Chapter 40 Part 1: Crack the Sky

We have been Travelling through a Cloud.

The Sky has been Dark ever since the War Began

-Black Kettle

"So let's just go over this in full so everyone is clear on the problem."

Taq spoke to everyone as she stood on a raised platform area near the Siphoning Device's main control console. Shepard stood off to the side, his onmi-tool was active and connected to Tali who was watching thing via a vid-call from the Normandy's engine room. The Master Chief was off to the other side of Taq, his own omni-tool active and Cortana's avatar emanating from it. Everyone else was either standing or kneeling in front of them, congregated in the Engineering Deck's for this impromptu mid-mission briefing.

At the very least, it seemed the Covenant's advance scout party of Drones had stopped trying to bash the doors open to get to them. For now anyway. Perhaps they were just holding position until the rest of their people showed up or had gone off to report their findings to their superiors. Either way, the Allied Flotilla forces didn't have much time, so they'd have to make this as quick as possible. Not easy given everything that had to go over.

"Here's the rundown, this planetoid is, in reality, a massive Forerunner Slipspace Lifeboat," Taq reiterated. "Likely meant to survive the activation of the Halo array. Whether it would've worked or not isn't important. What matters is that the Forerunners running this place were hoping it would, so this place is designed with that hope in mind. Meaning it had to be able to maintain its cohesion in Slipspace indefinitely. So they designed this Siphon in tandem with this specialized and highly modified Slipspace Drive."

Taq pointed to the hanging piece of ancient Forerunner tech behind them, dangling above the siphon itself as energy arched between them both.

"We suspect the Siphon is meant to absorb subspace energies," Tali spoke up next. "Every Slipspace Drive in the fleet is currently inactive, as its being pooled into the Planetoid's drive through the Siphon. It's possible this was always the intended plan, as the Forerunners would likely have arrived here in their own ships that would serve to maintain Slipspace Cohesion. Tapping into their Drives and pooling their energy back here."

"All accomplished, it seems, through our latest acquisition," Cortana spoke up, pointing off to the side where Kasumi stood, now holding up the Fourth Relic in her hands. It was of course still glowing bright blue. "And, from what we gather, strengthened and triggered by the Time Crystal aboard our Carrier. When the Fourth Relic was activated-"

"Not our fault by the way!" Zek suddenly chimed in.

Everyone gave him a stern look which forced him to sit back down.

"Regardless of HOW it got turned on, it doesn't matter," Cortana stated, taking back control of the briefing after the short interruption. "It likely would've remained dormant had the Time Crystal not gotten into range of it. When the Carrier moved into position to launch you ODSTs down, they were able to connect to each other. That was the static that interrupted our communications, the Fourth Relic was trying to speak to its counterpart, the Crystal."

"Because the Crystal controls time," said Taq, continuing from Cortana's point. "And the Fourth Relic, which we will call... I guess the Space Cylinder for brevity's sake, is obviously connected to space, they are more directly linked than we imagined. Working in tandem, even apart, to facilitate the transfer of energy to the Siphon as well as hold us here in Slipspace. There are other mechanics to it, navigation, coordinates, quantum fields, but right now, the relevant part is that connection to THIS device."

Taq once again pointed to the Siphon, still whirring at maximum speed.

"As long as this is turning, we're stuck here in this void," she exclaimed. "We need to shut it off. And we can't just destroy it, because that will most likely trigger a devastating energy feedback overload that will send our various bits across the cosmos and who knows where else."

"Like the center of a sun!" Zek added frantically. "That's what I was talking about before!"

"Zek! Shut up!" Taq snapped at him in annoyance. "Do you know how big space is? That was just a worst case scenario of one of countless end points for our existence if that happens! Honestly, you latch on to the most inconsequential parts of anything I say!"

Zek once more sat down, although he mumbled something under his breath about him just repeating Taq's own words. After she composed herself, the female kig-yar continued.

"So no, we can't blow it up," Taq slowly sighed. "We need to shut it down and do so properly."

At this point, Sergeant Buck rose up to ask the most pertinent question.

"Well obviously there has to be a procedure to do that," he surmised. "Where would we start inputting that?"

"Well... this place is actually a ship so... the bridge," Taq answered, although she sounded rather sheepish about it.

"Great, let's head there!" Buck declared. "Where is it?"

Taq brought up an image of the Planetoid's schematics and gestured towards a large red area of what appeared to be the Forerunner Facility in its pristine state.

"From what I've determined," she slowly laid out. "About in this general area where the massive crater outside is now."

"Oh," Buck said simply in reply.

Buck wasn't the only one who got the message. Mumuring among the Drop Troopers began almost instantly. Luckily, McKay clapped her hands together to get everyone's attention.

"Hey, Troopers, we do have a plan," she assured them. "We wouldn't be having this conversation otherwise."

"The Foreunners would've had manual failsafes in case of loss of functionality," Cortana told them all. "We've identified key components to these failsafes. And lucky us, they're all located within the Engineering Decks. The trick is, the procedure to wind down the Siphon is heavily involved. Getting into and staying in a subspace void is very complicated, more so when its working through a number of disparate factors. This Failsafe is mean to disconnect those factors from each other. Those factors being, of course, the Cylinder, the Crystal, the Siphon and the Planetoid's Slipspace Drive."

"This is a multi-stage process," Taq continued. "It essentially requires us to prime and activate energy dampeners tuned to the frequences of the relics in question, and slowly but surely cut off the power flow to the Siphon itself. The sequence takes place across multiple Engineering Decks, which were under lockdown, but now are no longer thanks to Cortana's infiltration of the system network. We can get you all to where you need to go in order to get started."

"So that's it?" Sergeant Lendon spoke up. "Shut down this gadget and we're home free?"

Taq looked to Cortana and Tali. The AI answered first.

"Not quite," she said as she brought up a diagram of the Siphon itself, which Taq had uploaded to her. "The Siphon is how we got here and what's holding us here. But we still face the problem of being trapped in a Void that is considerably difficult to escape from since you don't usually activate a Slipspace Drive while in Subspace. You need jump coordinates based on where you currently are in reality... which we are not in at the present moment."

"This is where my team comes in," Tali said, her tone reassuring and calm. "We're very close to getting the Normandy's Mass Effect Drive working with our Salvaged Covenant Slipspace Drive. Because Mass Effect Fields work on a different propulsion system, we believe it can cut through the Subspace Field holding us. Providing us an exit that we can escape through."

"Couldn't we just wait for the field to dissipate on its own?" Fred asked, raising his hand. "With the Siphon deactivated we won't be able to hold our cohesion for long, right?"

"That's hard to say," Taq confessed. "Even with the Crystal and Cylinder no longer talking to the Siphon, their close proximity will still enable them to talk to one another, in a sense. They may be able to prolong the field for a good deal of time so long as they're inside it. Not even as an active effect, just as a passive consequence of their proximity."

"And in any case, it will take time for most of our Slipspace Drives to recover from the effects of the Siphon otherwise," Tali added. "Our best bet, is to force our way out of Subspace ourselves."

"Especially with the Covenant and Pirate forces out there," Cortana added. "They're slugging it out with other for now, but they're going to catch on to the fact WE have the Cylinder now. So they'll likely shift priorities to us. Better to leave as fast as possible."

"How are we leaving?" Romeo asked incredulously. "And I mean this place specifically. Even if this all works out, we're still stuck several miles underground."

"That's actually the easiest part of all of this," Taq assured him. "Check out this quadrant of the schematics."

Taq zoomed in on a section of the Planetoid's facility that had a large space a few klicks away from the engineering decks. From all appearances, it looked like a cargo or shuttle bay of some kind. A fact that Cortana confirmed directly.

"We've analyzed the schematics and we agree with Taq, this is a hangar of sorts," she said, pointing towards a large shaft at the top of the chamber's outline. "This tunnel is big enough for the Normandy itself to get down through. As well as other ships. We just need to hold and secure the hangar itself."

"That means, of course, going out into the tunnels again," McKay admitted. "But we can handle that. This is going to take a lot of organization to pull off efficiently. We're splitting the difference, one group heads to the hangar to secure our escape route. The rest stay here to start working through the shutdown procedure."

"This isn't going to be easy," Shepard warned. "The Covenant or Snarlbeak's Forces are likely to catch onto what's happening at some point and reach us at either the Hangar Bay or any of the Engineering Decks. So we need to be on our toes. We're going to start organizing the teams to head to their assigned locations. Taq is sending all squad leaders the checklist for their failsafe override procedure or directions to the Hangar Bay itself. Whatever you get, that's where you're headed."

"So let's get moving, Troopers," McKay spoke up defiantly. "We're gonna crack that black sky open and bring back the stars, you hear me?"

"We hear you, ma'am!" Came the collective cry of the Drop Troopers.

From there it was a flurry of activity as the Drop Troopers started forming into the squads and then into their assigned groups based on what their sent instructions were. The choice of who got what depended on how much technical and engineering expertise various squads had. The ones who had more obviously would be of greater help in implementing the Shutdown Procedure. Everyone else, the Spartans and Shepard's Crew, were divided evenly among both teams.

As that was taking place, Shepard pointed the vid-call back at him instead of the entire room.

"How long until you can get the Hybridized Drive up and running?" He asked Tali.

"Between the Engineers, those notes from the future, Gabby, Ken, and myself it shouldn't be much longer," the quarian said confidently. "There's only a few more elements to work out. This isn't the most ideal scenario to make this huge of a breakthrough in interstellar faster-than-light travel but we don't exactly have the luxury of options right now."

"I have faith in you, Tali," Shepard told her. "But I do hope we have a backup plan just in case."

"It would depend on how fast we can supercharge the other slipspace drives in that case," Tali warned. "Halsey thinks the Cylinder could help, but we'd still need to get it on board."

"All the more reason to get the Normandy's landing zone secure," Shepard declared. "I'm gonna be on that personally. You just worry about making engineering science history."

"Ha, ha," Tali said rolling her silver eyes and stifling a sincere chuckle. "You just stay safe, alright?"

"Will do," Shepard concurred. "See you soon."

Closing the vid-call he turned to the Master Chief and McKay.

"So Legion and Thane are going with you to the Hangar, and the Spartans are going to be split between there and here," McKay listed off. "This is gonna be tight, sir. Way more factor than I care for in any mission."

"True, but unlike our opponents we're united in a singular goal, while they're trying to kill each other to get to us," Shepard reminded her. "We stand a better chance than most would."

"We should see about accessing the defenses for the Engineering Deck," Chief added. "Could help us hold this position."

Cortana, who Chief has already placed into the Control Console was currently at work doing just that.

"This might be tricky," Cortana warned. "The Forerunners really didn't have a chance to finish a lot of plans for this place. Defensive Protocols are in need of some fixing. We might need a manual reroute to get them started. Even then they may not be nearly as powerful as we'd expect."

"Every little bit helps," Shepard assured her. As he spoke, the Drop Troopers were congregating near an emergency hatch that would lead them on their way to the hangar bay. "I should go, but keep in contact. We need to be running this like a well-oiled machine."

"Take care of my Troopers, sir," McKay asked.

"Will do," Shepard assured.

"The Spartans will make sure to take care of you, sir," Chief noted.

"Oh, well appreciated," Shepard noted. "Was that a bit of a joke?"

"Not really," Chief confessed. "It's just their job."

Shepard was a bit disappointed; he was kinda hoping Chief was starting to loosen up a bit more. But perhaps this was just his way.

"Don't sweat it, Commander," Cortana told him. "Everyone knows I'm the funny one in this duo anyway."

Chief didn't say anything, but did seem to give the AI a look all the same. Shepard shook his head as he smiled and took off to meet with the Drop Troopers. As he did, Taq walked back over to the command console's controls.

"Okay people," she said cracking her knuckles. "Let's shut this thing down, shall we?"


The Covenant were engaged in a messy fight amongst themselves and the invading pirates. It was not their preferred form of warfare. Snarlbeak's kig-yar were more duplicitous, sneaky and not as bound by the command structure enforced by the Sangheili officers towards their subordinates. It did not help that the Pirates kept targeting said Sangheili officers, of which there were previous few groundside.

Forced to take a backseat to the fighting to preserve the chain of command, a situation no Sangheili warrior relished in the slightest, fights between their underlings and the pirates proved brutal. A situation that Lurz most preferred. They were too busy fighting each other to care about the real goal for the moment. Not like him, not like his team of fellow hunters.

Skulking through the darkened tunnels, they came towards the central shaft of the catacombs. It was lined in bright shining Forerunner Steel. This was it; this was where Zek was, Lurz was sure of it. They just needed a way inside. He looked up to see various exhaust ports and ducts. No telling where they went, but he wagered it would get them inside. Probably a tight squeeze though and not the safest route, but speed was more important than anything.

"Head in," he ordered. "But no shooting. Stay hidden. We're finding Zek first. Then... everyone dies."

His fellow hunters nodded and they began to climb up the structure towards the exhaust ports.


Getting to the hangar bay proved a little less daunting than Shepard had feared. The Covenant hadn't gotten this far, not yet. It was likely that, given the Drones had located the Engineering Bay, any of their assault groups would be headed there. Conversely, the Snarly Pirates would be following them, lacking a proper direction themselves.

As a result, they had little resistance moving towards their intended target. Shepard was on point for most of the march to the hangar bay. He was followed closely by Thane, Jun, Fred, Linda and the several ODST Squads accompanying them. Getting inside the hangar wasn't too difficult, Cortana had uploaded a passcode to grant them access. Shepard just used it with his omni-tool to bypass the lock. The door slowly creaked open, the eons worth of dust unloosed from the ancient metal. Everyone poured inside, mindful of their corners and direct flank as they headed in.

They were met with an impressive, and yet disturbing sight. Dozens of small craft, clearly Forerunner in origin, lined the bay's inner chambers. They were docked in alcoves, landed on the tarmac, or hanging from large magnetized cranes. However, none of them appeared to be in decent shape. They all looked stripped bare of various components, most notably their engines. It was pretty clear, after being stuck in such states of disrepair for so long, that none of these craft were usable.

"Well, I think we know where the Forerunners got a lot of their materials for their science project," Fred observed.

"I guess this plan was a lot more desperate than we thought," Shepard concurred. "Considering the Forerunners could usually just build anything they wanted according to Taq."

"They really did sink pretty low," Linda said, before urgently adding, "but we need to stay on mission, sir."

Shepard nodded, the Forerunners were gone and these shuttles were useless anyway. They needed to get the Normandy down here. He set to work on that task with all speed. His first orders were directed towards the Drop Troopers.

"I need a space cleared for the Normandy to land," he said. "Get those hulks out of the way, push 'em over if you have to. Or get some of these cranes working again. Fred, take some men to set up a perimeter near the doorway. The Covenant haven't found this place yet, but we can't assume that won't change soon."

"On it, Commander," Fred agreed, taking off as he picked out a pair of Drop Trooper squads to follow him.

Shepard turned to Jun and Linda next.

"I need you two to set up overwatch," he told them. "Get eyes on things, we're going to need the coverage if the enemy shows up. Thane, you're with me. We're finding the controls to the main hangar and getting them set to open. We need to lock this hangar down and keep it that way. Check in regularly, I want to know how progress is going at all times."

"Roger that, sir," Jun acknowledged.

Linda simply nodded in kind.

With the orders set, Shepard and Thane made their way to what looked like the traffic control room for the hangar. It was a small tower structure near the back of the hangar itself, so it stuck out like a sore thumb. Getting inside was not difficult, the Commander only needed to force open one door. He then headed up into the main control room with Thane. They found it decent enough condition, but there was clear wear and tear on the various terminals. Shepard searched for the central console and, using Taq's instructions, activated it.

"Once those doors open, chances are the Covenant and Snarlbeak's Pirates are going to see it," Thane warned. "They might attempt to seize it."

"I'm betting they are," Shepard concurred. "But I'm also assuming they won't be sending one of their bigger ships to do that. Not with both fleets still slugging it out for supremacy up there. They'll probably send transports or smaller fighter craft that can get through to it. The Normandy can handle those at least."

"We could do the same though, send reinforcements to hold our position through the hangar bay door in case the enemy shows up," Thane noted.

"Exactly what I was thinking," Shepard agreed. "Right now though, we just need to warm this thing up and get it ready."

While that was going on, he contacted the others outside.

"All teams, report in," he ordered.

"Hangar Deck Clearance reporting," came the voice of an ODST. "We got one of these mag cranes working, sir. Gonna see about getting these hunks of junk out of your frigate's parking space."

"058 reporting," Linda spoke up next. "Found a decent spot for overwatch in the rafter struts. Heading to it now."

"104 checking in," Fred's voice chirped up. "We've locked down the door behind us and are pushing some of the hunks of space junk and whatever else we can scrounge up for cover. It's makeshift, but a barricade is a barricade."

"Good work, keep working," Shepard said. "Thane and I are going to head down this checklist to open the hangar doors. We gotta be mindful about this, don't want to alert the enemy we're here if we can help it. Or skip a step and evacuate all the air by accident, so, just hang in there."

Shepard closed the comm and turned to Thane.

"Course this whole thing hinges on the Engineering Deck team getting that Siphon Device powered down," he noted aloud. "Here's hoping they can work fast."

"Was it good idea to leave Legion with them?" Thane asked. "I know you said his glitching should be under control for the moment, but we should keep an eye on them."

"Don't worry, Legion will be fine, Chief and Cortana are there, I trust them to keep our Geth friend safe, if no one else," Shepard reassured the Drell. "We need to focus on our mission, they'll contact us if anything changes."

All the same, Shepard's thought did drift to the Engineering Decks. Taq made it sound like there were a lot of steps to take to shut that Siphon down. Hopefully not too many, or the Covenant may find a way to break inside their location. Or worse, knowing that Lurz was likely here.

They warned Zek of that possibility. He tried to brush it off in his usual manner. But he did look concerned underneath it. Honestly, Shepard didn't blame him. However, he was with Chief, Legion and three other Spartans. As long as Zek didn't do something stupid, he should be fine if Lurz was skulking about.

Then again, this was Zek after all.


Accidentally turning on a Forerunner Power Siphon was somehow easier than intentionally trying to turn it off. The dichotomy of that irritated Taq to no end. She hoped that if she kept acknowledging that aloud, the ODSTs would be less inclined to take their frustrations with her instructions out on her. It sorta worked, but everyone was still very vocal in how convoluted this all seemed to be.

It wasn't so much that the steps were complicated, but that there were so many and all had to be done in specific order. Taq hoped they could shrink the amount of time required by seeding every deck with Drop Troopers to undertake her instructions when provided. They still needed some on the main doors though, as the threat of the Covenant breaking through them still existed. The outer lockdown was still in effect though, so there was a hope they couldn't get in through the doors. That was assuming they didn't find another way in though.

Shaking that thought out of her mind, Taq returned to the manual failsafe procedure. The first task was at least easy enough, lowering the power supply to the siphon to slow it somewhat. That meant shutting down select engine core quadrants in the correct order though. And the procedure to shut each core down was rather involved.

"Okay, you're going to see two nodes in the system," Taq explained. "Push up on the left and then the other. That will disengage the core, then input this sequence to institute the shutdown. You ready?"

"Uh sure," the Trooper on the other end explained.

"Epsilon, Beta, Zeta, Gamma... and Tau... I'm sending the precise sequence to you just to be sure, got it?"

After a few moments, the Trooper replied.

"Okay, done, there was some sorta buzz and engine's lights went out, what now?"

"You're done, head to the next engine block, there will be a different sequence at the end, I'll send you the appropriate markers when you're ready."

Taq had to do that for everyone, in precise order, constantly. Not because she doubted the Drop Troopers could do it on their own, but they needed her information display to get the instructions right. Each engine block had a different shutdown sequence they needed to input correctly. On top of everything it made the whole procedure ardurous.

Taq hoped they could multitask a little in sending individual squadmembers to work on accompanying tasks that needed to be completed. These required power reroutes, the disabling of certain systems, security bypasses, among other things. This part of the procedure wasn't nearly s monotnous. It was, sadly, less simple than inputting some symbolic sequences.

"Hey, this is Team Four, Section Level 2, we got the valve shut, now what?"

"You need to alter the system injection flow to a stand by position," Taq explained. "Head back to the console there and activate the junction settings for the lines."

The was another moment before the same Drop Trooper came back over the line.

"Uh, okay... we're seeing a bunch of... well diagrams on the screen here, there's a lot of pipelines."

"They have a lot of things to keep flowing smoothly in here," Taq told them. "Redirect the lines to the bottom exit junction. That will slow the reactor and reduce its power output."

"And then the siphon shuts down? You know, because there's no power?"

"No, it just reduces it, we're still a ways there," Taq told him. "Just follow my instructions, we're getting there."

It wasn't just the power that had to be turned off, there were a ton of other systems that needed to be rearranged. They were not all related the engines or reactors keeping the Siphon spinning, but at all the various technical aspects that enabled its overall function.

"Team Six, section five, did you locate the Demodulators?"

"We located it, but it wasn't easy, we're working on the panel next to it now to safely disengage the locks on it. But I gotta tell ya, this whole damn place is a mess just to navigate. And half of these electronics look jumbled together!"

"Probably because they are," Taq confessed. "This whole planetoid ship is basically a giant cobbled together act of desperation. Look, just unlock the demodulators and begin swapping them out. Put the second from the right in the left most socket and then place the one you pulled from there into the middle and the middle demodulator set into the second from the right socket."

"Ok, um, one of you got that down right? ... Look I don't wanna blow this place up! Don't argue, just memorize the instructions!"

"Ugh, I'm sending you a diagram," Taq groaned, typing on her omni-tool. "I have another call, check back when you're done."

Taq quickly switched to next channel coming over her line.

"Team Seven reporting from section nine of the central level, we've pulled out the uh... oscillator units, like you said, what do we do with them? I assume we're not just leaving them on the floor."

"No, you need to take them down to the designated terminal station," Taq clarified. "Plug them in on these listed technical settings. That's going to relay the appropriate signals we need to send through the system."

"Gotcha, on it now. Let's move, people!"

All the while, Taq was just trying to keep up with what she needed to do on her end. She was monitoring the Siphon's systems and seeing how they reacted to their changes. Slowly but surely, it was decelerating and various failsafe system procedures were coming online. She was flicking them one by one to begin their sequences. However, they were still ways off from shutting the whole thing down.

"They just had to blow up their own bridge," she groaned. "Had to make it more difficult for us, inconsiderate morons. Why does anyone think you're gods if you have to do this much shit to shut anything you made down?"

"We're getting closer though, right?" Retz asked. "How much longer do we need?"

"Still too many steps to go through," Taq stated. "And not as fast as I had hoped it would be going."

"My teams are working as fast as possible," McKay insisted. "But I still need squads on security."

"I'm not complaining about their work ethic, Captain," Taq reassured her. "I'm just concerned is all. Every second we're in here is another second the Covenant have to find a way through one of these doors."

"I have teams holding down every entrance," McKay reminded her. "If they break in, we'll know."

Their conversation was interrupted by someone else over the comms, Kasumi.

"Alright, I'm at the networking junction conduit," she reported. "What do we I need to shut off?"

"Nothing major, we just need to do a regular reset of a few of the technical systems to put them into failsafe receiving mode," Taq explained to her. "That will prime the system to recognize our commands. Now, there's a large switch there with a button next to it. Press hard on the button three times to pump and then throw the switch into the ready system to prime it."

After a few moments, there was a flickering of the lighting systems around them before Kasumi's voice returned.

"Okay, got it! A whole bunch of stuff just lit up in here!"

"Good, we'll run through what I need you to flick on or off as the systems get primed on this end," Taq assured. "Just stand by for now."

Taq then looked over to Zek who glaring over at the exit hatch Shepard and the other had left through.

"I really hope they've secured our exit by now," He said. "This whole thing is making me antsy. Especially since I got nothing to do."

"Well you are doing something, nothing, which is frankly for the best," Taq exclaimed. "I don't need you pressing the wrong button or switch and undoing our work."

"Do you honestly have so little faith in me?" Zek asked, sounding rather hurt.

"Yes," Taq replied, not even thinking about it. "Because that's literally what happened on every dig we ever were together on. You always pressed something before I told you to or pulled a cable from a socket without verifying with me-"

"When you point out a button, I assume you want me to press it," Zek stated. "It's not my fault your instructions could be confusing."

"What part of 'Zek, don't touch any command prompts with such and such a symbol or color' was so unclear to you?" Taq snarled back.

"I have an impulsive personality!" Zek shot back.

"How did you two ever tolerate each other long enough to actually get romantically involved?" McKay finally asked incredulously at them both.

Zek looked rather proudly as he stood upright.

"I'm a very good kisser," he declared.

"You have a beak," McKay noted.

"You don't need lips to kiss!" Zek argued. "Now you're just being racist!"

"He's lying either way," Taq groaned. "Truth is... eh... the sex was good."

Zek looked vindicated for about a second... then Taq clarified.

"I mean I've had better, but he was easier to manage," she explained. "I just had to bite his beak and it was smooth sailing from there."

"Ugh, can't you give me any damn credit, woman!" Zek insisted.

"Nope," Taq answered simply.

"Alright, whatever!" McKay said, throwing up her hands in the most exasperated fashion imaginable. "Just... we don't need bickering right now. Not with the possibility of exploding hanging over us. Also, really don't need to be thinking of you two doing... that... seriously."

"Well, you asked, Captain," Taq informed her.

"I just find it hard to believe sometimes you two were ever even friends," McKay explained.

"We were friends, even before we got together... and he ruined it," Taq said, glaring at Zek. "If I'm still bitter, it's because of that and... well, other things. What matters now is that he's at least not screwing things up at the moment."

"I just want some credit for once," Zek insisted. "Especially given everything I've done so far, even if it doesn't make up for my fuck ups."

"I'll give you credit that I've somehow managed to not die over the course of this adventure thanks in part to the people you surround yourself with," Taq confessed. "Is that good enough for you? That you still know talent when you see it?"

Zek just shrugged.

"I'll take what I can get," he confessed.

As long as it shut him up, Taq was just fine. She had more pressing issues after all. Namely checking in on one of the most crucial elements of the whole plan. Once everything was finished and good to go, they needed to disengage the Siphon's Interlock System. This would disable safety protocols preventing the Siphon from being disconnected from the network, power supply and extra-communication link that was boosting its power draining signal. She had teams standing by at all the interlock stations.

Although they were under the charge of probably the least agreeable of these Drop Troopers.

"Sergeant Lendon, report," Taq asked.

"We located all three interlock disengage controls, I have people keeping them covered and ready," he assured. "I'm managing the entrance way up here. In case those Covie bastards bust through to us."

"The power systems are going to be finished first at this rate, we're working on extra-communication and network systems now," Taq exclaimed. "When that's done, I need you to pull out the interlock on power to-"

"I know my orders, we pull each interlock when you say so," Lendon groused. "Not before, not later, when you say so. You're not the only one who wants to be out of here fast. Lights are getting dim in here for one."

"That's probably due to the power draining and energy shutdowns we're completing," Taq advised.

"Yeah, yeah, sure, just get this over with fast so we can get the hell out of here already and end this clusterfuck of a mission."

Lendon shut off communication before Taq could respond again.

"Your Sergeant Lendon continues to be an ass even now," she grumbled to McKay.

"He's cooperating, at the moment it's the best you can hope for," McKay admitted. "I think he's one of the few ex-mutineers that still hasn't gotten over being forced to work with aliens is all."

"Well tough," Zek spat. "He's gotta deal with that sooner or later. Preferably sooner since we don't have time for his shit."

Taq agreed with Zek in this instance completely, even if it was more out of a distaste for Lendon than anything. They couldn't afford cracks at this point. At least the Drop Trooper was doing his job for now.

Taq now focused on her last and most vital group for the moment. Once the interlocks were disabled, it would take the master control switch to verify the procedure and begin the failsafe protocol. Taq would initiate from the main console, but it needed to be activated from there. It was at the top level of the engineering decks, where they were when they had been sucked into this void to begin with.

"Master Control Team report in," Taq requested.

No response. Nothing. Not even a crackle.

"Master Control Team, report?" Taq asked again.

Still, nothing. She looked to McKay with concern. She attempted to call them herself.

"Squad Leader Brecker, report in, now."

Her demand was forceful, but she got nothing.

"Something's wrong, we need to check on them," McKay declared. "I'll get the Master Chief to head up there."

"The Spartans are guarding the central level though," Zek noted. "It's where we think the Covies might burst through."

"The Master Control switch is vital, Zek," Taq reminded him. "We need to be sure it's secure."

"I'll check it out then," Zek insisted. "I'm not doing anything, and making sure a bunch of ODSTs are okay is better than just standing around here, losing my mind worrying about that thing exploding if we do something wrong. Maybe the interference came back and that's the problem, no sense taking the Spartans off the line for that."

"What if it's worse though?" McKay cautioned.

"Like what, Covies getting inside the line somehow?" Zek asked.

"Or the pirates," Retz cautioned. "I should at least come with you."

"No, you stay down here, you need to be my eyes on everything going on," Zek told him. "I'll just head up and handle this directly."

McKay sighed, possibly realizing that, like Taq already knew, once Zek got an idea into his head, it stayed stuck there. No matter how rash, how stupid, or how born of boredom it was.

"Fine, but if I don't hear from you or the team that's out of contact, I'm sending up a Spartan or two regardless," McKay declared. "We're not taking chances here, not with everything going on."

Zek shrugged and began to head to one of the grav lifts that would take him up a level. As he did, Taq called out to him.

"Zek."

For a brief moment, Zek hoped it would be something encouraging and protective.

"Try not to touch anything up there, as in don't touch the Master Control Switch, period. Okay?"

Zek shook his head and sighed.

"Yeah, okay, fine," he replied and continued on his way.

He really hoped this would be worth heading up top for. He honestly just needed some air after getting called out by Taq constantly over the course of this mission. This seemed like a good opportunity to do so. He'd find out what was wrong, help fix it and be back down before too long. Then Taq would have to at least admit he wasn't a screwup. He would've had Retz come along too actually when he had offered. However, Zek wasn't interested in another weird talk from his best friend about... whatever it was he was that was making Retz so cagey lately.

It would all be worth though. All of this abuse and disrespect and insanity. He just had to get out of this void, get the relic back to the flotilla, have it tell them where to find the Cutlass and then, finally, at long last, he'd get everything he ever deserved. Just a little longer, that's all it would take and he'd be sailing free from then on.


Kelly had just finished up on one the extra-comm relays, shutting it off after rewiring the system manually. Apparently, the Forerunners who made this place had no concept of a simple off switch. At the same time, Kat was working on redistributing power away from the signal distribution system, as it would disrupt the siphon's long-range capabilities further. Thankfully for both Spartans their tasks were going much faster than that of the Drop Troopers, due to Cortana's guidance.

Whereas everyone else needed Taq's assistance on standby, partly because they were worried about something exploding in their faces now as a result of Zek's lack of tact, Cortana had downloaded the kig-yar archeologist's entire failsafe procedure plan. This way the Spartans only need to consult her for instructions. Thanks to this, the Spartans were getting their jobs done much quicker, although it wasn't really a race. Shutting off the various complex systems this Siphon and the experimental Slipspace Drive it was connected to wasn't something you could rush. Not just because something might go wrong and it could blow up in their faces. Cortana and Taq had surmised that, if procedure wasn't followed properly, some of the steps they had finished could suddenly reset on them.

No one wanted to redo any of these tasks over, not with the Covenant still at the door. So being mindful of each step in the procedure was all the more important. Lucky for the Spartans, Cortana was always very particular about handing out directions and proper protocol. At least she wasn't being annoying about it, or nearly as crass as Taq could be.

Kelly and Kat were doing most of the highly technical work, given they shared that field together. Anton and the Master Chief were not slouching though, they were busy with the more labor-intensive task of shutting down the automated systems for the Siphon. This mostly consisted of carefully pulling out and disabling the backup generator systems. These were here so if the engines failed to keep powering the Siphon, they would kick in. The Forerunners really had thought of everything.

"They really didn't want this place breaking down on them, huh?" Anton observed as he finished pulling the generator out of its connection bay. "Backups upon backups and all that. Extreme redundancy. Was the the Halo ring like this, Chief?"

"It had these firing mechanisms I needed to disable," Chief recalled as he began disengaging the generator from the system. "But nothing this involved. We just decided to blow it up."

"If only every mission was that simple," Anton sighed.

"Actually, even blowing it up was a lot more complicated than I thought it would be," Chief confessed.

Chief pulled once on the plug and the generator was now disconnected from the system entirely. One less issue to deal with. As he and Anton made their way to the next backup generator, the lower ranked Spartan spoke up again.

"Seems all of this Forerunner stuff is always complicated," he admitted. "I mean, every single thing of theirs we run across just lands us in more trouble. Wish they spent a little time teaching us about it in the program. Given Doctor Halsey's expertise in the field, you'd have thought she'd stick it in the cirriculum."

"Back then we didn't even think aliens existed, let alone knew much about their gods," Chief noted. "I imagine they didn't think it would be important."

"Joke's on us I guess," Anton shrugged. "Nothing new there though. Just seems to be Spartan luck to have the unexpected thrown at us."

"It's what we trained for," Chief noted. "Even if it is a contradiction, preparing for things you can't really prepare for, expecting the unexpected."

Chief unsealed the generator's protective barrier, revealing the chamber it was stuck in. With Anton's help, they wrenched it free from its container, sliding it across the floor. Anton got onto the console for it to check its status while Chief went over to the plug.

"Running hot, guess we're making a dent," Anton presumed, before returning to the prior subject. "You know, you how you can't prepare for everything, but... well, you seemed to be."

"Not always," Chief told him plainly. "We all needed to learn how to be soldiers, me most of all."

"Well we needed to be soldiers, you needed to be the Leader," Anton reminded him in kind. "That's what kept us together more than anything, really. Even after training. When I was down on Reach, just expecting to eventually get glassed with everything else, I figured... you were out there at least. You'd get through, and that made it easier to keep fighting. Not because I thought I'd be rescued, but mostly because I didn't want to let you down. I have to believe a lot of us felt that way."

Chief paused in that moment. It was good to know he inspired that in his Spartans, although he did hope they didn't always look to his example for everything. Part of being the Leader of the Spartans was setting the standard, yes. It also meant giving his soldiers the ability to do what they needed to. Enabling them to be the best they were, not just to BE him. Linda, Fred, Kelly, all of them had things that made them stand out, that they were better at than he'd ever be. His role was to keep them at that level, or even surpass it. As that drive was the only thing that would keep them and each other alive.

Or at least fighting as hard as they could to ensure others would survive.

"You did good keeping alive down there, keeping Whitcomb safe," he assured Anton. "You don't have to measure yourself against me for everything. Especially when you accomplished it without me."

"It's hard not to, Chief," Anton explained. "But I understand that. The thing is, I've always wondered what being on a mission with you would be like. Now I know, in spades, it's nuts. Mind prisons, time travel, space pirates, slave jail breaks, and now... actual spaceship built into a small planet. All of it, kinda nuts, nothing at all like basic, but not really complaining."

Chief just nodded and pulled out the plug, shutting the generator down.

"Still plenty more dangerous than basic," Chief noted, remembering even then how many didn't make it.

"Better food at least, Chief," Anton thought aloud. "I mean, nothing that we have to steal anymore. Remember how hard it was just getting marshmallows for camping out?"

"Good practice for infiltration missions," Chief recalled. "Also... good reward."

"I miss s'mores, hell probably what I miss most about our wilderness missions on Reach," Anton laughed. "Nothing beat camping out at the fire like that."

Chief again nodded.

"S'mores later, we still have four more generators on this level to disable," he reminded him.

"Right, right, just thinking aloud," Anton reassured him.

As they moved to the next pod, Cortana cut in over the comms.

"Sorry to interrupt but I just got word from Taq," she said with a degree of concern. "We've lost contact with the Master Control team on the top deck."

That didn't sound good. That was the final stage in shutting the Siphon down. Worse, there were very few reasons an ODST team would not respond to a mission critical communication. None of them were good, especially not in this situation.

"Does she want us to check it out?" Chief asked.

"Zek is checking it out," Cortana sighed. "She wants us on standby in case its anything actually worse than signal interference."

"Zek's going up alone?" Anton asked confused.

"Taq thinks he's just using it as an excuse to get away from her criticism," Cortana explained. "Still, she doesn't want his bullheadedness to get him killed."

"We'll remain on standby then," Chief assured the AI. "Just in case."

"Good, to facilitate that, I'm tapping Zek's comms and leaving them on," Cortana stated slyly. "So if you hear someone constantly insisting no one gives him any respect or how annoying it is everyone keeps catching him lying, that's him."

Chief looked to Anton, and although they couldn't see each other's faces, they knew they were wearing the same bewildered expression. It wasn't that this was a surprise, this was Cortana after all. It was just that it felt a bit weird, spying on Zek all of a sudden.

"Is this something you were hoping to do sooner or later?" Anton asked the AI.

"Kinda," she admitted. "I only didn't do it sooner because it's sorta taboo to listen in on allies. Also... well, it's Zek, I imagined I'd catch him in one of his less than sober periods... or worse."

"I don't want to think about what's worse than a drunk Zek," Anton stated. Then just as quickly he shuddered. "Shit, I thought about it."

"And yet despite that, you're still making us listen to him," Chief said to Cortana, only sounding a little bit annoyed.

"It's for his own good this time," Cortana claimed.

Chief's head slumped and shook about. It didn't matter, they still had a job to do.

"First sign of trouble, we head up to help him," Chief declared. "Keep his comms monitored."

"Hate to say it, but if there is trouble... well, better him than us running into it," Anton confessed.

"Still can't let anything happen to him," Chief told Anton. "He is valuable... in a way."

"Care to elaborate?" Cortana asked.

Chief thought for a moment. He could think of a few things, actually. But a small part of him resented the idea of giving open credit to Zek when taking into account all the trouble he tended to cause. So in the end, he gave the only answer he felt like giving.

"Not really," he admitted.


Like everything this day had thrown at them, the assault they were expecting came at them suddenly. No real warning, nothing to draw attention to what they all knew was likely coming. One second everyone was bracing at the barricades next to the large open door to the hangar. The very next second, plasma bolts were flying out of the black, hitting against steel as Drop Troopers ducked for cover.

"Contacts! We got shitloads of contacts!"

A machine gun opened up on the encroaching hostiles. Bullets filled the hallway where the bolts were flying from. Emerging from the darkness, however, appeared a long defense line of Jackals, withstanding the withering fire as their fellows behind them shot back at the ODSTs. Like the phalanx of old, the Jackals pushed forward. Slowly, as a result of the hail of fire pelting back at them, but forwards nonetheless.

Fred stood at the forefront of the defense line, taking potshots at the enemy marksmen who were poking up behind the advancing line of plasma shields. He managed to tag one of them through the eye and then second one in the shoulder. He kept scanning the crowd of hostiles between shots, quickly coming to a conclusion.

"I don't see any Elites or Grunts," he said, and instantly opened a channel to Commander Shepard. "Commander, enemy is here. Looks like Snarlies. They must've circumvented the Covenant at the Engineering Section and headed our way."

On the other end of the line, Shepard absorbed the news. It made a degree of sense, the Covenant somehow knew the Relic was in the Engineering Deck with the others and were desperate to get inside. Snarlbeak's people likely did not have the same information, so they were running through this place blind. But that still didn't explain why they were here, at this hangar. It just seemed way too convenient that they stumbled upon this part of the catacombs so quickly.

Unless...

"They must have specs of this place too somehow," Shepard reasoned. "Maybe they found it on a terminal up there like Taq did."

"But why come to the hangar?" Thane asked.

"Probably same reason we did, to secure their exit," she surmised. Then other possibilities presented themselves in his mind. "Or to cut off any escape for Zek and the Relic. Maybe even..."

Shepard looked up to the hangar bay doors, which were currently on standby for opening.

"They might be trying to secure this as a landing zone for more of their forces," he said cautiously. "We might have a problem if that's the case. They probably already have dropships waiting to move if that's the case. They'll be expecting it to open, so it won't be as much of a surprise."

"Should we keep the doors closed then?" Thane asked.

Shepard thought for a moment, but came to a decision rather quickly as time was of the essence.

"The Normandy can still hold the area outside the hangar bay doors. Our shuttle can make a beeline for the opening as well," Shepard figured. "And if our Prowler is still around, maybe we can get some extra hands down here besides them. I'll contact Miranda and Joker, make sure they're briefed and get Varvok on the line. You stay on those controls, I should go see what's going on out there."

"Will do, Shepard," Thane assured him.

Shepard exited the control tower and looked across the way at the ODST Defenses. The Barricades seemed to be holding, although they were taking heavy fire. The Snarlies clearly wanted in, which meant they knew what this place was or they just assumed it was important because the Drop Troopers were making them work for it. Either way, he couldn't let them break through.

"Legion, Jun, Linda, you got any eyes on enemy targets?" He asked over the comm.

"Plenty of tangos, sir," Jun replied. "Their lines are pretty tight. For not being military, these pirates continue to show they are fairly well-organized. I'm almost impressed."

"Let's make them a little unimpressive," Shepard told him. "Pick out any officers in the bunch, they take main priority. Otherwise, prevent them from supressing our heavy weapons and if you see a chink in the shield screen of their's, make the hole bigger."

"Affirmative, Shepard-Commander, orders received." Legion replied adamantly.

Shepard wanted to just run over into the fray, but it was a ways off and it would be stupid to rush in so brazenly without a real plan. He'd rely on the overwatch position with his Snipers to get a feel for the battle first, defend the lines from afar while he prepared his counter-assault. That relied, however, on getting some much need reinforcement to push the Snarlies back.

"Joker, Shepard here, tell Miranda to load up a strike team into the shuttle and get Varvok on the horn, we need him and his people down here with the Prowler, ASAP."

"Copy that, Commander. We'll get moving on that now."

For the time being, the hangar's barricades would just have to hold. Not for much longer, just long enough for a few of their friends to arrive. Once the Normandy was in position, they'd open the hangar doors. The Frigate would cover the shuttle and the Prowler, preventing any enemies from following them down. They'd then seal the doors again while the Normandy cleared the enemy out of their exfiltration path.

For their part, the Overwatch Snipers merely had to assist the Drop Troopers in holding the barricades near the entrance. Thankfully, the Snarlies were more focused on said barricades, they could not see much beyond them. Unlike Linda, who had a perfect view of their approach.

The pirates were focusing their fire on the machine gun nest, trying to stop it from chipping away at their advancing line. They targeted the Drop Troopers with Carbines. She could tell because, even from this far off, she could hear the rounds bouncing off the machine gun's faceplate with a reverberating clink. Needles and bolts didn't make that noise. She followed the tracer fire towards their origin point. Two Jackal marksmen, behind at least four plasma shields.

For any normal sharpshooter, they seemed pretty buttoned up defensive wise. Linda could see the exposure point though. A space just beneath the forward shield user. She took careful aim and let loose a shot. It rebounded off the floor and slipped behind the enemy's shield. It must've hit the Jackal square in the chest because he fell back hard, creating a gap in the phalanx.

Linda would've taken advantage of this, had the Carbine user not quickly slipped behind another shield as the gap closed. No matter, one less shield in any case. She looked for another opening, finding a sloped support structure along the wall. If she aimed correctly, she could redirect the hit into her intended target. With careful precision, she fired.

The bullet sped out of the barrel and straight towards the sloping bit of architecture. It then rebounded off of it and sliced into the head of the Carbine user that had tried to hide from her. One target down, but Linda wasn't finished. She took aim again, this time towards the upper portion of the doorframe. As the phalanx advanced just a bit further, she opened fire once more.

This time, her shot rebounded downwards instead of to the side. It slammed right into the top of the second Carbine shooter's head, who collapsed forward into the phalanx. While the Jackals parted quickly in a panic, Linda moved quick to shoot one last bullet into the eye of one of the shield wielders. She had to reload at this point, but the machine gun nest was already chattering away again. The advance group of Jackals began to fall back.

In contrast, Legion wasn't nearly as concerned with making tricky shots. Geth saw the world much differently than organics, even ones as enhanced as a Spartan. For every second that ticked away in the real world, Legion had already calculated tens of thousands of potential outcomes. Technically they could've done more, but they were trying not to overclock their neural network too much. It was a consequence of the glitch, overtaxing their runtimes could ruin the progress they were making towards fixing it.

It was more than enough in this particular combat scenario though. The Jackal Pirates had a good strategy, but it was predictable. Legion had already deduced a viable countermeasure just by watching their advancing units. It was only really good for them, but the viability would still be useful to their allies down below.

Legion could detect which shields were losing integrity as a result of being pummeled with fire. They could also detect where the shields were their most vulnerable. With the use of disruptor ammo, combined with the power of the Widow Sniper Rifle, removing the hostiles was a simple matter.

The Geth targeted one group of advancing pirates, firing needlers and plasma pistols at the barricades. There were also a pair of Jackals with needler rifles. With careful precision, pinpointing the weaknesses in their defense, Legion opened fire on each.

One shot cut through a shield with ease, taking it down and then hitting the Jackal behind it in the face. After quickly reloading, Legion aimed the next shot at one of the Needler Rifle Jackals, predicting precisely when they'd pop up from cover. Then they'd fire a single shot to neutralize the threat. Another quick reload and Legion targeted another of shield user. This time, his shot not only killed the Jackal with the shield, but the Needler Rifle user behind him. As a result of losing their offensive and defensive capability, the pirates began to fall back.

Jun kept eyes on Fred as the Spartan moved among the Drop Trooper ranks. Legion and Linda had the defensive lines covered for the most part. Fred needed someone watching him for a bit. Not that Fred was incapable, but Jun believed he wouldn't say no to some extra firepower covering him.

Jun watched as Fred raced among the barricades, firing precision bursts at the Jackals. He managed to kill at least two of their numbers by blasting the guns out of their hands before shooting them in their exposed faces. Another Jackal had a pair of twin plasma pistols though and was using them to great effect as they closed the distance to the barricade. Fred managed to pin him close to one of the outer defenses. Jun took aim here, as he had a better line of sight on the target. With the pirate so focused on Fred, he was easy pickings for a single sniper shot.

Fred watched the alien's head fall back. To his credit, he didn't seem upset by Jun's help and just quickly moved to his next target. Spartans were professional like that, little ego. You couldn't say NO ego because, well, Jun knew he at least had a semblance of one. As for Fred, he had already found a grenade launcher that he traded his rifle to a Trooper for. He then used it to expertly clear out a section of the Jackals as they tried to advance on them.

Jun had at this point began moving to another part of the rafters when a beam rifle shot cut across his path. He quickly ducked behind a support at that, keeping his center of mass as small as possible. Apparently, these Snarlies weren't as unprepared as they were hoping.

"Anyone see where that came from?" He called out.

"Right flank of the enemy advance," Linda called down. "He's probably moved."

"Three-Noble, we have determined a likely route for the sniper," Legion called down. "Sending you telemetry."

Jun's HUD came alive with a waypoint marker that began tracking along the Jackal lines. Following it, he located the Pirate Sniper. He was already in a new spot among the shield phalanx, prepping for another shot. He'd never get it. Jun centered his crosshairs on him and fired, cutting through his lower beak with ease.

"Thanks, keep an eye out for more, Legion," Jun called up.

"Affirmative," the Geth replied.

The defenses held, both thanks to Fred alongside the Drop Troopers in the barricades and the Overwatch Sniper Team. The Pirates pulled back somewhat to try and consolidate for a stronger offensive. That gave the Normandy the time it needed. When Joker contacted Shepard again, telling him Varvok was enroute and the shuttle was away, the Commander simply affirmed the message and turned to Thane.

"Open it up," he ordered.

Thane hit the switch the hangar doors above them began to lurch open. As they did, Shepard began to head down and out of the traffic control tower. He was followed shortly after by his drell squadmate as they made their way to the main floor. By the time they reached it, they could see the black sky above them. It was filled with plasma fire. For a moment, they saw a large shape fly clear over the hole. It was the Normandy, no doubt. It was already engaging enemy forces trying to reach the hangar themselves.

"We're hooked up to the doors remotely, right?" Shepard asked.

"Yes, Commander," Thane assured, holding up his omni-tool. "Say the word, and I'll shut them."

Moments later a small craft streamed into view and started darting down the hangar bay shaft. It was far too small to be a Covenant or Pirate dropship. It had to be the Normandy's shuttle. Where was the Prowler though with Varvok's team?

Shepard waited with baited breath, watching fire stream across the sky. An explosion erupted right over the hangar doors. All that was left was debris floating in the ether and smashing against the outer force field for the hangar's door. Joker was doing his best, but he couldn't keep them all out forever.

"Come on, Varvok," he grimaced.

Then something shimmered into view. It was a small ship, but bigger than the shuttle. Not as big as the Covenant Dropships though. Shepard enhanced his view through his visor and could see the ship clearly, it was the Prowler, racing into the hangar door shaft.

"They're in! Close it!" Shepard ordered Thane.

Thane hit the command and the doors began closing shut. Behind the Prowler and the Shuttle, a pair of Dropships opened fire as both craft raced inside. One of them was blown out of the sky by a bright blue beam. Joker's work no doubt. The other just barely dodged the attack. It sped up towards the rapidly closing shuttle door. For a moment, Shepard was worried he'd make it.

Instead, the Phantom only made it halfway... before the hangar door closed shut and cut the craft in two. The explosion was massive, but the door held out. The dropship though, that had broken up. In fact, one of its pieces raced down towards the ground at incredible speed. The Prowler and Shuttle managed to dodge its descent, but it still headed down towards Shepard and Thane.

"Move!"

Thane obeyed without question, racing with the Commander away from the hangar's shaft. Not but a few moments later did a flaming ball of burning metal crash just a few feet away from where they had been standing. The inferno that erupted from it consumed one of the ancient Forerunner ships close to it. Lucky for them, there was nothing inside the ancient vessel that would explode in kind. It still left quite a mess.

The Prowler and Shuttle landed not long after. Varvok's men poured out and immediately went towards the barricades. Varvok motioned his personal squad to move without him as he headed over to Shepard. Meanwhile, disembarking from the Shuttle, were Miranda, Jack, Zaeed, Grunt and Samara. They all soon joined Shepard and Thane at the center of the hangar.

"I picked every heavy hitter we had," Miranda insisted. "Garrus stayed behind to help with firing solutions on the Normandy."

"That's fine, we need to reinforce the barricades," Shepard explained succinctly. "The Pirates have backed off a little for now, but they're gonna try to hit us again."

"Yeah, they're stubborn like that," Zaeed agreed.

"They better not take too long," Jack added. "I came down here to crack skulls after all. I didn't volunteer just to sit around waiting... even if the company is nice."

She was looking at Thane with a bit of a smirk. The drell, for his part, returned the smile. Shepard assumed that the main reason Jack had probably volunteered to come down here was Thane. They hadn't been exactly... subtle about things for a while. The Batarian among them brought the conversation back to more serious matters though.

"Let's focus on defense first, not pleasurable company," Varvok stated. "Shepard, how long until this... Siphon is shutdown?"

"They're working on it," Shepard assured him. "We need to make sure they have a path inside. That means thinning out the enemies at the gate. So even if they don't renew their assault in earnest, we're gonna have to smash them either way."

"HA! Good to know," Grunt concurred.

Shepard took point and led his people towards the barricades. They now had a decent chance at holding this hangar. But Varvok had voiced an appropriate concern. He really hoped the others were close to shutting that Siphon down. Otherwise, they'd be stuck in this void in the long term, and in the short term would probably get overrun when the Covenant found this hangar for themselves.


Zek couldn't help but keep grumbling to himself, infuriated by just everything right now. No one seemed to respect him. Even after everything he had done, Taq still hated him. He could accept her never loving him, even if it hurt. He couldn't understand why she still kept taking every chance to prod him. She'd been on his ass all day and he was sick of it.

So maybe calling her bluff and actually doing something constructive would be enough to shut her up. At the very least, prove that he wasn't useless, that he knew what he was doing and deserved to be here. If it meant being away from Taq's insults for a minute, he'd be even happier.

He just didn't understand. This close to the end and everyone seemed more irritated with him. Why? Hadn't he tried everything to get on their good sides? He had done so much right! He had help lead them to all four relics, cripple one of their enemies, assisted in that stupid little secret op that had gotten them that Prowler, HE was the reason they had the damn carrier to begin with and still... no respect, at all.

Worse, it felt like Retz was... distant. What was wrong with him? Maybe Zix had done a number on his head or some shit. He still couldn't believe his oldest and best friend was seriously contemplating aligning with the UNSC full time. He knew Varvok had all but made his choice on that front, but Retz? It made no sense.

Zek tried to put it out of his mind. He had a more important task right now. More vital than worrying about the state of mind of his first mate, complaining about the UNSC constantly breaking his balls or contemplating his regretful pining for his ex-girlfriend. If he did this one thing right maybe it would all turn around. He just had to check on these dumb humans and make sure they were ready to throw a stupid switch or press a button or whatever it was. Maybe then they'd all stop acting like jerks to him.

Or they'd still blame him for everything, real or imagined. Whatever. He wouldn't let that get him down. He was going to get his Astral Cutlass, that would make it all worth it. Taq herself would have to admit he had helped her achieve her greatest dream. The UNSC would at least admit he had helped keep a dangerous weapon out their enemy's hands. Best of all, Retz would calm the fuck down and get these weird ideas out of his head.

All he needed to do was check on some dumb humans.

Retz had to pass a number of Drop Trooper teams hard at work on his way up. They were all too busy to pay him attention. Not that he wanted it, better if they didn't get distracted. He wanted out of this Void too after all. He also did not need another reason for Taq to scold him. He could hear her now in his head, actually.

"Zek, you idiot! Stop bothering the people who are being more useful than you've ever been!"

He wished he could honestly say he had forgotten why he was ever in love with her. If so, he could just ignore his still lingering feelings, if they still existed in that scenario. Unfortunately, even now, he was still in love with her. She'd never feel the same way, he had accepted that fact a while ago. That didn't change how he felt.

If nothing else, he just wanted her to stop actively HATING him. He just didn't know how to earn that respect. He had already said he was sorry to her a thousand times over, that wasn't enough. She said as much, and he still didn't know what she wanted from him.

Helping her get the Astral Cutlass... maybe... just maybe... that would be enough. Perhaps then she'd at least like him again. He'd settle for tolerate though. He wasn't picky.

The Drop Troopers for their part seemed fairly well along on their assigned tasks. If they kept this up the safety interlocks would be disabled on schedule, well before the Covies could get inside. Of course, none of that would matter if they couldn't pull the master control switch... button... whatever it was. With that in mind, Zek headed up one more grav-lift to the top Engineering Deck level.

He arrived finding himself back where they had tumbled into when they had first entered this Void. The only difference was the door was closed shut. Zek imagined the Covies were just outside it by now, or worse, Snarlbeak's people. He put them out of his mind for now. He had to find those Drop Troopers and figure out why they weren't responding.

First stop, the next room, where Taq had discovered those engines that revealed this place was basically a giant lifeboat rock. This time, they were off. So the Drop Troopers had shut them down like they were supposed to. Well, at least they were on schedule then and weren't slacking. So why weren't they responding? Everything up here appeared locked up, they couldn't have run into trouble. Maybe there was a security system that got activated or the interference had returned as suggested.

All the same, best be ready for anything. Zek took out his needler and started looking about the other parts of the deck. Despite the fact the emergency lighting was on, he still activated his headpiece's flashlight as he scanned the room. Best not to get surprised by anything.

He found nothing at first. Every station was already cleared up here. Comms console was no longer sending or receiving, the network system for this level was on standby, they had done everything. They had to be by the master control switch thingy by now. So that's where he went, passing through a few of the more cramped sections of this deck, as laid out by Taq. He pushed his way through some pried-out panels, pushed through some half open doors and slinked through a small corridor to the very back of this Engineering Level.

"Hey, Troopers," he called out as he headed in. "It's just me, Zek! Just trying to see why you ain't talking back to us cause you're kinda critical to the whole 'escaping the void' plan we're trying to pull off here. So, if I come in there don't shoot me or-"

Zek stopped mid-sentence, because he noticed something through the slit of the door. It looked like a discarded weapon just laying there. Suddenly, this was a lot more concerning. Maybe they had tripped a security measure. A Forerunner Turret perhaps, if so maybe it had gotten them. He needed to be careful. So he turned on his shield and then forced the door to open the whole way, holding his protection out in front of him as he did.

When the door finally slid open fully, he did not find a Forerunner Turret protecting the master control switch. He did see the switch in question, at the back of the room, all alone as a singular rectangular box with some sort of handle attached to a circle. That was not what really kept his attention. It was the bodies, the bodies of the Drop Troopers on the floor of the room, all of them clearly dead given the amount of blood covering the walls and floor. Also, at least one of them was cut in two, very cleanly.

Zek briefly thought, maybe this was a Forerunner Sentinel's work. They had those crazy laser beams. Or maybe one of those creepy robot attack mutts they had encountered. Those claws could've cut these Troopers up. But it was hard to believe these accomplished soldiers would be caught so unawares by something like that.

When he got close to one of them, his answer became clear. The slashes along the body were repeated, excessive. The skin appeared flayed. Then he realized, one of the Drop Troopers... was missing a head. He didn't see it.

What would take a head? Not to eat, none of these Troopers looked like they had been chewed on. No... you take a head from a kill when you want a trophy.

"Oh fuck."

The realization came at him nearly too late, as he picked up some glowing hot pink behind him out of the corner of his eye. He turned with shield just in time to block the incoming blow of an energy cutlass. Through the clashing plasma and burning shard crystal blade, he saw the face of Lurz, his eyes full of hatred, his face covered in blood and a slight murderous smirking smile from his reptilian mouth.

"Shit! Shit! SHIT!"

It was all Zek could say as he kicked the muscle-bound psycho away from him. More accurately though, he kicked himself away from Lurz. The Ibie'shan barely moved an inch from the him. Zek hit the wall on the far side of the room instead, his back pressed against it.

He then got a better look at Lurz. It wasn't just his face covered in blood, it was all of him. Not just human from the look of it either. He had been killing his way through the planetoid no doubt, all in an effort to hunt him down. The Spartans were right to warn him, their suspicions had turned out to be correct. Zek had just kinda hoped he was still locked out.

How had he got in here? Perhaps the exhaust hatches or venting system? That would've been a tight fit for the Ibie though. Was he that determined to get inside and get to him? What was Zek thinking, of course he was, this freak was a complete psycho.

As if to further illustrate that point, Lurz's other hand came into better view for Zek. He was clutching something there, something he now threw towards Zek. It bounced off the floor and rolled towards his foot. It was the head of the Drop Trooper, a look of absolute horror frozen upon his decapitated face.

Zek shook off the shock and stood up, Needler in one hand and shield in the other. He was cornered here, in a tight space, not a good place to be at all. He needed to get out. While he'd likely have to come back here to press the switch, he wasn't gonna be much good at doing that if he was dead. Which was going to be enclosed in this tiny room with this maniac, as the Drop Troopers were.

First things first though, he tried to contact the others.

"Taq! Lurz is inside! Lurz is-!"

He had to duck out of the way as Lurz charged in, slashing into the wall as Zek used his shield to protect himself. He moved to the side as Lurz kept hitting at him heading towards the door. He fired a few shots from his Needler to try and shake the Ibie off of him. Instead, the bloodthirsty murdering bastard just used his Energy Cutlass to knock the needles away.

Zek bolted for the door when he saw the chance, keeping his shield between him and Lurz. The Ibie spoke at this point, but not to Zek. He was talking to someone else, as evidenced when he put his talon to his ear.

"Target found..." he said in his nightmarishly creepy voice, the one that still haunted Zek's dreams from back when he nearly had his eyes gouged out by this monster. "Kill the rest."

Kill the rest? Oh no. Zek just realized what should've been obvious enough; Lurz wouldn't have come here alone.


Taq heard Zek's warning and she could hardly believe it. Lurz was inside Engineering? How would he have gotten in? She didn't doubt Zek's sincerity though, not in this case. He sounded far too terrified to be imagining things. Lurz was the kind of Ibie'shan that could do that to a person, Zek couldn't hide that. She couldn't hide it.

Turning to McKay, Taq hoped she had a plan. Mostly because she was panicking too much to think of anything other than the thought of that psychopath stalking the halls right now. Thankfully, the Captain had her head on straight for this. She was already getting on the line.

"Troopers, we have a breach," she spoke quickly over the comm. "Hostile in the zone, repeat, hostile in the zone! I need two squads to break off and get to Engineering Level One ASAP! On the double peo-"

That was when a needler round struck McKay in the arm. After a brief shriek of pain, she turned about and opened fire on where she had felt the shot had come from. Taq followed the tracers and saw that the Captain had good instincts. There was something running along the upper machinery, leaping over to one of the catwalks. It struck a Drop Trooper with a powerful kick, almost knocking him over as it brought out a plasma shield to strike a second.

McKay kept firing at it, careful to avoid her Troopers, until she had to switch magazines. She dropped back into cover at the same time, as the Ibie'shan fired down on her. Taq herself ducked into cover behind the console. Retz moved to cover her, using his dual plasma pistols and shield gauntlets to deflect incoming shots, protecting the ODST Captain.

She wasn't the only one at risk though, because there were needles flying everywhere and carbine rounds going off alongside them all across the level. There was more than just one Ibie in here. Way more than one.

"Tangos in the wire! Tangos in the wire! All Squads on alert!" McKay called out.

Taq wondered if McKay even needed to send that order. She checked open comms, as she had a running theory. It was instantly proven correct by all the screaming.

"Watch out! Check the rafters!"

"Fuck! I'm hit! I'm hit!"

"They're fucking everywhere! Duck for cover!"

"Watch your six! More of 'em!"

"They're coming out of the goddamn walls!"

Lurz had gotten inside and he got a bunch of his fellow Ibie'shans, and perhaps even a few extra Snarlies, to follow him. They had been waiting, watching them most likely. Why strike now? What was the purpose? Then Taq realized, Lurz had found and isolated Zek. The rest of them didn't matter to him, only the Relic did. So they were all expendable.

McKay's gasp of pain brought Taq back to the current situation. The Captain had pulled the miraculously unshattered needle round out of her arm. Perhaps the Ibie had disabled its detonation function. It was only one needle, it wouldn't have killed McKay from that wound, but it still looked bad. Thankfully, one of her troopers was helping to apply the bio-foam and Medi-Gel mixture to heal her up.

"Defensive positions," McKay ordered over the radio. "Cover each other! Watch all corners! These bastards could be hiding anywhere!"

Already she was on top of it, Taq had to be the same if she wanted them to get out of here alive. She had her own call to make.

"Kasumi, we're under attack," she warned the thief. "Snarlies got in somehow!"

"Shit, I'll be right up," Kasumi declared.

"No, I need you down there!" Taq explained. "We need to activate the Engineering Deck's defense protocols, but they're likely on standby now! I need you to reset their functions!"

"Is that gonna undo all our progress?" Kasumi asked.

"Not if I isolate the defense matrix from the rest of the network," Taq assured. "Just locate the security breaker and start flipping switches as I tell you!"

"Got it!"

Meanwhile, Taq could hear McKay following through on her own security measures.

"Master Chief, where are you? I need a status report!"


"Already moving," Chief responded. "We'll try and help who we can on the way!"

Chief opened fire on one of the assaulting Jackals, his bullets bouncing off the hostile's shield. But at least it forced him back into the machinery he was using as cover. Now the Drop Troopers he had been shooting at were no longer supressed and they could move their injured squadmate to better cover.

"How many got in here?" Anton asked, before firing a burst at one of the Jackal sharpshooters. He was forced to avoid the retaliating needler shots by pressing into the wall he was using for cover. "It looks like its more than one or two squads."

"I'm estimating at least four full strength squads of Jackals," Cortana presumed. "Although I don't think all of them are the burly reptile flavor of the species. It's just like last time, a small strike force trying to appear bigger and meaner. We still outnumber them!"

"Yes, but they caught us distracted," Kelly noted, firing her SMG at one Jackal as they ran across open ground. "And in an enclosed space. This is not an ideal firefight scenario."

It wasn't ideal period. When Chief and the Spartans heard Zek struggling in panic over his tapped comm, Chief immediately began moving him and his team to assist the Jackal. He was also about to update McKay about that, and then all hell broke loose not but a few seconds later. Every nook and cranny seemed to be hiding a Jackal. They had completely infiltrated the Engineering Deck. Every section or every level was reporting hostile contact.

This was the worst possible case scenario given their situation. Even though they had anticipated potential breaches, they had not been expecting this so soon and so completely. The ODSTs assigned to security detail for the decks were expecting sporadic attacks. Small groups of Drones squeezing in through vents, attacking any and all humans. These Jackals didn't do that. They had clearly lay in wait, lining up targets, getting ready to strike when the signal came.

Said signal was likely Zek being engaged, no doubt by Lurz. Snarlbeak's psycho enforcer had gotten the drop on them. Now they were fighting pirates inside the wire while Covies continued their attempts to force their way inside. This was going to get way worse if they didn't resolve this soon.

Chief suddenly moved his gun upwards and opened fire. His bullets met their mark as a Jackal that had been sneaking above them fell to the floor. It was injured in the leg and attempted to aim their overcharged plasma pistol at Kelly. Chief was about to finish them off, but Kelly quickly switched her target and perforated the hostile. The Jackal's bolt went wide, striking against the ceiling instead of against her shields.

"Ideal or not, we need to make it work," Chief told his people. "We have Troopers dying in here and Zek has the most dangerous one gunning for him. We need to make it to him."

Chief moved quickly to cover as a sustained beam cut through the air from afar. Kat rushed up behind him, firing off rounds from her pistol to supress the potential assassin. She might have grazed him, but she watched his shadow slink into the darkness of the machinery.

"Took off right," she said casually. "Someone reacquire him."

"Scanning area," Anton stated aloud.

Kat then turned to Chief.

"Weird to think of Zek as a priority right now," she noted.

"He's engaging their leader," Chief reminded her. "Lurz is a priority target. Their immediate location is near the master control switch. We can't let that fall into enemy hands. If Zek is killed before we get there, Lurz will likely lay in wait to trap us or anyone who attempts to secure the area. At least this way, we can overwhelm or force him into a retreat. Besides, losing Zek turns his whole crew into a far more unpredictable faction. Weird as it seems, we can't lose him."

"I'm not disagreeing, Chief," Kat clarified. "Just noting the oddity of the scenario."

"Well, we did just save an Elite Princess," Kelly recalled. "Rescuing a Jackal Pirate Captain might be a downgrade in terms of status, but it's still a pretty unique objective for our book."

"Got him!" Anton called out. "Cycling system, up high!"

"I'll try and highlight a targeting solution," Cortana spoke up.

Chief was already taking aim with his rifle as the outline of a Jackal appeared on his HUD. He was skulking in the shadows, preparing to make another shot. Chief moved into the open, but kept low. He needed to get a good enough line of sight on the sniper before he made his move.

When he circled around an engine core, he found it. The sightline of the Jackal, aiming his weapon at some Drop Troopers that were pinned down. When the Jackal turned his weapon towards the Spartan though, he spotted the Chief looking right at him.

The Master Chief's trigger finger was faster though. A barrage of bullet bursts cut the Jackal down, blowing through his skull with ease. As the sniper fell back, the Drop Troopers retaliated as well, firing on the Jackals that were advancing on them and stopping them in their tracks instead.

They couldn't stop to save every Drop Trooper in trouble though. They had their priority. More than anything, the Master Control Switch had to be secured. So they kept moving, heading towards the nearest gravity lift. They still had a few decks before they reached Zek though. So on their way to him, they'd do what they could for any Troopers they came across.

Getting up the first lift was a tedious affair. They had to go one by one. Chief covered them as they headed upwards. None of the Jackals were engaging them though. Most of the fire was concentrated on the Drop Trooper positions along the deck it seemed. Perhaps their show of force had put the pirates off of the idea of attacking them.

However, when Chief rode the lift up and landed among his Spartans on the new deck, that didn't appear to be a problem for the pirates up here. Almost instantly, his shields got spiked by three plasma bolts. He ducked quickly into cover as spotted one of the bigger Jackals. They were wielding a pair of plasma rifles in each hand. Of course, why would pirates be forced to play by the Covenant's stringent rules concerning who could use which armanents?

Said Jackal was standing out in the open atop an engine core. He was cackling as he fired. Kat attempted to silence him, but the pirate pulled up his arm and activated a shield to protect himself. Kat herself had to suddenly face a flurry of needles and carbine rounds in response. Her shields held up under the fire long enough for her to duck back into safety.

"An ambush, they were waiting by the lift's exit," Chief reasoned, knowing the extra shots had not come from the bigger Jackal pulling aggro on them all.

"We need to flank around," Cortana stated. "There should be a path back and to the right of our position."

"We'll try and pin them down here, Chief," Anton told him, opening fire one more on the bigger Jackal while Kelly attempted to shoot at the enemies hiding in the machinery above.

Chief didn't waste time; he began moving along the path recommended by Cortana. Keeping crouched, he moved along the wall behind some cooling pods towards another row of consoles. As he stood up to begin moving more briskly towards his intended target, his motion tacker went wild.

"Chief, above us!"

Cortana's warning was aptly timed, as Chief aimed his weapon towards the ceiling as two Jackals, both of the larger sort, jumped down from the top of the console wall and machinery above respectively. Chief blasted the nearest full of holes and then grabbed the second by the throat as he closed in on him. Both unleashed a series of needler shots on him, but the Spartan's shields had held firm. As he slammed the second Jackal into the backside of the cooling pods, a glowing blade popped out of the Jackal's wrist.

It cut across Chief's armor as the alien took a wild swing at his helmet. The blade just missed Chief's visor by centimeters. Not wanting to give him another chance at a second swing, the Spartan lifted the Jackal up off the cooling pod, threw a punch to knock the pirate senseless with his free hand and then slammed the hostile into the cold floor. Chief stomped on the alien's head hard, but only once, as her felt something grab onto him from behind.

It was the other Jackal, it was still alive. Even with a few fresh holes in its torso, it was refusing to quit. It had climbed onto his and had begun bashing its weapon onto the top of Chief's helmet. Chief weathered the assaults and reached his hands up to grab at the alien. Instead, he grabbed for this Jackal' shard dagger that it was trying to swing down and stab Chief's visor. He was able to hold against the alien, his strength was superior to any Jackal, even one this big. But the alien was tenacious and kept hammering down on the Spartan's helmet with its gun.

Chief saw only one option here. He rammed his backside into the console, smashing the Jackal between him and the machine. Sparks flew wildly, flashes of shorting out cables and wirings filled either side of his Hud, but the Alien's grip on Chief's shoulders remained firm. Another crushing backwards ram did the trick though, as the Spartan could feel the alien wavering. With all his effort, Chief grabbed at the pirate and forced him off his back, throwing the assailant to the ground.

The Jackal rose from the floor, but Chief was ready for him. He had wrenched the pirate's blade from its hand in the struggle. He threw the shard dagger right into the Jackal's eye and then kicked at the hilt just to make it go deeper. The was a brief explosion of pink and the Jackal finally fell back dead.

Chief walked over the corpse of the pirate, but only got about a foot when his motion tracker picked up something. He turned to see the other Jackal Pirate getting up. The alien's face was battered, broke, his reptilian maw full of blood. All the same, both arms were raised with fully extended energy blades from both wrists. This Snarly clearly did not consider himself beaten.

The Big Jackal roared once and then charged at the Master Chief. The Spartan responded the only way he could, filling the pirate full of lead from his assault rifle. Even then, the Jackal kept walking a few paces before a fourth or its head was taken off. It stumbled for another step or two before at last collapsing at Chief's feet, dead.

"These Ibies really are as insane as Zek makes them out to be," Cortana observed. "Let's see about removing at least one more."

Chief was already on it, traversing the rest of the pathway and ending up on the flank of the aggro Jackal from the start. He was still holding out, using his shield to defend himself one second and then firing his dual plasma rifles the next. Always cackling, always keeping everyone's attention on him while the marksman above attempted to kill whoever was going after him.

The next time he tried that trick though, Chief had him dead to rights. He fired a long automatic stream of bullets from his rifle to cut down the Jackal. The Pirate had his shield pointed at the Spartans in front. He took a direct hit to the side before switching his shield to face Chief, firing bolts from one of his plasma rifles as he tried to retreat from cover.

Instead, he took a shot from Kat's pistol, right to the shoulder. This dipped his shield violently down. His defenses faltered, Chief let loose with another burst of bullets that perforate the Snarly. The Jackal dropped to the deck hard at last.

Moments later, Chief's shields spiked as someone started hitting him with Carbine rounds. He went to find cover, but a single three-round burst rang out before he could. A Jackal's body fell from above, followed by a second burst and a second Jackal falling to the floor. Chief looked to see Anton, smoking battle rifle in hand, already vaulting from cover.

"Excellent shots," He told Anton.

"Kelly pinpointed them," Anton replied to the Chief. "We just needed them to expose themselves."

"And then you came charging in," Kelly added.

"Hmm, good kills all the same," Chief nodded. "But try not to use me as bait next time."

"I can't make that promise, John," Kelly informed him. "You kinda put yourself in that position regularly."

"Finally, someone ELSE notices," Cortana commented snidely.

"Hmph, fair," was all Chief could say in response. "Let's keep moving. We still have more lifts to go."

They headed off, the deck still ringing with the sound of the ongoing firefight. All the while, Chief hoped Zek was keeping himself alive up there. What he had just faced against these three Ibie'shan Jackals was proof enough this subspecies was especially deadly. He had handled two fine enough on his own, but Zek was nowhere as skilled as a Spartan. And this Lurz had already proven he was by far the most dangerous of Snarlbeak's enforcers. He had to be if he commanded all these other Ibie'shan Jackals.

They needed to reach Zek, quickly, before Lurz claimed his trophy.


AN: And we're back once again with another chapter! This is the two part finale to the final Relic Arc and essentially the crux before our proper climax. I hope you enjoy it. The second part is coming soon, as will the Behind the Scenes post and BBR relevant chapter once the second part is up. We're really trying to get this damn thing done already and I promise we are almost done. So very close.