Chapter 22

Andre: I can see what you are thinking. But we need every man we can get.

Yuri: Even if they're not men?

Andre: A bullet from a fourteen-year-old is just as effective as one from a forty-year-old. Often more effective.

- Lord of War

April 20th , 2216

"Rebels in the station!"

"Take 'em out!"

The three SIGMA Teens, fresh from their first augmentations, opened fire. Three shots from each teen slammed home, shattering the shields of the rebel and tearing through his helmet, which looked not at all unlike a Baseball helmet with a frosted visor. Blood spit out from the wound and floated in the non-gravity. John S2-15 could hear many raised and panicked voices from the other side of the hall. His tactical vest's side-arm pouches were filled with ammunition, but he had no rifle ammo or grenades, but upon further inspection, John noticed something on the floating corpse that interested him.

John hopped into the air, "Two Sixty-Six, javelin maneuver!" Without hesitation, George grabbed on to John's legs and hurled him forth like a spear, his own great strength compounded by the skin-suit he wore, resulting in John soaring through the air at speeds very few ordinary men could obtain by themselves, even in a zero gravity environment.

Barely a second passed by before John collided with his target corpse and grabbed on to it, taking it with him as his momentum carried them both down the rest of the hallway and quickly out of the line of fire. His impromptu meat shield proved valuable in more ways than one when it blocked several wildly fired bullets from the Rebels. John soared for three seconds, before he stuck his leg down onto the ground, and it clicked onto the metal with a loud clanging noise.

John situated himself and dragged the corpse to eye-level, keeping an eye on the area the rebels were coming from as he did so, noting that George and Craig were doing a very good job of keeping them suppressed with what limited arms and ammunition they had. John checked the rebel's tactical vest, and discovered several things he was very happy to see.

Rifle… John grabbed the rebel's rifle, a pre-Second Contact War model that was popular in the outer colonies, just looking at it John could tell it had been through the ringer, it proudly displayed the dings, dents and scratches from its battles past; he checked the and - after deciding it was acceptable - clamped the rifle onto his back. He picked up speed when the gunfire started getting louder - the Rebels were advancing, likely with little regard for their own lives - John stripped the man of ammunition for his rifle at super-human speeds, and then rapidly took inventory and possession of the cadaver's grenades, of which, he had five flash-bangs, and one fragmentation.

For emergencies only. John thought, as he pulled out a flash-bang, and primed it.

"Flash-bang, get ready." And with only that warning, John hurtled forward through the null-gravity hallway and tossed the grenade around the corner at the rebels.

His shields took fire, but the unprepared rebels were stunned by the grenade, which overloaded their night vision visors. John hadn't even had to shake off the grenade's effects - his armor had protected him from its detonation automatically; he drew his rifle and allowed himself a fraction of a second to prepare for battle. He rounded the corner and opened fire, joined quickly by Craig and George. The outdated death machine bucked like a mad mule, but John took control of it within his first burst, and was able to take out the rebels just in time for the magazine to be bled dry.

"Clear!" Called John.

"Clear!" George reciprocated.

"Clear!" Craig finalized.

John sighed, training in zero-gravity had been difficult, and that had been with paint rounds and men who weren't actively try to end his life, but with live ammunition and determined enemies, John was starting to understand what the instructors had meant when they'd specifically instructed everyone present to be constantly situationally aware - in zero gravity, anything could happen anywhere at any time. Something suddenly clicked in the fourteen year old's mind - this had been the first time he'd spilt Human blood. Yes, he'd killed Batarians on Mindoir, but those were aliens, by definition they weren't Human, and what's more, they were invading an Alliance colony, so he was defending his people. Here, though, he had spilled Human blood. The thoughts made his head hurt, but he did note his lack of remorse.

"Who's up?" The SIGMA called out, looking at the Rebels as he waited for a response. He saw their armor, hastily cobbled together over, or under sized and mismatched plates of bullet resistant materials, colored a pale green. John assumed that, because of the camouflage on the armor, they must have come from one of the urban worlds that was under Rebel threat. The uniforms underneath the armor, worn in a similar fashion as John was wearing his Combat Fatigues over his skin suit, were the standard Rebel uniform, for the ones that had survived long enough to get to a way-station and become 'proper' anarchists. It was a blood red shirt, with blue wisps making a flame like pattern spread about it. The colors were supposed to represent the blood of the Alliancemen that would be spilt, and the blue of the nebula where the Citadel was located. They wanted to join the Citadel, and would slaughter Alliance Soldiers, and even Alliance Civilians, to do so. Had John had the desire to note such a thing, he would have noted the irony of how they went about accomplishing their goal, but he didn't have such a desire, all he truly cared about was whether or not they were shooting at him and whether or not he should shoot back, and in this case, the answer to both questions was a single, solid, resounding yes.

"I'm good." George said, after he patted down his shoulder, which was sporting a pock-mark and a scrape in the paint thanks to a very lucky rebel bullet.

"Shields held." Said Craig, "Motorcycle had good aim." He noted dully, indicating the rebel with a helmet that was vaguely reminiscent of a Death Dealer's.

When Craig spoke, John realized that, relevant to his allies, he was upside down. As the other two Alphas rounded the corner, guns raised, John reoriented himself to the floor, remembering just how easy it had been to lose his sense of direction during training. Here in combat, he hadn't even noticed, but he didn't know if that was a good or bad thing just yet, because all things considered, at this very moment it didn't matter.

"Grab their rifles." John ordered, "scavenge their ammunition."

"What the hell are Rebels doing on Titan Station?" George commented. "How did they get here? We're literally above Earth."

"No idea." John keyed his communicator, and broadcasted it throughout all SIGMA Channels. "All SIGMA Operatives on Titan Station, be advised: Rebel presence confirmed. Watch your trackers. Two Fifteen Out." He cut the communicator as George came up, loaded down with ammunition for his rifle, and another weapon.

"Might have been an inside job. Human purist movements have gotten a lot of support as of late." Said Craig, "might have been leaked that SIGMAs were getting augged. Someone sympathetic to the rebels might have ratted us out."

"So they don't know it's us." George surmised, as he reached down to pick up the shotgun off of Motorcycle Helmet. "Good to know."

"Shotgun." Craig noted,"tight halls, space station... Good choice."

"Model isn't military. It's a Borens twelve-eighty, a Hunter's shotgun." George mentioned, sticking the gun on his back and locking it in to place.

"Cut the chatter. We've got to get to the armory." John ordered, as he slapped in to his rifle a fresh magazine, there was a time and place for all things, and on the battlefield, time was the most valuable currency available, and talking like they were was wasting it. The facts were that it was very unlikely they would ever even get a hint as to how the Rebels got here, that would be the Sol Defense Fleet and the I's job, so they didn't have to worry about it, and they certainly didn't have to waste time talking about it. The others quickly fell in line with his train of thought and John received a round of affirmatives, immediately after they were ready, the three were off.

As they soared weightlessly through the station, John listened to the communicator and kept an eye on his motion tracker. The radio was as bad as the tracker, on all of Titan's multiple levels there were veritable swarms of Rebels, and they were heading to a thick group that was trying to break into the armory. The II's were reporting dozens of Rebels on every level, and they were all trying to break in to the many surgery rooms. Fortunately for the II's and their recovering comrades, in the event of a power loss, Titan Station environmentally sealed their surgery rooms, and activated the rooms' personal air supplies. Effectively, turning each and every single surgery room into its own personal fortress, with only one entrance: The main door.

But what John was noticing more and more was how many Rebels were assaulting the station, this wasn't just a simple op, it couldn't be. With time now being afforded to him so he could think on things, he concluded that there was no way they could have sneaked into the Sol System, past the defense fleets, in to Earth's outer orbit, and on to Titan Station, without someone noticing, Earth's defenses were just too good; there was a reason many in non-Alliance territories called Earth a 'fortress world'. The long and short of it was that they'd had help, likely from someone high up on the chain, which wasn't good.

John cleared his mind, they were close to the armory. "Stack up on the walls." He ordered, as they came to the hallway just before the armory.

It had been a conscious decision of the designers to make the station's armory located at the end of a long, one-way hallway. In the engineer's eyes, it would have made sense from a defensive point of view: There would be only one entrance, and the enemy would continuously be funneled into the tunnel, where a wall of Alliance firepower would meet them. In practice, it was idiotic, as now the teens - technically Alliance Armed Forcemen themselves - were suffering from the tunnel's biggest weakness.

"George, you throw your flash bang in first." John ordered, "then you suppress them." He looked to Craig after George nodded, "after George throws his, wait one second and then throw yours. You're our marksman, I want you to take out the guys George suppresses."

"Understood."

"In three… Two… One!" John, George, and Craig prepped flash-bangs.

George's soared through the gravity-less air first, followed by Craig's, and then John's. The rapid pop-pop-pop of the three grenades going off within seconds of each other made the SIGMAs spring into action.

George, on his belly, ripped into the Rebels. His automatic fire quickly forced them to deploy cover spheres, the act of which surprised John immensely, but ended up going in their favor - Cover Spheres didn't have magnetic seals, so the second they deployed they became floating barriers that were tossed about as bullets slammed in to them. To further prove the uselessness of the Rebel's preventative planning, a crack of Craig's rifle tore cleanly through the visors of one of the rebels, John recognized the sound of the rifle that Craig had fired, he had it on semi-automatic. It made sense to the Alpha Team leader, automatic fire would just impede his accuracy.

Another crack of Craig's rifle followed a torrent of bullets from George. When George had to reload, John replaced him, burst-firing at the Rebels, and managing to end two of them before Craig's rifle barked twice more, ending two more. The burst fire tried its best to send John flying backwards in the null gravity, but his newly augmented strength and the magnetic seals in his boots kept him firmly in place. The tunnel was now starting to get littered with the signs of battle: Blood from the corpses was floating aimlessly in the air, spent shell casings were spinning around, used and useless, and the corpses themselves were cluttering up the airspace.

John's HUD counted that there were several more Rebels left, but the combined, accurate fire from two SIGMA Teens who had a lifetime of training, and the inability to return fire thanks to the big teen who had a knack for effective suppressing fire, ended the battle quickly. John ordered them move forward, and they all leapt through the tunnel, fresh magazines being slapped into their rifles, the spent ones left to float aimlessly around the hallway.

John hit the door to the armory, feet-first, and without breaking stride, activated his HardLight blade. He slammed the superheated energy object into the door, and began cutting through it with little effort. In thirty seconds he had a hole large enough that he and his allies could amble in, feet-first, into the gravity-less room full of weapons designed for death and destruction.

"Two minutes." Said John, as he soared into the armory, discarding his rifle and stripping his vest of its magazines, the Rebel Rifles weren't chambered for Standard Infantry arms, and as such keeping the ammunition would prove a pointless venture. "Switch out your ammo, equip yourselves."

John got his acknowledgements, and in seconds the SIGMA II's were outfitting themselves with the Alliance's most reliable military hardware. As opposed to Citadel weaponry, which worked on a principle that Humans had come to call the 'Mass Effect', Human weaponry was much more archaic in nature. Mass Effect weapons worked by shaving small pieces of metal, just about the size of a sand grain, off of the weapon's ammo block, using element zero to accelerate the grain so it moved extremely fast; many had, during the Second Contact War, mistakenly assumed that this speed was the speed of light, but it was far from it. In reality, the ME Slugs moved at just over point-one percent the speed of light, which equated to just about three hundred thousand meters per second, which gave the minuscule projectiles all the damage and stopping power of a bullet, at many times less size. The ME Slugs were designed to flatten or shatter upon impact, as opposed to Human bullets, which passed straight through, and only shattered when the target was 'lucky' enough; the ME Slugs did this to increase damage, as their small sizes would do very little lasting damage if they simply passed straight through. The advantage to this was essentially a limitless supply of ammunition, the Citadel's standard infantry weaponry could reliably fire thousands of shots before they would have to switch out ammunition blocks, but the primary disadvantage was heat. The reaction used to shave off the metal and accelerate it created massive amounts of heat, which forced wielders to back off and wait for the gun to cool off, periodically. This was - and still is - one of the primary, unseen advantages of Humanity's 'archaic' weapons technology: They could put far more bullets downrange, and their numbers game had proven time and time again to be more effective.

The Alliance's weapons, on the other hand, were slowly gaining a lot of momentum outside of Alliance Territory, primarily the Terminus systems, as ME Weaponry was the mainstay in the Council. Utilizing the age-old chemical reaction method of acceleration, Human Bullets were just as good, if not, better, than ME Slugs. The Alliance's standard bullet, the 7.62 Alliance Cartridge, had a velocity of one thousand twenty six meters per second, and was the mainstay in the Alliance Military for its raw power and speed, the 7.62 had come a long ways since the days of the 7.62 NATO Cartridge. The primary advantage of the Alliance's bullets was the larger surface area of the bullet, which in turn did far more damage than the sand-grain sized slugs; whereas one slug would penetrate just a few inches into a ballistics gel dummy, and splinter within, a 7.62 would shoot straight through it, and cause far more entry/exit damage. It was clear that, in terms of damage, the bullet took the cake in this match-up, but it did suffer from a major weakness: Numbers. Alliance Ammunition, when compared to ME Slugs, was pitifully small when compared to the raw numbers the Mass Effect Weaponry could fire. A standard magazine for an Alliance Standard Infantry Rifle could hold thirty five rounds, and Alliance Tactical Vests - both for Marines and Soldiers - could hold ten magazines, equating to three hundred and fifty rounds ready to fire. So the Council clearly had the advantage in ammunition storage, but Bullets also held many advantages in the general effectiveness area.

Bullets were far more capable of breaching cover, and Council armor is thin, more designed to deflect the kinetic energy ME Slugs carried. Human bullets, being much larger and traveling much faster, could simply brute-force their way through Council Armor. These reasons and many more were why the Citadel was ambling desperately to find a way to improve their Mass Effect technology, without reverting all the way back to ballistic weapons. However in the Terminus Systems, Human Weaponry was rapidly becoming the mainstay, and many mercenary organizations were adopting Bullets and Lead as their primary methods of death, as the lawless lands had no qualms about dropping centuries of tradition for the weapon that would kill faster, and bloodier.

John had been taught all of this during his seven years in Hell, and it all flew through his augmented mind as he rapidly armed himself with the station's Standard Infantry Weapons and ammunition; as he armed himself he knew he had to enter the Human-vs.-Human mindset. Human armor was designed to deflect Human munitions, thus making it far more effective against Mass Effect Slugs. It generally took several clean shots to breach the Infantry Armor the Marines and Soldiers wore, and several more to break through the Power Armor the OD3's and N7 adorned themselves with. SIGMA Titan armor - the kind not optimized for the teenagers - took almost half a magazine to properly breach, not even counting their shields, meaning that it was far more cost-effective, and quick, to simply go for the unarmored portions of a Human's body: The throat, the arms, and the visor.

John hefted the sleek, Standard Infantry Rifle into his hands, and looked down the sights. The rifle itself had the aesthetic look of a World War Three era XM8 rifle, a rifle that had largely been abandoned due to practical issues, though the Alliance had revived the project and had been universally successful in creating it right. The Standard Infantry Rifle was only outmatched, in terms of reliability alone, by the legendary AK-47 rifle, though said rifle was so infrequently seen on Alliance Worlds that it had largely been forgotten to history by 2196. Satisfied with the sights, John slapped a magazine into the rifle, pulled the chambering mechanism located on the right side of the gun, and flipped the safety to three-round burst.

"Found a SAW." He heard George call out, as the big man hefted a machine gun in to his arms and began stocking up ammunition for it.

John acknowledged George's pride, and looked to Craig, who had found himself the lone Marksman rifle model in the entire vault. It was an older model, but the Accurate Rifle for Marksmans I - or the ARM I for short - was still a reliable weapon. Fifteen rounds, only three of which were needed to pierce an OD3's shielding unit, and a fourth to shatter his visor. John could almost tell Craig was smiling beneath his helmet, as he chambered a round and adjusted the scope.

"Everyone armed?" John asked, after his mental clock ran out of time; everyone nodded, and he ordered them to move.

The Station was enormous, John knew that it would take several minutes to traverse to the nearest elevator shaft, and then another two to launch themselves to the highest floors. John keyed in to the public communications SIGMA Channels, and found that his brothers were doing well at holding off the Rebels, the allied three hundred doing wonders at defending against the enemy thousand, if number estimates were correct. But John knew that, once he found Ducard, the priority would be to turn on the power.

Perhaps… An idea struck John, and - as he and his squad soared through the station, towards the sound of gunfire - he used his Skin Suit to key through the squad listings.

He found one that was mobile, and thus, was free. Their callsign was, of all things, Rabbit squad. John assumed it was an inside joke in Charlie Company, the company they had come from.

"Rabbit One, this is Alpha One, please respond." John called.

"Alpha One, this is Rabbit One, Two-Six-Ten, what do you need?" Came the voice of Rabbit Squad's squad leader.

"I'm assigning you a new priority. Get the power back on, failing that find the station's AI Core and find a way to establish a line of communication to the nearest Deep Space/Communications Satellite."

"Understood. We are on our way, Rabbit Squad Out." And with that, the squad cut from the radio, just as the Alphas ran into a thick group of Rebels, currently engaged in a firefight with a half dozen II's.

"Give 'em help!" John ordered, magnetically clamping himself to the ground and taking cover.

John's SIR bucked and barked as it fired in tight, three round bursts. Every bullet went where he wanted them to go, first to the chest to shatter the shields, and then to the head to scramble the brain. Soldiers and Marines were taught to shoot for the center of mass, OD3's and N7 were taught to shoot to kill, SIGMAs were taught that you shouldn't need more than one bullet, after the shields fell, so they had to make them count.

The noise of John's rifle was completely overshadowed by the deafening sound of George's light machine gun, as it roared out chemically accelerated lead. The Rebels were successfully suppressed, giving the two SIGMA Squads under fire time to regroup, and the two Alphas time to take cover. George stopped firing long enough for John and Craig to break cover, John burst fired at one Rebel, shattering his shields, but before he had time to even begin adjusting for the man's head, it was pierced by a Marksman Rifle. John repressed the urge to look over at Craig, his HUD was showing him the miniscule blue lines that were his squad mates' lines of sight, and the one the Marksman Rifle's bullet had belonged to, was Craig's, so John continued firing.

In minutes, the crowded and cramped hallway was now barren and lifeless, save for the three squads of SIGMA II's. The two squads acknowledged the Alphas' help just before they went to scavenge weapons from the dead rebels, John, knowing his work here was done, ordered his squad to keep moving. The Alpha Squad leapt through the station, using the lack of gravity to their advantage as they quickly traversed it. Soon they found themselves at the elevator nexus, but they were faced with a problem.

"Contacts on the tracker!" Craig warned.

"These doors are sealed shut." John said.

"Cut through 'em!" George suggested, as he spun around and shouldered his LMG.

John shook his head, "negative. Elevator doors on this station are thick, meant to hold their own against emergency vacuum exposures. HardLight blades would have to be twice as long to cut through 'em."

"Alright then, keep me cover!" George ordered, clamping his LMG onto his back.

"George, what are you -" John was silenced when George slammed his own HardLight blade into the center of the door and cut up six inches. He deactivated the blade and stuck his hands in between the doors.

John picked up on what the big man was doing, and shouldered his rifle. He desperately wished they had cover spheres, but all they had were a few trash cans and a desk.

"Eighty Two, behind the desk."

"Copy." Craig launched himself to the desk, and when he situated himself, he kicked the trash can over to John, who situated it to the ground and dug in, as a sea of red dots began converging upon them.

"Open fire!" John ordered, the second he saw a gun barrel cone through one of the nexus' two entrances.

His rifle began spraying lead in tight bursts, he would knock out shields and Craig would splatter brains. Bullets began flying at them in response, but a satisfied John heard the Rebels calling out numbers that were grossly out of proportion to what they were really facing. Working like a well oiled machine, Craig's rifle cracked out bullets, one for the targets that John softened up, two for the targets that he took of his own volition; in tandem with Craig, John's rifle spat tight bursts of lead, knocking out shields and tearing apart faces in two powerful bursts.

Two minutes passed by as the fierce firefight raged on. George finally roared triumphantly, as he - through sheer presence of strength - successfully shattered the elevator door's foundations, forced the elevator doors open, and immediately whirled around to begin clearing the air with his massive gun. The display of strength he'd just shown wasn't lost on any of the II's present, but what they had more focused on was how long it had taken - given George's size and strength, which itself was multiplied by his armor, two minutes was unacceptable, and he would no doubt hear about it from someone once the fighting was over.

"Get inside, I'll cover you!" George bellowed as his squad automatic weapon roared deafeningly.

"Craig, go!" John ordered.

Two more cracks from Craig's rifle, before the magazine was spent and ejected, to float aimlessly through the gravityless air. Craig launched himself towards John, who in turn caught the Child Soldier's arm and whirled him into the elevator shaft, following him soon after. John switched his rifle to full-auto, noting he had fifteen rounds left before he would have to switch magazines, and ordered George inside.

John killed three more Humans before George stopped firing, and leapt backwards, into the elevator shaft. The three SIGMA II's didn't hesitate to launch themselves upward, immediately after John tossed a flash-bang into the nexus. The three SIGMA II's rushed up through the elevator shaft, but were quickly accosted from below. John reoriented himself so very little of his body would be visible to the Rebels, and opened fire. He killed one before his magazine ran dry, he ejected it but didn't slap a new one in, he needed bullets down range now, and thus, he reached for his pistol.

But before he could do so, he was tackled to the wall of the shaft.

"Two fifteen!" John heard George call, seeing the teen amble for a handhold on the nearest wall so he could halt himself.

"I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE!" The rebel holding John roared.

John punched the man repeatedly in the stomach with his left arm, feeling the man's stomach crumble and burst with the raw force of his blows, and used his right to attempt to pry the man's hand from his throat, but before he could crush the man's hand with the same effort as crushing a ball of sand, he felt and couldn't resist the instinctual urge to freeze when he saw what was in the man's hand.

"INHUMAN!" The Rebel screamed, before he hit the detonator.

Far above them, shaped explosives detonated in a massive fireball. The shockwave sent all in the shaft flying away from the blast for one second exactly, before physics kicked in to overdrive so as to correct its momentary lapse in judgement, and all the air in the shaft began evacuating. Craig and George grabbed on and held to the elevator shaft for dear life, but John, the rebel, and several others were forcibly dragged out. This momentary distraction was what John needed to slam his augmented and biotically assisted fist into the man's gut, shattering his spine, obliterating whatever was left of his stomach, even piercing some of the skin, and killing the man. But John failed to act fast enough, and just as he tried reaching for a nearby piece of jagged metal, he was sucked out into the cold vacuum, just above the Earth.

John immediately felt a sense of overwhelming fear, as he hurtled through the void uncontrollably. He had to calm himself down, he knew he did, he knew what he had to do to calm himself down, but seven years of training did little to circumvent the fact that he was flying through space many thousand kilometers above a planet that would kill him on re-entry or, failing that, let him simply drift uncontrollably through the void until he either ran out of oxygen and suffocated, starved to death, or took the merciful way out and ended things himself.

Acting fast, but perhaps not intelligently, John grabbed the corpse of the rebel before it drifted away, and put it underneath his feet. The momentum he canceled by slamming his feet onto the Rebel's chest was little, but it was enough to slow him down. He didn't have to rip his pistol from its magnetic grip on his hip, however, as none of the rebels they were fighting had Vacuum-Rated Armor, they were all dying upon exposure to it. John's armor, however, instantly sealed itself upon realizing it had been exposed, and John's half hour of Oxygen had begun.

"John, respond!" He heard George's voice roar through the radio.

"Two Fifteen here!" John barked back, as he tried anything, including attempting to swim through space, to halt his momentum.

"Bio-Comm says your heart rate is rising! Calm down, soldier!" Craig ordered, "think this through!" John could see the two's heads appear in the enormous hole in the elevator shaft connecting the two halves of Titan Station.

"I need to halt my momentum! But the explosion ripped my rifle from my back, and my pistol doesn't have enough recoil to do what I need!"

"John, what armor are you wearing?" Craig quietly demanded of his comrade.

It took John only a moment to realize why Craig had asked. "Optimized Titan Mark-One." Titan Armor had small thrusters for this very situation, they weren't powerful - no SIGMA could pull an Iron Man and start flying around in-atmosphere, but in the void, their power was enough to get any SIGMA wherever he needed to go, all John had to do was calm his mind, and halt his momentum. He forced his breath to still and his mind to slow and he recalled his training, a great many of the functions on Titan Armor were contextual, a simple gesture would activate whatever one needed, be it a HardLight shield or the zero-g thrusters. Twitching his fingers and flying through the on-board computers, John found the gesture he needed to activate his thrusters and performed it; almost immediately his momentum was shifted around completely, and he was almost worse off than he had been before. Navigating in the void of space was far more difficult than on a planet, or in a space station, one had to think and move in three dimensions as opposed to two, this was why there were small thrusters on the Titan Suit's shoulders, elbows, calves and boots; such an arrangement couldn't provide a complete three dimensional move-set, but a trained operative could get wherever he needed to so long as he remained smart, conscious of how much fuel he had, and where he was going and how fast.

It took John six burns to fully halt himself, and once he did so he burned lightly so as to orient himself towards the station. Once he was confident he had a good flight-path, he made a brief but powerful pulse that sent him soaring towards the station. One thing that had to be burned - no pun intended - from any prospective space pilot's mind was the almost instinctual desire to hold down the gas and keep the afterburners on, such an action simply wasted fuel and made it harder to maneuver in space, and the intelligence and adaptability this training required was why the Alliance Air and Space Force was a desperately difficult profession to get in to. John vividly remembered how long Ducard had lectured Delta Company when every one of them had made the same mistake during their training; after zero-g training, no SIGMA worth his weight in armor would ever forget Newton's First Law: An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force. In other words, unless something stopped you, you wouldn't be stopped.

Fortunately for John, a lifetime of military conditioning and the training that had been hammered in to his head paid off, and after another brief pulse to slow himself down, he collided with the station and grunted upon doing so, but his mind was already working on their next approach.

"Come on!" He ordered, magnetically clamping his feet to the outer hull. "We move!"

"Outside?!" George demanded, though he was already ambling out. "Are you mad?"

"If we pry open another set of elevator doors, another level to Titan Station gets exposed to the Vacuum. That can't happen." John stated, as George passed him an SIR.

"Take mine," said George, "so how do we plan on getting to Ducard?"

In response, John tapped on the lone fragmentation grenade on his pouch. "Ducard isn't stupid, he will have taken measures to protect him and whomever he is with, against vacuum exposure. The Rebels…" He looked at their corpses, which were slowly leaving sight, though one or two had caught flame upon being attracted by Earth's gravity. "… Not so much."

"How do you plan on making sure your grenade stays put?" Craig mentioned, as the three made their way across the station.

John considered it a moment, "George has a shotgun." He said simply.

A SIGMA Operative had few weaknesses, so few that many thought they had effectively none. But the fact was, though they were few, they did indeed have weaknesses. One of the biggest weaknesses to SIGMA Operatives was simple: Great Big Bombs. Anything from Space to Surface missiles, to kinetic strikes, to simple nuclear warheads could effectively eliminate a SIGMA Operative. This was why Hardened Shields were developed for Titan Mk. I's, and HardLight emergency shielding units had been developed for the Mk. II's, to try and circumvent this weakness. Another weakness of a SIGMA Operative was that, as impossible as it was, they could be overwhelmed. Numbers affected anyone and everyone, even the Alliance's Augmented Elite.

Joseph Ducard S1-99 was Titan Station's only resident SIGMA Veteran, and he was currently in Titan's main recreation room, protecting a dozen doctors and surgeons who had no military training. He had honestly been amazed he'd been able to get them all in vacuum suits before the Rebels had shown up, and the battle had begun. He would admit, he had expected the Rebels to attack fervently, but he hadn't expected how quickly they would have arrived, how how on God's blue Earth they would have sneaked so many people in to the Sol System, and therein lied the problem: the Rebels had numbers, firepower, and arguably a greater intent to kill. For Rebels, battling a SIGMA wasn't a matter of life and death, it was a point of pride. To survive a SIGMA Strike was something to talk about, to defeat a SIGMA was the stuff of legend, and they had developed a semi-strategy to do so, when going up against lone squads: Overwhelm them. This was exactly what the Rebels were doing: They were overwhelming Ducard, whose muscles were screaming as he worked them faster than most Humans could, to reload his rifle and continue firing.

Titan Shields were the most powerful of them all, but they could be shattered, and Ducard's were being stressed to the extreme. Every second he spent out of cover sent dozens of rounds into his shields, depleting them to the point of breakage. His armor was tough, but under a wall of fire, someone would get a lucky shot, and soon those lucky shots would pile up, and his life would end, and the life of over six hundred teenagers who had known nothing but military tactics and training, would all be at risk.

Bearing all of this in mind, Ducard forced his body to continue fighting past its normal limits, past its superhuman limits, and past its augmented limits. He was a SIGMA, he would not go down without leaving a mountain of corpses in his wake, and that was just what was happening: He was leaving a mountain of corpses. The Rebels seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of reserves, all rushing forward to cover, the lucky ones actually making it before Ducard could take them out.

Ducard had tried calling for help, but long-range comms were being jammed, and the Rebels were jamming any short-waves out of his room, so he was alone, as he continued firing. Three more Rebels fell to his rifle before it ran dry, he ejected the magazine, letting it join the haze of floating magazines and bullet casings, as he slammed home a new one, pulled the chambering mechanism, and fired more.

This had gone on for more than twenty minutes, and while Ducard's aging body was beginning to feel tired, he knew not to give up, he knew all of the II's were strong, but Delta Company was here, and so was SIGMA II Alpha Squad, someone would come, he knew it.

His thoughts were interrupted by several loud, albeit muffled thumps several meters to his left. His eyes widened as he realized the Rebels must be trying to kill him and the doctors, by exposing them to the vacuum, but his radio squawked a loud squelch of static.

He got very little out of the transmission, but had heard the words 'SIGMA', 'Alpha', and 'breach', and knew help was on the way. Ducard bent behind cover and locked himself to the floor.

"EVERYONE HOLD ON!" Ducard roared, as he looked to his left, just in time to see something glorious.

An enormous blast of violet blue energy exploded the sealed blast doors inward, and tossed aside, before a fiery explosion rocked the cracked window. Immediately the oxygen in the room exploded outwards, and dozens of Rebels were taken with it, but the smart ones - the 'Special Forces' Rebels - were vacuum sealed and quickly magnetically clamped themselves to the floor. The second the oxygen stopped flowing, three SIGMA II's, three teenagers, soared into the room with such precision that Ducard couldn't help but feel proud.

The SIGMA at the center of the pack, clad in his own set of optimized Titan armor, and brandishing 2-15 on its right breastplate, was the first to open fire. His SIR barked several rapid, but silent, three-round bursts, as he leapt to cover. The biggest II began laying down suppressive fire with his light Machine Gun, as the last II hid in the ceiling and took cover, before his marksman rifle began spitting bullets, which shattered the visors of the Special Forces Rebels.

Ducard saw 2-15, who he instantly recognized as his John, make several handsigns. He was saying that they knew that comms were down, but they were working on power. Now, with one SIGMA I veteran, and three SIGMA II Alphas fighting against them, in a vacuum environment, the rebels - who were now limited to the idiots who ran out without vacuum helmets, and thus only had fifteen seconds to attempt to do damage, and the Special Forces - stood no chance. John's precise bursts shattered shields so their marksman could shatter skulls, and George's suppressive fire slaughtered Rebels and froze them in their tracks.

To make matters even greater, not two minutes after the SIGMA II Alpha Team had dove back into the station, did the power turn back on. Immediately energy shields were called up to plug the breech in the Station's armor, and the gravity turned back on. Ducard was fearful for the SIGMA II on the ceiling, but a quick look showed him that he had gotten himself fastened to the rafters and support beams.

The room rapidly repressurized as the lights came back on, so the Rebels could now use their unrelenting force to press down upon the SIGMAs. But the SIGMAs responded with force of their own, and after ten minutes of the fiercest firefighting Ducard had seen since Mindoir, the Rebels eventually stopped coming. John, George, 2-86, and Ducard regrouped in his slice of territory. With the oxygen back, the three could converse audibly.

"What's the situation?!" Ducard demanded.

"Everyone who's awake is downstairs fighting the invading rebels -" Ducard noted with Pride that John had already recognized them as rebels. "- we sent in another squad to turn on power, but the elevator shaft and armory levels were breached and exposed."

"Understood."

"We don't know where the jammer is on this level, but a surgical strike behind enemy lines can get it out of commission so the Alliance can come in with support." John finished, "orders, sir?"

"John, I want you and your marksman to hit that jammer, we need to reestablish communications with the Alliance, or they'll see the rebel ships and think Titan Station has been compromised." Ducard ordered, "I don't need to tell you what they'll do to keep the rebels from taking the station."

"Understood, sir!"

"I'd recommend another EVA excursion, scavenge explosives from the dead. I'll mark on your HUDs where I think would be the most logical place to put a Comm-Jammer, but you'll be on your own after that."

"Sir yes sir!" John saluted, as Ducard transferred the required data to him.

It took them only a few minutes of forceful strikes with HardLight blades, but John and Craig were able to breech the Station's shields temporarily, in order to get outside and begin another EVA Walk. Their suits' computers said that, at their current pace, they would reach the target insertion point in five minutes. So John S2-15, instead of admiring the view of the Earth above him, relative to his head, he decided to speak with Craig.

"Two-Eighty Six."

"Yes."

"I know you're a Marksman, I know you're one of the best in the entirety of our generation, and I know your name." Said John, "I would like to know you more if we're going to be on a squad together." He said, as their boots clanked on the station's exterior mutedly.

"What do you want to know?" Craig asked.

"What was your first day like? Where did you come from before Sparta?" He didn't even have to ask if Craig remembered his first day, everyone did, the question was whether or not he remembered how he'd changed from a lowly child to a Spartan 'citizen'.

"It was confusing. I was in an orphanage, and when Doctor Burga came looking for me specifically, I thought I'd finally have a family. I vaguely remember that desire consuming and overwhelming every other one, including the need for sustenance. I do note that I did get it, in a way." The detached way the teen spoke of his past told John of the amount of conditioning in his mind, and how much effect it had on him at this age. "When I woke up on Sparta, I did so from a Cryo Tube, much like the eighty others from Hotel Company. Commander Arben put us under a live fire simulation with simulated mortars. It took us all two hours to get to base, I had to rally everyone to keep 'em sane and focused."

"So you're a leader?" John surmised.

"I prefer taking orders, if that's what you're suggesting. My skills are better suited to reconnaissance work, and mid to long-range combat."

"Any reason you prefer the scope to the sight?" John wondered.

"Range is safety, Two Fifteen. The farther away I am away from the enemy, the less chance they have of hitting or seeing me, and the greater chance I have of destroying them."

John nodded, "I can understand that. Do you have any reasons you fight for?"

"Yes."

"What are they?"

"Before I went to Sparta, I had a sister."

"What happened?"

"I had a sister."

John grunted in affirmation; several seconds passed in silence, "I had a mother."

"Second Contact War?"

"Mercenary War. My Father was Second Contact."

"Do you remember any of them?"

"Only my mother. Only vaguely... I remember being held tight and the smell of sterilized air." John said.

Several more seconds passed, "do you regret this life, John?"

"How can I regret the only life I've ever known?" John responded.

"I'm serious."

"I only regretted it for the first year. Then the conditioning kicked in… But then I got to Mindoir, and I really figured out why I fought."

"Why do you fight?"

"The Galaxy is an enormous, dangerous place Craig. No one is safe in it. On Mindoir, I saw a Quarian woman get her head blown clean off… Nothing was left but hamburger meat. But her daughter saw it and she tried stuffing the meat back in her mother's neck, as if she could put her back together." John recalled, "I fight so no one else has to feel that pain."

"You really saw that?"

"Yes."

"Hm." Craig grunted, "I remember hearing through the grapevine that one of the Deltas had seen action. I know personally that you've got something of a following over in Hotel Company, and I heard Alpha Comp came up with a name for you."

John had heard rumors he had a name other than his given one, but he'd never heard it himself. "I've heard. Should I be aware?"

Craig grinned behind his helmet and shook his head, telling John that he'd rather be able to see the boy's face when he finally heard it for himself. The rest of the walk was spent in silence. John and Craig reached the insertion point, but was frozen when the light from the sun was cut off. Alarmed, John turned around and looked up, to be greeted with an enormous Alliance Carrier, its engines flaring so it would come to a stop above them. The carrier was massive, over two and a half kilometers long and half that wide. John couldn't see its side, and therefore couldn't tell its designation, but he knew it was named after some famous figure in Human History, that was the naming conventions with Alliance Craft Carriers.

A bright light flared upon them, John's eyes and soon after his visor both began adjusting to it. "Unknown SIGMA team, respond on E-channel three."

"Armor works." Said Craig, referring to the infrared strobes that their suits had been wired with.

"Fake radio trouble, we can't hear them." John ordered

"Got it, prepare to breech." John and Craig crouched down on the station, and - using a shotgun he'd taken from a dead Rebel - fired three shotgun shells into the window. The resultant crack was large enough to fit a cluster of grenades into, so he did so.

Now, reaching out with his Biotics, John felt the blast-door right underneath the window. He clenched his fist tightly and felt a dull throb in his brain, before he ripped the blast door from its hinges, crushed it, and tossed it aside. He then pulled the pin on a grenade and leapt outwards. The Grenades exploded, sending oxygen and Rebels alike outside; John burned his thrusters with a powerful, bright pulse and soared in to the chamber. He immediately found what he was looking for, and a dozen Human soon-to-be corpses, their skin expanding to ugly proportions as the air inside of them tried to escape.

"Jammer top located." Craig reported, pointing at the machine that was magnetically attached to the ground.

"What's your tech score?" John asked.

"Four Fifty."

"I'll take it, then."

"Why? What's yours?"

"Six twelve." John reported, as he sat down at the Jammer's terminal, which was hanging off of the machine by a wire. John began interfacing with the terminal, safe in the thought that Craig had his back, and his motion tracker wasn't showing anything but Craig. In three minutes he was in, and almost immediately he heard Ducard's voice broadcasting on all channels.

"Mayday mayday mayday! This is Commander Joseph Ducard S1-99 aboard Titan Station. Rebel Elements have made it within the station and are currently assaulting SIGMAs undergoing Augmentation Recovery, need immediate N7 assistance!" The Commander called out.

Seconds later, the same voice from the Carrier they had seen earlier came through. "Commander One-Ninety Nine, prepare for N7 Reinforcements."

And just like that, the N7 came streaming into the station from every available docking bay. As anticlimactic as it sounded, it only took an hour for the combined SIGMA II, SIGMA I, and N7 forces to clear out the station. In that hour, John - and he did count - had killed eighteen more Human beings. Countless before them, plus eighteen, all Human, all fell to his gun. He thought he should be feeling something beyond a sense of accomplished duty, but he didn't. The feeling, or lack thereof, was odd, it was like he was supposed to be feeling something at his body count, but he wasn't.

Eventually he and Craig linked up with George, and when the battle was over, the casualties were counted. Over fifteen hundred rebels had somehow managed to infiltrate the Sol System, and worse, Titan station. Currently, John was in the Landing Bay with many of the other SIGMA II's, over half of which were ones that were just waking up from recovery, dazed and confused, but ready and alert as they were brought up to speed.

John looked to George, who had his helmet removed, and was walking solemnly to him. John's heart sank, he was about to get bad news.

"How many?" John asked.

"Six."

Six of their brothers. Dead. This was what elicited a reaction from John, but not a physical one; he felt an overwhelming feeling of sorrow, and rage, six SIGMA II's had died at the very same hands of the people the Alliance had - at one point - been sworn to protect. Any one of those SIGMAs was worth twenty Rebels, John knew.

But George still looked solemn, "Six people…"

"Half of them were still recovering."

"The other half?"

"Died fighting. Ducard wasn't wrong when he said we'd take down ten times our number, not a single one of them went down without killing far more than they were worth." George looked away for a moment, scanning the crowds with distant eyes, before he sighed deeply, and, like ripping off a band-aid, simply came out with it. "Justin's Dead."