A/N: I'd just like to thank everyone for the overwhelming response to this. I honestly didn't think people would bother with it. So, many thanks for all the reviews :)
Rewrite going on before update
Unknown ship, 10 minutes after arrival.
Shepard stayed stock still and looked at the 'thing' that straddled her and had incapacitated her entire team.
'It' actually looked human, shape wise at least. It was abnormally tall, with broad shoulders. It was encased in olive green armour with a gold visored helmet that looked as if it could weather a full on hit from a tank. Oh, and it was currently pointing a gun at her face. That bit was important.
Whatever this thing was, human or not, she hadn't been so thoroughly trounced since she was a cadet. She was most definitely not pleased by this.
She shifted her hips uncomfortably beneath the behemoth. It was damn heavy as well. It brought so many questions to her head.
What was this thing? Where did it come from? Why didn't it kill her team mates? How big of a hit could that armour take? If she tried to escape would it try to capture her again or simply kill her? Could she take it in a straight up fight? How did it accomplish what it had? And most of all, how had it got their radio frequency in order to communicate with her?
"What are you?" She whispered in shock. The giant ignored her question completely. It tapped the barrel of it's gun against her visor.
"Who are you?" It's voice was undeniably masculine, a gravelly baritone. It was...fitting.
"My name is Nikki Shepard, Former Commander in the Alliance Navy and Council spectre"
Pretty much everyone in the known galaxy knew her name. Hero of Elysium, Saviour of the Citadel, First human spectre and various other accolades and titles.
As such it came as a bit of a shock when the thing replied "Who? And what?"
She gaped behind her helmet. Nikki wasn't fond of her fame but she recognised that it was there. What rock had this guy been living under? Or better yet, where had he come from?
"Nikki Shepard" She repeated "Council Spectre" She said it slower this time. It was possible that the giant was still 'buzzing' and hadn't caught her words.
"Council?"
Or not.
Forward unto Dawn, main access corridor to aft vehicle bay
John kept the majority of his weight on his knees so as not to crush his captive. She was... odd. She had mentioned being a Naval Commander but when he'd asked Cortana to verify this it had turned out that there was no Naval Commander known as Nikki Shepard. Then she had gone on to say she was a council spectre. What this was, he didn't know. Never mind the fact that she said she was with the 'Alliance'.
He spoke inside his helmet. "Any ideas Cortana?" He felt his neural lace stir after a moment.
"A few. But they're half formed and rather indecent to look at right now. I'm more interested in getting out of here Chief... you know, before we're pounded into space dust by the asteroid belt that is getting progressively closer! Now stop with the 'me caveman, me smash' routine and get your green armoured arse into an escape pod." He could practically feel the huffiness coming from her in waves.
Maybe he should have paid attention to Johnson's sweet-talking?
Pushing such thoughts aside he turned his attention to the 'officer' between his thighs.
"Why are you here?"
"We caught a signal coming from your ship" She started. "I decided that it was worth a look"
He had to admit, he was impressed. Her voice was even and relatively calm. Not many people could stay calm talking to a Spartan at the best of times... let alone when their thousand pound form was straddling the person and pointing a gun in their face. Most non Spartans would have shat themselves in this position.
He was rather glad she hadn't.
Unknown Ship, cargo bay hallway
She looked up at the armoured giant above her. It had her pinned beneath it's significant weight and she wasn't entirely sure she'd be able to shift it.
She pushed against him with enough force to knock over Jacob.
Not even a twitch.
The behemoth pressed the gun against her faceplate with renewed purpose.
Definitely wouldn't be able to shift it.
She relaxed completely, trying to show as little resistance as possible. Getting shot was not on her list of things to do today.
"I wouldn't try that again" The giant growled.
"What do you want from me?" She asked, thinking of all the possibilities. He might just kill her, or maybe he'd toy with her first? Perhaps he would ransom her off to the Batarians? None of these things were a particularly enjoyable thought.
"Information" Short but to the point she supposed.
"On what?" She started to get up on her elbows, only to be pushed back flat.
Being manhandled was not fun.
"Where are we?" It growled.
"The Omega cluster, Sahrabarik system." The barrel of his strange gun was pressed to her visor directly over her left eye.
And it was a strange gun indeed. She hadn't really noticed before, but now she realised that it was an odd shape. It was large as well, larger than a Vindicator.
She couldn't really see much from the position she was in but there seemed to be a button along the side. Odd. She tried for a better look.
Forward unto Dawn, main access corridor to aft vehicle bay
"Um, Chief?" Cortana's Voice was tentative and soft, holding none of the acerbity of earlier. "I think we're in trouble"
John felt the Woman shift and kindly 'reminded' her of his fully Automatic, Air cooled, gas operated Anti-son-of-a-bitch-machine by tapping it on her visor.
"How so?" He said, Switching off his outgoing radio connection to his captive.
"There's no such place as the Omega cluster" Her voice came through his interior helmet speakers. "Either this person in nuttier than squirrel shit...or we're in, well I don't know." She sounded rather upset at the idea of not knowing something. Hmm.
He turned his connection back on and growled out his reply to the basket case.
"Prove it" He wasn't sure if he hoped that he was somewhere completely unknown, or if the person beneath him was meant to be in an institution.
He hoped she was crazy.
She Raised her arm and he grabbed it, still pressing his MA5C against her face plate.
"Relax" She'd lowered her voice "You said you wanted proof, this is it"
He thought for a moment before returning his hand to the grip of his rifle.
She raised her arm again and a holographic interface appeared around her forearm like a gauntlet.
"Impressive" Murmured Cortana.
She began tapping into for a moment and then looked back towards his visor, confused.
"Um, how would I... that is to say, how can I. How would I go about sending you data?"
"Chief" Cortana Whispered "Yank me, wave me over the device and I'll transfer a data miner over"
He held the woman's forearm once more, though much gentler this time, and pulled Cortana's chip from his helmet. Waving it over the holographic device, he saw a small blue jump and then returned the chip to his helmet.
"What did you just do?" Her eyes portrayed the utmost confusion at the moment. He supposed, that to her, it must have looked like he had merely waved a blue rectangle over her arm.
"Transferred your star chart data of this system to my suit's computer" 'and everything else on your device' Though he left that unsaid.
"Chief" Cortana did not sound like she was about to share good news. Shit. "We're, well, we're buggered to put it bluntly"
Wonderful.
"How?"
He seemed to be saying that a lot lately. Despite the fact that he, and the rest of the Spartans, could do accurate slipspace calculations on the fly due to the addition Superconducting Fibrification of his Neural Dendrites during the augmentation procedure. In fact all Spartan IIs were incredibly intelligent and weren't the muscle bound automatons that the ODST's seemed to think they were.
Not only were the Spartan IIs made superhuman due to the augmentations they underwent, but the reason each individual candidate was picked for the Spartan project was because of their genes. Without the Spartan project, each of the conscripts would have grown up to be the best humanity had to offer anyway. Superior intelligence, speed, strength, endurance, reaction speed and physical stature.
These genes also helped with their augmentation process. If a normal person were to survive what the Spartan candidates went through, then the Augmentations would make them great, superhuman.
But the Spartans were the best.
At age six John had managed to break four fingers on a marine drill instructors hand and cause various small wounds with his teeth and nails before being beaten into submission by stun batons.
At age eight he led the Spartan candidates through a training exercise in one of Reach's many woodland valley's. The objective was to get to the Pelican for extraction, however, the last to arrive would be left behind. And the base was on the other side of a treacherous mountain range. When they arrived at a pelican they found it guarded by unknown, non-uniformed soldiers. Taking no chances, John came up with a plan to neutralise the guards, hijack the pelican and get everyone home. Beating down the marines with stones and causing severe injuries, he made sure he was last aboard the drop-ship and then, with the help of Déjà (the 'dumb AI' responsible for the Spartans early academic training), piloted the craft back to base.
At age fourteen, after eight years of brutal training and education under MCPO Mendez and various Tutors and AI's, John had the body of an eighteen year old Olympic athlete.
He survived the Augmentation procedure and a legend was born.
The process had transformed him, from a near perfect specimen of Human achievement, to a superhuman warrior.
Due to the Carbide ceramic ossification his bones were now practically unbreakable.
A series of muscular enhancement injections had increased the density of his muscle tissue and reduced lactase recovery time, increasing his strength and reducing the need for rest after strenuous activity.
A catalytic thyroid implant boosted his muscle and skeletal growth, increasing his size and improving his strength once more, however it also reduced his sex drive to the point of near non-existence.
Occipital capillary reversal had increased blood flow beneath the rods and cones of his retinas had strengthened his eyesight to superhuman levels and given him almost perfect night vision.
Superconducting Fibrification of his Neural Dendrites had replaced his nervus system with superconducting fibres, increasing his reaction speed by 300% and giving a marked increase to his already impressive intelligence, memory and creativity.
Despite all this, John was not the fastest. That was Kelly.
He was not the biggest or strongest, that was Sam.
He was not the best shot, that was Linda.
He was not the best hand-to-hand combatant, that was Fred.
But, he was often considered the bravest. Many also thought him the luckiest.
John just figured he was doing his Job.
He pushed such thoughts away.
"Nothing makes sense Chief. Her device, called an omni-tool by the way, says that the year is 2185." Cortana's voice filtered in through the helmet "Stranger still, there are encyclopedic entries about Earth and different species galactic histories... Chief, none of it happened. It's like we've jumped into a completely different time line."
Wait, what? This was...This was really not good.
Unknown ship, pinned by a giant green thing
Shepard let out a soft grunt as the Armoured being suddenly stood.
This was her chance.
Shepard shot up and threw a full powered kick towards the armoured giant's midsection, only to have her shin caught in his iron grip. She stood there for a moment. She hadn't even seen his arm move. The next second she was seeing stars as his other fist shot forwards and punched the chin of her helmet.
Her head rocked back and she fell to the floor. collecting herself, she lunged forwards again. The behemoth caught her and threw her against the grey wall of the corridor.
She groaned in pain but persevered and swung a punch at his head.
The giant's arm darted out, blocked her punch and twisted her arm behind her back,pushing her up against the wall.
"Stop!" The gravelly voice said. She almost snorted. Shepard couldn't move if she wanted to, it seemed as if the giants full weight was pressing her into the metal.
"I'm going to let you go, and we are going to talk" It growled. For the first time there seemed to be a hint of frustration creeping into it's voice.
"Fine" She grunted. Being manhandled was definitely not fun.
He slowly released his hold on her and took a step back. She stared at him for a moment and briefly contemplated having another go at him. Bad idea.
The giant picked up his gun, must have been thrown to the side when she attacked him. She sighed. He obviously needed her for something otherwise he would have simply killed her.
The question was however, what did he need?
Forward unto Dawn, main access corridor to aft vehicle bay
John went over his options in his head, Cortana appeared to be curled up in his neural lace, quietly going through the data that her program had collected from the holographic device she called an 'omni-tool'.
He was, as far as he could tell, beyond the known galactic rim.
He had stumbled upon an entirely new civilisation, possibly in a different timeline. this was FUBAR.
That was... not a lot to go on to be honest. He needed more information. He needed to know where he stood in this mess. He needed to to know if he could get back to the UNSC.
But first, he needed to get off the Dawn.
He looked at the woman in front of him.
She had a ship.
Hmm.
He could just take the ship? Cortana could pilot it. It'd probably take years to get back to Earth via slipspace but it was better than nothing.
Of course that wouldn't reflect well on the UNSC if this was discovered.
He could try and secure passage on this ship of hers but... he hadn't made the best first impression, now had he?
Bugger.
He could pretend to be beaten by this woman and the stow away as they left?
Highly unlikely.
"John" Cortana started "It's... it's worse than I thought"
nothing ever works well, does it? There's always a problem with something, isn't there?
"How much worse?"
"As in, these people don't have slipspace, have banned AI's, are essentially bound by rules set out by an alien triumvirate and are dependent upon a rare element for all of there tech, worse"
Wonderful.
"Great" Came his sarcastic reply. This just keeps on getting better. Scratch that slipspace back to Earth idea. "Options?"
"Well chief, I'm not sure how to say this, so I'll just get it over with. You need to play nice with the natives"
Shit.
"How?" Ah, that word again.
"How should I know?" Came her indignant reply. "My best friend is a socially awkward death machine, you think I know how to win hearts and minds? I was built to crack open security protocols, keep your arse out of the fire and blow shit up" Yupp, still slightly frazzled about the wake up. Lovely.
John wasn't sure when she'd be over that, but hopefully it would be soon. She seemed to be staying angry for longer than usual.
He sighed quietly into his helmet. Oh hell, here goes nothing.
He opened the com line to the woman. "Commander Shepard?"
The woman looked towards him. "I am Master chief petty officer, Spartan-117 of the UNSC"
"UNSC?" Came her reply. No recognition of the acronym. Oh dear.
Hmm, bare minimum to make her think the idea was plausible. No use giving up information he didn't have to.
"My government."
"Right." She looked at him oddly. "And why are you telling me this?" Her body wasn't relaxing, in fact she seemed more wary now.
"Repeat after me Caveman, you're going to talk us into a war." Said Cortana. At least she was helping, that's a plus.
"In the hope that you will understand my reaction, and offer forgiveness" He could tell he'd be speaking a lot more in the next few minutes than he had in the last two years. Wonderful.
Shepard seemed to go from shocked to angry.
"Not likely big guy! I don't take kindly to people attacking my team and I!" Yeah, angry was a good word for Shepard right now.
Unknown Ship, cargo bay hallway
The nerve of this giant... thing!
It, or he, or whatever the hell it was that had just beaten her arse to the ground was now asking for forgiveness? I think not!
But.
If she could somehow convince it to help her? No, too dangerous. She didn't want this thing on her ship.
It was powerful though. It could help with the collectors?
No.
But maybe? Just maybe, if she could somehow force it to help her? In some way that it wouldn't be a danger to her ship and crew? Maybe. Unlikely, but maybe.
"I understand that I have... made a mistake, and I apologise. But where I come from, having armed and unknown personnel board your ship is terms for a forceful reaction"
It sounded uncomfortable, its voice also sounded like it was unused to holding such conversations. Interesting.
She contemplated it's words. Where was it from? Questions for another time, right now she needed to know if it was going to turn her into a paste any time soon.
"What is it that you want? Not five minutes ago, you were throwing me around this room, what changed? Why do you want to talk now?"
"I realised that I had made a mistake. I was trying to talk with you when I let you up from the ground but you attacked me and I retaliated."
Hmm, she highly doubted that he had expected her to simply stand up and let everything go.
His voice was getting a slight scratchy quality. Definitely not used to long conversations, did it have other ways to communicate? Or was it simply not big on talking?
This was going nowhere, she wanted to know what know what it wanted. Now.
"Yes, fine. That's all well and good but it doesn't explain why you didn't simply kill my team and I in your 'forceful reaction'. What do you want?"
She was beginning to become impatient.
"I want your help. I'm stranded here, over a hundred thousand light years from UNSC space. There is little, to no, chance of me being able to return"
Wow. Okay, that's... impressive. How in the nine hells did he get here!?
"Yes, I've gathered that you need help but I don't see how I'm supposed to help you!"
Impressive or not, she was still angry. And rightfully so! He was obviously being as vague as possible and that was not improving her mood.
The giant looked straight at her for a moment. It was a sight to behold. She estimated that he was just above seven feet tall, he was obviously incredibly strong and his reaction speed was obscenely fast. Add the green armour and that gold visor and, well, he looked like some form of mythical Cyclops. With enough armour for a ship.
It sounded as if this person was a test pilot, if every one of his people were like this? Then, well, the council would have a very large problem on their hands when, or if, they encountered them.
"I would like transport from this Ship, in return I am willing to offer you any aid that I can while I search for a way home"
Too easy, no way would she get what she wanted that easily. Not to mention that he was still a danger.
"Oh really now?" she was incredulous. "You get a lift out of here and I get whatever assistance I want from you? For the indeterminable amount of time it would take for you to find a way home? Seems like a lopsided deal to be honest" she looked directly at his visored face plate. "What's your angle?"
"My angle, is that I would like to leave this ship before an asteroid hits it" Definitely becoming frustrated with her. But a fair point. "And at the moment I don't have many options, beggars do not have the luxury of being choosers."
He continued.
"Now, you can accept my offer of aid, get me off this ship and we can all leave. Or, we can argue moot points until the oxygen in our suits runs out, an asteroid blows us into space dust and the star goes supernova. Your choice"
Damn it.
"Fine" She growled. "But this conversation is not over! I will let you onto my ship but you will give me your word that you wont harm anyone! Time will tell if you are trustworthy, time you will spend out of everyone's way. You will aid me when I need it, as per our deal and in return I will help you. Understood?"
"Understood."
she nodded, right. Time to leave.
God, she hoped this wasn't a colossal mistake.
Forward unto Dawn, main access corridor to aft vehicle bay
Commander Shepard was, without a doubt, an exceedingly stubborn woman.
"Right chief, that is probably the best deal we're going to get, and at this point we can't be fussy. I need time to work out a way back to the UNSC, hopefully you can buy me that time by helping this Shepard woman."
Nothing was ever simple was it?
"On the plus side, she should keep you busy. I went over her personal files from that thing on her wrist."
Interesting.
"Apparently she's a war hero, almost single handedly held off a major pirate raid on an important colony in the outer reaches of human space. She was part of some sort of special forces group for most of her military career, N7 or something."
Good.
"Basically she's an ODST without the drop pod" Hmm. "She became the first human spectre, before you ask, a spectre is a council operative, they answer to no one but the council and are authorised to use any means necessary to complete their mission."
John frowned behind his visor, surely that was a liability? No, he didn't like the sound of that, people needed order, they needed rules and guidelines to follow, without that they were just a rambling mess.
"Two years ago she reportedly killed a rogue spectre, Saren Arterius, stopped an invasion of AI's housed in synthetic platforms and saved the council. Then she Just vanished. She was declared dead and a ceremony was held. Absolutely nothing from her at all, until about a week ago."
At least he had a background now to work with now. That was a start.
"So John, I recommend that you help this woman out with whatever it is she's doing whilst I trawl this civilisations data storage to find a way home."
He got the distinct feeling that if Cortana had a body she would have accentuated that last sentence by patting his head.
This was FUBAR.
"Fine." He still had questions though. "What is this 'council'?"
"The Council is the Alien triumvirate I mentioned earlier, it's comprised of the three most powerful species in this area of space. The Asari, the Turians and the Salarians."
"The Asari are a species of Mono-gendered, female looking, blue skinned aliens with a very close appearance to humans, the body shape is practically the same with the exception that instead of hair they have semi-flexible, cartilage based head ridges that can be shaped to an extent. They are naturally adept at, something these species call 'Biotics', the ability to manipulate 'mass effect' fields. You don't need the the science behind it, but basically they can change the mass of objects and control dark energy to lift, push, pull, shred molecules, create kinetic resistant barriers and reverse the effects of gravity. In short, when you see someone hostile start to glow blue, put them down. Hard."
Mm, John didn't like the sound of Biotics, hopefully a five round burst and a new nasal cavity would put them down like everything else.
"Now Turians are pretty much under-powered Elites, similar body structure, similar focus on honour and combat but they aren't as strong, or as fast, or as tall. They have exceptional eyesight however, making them good shots. They are about as strong as a very fit human, and are about as tall. Same as Elites, you wont be able to break the via terror tactics, slaughtering their squad will lead to an organized fall back rather than an attempted energy sword shave however."
A militaristic society? Wonderful.
"Lastly, we have the Salarians, very fast, very smart and very short lived due to their hyperactive metabolism. They can survive on one hour of sleep per cycle and are often used in reconnaissance roles. They aren't likely to fair well in a direct fire fight but they are good at collecting information. It's generally accepted that they know more than they are letting on."
Right then.
"I do not like this Cortana."
And he didn't. He did not like the idea of working with this Shepard Woman, he did not like the idea of working with aliens, he did not like the thought that he was in place he didn't know or even a time as the case may be, he did not like the idea that there was no slipspace travel and he most definitely did not like the idea that the humans that inhabited this area of space were bound by the rules and regulations of an alien government.
Unfortunately, he didn't have a choice. Cortana needed time. Time they did not have on the Dawn. Shepard had a way out, that way out included him helping her. It was as simple as that.
"Cheer up big guy, who knows, maybe a different opportunity will arise later on. But for now, this is what we've got."
Maybe it would, but that didn't mean he had to be happy about this one.
"So, what do I call you?" Came Shepard's voice.
"Spartan" Simple, accurate, just the way he liked it.
"Don't you have a name?"
There was no way he was telling her that. His name was a deeply personal thing for him and there was no chance he was about to hand it out willy nilly.
"Spartan will suffice." Hopefully she wouldn't press any more.
She seemed to get the point.
"Suit yourself." She walked to the side, reached out and plucked her gun from the vacuum before reattaching it to her hip. It folded away.
Strange.
"Now, If you'd kindly go and fetch my crew from wherever you put them whilst I check on Garrus"
Her tone was not friendly, and he couldn't blame her. She walked towards the blue armoured alien he had taken down earlier, he had punched the side of the helmet and dented it severely, luckily the visor hadn't smashed nor the seal broken.
He nodded towards Shepard and launched himself up into the darkness, reaching out, he grabbed a cooling pipe and climbed onto the maintenance catwalk. The two humans were slumped next to each other, unconscious and a little bruised but otherwise unharmed.
He picked up the male and through him over his shoulder before picking up the woman and wrapping one arm around her middle. He jumped back down, in front of Shepard.
She looked towards him and her crew members, then nodded and spoke.
"Follow me towards the shuttle" Her words were terse. She picked up the alien, recognisable as a Turian now, and draped one of its arms across her shoulder before setting off down the hallway.
Chief followed behind.
Date: unknown, Location: unknown.
Linda blinked wearily, slowly opening her eyes.
Her armour appeared to be in emergency shut down, her visor was dark, her HUD was non-existent and it took extreme effort to move her limbs, the servos were offline.
Not good.
She activated the system reboot via her neural lace, it would take a minute or so. As her suit booted up she took in as much of her surroundings as she could.
She was laying against something, she wasn't flat but nor was she standing. Linda seemed to be propped up against something, she assumed it was a hill of some type as the view in front of her was dominated by rolling fields and hills. The area was bathed in night as the system readout scrolled down her visor.
Shields operational, off.
Armour integrity, 100%
Hydro-static gel layer, functioning.
Biofoam injectors, operational.
Pressure seal, intact.
Fusion reactor, Intact.
External sensors, operational.
Helmet radio, operational.
Systems fully operational, booting AI interface.
"Finally! Honestly, I thought you'd never wake up m'lady. Are you unharmed?" Darius' voice filtered into her helmet via her internal speakers.
"I'm fine" Her reply was short but she was sure the AI didn't mind.
"Wonderful, scanning the local area now"
She slowly stood, her limbs ached but it was a mild annoyance at worst. Looking around for a moment she saw her black bag laying haphazardly a few feet away, her sniper rifle was next to it, covered in dirt. That would need a good clean.
Linda swung her bag onto her back and picked up her rifle.
"We appear to be on a Garden world, slightly lower average temperature than earth, slightly lower gravitational pull. Somewhat thicker atmosphere. The local terrain is comprised of fields, pastures and hilly farmland. There seems to be a small encampment on the very edge of the suit sensors."
Looked like that was there first stop.
Darius placed a NAV marker on her HUD.
"I recommend scouting out that camp, I have no idea where we are or what world we're on, I don't even know what part of the galaxy we're in. Assume hostiles."
Linda nodded and set off in the direction of the marker.
A/N: slightly shorter than the first chapter, sorry about that. I'm not exactly happy with how this turned out, I don't think I go the characterisation right. Unfortunately this is probably as good as it will get so, please, leave a review if you want.