Remnants

by General Rage

From Halo's ashes, a mismatched Alliance is born. UNSC soldiers now serve alongside both Batarian deserters and shifty Jackal Space Pirates. Now Shepard and Master Chief have to keep these strange bedfellows from killing one another before they can stop an emergent new threat to the galaxy. The Next Swashbuckling Chapter of the Wormhole Chronicles.

4. Displeasure Cruise

Chapter Three: Displeasure Cruise

The Problem is not the Problem, the Problem is your Attitude about the Problem.

-Captain Jack Sparrow

The Huragok, as Zek called them, floated around the bridge for a good long while. They were mostly doing what appeared to be superficial repairs and removing bodies. They did, however, eventually move towards the monitoring stations. When that happened, Chief got Cortana out of the systems for security purposes. She still monitored their actions however, ever watchful for any attempts to reveal their position. Nothing came of the fear though, the Huragok just seemed more interested in getting the Carrier back up and running rather than attempting to retake it. This came as a surprise to some, but not Shepard. Back when Liara notified him of how things were going in his absence, she had told him of her own encounter with a Huragok and how apparently they only had one prime function, to help. It didn't really matter who they helped it seemed.

"So they pose no threat?" Holland asked again as Shepard finished relaying the information.

"None that I'm aware of," Shepard assured. "From what Liara explained, they're like living super computers and very skilled in mechanics."

"More importantly they can get most ships back up and running in practically no time at all," Zek was quick to inform. "Seriously, this many of them we could finish half the repairs on the Serpent in no time."

"Does that include your slipspace drive?" Haverson asked.

"Well, it's pretty badly damaged last we checked," Zek admitted. "It would still probably be easier to just get a new one at this point."

That was really all that Haverson seemed to care about as he quickly went back to overlooking a nearby console. Zek didn't appreciate being so easily brushed aside, but he refrained from saying anything. Shepard was grateful for that, after the recent confrontation he had had with the UNSC it was probably best the pirate not push his luck at the moment.

"If they're no threat to us I suppose we should just let them be," Holland presumed. "Cortana and EDI's cyberwarfare did a serious number on the ship's systems. They're more qualified to get it back to a hundred percent operational status than us. That gives us more time to take stock and remove any hidden tracking devices aboard the carrier."

"Agreed, sir," Haverson concurred. "I already have units searching for any tracking devices as we speak. It would probably go faster if we could ask these Huragok where the things are, but I'm not sure they understand us, let alone care."

"Probably best to just give them their space for now," Shepard told him. "They are awfully busy."

At that moment, Shepard and Haverson spotted the Master Chief at the bottom of the ramp. He was awkwardly trying to get a Huragok to leave him alone. The odd floating ball kept creeping up behind him though for whatever reason. Shepard and Haverson approached the pair, the Spartan still uneasy about how close it was to him.

"Commander, I'm not sure why this thing is interested in me," Chief admitted plainly. "Your friend back home didn't happen to tell you how to tell these things to go away did she?"

"I don't think it's interested in you, Chief," Shepard replied, trying to stifle a laugh. "I think it's interested in the damage your armor sustained."

"Don't remind me of that," Cortana huffed over the radio. "I can only do so much in terms of repairing systems in here. Honestly, I leave him alone for a little less than an hour and he trashes the suit."

"It's called a firefight," Chief informed the AI. "I can't avoid every plasma bolt and sword swing."

"Excuses, excuses," Cortana prodded. "Point is, maybe you should let the weird tentacle ball take a look. Couldn't hurt, right?"

Chief thought it over for a moment, giving the Huragok a dressing down with his eyes. Eventually he shrugged and turned his back to the alien creature.

"Alright, see what you can do," he said.

The Huragok quickly got to work, sealing up the compromised scratches and scars in the armor. Haverson and Shepard watched in awe as the alien quickly repaired the complex technology of the MJONIR armor with ease. When it finally pulled away, Chief's suit barely had a scratch on it. Cortana quickly reported in.

"Hey, all systems nominal," she informed the Spartan and those nearby. "In fact, I think power consumption has been slightly improved. Shields are back online and better than ever."

"Amazing," Haverson observed. "It's never seen this technology before and it's both fixed and improved it."

"Told ya, supercomputer," Shepard reiterated. "Liara wasn't kidding about their capabilities."

"I think we should consider talking to this Doctor T'Soni more often then," Haverson suggested.

"Well she is busy with her own thing, last I checked," Shepard admitted. "I'm sure she'll be happy to share any extra intel she has on hand."

Haverson nodded, but his eyes kept glued to the Huragok. It bobbed it's head once or twice at Chief kindly and started floating away. Shepard watched as it joined with two others of it's kind and he couldn't help but smile. Here was an alien race, as inhuman looking as possible, and they had done nothing but be helpful. Perhaps this was his opening, to convince the UNSC the value of the Zek as a true ally. It could be at least start in getting the Jackal back in their good graces, he thought.

Then he saw Haverson slowly go for his pistol. To Shepard's horror, he started aiming it at the Huragok who had fixed Master Chief's armor. He wouldn't, no he couldn't.

"Fascinating creature," Haverson said as he started to squeeze the trigger.

Shepard didn't hesitate, he rushed out and grabbed the Lieutenant's arm firmly. He wrenched it away from the Huragok and forced it from his hand. The three floating aliens heard the struggle and turned to the two humans, although Shepard had his gaze locked on Haverson, his eyes in a rage.

"What the hell are you doing?!" He demanded to know.

"I'm sorry, Commander," Haverson calmly replied. "I don't want to do this, but I have to consider protocol here."

"Protocol?" Shepard bellowed back in anger. "The alien helps you and you plan to shoot it in the back? Since when did protocol give you to right to carry out executions for being friendly?"

"Sir, this isn't up to me," Haverson tried explain.

"What's going on here?"

Holland approached, interrupting the dispute that had quickly gained the attention of everyone nearby. Garrus, Tali, Zek and the Master Chief quickly crowded around the area.

"It's nothing, sir," Haverson insisted. "I'm just trying to inform the Commander about an unpleasant situation we find ourselves in. The Huragok over there was inside the Spartan Armor. I appreciate it fixing the gear, but now it has access to classified intelligence concerning the MJONIR suit. As an ONI officer, I have a duty to protect that secret."

"So you were going to kill it so it wouldn't talk?" Shepard asked dumbfounded. "That's insane. You're executing it for just trying to help."

"Sounds like a war crime to me," Garrus noted.

Haverson, to his credit, didn't seem offended by the accusation but he did look a bit exasperated regardless.

"Look, I understand this isn't exactly kosher and that Huragok was probably just being a Good Samaritan," he admitted. "But it's a security risk now. It has classified data concerning the MJONIR armor and it's weaknesses. If that got into the hands of the Covenant it could do who knows what kinds of damage."

"We still don't execute prisoners of war for what might happen," Shepard reminded him. "If we did that we'd just kill every POW outright for the possibility of them escaping and rejoining the war effort."

"Perhaps the rules of conduct work across species' lines back home, Commander," Haverson countered. "But here, the Covenant don't have the same rights we afford our fellow humans. They never signed the Geneva Convention or any of those treaties from back when."

"What a surprise, an out," Tali huffed in disgust. "Same old ONI, dirty deeds by dirty people."

That Haverson seemed to take offense to, stiffening up in response.

"I told you, this isn't my call," he reminded her. "A security threat exists and it needs to be dealt with. Whether I like or not, it's not up to me. I'm following security protocols set up by the UNSC, nothing more. This is a potential leak that needs to be plugged."

"And the only way to do that is killing it then?" Tali asked angrily. After an extra second or two thought she then took a breath and calmed down. "Trust me, I've been where you are. I get you're just trying to protect your people. That doesn't make this any less wrong. There has to be other options besides an unceremonious execution."

"Well I'm open to suggestions if nothing else," Haverson admitted, sounding still a bit annoyed. "If anyone has a better solution to this then let's hear it."

Shepard gave it some thought, but he could only come to one solution. What mattered though was if they'd buy it.

"Confine them to a specific boundary," he suggested. "A place secure enough to keep them out of trouble. I can take the one that fixed Chief's armor and these two others with it. You know, just to be safe. We keep them confined to the Normandy. I'll put them in engineering, let them help out Tali and the others. EDI and Miranda can monitor them, make sure they stay out of trouble."

"We could always use the extra hands," Tali added enthusiastically. "From what we've seen and what Liara has told us, I'd be happy to have them on the crew."

"What if it looks like they might be compromised or recaptured by the Covenant?" Haverson asked. "Would you be prepared to make sure they cannot acquire the intel they now carry?"

"If it comes to that I'll do it myself," Shepard assured. "But I won't execute prisoners without probable cause. That's non-negotiable in my book."

Haverson thought for a moment, seriously considering the options. Eventually he sighed and looked to Holland.

"I'll be honest, I wasn't big on killing the thing in the first place," he admitted. "Colonel, I see no reason to suggest Shepard is incapable of maintaining a tight ship. He's proven himself time and again. If he feels he can adequately secure the aliens, then by all means he should be allowed to do so."

"Agreed," Holland nodded. "Commander, you now have three new engineers as it were. They are confined to your ship and are your responsibility. I trust that you can handle them."

"Thank you, sir," Shepard replied, saluting the Colonel.

At that moment, Zek began to clap lightly.

"Excellent negotiation and a most splendid outcome," he declared. "Killing huragok is such a waste. You made the right call on this one, Colonel. And since Shepard has three of his own now, I think we-"

"No," Holland said, cutting the jackal off.

Zek looked a bit aghast at the sudden renewed tension in the human's voice.

"But, you didn't even hear what I was-"

"No," Holland reiterated, his voice even more firm than before. "I am not going to give you a bunch of living supercomputers to play with. I already approved your request through Shepard to head to this special port of yours, you don't need the Huragok. More importantly, this incident says to me that we need to keep a closer eye on these creatures, these... Engineers as it were."

"An appropriate designation, given their fascination with fixing things, specifically ships," Haverson concurred.

"Point is, we need to keep them secured," Holland continued. "And frankly, Zek, I don't think your ship is all that secure in my mind."

Zek perched an eyebrow and scowled at the Colonel.

"What's that supposed to mean?" He demanded to know, stepping closer to the human's face.

"It means I don't trust you," Holland bluntly stated. "Placing a bunch of aliens on your ship, aliens who can apparently acquire and store knowledge is too great a risk in our given circumstances. We need to keep them monitored to avoid anymore potential leaks."

"You can't just claim them all for yourselves!" Zek protested. "We took this tub together, we split the resources evenly! That's the rules!"

"And I'll remind you, we are not here to here to help you build your own private pirate fleet," Holland stated sternly. "Given what these aliens can do, adding them your crew would be us doing just that."

Zek groaned outwardly as he stepped away.

"This again? Honestly, you humans just can't let anything go, can you?" He complained. "That shit was in the past!"

"It was less than ten minutes ago when we found out you were using us to get you a capital ship," Haverson reminded him, almost in disbelief at the Jackal's statement.

"Details, still the past," Zek said waving his hand about flippantly. "Just let it go, I say. Look, I'll trade you some extra supplies. You want a wraith tank? There's plenty in the hold."

Holland crossed his arms, his face souring.

"You are not getting the Engineers," he said plainly. "We are not risking another security leak. That's final. If you want them, you go through us, you clear it with us and a squad comes with the creature aboard the ship to keep an eye on it and your crew."

"I suggest only one at a time," Haverson added. "Just for added safety."

"Unbelievable!" Zek shouted in frustration. "Escorts? Permission? What is this, parole? You're treating me like a common criminal!"

"You are a criminal," Garrus cut in dryly.

"I am a pirate, good sir," Zek replied defensively. "I deserve a bit more credit than that! I helped take this ship. Whatever the motive may have been, I helped. And all I get is one Huragok under guard for a limited amount of time at your leisure?"

"Take it or leave it," Holland said plainly.

Zek balled his fists, scrunched his face and then let out a short angry scream before stomping off, grumbling and moaning.

"I think that basically means he's taking it," Tali said.

"Let's hope so," Holland stated. "I think I've had enough of dealing with that Jackal for today. Commander, I suggest you get your new crewmates squared away. Haverson, we still have things to attend to. You're all dismissed, good work today everyone."

Shepard watched Haverson and Holland walk away. Chief stayed behind, finally speaking up after the whole discussion was over.

"You handled that well, sir," he told the Commander. "I'd say I was surprised they let you keep the Engineers as it were. ONI protocol has few loopholes."

"Do you approve?" Shepard asked.

"I didn't say anything before because it wasn't my place," Chief explained. "But I wouldn't have liked seeing one of these aliens get killed just for helping me out. Feels like a waste. A rather pointless waste."

Chief sounded a little off when he said that, but Shepard chose not to pursue it. He kept the subject on the matter at hand.

"Thanks for telling me that," he told him. "To be honest, I was a bit worried I was biting off more than I can chew for a second. Knowing you agree makes this seem less crazy."

"We better get them aboard the ship, Shepard," Garrus cautioned. "Just in case Holland changes his mind after that heated exchange."

"Alright," Shepard agreed, turning to the Huragok. "Come along guys, I'm going to show you your new home."

The Huragok looked about oddly for a moment, but then slowly started to follow Shepard. He wasn't sure how this would turn out, but he wasn't too concerned now. The Normandy had plenty of weird aliens aboard it, what was three more?

---

Zek arrived back on the Fallen Serpent, currently docked with the carrier. He was still in a foul mood and every kig-yar and unggoy nearby gave him a wide berth. Only Retz was brave enough to actually speak to him as he passed by his door, mumbling and grumbling as he stomped up the corridor.

"I take it things didn't go as planned," Retz said matter-of-factly.

"Completely unreasonable," Zek suddenly shouted. "I didn't realize how stubborn humans could be. Worse than Jiralhanae! Must run in the primate family!"

"Yep, went bad," Retz noted aloud. "I warned you."

Zek ignored the comment, continuing his rant as he started pace from side to side.

"I offer to help blow up Halo of my own accord, they treat me like scum," he began listing off furiously. "I get them a ship off Halo sans Flood, they treat me like even worse scum. I help them snatch a seriously awesome assault carrier with tons of firepower, they treat me like the scummiest of scums! And when I find out the carrier is loaded with Huragok who could keep our ships repaired consistently for free, what do they do? They won't even let me have one! No! I have to ask permission to borrow, actually borrow mind you as in I do have to give it back, and they will have it under guard at all times! It's insane! Disrespectful!"

"To be fair," Retz said morosely. "We didn't exactly inform them about our real motives behind snaring the assault carrier. That probably put them in a bad mood."

"Oh don't you start now," Zek warned, shoving his finger in Retz's face. "Honestly, so we had our own reasons that were more self-serving. Who doesn't have those? No reason to get all pissy about it just because I didn't tell them every little detail."

"I don't really think it's so much that we lied to them," Retz admitted. "I actually think it's more about the fact they feel used in a way. I mean they benefitted, but to them it feels like we got more out of it."

"But that's how business works," Zek argued in disbelief. "One side always benefits a bit more than the other in some way, what matters is that everyone comes away with something."

Retz nodded, showing he agreed, but his face showed he was still clearly playing devil's advocate for the moment.

"The issue is, humans have this thing if you will," he tried to explain. "Something they call altruism."

Zek stopped pacing and looked at Retz in confusion.

"What is that? A disease?" He asked.

"No, it's basically a concept," Retz said, struggling to explain his point. "It's about giving or doing something for another person without expecting anything in return."

"So, a sucker then?" Zek asked, still pretty confused.

"The humans don't see it that way," Retz informed him. "It's like charity of a sort, it's seen as a kindness, something that makes you trustworthy because it suggests you don't want something from someone for being nice to them."

"Everyone wants something, what's the point of being nice if you don't get something out of it?" Zek asked, his confusion boiling over into bewildered frustration. "These humans are crazy. Charity, goodwill, something for nothing? How have they survived this long?"

Retz sighed and shrugged his shoulders, returning Zek's own confused look.

"The point is, humans trust you more if you don't expect them to give you things in return for your services," he informed him.

"Hey, I gave them those plasma rifles for free," Zek argued.

"Did you expect them to owe you a favor later?" Retz asked.

"A little, yeah," he admitted.

"Then it wasn't really altruistic," Retz informed him.

Zek could only groan at the conversation before placing his head against a wall.

"Ugh, working with humans is so hard," he grumbled. "It was a lot more fun when we were blowing things up together with Shepard. Now I gotta deal with a bunch of military jerks who don't even want me around half the time. It's like negotiating with a rogue razorfin, they just won't give you an inch."

"That might be a bit harsh," Retz said plainly. "The razorfin would've eaten you six times over by now."

"Fine, it's like trying to talk to a sangheili, only without the religious warrior race crap getting in the way," Zek grumbled. "Point is it's tiring."

Retz shook his head, seeing his friend in such distress was never good. Mainly because it meant he'd probably drink more ichor than usual and they were running low on it by now. So he'd be in a foul mood for awhile unless he did something. Luckily, Retz was a step or two ahead of that.

"This might cheer you up," he told Zek with a grin as he pulled out a datapad. "I cleared this with Commander Shepard's lovely XO. We have something to trade for the slipspace drive at the Hollow now. With any luck it will probably be an improved model too, a decent upgrade to our original. Better than a Huragok patch job possibly."

Zek took the pad and his frown instantly vanished as his eyes darted over the information

"This is good, Retz," he said. "The Old Man can't say no to this, not if he's smart. We'll be back in business in no time."

"There's a bit more actually," Retz was quick to add, a sly smile stretching across his face. "I was able to get something else while I was in their systems. It's not classified material, only reason I was able to make a copy of it without getting spotted. It's probably not something we can trade, but it is interesting. It's some massive file that belongs to the Normandy's pilot. Have a look."

Retz activated his wrist computer and brought up a hologram with a list of titles stretching for what seemed liked forever. Zek curiously scrolled through the various files, scratching under his beak slightly as he did. He stopped on one title in particular, his interest now piqued.

"What is a Muppet?" He asked. "And why is it on an island full of treasure?"

"No idea," Retz admitted. "Want to find out?"

"Sure, why not," he shrugged. "Hell, get the boys together. This could be interesting."

---

"It called you a blasphemer?" Tali asked, still trying to wrap her head around it all.

"In so many words and among other things," Cortana reiterated as she stood on her holopanel "He only did so when I attempted to jump to slipspace though."

The Master Chief stood by as Cortana relayed her story to Tali. Her time inside the carrier's systems had apparently not been so uneventful. She pulled through it though, despite the many challenges. It was reminder of how valuable an AI was on these operations. Without her, they never would've gotten as far as they did. Keeping her functioning was going to be more and more important as the days went by.

So when Tali asked if she could run a diagnostic, Chief readily accepted. This time though, he decided to come along. Cortana was part of his team now, it was his duty to make sure everything was running smoothly. Tali didn't object and let him come to the side room within the newly christened Crusty Chorka to watch her work. That was when Cortana began relaying her adventure in Covenant cyberspace with EDI, particularly their encounter with the Covenant AI.

"Why would it call you a blasphemer for jumping to slipspace?" Chief asked.

"I don't think it was so much about the jump as it was about the location," Cortana explained. "I was activating it within the gas giant's atmosphere. Something tells me that's not a thing the Covenant are fond of. Possibly out of fear it's too risky, that it would destroy the ship. But it seems there is a religious connotation as well. One that that the AI apparently picked up on after being in their custody for so long."

"Well they do treat their ships like holy vessels from what I understand," Tali recalled as she continued running her diagnostic. "It's possible that the AI, at some point after it was captured, mixed up their religious doctrine with ship protocol because of that. It was pretty badly degraded before you killed it after all."

"It still suggests the Covenant view even slipspace travel through a religious lens," Cortana observed. "The fear of what might happen if they do it has given them pause. Now though, we've proven it can be done."

Chief picked up on Cortana's meaning fairly quickly.

"You mean they could alter their rules," he thought aloud. "Attempt to jump in atmosphere themselves if they now believe it's safe."

"Possibly," Cortana answered. "Although they'd still have to be pretty desperate to try that in any case. Our attempt caused some light structural damage, although our Engineer friends have already started repairs on the affected sections last I checked. If the Covenant try the same trick down the line, it's possible some of their vessels could be damaged similarly."

"Maybe we'll get lucky and they'll think we died in our jump," Tali suggested. "At least for a little while."

Chief hoped Tali was right. Moreso that would take the heat off of them for awhile. They were still on the Covenant wanted list after all. If it was believed they had died, then they wouldn't be on their radar for some time. That and they wouldn't try activating slipspace within the atmosphere of any planets any time soon. That could be potentially dangerous given the location.

"Speaking of the Engineers," Cortana said, suddenly changing subjects. "How are the three Holland let you keep settling in?"

"Fairly well for the most part," Tali said shrugging. "The Normandy didn't take much in the way of damage so they're mostly floating around prodding at things with their tentacles. I finally managed to get them into engineering and away from the main battery. Garrus would've flipped if they started messing with his weapons calibrations. I left them with Donelly and Daniels, told them to have them regulate the reactor core for a bit. Should keep them distracted until we can figure out what to do with them."

"I'm sure you'll find a use for them soon," Cortana assured her. "You basically have three living supercomputers floating around your engineering bay. Something is bound to come up."

"I don't doubt it," Tali agreed. "But they're still fairly strange creatures. For supposedly being so smart they're almost child-like half the time. Mess Sergeant Gardner caught one playing with a blender's settings before it started trying to take it apart. He was not happy about that, let me tell you. Here's hoping they stay out of Jack's hidey hole, she will be far less accommodating."

Tali then shut off her omni-tool and beamed a bright look at Cortana directly.

"Everything checks out," she assured. "No damage to your systems and your matrix is in optimal condition. The rampant AI's attack was superficial at best. I think it was too far gone to be of any real threat to you physically."

"That's an understatement," Cortana said, huffing at the memory of her encounter. A smile quickly returned though. "Still good to hear I don't have to do any systems repairs. After all, we got work to do, right, Chief?"

"Always," the Spartan said, pulling the empty chip from his interface. "Ready?"

The AI nodded in reply. He stuck the chip into the nearby port and Cortana began to upload herself to it. When she was done, Chief pulled the chip back out and returned it to his neural interface.

"Have I told you your skull is starting to become fairly homey?" She asked playfully. "Not sure why, but it just feels cozy. I'm considering shag carpeting."

"I don't believe that's possible," he told her.

"Hmm, you're right, perhaps just a bit tacky," she teased.

Chief still didn't understand where Cortana got her unique wit from. Halsey never acted like her, ever, in the time he had known her. Why she liked teasing him so often was beyond him, especially with the absurd notion of decorating his neural uplink's cyberspace with carpets. It was oddly comforting though, so he didn't put much effort in telling her to stop.

"I didn't get the chance before to thank you by the way," Tali spoke up graciously. "That was a close shave when we got flanked in navigation. You put yourself on the line for me there."

"It wouldn't have had to come to that if Varvok had just kept us informed about what he was doing," he told her plainly. "Don't think much of it in any case. I'd have done the same for anyone on the squad, it's part of the job."

"Heh, I should've suspected you'd say that," Tali said giggling slightly. "You and Shepard are a lot alike after all. Doesn't change the fact I'm glad you were watching our backs, you and your fellow Spartans."

Only partially true, only Linda was one of his Spartans. Kat and Jun were different from him. That didn't make them any less capable of course. They were great soldiers, he was lucky to have them working with him. They weren't his old teammates though, the ones his thoughts kept drifting back to. It was hard to talk about this outside the Spartans and only Linda could really share the pain of losing the rest of Blue Team. Kat and Jun had lost their team too, but this was a bit different. The nature of his concerns prevented him from sharing them with Linda. So besides Cortana, it was hard to find someone to talk to.

Shepard had tried to get him to open up to the other Marines, but that didn't work so well. Tali, however, he fought beside plenty. Speaking to her would probably not be nearly as awkward. It was worth a shot.

"Tell me, have you ever been part of a team before?" He asked.

Tali's bright eyes seemed to dim a bit through her visor, he probably asked a sensitive question. Too late to go back now though. The quarian, to her credit, pressed through whatever bad memories she clearly had.

"Well, I've led a few," she admitted, rubbing her arm slightly. "Not all turned out so well. Lost a lot of people. Wasn't ready for it."

"I'm sorry," Chief apologized as gracefully as he could. "I know how that feels myself."

"It's okay," Tali assured. "I've been dealing with it for awhile now. The guilt never seems to go away, but it becomes manageable. I'm probably not the best military leader, that I know now."

He could recall every time he ever felt like that. He wasn't always the perfect leader, he had to learn fast back in the program. Had to earn the respect of his team, of the other candidates. It wasn't easy. He lost a lot of them before they ever really fought a real battle, those probably hurt the most because there was nothing he could've done.

"Sometimes things just go wrong," he told the quarian. "Nothing we can do about it. We just push on. I've had to learn that the hard way."

"Doesn't stop you from thinking what you could've done differently," Tali added thoughtfully. "For now though, I think it's safer if the only thing I'm leading is engineering. That I'm comfortable with."

This was clearly a difficult topic for Tali, one he was all too familiar with. He didn't want to intrude too much, but at the same time he had a burning question, one he felt only she could really answer.

"Those teammates you lost, were you close to them?" He asked.

"Not all," she admitted. "But a good number were my friends and I do miss them."

"You said before you sometimes think of ways you could've saved them," Chief recalled. "What if you ever thought one of them was still alive?"

Tali looked confused for a moment. Chief had remained his usual stoic self, but the quarian was starting to pick up on something. While she did seem suspicious, she didn't question him. She just tried to answer his question.

"If I ever lost a friend and found out they might be alive, I'd go after them in a heartbeat," she proclaimed firmly. "But, at the same time, I'd have to be sure there was a chance. At the very least, I'd want to get answers, to know for sure if they were alive or not."

Chief nodded at that, only then did Tali start to pry a bit.

"Is... something bothering you?" She asked.

"It's nothing," he assured her. "Just some thoughts I've had."

Whether Tali would started asking more questions would remain a mystery. Her omni-tool started to chime and when she answered it her eyes grew wide.

"I have to go, something has come up," she explained. "Sorry about this."

"It's alright, go," Chief assured her, secretly happy something had interrupted the conversation before it got too personal.

"Thanks again, it was nice talking to you," she said as she left.

When Tali was gone, Cortana spoke up at last.

"You might be able to get rid of her, mainly because she's too nice to keep forcing the issue," she told him firmly. "But I'm stuck in your head and you can't fool me. What's wrong?"

"It's complicated," he admitted. "I'm not entirely sure it would make any sense either."

Cortana's response was almost expected at this point.

"Go ahead," she said dryly. "Try me."

---

"Friggin insane," Ellingham growled. "We're hired muscle for them, that's how they see us."

"At least we get something out of it," Pearson tried to argue. "Doesn't make me feel less used though."

"We probably should've suspected this," Ramirez added. "We called them Jackals for a reason."

Kowalski, who had just returned to the barracks after getting his daily rations, didn't have to think hard on exactly what his squadmates were since the end of the Assault Carrier siege, murmurings of Holland and Haverson's confrontation with the Jackal leader Zek had spread through the ranks. Everyone had already suspected the space pirates had their own agenda, some reason they wanted the Carrier to be taken. Having your suspicions confirmed was one thing though. Finding out the real reason for the operation was because the Jackals thought of them as extra muscle to help them build their own fleet was another. No Marine liked feeling used. The fact it was a Covie, former or otherwise, seemingly using them didn't sit well with many.

As Kowalski sat down beside his friends near their makeshift bunks, he was pulled instantly into the conversation.

"If they try this shit again, we're not taking it lying down," Ellingham said proudly. "Hell, Kowalski here knows how to operate one of their biggest boomsticks now. That alone should given them pause."

"They letting you keep that thing?" Agley asked curiously. "Not exactly standard issue."

"I don't know," Kowalski shrugged. "It's a bit harder to control than a rocket launcher. No idea how those grunts do it without falling on their ass. Guess their height helps, lower center of mass and all that. Last I saw of mine they were carting it off to storage with the other guns."

"Holland probably figures we need to conserve our ammo," Pearson reasoned. "We can recharge the plasma rifles and such, but those things aren't the same. Going to need them in case we run into anything serious I imagine."

"Either way, we should get used to using alien weapons," Ramirez suggested as he picked at his food. "We got a lot more of those now than our regular guns."

The change in topic made Kowalski wonder, what exactly were they worried about encountering? Before, he figured the Covenant, obviously. Then they got the Carrier and he started thinking, what did they expect us to fight? If a Covie ship attacked wouldn't it be more up to their mini-fleet to deal with? After what had happened today, Holland would probably be reluctant to steal any more ships. Agley seemed to share his thoughts, given his next question.

"What exactly are we going to use them on anyway?" He asked. "It's not like we're just going to stop on random planets here and there. We're supposed to be going home."

"Yeah, but it's not that simple," Ramirez reminded him. "We're in the middle of nowhere, with who knows how many Covenant occupied planets surrounding us. Cole protocol says we can't go to Earth until we lose the Covies, which from what I'm hearing is going to take awhile. Supplies are going to be an issue until we get back to friendly space. Why you think we're rationing? At some point we're going to run across a planet or two and probably have to head down to get supplies. Who knows what we'll encounter down there."

"Things up here aren't exactly peachy either though," Ellingham reminded them. "We have the stink bird people next door, remember?"

Everyone suddenly got a bit less comfortable at that remark. Ellingham was stepping on some shaky ground, no one blamed him, but it did make it harder to eat. Kowalski tried to ease things over.

"I don't think it's a good idea to start thinking that," he warned.

"Do you like the idea of being their personal ship wrangler?" Ellingham asked sardonically.

"Not really," he admitted. "Hell, I'm as pissed as you are about us getting duped. But like Pearson said, we got something out of it. Covenant will think twice before engaging a damn Assault Carrier."

Ramirez laughed slightly, almost choking on his food.

"Kowalski is agreeing with Pearson," he chuckled. "This is a bad omen. Humanity is doomed for sure."

"When I'm right, I'm right," Pearson confidently stated, dipping a bit of his bread into a cup of soup. "Even Kowalski will admit to that."

"Funny," Kowalski said rather deadpan. "Point is, I don't think they're a danger to us. Not directly. I mean they see us as a resource. I'm not happy with that, but it means they don't want us gone."

"And what happens when we aren't valuable to them?" Ellingham asked frowning slightly. "Look, I agreed with allying with them. Best option among a lot of bad ones in my mind. But we can't ignore the fact they aren't exactly the most reputable aliens around. They aren't like our Normandy pals, they're space pirates. They're shifty by job description, plus they're Jackals so they're also shifty by nature. We need to be careful."

"You might be right, Ellingham," Pearson admitted. "But technically that kind of stuff is above our paygrade. We're just Marines, we don't have a seat at the Captain's table. Ship to ship politics are out of our hands."

Agley suddenly started looking shiftly around, his head slightly cocked to the side.

"Well, maybe not all our hands," he said, his eyes trying to avoid directly looking at Kowalski and failing.

Kowalski just sighed, placing his plate down on the floor.

"Oh this again," he grumbled. "Guys, for the last time, Sam and me are just friends and even if it were more than that it wouldn't suddenly give me a special 'in' with Commander Shepard."

"But you did talk to him before," Ramirez reminded him, shoving a spoonful into his mouth.

"So did Ellingham, doesn't mean anything," Kowalski growled. "I can't get you guys special privileges. That includes their heavy weapons, their cool gear or pictures of Officer Lawson in her lingerie."

"Way to kill a man's dreams, dude," Pearson mockingly replied, shaking his head.

Kowalski just grimaced slightly.

"Aw leave him alone guys," Ellingham said, backing up his friend. "He's right, he can't just ask Samara to get him stuff from Shepard. That Asari's code is pretty lock tight from what he keeps telling me. I don't think she'd appreciate being used anymore than we do. Besides, it's a bit of touchy subject for him, what with the fact there's no way it's happening."

Kowalski rolled his eyes, there it was the usual sudden backhanded teasing he had gotten used to.

"What exactly does that mean?" He asked.

"Well for one you're way too nice a guy and you practically refuse to try and make a move," Ellingham added. "Also, she's still entirely out of your league."

"That has nothing to do with it," Kowalski argued. "She's not looking for a relationship. She has other things on her mind. Like a ton of things."

"He's probably worried he might screw up real bad and she'll be forced to kill him," Pearson said rather nonchalantly. "Reasonable fear given she can crush people with their own gravity."

"No," Kowalski vehemently denied. "I never feel in danger around her, period. She's just nice to talk to. She's six centuries old, she has a lot to share, needs to share. And I like listening to her. It's a nice break from military life for a few hours. That's it."

The slight grins across the squad's faces dissipated, as Kowalski started eating his food with a furious scowl.

"Alright, alright," Ellingham said putting up his hands. "I'm sorry, we're sorry. We get that you like her and you could use someone to talk to. I get that man. We're just, you know, busting your chops a little, we mean nothing by it."

"Yeah, just some jokes among friends," Ramirez added. "You have someone to let off steam to. That's good. Thing is, just know where you're at with this and what you want out of it. Best for all parties involved."

Kowalski sighed and let his anger slip away. Ramirez had a point, he wasn't always sure what he wanted. All he knew was that Samara had been struggling with a lot of things, her code specifically, had been since the Autumn went down. He'd been dealing with a ton of crap since Reach and a lot more after Halo. Samara was the one friend that made it easier to process things after all that. He kept wondering how much he should ask about her or talk to her. It wasn't always easy to figure out what he wanted to say. In a way, maybe the guys were onto something. Maybe he should try to engage with her more, that meant getting to know her own friends aboard the Normandy. Hard to find time for that currently though.

"Yeah, okay, I'm sorry guys," he relented. "Didn't mean to snap at you. Guess I'm a bit worked up after today."

"No worries there, we all are," Pearson said, raising his bread to eat it. He stopped suddenly though, looking off to the side. "Some more than others it seems. Look who's crashing dinner time for the barracks."

Pushing and shoving their way past every Marine in the barracks were a small group of ODSTs. Most Marines tried to give them a wide berth. You didn't want to get in a Drop Trooper's way. Problem was, they seemed intent on finding someone to get in their way. They were cussing at anyone who even looked at them, shoving Marines to the side, basically being intentionally antagonistic. Either they knew no one would do anything because of their reputation or they wanted someone to try fight back. They finally ended their little march when they found a table to sit down at just off to the side of Kowalski and his squad's bunks.

"Christ, can't believe this shit," one grumbled in a low growl.

"Fucking Jackals, man," another growled. "Silva called it and these fuckers all ignored him. Idiots."

Kowalski couldn't help but grimace at the Drop Troopers and he wasn't the only one. The rest of the squad of giving them similar looks of disdain, save for one. Agley, probably sensing the tension, tried to get everyone to stop.

"Come on, guys," he cautioned. "They're just looking for a reason. We were talking shit too."

"I wasn't taking it out on other people," Ellingham snorted.

The ODSTs continued their private, yet not so hushed, conversation.

"Holland got tricked once by those bastards, it's gonna happen again," one warned.

"Yeah, and more of us are going to pay the price," another huffed. "If Silva were here he'd never have gone for that bullshit mission. The wrong Commanding Officer died on Halo."

"Amen to that," a third agreed. "Now we got an idiot Spartan fanboy Colonel and a xeno-lover Commander running this shit. Plus McKay, fucking traitor."

The ODSTs all started grumbling and nodding their heads in agreement. All Ellingham could do was shake his head.

"Their Major disobeyed direct orders and they're calling McKay the traitor?" He said, properly whispering unlike the Drop Troopers. "Hypocrite drop pod jockeys, they would've all gotten us infected by the damn Flood if they had their way."

"They're just jackasses," Ramirez said, breaking his own glare at last. "Once they let off enough steam and no one bites, they'll leave."

The ODSTs continued however, ever more intent on riling up the Marines around them.

"These fuckers are buying it too," one said. "Spartan bullshit legends, Shepard's garbage cooperation spiel. Dumb jarhead dipshits."

"They probably love being the Jackals' bitches," laughed one with a sneer. "They followed that Turian asshole easily enough."

Ellingham suddenly bolted up and no one could really move fast enough to stop him. All Kowalski could do was follow his friend. He should've suspected this, Ellingham's fuse was always painfully short. Had been since even before boot camp. He marched up to in range of the ODSTs and then shot back with his own insults.

"Hey," he said snarling and bearing his teeth. "Last I checked, Mutineers don't get to walk around freely among the people who followed orders like they were trained to. You wanna talk shit? Head to the brig where you fuckers belong."

The ODSTs got up from their seats, almost grinning as they did. Kowalski stepped up beside Ellingham, just as they started crowding around him.

"What's a matter, Devil Dog?" The Lead Drop Trooper asked as he pounded his fist into his palm. "Don't like being reminded how you're a fucking xeno-loving piece of shit?"

"Truth hurts, don't it, Private," another growled.

"You want truth?" Ellingham asked. "How about the fact your beloved gloryhound Major Silva almost got us all killed because he wanted a fucking parade? Garrus and the Spartans saved our asses, yours included."

"And now we're working for Jackals," the ODST leader sneered. "Not much of save if we're being used by a flock of ugly pirate birds."

Kowalski couldn't deny he was getting annoyed with these Drop Troopers himself, but he really did not want to start a damn brawl in the barracks over this. He wasn't much of a peacemaker, but maybe he could at least get these idiots to back off before things got worse.

"Look, nobody's happy about what happened, but you coming here to stir something up isn't helping anyone," he told the Drop Troopers. "We're supposed to be on the same team, remember? I think you should all just take off before this gets ugly."

"Or what, Private?" The ODST leader asked. "You gonna report us to that traitor McKay? Huh? You gonna be a fucking rat, is that it?"

"McKay's a better soldier than you four shits put together," Ellingham growled. "She's the reason the Spartans went easy on your sorry asses, you should be grateful."

"The day I'm grateful to a Spartan loving turncoat is the day I jump out of a ship without a Pod and into an asteroid headfirst," bellowed another of the drop troopers.

"Maybe you'd like some help getting there?!" Ellingham shouted back. "I can shove you in the airlock myself!"

Kowalski tried to push Ellingham back, he was not helping this situation. All he could do was put himself between them.

"This is stupid," he reiterated desperately. "There's nothing to gain out this, guys. Just go and we'll forget it ever happened, alright?"

"Fuck you, Private," the ODST leader said, shoving Kowalski slightly again and again. "We don't need to listen to you shits. We're the only real humans left on this ship. Rest of you fucks are just a bunch of damn xeno lovers. Go join Shepard and his crew of freaks if you wanna sleep with the enemy so much. Bet that blue whore bitch they got would give you a free ride or two, bout your speed I bet."

What happened next, Kowalski wasn't sure. His body reacted before his head could process the action. It was only after the ODST was getting lifted back off the table that he realized he had punched the man. Punched him so hard in fact that the drop trooper's nose was bleeding. His friends got him to his feet, and Kowalski, his fist still raised prepared for the follow up as the man snarled at him. However, his friends then alerted him to the scene around him. Their spat had drawn quite a crowd, mainly of none to happy fellow Devil Dogs who, like Kowalski, had reached their own limit of tolerance for the squad of interlopers. The injured Drop Trooper brushed the blood from his nose.

"Let's get out of here boys," he grumbled. "This place stinks of Benedict Arnolds and Quislings anyway."

He looked at Kowalski, who stood his ground.

"I better not find you alone, Private," he growled. "Next time, you won't have your pack of fellow Judases to save ya."

Kowalski narrowed his vision at the Trooper.

"Leave." he spat back firmly. "Now."

The squad of ODSTs left the Marine Barrack, eyed all the way by sour and disgruntled faces of Marines. When they finally left, things returned to normal. Ellingham patted Kowalski on the shoulder, breaking him out of his aggressive stance.

"Geez, dude," he said. "I always knew you had it in ya, but that was a shocker."

"Just be glad it didn't turn into a damn riot," Kowalski said, taking a great big relieved breath or two. "That was a really stupid move, I wasn't thinking."

"Yeah, but you had your fellow Marines backing ya up," Ellingham assured. "Asshole deserved it, talking shit about Shepard's crew like that. Don't worry about him, we'll keep an eye out. We could probably even tell McKay."

"Nah, I don't want more trouble," Kowalski said shaking his head. "This ship is a powder keg enough right now. I don't want to go looking like a snitch."

"Fair enough," Ellingham relinquished. "Hopefully those assholes cool down soon and forget about this."

Something told Kowalski that wasn't happening. This alliance with the batarians and Jackals was already on shaky ground as it was. How long before some ODST or Marines decided to stir up trouble with them instead of a fellow human? If that ever happened, well, a bloody nose would be least of anyone's worries.

---

Cortana was trying to be nice about this, she really was, but she couldn't lie about the fact, she wouldn't. Chief supposed he appreciated that, he hated the idea of being condescended to. It didn't make the truth any less hard to hear.

"I can keep going over the numbers for days, Chief," she reiterated again. "But I'm telling you, Reach is glassed, completely. Anyone who survived the initial phases of the Covenant attack is dead by now. I'm sorry."

"What if they made it underground," he asked. "Made it to a pre-glassed area, something."

"The chances of them surviving on a glassed world after the fact are even less," she informed him sadly. "The water is evaporated, vegetation is gone, animal life is vaporized, there's nothing to sustain anyone for any length of time. Bacteria is extinct. You know this. Even a Spartan can't last in an environment that long. Now if they got underground, it's possible they could survive for a time, but the chances are remote."

Chief shook his head in defeat. He knew all this. He knew she was right. It didn't change how he felt.

"I'm sorry," Cortana said sincerely. "I really am. I know how much they meant to you. I just don't see a way they could have survived this long. If you still want to go to Reach, you'd need some other reason, one better than a rescue mission for people who are more than likely ash by now."

"You not going to try and stop me from pursuing this?" He asked, a little more than surprised.

"Knowing you, nothing I say is going to deter you anyway," she explained. "All I can advise, is that if you want to settle this, you need a good reason to put in front of Holland and Haverson."

As always, Cortana knew what she was talking about. You couldn't just request a mission like this, especially in their position. It was too risky and you couldn't base an operation into enemy territory on a feeling. He had to think of another plan.

He entered the makeshift Spartan quarters aboard the Crusty Chorka, as it was now called. They had set up here after Halo's destruction. It wasn't much, some out of the way room, probably for storage or something. It was relatively small, but not many Spartans cared for space. With the Carrier in their possession, maybe they'd move to better quarters. For now, this would do.

Jun and Kat were off in their own corner, working on Kat's robotic arm from the looks of it. He found Linda field stripping her rifle near her bunk. He sat down next to her on a small crate.

"Targeting was off by a few inches," she said plainly. "Figured I'd clean it out, make sure it was in working order."

"Seemed to work just fine to me," he said.

"If it worked fine I'd have been confident enough to try a headshot on that Shipmaster," she explained. "I think next Op I'm going to ask Shepard if I can try out the Widow again. That thing was much more stable."

Linda had become more and more picky about her guns as the war went on. Every couple of missions she'd recheck her rifle and get back to how she felt it should operate. If she didn't think it was good enough for the job she got a new one. She never really kept a sentimental value concerning her weapon, it either worked or it didn't. Spartans were practical like that.

"How do we think we're doing?" He asked her.

"All things considered," she said as she began putting the rifle back together. "Better than I hoped. We have a carrier, we have more weapons and supplies and with both of those we have the firepower to stave off any future enemy forces. The only problem is the Jackals. We knew they had an ulterior motive, I didn't think it was about making them more powerful. At least we set the record straight."

A fair assessment as always, but he was looking for a bit more.

"What about us?" He asked more directly. "The team, I mean."

Linda looked away briefly across the room, but kept working.

"Jun's got a good head on his shoulders and a keen eye," she said. "He's a good second for a sniper team. Not that I need one. Kat is smart, mind for strategy. I respect her capabilities. She handles well under pressure, although she sometimes thinks she has a lot more to prove than she does. They worked well today and I have no doubt that trend will continue."

At least this meant Linda had adjusted fairly well to the new dynamic. It probably helped that she had worked with both of the Spartan IIIs before. They weren't the same, they didn't have the decades of training they did. They had the same scars though, probably a few more given how they got recruited. In a way, he was lucky. He didn't know his parents well enough to miss them. Kat and Jun saw theirs taken away by an enemy they couldn't fight. ONI used that to turn them into killing machines. His thoughts weren't centered on the morality of that, just what it could do to a person. The fact Jun and Kat were so well adjusted showed how capable they were.

Just like Kelly and Fred, just like every Spartan they lost.

"I've been thinking a lot about Blue Team," he suddenly admitted. "About the ones I sent planet-side."

Linda shoved the barrel back on the weapon and locked it in place.

"Kelly and Fred," she said morosely. "Yeah, so have I."

"Remember back in training," he asked. "That day we had to take down that squad of ODSTs with their shock sticks and tazers?"

Linda hummed slightly, the closest most Spartans got to laughing.

"Fred broke that one guy's nose against a tree," she recalled. "Didn't see it coming."

"Kelly grabbed the Mongoose," Chief added. "Led them right into the ambush site."

"Easiest extra rations we ever got," Linda said, cocking her head to the side. "Most satisfying too."

That was just one of many training exercises. They were so many it was hard to keep them all straight. After awhile they bleed into each other. Despite that though, they were still good memories, some of the best he had. Training was hell, never as bad as the implants and modifications, but still pretty grueling. Didn't matter though, not when he had his team, his friends.

"You ever think..." Chief paused for a moment, wondering whether it was right to fill Linda's head with this false hope he had suddenly got. "You think they might be alive?"

"All of our dead get listed as MIA," she shrugged. "Part of me likes to think that... I don't know, maybe they lived."

Linda stuck the scope back on at last, finishing her field strip and repair.

"It's a nice dream," she said, looking straight at him as she did. "That they're still fighting, that they're still out there. Holding onto it, it's comforting."

She stood up, still looking at him. What she said next, she spoke in an almost knowing tone.

"I'd rather not have it spoiled for me."

Linda walked away after that, probably off to see Garrus about a new weapon. He should've known better than to think he could dance around the question with her. Linda knew him too well, knew what he was thinking. He knew what she was saying, that he might not like what he found if he pursued this. His gut wouldn't let it go. It was his team, his friends. How did you just ignore that?

He got up and started to walk over to Kat and Jun. He got a better look at what they were doing with her arm. Kat had a tool kit out and had opened up the mechanics near the wrist to do some servo adjustments.

"Problems?" He asked.

"None," Kat assured. "I'm doing some personal upgrades. This Geth arm is impressive and Tali's specs are good, but I have my own ideas on how to improve it. With any luck, I can actually make this thing an even deadlier weapon in and of itself."

"You can already shock people's faces off with it," Jun reminded her. "What's next? Are you going to add a cannon or something?"

"This is not comic book, don't be ridiculous," Kat said sternly. "I just want to increase the strength threshold, maybe add a blade. The batarians have those projectile knives on their wrists, might be something to look into."

Jun just pulled himself back in his seat, giving Kat some space. Chief, in the meantime, took a seat in between them on a small crate. There was no sense in wasting time here. Linda had showed him how pointless it was to do so after all.

"How long were you two stationed on Reach?" He asked bluntly.

"A good while," Kat admitted. "Didn't think it would become such an active assignment."

"No one did," Chief concurred. "I heard from Shepard how you recovered something from a Forerunner ruin down there."

Kat stopped working briefly and looked to him.

"Data," she explained. "We managed to get it out in time. What exactly it was we never were told. Above our paygrade I suppose."

She said that almost annoyed. Things were classified for a reason, but Chief had to admit even he had problems with not always getting all the info. After all, that was why he was here.

"What can you tell me about these ruins?" He asked.

"Anything specific?" Kat asked.

"Not really," he admitted. "I just want to know if you think anything else could be down there."

---

When Tali had called him down to engineering, Shepard suspected it had something to do with their new arrivals. What he didn't suspect was to find the Huragok in full on work mode. They were buzzing around the whole room, pulling apart things and putting them back together with surprising speed. One of them was even working on the core itself. They had apparently integrated into the engineering crew almost immediately. That wasn't the surprising part though, that was when Tali showed him the specs.

"Are you sure these are right?" He asked the quarian as he looked over the readout reports.

"Everything checks out," she excitedly assured. "They've increased core efficiency by ten percent in the last couple of hours. That and they've located several dozen system errors and bugs we somehow missed, speeding up the computers significantly. Core shields are stronger than ever and power fluctuations have decreased, allowing the Normandy to fly faster and harder than ever before. They're even trying to increase our fuel efficiency and they're succeeding so far. They're finding problems in the ship's basic functions we missed and correcting them in practically no time at all. These creatures are amazing, Shepard!"

At that moment there was a slight commotion as one of the creatures lightly pushed Donnelly off his terminal. The man tried to get the Huragok to move, but the floating bluish-purple sack refused to budge.

"They're amazing, alright," he grumbled. "Amazingly pushy. Honestly, it's like why am I even here anymore? They keep taking over our stations so they can mess around with the ship's insides!"

"It is a bit annoying," Daniels concurred. "Even if the results are, you know, good."

"I don't think they understand the concept of working space" Shepard told them. "Either way, they are just here to help."

"Yeah, to help," Donnelly growled. "Not take my job."

The Huragok chirped slightly back at Kenneth and continued it's work on the terminal.

"Yeah, same to you, boy'o," Donnelly grumbled.

If the Huragok noticed Kenneth's angry retorts, it didn't show it. After a few more seconds it finished whatever it was doing at the terminal and floated away.

"As much as I appreciate all they're doing, I feel like we're wasting them," Tali explained. "They've been maximizing our engineering output, but that seems trivial work for three living supercomputers."

"How do you think they've managed to master our technology so fast?" Shepard asked curiously as he watched one of the Huragok start opening a wall panel.

"Best guess is they're sharing information with each other at a lighting fast rate," Tali surmised. "Kind of like the Geth and the Neural Net. They're able to share what they learn about our technology with those in close proximity. One learns and passes on the information to the others. They're constantly doing that, sharing information and building upon it. If there was just one aboard any of the ships in the Migrant Fleet, it would probably run like it was brand new in a month. Maybe less if there were more with it."

The Huragok suddenly finished with with the panel and closed it back up, floating past Tali and Shepard.

"It just balanced power flow to the infusion injectors," Daniels reported, near almost bored as she said it. "Honestly, I'm not even shocked at this point."

"See what I mean?" Tali reiterated to Shepard. "I think we should put them on the Slipspace generator project. With their knowledge of Covenant engines and their increasing knowledge of our own, we stand a better chance at integrating the technologies together."

Shepard gave it a little thought, given their troubles getting that to work it made sense to put the Hurgok on the project. They needed to get some results if they were going to make the Normandy Slipspace capable. The Huragok looked like their best chance at this point.

"Alright, it's worth a try," he agreed. "I'd like to be able to travel around this galaxy without using up all our fuel in FTL. We'd be a lot more use to this makeshift fleet if we could get it working soon."

"The only problem I'm seeing is telling them what I want them do," Tali explained. "They don't seem to respond to orders much. I don't think they understand exactly why they're here, they just see problems that need fixing. I need to find a way to communicate with them better. Especially if I want them to perform even more complex tasks."

Shepard raised an eyebrow at that.

"You have other projects you want them to work on?" He presumed.

"Garrus is still trying to figure out how to convert some of the UNSC weapons to use mass effect fields like out guns," Tali informed him sheepishly. "There's always improvements to our armor we could use. Not to mention our understanding of Covenant tech in general could be greatly increased."

"But that's not really what you're thinking about using them for," Shepard said, crossing his arms.

Tali just sighed.

"I'm still worried about Legion," she admitted. "That glitch is still in their head. It hasn't cropped up as much, probably helps I've been treating the issue with regular scans and technical scrubs, but it's embedded in the hardware's code now. I can't separate it from the neural net. These Engineers, maybe they could help."

Shepard placed a comforting hand on her shoulder, he had suspected this.

"It's not a problem that's going to have an easy answer," he told her. "You know that. I'm not saying they can't help, but I wouldn't get your hopes too high up."

"I know," she assured, still sounding anxious and concerned. "It's just the longer this goes on, the more vulnerable he'll become. What if the next batch of batarians that Balak inevitably sends over has more tech specialists or the like? What if the Covenant start coming up with synthetic countermeasures based on what they're doing back in our universe? And that's not even mentioning what could happen in the field if Legion freezes up again, or worse. I feel like I'm letting them down."

Shepard forced her to turn about and look at him.

"Hey, you are doing everything you can," he reminded her sternly. "If anyone can lick this glitch, it's you. You'll find the answer, whether the Huragok can help you or not."

Tali's silver eyes beamed through the purple visor as she palced her head on Shepard's chest.

"Thanks," she said gratefully, patting his hand lightly. "It's good to know you're in my corner on this. Although that saying is weird. Lick? Really? You humans use that to describe beating something?"

Shepard just shrugged.

"I didn't come up with this stuff, I just use it," he said humbly.

They were then interrupted by a crash from down below. It was followed by a lot of muffled swearing and the sounds of more things getting toppled over.

"Ah shoot," Shepard groaned. "Jack's hidey hole."

Shepard and Tali raced out of engineering and down the steps just outside the door. They quickly found Jack and one of the Huragok, the latter cowering in a corner with it's tentacles up. Jack was berating it angrily, her biotics blaring across her body.

"My fucking room!" She screamed. "My! Fucking! Room! Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you?! Do you have any sense of privacy in the Covenant?"

The Huragok could only respond with several chirps and gurbles.

"For the love of crap, speak a fucking language I know octopus face!"

"Jack!" Shepard shouted, getting the ex-con's attention. "What the hell is going on?"

Jack lowered her biotic defenses, but her rage remained.

"I'll tell you what the fuck is going on," she roared back. "This goddamn floating sack of farts and slime has barged in here twice now! First I catch it messing with my stuff! Then I lay down for a nap and I wake up with that thing's ass over my face with it's freaky little tendrils dropping all over me!"

"It's just trying to improve the ship," Tali explained. "It doesn't mean to intrude on your personal space."

"Well I don't need the a damn airborne squid creature charging in here every other hour," Jack responded. "This is the one fucking place on the ship I can relax, get away from everyone, and they keep busting in like they own the place!"

"Maybe it would be best if you left for awhile then," Shepard suggested. "Give it space to do whatever it's trying to do. We can have some of the security personnel watch it and make sure it doesn't mess with your stuff."

Jack just snorted, looked at the Huragok. It stared at her with a confused expression, or what constituted one for it's peculiar slender snake-like head. It then made another of it's cute little chirping noises and Jack could only groan.

"Fine, fuck it," she grumbled. "I'll go up to Thane's quarters I guess. See what he's doing."

"Thane?" Tali asked, confused. "Why-"

"None of your business!" Jack was quick shout back frantically. "What's it to you anyway? I can spend time with other people, I'm not anti-social! The cheerleader just says that to try and piss me off!"

"It's just, I didn't think Thane-"

"I said none of your business," Jack declared, cutting off Tali once more. "So shut up!"

She then stomped past both the quarian and Shepard. When she was gone, the Huragok returned to work.

"That was... odd," was all Tali could eventually say.

Shepard agreed, Jack always kept things close to her chest, but she didn't usually blow up without a reason. He didn't have much time to figure what it had been all about though. He got a call on his omni-tool, ID software said it was Miranda.

"Go ahead, Lawson," he said as he answered the call.

"Commander, you need to come to the Fallen Serpent's, uh, rec-room as it were," she explained, her tone both exasperated yet urgent. "I don't know how else to describe it honestly. Seriously, just come quickly please."

"What's wrong Miranda?" Shepard asked, slightly concerned.

He heard a long really annoyed sigh.

"You'll see when you get here," she grumbled.

---

Little green and brown monsters wreaked havoc across the screen. Humans in business suits ran screaming for their lives as the little monsters clawed, grappled and scrambled everywhere within the skyscraper lobby. The creatures shouted non sequiturs as they threw humans from on high, smashed them through windows and caused general chaos as dark whimsical music played. All the while, watching the madness unfold before them, the assembled group of Jackals laughed and chuckled at the insanity. They even cheered on the little rabble-rousing tiny green monsters, tossing their food and drink into the air in delight.

None found the events unfolding on the holoscreen more enjoyable than Zek, sitting in a large chair set up in the middle of room, slapping his knee as he cackled to himself. Retz, sitting beside him, was more subdued, busy chewing an apple clutched in his hands. with a smile on his face.

"These Gremlin creatures are a riot!" Zek declared. "And I thought their shenanigans in the last one were hilarious! Yeah, that's right! Smash the system you little freaks! Fuck it all up!"

Shepard arrived at that very moment, standing in the doorway with Miranda. She was glaring at the proceedings with a look of disdain and barely withheld contempt. Shepard was more or less simply confused at what was going on. He recognized the vid on screen, an old film from the late 20th called "Gremlins 2: The New Batch." He also noticed a lot of human food among the snacks the Jackals were eating.

"They're having a vid night?" Shepard asked curiously.

"With human films I might add," Miranda noted growling. "Films they shouldn't have. Do you have any idea how they could've gotten their claws on them?"

Shepard took a brief moment to consider her question. The answer eventually came to him. He took up his omni-tool and made a call to his ship.

"Joker, it's Shepard," he said. "Bad news buddy, I think the Jackals got into your classic films and music file."

"What? Why do you think that?" The pilot asked in surprise.

"Because I'm standing in the doorway of their rec-room and they're watching the Gremlins sequel," Shepard explained. "Retz must've copied it while he was in the system without us knowing."

"Well, that's one way to share human culture," Joker said plainly.

Miranda displeasure was now mixed with her own sense of befuddlement.

"Mind telling me why a portion of our computers is filled with old vids and songs from two centuries ago?" She asked annoyed.

"Come on, Miranda," Joker pleaded. "You know how long it takes to get anywhere back home? It might seem like only a few seconds to pop from system to system for you, but FTL is very long and boring in the pilot's seat. Hell, spending most of your time in a chair is boring. I need something to do."

Miranda just sighed.

"Whatever, that's the least of my concerns," she admitted. "The fact still remains they managed to copy and steal this file of vids without us knowing. I wouldn't have found out about it if I hadn't tracked some stolen kitchen items Gardner noticed. I didn't realize they were raiding the fridge for this though."

"We best talk this over with Zek then," Shepard relented, looking towards Zek's chair. "Hopefully he already intends to reimburse us for the food. Then we can discuss the-"

Out of the corner of his eye, he realized sitting close to Zek's little throne was, of all people, Kasumi. She even had a cup in hand with a straw slurping on something. By the time Shepard spotted her, so did Miranda, her eyes drawn to the Commander's line of sight.

"You've got to be kidding," she grumbled.

They walked over to Kasumi, through the throng of Pirates munching on whatever food they had stolen.

"Hey, down in front, humans!"

"Learn some vid ethics!"

Shepard and Miranda eventually lowered their heads and kneeled next to Kasumi, her eyes still glued to the screen.

"Hey, Shep, Miri," she cheerfully greeted. "Come to watch the show?"

"No, I don't have time to watch ugly green outdated puppets destroy a building in any case," Miranda told her. "Why exactly are you here and how come you didn't report this?"

Kasumi just grinned a little.

"First of all, they're highly sophisticated animatronics for their era," she corrected. "As in actually real and not some fancy hologram they insert to save time and money. The vid itself is a scathing satire on society's over-dependence on technology and the idea of sequels in general."

"I really don't want to get into a film studies debate right now," Miranda told her firmly. "This is a potential security leak. They stole this from our computers."

"And that's the second thing, lighten up, Miri," Kasumi pleaded. "It's just some vids from the 20th and a couple recent blockbusters. Plus a ton of music they've been playing between presentations. My own omni-tool has a bunch of this stuff on it already, I probably would've shared them myself eventually."

"It's really not the vids that are the concern," Shepard explained calmly. "It's what else they might have snuck off with."

Kasumi finally tore her eyes away, sighing slightly.

"Look, it's not that bad," she assured. "I've stolen way bigger things. Run a scan to see if anything else got copied and deal with it when the results come in."

"I'm already doing that," Miranda assured. "It's been running for the past hour since I discovered this spectacle. How did I not see you before anyway?"

"I'm the best thief in the galaxy," Kasumi reminded her rather sardonically. "I blend in pretty good with a crowd, Miri. Even among crazy alien birds. Hell you didn't notice Grunt either."

"What?" Miranda said in shock and anger.

Kasumi pointed her thumb over to a corner of the room in the back where they could see the krogan banging his fists on a table in excitement. Apparently he was enjoying the display of chaos on screen too, specifically the current scene of a genetics lab in utter disarray.

"He's a bit big to be at the front," Kasumi explained. "They would only let him stay if he didn't block anyone's view. Retz told him they were reserved seats for the best warriors, he bought that pretty easily."

Miranda just groaned, rubbing the bridge of her nose between punched fingertips.

"How long exactly has this vid party been going on?" Shepard asked, trying to alleviate some of the tension.

"Awhile, they watched Muppet Treasure Island first, really loved the songs," Kasumi explained. "Then it was the first of the original Pirates of the Caribbean films, before the reboots in 2030s of course. After that they watched the original Goonies, they really loved that one, and they did a search for anything else the studio made. That was when they found Gremlins and it's sequel and here we are."

"That is several hours worth of vids," Miranda noted. "They've been watching this stuff for that long?"

"Since Zek came back to the Serpent more or less," Kasumi said plainly. "You were all pretty busy with mopping up after the Carrier and taking care of our latest additions to the engineering crew. The Jackals don't really have much to do otherwise to be honest, at least while they're being towed anyway."

Shepard should've suspected something earlier, the Jackals had been way too quiet. He had half expected Zek to storm into his cabin at some point, demanding that he work something out with Holland to get over the morning's disappointment concerning the Huragok. It never came and he had hoped it was because Zek had cooled off. Instead, it was because him and his entire crew decided to slack off. He supposed he couldn't blame them, considering things didn't go their way. Plus it kept them out of trouble, somewhat, they still stole a bunch of snacks.

"So why are you here, Kasumi?" Shepard asked. "I thought you were more into books."

"I'm into art, all forms of it," Kasumi corrected him with cheery grin. "A vid from the late 20th has a great amount of artistic merit. They established a lot of the groundwork for how films are made today. Summer action flicks, bigger emphasis on special effects, character driven drama, the hero's journey coming back into prominence within the mainstream, we wouldn't have a lot of our modern classics without this era of experimentation."

"I appreciate the history lesson," Miranda cut in. "But I'd like to know why you're here with the Jackals specifically."

"We're supposed to be friends now, right?" Kasumi asked. "What's the harm in spending some time with them and getting to know them? Besides, they like having me around, I'm practically a legend now after I drunk their ichor."

Miranda and Shepard now shared a disgusted and rather surprised look on their face.

"You drank space whale bile?" Shepard asked. "Seriously?"

"It's actually not so bad," she declared. "Kind of tangy actually, well certain kinds of the bile anyway. It depends on where you extract it from apparently. Point is, it got me in good with them."

At that moment, one of the Jackals scrambled up beside Kasumi with a bottle of something.

"Refill, Ms. Goto?" He asked.

"No thanks I'm good," She assured him.

The Jackal scurried off and Kasumi leaned towards Shepard and Miranda as he did.

"Actually I just don't have any candy bars left to trade," she explained. "They're big on barter here, plus the junk food gets them wild a bit. I have no idea why but they seem addicted to sweets."

"I'll take that under advisement," Shepard said. "Enjoy the movie, Kasumi."

"I will, Shep," she assured. "And go easy on Zek and Retz, okay? They're decent birds if you give them the chance."

Kasumi was probably right, that this whole thing was harmless and that Retz had only stolen some vids out of curiosity. This was the second time though that he and his captain has done something shifty and underhanded, in the same day in fact. Shepard had let Kasumi get away with a little kleptomania now and then, but she had never potentially compromised their computers. He knew Miranda was a lot less happy about this situation though, she hadn't dropped her sour expression since he got here.

When they approached Zek and Retz, still sitting in their "thrones" so to speak, the Shipmaster instantly looked to Shepard with the same oversized grin he had worn earlier that morning in his cabin. That time he had caught him a little off guard, but Shepard was more prepared for what he knew was coming.

"Commander, what a pleasant surprise!" He greeted happily. "I didn't think I'd see you here so soon into our partnership. Welcome aboard the Fallen Serpent, you too, Ms. Lawson. I hope you've been properly accommodated."

"That depends on your definition," Miranda grumbled, her arms crossed.

"We've noticed your... entertainment for this evening," Shepard said, pointing to the holoscreen.

Zek looked back to the screen, showing one of the Gremlins shooting at the lead hero with a semiautomatic before swiping some kind of flask containing genetic material.

"Oh, that," Zek noted, trying to play things off. "I suppose we should explain a little."

"Like you using your access to our computers to steal things without permission?" Miranda asked.

"I stole nothing, good madam," Retz haughtily defended. "I merely copied information of a non-classified nature. I only ever had access to the lowest tier of your computers, I didn't hack, I didn't splice, I just copied and then shared the contents with my compatriots. Honestly, I didn't think you'd mind too much."

Miranda just grimaced. Before she could continue her questioning though, Shepard decided to attempt to ease things over.

"We're just concerned about you using the time we gave you to find something to trade for repairs to sneak something out for yourselves," Shepard explained. "Also, the stealing of the food by your crew isn't appreciated either."

"You will be compensated for the loss of supplies, I assure you," Zek promised. "There's plenty of food one can pick up at the Hollow, most of which you humans will find edible. I mean, there's bound to be something there that won't turn your stomach. But honestly, Shepard, you can't blame them too much."

He reached over into a bowl resting on his chair and clutched a handful of popcorn, no doubt another thing his men had stolen.

"Honestly how could you justify hiding this delicious puffed salty stuff?" He asked. "We thought it was just some silly seeds before we followed the directions and bothered to heat the stuff. Of course the kitchen is a bit of a mess, we didn't think it would explode. Still good though."

Zek shoved the popcorn into his mouth, chewing it loudly. Miranda visibly retched.

"Besides," Zek said, his beak still full. "I'm still living up to my end of the bargain."

He finally swallowed and rested one of his feet across his knee casually.

"I fully intend to give you specs for plasma weapons and information on our slipspace tech," he assured, still grinning. "Hell, I'll even throw in finding you guys some high quality rare weapons the Covenant only give to their best soldiers. Should be easy enough when we get to the Hollow, they got dealers who specialize in that. That should cover any additional expenses in lost supplies."

"Appreciated, but that still leaves the security issue," Miranda told them. "You can't just go into someone else's system and copy things under their nose."

"Well what do you want us to do?" Retz asked, laughing slightly. "Give you the vids back?"

"Oh that would break the crew's hearts," Zek said, imitating sadness as he did, placing a hand over his heart "Look at them, they love your planet's cinema. It's such a great change from the regular junk we've been stuck with for years. All the Covenant have is crap religious propaganda."

Shepard looked out onto the throng of Jackals. They did seem to genuinely enjoy the movie, for whatever reason. It did seem a bit odd they had gravitated to a bunch of old human vids so quickly though. Sure, the first few they watched according to Kasumi were about pirates, maybe they saw the appreciated the similarity in occupation, but it was still human pop culture.

"I'm surprised you've taken to it so quickly," he told Zek. "I mean, they're about as foreign to you as one can get. The mythology, culture, themes, they're not really related to you."

"Perhaps not entirely," Zek admitted. "But as strange to us as some of these things are, I found they share a lot in common with us too. Especially your pirate stories and the tragic bittersweet tale of Long John Silver."

"Yes," Retz said sadly. "A classic tale of a man searching for a treasure, finding a son and that son rejecting him and the adventure he promises. He tried so hard though, damn frog-thing got in his head first sadly."

"And the glorious thrill of the treasure hunt the young Goonies embarked on," Zek added merrily. "Beating back those who would destroy their way of life through the greatest of all business ventures, the search for gold. Pirates in the making those kids. Their parents are right to be proud."

They had a strange way of interpreting the vids, but Shepard supposed that was the nature of art. It spoke to individuals differently, no matter what planet they came from it seemed.

"So what about these little green nutbags?" Shepard asked.

"Chaotic little rabble-rousers who do what they want, when they want, and pillage from those around them in a party that never truly ends so long as the food and booze flows," Zek shouted aloud with glee "What's not to love about that? Tell me, is this holiday you call Christmas always like that on Earth for you? The one in the first vid I mean. Riots, destruction, general chaos?"

"Only in the vids," Shepard answered plainly. "It's meant to be kind of ironic. You do get presents though."

Zek shrugged.

"I suppose that's still pretty decent for a holiday," he relented. He quickly changed subject, his voice growing more sincere. "The point is Shepard, you need to understand us Kig-Yar. When the Covenant took over, our culture was more or less wiped off the map. Assimilation eroded at it like a cancer. We lost a lot of our myths, our stories, our way of life, it was all replaced by blind worship to the Forerunners. This ship is one of the last vestiges of that once great heritage."

"According to what we know, that heritage is one of piracy," Shepard recalled.

"Indeed," Retz confirmed happily. "Our planet has a massive equatorial ocean that spans the entire circumference of the planet. It was only natural our ancestors took to the waters for sustenance and profit. Kig-yar have always prided themselves on the seizing of opportunity. Piracy was just natural to us and remained so even when we headed to the stars. All to follow one single goal, to seek profit, discover opportunity and take it for ourselves and our fellows."

"So you've always been thieves then?" Miranda asked.

Zek and Retz just looked at each other, seemingly laughing at how Miranda summed their people up so simplistically.

"We're the truest of any businessmen, Ms. Lawson," Retz corrected in a prideful manner. "That means we're a bit more aggressive in our practices than most entrepreneurs. We're capitalists unburdened by restriction. Our government is one that derives authority from the masses, those with the will to seek their dreams without fear of reprisal save from those who rival them."

"Ah, my mistake," Miranda grimaced, not appreciating the Jackal's tone. "You're not thieves, you're a mob. You're like the Gremlins in these Vids, no central government, no real rule of law, just a chaotic search for profit."

"More or less," Zek admitted without a hint of shame. "The kig-yar life is one of absolute personal freedom. The rule of the individual, answerable only to his crew and shipmaster. At least it was, until matters changed with the Covenant and the sanctimonious holier than thou shit."

Zek picked up a bottle next to his bowl of popcorn, but noticed it was empty. Grimacing and with a sigh he called out aloud across the room.

"Unggoy! Unggoy come here! I need another, damn it!"

Suddenly a grunt, methane tank and all, came waddling up to them as fast as his little legs could go. In his hands a tray with a fresh bottle of ichor rested upon it. Zek snatched it as it came close to him.

"I shouldn't have to call you know," he growled. "You're supposed to be paying attention."

"Me Sorry," the grunt shuddered. "Me so busy and tired me guess."

"Tired? Please, I took a carrier today and you did nothing but suck gas and nap for seven hours," Zek countered. "I'm paying you in food that we could be eating, you have to earn that. Now scuttle off before your stink catches."

The grunt whimpered and waddled off just as quickly as he came. When Zek turned back to Shepard he noticed the Commander's disapproving face. Zek could only shrug in confusion at him.

"I guess that freedom you mentioned doesn't extend to everyone," Shepard noted.

"Hey, they're getting a good deal," Zek snorted back. "I let them take up space on my ship with their damn methane stench fouling the air up, I don't send them off to kill for me and in return they have to pull their own weight around here. Only fair. Honestly, I'm probably the nicest boss they've ever had. They should be grateful."

"Yes, that instantly gives you the right to be verbally abusive to a species weaker than you," Miranda sardonically stated. "You're a real prince, truly. Saints of the highest order in the pirating community."

Zek rolled his eyes and he wasn't alone. Retz couldn't help but shake his head at it all.

"Ms. Lawson, you are defending creatures who don't really deserve it," he explained. "Unggoy are cowardly, disgusting idiots of little merit or notice. They come from a shit world that they should've died on eons ago because of their own stupidity. The very fact we aren't treating them like disposable refuse to fling at the sangheili should be considered the most gracious thing we could ever do. Sure, the reason we aren't doing it is because we'd rather not have to trust our back sides to their incompetence, period. All the same though, we've saved them from that same sordid fate within the Covenant. The least they can do is bring us a drink or two."

"Or five," Zek chuckled.

"This kind of animosity doesn't just come from nowhere" Shepard observed curiously. "Why do you hate them?"

Zek huffed slightly, his eyes growing cold.

"Unggoy ain't worth hating, doesn't mean they deserve respect," he clarified. "Bastards fucked over their own planet. So when the Covies uplift them, guess where they start shoving their worthless asses? On us! Trampled our eggs, lost us colonies and the like. Sure, it was centuries ago, doesn't mean they get to be absolved. Hell, I'll grant our ancestors probably shouldn't have tried to poison them all, but that doesn't mean we have to be friends with the little freaks and pretend what they did never happened."

Oh great, another one of these situations, Shepard thought. Why did he keep getting stuck with aliens who had centuries old grudges with each other? No matter, he supposed, at least Zek wasn't being physically abusive, for now anyway. He could still without the whole treating the grunts like garbage though.

"Considering their own collective predicament as nothing better than slaves, you could stand to show some compassion," Shepard suggested. "They're a lot like you in a way if you think about, you were both stuck under the thumb of the Covenant."

"I am nothing like them," Zek assured confidently, almost offended in fact by the comparison. "I have a spine. I never once pretended to be the good little lapdog, I stood up for myself when I was working for those fucks. Unggoy are dumb bastards who get uppity now and then before remembering that they're morons and then go back to being pliable underlings. Maybe if they weren't massive burdens on themselves and others, I'd give a shit. As it stands though, I couldn't care less about how shitty their lives are."

Shepard decided to drop the subject. He didn't get Tali to stop hating the Geth in one conversation and she was a lot more open to debate from the onset than Zek was now. He'd lay down some ground rules though, just to be safe.

"I don't want to hear about them being mistreated," he explained. "Yell at them if you want, but I don't want to learn you've been using them as target practice and striking them for minor offenses."

"I try to keep a lid on that myself," Zek replied, actually sincere for once. "Last thing I want is unggoy getting pissy about their lot on my ship. They get stupid ideas in their heads when you push them too far, like trying to push back. As if that ever works."

Zek finally took a sip from his fresh bottle, just as Miranda's omni-tool started beeping. She looked at the screen and sighed.

"Well, the scan is complete," she said with a low grumble. "Nothing else was copied from the systems."

"Then we should consider this matter closed," Zek declared happily. "A minor issue in what I hope is a long partnership. Now come, stay, indulge a little. These vids are more yours than ours after all."

"I'll pass," Miranda stated bluntly.

Miranda started her way back out, Shepard followed close behind.

"At least they didn't steal anything classified," He told her as they walked.

"That doesn't change anything," she said firmly, her voice filled with venom. "The little bastard got by me. He snuck something by me. That's not happening again. From now on, I'm watching them like a hawk."

"Don't blame yourself for this," Shepard said, trying to comfort her. "You were watching out for them stealing mission critical things. So you didn't pay attention to Retz taking a peek in Joker's personal vid and music playlists documents. No harm no foul."

"Tons of fouls, lots of foul," Miranda declared. "We gave them an inch, trusted them and they abused it. Who cares how minor it was?"

"We did make our point clear," Shepard assured her. "This was a one time thing anyway, we won't let them back in the system."

"How do we know that's going to stop them?" Miranda asked, still sounding frustrated. "They only offered reparations this time because they obviously knew we'd catch them. What happens when they get more brazen?"

Shepard knew she had a point. He could try and spin this all day, but even he was troubled by these antics. They'd have to take precautions.

"Alright, we keep a lid on the kitchen and armory, everything," he said. "If a Jackal comes aboard we make sure he's watched. Put Thane on it maybe, he's good at that."

"Why not Samara?" Miranda asked inquisitively.

"Yeah, I'm not sure she'd be able to hold back if she saw them stealing food," Shepard explained. "She's struggling with this as it is, we all are. We need to be careful about how we proceed."

Miranda just sighed at that.

"Can I be completely honest with you for a second?" She asked sincerely.

"Like you always are when you tell me I'm doing something you think is rash or stupid and I do it anyway?" He asked in return, his voice deadpan as he spoke.

"Yes, kind of like that," Miranda replied, crossing her arms. "I really don't think this is going to work out in the long run. Zek and his little band of thieves I mean. They're just not in this for the same reasons."

Shepard knew he was going to have to confront this with a few of his friends at some point. It made sense Miranda was one of the first, especially after this incident.

"They are pirates," Shepard reminded her. "That is kind of expected. Doesn't mean they can't be persuaded."

"That's my point though," Miranda insisted. "You heard it from them. They're a society based on mob rule and self-appointed chaos in the interest of profit. They're not interested in being noble or saving people, they're interested in themselves. They're selfish, they're greedy..."

"They're a lot like us humans in a way," he interrupted. "I know they're not interested in getting involved in this war again, Zek told me himself. But at some point they need to realize that there's not going to be much of a galaxy left to plunder if things keep going as they are. We need to show them this fight is as much theirs as it is ours."

Miranda just sighed, letting her arms fall to her side. When she looked back up it was with concern, probably more than she was ever comfortable showing.

"I understand what you're saying, Shepard, I do," she assured calmly. "But I'm not entirely sure they want to change or if they care enough to even consider it. They seem more interested in preserving their newfound hedonistic lifestyle, mainly through building a bloody pirate fleet if today is any indication. That's not a good starting point. I won't stop you from pursuing this, mainly because I know you won't even if I try, but I am asking you to be careful, Commander. Zek might seem like he's open to negotiation, but only if he's certain he'll ultimately get what he wants. And what he wants might not be something you're willing to compromise on."

Miranda walked off after that, leaving Shepard in the doorway of the rec room. He looked back into the makeshift theater and scanned the throng of Jackals occupying it, stuffing their faces and slurping their drinks. They weren't the ideal allies, he knew that. Miranda was right on many counts in that regard, they were out for themselves, he knew that. Convincing them to care would be hard.

He felt he had to try though. At the very least he had to try. He recalled his previous conversation with Chief from that morning. He left out a few things when he talked about it. Like how he, like these pirates, had gotten lost. He was self-serving one point too. He got fed up, tired, sick of everything more or less. He wasn't getting anywhere, he was stagnating. He wasn't changing things, it all felt pointless. He wanted to quit, give in, give up.

And that was when Elysium happened and everything changed. He found himself again, it wasn't pretty but there it was. Zek and his pirates just needed to encounter their own Elysium somehow. Problem was, he didn't know what that would be exactly. Miranda's words hung in the forefront of his mind. Zek currently was only concerned with what he wanted, no one else. That made things complicated, especially when he wasn't entirely sure what precisely was Zek's ultimate goal was.

"What is it that you want?"

The question came from the holoscreen and some weird chubby man in a terribly tacky Dracula costume. He was interviewing one of the Gremlins, the one who was wearing glasses and could speak. He answer was pretty simple.

"Fred, what we want is what everyone wants and what you and your viewers have, civilization!"

Given everything that was happening in the movie, Shepard found that hard to believe. As the screen scanned a room full of Gremlins drinking and screeching and growling at a bar, Shepard looked back to the Jackals as the smart Gremlin spoke of what he meant by civilization. The puppet listed off a bunch of random things that consisted of what it seemed to think the concept stood for. Mostly just silly gibberish.

"Oh we may stumble along the way, but Civilization, yes! The Geneva Convention, chamber music, Susan Sontag. Everything your society has worked so hard to accomplish over the centuries that's what we aspire to, we want to be civilized."

As the Gremlin spoke, suddenly some weirder fellow gremlin, clearly not as smart as him, appeared on screen. It wore a beanie hat and chattered inanely for attention. The smart Gremlin took notice fairly casually.

"I mean, do take a look at this fellow here."

Then, just as casually, the smart Gremlin pulled a gun, aimed it at the beanie hat Gremlin and fired into it's face. Uproarious laughter erupted from the assembled Gremlins at the bar on screen, but they were drowned out by another group, the Jackals. It was a cackling, delighted, gleeful laugh. Sensible, given the darkly humorous nature of the punchline, but Shepard saw something darker than the sick little joke. Because for a brief few moments, he couldn't tell the difference between the Gremlins on screen and Jackals in the room.

"Now was that civilized?" The smart Gremlin asked smirking. "No clearly not, fun but in no sense civilized."

And when the sadistic puppet smiled, Shepard swore it reminded him of the same grin on Zek's face. He suddenly had second thoughts about staying to watch a few movies with the Jackals. He just wanted to get back to his cabin. Right now, he needed to be as far away from this manic laughter as possible.

---

Varvok had decided to sequester himself away with his men for the rest of the day. After the crap that had happened after the raid, he didn't want to have to deal with most of the fallout. Besides, he had work to do. Considering that their quarters aboard the Fallen Serpent were rather cramped, he decided they needed to move. The Ascendant Justice had plenty of room, so he asked Holland's intelligence officer, Haverson, if he could place his men aboard. The request, which he sent via mail as he did not to look at a human for a while, was granted. Haverson however did not give them any particular room though, he just handed them one of the larger storage rooms in the lower decks, just above the massive main hangar.

He didn't argue the matter, it was better than nothing and suited most of their needs. He set to work getting every Batarian to move their weapons and supplies to the new quarters. It was a relatively quick move, they didn't have much after all. Abandoning the mission you were supposed to be on got you cut off from potential re-supply. All they had now was what Zek could spare and what scraps the other humans could offer. He supposed he at least owed the Normandy for giving them a steady stream of thermal clips as well as a recharger their salarian professor had made for the plasma weapons. Didn't make their situation any less problematic.

They were the only batarians in this galaxy now not under the sway of the Covenant, they had split from their government, they were working with humans and it was only a matter of time before that caught up with them. For all he knew, Balak was already prepping another expeditionary force to hunt them down and given the wonky time difference between universes, he could have already sent them off or was still in the process of deciding exactly what to do. That was bad enough, not knowing when your former mentor was going to strike and how hard he'd do it, couple that with the fact he had surrounded himself with former enemies and it just made things worse. He was now relying on humans, Shepard in particular, to protect him. It made him sick.

Coming to the decision to ally with Commander Shepard had been born out of desperation and the fact they had no other ideas. It took every ounce of willpower to swallow his pride and ask for his help, almost beg for it in fact. He at least had been been able to maintain his dignity then, now it seemed that was going to be harder. Shepard had made it painfully clear how little he would tolerate any questioning of his authority. That would make things problematic, he couldn't let his men think he'd kowtow to a human, any human. He needed to keep their respect, he had already asked a lot of them when they helped Zek's mutiny, he asked even more when they aligned with the humans. If they thought he had become the UNSC's lapdog he'd lose any confidence with them. He'd be seen as trading one corrupt master for another. It would ruin everything.

He wondered if Shepard appreciated this difficult situation. He probably didn't, he doubt he gave it much thought. Typical of humans, always so self-righteous but never willing to see the batarian side. He had risked his life in more ways than one by coming to the Commander, yet Shepard still didn't care. His mission overrode their own it seemed in his mind. Saving the UNSC was not important to Varvok though. Hurting the Covenant was. He either needed to get back home and start hitting his former comrades with the "Swords of Khar'Shan", Balak in particular, or he had to rip them apart here. Maybe, just maybe, if he became a big enough issue, the Covenant would pull out of Hegemony space, dissolve the alliance and decide to focus more on their war efforts here instead. Convince them they were neglecting the real fight, it was a sound strategy.

Of course, both options were demonstrably difficult in scope. He'd need help pulling it off, he knew that. Sadly, that meant working within the confines of the UNSC so long as he was stuck here. Working with humans, especially ones that still seemed to hold a grudge against him, was not ideal. Was Shepard doing anything to make that easier? Maybe, knowing him he was probably working an angle for a more stable alliance than as it was now, but he was not doing enough. After today, Varvok wondered if even he wanted to help the batarians or if he cared more about saving this galaxy's Earth at their expense.

As he lay in his makeshift cot, pondering this issue, he looked over to see one of his men looking at him expectantly. He rose to a sitting position and looked at the man.

"What is it soldier?" He asked politely.

"I just thought you should know, sir," he began astutely. "We've broken open one of the ration crates. We were wondering if you wanted anything special."

"I'm not feeling all that hungry, honestly," Varvok grumbled in return. "Today has been an annoyance. Hopefully when we reach this Hollow Zek speaks of we can at least get some more supplies."

The soldier nodded briefly, but started rubbing his hands a bit nervously. Varvok quickly picked up on this and turned to him inquisitively.

"Is there something on your mind?" He asked.

"Nothing, sir," he assured. "You have far more important issues, no doubt."

Many in fact, but the state of his men always came first for him.

"What is your name?" He asked the fellow batarian.

"Corporal Curverk, sir," he saluted. "From city state Sheikrok, District Eighty-Four. I transferred to your unit just before we jumped through the wormhole."

Varvok nodded, he remembered getting a lot of transfers just before they set off. They needed to have a full complement and part of the mission from the start was to give them all some much needed combat experience. He supposed in how busy he had been he hadn't been able to get to know everyone as much as he should. The fact was, in his position, you couldn't make the time for that always. A unit commander couldn't be everyone's friend, it made sending them off to die that much harder.

That didn't mean he had to be cold to them though.

"Curverk, you're free to speak your mind with me," he assured. "Never think you can't."

"Well, it's just a lot of the men have been talking," Curverk tried to explain. "I keep trying to put on a brave face and all, but, it's not easy given all that's happened. You see..."

Curverk took a breath, needing a moment to properly articulate his problem. When he did, it hit home.

"Are we ever going home, sir?"

Home, Varvok thought, what was that now? What was it going to become? Their people were being subjugated by a foreign alien entity and they didn't even know it. Hell, their government was actively leading them to it. He liked to keep hoping it wasn't intentional, but he wasn't sure of anything anymore. Getting home was not going to be easy, even if they did get back through the wormhole. Curverk probably joined up out of a sense of adventure, like most young batarians do, an escape. That sense of adventure had no doubt soured.

"It's become a bit too real hasn't it?" Varvok asked in return.

"More like unreal, to be honest," the Corporal admitted.

"I know, trust me, I know," Varvok told him. "And to be honest, I'm not sure when we'll get back. It's a lot more complicated than just heading to the wormhole. You understand, right?"

Curverk just nodded respectfully.

"All I can promise you, is that we will find a way through this," Varvok asserted confidently. "We're batarians, we've been fighting worse odds than this ever since we clawed our way into the stars. We'll survive, one way or another. And we'll take back what the Covenant is trying to steal from us. I swear to you."

Curverk's nervousness seemed to diminish slightly and he raised another salute.

"Thank you, sir," he said. "It's good to know we have someone like you leading us through this. Hopefully, the humans will learn to appreciate everything we've risked so far in time, you especially."

"One can hope, Corporal," Varvok concurred. "Humans aren't complete idiots. They'll learn to respect us, I'll make sure of it."

Curverk bowed his head slightly and departed. At least he had made one of his soldiers a little less anxious. Varvok wasn't sure how far it would go, but it was better than nothing. As he was about to turn back to his cot and think more about how exactly he could earn that respect, if it was even possible, his omni-tool rang. It was Zek of course. He wondered if it was worth answering, he was tired of this day. Then again, Zek and Retz were the only two aliens aboard this ship who he felt he could consistently trust and rely on. Best not to alienate the only friends you had. He answered the call and found both of said Jackals staring at him through the screen.

"Four-Eyes! Hope we aren't bothering you," Zek greeted.

"Not really," he told him through a low grumble. "I'm just pretty much done with today is all."

"You do look more like shit than usual," Zek noted. "Why don't you come down to the Serpent, join us for some entertainment."

"I'm not interested in watching the holographic representations of naked kig-yar," he told Zek plainly.

"It's not that," Retz was quick to assure. "We scored something interesting aboard the Normandy when I was in the systems you see."

Retz quickly explained how they had been watching a bunch of old human vids they had copied from the ship's computers. Varvok found the fact they had gotten away with that mildly amusing, it put him in better spirits than before at least. Didn't mean he was that interested in seeing humans all that much, even if they were just on a screen.

"I'm not sure I'd be up for watching that kind of stuff," he said, a slight smile on his face.

"I get you aren't a human fan, I'm not much one today myself," Zek admitted. "But that doesn't mean you can't enjoy a good bit of classic storytelling that vids can bring. Like this next one we're watching, looks like a real winner, it's... what's it called again, Retz?"

"Jaws, and the synopsis reads like something from the old sea legends back home," Retz explained. "Evil sea monster terrorizes the shoreline and a crew of mismatched individuals has to kill it. Take a look at the poster for it."

Retz pressed in a command that showed the image of a strange giant fish-like creature with a open maw full of teeth. It was swimming up from the murky depths towards an unaware female human, getting ready to swallow her whole from the looks of it. The title of the film was emblazoned above both monster and damsel. Zek just looked at the picture wide-eyed.

"Shit, is that a razorfin?" He asked, perplexed at the creature's appearance. "They got those on Earth too?"

"It's a bit smaller and with less teeth and eyes," Retz noted. "I don't think it has a second mouth either, but it's still pretty scary looking."

"Anything that even resembles a razorfin is scary," Zek argued. "This is going to give the crew nightmares. Get ready to set it up. What do you say, Varvok, interested now?"

He gave it a bit more thought. Perhaps he just needed something to get his mind off this junk. Hell, maybe a few of his men could use it too. What was the harm in watching some super old human cinema anyway? He was stuck living with them, he might as well see what they considered entertainment. Besides, Zek looked really hopeful, his eyes beaming with excitement through the screen.

"Alright, can I bring some of my men?" He asked.

"Sure, why not," Zek shrugged. "But bring your own snacks. We're already running a bit low here. Put that on the shopping list for the Hollow by the way, Retz."

"Already done," Retz assured, bringing up a data pad. "Get more snacks. We'll squeeze in the time somehow, but this trip is going to put a dent in our accounts for sure at this rate."

"See ya soon, Four-Eyes." Zek said, hanging up the call.

Varvok got up and looked over to his men. He was a bundle of nerves, but they were worse if Curverk was any indication. They deserved a break, he'd see if anyone was willing to join him. Perhaps it would be fun. Zek seemed to like these vids for whatever reason at least. Not accounting for taste, the pirate did know how to have a good time at least. So long as he didn't get super drunk again anyway.

---

"And they like this stuff?" Tali asked, sincerely surprised by the news.

"Apparently," Shepard shrugged as he took a seat on the sofa. "Who would've thought a playlist of movies from two centuries ago give or take a few years, would appeal to a bunch of alien pirates."

After a long day, it was good to just get back to cabin and relax. Tali had finished her shift shortly after he got back from his excursion to Zek's little movie night, so the timing was near perfect. He needed someone to unload all these thoughts and Tali was always eager to listen.

"I can understand why from a certain perspective," she admitted, taking a seat beside him. "When my own people fled our homeworld, we left a lot of our culture behind. For them, it's been slowly destroyed over centuries and they've been trying to fill the void it left ever since. You can't blame them for seeking it in another's society's popular entertainment."

"I suppose, it was mostly pirate related films they were checking out," Shepard concurred thoughtfully. "It doesn't change the facts of what they did. They still took advantage of their time in our systems and took something without permission. They didn't even seem to consider it a concern, just another thing they could resolve with barter later. Them offering compensation doesn't make me want to trust them again."

"No, I suppose it doesn't," Tali said, nodding her head sadly. "At least nothing important was taken. We can be thankful for that."

Shepard just sighed, placing his head back against the sofa.

"Maybe Miranda is right," he relented, almost defeated as he spoke. "Maybe this alliance is doomed to failure. All it's going to be is some convenient little arrangement and we'll be lucky if it lasts the whole way home."

"You've faced tougher odds than this, Wade," Tali reminded him. "You brought this crew together for a suicide mission after all."

"That's different," he explained wistfully, a growing sense of frustration as he spoke. "That was individuals on a case by case basis. These are factions, groups of people who all have a different idea of what they're doing here. The UNSC doesn't trust the defectors to have their backs when things get tough. Varvok and his batarians are only here because they have no other place to go, they don't have a choice. And Zek has made it clear that he just wants to be an arms merchant at best. He doesn't want to take a side, he just wants to profit."

Shepard raised his head and looked to Tali with a concerned grimace.

"I'm just not sure what it's going to take to get them all on the same page," he admitted. "Hell, I barely even know what I need to do to get the ball rolling."

Tali looked about thoughtfully for a moment as Shepard rubbed the side of his head. Eventually, she hit upon an idea.

"Well, consider this," she told him. "They did skirt their boundaries when they copied those vids, but Zek, Retz and their entire crew have found something in human culture that they enjoy. If nothing else, it proves they're open to accepting the UNSC. It's not much, but if they can find value in that, maybe they can find value in the rest of humanity too."

Shepard nodded slowly, taking in her words.

"I guess," he surmised. "Hell, maybe we'll get lucky. If they can see themselves a little in those old vids, they might actually learn something in due time. They might come out better for it. It's not exactly a firm foundation, but it's something."

Shepard smiled at the quarian, who returned the gesture with her beam eyes. As always, she knew just what to say to return his confidence and make him forget his worries. Tali placed a comforting hand on his shoulder at that moment. It then slowly slid around his neck to the other side as she placed her head against him.

"That's enough ship to ship politics for today," she told him sweetly. "You'll figure this out in due time, you always do. Right now, it's just you and me."

"Can't argue with that," Shepard grinned. "Any ideas for tonight?"

"Well," she replied, slyly. "Zek for all his faults has inspired me nonetheless. I bet the Normandy's captain, my captain, can throw a much better vid night given the chance than an entire ship full of Jackals could ever hope to."

"I'm willing to take that bet," he declared. "What did you have in mind?"

"We'll just pick some vids from Joker's file," she said, her voice growing more sultry as she spoke. "And while we're watching, if the characters start to connect... well, we can see about testing if it's compatible with quarians."

Shepard felt a bit hot under the collar for a moment. If only because, what Tali was suggesting, seemed a bit more specific than something she had just thought up. Not that he wasn't excited at the idea, but...

"Did you have any films in mind?" He asked, trying not to sound to sheepish.

"Oh... just a small list," Tali assured. "I've had a lot of time to upgrade my visor. Joker's not the only one who needs some entertainment while they work."

Tali opened her omni-tool and transferred her "small" list to Shepard. It was a large file to say the least, although nothing too explicit. Joker tended to keep his "special private stash" in a much more secure place than where Retz had been looking. Joker didn't really want anyone finding out what he was into. That didn't mean Tali hadn't found some interesting stuff, as she clearly revealed by pointed to one vid in particular.

"In that one there's a scene where..." Tali leaned in close and finished her sentence, whispering through playful little giggles and seductive tones.

"First," Shepard said instantly.

"Thought you'd say that," Tali beamed happily. "I'll ask Gardner to bring up some popcorn for you, as well as some dextro snacks. Although I don't think we will be eating that much. Not in that way at least."

Shepard had to struggle to remember what happened in some of the movies on the list. He did not want to get shown up by Zek after all. And considering their next stop was a place full of more people just like said space pirate, he wanted to get every ounce of enjoyment out of tonight he could. If one Zek was problematic, how bad would a whole hollowed moon full of them be?

---

AN: Couldn't help myself, I added a little naughty fun at the end. Do not expect a separate sex scene outside the main story. Not happening. This is not a thing we're doing. I don't write smut. Nothing against it. I would just awkward, it would feel awkward and let's be honest, I have no real experience with this junk anyway. I hope you enjoyed this chapter regardless and that you got a chuckle or two out things. This effectively closes out the opening portion of the story and leads into the real meat of things. Come back next time when we finally reach the Hollow. For now, be sure to review, check my profile for a link to further notes from me on this chapter and have a great day.