The Sins of our Fathers

by MarkerMagnum

Unknown to the Citadel Council, the Human-Covenant war nears its vicious end. Miranda Keyes is seconds too slow. Delta Halo fires, leaving UNSC space as a lifeless snapshot in time. The Citadel must morn the loss of a civilization they never knew.

9. Reflections

"The star charts match. There's no way around it. We're right where Onyx should be," Odysseus' voice was calm and collected, his voice giving no sign of the alarm slowly spreading across the combined fleet.

Halliday paced on her pedestal, anxious to do something, to do anything. Instead, the combined fleet had formed up in the outer limits of the Zeta Doradus system performing deep system scans. Without Xiphos however, the Turian section of the fleet had lost much of its scanning capability, and while the UNSC ships, the Marathons in particular, had impressive scanning arrays, they were optimized for MAC and archer targeting, not trying to search the cosmos for a missing planet.

The news wasn't much better in the hunt for battlegroup Omicron. There was a cloud of interference around where Onyx should have been. A field of static in Triumph and Canberra's otherwise crystal-clear sensor arrays. It didn't make sense to either of the UNSC AI. Heavy debris from a battle would have been identifiable, even from here. And the smaller debris wouldn't cloud up the sensors like this, it was simply too small.

So, what happened to battlegroup Omicron? From the corner of Triumph's bridge, the pre-recorded message in Odysseus' voice looped, broadcast on all UNSC channels. For now, the only response was silence.

Back during the height of the war, a broadcast like this had probably been the quickest way to find yourself neck deep in a firefight. An open hail in a contested system? Either you would find yourself called to aid an UNSC fleet under siege, or more likely, would be pounced on by a hunter-killer group of Covenant battlecruisers. One way or the other, you were going to be slinging lead and dodging plasma.

When Halliday began broadcasting the hail, she had to fight every fiber of instinct she had learned at the helm of Triumph.

As the hours had stretched on, the eerie peace of the Zeta Doradus system assaulted Halliday's sensibilities. Covenant attacks were methodical and brutal. They left signs, patterns. In her short two years of service with the UNSC, she had picked up a few things. She could feel impending conflict in her digital bones. Zeta Doradus was triggering every red flag in her arsenal. And yet, she couldn't figure out why. She could tell from the way Odysseus' projection stared at the tactical map, that the older AI was much the same.

"UNSC 5th Fleet hailing battlegroup Omicron..."

Admiral Tibril, had wisely decided not to advance the fleet until a more concrete understanding of the situation emerged. As the hours ticked on, however, the chances of the situation resolving itself decreased. Sooner or later, the fleet would have to take a leap of faith. The cloud of interference still shrouded the expected location of Onyx, and with it, the chance of spotting the debris of battle. For all Halliday knew, Omicron was dust. Still, she expected to find the remains of the Covenant fleet. There hadn't been nearly enough time to before the pulse for a Covenant fleet to make repairs and jump to slipspace.

"...break radio silence and respond..."

Omicron may have been outmatched by whatever Covenant force they ran into, but they would have put up a fight. Even in an ambush, where Omicron might have been overwhelmed by a Covenant onslaught and quickly dismantled, Stalingrad's vengeful longsword wings would have left their marks on the alien fleet.

"...prioritization code: Hotel, Quebec, 72-99, Charlie, Alpha, 70..."

And yet, beyond the strange could of interference, there was no sign of battle. At least not that the fleet could see from all the way out here.

"...please respond..."

The doors to the bridge slid open behind Halliday. There was a quick rustle of clothing being grabbed, and an indignant yelp as one of the Turian marines blocked the figure from entering the bridge.

"Let me...! Let go of me, let me through!" The Asari at the door exclaimed as she batted away the hands of the Turian soldiers, her face flushing a deep shade of blue from frustration.

Victus ended the short conflict: "Let her through. We asked her to work on something for us. Hopefully she has returned results."

The Asari was released and almost fell to the floor before recovering herself, boots scrabbling on the titanium floor. Her eyes were sunken from a sleepless night. In her hands she clutched a data-pad and reams of loose papers and files, each emblazoned with the crest of Triumph and the UNSC.

She gave a small wave to Halliday on her pedestal who returned the gesture with a smile. Gathering herself for a moment she stepped up to the holo-table, where Tibril, Odysseus, and other captains of the combined fleet stared in curiosity, still unsure what the Asari was doing on Triumph's bridge.

Halliday introduced her, turning to the holograms of the fleet leads gathered around the table.

"This is Aurelia Savo. She's been researching the applications of slipspace and eezo integration since she arrived and has been heading up Triumph's engineering division. I asked her to look over the telemetry data. And judging from her forced entrance..."

At this, Aurelia had the common sense to look bashful. She was suddenly struck by exactly who was at the table. Admiral Tibril. Odysseus. Captain Zelos aboard the Canberra. All of the sudden, she felt very small, faced with the military minds of the fleet.

"...she must have found something." Halliday finished, all eyes turning to Aurelia.

The weight of the entire fleet bore down on her. She scrambled for her UNSC issued data pad and quickly began pulling up a series of files and sensor data onto the holo table, so that they could be viewed throughout the fleet. Face still flushing dark blue, she cleared her throat, before glancing at the expectant face of Halliday.

She pulled up a long page of data logs. Taking a deep breath, she began.

"I was looking over the data logs from the jump, trying to find out if there could be something eezo related causing the interference around Onyx. This is data from Triumph's slipspace warning system, live, as we receive it."

A plot of interweaving lines appeared above the table, fluctuating and flowing against each other in real time. It was just noise; no discernible pattern could be seen by anybody around the table. While some of the other captains and commanders were visibly overwhelmed by the scope of the data, Halliday cocked her head, looking closer at the twirling path of the signals.

"This sensor is designed to alert a UNSC fleet against ambush. It detects the opening of a slipspace rupture and compares it against expected arrivals of friendly fleet elements. If the rupture is unexpected, an alarm is raised," Aurelia explained, gesturing at the oscillating static displayed in the live data.

"Now, watch what happened when Ivory Tower emerged from slipspace off Triumph's bow," Aurelia said, linking up a live video feed from the arrival of the UNSC frigate and her Turian followers.

The moment the bright blue flash of the rupture formed, the sensor spiked, picking up the tugging strain in the fabric of real space. Aurelia paused, right as the bow of the Stalwart class frigate nosed out of the widening portal.

Aurelia gestured at the huge spike in the data, and explained, "this spike is what the sensor uses to trigger an alarm. Had the arrival of Ivory Tower not been scheduled in Triumph's logs, this would have triggered an alert."

Halliday still watched Aurelia with curiosity. Odysseus was staring at the data the same way Halliday had been.

"The ripple in space time is very easy to see, even across entire systems. It's a perfect tool for an early warning system," she continued, "But, it also can hide some important details."

"I wanted to isolate the signature of a single rupture, from before arrival in system to close of the rupture, to see what effect eezo had on slipspace. When Captain Victus asked me to look over the sensor data, I set the slipspace records aside. But then I realized," excitement rising in her voice, Aurelia pondered how she could explain the difficult science to military minds around the table.

"Go on Ms. Savo," Tibril urged, "We're listening."

"These sensors are incredibly sensitive. They must be, to catch a rupture clean on the other side of the system. They are also very precise, so that they can classify the type of rupture. Unfortunately, most of the time, the 'noise', generated by the fleets' drives drowns out the signatures of any potential Covenant contacts. So, I tried filtering out the known slipspace signatures of the UNSC 5th fleet."

At this, Halliday's face screwed up in confusion, "There's a reason we don't use these sensors to passively detect Covenant fleets, Savo. Even if you filter out the UNSC signatures, the signal from a covenant drive in real space is going to be far too small to pick up from any useful range. That's why we watch for the spike."

Aurelia nodded along in affirmation. She followed, "and I found out as much, only after I ran my test."

"However," she said pulling up the live signal from the sensor on the holo-table, "as I saw, when you subtract the signature of two Marathon class drives..."

The wave form on the screen simplified, the random ups and downs of the static shifting into something less volatile.

"...And then the signatures of first 5 Stalwart class light frigates," the static resolved even more, and the beginnings of a noticeable form took shape, "and 3 Charon class light frigates. Well look at that!"

The waveform was now clearly a pattern, isolated. It was jagged, almost like a heartbeat, with rapid, sharp oscillations joined at their midpoints by a sharp inflection point. The data from the multiple sensors in the array all danced amongst each other in harmony. The pattern repeated thousands of times per second. The Turians around the holo-table leaned forwards in curiosity, while both Halliday and Odysseus shook their heads in confusion.

Odysseus spoke first, his own knowledge of slipspace conflicting with what he saw before him, "that's not a drive signature."

Tibril, still trying to piece together what was going on, asked, "why not?"

Odysseus explained, "look at the rate of change of the temporal strain. That kind of flux coming from a drive in real space is going to be tearing rifts open thousands of times a second. It's inefficient, not to mention impossible. We would be able to see the spikes from those rifts opening and closing."

Aurelia squealed with joy, pointing right at Odysseus, "EXACTLY! That's what got me thinking! If these signals can't be coming from a drive in real space, where could they be coming from? So, I subtracted the mystery signal from the telemetry of Ivory Tower's arrival."

She switched back to the footage of Ivory Tower arriving in the Zeta Doradus system. She stepped back through the footage, frame by frame, the prow of the frigate retreating into the portal before it slowly closed. The moment the blue flash disappeared, she stopped.

Wordlessly, she reduced the scale of the telemetry display. At this scale, the spike from the opening of the slipspace rupture looked like a vertical wall. But just before it, was the tiniest ripple in the telemetry barely visible in the plot. Halliday gasped. She reduced the scale of the display once more.

And suddenly, a familiar pattern resolved itself, sharp peaks joined by a dramatic inflection point. Nearly identical to the mystery signal echoing across the background of the Zeta Doradus. Just millions of times smaller, and only for the tiniest fraction of a second.

In the nanoseconds before it had opened a rift, Ivory Tower had produced an exact replica of the background wave, albeit on a microscopic scale.

Tibril asked the question on the minds of every Turian in the fleet; "So you're telling me that this signal is a slipspace rupture? Why hasn't anything emerged yet?"

Halliday, finally understanding what the scientist had found, excitedly answered the question for Aurelia, "because this isn't a rupture! How can I explain this? Okay, right before we open a rift out of subspace, we encounter a phenomenon known as quantum reconciliation. It's a result of the spatial and temporal differences between subspace and real space."

She looked around the room, and upon seeing the blank faces of her Turian comrades, decided to alter her explanation approach, "look. Imagine the barrier between subspace and real space is like two sheets of paper, slipping and flowing past each other."

"Slipspace." Victus exclaimed.

Halliday grinned, "Exactly Captain. Now pretend Triumph is a needle. We poke through the layers, navigate the currents of slipspace, and emerge on the other side exactly where we want. Now imagine we need to go back to real space."

With a wave of her hand, an illustration appeared on the table, of a needle beneath two layers of paper.

"Now the tricky part is that slipspace moves and flows independently to real space. It's why plotting a course takes some serious calculations. But when you want to re-emerge," the needle on the screen pressed against the lower sheet of paper, "the needle doesn't tear through the barrier instantly. For the tiniest fraction of a second, the barriers between real and slipspace touch, forced together by the drive. They can no longer move independently, and instead must resolve local differences in space and time. In this instant, the region of space around the drive isn't in slipspace or real space."

Halliday paused, looking around the room.

"In this tiny time span, it's theorized the space around the drive forms its own pocket dimension, a space tied directly to real space coordinates in the flowing current of subspace. Imagine holding a stone in a river. The stone is unmoving relative to the surface, or real space, but is still under the water. The current of subspace causes ripples both in real space and subspace. Our mystery waves. I've just never seen what they look like from real space. Nobody really has, outside of a lab, they are usually just way too small."

As the room was washed by a wave of mutters, Odysseus alone remained grim. He turned to the room.

"Except whatever we are dealing with isn't emerging from the pocket. It's why our alarms were never triggered. It never created the spike that our sensors watch for."

He turned, and gazed off into the distance presumably looking out the windows of Canberra, "And if the size of the reconciliation wave is related to the size of the craft and diminishes with distance as theory suggests..."

The room looked at the two contrasting waves. The wave from the frigate, which emerged right on top of Triumph, scaled up ten-thousand-fold to even be visible. And the mysterious wave from somewhere in the system, likely millions of kilometers away, dominating the background signals for the entire sector.

"Whatever is out there is orders of magnitude larger than anything mankind has ever seen."

---

It was the night shift aboard Triumph. Technically, Victus shouldn't even be on the bridge right now, and should be trying to catch an hour or two of rest in his cabin. But with the knowledge that there was… something… out there, he knew he would never be able to fall asleep anyways. The bridge was mostly quiet, the late shift of officers long since having settled in, gotten updated on the situation, and quickly gotten bored of the waiting.

The fleet was still in formation on the outskirts of the Zeta Doradus system. With the newfound revelation of the slipspace pocket, Tibril was ironclad in his insistence that the fleet continue to wait and survey. And this time, both UNSC AI had agreed with him. It seemed the presence of some massive force hanging just beyond the veil of subspace had spooked even Halliday. She had recovered quickly but was still held no desire to bring her precious cruiser anywhere closer to either the static field or the slipspace anomaly.

The AI in question wasn't even on her pedestal right now, instead a pulsating orange ball was the only thing that even alluded to her continued presence on the ship. Last Victus heard, she was off trawling through Triumph's systems for anything out of the usual. Victus was quite sure she would find nothing important, although if he knew Halliday, she would find some obscure system touched by a Turian engineer to complain about. In other words, even the AI was bored.

As for himself, he was simply enjoying the quiet, as ominous as he found the recent slipspace discovery. He was slouched in the captain's chair, having finally decided that Halliday wouldn't space the bridge in a fit of vengeance. He slowly sipped his beverage, a carefully crafted cocktail of stimulants designed to keep even the most sleep deprived Turian in some approximation of awareness.

Victus very quickly found that stargazing out of the glass windows at Triumph's bow was one of his favorite things to do aboard the cruiser. On Corvus, he had never realized how cut off from the outside world the bridge seemed to be. They had remote displays of course, depicting exact views of where the ship was pointing and what it was doing. But now, on the bridge of the UNSC cruiser, Victus decided that it wasn't quite the same.

He had once stood at the front of the bridge for nearly an hour, just watching out of the window. When he had placed his taloned hand on the armored glass, it was cold to the touch. Twenty centimeters of glass was all that separated him from his battlefield. And somehow, that made it feel all the more real.

Zeta Doradus alpha was a distant yellow dot through Triumph's windows. Around it, a canvas of stars was perfectly still. Victus sat quietly, enshrining each constellation and cluster to memory. For all he knew, he may never see this system again when they were done here.

Victus didn't often get to reflect on his unique circumstances, but every so often he had the realization of exactly what he was doing. He was one of the first Turians to lay eyes on five brand new star systems. He was aboard what was currently, to all available evidence, the largest active warship in the known galaxy. And he was working alongside an artificial intelligence that reminded him more of a Turian than the malicious forces he had heard about growing up as a child.

Victus wondered if there was some cosmic reason for all of this. Had the spirits of the Turian fleet decided that he of all Turians, would be the first to stumble upon Earth? Had they felt it fitting to challenge him with an entire new world of conflicts? Or was this a reward for his hard work or perseverance?

With each cycle he spent at the helm of Triumph, he was more and more convinced. Triumph would be the defining moment of his life. He could already feel it in his bones, awakening every morning to find an entire new world of tiny, minuscule beauties, and subtle nuances to the humans and their warships.

He wasn't sure he would ever feel the same on a Turian ship again. He thumbed the patch stitched onto his armor. Per Victoriam, Pacem. Through victory, peace. When Halliday had translated the motto for him, he was struck at how just how Turian the motto was. He thanked his lucky stars that the ship would have spirits fitting a Turian crew.

The more time he spent learning about humanity by proxy, immersed in their war machine, the more he was convinced that the stark familiarity of the motto was no coincidence. Nowadays, he was thankful that the Turians were the ones who got to first experience humanity.

On of Triumph's hundreds of signals chimed. It was a peaceful sound, a gentle ring, very much unlike the brazen screeches of the alarms that warned of one of a million dangers to the cruiser.

The reserve coms officer on the bridge turned to his console, where a light was flashing.

"Sir, incoming transmission on UNSC lines," the coms officer announced, voice unconcerned. Canberra must need something. The engineers in the fleet had managed, with the help of the AI, to set up an easy communications channel between the Hierarchy ships and the UNSC complement. However, the UNSC communications were both quicker and easier if a message only needed to pass between the two cruisers, and thus it wasn't unusual to get a hail on UNSC channels.

He nodded at the officer, "Acknowledge the hail, let's see what Odysseus needs."

The Turian liaison to Canberra was far too proud to use a human communication channel to reach a fellow Turian. Which meant a UNSC request could only be coming from Odysseus, which was not unusual in and of itself.

Except, instead of the usual immediate chirp of a transmission connection, there was a long pause.

And then, with escalating nervousness in his voice, the coms officer said, "Sir… the transmission encryption code doesn't match with Canberra's ID. It's not on the usual frequency either. I don't understand."

Like a switch had been flipped, the glowing orange ball floating atop Halliday's pedestal dissolved into Halliday's signature avatar, before Victus could even process the newest complication. Her eyes snapped around the room like a hawk and her movements were quick and decisive. In the split-seconds of Victus' confusion, she seized control of the bridge with the speed of lightning, rattling out orders with steel in her voice.

"What frequency ensign?" she demanded of the coms officer.

The officer waffled briefly, still new to the intricate systems of the heavy cruiser.

"NOW, ensign." Halliday urged, stomping her foot to break the Turian out of his temporary stupor.

"LIMA-96 ma'am!" The Turian snapped back, finally regaining his composure.

Halliday nodded, and as even greater urgency crept into her voice, replied, "Good, now read me the encryption code."

Character by character, the young officer read out the code. To Victus, it was all gibberish, meaningless numbers and letters that were strung together in haphazard order. But Halliday followed along closely, and with each successive character, her eyes got a little wider. And when the code finished, she stood still for a moment, a wide smile breaking over her face. She let go her signature spear and shield, dropped to her knees and began laughing softly to herself, the smile on her face growing ever wider.

She turned to Victus, her tone softened, though still vibrating with excitement, "Captain, I'm taking this ship back up to combat alert alpha. The transmission is on the secure UNSC distress channel. The encryption scheme is up to date, and the security markers are valid. This is a legitimate message from UNSC assets. This will require action from Canberra and Triumph."

Victus could not believe what he was hearing. UNSC assets? Had they found the UNSC battlegroup? Was there another AI out there somewhere? In the static field?

"Did we find battlegroup omicron?" Victus managed, still unsure of why Halliday was acting the way she was. He could understand being excited about finding the fleet, but for the usually grumpy and temperamental AI to react with unrestrained joy…

"No. Something better."

She snapped her fingers, and the telltale chirp of a connected transmission filled the bridge. A male voice read out monotonously, repeating on a loop.

"…UNSC 5th Fleet, UNSC forces request immediate exfil of VIP and survivors. Prioritization code: Victor-05-3-Sierra-104."

For the first time in the months Victus had spent aboard Triumph, he saw the fire return to Halliday's eyes.

The orders she rattled off to the bridge crews went through his head unnoticed. Instead, he was lost staring at the AI. How she moved about her pedestal. How her voice commanded the room. How she knew every action that needed doing on her ship like the back of her hand. How she managed her crew, her resources.

And more importantly the confident bounce in her stride and the iron in her visage. This was the AI who kept her ship alive while the rest of the UNSC home fleet crumbled around her. An AI who had added seven kills to her name while humanity was at death's door. Who fought the storm and won, at least for a while.

This was the AI that planned a final, nuclear, blaze of glory against an alien fleet three times her size. Who would have killed Victus and Corvus within seconds of her ambush.

---

/CA-70 'CANBERRA', Date: 2553/2/23

***ALERT***

NEW TRAFFIC ON: UNSCBattleNet/Distress/L-96 (SECURE):

ODS 1010-6 (5th Fleet (HomeFleet/5Fleet/CSG-1)): Sierra-104, your distress signal has been received. We cannot locate your beacon in-system, and long-range scanners have been unable to locate Onyx. Please advise.

LTJG Frederic-104 (NAVSPECWAR): Request connection to FADM J. Harper.

ODS 1010-6 (5th Fleet (HomeFleet/5Fleet/CSG-1)): Unable, lieutenant. FADM J. Harper is KIA.

LTJG Frederic-104 (NAVSPECWAR): Request connection to 5th fleet CO.

ODS 1010-6 (5th Fleet (HomeFleet/5Fleet/CSG-1)): You're talking to him, lieutenant. Things are FUBAR up here. It will be easier to debrief you once you are aboard. How can we get to you?

LTJG Frederic-104 (NAVSPECWAR): Have you been briefed by HIGHCOM on the activities on Onyx?

ODS 1010-6 (5th Fleet (HomeFleet/5Fleet/CSG-1)): Negative lieutenant. Only that battlegroup omicron and a Spartan team were sent to sort out a situation on the surface.

LTJG Frederic-104 (NAVSPECWAR): You get the redacted version.

LTJG Frederic-104 (NAVSPECWAR): Onyx fell under Covenant attack shortly after our arrival. Rendezvoused with Dr. Catherine Halsey and other NAVSPECWAR assets on Onyx. Omicron believed destroyed. Under Covenant assault, retreated through a slipspace anomaly and emerged in supermassive planetary structure, believed to be a Dyson sphere contained within a slipspace pocket.

LTJG Frederic-104 (NAVSPECWAR): We've been trapped here a few days.

ODS 1010-6 (5th Fleet (HomeFleet/5Fleet/CSG-1)): I… A Dyson sphere?

ODS 1010-6 (5th Fleet (HomeFleet/5Fleet/CSG-1)): …

ODS 1010-6 (5th Fleet (HomeFleet/5Fleet/CSG-1)): Unfortunately, that makes too much sense.

ODS 1010-6 (5th Fleet (HomeFleet/5Fleet/CSG-1)): How can we get you out?

LTJG Frederic-104 (NAVSPECWAR): We believe we can convince some locals to bring us out of slipspace. After that, you should be able to enter the sphere.

ODS 1010-6 (5th Fleet (HomeFleet/5Fleet/CSG-1)): Locals?

LTJG Frederic-104 (NAVSPECWAR): Need to know for now, ODS 1010-6.

LTJG Frederic-104 (NAVSPECWAR): Admiral Harper dead, and the Home Fleet battleline on the edge of UNSC space. You don't paint a pretty picture ODS 1010-6. How bad?

ODS 1010-6 (5th Fleet (HomeFleet/5Fleet/CSG-1)): …

ODS 1010-6 (5th Fleet (HomeFleet/5Fleet/CSG-1)): Worse than you can imagine. It will be easier to debrief after recovery.

LTJG Frederic-104 (NAVSPECWAR): Acknowledged. I will contact you on this channel when we find a solution to our problem.

/

---

The bridge of Triumph was in shock. An immediate meeting had been convened to plan action on the distress call. How the UNSC forces had survived the pulse, Victus had no guess. He had seen the aftermath on Essos. He had watched footage of his teams sweeping the abandoned streets of New Mombasa. He had seen the carnage left behind the in the pulse's path, the strange peace in the empty cities and settlements. He found it hard to believe it left much of anything behind.

For now, Odysseus took charge, at his place in command of the UNSC contingent.

"We believe the special operations team sent to Onyx on November 3rd is alive and inside a construct inside the slipspace anomaly found by Dr. Savo."

"This construct," Tibril interrupted, putting together the pieces in his head quicker than some of his subordinates, "based on the size of the anomaly, shouldn't it be massive?"

"The Lieutenant says they are inside a Dyson Sphere. Which has its own connotations. It's supposed to be huge. Like 2 AU huge. We didn't build it, and I highly doubt the Covenant did either. It doesn't seem possible, but it would explain the scale of the quantum reconciliation waves," Odysseus explained, brow furrowed.

He continued, "And it's all hidden inside a slipspace pocket. Probably has been since before the UNSC got here."

"Regardless, the Lieutenant reports the presence of a VIP, one Dr. Catherine Halsey, as well as a group of other NAVSPECWAR assets."

Victus looked at the AI in curiosity, unfamiliar with the acronym.

"NAVSPECWAR, Odysseus?"

"Naval special operations," Odysseus took a moment, trying to find the right words, "most commonly, ODSTs. But given the secrecy... well, it's more likely to be something else."

Tibril knew the game Odysseus was playing. He had spent enough time around the Salarians and their STG to know when a clandestine unit was on the playing field.

"Something else?" Tibril asked.

"The kind of assets that make Covenant battalions crumble in days. The kind of assets that abduct insurrectionist leaders in the middle of the night and leave without a trace. Spartans. Or something like them," Odysseus said, "The Lieutenant is a Spartan. He took his team with them. Whomever they found down there is somebody they don't think they have the clearance to talk about."

"So, an unknown factor," Tibril followed, somewhat disapprovingly.

"An unknown UNSC factor," corrected Odysseus, "and potentially, a valuable tool for our mission. I know the Lieutenant and his team will be. Not to mention Dr. Halsey."

Aurelia, who had once again been invited to the bridge as the Triumph's chief engineer, perked up at the mention of the doctor.

"Who is this Dr. Halsey? Is she military?" Aurelia asked.

"Strictly speaking, no," Odysseus answered, "however, she has been a collaborator on a number of UNSC, and specifically ONI, projects. She's the brain behind the Spartan program. Her knowledge could prove vital to our search. Not to mention she's a leading figure in AI research."

Aurelia was confused for a moment; the thought of a doctor being involved in the creation of a black ops groups raised troubling alarms in her head. There were always mutterings about the latest mad scientist in terminus space. Attempts to create the perfect soldier, a way to gain advantage over the other ruthless groups in the terminus. They always ended poorly. And innocents always got hurt.

"How did she create them? I can't imagine how a civilian played a leading role in training a special ops group? Was she an advisor?" Aurelia asked carefully, dancing around the question she feared the answer to.

Odysseus sighed and wore a familiar look that suggested that Aurelia wasn't going to get the answer she wanted. And in a sense, confirming many of her suspicions.

"I can't answer that. Way above my clearance. There were whispers of course, rumors that don't bear repeating. Rumors that I would like to think aren't true. What's important is that she's there, on that planet, along with a team of the UNSC's finest. I can't understate how huge this is."

"Humanity, alive again." Halliday chimed in.

Odysseus nodded along, "and all we have to do is recover them. There is still one wrinkle however."

Tibril frowned.

"Halliday and I decided it would be best to not inform the Lieutenant about our situation."

Murmurs broke out across the room. How could the AI not inform their own comrades of the situation. Why keep them in the dark? Odysseus wasn't surprised by the response and continued.

"These black ops types can be skittish, especially when isolated. If something isn't right, they'll disappear off the map faster than you can blink. They already know something is up. I wasn't able to give the expected clearance code held by Canberra's human officers."

"Clearance codes?" Victus asked.

"Codes memorized by human personnel. Specifically kept out AI hands. Cole protocol has measures to ensure that no shipboard AI is captured. But there was always the possibility. FLEETCOM decided it would be prudent to have a way of ensuring that teams really were communicating with a human officer. And as AI, we can't know the codes. They died with Harper and his staff. Right now, they probably think it's because we lost most of our command staff during the battle for Earth. But if I tell them the truth..." Odysseus trailed off.

"A UNSC ship full of aliens and devoid of any living humans," Halliday deadpanned, "Is going to trigger every red flag in a Spartan's warfighting playbook. We'd be more suspicious than land-locked sushi."

After a brief pause, Halliday continued, "Best case, they go into hiding somewhere inside the Dyson sphere, and we never see them again. Worst case, they carry out a boarding action to re-take the ship."

"So, what do we do? If we can't tell them the truth, how can we help?" Victus asked in frustration.

"I take one of Triumph's pelicans down to the surface, along with crew in UNSC gear. Once I get the team on board and airborne, I can explain the situation. Once they know they are talking to an actual UNSC AI from an actual UNSC fleet, and not some Covenant trick, hopefully I can better explain the full situation."

"And if they still don't believe you?" Tibril questioned.

"I take them to one of our frigates to cool down. Hopefully it doesn't come to that. They aren't idiots. Far from it. They'll believe the truth if I show it to them. Just not over open coms. It needs to be face-to-face."

One of the other Turian captains scoffed.

"What 'crew' have you decided you will put in danger. You said it yourself; they aren't likely to take too kindly to non-human faces. Whoever you send might get shot. Or worse. I don't even know..."

"I'll do it."

The whole room turned and looked at Aurelia Savo, who had retreated to the corner of the bridge and had been watching the proceedings with rapt attention. Her heart was pounding, and Halliday could tell she was putting on a brave face for the assembled brass. But she stepped forwards to the holo-table with a gleam in her eye.

"I mean, it only makes sense, right? Asari physiology is closest to human physiology. If any race could pass in human equipment, it would be us. And this fleet didn't exactly bring an abundance of Asari along for the ride. So... I'll do it."

There was silence on the bridge. Most of the staff were watching the Asari carefully, looking her up and down. Halliday found a proud grin creeping onto her face.

"Meet me in the drop bay tomorrow morning. You have a lot of procedures to learn. Don't bother pretending you don't know where it is. I know what you've been up to in your free time, Savo."

At least Aurelia had the decency to pretend to be embarrassed.

---

The BR-55 was heavy and unwieldy. The scratched black frame of the large rifle weighed her arms down as she stood at attention. Or whatever Halliday had called it. She was in Triumph's ODST bay where Halliday was giving her a crash course in the intricacies of UNSC procedure and conduct.

She would never be able to learn it all of course, even as one of the brightest minds in the fleet. She could tell that Halliday was dumbing down her training. Certain subjects were glossed over entirely, procedures and protocol that were unlikely to come up during a simple retrieval operation. Still, it was unsettling to realize how little she actually knew. And Halliday had made plenty clear the potential consequences of messing up.

It could be over before she could blink. Battle hardened soldiers with the reaction time of a bullet. She would be dead before her untrained biotics could even surge, the victim of a draw faster than the strike of a snake.

That was how Halliday had put it, when emphasizing the need for perfection in her moments. She needed every salute to be perfect, and make an action practiced in days look like something learned over years in the UNSC. It was overwhelming. But it meant that with every formality and tradition she was taught, every subtle way to carry the battle rifle, she learned more about humans herself.

And if all this danger and rigor would put her face to face with an actual human? There was nothing she would allow to stop her. Not even the minutia of how a real veteran would hold a battle rifle.

Halliday commanded her from the holo-table in ODST bay, drilling the young Asari.

"Name and rank trooper!" the AI shouted.

"Staff Sergeant Ruiz, sir!" Aurelia shouted, her chosen alias one of the now deceased ODSTs from Triumph's complement. Staff Sergeat Ruiz was a diminutive woman in her life, luckily for Aurelia. It meant that her armor and fatigues wouldn't hang like drapes on her Asari frame, unlike most of the other equipment left behind on the cruiser.

Apparently, Ruiz once had the temperament of a cornered badger, the type of attitude a smaller woman needed to have to reach Staff Sergeant in the ODST corps. And that kind of attitude didn't come easy to the usually mild-mannered Aurelia, much to the dismay of Halliday.

"Service number and station!"

"75740-10017-AR! Crew chief of pelican Echo-177! Sir!" Aurelia yelled back, the rehearsed numbers and letters rolling off her tongue. Every UNSC service member would know their ID by heart. If the Spartans got suspicious, it would be one of the simpler challenges they could use to test her identity. Her neck still stung from the neural implant inserted into the back of her skull. It was removable, or so Halliday claimed, and it would be a critical step in convincing the Spartan's sophisticated identify-friend-or-foe sensors. Her newly inserted neural lace would identify her by Ruiz's service number, and if she couldn't recite it...

Well. Things wouldn't end well. The neural implant still felt uncomfortable, like it was burrowing into her brain. Halliday assured her that the headaches were only temporary, and that they were normal for even newly implanted humans.

That didn't help the smarting sting on the back of her neck, nor the unsettling itch deep in her brain. She didn't want to think about where the crew had found SSG Ruiz's neural lace. She certainly didn't want to think about the fact that the neural lace had been inside of Ruiz's head for years. Halliday hadn't told her where they had found the remains of the ODST, wanting to separate the deceased trooper from the character that Aurelia was to play.

For now, she just tried to focus on the positives. Like her unfettered access to the ready rooms and marine garrison decks. Instead of using her omni-tool or waiting for Halliday to grant her access to certain compartments, the heavy blast doors usually opened to let "Staff Sergeant Ruiz" through. Aurelia supposed it would be a boon, assuming she could survive this mission without one of the Spartans putting a bullet through her non-human brain.

"Sierra-104 approaches your dropship, what do you do?"

She let the battle rifle hang from its strap around her shoulder, snapped her heels together, and raised her right hand to her brow in a salute. Halliday looked her up and down, her engineering tunic clashing with the subdued hues of the battle rifle.

"Welcome aboard, lieutenant!" she half-shouted, imagining a human soldier walking towards her across the empty bay. She held the pose for a few more seconds, before grabbing hold of her rifle once more and returning to her waiting stance.

Halliday hummed, sounding unconvinced.

"You are a ten-year veteran of the ODSTs, Ruiz, not some private fresh out of boot camp. Never let go of your weapon in a combat zone," Halliday critiqued, "And don't be so snappy. As far as the Spartans are concerned, you've been fighting the bloodiest battle in human history for the last four months. You're exhausted."

Aurelia looked down, briefly dejected, before preparing to try again. They had spent hours on this interaction alone. And Halliday never quite seemed to be satisfied. Halliday saw the way she looked down in defeat, and decided a change in tactics was in order.

"We'll take a break, Ruiz. We'll work some more on your weapons handling next..." Halliday started, before trailing off.

Aurelia knew that the AI was never truly in once place. She had feelers all over the massive cruiser, and Aurelia had little doubt that she was carefully monitoring dozens of compartments across the ship. Occasionally, something would need her attention and she would pause to give it more attention, much like she did now. As the pause became longer and longer, it became more and more clear that something big was happening on the ship.

Halliday broke her silence, looking back up at Aurelia.

"Cover your ears, Savo."

Aurelia wormed her fingers into her ears not a second too soon. Triumph's general quarters alarm rang out across thousands of loudspeakers across the ship. It wasn't deafening, but Aurelia had found the high-pitched trills of the alarm had bothered her much more than the Turian crew members. She gave Halliday a nod of gratitude as she waited for the end of the alarm.

Aurelia looked at Halliday curiously, hoping for an explanation. Halliday didn't oblige her, but grinned as she said, "Trust me, it's better that you see it for yourself. Meet us on the bridge."

Halliday paused, contemplating, for a second, before shouting, "And don't put down that rifle trooper! Get to the bridge double time!"

The AI disappeared from her pedestal. And Aurelia began to cackle, before turning and beginning the long jog towards the bridge, battle rifle cradled in her arms.

---

Halliday had presumably informed the bridge guards about her imminent arrival, because they didn't harass her when she neared the heavy blast doors to the bridge. Instead, they gave her a weary look, flickering back and forth from her rifle to her sweating face. The older Turian guard shrugged his armored shoulders and nodded at the other. They stepped aside to let her onto the bridge, clearly deciding that whatever was going on between her and the AI was well above their pay grade.

When the doors slid open, she walked right into the middle of an excited conversation between captain Victus and Halliday.

"...you don't know what that thing is, hell what it could do to the fleet! You seriously can't be serious about taking Triumph inside it."

"I DO know what that thing is, it's a Dyson sphere that happens to have UNSC personnel stranded inside of it. The lieutenant says there should be entrances to the shell large enough for Triumph. Not much more comforting to an infantryman than a friendly fleet overhead."

"And do I need to remind you what happens if a certain Lieutenant gets uncomfortable and his trigger finger starts itching?"

Unsure what the two were arguing about, Aurelia took the time to look around the bridge. Her jaw dropped. Out of the front of Triumph's bridge, where there had once been a tapestry of stars and the pinpricks of Zeta Doradus' planets scattered about, there was nothing. No light, no stars, nothing.

Halliday hadn't told her that the ship had jumped to slipspace. She felt the deck rumbling beneath her feet. She wasn't nauseous. She certainly hadn't felt or heard the cruiser make the jump. And she had spent enough time around Triumph's drive to know what a jump sounded like. And she had never heard anything out of the ordinary. So, the ship didn't jump to slipspace. It couldn't have.

If they were still in real space...

The Dyson sphere! Halliday had said the size of the construct was around 2 AU. Even from all the way in the outer planets of the system, an object of that size would fill up almost the entirety of Triumph's bridge windows. If it was in front of Zeta Doradus, the star would be blacked out by the sphere, hidden behind millions of kilometers of technological masterwork. Without powerful lights of its own, the sphere would be nearly invisible, casting its titanic shadow across the rest of the planets in the system.

She rushed forwards to the front of the bridge, ignoring the cries of bridge crew as they spotted the rifle she carried. Victus spared a quick glance at her, hearing the commotion, and gave her a disapproving glare. She leaped down the stairs leading to the lower level of command consoles, rifle firmly secured in her hands. She ran past weapons station after weapons station, and when she reached the helmsman's position, she slowed.

The twin seats were suspended in front of the rest of a bridge, surrounded above by the projecting bow of the cruiser, and on 4 other sides by the transparent material that formed the rest of the windows on the bridge. The seats hung above space, an unobstructed view of everything around them.

Halliday balanced on the narrow beams holding up the seats and their consoles and leaned over one of the incredibly confused Turian crew members. He flung an indignant glance back to his captain, who shrugged and returned a tired glance.

Aurelia didn't notice because she was too busy looking left and right at the space surrounding Triumph, balancing with only her hand on the helmsman's seat, and a single foot on the beam.

And sure enough, stars.

In fact, from her vantage point suspended in space, Aurelia could see exactly where the normal star field transitioned into the ominous black disk of the shield world. So, she was right. The Spartans had obviously managed to find a way to bring the sphere out of subspace.

And it was magnificent. The sheer size of the sphere was beyond anything Aurelia had ever seen. I was incomprehensible that somebody could have built something like this. All of the Prothean ruins she had even encountered paled in comparison to the massive construct. Even the citadel would be a microscopic speck from this far away. But the sphere blotted out most of the system.

This was groundbreaking. The sphere had the potential to house hundreds of trillions of people. The land area of millions of Thessias. It was astonishing. The discovery of the UNSC and the Covenant had shattered the Citadel's very understanding of the galaxy. But this Dyson sphere?

It might become the single most valuable find in galactic history. Larger than all the mass relays put together. Larger than the citadel and every Prothean beacon put together. Because whomever built this, well, they were way beyond the capabilities of the Protheans.

And if even a fraction of their technology was intact inside the Dyson sphere, it could set off a galactic arms race. Or, a new era of prosperity for the galaxy. Aurelia, once again, was at the tipping point in galactic history. For over 380 years she had lived. She had explored the galaxy, and though herself to be a learned woman. And somehow, in the last six months alone, the tiniest fraction of her life, she had learned, experienced, and realized more about herself and the universe combined.

And she had a feeling that things were just getting started.

"So," she asked, turning to face Halliday and Victus, "When do we leave?"

---

On the day of their departure, there were two pelicans warming up in the center of Triumph's hangar bay. The green winged craft faced away from Aurelia, troop doors open, framed on either side by the long, extended arm of the rear landing gear. The dropships were loaded with the standard UNSC combat load. Full rocket pods weighed down the stubby wings of the craft, and Turian technicians had spent hours loading the ammunition for the chain gun slung beneath the nose of either craft.

Both craft were done up in Triumph's typical livery, emblazoned in all directions with 'UNSC'. The globe and eagle were proudly displayed on the top of the craft, in between the wings. The pelicans had been unchanged by any citadel personnel, left exactly as they had been during the battle of Earth.

Echo-177 would be the craft ferrying Aurelia to the surface of the shield world. Halliday had chosen it herself. On the nose, some UNSC crewmembers had taken it upon themselves to add some personality to their transport of choice. A sanghelli skull, complete with a bullet hole and spider-webbing cracks in the cranium, served as a warning to whatever Covenant forces the crew of Echo-177 expected to meet beyond the safety of Triumph.

Aurelia rode down one of the massive longsword lifts from the upper hangar, alongside a lance of Turians, armed to the teeth, and in full Hierarchy combat gear. Triumph's crest had been freshly printed onto the armor sets. Varso was there, and Aurelia gave him a nervous wave. He nodded in return, clearly caught up in his own fears for that day.

Aurelia hadn't been able to watch as Triumph entered the Dyson sphere. She had been too busy getting dressed. When she had first explored the ODST bays on board the cruiser, she had imagined herself as one of the troopers; tried to emphasize with the humans the only way she knew how. She remembered the wonder when she first handled the rookie's helmet, and found the stories hidden on the relic.

And maybe, deep inside, she had wondered what it would feel like to dress for war against the Covenant.

And now, that dream was a necessity. Their mission had been given the go-ahead from Tibril on Kilware. Canberra, her escorts, and the Turian fleet would remain outside of the shield world. To put it bluntly, if everything went terribly wrong, there still needed to be a UNSC fleet with the Turians. Triumph and the surviving frigates from CSG-6 would enter the shield world and rescue the Spartans trapped inside.

The fears, by now, were purely academic. Triumph had already passed through the shell of the Dyson sphere and was now inside of the massive construct. While the bridge crew got to see the majesty of the Dyson sphere, she had been inside of the ODST bay, alongside another Asari and a Turian.

Sergeant Ruiz's fatigues had already been set aside. The under suit and pants had gone on first. The under suit was skin-tight, with a thick, rubbery insulative layer in padded black and grey sections. It had the mountings for Ruiz's armor, and thick gel to absorb the energy of rounds stopped by the armored sections. It went down to her waist, where it met the distinctive urban camouflage pattern of the fatigue pants.

It fit perfectly, Halliday had done her research and worked her magic. It was remarkable how strange even the underlayers of the ODST garb felt, purely utilitarian and lacking any of the stylistic flairs of Asari armor design.

Then came the boots, dog tags, and full-fingered gloves. The Asari handed her a standard issue balaclava, and when she put it on, only her eyes and part of her nose were visible. Under the polarized visor of the helmet, it was unlikely that the Spartans would ever see her face, but Halliday had expressly chosen this gear to reduce the chance of, "seeing blue," as she put it, so Aurelia was inclined to do what she was told.

When her helpers began attaching the armored plates, under the careful instruction of Halliday, she felt the anxiety begin to creep up her back. This was happening. She might never make it back to the ship. Is this what Ruiz would have felt before a drop? Did she feel the same impending doom while strapping on this very same armor? Aurelia felt that she was an intruder in the other woman's skin. She was wearing her clothes, her name stamped on the tags around her next. Even the neural lace she could still feel in the back of her skull had once been deep inside Ruiz's own mind.

When the greaves were attached, she felt a pang of familiarity, having watched the rookie's greaves almost get him killed in New Mombasa, when he fought a covenant squad with the aforementioned armor dangling from his legs.

When the chest piece went on, Aurelia truly began to feel the weight of the armor, and she felt a sense of comfort buried beneath layers of composite and thermal ablative gel. There were hundreds of minutiae that Halliday needed to correct. This buckle shouldn't be twisted. These straps go around this, not over that. The holster needs to be further forwards. Her shoulders aren't even.

When it was all done, Aurelia couldn't even recognize herself. She looked in the mirror they had dragged in from one of the restrooms. The only hint of her heritage was the sliver of blue peeking through the balaclava, her piercing blue eyes matching her skin. Everything else looked exactly like the troopers she had seen in propaganda photos and combat footage.

A chill ran down her spine. This was the closest she had ever come to seeing an ODST in person. The figure in the mirror moved naturally, the heavy plates sliding past each other with ease. As she shifted her weight, the figure followed suit. She raised her gloved hand and waved. The figure in the mirror waved back. Seeing ODSTs on screens and monitors was one thing. In person, on a living and flowing figure, the armor conjured indescribable emotions in Aurelia's mind. As she stared into the mirror, it felt like Ruiz, not her, was staring back.

The Turian handed her Ruiz's helmet. It had the personal touches of the UNSC staff sergeant. 'A. Ruiz' was stenciled in small letters onto the rim of the helmet. A white stripe ran down the middle of the helmet and a transparent visor stared back at her. When she slipped on the helmet, a familiar HUD flickered back to life. She had dissected every aspect of the rookie's helmet, which meant that there wasn't much that Halliday needed to explain about the helmet.

She toggled the visor's tint and turned once more to the mirror. There was Ruiz again, an ODST in full battle dress, looking ready to drop into hell. Aurelia hoped that she could be as convincing as her physical attire. She had been instructed on all the obvious things. Keep your visor polarized. Answer this way, respond to officers this way, don't do this, make sure you do it this way. She was well prepared for the expected. It was the unexpected that had her worried.

The turian handed her battle rifle to her and stocked her ammunition pouches with full of magazines. He then slid an M6 magnum into her holster. Aurelia was an awful shot. If it came to it, she doubted she could hit a stationary dropship, much less a dodging spartan. But Ruiz. Ruiz was a fantastic shot and would go into an unknown situation loaded for bear, and so, despite knowing she would never use any of it, she was loaded with hundreds of rounds of ammunition. The Turian clipped two grenades to her belt to complete the appearance, and Aurelia was ready.

Halliday gave her the green light, and she left the drop bay for the hangar.

So here she was, just half an hour later, descending the massive longsword lifts alongside Varso and his team. While Echo-177, under the guidance of Halliday, landed to pick up the Spartans, the other dropship would hover overhead, ready with a quick response force to extract Aurelia if things went sideways.

She guessed she was lucky to have been assigned Varso's squad, so that she would have a familiar voice in her ears when the mission collapsed.

The elevator reached the deck with a heavy clang, and the troops walked towards the pelicans, Turians from Varso's squad sneaking peeks at the bizarre human armor. Aurelia grinned behind her visor, fondly remembering her excitement from watching footage of real human soldiers for the first time. She cradled her battle rife a little more proudly, hoping that she was doing the image of Alejandra Ruiz justice.

Captain Victus waited for them in front of the two pelicans. He had an armed guard with him, two Turian cabals in full armor. In his hands, he delicately held two chips. When Aurelia and the extraction team reached him, he handed one of the chips to Varso, who turned it over and inspected it.

"A dumb AI routine that will follow Halliday's orders to pilot your dropship. Insert it into the pelican's cockpit and you should be good to go," Victus explained.

Varso nodded, and his squad began to file on board the human craft. Victus turned to Aurelia, and he looked her up and down, inspecting the ODST armor. He had an approving expression on his face, nodding to himself as he looked her over.

"Certainly convincing, Staff Sergeant Ruiz."

She nodded back, not quite trusting her voice wouldn't get caught in the moment. Victus extended the chip to Aurelia, and she reached out and grabbed it. Unlike with Varso, Victus didn't let go. There was a slight tremble in his hands, and when he spoke, his nervous tone was clear.

"Do you have it?" he asked, looking directly into Aurelia's visor.

Confused, Aurelia gave the only answer she could.

"Yes."

Victus let go of the chip and raised it to her visor to inspect it. The chip was tiny, not much larger than the dog tags around her neck. It was silver, with raised ridges in an 'X' with a large circle cut out in the center. The circle pulsated orange, filled with a circular ring of energy that was brightest at the perimeter of the circle. There was an ID code inscribed on one edge, opposite contacts where the chip could be slotted into a machine.

HDY 0712-4

The realization hit her right as Victus began his explanation.

"Halliday needs to be on board the Pelican personally. This isn't a job a subroutine can do. She's coming with you. Plug her into the pedestal on board. She'll handle the rest."

Aurelia gaped at the chip in her hands, "do, you mean that..."

"Yes. That's her. All of her. Good luck Savo."

Aurelia grasped the chip firmly with both hands, staring down at the tiny piece of metal and crystal circuitry. When on board Triumph, Halliday was omnipresent. She was in every camera, every system, every terminal. She knew about everything about every breath somebody took aboard her ship. She was a master of a cruiser strike group, the director of terrifying MAC batteries and nuclear hellfire.

And here she was in the palm of Aurelia's hand. The scientist in her was trying to contemplate the storage capability of the chip. The other side of her, the side that she wasn't even aware of before joining this expedition, was terrified of the power and trust bestowed upon her. To the crew of Triumph, Halliday might as well be God. An unknown and invisible force that controls their life and death, who wields the incredible power of the heavy cruiser. Who could snuff out thousands with a single tweak of the life support system.

And there she was, in Aurelia's hands.

She started towards the pelican wordlessly, still looking down at the pulsating orange glow of the chip.

Victus called after her, "and make sure to bring her back in one piece! I'm pretty sure Canberra has orders to shoot to kill if we leave here without her."

He chuckled nervously.

Aurelia didn't respond, still stunned from the enormity of the AI chip in her hands. She trudged up the ramp of the pelican, careful to not to jostle the chip, or disturb it in any way. Her conscious mind knew that the UNSC wouldn't design an AI chip so fragile it could be broken by a simple bump, but her instincts screamed at her to handle the chip with utmost care.

She walked in between the rows of seats below equipment baskets. In the very front of the troop bay, right next to the cockpit door, technicians had rigged an AI pedestal, Halliday's chosen method of communication with the Spartans. Aurelia saw a slot, and carefully inserted the AI chip. In a flash, Halliday's familiar avatar appeared in front of her face, a confident smile reassuring her fears. The AI was here. Aurelia hadn't managed to kill her on the short walk over.

"Good work Ruiz. You'll want to see the views, get into the cockpit and take a seat. You're about to witness something that you'll remember the rest of your life."

Aurelia followed the AI's instructions and walked up to the door to the cockpit. It slid open, recognizing her IFF and clearance from her neural lace. The cockpit was utilitarian. Large windows gave excellent views of Triumph's hangar bay. Two pilot's seats, arranged in tandem filled the left side of the cockpit. Aurelia clambered into the higher seat, offering a more commanding view out of the cockpit.

Halliday's voice filled the cockpit, and the engines of the pelican began to whirr.

"It's showtime. Recovery 1 is ready for launch."

The voice of one of the officers on the bridge quickly followed over the radio, "Roger Recovery 1. You are go for launch."

The massive titanium doors to the hanger slowly began to slide open. Halliday's visor automatically adjusted for the change in lighting as she buckled herself into the pelican seat, careful not to touch any of the controls. The warm light of the Dyson sphere spilled around the opening doors of the hangar. For now, it was just light, as directly forward of the hangar of the Marathon class were the drop bays and housings for the long-range targeting arrays, forming almost an upside-down V in the silhouette of the cruiser. This meant that as the doors opened, Aurelia could only see sky; most of the view was obscured by the huge mass of Triumph.

There was a roar, and the two pelicans lifted off the deck gracefully, gliding towards the opening. When they passed the threshold and darted out from underneath the goliath cruiser, Aurelia was speechless.

Huge, verdant forests stretch out below the pelicans. Picturesque lakes and clearings dot the landscape, and every dozen kilometer, a shining triangular spire juts out of the terrain. The green hills and valleys continue as far as the eyes can see, until they gently curve upwards on all sides. She can follow hundreds of millions of luscious kilometers of artificial terrain around the entire sphere. When she looks up, she can see the tiny features of the other side of the sphere, slightly obscured by the blue haze of the atmosphere.

Directly above her head, the captured star burns brightly, illuminating the entire interior of the sphere with daylight. It was marvelous. It was incredible. It was indescribable.

Rivers and valleys, lakes and mountains. Billions of unique and unexplored nooks and caves stretching around the titanic structure. Even in a thousand lifetimes, she could never hope to explore it all.

Suddenly, the kilometer long Triumph didn't quite feel so big. The pair of pelicans screaming across the sky even less so.

She had been so certain she was on the precipice of history, that she was one of the actors shaping the galaxy of the future. In a place like this, how significant could she possibly be? It was a veritable paradise, almost unfathomable in scale and beauty.

They flew over one of the massive column-like structures. Its surface was an impossibly flawless metallic sheen, two triangular prongs reaching up into the sky. A burst of light was fired from the prongs, sailing off into the impossible cosmos above them, towards the other side of the sphere.

Halliday didn't say anything, so close to her goal of reunification with living humans. Perhaps to the AI it was different. Where distances and scales could be calculated at a glance. Where the spectral emissions of the star could be calculated, and the physics of the massive structure solved. Did the AI see the sphere for the marvel it truly was?

Could she?

Her thoughts were interrupted by the tug of g-forces on her chest. The pelican banked into a gentle descent towards a clearing below them. Above them, Halliday watched as Varso's pelican began to circle high above the clearing, gentle contrails forming on the wingtips of the VTOL dropship.

And there, below them in the clearing, was a cloud of red smoke, billowing lazily from a single spot. From here, the field looked empty, dried grasses golden against the green backdrop of the tree line. The clearing was on a subtle rise, creating a hilly overlook of the forests surrounding the LZ. Aurelia couldn't spot any of the Spartans.

Were it not for the smoke, it would look identical to the thousands of clearings like it in this sector. Echo-177 spiraled down slowly, providing Aurelia a clear view of the clearing as they orbited.

Her heart began to beat harder and harder. It could all end here, on a world clear across the galaxy from her birthplace. She could meet her end in perhaps the most wonderous place in the galaxy and the people of the Asari republics would never hear of it. And so, despite the danger, she was glad to have lived. To see and experience more in her short 382 years than most Asari would ever see in their lives.

The pelican swept low over the field, the exhaust from the engines whipping the tall grass into a frenzy. She felt the deceleration as the engines swiveled and pivoted around into their final landing sequence.

"It's time," was all Halliday needed to say, the rest unspoken. Good luck. Don't mess up. Aurelia unbuckled herself from the pelican and swung herself down to the cockpit floor. The door to the troop bay slid open with a hiss.

As she walked into the troop bay, she shifted her grip onto her battle rifle, into the practiced grip that Halliday had assured her was common amongst the ODST corps. The rear door of the pelican slowly drifted, and the wind and noise from the engines ripped through the hangar bay. She walked out to the ramp, looking out at the grassy field, as the pelican slowly lowered to the ground. The long arms of the rear landing gear extended from either side of the craft, as she walked to the end of the ramp.

She hopped down before the pelican could touch the ground, her heavy boots crunching the grass beneath her feet. The grass itself was about knee high, gently brushing against her black greaves. Behind her, the pelican settled down into its heavy-duty suspension, and the engines wound down to a low idle.

Still, she couldn't see the Spartans. They had settled down in the crest of the rise, and the ground sloped down around them on all sides, until it reached the tree line. The source of the red smoke was only a few dozen meters to her right, on a small grassless patch of ground. She could see the shape of the smoke grenade now, wisps of smoke still drifting gently out of the grey canister.

She looked up. In the distance, she saw the imposing silhouette of Triumph, hanging unmistakably high in the sky. The tiny dots of her escorts were less familiar to Aurelia, but she was sure that to a UNSC service member, they would be instantly familiar. A gentle breeze blew waves into the golden grasses around the pelican, gently swaying the branches of the tree line back and forth.

And still, there were no Spartans.

Aurelia kept a watchful eye, careful to act like an ODST. Weapon held ready, but not shouldered, she patrolled a perimeter around the pelican like she had been taught. Casual but alert. She needed to let the Spartans come to her. Halliday had been right. The Spartans were a suspicious bunch. She could almost feel their eyes on the back of her neck, without even knowing for certain that they were there.

Somebody had thrown that smoke grenade. Of course, the Spartans were here. Yet even the advanced optics of Ruiz's helmet couldn't pick them out of the tree line. Or wherever there are.

And then, suddenly, there was a figure. Aurelia wasn't sure where they had come from, but the Spartan was there, halfway between her and the trees, her HUD marking its location and outlining the figure in green.

Her breath caught in her throat.

The figure was tall, taller than Aurelia had even imagined, and it was jogging towards her with long, relaxed strides. The armor was green, of course, like nearly everything else in the UNSC's arsenal. It moved deceptively fast, quickly closing the distance between the trees and the pelican. Its movements were unsettling, possessing an impossible grace for its size.

The Spartan slowed to a careful walk as it approached the pelican. The armor was unlike any armor that Aurelia had ever seen. It had all the trademarks of UNSC design; thick titanium plates and a basic olive coating. And yet it was far more organic than anything she had seen in Triumph's arsenals. The visor was reflective gold, and Aurelia could see her own reflection in the Spartan's gaze. Two black prongs extended forwards from the helmet, shielding the visor from the glare of the sun.

The shape of the armor was simple, almost rudimentary. It was heavy and tall in the back, thick layers of armor rising over the shoulders. The chest was large and bulky, with large sweeping curves and simple edges. Around the Spartan's waist was a thick belt with dozens of black ammunition pouches.

The armor showed signs of recent battle. Evidence of carbon scoring still marred the green armor. Multicolored splotches of dried blood caked the crevices of the armor. On the larger surfaces of the armor, the blood and soot had been scrubbed away, leaving faint traces at the edges and in the recessed lines in the armor.

The Spartan held her rifle exactly how Halliday had taught Aurelia. The Spartan stopped short, looking back at the Asari. For a moment, she was frozen. Behind that visor was a human. A real one. One of the last of their kind. An endangered species of the most desperate variety. What was worse, is that the Spartan didn't know how alone they truly were. Not yet at least.

Aurelia was grateful that the job of debriefing the Spartans would be left to Halliday.

The Spartan's rank and ID didn't appear on her visor as expected. Special ops. Aurelia remembered her training. The Spartan in contact with Triumph was an officer.

"You're a sight for sore eyes Lieutenant, where's the rest of your team?" Aurelia asked, snapping off a brief salute.

The Spartan cocked its head back at her, and then looked back behind itself. A woman's voice responded from within the armored beast.

"I'm not the Lieutenant, Staff Sergeant," said the Spartan, matter-of-factly. There was an awkward moment of silence between the two before Aurelia turned towards Echo-177.

"Let's mount up and get you and your team out of here, Spartan. Does the Lieutenant need to be picked up at another rendezvous?"

The Spartan looked around at the pelican, running her free hand along the long landing struts framing the door and peeking into the empty bay and pausing for a moment at the retrofitted AI pedestal in the back. She looked up into the sky at CSG-6, and the dark mass of Triumph hanging above the surface of the Dyson sphere. Her golden visor lingered on the fleet for a long moment, before she looked back towards the tree line and raised a hand.

"No."

Without another word, the Spartan strolled into the Pelican, leaving Aurelia alone standing in the field.

From the trees, appeared 9 figures. Two of them wore armor different to the first Spartan. It had the same size and heft but seemed slimmer from a distance. The helmet was more refined, the frame minimalized and more cut down. The countless facets and corners reminded Aurelia of Triumph and the frigates of the fleet. The sun shield was still there, but green, not black. To Aurelia, the armor looked modern: more efficient and better designed. These two Spartans headed the group heading out of the trees, standing tall and scanning the field with their weapons.

And behind them? A smile crept onto Aurelia's face. Humans. Out of armor. The woman had shoulder length gray hair, and her piercing gaze sent chills down the Asari's spine. Dr. Halsey. It must be. The woman lacked the grace of the Spartans flanking her, trampling clumsily over the tufts of grass under her feet, trying to keep up with the quick march of the Spartans.

Trailing next to her was a man with a broad chest and an UNSC duty cap. Fine hairs had grown over his lower face and chin, forming a dark shadow of hair on his face. His gaze was weary, and he looked at the pelican with open relief. His face was grizzled, bearing lines of stress and age that Aurelia would normally only see on only the most ancient matrons.

There were five other figures. Their armor wasn't quite like that of the first three Spartans. It almost looked like a cross between Ruiz's ODST armor and the hyper-advanced suits worn by the first Spartans. Heavy straps connected shaped plates together over the body suit. Thick, padded gloves held cut down UNSC carbines tightly. A dome-like helmet had the same gold hue, reflecting the entire field around them.

The first three Spartans were all a similar height, but this second group varied wildly. Some were goliaths like the Spartans that led the group. But one was so short that Aurelia was sure that both

Behind each of them, they dragged 5 human-sized pods, each in the same silver color as all the structures around the construct.

The short one tried to persuade a bizarre abomination of a creature to follow them. It looked like a Hanar, a bulbous, floating pink bag with tentacles dangling beneath it. The alien had a six eyed head, that prodded at the UNSC soldier nervously as it tried to coax the floating alien up the hill towards the Pelican.

The first of the Spartans finally reached the pelican. One, carrying a rifle longer than any Aurelia had ever seen, continued straight into the pelican, stowing her rifle in the racks above the seats and collapsing in a seat near original Spartan. Their heads moved back and forth slightly, and occasionally glanced at each other, but beyond that, their bodies were quiet, sinking into the uncomfortable seats of the pelican.

The other Spartan came right up to Aurelia.

"I'm the Lieutenant, Sergeant Ruiz. It's good to finally see a friendly face. Thanks for giving us a ride out of here. I understand your CO will be debriefing us?"

It was a man's voice. A timbre she was used to hearing from Krogans and Turians, not the asari-like frame of the Spartans. The tone was cheerful and upbeat, but beneath it, Aurelia could sense something else. It was weary, tired, defeated. Aurelia didn't know how much Halliday and Odysseus had told the Lieutenant, but he certainly knew the news wasn't good.

She snapped a casual salute, before confirming the Lieutenant's question. She supposed Halliday was technically her CO.

The Spartan joined his comrades in the bay.

The woman, Halsey, didn't even spare a glance at Aurelia as she walked up the pelican's ramp. She was too busy taking some final notes in a journal, scratching away across the pages faster than Aurelia could even register.

The grizzled man, however, gave her a curt smile and a firm pat on the shoulder as he walked past onto the dropship. Aurelia didn't understand the gesture; some level of communication had been lost on her. Had she screwed up a signal? Was that her fatal mistake?

But, nothing happened, and the man went to stand in the bay of the pelican. The five other armored figures filed onto the pelican, carrying the strange capsules behind them. Aurelia peeked over at one of the capsules. To her shock, she saw familiar figures beneath the clouded glass. They wore the same hybrid armor as the second group of soldiers. They were motionless, but Aurelia couldn't see any wounds. The pods were pulled onto the pelican, the soldiers besides them finding spots in the increasingly crowded transport.

The shortest soldier was still trying to coax the large gasbag of a creature on board. Instead, the creature floated over towards Aurelia, and stopped in front of her. It purred of all things, and it's strange six-eyed head snaked around her helmet and looking at her curiously. It showed no more interest in following the soldier into the Pelican. Could this creature tell she wasn't human? She was saved when the soldier gently grabbed one of the creature's tentacles and gently guided it onto the Pelican.

The last of the UNSC personnel on board, Aurelia walked back up the ramp onto Echo-177. She had done it. She had made first contact and lived. From here, everything was in Halliday's hands. She pushed her way to the crowd towards the AI pedestal and the cockpit.

The engines revved, and the pelican lifted off from the grassy rise, the rear door closing and leaving the bay in the red lighting of the interior of the bay. The UNSC teams were unfazed. Obviously.

Aurelia stared at the unarmored humans in the room, Dr. Halsey and the grizzled man. Their hair fascinated her; the thousands of tiny strands of keratin cascading from their skulls. And the man had it on his face. What did it feel like? For a moment, she found herself wishing she had hair of her own, just for a day, just to see what it was like. She looked at their skin, the fascinating mix of pink and tan that colored their skin. The man had a darker tone than the woman, and she wondered if it came naturally, or it was some kind of damage from the sunlight.

The sound of somebody clearing his throat right next to Aurelia startled her. She jumped and whirled around to find the Lieutenant had gotten up from his seat without her noticing and was now standing right next to her. His visor stared back at her.

"I'm sorry we weren't there helljumper," the Spartan said, remorse lacing his voice, "I know it can't have been easy."

Aurelia blinked twice, before trusting her instincts. She gave a solemn nod and hoped that it would be enough to dissuade any further conversation from the Spartan. Her anxiety was back. The subtle gestures and hidden meanings being passed between these soldiers was clearly something she was meant to understand. But she didn't. She wasn't a soldier. She was a scientist. And nothing that Halliday had covered had prepared her for this possibility; that there would be a level of conversation she would be unable to mimic.

Then, she felt a chill run down the back of her neck. She looked around the room, trying to spot the source of her sudden discomfort. She nearly jumped out of her skin when she saw one of the Spartans staring at her from across the bay. It was one of the ones in the more modern armor, like the Lieutenant; the one who had left her long rifle on the rack. The gold of her visor was boring into Aurelia, as if staring into her very soul. She tried looking away.

When she looked back the piercing gaze was still there. The Spartan tapped its fingers idly against its armored thigh, its gaze never wavering from Aurelia. For a moment, the Spartan looked to its left, before returning the gaze right back to Aurelia. It was searching her for something. Appraising her. Waiting for something.

Aurelia was petrified by the glare, and an icy feeling of dread overtook her. She was saved from her stupor by the crackle of the radio in her helmet. Echo-177's personal crew line.

Halliday's voice was urgent, biting into her ear, "Savo. Do exactly what I tell you."

Aurelia anxiety spiked.

"Turn around and walk into the cockpit. I'll lock the door behind you. Don't look back."

Aurelia hesitated, terrified by the sudden tension in the room.

"NOW!"

She didn't waste another moment, turning on her heel and tried to walk into the cockpit as casually as possible. The door slid open. She dared one final glance as she passed over the threshold.

Every Spartan in the bay was staring back at her.

The door slid shut behind her with a hiss, and immediately locked. Only now did Aurelia notice her racing heart and the sweat dripping down her face. She ripped the helmet and balaclava off her head, trying to get rid of the suffocating heat that seemed to engulf her. Her heavy breath started to slow as she slumped against the cockpit door.

Through the reinforced metal, she could hear the calming tones of Halliday's voice beginning to speak from the pedestal.

She couldn't hear much. She couldn't even make out the Halliday's words, much less the words of the UNSC soldiers. All she knew was that Halliday was about to break the hopes of every human in that bay. There was no home to return to for them. There was nobody back home. Everybody they ever knew was gone. Aurelia couldn't imagine. And a part of her was grateful she couldn't hear.

At some point, she heard a woman's sobs. For the rest, there was only an empty silence. Not even a mutter.

The last 15 members of the human race were silent as the two pelicans raced across the picturesque mountains and valleys of the Dyson sphere.

They were silent as the two dropships received clearance to land from Triumph's air traffic control.

And as they disembarked into a new world, they wordlessly carried all of humanity's legacy on their shoulders.