The others weren't wrong after all, that's definitely something that couldn't have existed in our universe. 'Element Zero'. That small difference in the laws of physics rears it's head. It has no atomic mass and yet it is still there."

Cornelia spoke up at this point. "No atomic mass? Oh, Nyx and Kerberos are going to love this, particle physics are a hobby for those two and I'm sure if anyone can come up with an idea of what this element does, it will be those two."

Admiral Hood was interrupted by a ping from his aide, "Sir, the 'Dawn' just reported that they had recovered a strange element embedded in part of the surface of an asteroid in that system. It matches the readings from the rings in the "Sword" object."

Admiral Hood brought the report up on the holographic projector. "The readings from this mass are less stable, I think we just found an unrefined deposit of this new element. Cortana, get those other two AI's working on this. We need to know what this means for us. I agree this is exciting, no one in the SSC ever thought we'd discover new elements, it's exciting but I have to think of the tactical use of it."

Cortana spent a few milliseconds compiling and sending the report along with the orders for the assignment to the other two AIs. "Done, they're working on it now, we'll need to recover the deposit from the asteroid for more concrete results."

The Arbiter spoke up, "I will have some techs go to the asteroid with the drones to retrieve the sample, you will have it by the end of the day."

Cortana nodded to the Arbiter before turning to Chief, "We're coming closer to something big John, I hope your SPARTANs are ready if we end up with a first contact war."

Commander-117 had kept his teams in top condition since the day they had arrived. "Of course, we'll be ready." Cortana transferred back with him and they both left to take care of their tasks.

"So Admiral, do you believe we will find war on first contact? After all this searching we have found little to suggest peace."

Admiral Hood thought on the Arbiter's question for a few moments, "I don't know what we'll find but I'm reinstating the Assembly Intelligence Service as the New Ark Intelligence. Whatever we find, I want to know about them before they know about us." a touch of surprise touched the Arbiter,

"I hope you can control them with more success than you did ONI, that almost ended in ruin for us all. You protected Paragosky for too long."

Hood looked at the Arbiter. "No one believed she would be crazy enough to try to weaponize the Flood. I overlooked a lot of what she did because she had a big part in saving humanity but she went too far and her execution was justified. We caught her in time and we learned many lessons from that."

The trial of the former ONI director had been done with little public fanfare to avoid panic and a loss of faith in the government. The leaders of the Human and Covenant races had attended her trial and sentencing to ensure witness of it. The attempt by her and the three, one of which had turned over the information that lead to the plot being found out. The ONI operatives had almost released flood spores on a number of planets populated by the Covenant races. For that her trial, sentence, and execution had been witnessed by the leaders of the races that now make up the SSC.

"True enough old friend, the humans handled her and allowed trust to grow between our species. We are in a precarious situation now again, I would suggest more oversight into the New Ark Intelligence, this NAI, that you will begin."

In all honesty, Admiral Hood had been hoping for an agreement like this. "That is reasonable, you can appoint someone to be the civilian oversight and Commander 117 will serve as the military oversight. I'm sure he'll agree and he leads our armies so it would fall under his area of responsibility."

The Arbiter nodded, "Indeed, the Demon will have little trouble keeping the NAI in line. I will serve as the civilian member and no one in the NAI will out rank our positions."

Cornelia stepped closer and activated a hologram of the Ark, centering on the space port arm, Waypoint. "I think we can spare some space on Waypoint for the offices of this new organization. I think that would be the most beneficial with the proximity to the space ports and embassies."

It was agreed, they deactivated the CIC and left to see to their tasks.

'There's a lot of work to be done but this time, we're making the rules. We WILL uphold the Mantle.' Cornelia thought before leaving to attend to the myriad of tasks associated with Monitoring the New Ark.

Author's Notes: So I had more fun with this chapter, added a change of pace with the Thresher Maw's point of view and Nickolas' unexpected 'trip'. I can promise more surprises in the story. I won't give anything away but I will promise you all some surprises. Let me know if you have suggestions, reviews are welcome, even if you wanna say bad things about me and my parentage, chances are I'll be able to use it.

I'll be visiting Nick again and his efforts on the new mission he had been sent on, this chapter laid the last bit of groundwork before people on both sides meet each other. Next chapter should be fun.

Like I said at the beginning of this chapter, the chapters will come out slower but there will be more in each of them. I'm bringing in the Citadel races into the fold and balancing the way the New SSC will react against the way I want them to mesh with the Mass Effect story line. I'm not going to go too wildly off the major plot of the second two games though. Here's to hoping I can keep it interesting! *raises glass*

Thanks for reading!