I stared at the Councilors, suddenly very suspicious. "What's this 'only way to be sure?'"

The asari Councilor continued on, apparently either unintimidated by a suspicious Spartan, or still ignorant of what a Spartan can do. "It's simple and painless. We have one of our asari agents meld with you and-"

I saw where this was going. "No. Not happening. I'm not letting someone else inside my head."

The turian Councilor glared at me with returned suspicion. "Why? Do you have something you're trying to hide from the Council?"

I didn't rise to the bait. "Yes. In addition to the various military secrets I know, I know several different things that have driven a great many people to suicide. I have fought against horrors unimaginable. They have driven more than a couple people completely insane. I can't guarantee that anyone poking around in my memories will come out sane. Don't do this."

The Councilors paused for a minute, then turned to each other. They must have turned off their microphones or something, because it looked like they were talking, but I couldn't hear anything. After a couple of minutes of what looked like a heated debate, they finished up, and turned back to us. The asari was again the one to act as spokesperson.

"It is the decision of this Council that we will go ahead with the meld test. Your claims are just too outlandish to take as the truth, and you are too dangerous an individual to just simply dismiss. There is nothing more you can do to affect our decision. Unless, you feel like trying to resist."

The security in the room took this as their cue to step a little closer, and start reaching for their guns. Not one for being intimidated, I started reaching for my weapons as well, before Shepard stopped me by grabbing my wrist with a slight shake of her head. "Don't make things difficult. We don't want an incident." She spoke under her breath so the Councilors or the officers wouldn't hear us.

I sighed, then nodded, withdrawing my hand from my guns. I turned back to the Council. "Fine. I won't argue. I still think its a stupid decision, but if you want to risk a spectre, that's your call, not mine."

The asari Councilor nodded. "Thank you for your co-operation. Now, if you'll take off your helmet, our agent will be here soon."

I didn't say anything, just taking off my helmet carefully, making sure Saria's chip stayed in the helmet. It wouldn't do it have her be discovered now, especially when the Council seems very ready to disbelieve me.

A few minutes passed, during which I spent most of the time glaring at the Council, who seemed slightly uncomfortable under my gaze, blunted by the visor no longer, while Shepard and Tali fidgeted impatiently. The officer stood still, either through some familiarity of waiting for this, or through what was more than likely a long military career. Eventually, a somewhat young looking asari came out from somewhere to the side of the podium and Council platform. She looked a little older than Liara, but not as old as the Councilor standing in front of me. She stopped at the edge of the pit, and turned towards the Council. "You wanted to see me?" She seemed a little confused by the summons, and occasionally slipped a peek back at the podium towards the five of us standing there.

The asari spoke once more. "Yes. You have some experience with the humans, is that correct?"

The asari spectre still seemed confused. "I have visited several human colonies, yes. Why?"

"We need you to look through the memories of that human," She paused to point at me, "and tell us what you see. He has told a story that is a little ... difficult to believe offhand without any solid proof."

The spectre nodded, accepting the answer, and made her way over to me. She paused right be fore me and quietly asked, "Are you ready for this?"

I responded with a simple "Are you?" At her confused glance, I just nodded. "I'm ready."

She hesitated for just another moment, before steeling herself. She closed her eyes and placed her hand on my face, and ignoring the small flinch, started speaking. "Just relax, and let your mind open itself to the universe. Feel the flow of the tide, in and out. Embrace eternity." And with that, her eyes snapped open again, this time nearly pure black.

Images flashed through my head, almost too fast to catch. Climbing things with my friends back on Actium. Finding ways to jump off said things without serious injury. Going through school. Seeing another news report about another colony going dark, this time even closer to us. Enrolling in the marines, hoping to be able to help protect my planet. Getting on the ship headed to Reach for training. Waking up from cryo, getting the news that my home was glassed. Asking to see the images, almost immediately regretting it. Hearing that my family made it off the planet on a refugee ship, headed to another colony. Training on Reach. Getting deployed for the first time. Seeing my first Covie in person, almost getting shot. Shooting back. Lots of shooting back. Seeing my first Spartan, saving my ass. Getting the offer to join the ODSTs. More training. More combat, being dropped from orbit. More planets glassed to a crisp. Getting recalled to Reach to help defend it against the Covenant. Dropping, finding out halfway down our ride just got shot down. Fighting the Covenant on Reach. Getting the call that Reach was lost, to find a way off. My unit and I fighting our way to the Aszod ship-breaking yards, meeting up with two Spartans. Getting to the Pillar of Autumn with one Spartan dead and the other left behind. Cryosleep. Waking up above Halo, dropping down. Linking up with the Master Chief for the assault to break out Keyes. Hunting for the control room. Encountering the Flood, the horror at seeing the conversion. Fighting our way off the ring. Fighting back to Earth. Fighting the Covenant, following them to another Halo. Teaming up with the Elites to stop Halo from firing. Going back to Earth. Watching the streak that was the Master Chief fall from the descending Forerunner ship. Fighting our way through Voi to stop the Covenant from digging up the artifact. Fighting the Flood. Following the Covenant. Stopping Truth from lighting the rings. Fighting through High Charity. Fighting on the replacement, fighting Spark. Fleeing the ring. Moving to the bridge to try to help the Arbiter and Johnson pilot the ship, fighting through the pain. Making it through with half a ship. Splashdown. SPARTAN-IV offer. The pain of the augmentations. More training. The ops on Requiem. Going through the portal. Fleeing the Geth ship, wrestling the krogan. And that was just the visual part of what flashed through my head.

And then it was over. The asari stumbled back a little, mumbling something incoherent, and I just blinked a little, shook my head to clear it. When I looked back up, the asari was saying something that sounded suspiciously like, "I won't let them get me." Tears were forming in her eyes. Dulled as my senses were from the mother of all flashbacks, it took a second to notice her hand going for the pistol on her hip. I lunged forward, and managed to wrench the gun from her grasp before it was halfway to her head. Everyone gave a sigh of relief. The asari noticed me again, and whispered one word. "How?" I knew what she meant.

I collected my thoughts, my head still spinning slightly from the meld. "Don't let it break you. They want you to give up, so just keep on fighting. Find something to fight for, even if its just to spite the ones that want to bring you down. If you give up, you lose."

She paused for a moment, contemplating my barely whispered words, visibly attempting to calm herself, then nodded. There were still a couple tears on her face, but I was satisfied that, while more than likely scarred from seeing ten years worth of brutal war in the span of a few seconds, she had succeeded in pulling herself together, no longer at risk of killing herself. I handed her back her gun, then stepped back. Those that can control themselves right after the first sight can usually control themselves for afterward.

Everyone in the room let out a breath. With the situation defused, I turned back to the Council. "I warned you."

With the ice broken, but everyone still shaken, the Council pressed on to business. The salarian was the one to speak. "Farin, what did you see?"

The shaken asari took another deep breath before speaking. "After a somewhat normal childhood, he entered the military. Humans were fighting a war for survival against several alien races, all trying to kill them. They fought as well as they could but it was not enough. They barely managed to survive."

The asari Councilor nodded. "Thank you, Farin. That will be all. You may leave now."

The asari nodded gratefully and made her way out as quickly as possible, with one last glance back over her shoulder at me.

The exciting events over, I pulled my helmet back on. Saria chimed in with a quick comment. "That could have gone better. But it could have been much worse too."

I ignored her, to busy being angry at the Council to pay much attention. "There. You believe me now? It nearly drove someone insane, but you have your proof now, right?" I couldn't stop some of my anger from bleeding into my voice.

The turian Councilor nodded. "Yes, yes. All charges against the Alliance are dropped." I turned to leave. "Now, before you leave, one last question. What do you plan on doing here?"

I paused. That was a good question. Finally obtaining an answer, I turned back to face them. "For now? Help Shepard hunt down Saren. After that?" I shrugged. "I don't know. Try to find a way home? Maybe continue to help out Shepard? I haven't really had much time to think about it."

Final question answered, I turned to leave. Shepard and the others must have slipped out while I was answering that question, because they were waiting for me at the bottom of the steps. I could see that the military man wanted to talk, so I let him.

"Thompson, was it?" At my nod, he continued. "I'm Captain Anderson. I used to be the commanding officer of the Normandy, before Shepard became a spectre. The whole Alliance is wondering what you plan on doing. If you like, we could probably accommodate you."

I thought about it for a moment. "If you're talking about getting me to join the Alliance military, save your breath. I'm already in the UNSC, and even though they don't exist here, I still need to find a way home. Thank you for the offer, but I don't think so."

He nodded. "I didn't think that would work, but Udina insisted. Well, I should probably get back. maybe he's calmed down by now."

Shepard cut in, shaking her head. "Captain, based on how red his face was when he left, I think you should stop for lunch before you go back."

Anderson sighed. "You may be right. It was nice seeing you Shepard, remember to stop by if you need anything."

She nodded. "I will."

Anderson walked out towards the elevator, just as people started to trickle back in to the room. Shepard sighed, then shook her head. "Come on, lets head back to the Normandy. I think that's enough excitement for one day."

Luckily, there was a cab terminal right by the bottom of the stairs. It didn't take long for the cab to arrive and the three of us to climb in. The ride back to the Normandy was mostly silent, aside from a few ads that came over the radio. I figure Shepard and Tali were either giving me space, or trying to digest what happened back in the Council chambers.

It wasn't long before we returned to the bottom of the elevator to the dock, and we had to suffer through the unusually long elevator ride once again. Once we got to the top, Shepard pulled me over.

"Nick, you should go have a check up with Dr. Chakwas, the ship's doctor. We have a little while before we pull out, and I want to be supplied with whatever you might need. Rations, meds, whatever."

"Alright. Sounds reasonable."

Shepard went back down the elevator, and I turned and walked into the Normandy. Quickly making my way towards the back and the stairs, I passed by the med bay to make a stop in the cargo bay first. From my experience, doctors don't like it when you show up in full armor. Even more so when it's the half a ton MJOLNIR. Luckily, in the glove boxes of warthogs assigned to Spartan fire teams, there is a toolkit for removing the armor, for field emergencies like part replacement or medical action. It took about 15 minutes to get everything off, much longer than it would have taken with the correct equipment. Oh well. Not much I can do about that. I made sure to leave Saria with the armor pieces. No one was all that likely to go digging around in armor pieces they could barely lift, and doctors tended to be very observant.

I suffered through the tortuously long elevator ride once again, this time feeling slightly vulnerable without the armor. A couple years ago, I thought the armor was claustrophobic, and it would have been nice to get out. It's funny how a couple years living on the battlefield in what amounts to almost tank level protection can change one's perceptions.

I walked into the surprisingly small meld bay of the Normandy and saw a older, gray haired woman sitting at a desk in the back. She got up when she saw me walk in.

"Hello, I'm Dr. Chakwas, the Normandy's medical officer. You must be the man we picked up from picked up from Trebin."

"I guess so. I'm Spartan Nick Thompson. Shepard sent me here to get a checkup from you before we leave so we would be stocked with whatever might be needed to treat me."

She nodded. "Alright, lets get started. First, are you supposed to be taking any kind of medication or anything like that?"

I paused to think about it for a moment. "Nope. They took me of the post-aug meds a year ago. Something about my physiology being highly adaptive to the implants."

She nodded again. "Okay then. Now, I need you to take that off for a more in-depth examination."

The exam was fairly quick, normal for a checkup, aided by the Omnitool Chakwas used throughout the exam. Once I was dressed again, she wanted to talk to me again.

"Okay, you are healthy, in great condition. However, there were a few things I wanted to talk to you about. First, your scars. I haven't seen anyone with that many, or that severe. Usually medi-gel eliminates scars. How did you get them? And what about that particularly large one accords your back?"

"Where I'm from, we don't use medi-gel. Haven't invented it. Instead we use biofoam, a compound that just seals wounds on the field, patches you up until you can get to a surgeon back on the ship. So if you get shot at, you're going to collect scars. The burn wounds are from the plasma weaponry the Covenant likes to use. The occasional bullet wounds are from Insurrectionists, or ... them. "

She looked confused. "'Them?'"

I shook my head. "Not something I like talking about. Anyways, the large scar on my back was from a glancing blow from a particularly powerful Forerunner weapon. I caught some of it saving a friend."

Chakwas nodded again. "Okay. Now on to the next topic. Several differences are present in your body structure that make you different from normal humans, including enlarge adrenal glands, and most obviously, your bones are plated in a dense form of ceramics."

"Those were some of the augmentations of the SPARTAN-IV project. Aim was to make soldiers that are faster, stronger, and tougher than average soldiers."

Chakwas stated simply, "Well, I'd say they succeeded. And that brings me to my next question. Your DNA is slightly different. Still recognizably human, but some parts are tweaked, some parts were added, and a few parts from the normal human genome were missing. Was that part of the augmentation program as well, or from something different?"

I shook my head. "Not a part of the augs. For the most part, they stayed away from genetics. If you're looking for someone to blame, blame the Librarian."

Chakwas was very confused at that statement. "What does a librarian have to do with your genes?"

"No, not a librarian, the Librarian. Or at least, the representation of her. It was a digital copy of a Forerunner, the rough equivalent of your protheans. She tweaked the genes of me and a comrade to, among other things, make us immune to the effects of one of their artifacts. I'm not sure what effect any other tweaks that were done have. Our conversation was cut a bit short."

Chakwas still seemed a little confused, but accepted my explanation. "And what were the effects of this artifact?"

"It was, at the time, being used as a weapon, digitizing human intelligence at the cost of bodies, but their was a flaw in the process. The minds would end up warped and twisted, useful only as tools of war to the one using the artifact."

Chakwas looked horrified. "That's horrible. That someone would do that... Inconceivable."

I nodded slowly. "Yes, it is. Now, Doctor, if you can do me a favor and lend me a sample of medi-gel?"

She nodded and went to get one. "Why, if I may ask?"

"I'm going to try to lace medi-gel into my existing biofoam reserves, hopefully to try to lessen the number of necessary future visits."

She handed me the sample, and with a quick "Thank you," I was on my way down to the bay to get back in my armor.

Here it is. Still not satisfied with a couple parts, but oh well. Just a heads up, progress on the next chapter may be stalled by forces outside of my control. I'll do what I can if I have time, but it might be a while. So, in an effort to get this out of the way now and speed up the next chapter release a little bit, have another vote.

Vote 6: Feros Resolution

Either way, side quests will be done and colonists will be spared. This just is about Shiala and Jeong.

Vote Closed.

Also, I would like to thank Invader Viceroy for spotting some mistakes I have made in some earlier chapters.