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.

12. Relic of Power

Chapter 11: The Relic of Power

You call this Archaeology?

-Dr. Henry Jones

He was alive, he was okay and he was alive. That was what Tali kept telling herself to keep her head in the game. Shepard's transponder was still transmitting his vital signs, he was okay. Right now, the best way to help him was to get to the Dauntless' disconnected Bridge, shut down the security and stop these four-legged mechanical monsters in their tracks.

Easier said than done though. Cortana's plan had worked, the shifting corridors had slowed to a crawl. The computer was unable to respond quickly to every potential intruder threat, most of which didn't actually exist. They were closing in on where the bridge had once been before it separated from the ship.

With Chief, Linda and Kat up front, they easily pushed through the robots in their path. There were close calls, one of the little creeps jumped down on Kat from above. She had to grab it off her shoulder quickly, just barely avoiding a point-blank energy burst to the skull. With a bit more rage than usual, Kat threw the crawling menace to the ground and smashed it with her robotic arm.

Not long after that, they pushed their way towards their main objective, where the Dauntless' Bridge had once been. They instead found one giant hole in the hull leading out into the caverns. While there was clear damage to the hull overall, in some places it looked just fine. It was as if the Bridge had just peacefully let go of the rest of the ship in those areas instead of being violently ripped apart. This added credence to the theory that the ship had tried to disengage the Bridge before the crash.

Besides the big hole, beneath them was a great big open chasm. It stretched several hundred or so feet down to the floor of the catacombs themselves. About eighty yards away and a few more feet up, they could see the the bridge on a ledge of sorts within the cave system. Their target was in sight, now the problem was getting to it.

"I was really hoping we'd just have to walk," Taq grimaced. "Okay then, Plan B."

"Plan B?" Linda asked, not sounding all that enthused.

"We waste time climbing down, we leave ourselves open to those things attacking us," Taq reiterated as she put down her pack. "Not to mention the longer that security program is running, the longer everyone in and around this ship are in danger. We need to speed the process up."

She brought out two grappling line guns, at least that was what Tali assumed they were. What other kind of gun looked like it could shoot hooks? They were a lot heavier looking than what you'd probably see in the vids, almost the size of a larger submachine gun or small rifle. She handed them to the nearest Spartans, Linda and Kat.

"High tensile fiber wires," she said stoically. "Strong enough to hold our weight with a firing mechanism powerful enough to bridge that gap. We shoot the grapple, we tie them off, we hook ourselves in and scurry across as fast as we can go."

"We're a bit heavier than your average Jackal," Kat noted.

"I've used them to lug up whole loads of heavy equipment," Taq insisted. "You'll be fine. Would you rather we climb down and stumble through the dark instead?"

"I'm just making sure this is viable," Kat insisted. "I don't want them breaking on us halfway."

Linda took aim first, steadying the grappling claw in her hands. When she felt she had a good target, she pulled the trigger and let it fly. The claw hurtled through the air and embedded itself into the rocks along the far ledge. The other end of the gun opened up to reveal an anchor line, which Linda launched into the floor of the ship, embedding itself tightly into the steel. Kat tried to aim her gun, but she soon shook her head in frustration.

"I'm not the marksman Jun is," Kat stated. "I don't think we can wait for him to get all the way down here from the surface."

"This platform is proficient in long range targeting," Legion stated. "Success is statistically more likely in our case."

Kat didn't argue and simply handed the grappling gun to the Geth. The synthetic took the weapon and aimed across the gap. After focusing its sight and range, it fired the cable at the detached Bridge. The hook embedded itself hard into the metal hull. After the anchor hook shot out and stuck itself in the floor, Legion looked to Kat for her approval. The Spartan only nodded as she moved into position beside the now suspended grappling gun.

"The gun doubles as a winching system," Taq informed them. "We can use them to zip us across in record time. No need for crawling up the cable for an hour."

Good, Tali really hadn't been looking forward to shimmying along a wire for any length of time. Linda and Kat began hooking themselves up to the winch first. Once they were ready, Tali and Taq would hook their own tether lines, provided by the Jackal herself, to the Spartans. That way, they could get most of their group across in one go.

"Once we get to the other side we'll send the winch back for you, sir," Linda told Chief as she made the final adjustments.

Chief didn't seem to be paying attention at the moment though, his mind focused on his own omni-tool. Tali could see it was showing the scans of the ship taken earlier. From that alone, she knew what he was planning before he even said it.

"Actually, I'm staying behind," he informed Linda. "There's an open cavity in the hull nearby that leads straight into the cave system. I'll be heading through there."

"You're going after Shepard, aren't you?" Kat asked.

"The ship's computer could've isolated any of us like it did him," Chief explained. "It didn't. Why?"

"You make it sound like he was deliberately targeted," Taq observed inquisitively.

"He most likely was," Cortana stated, appearing on the Chief's omni-tool screen. "He televised his leadership role to the computer. And, like a less deadly version of a sniper, this singled him out. Security couldn't kill him, but it could remove him. Probably in the hopes we'd be unable to properly function without him."

Taq scratched the underside of her beak, taking in the possibility of what Cortana was saying.

"It's an interesting theory," she eventually admitted. "But what's that got to do with anything right now?"

"Chances are the computer might be directing hostiles to Shepard's position," Chief explained. "Until the security system is shutdown the Commander is in danger. Right now he's alone, he could use the backup."

"We concur with your assessment," Legion stated. "If you will permit us, we would join you in the search for Shepard-Commander."

Tali's nerves now suddenly returned. It was bad enough that the Master Chief was suggesting Wade had been purposely targeted so he could be overwhelmed by the enemy later. Now Legion wanted to go after him. Not that Tali wasn't grateful, but there were still concerns.

"Legion, wait, your glitch, remember?" She reminded him. "I know it hasn't cropped up for a while now, but that's only because we've been doing systems checks. If something goes wrong..."

"I'll be there to help them," Chief assured her. "I have a copy of the program on my omni-tool. Cortana downloaded it there herself. If I see any signs of a problem I can react quickly."

That certainly made things a little easier to accept. Tali probably would've volunteered to rescue Shepard herself, but she needed to get to the bridge. Halsey's notes and her hacking expertise were going to be invaluable once they got there. She was still worried about sending Legion off alone, but they wouldn't really be alone. If the Chief was with them, perhaps everything would be okay.

However, there was another issue with Chief splitting from the group.

"What about Cortana?" Taq asked. "Aren't we going to need her on the bridge with us?"

"You will," Chief said reaching for the back of his helmet. "That's why I'm sending her with you."

He yanked Cortana's chip from his neural uplink. The AI's image vanished from his omni-tool as he pulled her out. He then walked over to Tali, who just nodded and held out her own omni-tool. Cortana's program was instantly transferred to the quarian's device and popped up on her screen after a few seconds.

"Little more cramped than usual, but manageable," Cortana stated. "Plus the company is a nice change really. Hi, DOT, what's happening?"

"Currently managing Tali'Zorah's shield output and biometric lifesigns," DOT replied. "They are all nominal. Progress on data compiling of Forerunner information storage disc at fifty-eight percent."

Taq had asked Tali to look at some of the data they discovered in the Chief Engineer's room earlier. It had been going slower than expected, but it was still nice to hear progress was being made.

"See if you can help her out with that data encryption while you're in there," Tali asked Cortana. "We have a bit of time before we locate where those authorization codes were sent to."

"Will do," Cortana saluted, before disappearing into the omni-tool.

Tali closed the device and looked up to the Master Chief.

"Thank you for going after Shepard," she told him earnestly. "Bring him back in one piece, okay? I... the Normandy needs him."

Chief just gave a knowing nod and looked to Legion.

"Ready to move out?" He asked.

"Affirmative," Legion answered.

"We'll link back up on the Bridge once we find Shepard," Chief told the others. "See you there."

"Good luck," Linda offered.

The Geth and the Spartan Leader left the room, heading for their way down to the caverns. The remaining members of the team now all hooked in, preparing for the trip across the chasm.

"Well isn't this nice," Taq said as she nestled her back against Linda's chest. "It's an all female excavation now. Things are looking up again."

"Let's just get over there, find the relic and shut these crawlers down," Tali insisted, attaching herself to Kat who now held her firmly against her body. "Every second we waste is one where people are in danger."

"Hold tight," Linda said to Taq, clutching her firmly "Activating the winch."

The winches started up and the four of them raced across the chasm at a fairly moderate speed. The cables only bent a little with the increased weight of the Spartans on the line. They didn't snap though, so that was just fine as far as Tali was concerned. She tried not to look down the whole way. Not an easy task of course, eventually she just shut her eyes in an attempt to block out all sight in general. Unfortunately, that just seemed to make the fact her feet were dangling in mid-air all the more apparent. It was the most terrifying situation she could think of at the moment. Next to maybe a room full of spiders, that was probably way worse.

After about two minutes or so of feeling like she was about to be reclaimed by gravity any second, Tali opened her eyes to see the end of the chasm. The ledge approached quickly, the dark void beneath replaced by solid rock. Kat unlatched them from the line and they both touched ground once more. Tali was a little shaky at first, but she managed to maintain her balance and not face plant into the rock. She looked to see Taq and Linda had also made it across, although the Jackal was already striding towards their intended target.

Before them now was the detached section of the Dauntless. Tali imagined it housed a lot more than just the bridge given it's size. Probably another problem caused by the sudden crash. So much had seemingly gone wrong for these Forerunners so quickly. Yet they had still managed to set up an effective countermeasure to keep their cargo safe. It was hard not to be impressed, but currently that makeshift security system and the robots it controlled had placed people's lives in danger. Not just Shepard, but the other members of the Normandy crew no doubt now trapped down here. They needed to shut this place down, fast.

Taq seemed to echo her sentiments, but with a greater sense of awe. She stood at the foot of the entrance to their goal, a pair of heavy doors, tightly locked. Taq looked at them defiantly before gazing back at the others.

"This is it ladies," she began resonating with pride. "The whole reason we're here. This hunk of metal and the many secrets it hides within. Somewhere on that Bridge is our Relic. Is it a weapon? A repository of knowledge? A power source? I don't know, but the Forerunners aboard this wreck all died making sure no one could get it. That tells me it's important, more so than we originally imagined. I don't know about you, but I'm dying to figure out what all the fuss is about."

She pulled out her energy axe and ignited it, a blue glow resonating against her face in the dark.

"So let's crack this tin can open, shall we?"

---

The darkened catacombs were one thing, but the echoes of the robots were another matter altogether. Shepard couldn't imagine why they seemed so loud, why they kept screeching. Were they sending signals to each other? Or was it some kind of psychological warfare runtime? Scare your targets by letting them know you're close, if not all around you. Varvok subscribed to the latter theory.

"They're stalking us you know," he told Shepard as they moved through the cavern. "Screaming and hollering, making us think they're everywhere and nowhere."

"They probably are," Shepard replied. "Keep eyes on the ceiling, they could be moving above us for all we know."

They had been walking at a snail's pace so far, trying to measure every turn and twist within the cavern itself. If the machines were smart enough that they were trying to psyche them out, then they needed to weigh every move carefully. If Shepard's experience in the Dauntless had proven anything, it was that these things were specialized in ambushes.

"How far are we from your people exactly?" Shepard asked Varvok as he peered around a nearby corner.

"I can't be certain," the batarian admitted. "That vent sent me pretty far away and my men wouldn't have stayed in one place for long. They'd look for a defensible position and hold there."

"Maybe that's what we should consider," Shepard suggested. "We find a place to hold up, try to contact somebody and stay put till they reach us."

Varvok snorted at the idea.

"Against the numbers swarming out there we would not stand a chance," Varvok claimed. "Besides, these caverns are messing with my comms in any case. If yours wasn't broken, you probably wouldn't be able to contact anyone either."

"If we get to the more open sections of the catacombs we might get a better signal," Shepard told him. "At the very least if we got close to the Bridge section we could contact my team."

"I imagine that's the first place these crawling synthetics will expect us to go," Varvok argued. "We'd be walking into another trap. At least in these tight quarters their numbers don't count for much."

"I'd prefer more open ground in this case," Shepard told him. "Fewer angles they can come at us from in the more open caverns. Worst comes to worst we can fight our way to the bridge. Right now, too many twists and turns, not enough escape routes. We get charged they could lead us into a dead end or worse. And we don't have nearly enough ammo to keep them all at bay forever."

They rounded another bend, still no sign of any hostiles. Shepard kept his eyes down the sights of his shotgun as Varvok kept in pace behind him, watching their backs.

"This is all the more reason to find my people then," Varvok argued. "The whole point of this was to isolate us. It's obvious the ship somehow realized our position as leaders and reacted accordingly."

They had discussed that a while ago, it was one of the few things they seemed to agree on. It made sense to remove the suspected leaders of the intruding teams. It would leave the others vulnerable to indecision and panic. From that standpoint, Shepard thought he understood Varvok's concerns.

"I get you want to link up with your people and help them organize against these things, but we're not even sure where they are right now," he informed the batarian. "We at least know where my team is headed."

"My people can handle themselves," Varvok argued. "They are disciplined and well-trained. They will manage without me for the time being. My only concern is finding them before we are overrun. Heading to the Bridge is what they expect us to do. It is a trap."

"At least it's a direction," Shepard countered sternly. "Better than wandering around in the dark hoping we stumble upon someone we recognize."

Shepard didn't have to look back to feel the cold, icy stare Varvok was giving him. He accepted it in someways. If he was being honest, he mostly just wanted to get to the Bridge to make sure the others were okay. And If they hadn't been able to reach it for whatever reason, they could at the very least complete the mission. However, he also felt the Bridge was ultimately more defensible, as it was a finite area, with only one entrance. Easier to defend while they shut security down and ended the overall threat.

Varvok didn't seem interested in that, he wanted to find his people and hold out. It was a sensible plan in normal circumstances, but right now it wasn't. They didn't know where to go to find them and they had no idea how long it would take to even get there at this point. The machines could cut them off easily in that situation.

To his credit though, Varvok pivoted the conversation away from strategy for a bit. Perhaps it was an attempt to ease tensions. Just likely though, it was because he wanted to talk more about what they were up against.

"The fact it singled us out should be a bit more alarming to you," he stated. "This doesn't feel like the work of a simple ancient security program."

"You're probably giving them too much credit," Shepard told him flatly.

"Am I?" Varvok asked haughtily. "It assessed our level of threat, it moved to prevent us from our objective and escape, it set up ambushes with these things. This suggests an AI and you know it."

"Cortana would've detected one by now," Shepard insisted. "The Forerunner were a highly sophisticated race. What passes for a simple program to them could've been lightyears ahead of anything we have. We're not dealing with another Guilty Spark. We'd have encountered all this a lot sooner. It reacted slowly until it was certain we were after the relic. That triggered the defenses."

"Fine, the security system is not an AI," Varvok granted with a grunt. "But can you say the same of the machines? Maybe the computer is directing where they go, but they aren't dependent on it. They don't act like stupid drones that's for certain."

Shepard had to admit he had a point. These robots weren't like your typical mech soldier from back home. They didn't just advance and fire, they moved defensively, tried attacks from several angles. They weren't stupid automatons, no. So maybe they were AI, at the very least Dumb AIs carrying out a defense protocol. That didn't really change much though.

"If they're as smart as all that then we'll have to deal with it accordingly," Shepard answered plainly. "But if it is true, then that's all the more reason to be more daring in our plans. We play this too much by the book, they'll use it against us."

"Walking into a potential trap is not a good idea either," Varvok argued. "We shouldn't be taking their bait. We should stay on course to finding my people. We can organize an appropriate defense from there."

"Well you're going to have to pinpoint on the map where they might be first," Shepard harshly reminded him. "Because again, we're just wandering around aimlessly until you do."

If Varvok has any further complaints or counters, they were silenced pretty quickly. A screech echoed behind them loudly, closer than previously. Varvok stopped in his tracks, weapon pointed back from where they came from. Shepard readied one of his hands, resonating it with biotic energy. They stood there motionless, waiting for the next cry. Nothing came though, not in front or in back. Shepard shined his light ahead of him, scanning the area. For a second he thought he saw a shadow move, heard the clanking of feet. He backed up slightly, expecting to get rushed suddenly.

That was when part of the wall erupted to his left. A snapping jaw lashed out at Shepard, grabbing onto his gun and bitting down. Shepard tried to shake the robot off, wrenching it from the wall. He then struck his shotgun down on the ground, shattering the attacking machine to pieces. By this time, Varvok was firing several shots at surging machines darting along the walls from behind them.

Then, part of the ceiling burst open as another of the robots squirmed it's head out and began firing. Shepard threw himself into the wall to avoid the flurry of shots and returned fire with his own shotgun. The machine's head exploded violently and it's body dropped to the floor.

By now, both Shepard and Varvok were moving forward, although it became clear that wasn't going to work either. A second pack of the machines started surging along the walls in front of them, firing as they approached. Shepard let loose with a shockwave attack, curved along the walls of the cavern. The biotic energy threw the machines off, but more were coming. Shepard looked for an exit, only to find a small passage off to the side. Better than nothing, he thought. He tapped Varvok on the shoulder.

"This way, move!" He shouted.

Varvok let loose a few more shots and then followed Shepard into the passage, the cries of the machines echoing after them. It was apparent to them both now that whatever plan they eventually agreed upon, it didn't matter. These things would be waiting for them, ready to strike. Any time, any place, from any direction.

---

Kowalski woke up feeling something wet and sticky on his face. He jumped up with a start, trying to brush away whatever vile crap had just got in his eyes, nose and mouth. When his vision finally cleared and he managed to find the flashlight attached to his armor, he was able to find out who the culprit was. Standing there, holding some kind of flask, was Zek. The Jackal was raising his hands in an easing gesture, trying to placate the currently panicking Marine. Maybe he had seen Kowalski instinctively reaching for his sidearm when he jolted to his feet.

"Easy, soldier boy," Zek insisted. "We're all friends now, remember? No need to get all bent out of shape."

"The hell happened?" Kowalski demanded to know.

"From what I gathered the same thing that happened to me," Zek replied. "You fell, hit your head on a few things on the way down. I found you unconscious here and I tried slapping you awake, but that wasn't working so..."

"You threw slimy water in my face?" Kowalski asked, indignite at the action.

"No," Zek responded, sounding insulted. "I threw ichor on you. It was all I had."

Kowalski almost gagged at the revelation. He started spitting and wiping down his tongue frantically. Now the weird taste in his mouth had grown a sudden disgusting bent to it. The Jackal had thrown Space Whale Blister Bile at him! It took every ounce of willpower not to start scrubbing his tongue with rocks and dirt just to get rid of the putrid taste occupying his mouth.

"The fuck, man!" He shouted. "Why don't you have water on you?!"

"Uh, pirate," Zek responded, as if the answer should've been obvious. "Retz is the anomaly who doesn't drink. Next time get stuck in the creepy catacombs beneath the infested wreck with him."

Zek put his flask away and walked past him, pulling out his plasma pistol out as he did.

"My guess is we're a long way down and far away from our buds," he stated. "Not going to be easy navigating this maze to find them. Hell, just finding an exit is gonna be a bitch."

Slowly getting over his shocking awakening, Kowalski suddenly remembered. He didn't fall down here alone. He was about to ask Zek about Samara, if he had seen her, when there was a groan from behind them. Zek heard it too and moved to investigate. He shined his light as he saw a figure start to stand.

"Oh hey, you brought a friend," he observed. "Goody, the more the merrier on this little fuck up."

Zek soon changed his mind though. When he shone the light on the figure, he saw an asari in red armor staring back, trying to adjust her vision in the sudden onset of illumination in her eyes. Zek jumped back in fright and rushed behind Kowalski in fear.

"Shit, shit," he said, gritting through his beak. "Of all the fucking rotten luck! I wound up with the crazy space cop!"

Kowalski, for his part, was a lot more relieved to see Samara was alright. Any attempt to hide his smile from her failed horribly.

"Sam," he blurted out. "Thank God, I was worried for a second there. You hurt?"

"I am relatively fine, Private Kowalski," she assured him. "Bumps, scrapes and a few bruises, but nothing medi-gel can't resolve. Thank you for your concern regardless. It is good to see you not gravely inured as well."

"What about me?" Zek asked nervously. "Is it, uh, good to see me okay too?"

Samara just frowned.

"I hold no opinion one way or the other about your state of health, pirate," she said grimacing.

Zek came out from behind Kowalski, but he kept his distance. Samara didn't let up her gaze either, still staring him down as he moved about. Kowalski could sense this was probably not the most ideal situation for any of them right now. Thankfully, Samara eventually dropped her accusing glare to look at her omni-tool. He disgruntled look did not vanish.

"I cannot raise a communication signal," she said despondently. "We must be too deep in the caves to contact anyone."

Kowalski tried his radio, but only got a mess of static when he did.

"Seems like it," he admitted. "We still got the scans of the caves though, right? Can we use it to get ourselves back to the others?"

"We can use it to navigate the caverns, but I imagine Sergeant Johnson has already moved as far away from the wreck as possible by now," Samara said thoughtfully. "He would most likely seek out a defensible area in an attempt to buy himself time to plan his next move."

"There ain't many places you can make a stand in here," Zek stated flatly. "It's all winding tunnels and shit. If he's smart, the Sergeant is trying to get to an exit. These fuckers don't want us near the wreck, right? The further away we are, the less of a problem we become."

"Well if they're so eager to get rid of us, I imagine they also don't want us to leave," Kowalski considered aloud. "I mean, we know where they are now. What if we tell more people how to get here? If these things are here to protect this ship, they'd want to stop that, right?"

"An excellent observation, Private Kowalski," Samara congratulated. "It is why I believe we'd be better suited to attempting to regroup with our companions. We know one likely place where some might be headed, the detached Bridge Section."

"That's a pretty long walk from wherever we are," Zek snorted. "I say we get back into the wreck, try and get out from where we came. Report it into the surface team, have them storm inside and wipe the bastards out."

"Throwing more lives into danger is senseless," Samara declared. "We must resolve the problem ourselves and find a way to defeat these machines before it is too late."

Zek just rolled his eyes.

"Seriously? You want to just jump into the fire again with those things?" He chortled. "Lady, maybe you ain't keeping score here, but we got our asses kicked by a fucking dead tub and it's four-legged pack of killer synth hounds. We should get while the getting is good and come back fresh later."

"What about your men?" Kowalski asked. "I'm sure they're looking for you by now."

"More likely they think I'm dead and if we can't contact up top, neither can they," Zek explained. "Standard Pirate Code is clear on this, when things look bad, run. Retz would probably tell them to stay and look for me, but the smart thing for them to do is get out now. Then Retz can organize a search for me later, but not before."

"And you're fine with your loyal crew abandoning you in here?" Samara asked curiously with a harsh look.

"They're not abandoning me," Zek argued, not at all appreciating Samara's tone. "They're doing the smart thing. You don't stick around in a hot zone with overwhelming odds against you. You book it and you hope you get out with all your limbs attached. If they and us have any hope of surviving this, we should get out of here while the getting is good."

"I will not leave good men to face these terrors alone," Samara declared proudly. "Justicars do not flee when there are those who need them."

"Justicars sound like pretty fucking stupid bleeding hearts then," Zek growled.

Samara's body lit up with biotic energy as she glared at Zek. Instantly, the Pirate jumped back and tried to hide behind Kowalski again. Samara's glower intensified at the action. So typical of his kind, she thought. Kowalski quickly raised his hands between them.

"Okay, okay, could we all relax," he requested. "We're on the same side here. We are going to need each other to get out of this."

"Correction, Private Kowalski," the asari was quick reply. "I am not on his side, I am unfortunately bound to my oath to Shepard to not kill him. Were the circumstances different, the Pirate would already be dead."

"As you love to keep reminding me," Zek said, returning an angry glare of his own. "This Pirate saved your ass, remember? And I thought the ODSTs were ungrateful shits."

Samara stopped looking at the Jackal out of disgust, addressing only Kowalski as she spoke.

"We do not need him," she said firmly. "If he wishes to run like a coward, let him. From the sound of things, his crew will not miss him should he perish."

"Those machines outnumber us, Sam, more so than ever now," Kowalski reminded her. "We need every gun we can get and his plasma pistols have an EMP function, remember? It's probably the most effective weapon we got on hand right now. We should stick together, it might be the only way we get out of this alive."

Samara looked contemplative for a moment, then her biotic resonance subsided.

"As much as it pains me to admit, your logic is sound, Private," she relented. "We are lost in these tunnels and if we have any hope of escaping we must use every advantage we possess. But I will not run from the danger as he wishes to. We must find the others and assist them."

"I'm with you on that, believe me," Kowalski told her, looking over to Zek next. "And I get your point too about trying to contact the surface. I think Johnson might have the same idea. If we get up high enough in these catacombs, maybe our radios can cut through all the clutter and connect to our teams. Then we can direct them to find us. Better than heading back into the wreck and fighting our way back out where we came, especially when it's just the three of us."

Zek, to his credit, took Kowalski's plan into consideration. The Jackal scratched the underside of his beak thoughtfully, trying to work out the angles. He was interrupted by a metallic shriek, however. Samara pointed her weapon at the shadows, her eyes darting about to locate the threat. Kowalski did the same, as did Zek, but they could see nothing.

"Okay, we can try your plan," Zek blurted out nervously. "But, may I suggest we start moving now."

"That I can agree with," Samara concurred. "Let us not waste more time."

Kowalski just nodded and the trio took off once more. He hoped his plan would work. He also hoped that he could keep Sam and Zek from killing each other before they found a way out of this mess. He wasn't really worried about Samara to be honest. He really did not want to get singled out by the Space Pirates for letting their Captain get slaughtered, though. Life in this makeshift fleet of theirs was awkward enough already.

This was the textbook definition of Situation Normal All Fucked Up. She'd fight anyone who claimed otherwise. Unit separated, total darkness, deep in enemy territory, potentially surrounded on all sides, limited ammo, no contact with command and currently lost in a maze of tunnels with no clear direction of where to go. So much for this being a simple treasure hunt, McKay thought.

---

She had managed to keep a few squads from getting separated, but the Dauntless' ability to reconfigure itself had split the unit up more than a few times. Eventually, the pace of the changes slowed enough that McKay was able to get what was left out of an open airlock. That thankfully included all the Normandy crewmembers in their search party, but that still left one too many ODSTs stranded out there. Worse for McKay was the fact many of them were in fact supporters of her command. Besides Buck's team and another squad, what was left of the unit still with were more aligned with Sergeant Lendon's current thinking.

At first she wasn't sure what to do. She briefly considered heading towards the only other major landmark inside these caves, the Bridge section of the wreck. However, she quickly shot that down. Chances were these machines were still hunting them. If they headed to the Bridge now, they'd lead every single robot there with them. That would put Shepard's team at risk of getting overrun by the little metal freaks. Shutting down the security there was the only chance any of them had in the long run. So, McKay decided they needed to keep away from the Bridge for now and prioritize locating the other ODSTs and any other survivors who had escaped the wreck. For once, everyone, even Lendon, seemed to agree with that plan.

Wandering through the maze of tunnels, McKay kept trying to pick up anything on the radio, but could only get static. She growled in annoyance at it all. Of all the times for comms to be on the fritz. With any luck it was just a proximity issue exacerbated by these caverns. That way, when they got close enough, they could find someone, anyone, and start to regroup.

"Keep an eye out for movement, watch your corners," she reminded the squads. "I don't want us getting ambushed again while we're in here."

No one believed for a second that the robots were done with them just because they were outside the Dauntless now. The sounds of the screeching cries made that clear enough. The thought of getting ambushed in the dark did not sit well with anyone. It was better than being inside a wreck that could rearrange itself at a whim though. At least the security system had no power over the tunnels and whatever sensors it had been using to track them within the Dauntless didn't extend out here. At least McKay hoped they didn't.

"How many of our friends you think got out in time?" Buck asked her as they trudged through the dark.

"Hopefully enough to mount a decent enough defense until we're declared overdue and they send in reinforcements," McKay responded, scanning the dark with her light. "If we're really lucky, we end up with enough squads to fight our way out to the surface and out of this hole."

"I'm going to keep hoping for that option, if you don't mind," Buck told her. "Today has made me realize us Drop Troopers weren't meant be stuck underground. I mean, the word Orbital is in our name for reason."

It was nice to have someone give some levity to the situation, McKay at least knew she needed it. Her thoughts were otherwise permeated with the grim reality that they were trapped down here in the dark with an unknown enemy. Not exactly a confidence booster when half your Unit hated you. She tried not to focus on that too much, they just needed to find some Marines and work out their next move. Once they did that, maybe things would start looking up then.

"Anyone got anything on their motion trackers?" McKay called out down the line. "Hostiles? Friends?"

She got a mix of shaking heads and responses of no. She wanted to be happy about that, but they had barely gotten any tracking on the wreck before the bots attacked. She wanted something, anything, a blip, whatever. Perhaps the tunnels winded about too much to pick up anything significant.

"Jack, be ready to hit anything the sounds metallic and screechy with your biotics the second you spot it," she ordered.

"Way ahead of you, boss lady," Jack replied smugly, her shotgun pointed down range and at the ready. "Me and Thane, got this shit covered."

"I still suggest we find a more open space," Thane added, his pistol by his side. "These tunnels are far too enclosed to make any real stand."

"We'll find a good place to hold up," McKay assured him. "We got the scans, we just need to figure out exactly where we are."

The third Normandy crewmember, Zaeed, approached at that moment from behind. He looked cautious, concerned, his grip on his assault rifle tight. McKay did not like the grim look on the man's face either.

"I don't mean to tell you how to run your unit, but you best watch out for more than just metal crawlies," he forewarned. "I've been going up and down the line, I keep hearing about what Lendon is going to do when you bite it or freeze up or lead them astray."

"Well there's no sense in speculating, because that's not happening," McKay stated clearly. "If they have seriously forgotten my prowess, then they will be reminded soon enough."

"I just hope you're ready to put them in line when the time comes," Zaeed told her gravely. "I had me a disloyal bunch before, it did not end well for me."

McKay agreed with Zaeed, she wanted to just snap her fingers and just make everyone get back in line already, but it wasn't so simple. She had disciplined them, she had drilled them, she had even tried to make peace with them by giving up her extra rations to them. Nothing seemed to work, they all still saw her as a traitor. What else did they need? What else did they want? She was sick of this shit, but at this point all she could really do was try to remind them why she was Silva's second. They didn't have to like her, but they should at least respect her combat abilities. She trained most of this unit, worked with them for years. She refused to believe one decision was enough to wash all that away, but it was starting to look like she'd never get back to where she was before the mutiny.

Suddenly, she thought she heard something up ahead, shuffling of feet, muffled sounds, she wasn't entirely sure. Could be Marines, could be more of the bots. McKay raised her hand to stop the column and approached he turn cautiously. She looked at her motion tracker and thought she saw a few blips. Buck backed her up, along with a few other ODSTs and Zaeed. They moved to the corner and then advanced through, ready for anything.

They found Marines, a few of them, and a lot more Batarians and Jackals all huddled around a large open space within the tunnels. The batarians and their space pirate buddies spotted them instantly. As if by instinct they went for their own weapons the second they saw a few humans pointing their own at them. The Jackals did the same, reaching for their own sidearms or powering up their shields. Both groups stared each other down, not moving, the Marines caught in the middle looking confused.

The stare down continued for a few seconds more, both sides glower at the other. McKay hadn't raised her own weapon, but she hadn't relaxed her trigger finger either. She knew she had to get them all to stand down, that this was pointless, but a part of her brain, her training, kept her from doing so right away. The silence of the whole moment was interrupted when another Jackal scampered in from out of a corner, pulling his armored greaves back up.

"Ah, man, that was a good drain," he chuckled for a moment. Then he realized what he had walked back into and his expression dampened slightly. "Uh, should I go back to the pissing corner? Cause..."

The interruption was enough to relax McKay's mind. Allowing her to finally let herself give the order everyone needed to hear.

"Weapons down, relax," she told everyone. "We're on the same side, remember?"

The ODSTs reluctantly relaxed their guns. The Jackals and Batarians did the same, almost as slowly. At least they weren't going to shoot each other, that was one potential problem taken care of. One of the batarians approached McKay, his rifle at his side.

"So, more humans made it out," he noted.

"Where'd you find them?" McKay asked, motioning her head towards the Marines among the group.

The batarian looked briefly at the Marines among his group as he answered.

"They wandered into our squad's path looking for more of their people," the alien explained. "We decided to offer them assistance, we needed the extra guns more than anything."

At least he was being honest, McKay thought. She looked around at the assorted grouping, who had mostly gone back to minding their own business now. The Marines had gotten up to greet some of the ODSTs, but McKay remaining standing in front of the batarian. She could only assume he was the highest ranking officer here, an assumption that proved accurate.

"Sergeant Revtok, I'm the Lieutenant Commander's second on this mission," he informed her. "You must be Lieutenant Melissa McKay of the ODSTs. I should've assumed you'd have made it out as well somehow."

He knew her, she wasn't sure if that was a good or bad thing. Even if he was a rank lower than her, it probably wouldn't matter much. Lendon hardly listened to her after all and he was a subordinate too. There was no sense in making things awkward again though, so she tried to keeping it cordial.

"We managed, it's part of the job," she responded. "How'd you guess it was me?"

"Everyone in this Alliance is more than aware of your reputation and the problems you've had recently," he explained. "It's not exactly a big secret honestly. Once I realized you were female the dots connected themselves."

Great, he was up on current events, that didn't exactly inspire confidence. How were they going to work together if he knew about her command troubles? She tried to keep matters focused on the problem at hand.

"Have you had any other encounters with our robotic hosts?" She asked him.

"Small squads, hit and run attacks," the batarian answered plainly. "They seem crafted as attempts to disorient and scatter us, break us down into smaller units. They had some success in that with our kig-yar friends and your Marines."

"But you all managed to stick together then?" Buck asked inquisitively.

"Lieutenant Commander Varvok trained us to beware of such tactics," Revtok explained. "We stayed close, remained cohesive. I imagine your ODSTs did the same."

"Like I said, we managed," McKay answered bluntly. "Where is your CO now?"

Revtok looked down momentarily in silence, never a good sign.

"He made sure all of us got off the wreck before he left himself," Revtok explained. "We believe the ship somehow managed to separate him from us while attempting his own escape."

"So he's dead then?" Jack asked rather tactlessly.

Revtok glared at her briefly, but remained assertive.

"He is not dead," he claimed. "Lieutenant Commander Varvok would not allow a mindless hunk of metal to beat him. He is alive and we will find him or he will find us."

McKay was impressed by the ardent display of loyalty. It was so sincere and unflinching. Varvok had clearly fostered a great sense of admiration among his men. The kind all leaders wanted to instill in their followers. If only the more disgruntled half of her unit were similar in this regard, some of her problems wouldn't feel so daunting.

"What about the Jackal leader, Zek," McKay asked. "Is he around?"

"Unfortunately no, he is also lost," Revtok relented. "His men claim the ship's floor opened up and swallowed him. We don't know where either are."

Then it was just down to them, this ragtag band of assorted unit of different lifeforms, one third of which had some misgivings about the other two thirds. They had to get through this together and she was the highest ranking officer it seemed among anyone here. She suddenly wished she had an extra cup of coffee that morning, because this was not what she wanted at all. She could barely command one unit, now she technically had three, not counting the small squad of Marines mixed in. Perhaps it was best not to phrase things as her taking charge in that case. The batarians probably wouldn't like being commanded by a human while their real leader was missing.

"Well, until your leaders show up, we should pool our resources together," she suggested. "We can come up with a plan of action together."

"Together?" Revtok asked, sounding skeptical. "As in, shared command of a sort?"

"I only think that's fair," McKay pointed out. "You know your men better than I do. It would be best for everyone I think if we kept our respective commands until further notice."

"We shall see if that holds true, Lieutenant," Revtok told her. "Right now, all I care about is finding Varvok so he may lead us to victory."

She was fine with that, at least it meant she wouldn't be the highest ranking person here. However, if this was going to be a real joint task force, they were missing a third member. As much as she hated to admit it, they would need to coordinate with the Jackals too.

"Who is in charge of the Pirates right now?" She asked him.

"Their command structure is a bit more chaotic than either of ours," Revtok admitted. "Before your Marines showed up many of them were split on their precise course of action. Some want to try heading for the Bridge section to see if they can actually earn a profit on this, others want to make a go for the surface and get new orders from Retz."

"They don't want to search for Zek?" Thane asked, perplexed at the news.

"From what I understand it's part of their code," Revtok shrugged. "If the shipmaster is lost, he gets left behind until further notice. To be fair to them, they're hoping he's alive, they just don't want to risk their necks saving them."

"Typical pirate mentality," Zaeed said rather plainly. "I'd be more critical if I hadn't left behind one too many men on a mission myself."

Zaeed had become infamous for not exactly inspiring confidence. McKay was starting to learn why. He had one too many stories about how his missions ended up with everyone but him dead. To his credit, he did acknowledge he probably shouldn't be in charge of anything given how things had gone for him. Probably why he preferred to work for other people for money, or whatever his working relationship with Commander Shepard was. From what she understood, it was complicated.

"So they're divided," said McKay, speaking of the Jackals. "Do they have anything resembling a leader as of now?"

Revtok thought for a moment and then looked back at the crowd, scanning it.

"There was one," he said, his four eyes searching the crowd. "Most everyone looked to him when we all joined up. Not really for leadership mind you, but it's something. There he is."

Revtok pointed to a Jackal hunched over something with his back turned to them. McKay didn't waste anytime in approaching the alien. The others followed her, curious to meet this defacto leader of the Jackals for the moment. He looked busy, his arms feverishly moving about, but she needed to figure out what the intentions of the Jackals were before they could start making plans.

"Excuse me," she began. "I'm Lieutenant McKay, I'd like to speak to you about-"

"HA! Got it!"

The Jackal suddenly sprouted up from the ground, holding something in his hand. He lifted the goggles covering his face up to his short feathered mohawk and grinned. It was only then he noticed McKay in his peripheral vision and looked to her directly.

"Uh, what do you got?" McKay asked curiously.

"Piece of equipment I was working on," he explained in a higher pitched rasp. "More on it in a second, intros first. Kaz, engineering technician, I remember you from the Serpent when you brought that Huragok aboard for an emergency fix. McKay, right?"

"Yes, that's me," she reiterated, a bit offput by how forward and friendly the Jackal appeared to be. Maybe he was just in a good mood after fixing what was in his hand, a subject she quickly brought up again. "What exactly is that thing you got working?"

Kaz presented the device to her, still seemingly pleased with himself. It was hand-held electronic tablet of some kind. Bulkier than a datapad and with a holographic display.

"This here is an Energy Fluctuations Detector," Kaz explained. "We use it aboard the ship to find possible power imbalances within the system. I brought it with me to help Zek look for potential hot spots on the wreck, see if any tech was still active. Just before those little synths attacked I got a major spike and in the mess that followed it got damaged by one of the bastards. I've been trying to patch it since and I finally managed it thanks to some of the tools the batarians had on hand."

"That's nice for you, pal, but how's that help us?" Jack asked him rather bluntly.

"Just give it a look and you'll see," Kaz insisted.

He opened up the holographic display, showing a mini-map of the wreck of the Dauntless and the tunnel system around it. Kax began scrolling through it, noting all the little energy spikes in the tunnels that tablet was highlighting.

"My best guess is that all of those little dots are high concentrations of our synth playmates," Kaz explained. "As you can see, they got a substantial presence."

"We could use this to avoid them then," Zaeed reasoned, for once sound optimistic. "Or at the very least let us know when they're on our tails."

"How is this working when all our other equipment is on the fritz?" McKay asked inquisitively. As much as she wanted to believe it was viable, she needed to be sure first.

"It does work like a radio or a motion tracker," Kaz explained beaming. "It's a long range deep detection device. It had to be to properly locate power anomalies on a ship with a lot of nooks and crannies. I just had to boost the power to the signal output to overcome the additional size of the wreck and the surrounding tunnels. And, yes, it can potentially warn us of incoming synths, but the real kicker is here. Remember that major power spike?"

Kaz eventually scrolled to a place beneath the lowest point of the Dauntless' current resting place. From the look of it, there was a very large resonating power spike located there. While McKay didn't see the full point Kaz was trying to make just yet, she was intrigued. What could be generating that much power? A possible explanation came to mind.

"Is it the relic?" She asked. "I thought that was on the Bridge."

"I'm not sure it's the Relic we're after," Kaz admitted. "The energy signature is strong, but I'm getting a bigger spike on the Bridge itself. I do think it's related in someway to the synths though, the signature is eerily similar to theirs."

"It could be their power source or some kind of relay," Buck suggested.

"Whatever it is, if it's related to these machines, maybe it's worth investigating," McKay stated in assertive and direct tone. "It could be the key to shutting them down."

"Cortana said we could only do that from the Bridge," Jack reminded her.

"As far as she could tell," McKay reasoned. "Maybe there's another way. The point is, if this power spike is related to these machines, taking it out might at the very least slow these bastards down and give us a fighting chance."

She turned to Revtok, standing just a few feet away from them.

"It could give Varvok a fighting chance if he's still alive and being hunted like we are," she told him rather bluntly.

Revtok looked at her, still skeptical, but also maybe a little impressed. His eyes said seemed to say "well played" to her. That gave McKay reason to hope this wouldn't be so difficult.

"If destroying whatever is giving off this power spike potentially injures our enemies, then it will make searching or escaping these tunnels all the easier," the batarian quickly deduced. "I will inform the men that we have an objective that serves all interests."

"Could also be some expensive looking Forerunner tech," Kaz added. "Might be worth the risk for profit alone, but it's still going to be a risk. It's deep in their territory right now."

"With any luck we can find more of the scattered Marines along the way to boost our numbers," McKay told him. "What's important now is we have a clear goal in mind. I'll tell my men and we can think up a plan together."

Revtok and Kaz seemed to agree, even if all their reasons for going along with this were vastly different from each other. Revtok's was simple loyalty, Kaz and the Jackals potential profit. For McKay was about staying on mission and doing what she could to defeat the enemy. It also gave her an excuse to search the tunnels, find more of the lost Marines or at least give them a fighting chance. If this power spike was indeed somehow important to these crawling robots, then taking it out could hinder them significantly. Still, concerns remains, as Buck pointed out when the other two leaders departed to talk to their own men.

"This is not going to be easy to explain to everyone," Buck told her. "We haven't really worked directly with any of our new friends until now."

"We don't have a choice, we need the manpower to push through their territory," McKay responded. "Lendon and the rest will just have to deal with it. Until these robots are shut down, the grudges we used to harbor are unimportant. Now, we should talk with the Marine squad. Maybe they can shed some light on where Sergeant Johnson might be. We find him and his unit, we stand better chance at pulling this off."

"I'm with you, Lieutenant," Buck assured her. "One hundred percent, let's just hope that the percentage is a high with everyone else involved, regardless of blood color."

McKay hoped the same thing. All she knew for sure though was the next few hours would probably define her role as the leader of this ODST unit. She wasn't about to fail, not with so many people possibly hoping she would. She'd be damned if she allow any of them to be proven right about her.

---

The Master Chief hugged the wall as they moved, keeping his ears open for anything. The echo of the tunnels was off-putting, but he tried to remain focused. The screeching of the crawling bots was either communicative or psychological, either way he wouldn't let it throw him off. He fell back on his training, find the source of the sound, use that to locate the most likely position. Don't allow the enemy to play mind games, use them to your advantage. It helped of course he had Legion backing him up, who was also trying to triangulate the echoes with it's own software. The latest screech gave the geth a good indication of what they were up against.

"Estimated three or more down left-side cavern path," the synthetic stated. "Possibly tracking friendly units."

"Not us though," Chief added. "That sounded faded early, they're moving away."

"We concur," Legion replied. "Way forward clear."

They moved up towards a large open space in the caves, guns pointed outward. Chief activated his flashlight and pointed it at the floor, searching for any clues.

"So we're beneath the room where we lost sight of the Commander now?" He asked Legion.

"Approximately," the geth answered simply. "Calculated possible descent trajectory security system would've used. Cross-referencing with tunnel system suggested this most likely landing spot."

Chief's light suddenly came upon an impression in the dirt. He knelt down, keeping his light pointed ahead as Legion joined him. It was clear this was from an impact with the cavern floor with the way the dirt was strewn out and Chief could at least make out a human handprint in the loose soil.

"Looks like your calculations were dead on, Legion," Chief congratulated the synthetic. "And since there's no body, we can assume the Commander at least didn't die here. He's probably injured though, that was quite a fall."

"Trajectory of tunnels leading down to this location suggest descent slowed," Legion surmised. "Armor may have cushioned fall further, but Shepard-Commander has likely sustained some damage."

Chief followed the path in the dirt, footprints he recognized as the Commander's. He tracked them to a small corner in the cavern and found a mess of similar tracks. They did not match Shepard's combat boot though, someone else was here.

"He found another survivor, guess they paired up and headed down that catacomb," Chief said, pointing down one of the tunnels. "At least he's not alone down here, he might stand a better chance than we thought."

"Shepard-Commander has been known to overcome the highly likely odds of termination in less favorable circumstances," Legion complimented. "This alone lends reason to be optimistic."

"Let's just hope we can get to him in time," Chief told Legion. "Come on, these tracks are old but we can catch up if we hurry."

Before they could move very far though, Chief thought he heard something down their intended tunnel. He held up his hand to pause Legion and shut off his light. Scurrying out of the dark, just ahead of them, was a lone crawling robot. It scampered about, searching the adjacent area. Chief could only think of one possibility.

"Scout," he whispered. "Probably one of many searching the area."

"Unlikely it strayed far," Legion surmised. "Likely remained in close proximity to others. It will alert them to our position if we are spotted."

"Then we take it out without guns," Chief suggested. "We just need a distraction."

"We can provide a solution," Legion assured activating his omni-tool.

Legion activated their combat drone, but disabled it's attack functions. The little roving ball formed close to a small boulder nearby and gave off a radiant light. This attracted the crawler bot, as it cautiously approached the light, opening it's mouth wide as it crept up. It kept facing front as it investigated the light, leaving it's backside open to attack. Chief and Legion moved away slightly as it approached, giving it enough space to close in on the light. It moved around the corner of the boulder to find the drone, tilting its head in confusion. That was when Chief struck.

The Spartan rushed from the shadows and tackled the the machine to the ground. It tried to claw and screech, but to no avail. The Spartan smashed his fist into the robot's head. That seemed to deactivate the metallic menace, as the lights dimmed from it's body and it went limp in Chief's grasp. Holding it by the neck, the Spartan stood back up as Legion regrouped with him.

"Strange looking thing, huh?" He asked the Geth

"We have seen many combat mechs designed for security," Legion said as they examined it. "But this unit's construction is far more complicated."

Chief examined the machine for himself. It had a lot more segmented parts than expect from most military drones. That was what allowed it to be so agile and quick, its design allowed it to move with greater speed than other machines of its kind. He also noticed the sharp claws on the tips of the robots feet. Clearly designed to allow it to climb on any surface and attack from any angle. That gave it the ability to ambush the enemy from anywhere. That made it perfect for hit and run attacks, but within these tunnels that made it even more deadly. These enclosed spaces were practically made for them.

Legion activated its omni-tool once again and scanned the machine thoroughly. Data accumulated on the screen quickly and the Geth's single eye widened. Chief got a look for himself, moving beside the Geth to watch the holographic screen. He saw a representation of the robot with various specifications highlighted.

"This unit's body structure is significantly armored, the head is less so," Legion explained. "Your blow did sufficient damage to its internal circuitry."

"Well at least we know a decent enough weakspot now," Chief said.

"There is more," Legion told him. "Despite complexity of design, we recognize similarities between this unit and our own platform. Hardware built for greater processing speed. This is not conducive with simple drone construct."

Legion didn't have to spell it out further. He had paid attention to Doctor Halsey when she talked about the procedure for his neural implants. The ones that allowed Cortana to be installed into his armor.

"This thing is controlled by an AI," he stated.

"Most likely," Legion answered. "However, given the advanced construction and design, it would be no simple program. This machine is designed to house a significantly advanced intelligence within it. Given our past experiences, it is safe to conclude at this point that the Forerunner's knowledge of Artificial Intelligence far exceeded our own."

This was the last thing Chief needed to hear. They had already faced one Forerunner AI and barely came out on top. Now they were dealing with a swarm of them, each far more deadly that Guilty Spark had been. Given how crazy Spark had become over the years guarding Halo, it was safe to say these crawling robots were probably just as insane if not more.

"If these things are like Guilty Spark, then they're not going to stop until they fulfill their programming," he told Legion. "And from what we know, that most likely means making sure we never leave here alive."

"If Program-Cortana is correct, Creator-Tali'Zorah and the others will be able to terminate the security protocol," Legion elaborated. "However, it is unlikely that it will shut down all of these machines. Enough will remain online to pose a problem, running their programming to completion as Guilty Spark attempted. There is likely a central processor directing the units autonomously. Shutting it down may force the rest of the machines into standby mode."

"We still need to find Shepard first," Chief insisted. "Then we can worry about taking these crawling bots down together."

Legion's omni-tool suddenly started blinking, as an indicator pointed towards the head.

"The unit is still inoperative, but we have detected an isolated power fluctuation within the central cavity," Legion explained. "It is separate from that of the main system."

Chief wasted no time, there was only one way to figure out what the omni-tool was reading. He gripped the head of the crawling robot's body and tore it open. Reaching inside, he felt something close to where the mouth was. He wrenched free and saw what it was. It looked like gun, a bulky pistol of some kind, but unlike anything he'd seen. It resonated with an orange glow while it's trigger and stock wrapped around his hand.

"This must be what they used to shoot at us," he quickly deduced. "Could come in handy."

There was another shrieking noise, coming from behind them.

"Enemy units encroaching on our position," Legion warned. "Probable reason: Loss of contact with other scout."

"Let's make ourselves scarce then," Chief told him. "Shepard is still out there, we got to find him."

They set off down another set of tunnels, with a bit more knowledge of their enemy and a new resolve. Find Shepard, find what was keeping these robots running and then take it out.

---

Taq's plasma axe was more than enough to break through the lock on the door after a few clean strikes. It took only slightly longer to force the entrance open wide thanks to the efforts of the Spartans. Before long the group was inside the the detached Bridge section, although not on the bridge proper just yet. Whether it was the hasty detachment during the crash or just by design, apparently a large chunk of the Dauntless' Command Deck had gone with the Bridge during the separation.

The team soon found themselves in a large open hallway, opulent in scope. Similar to Covenant vessels, it felt almost like walking inside a temple, with high walls moving up towards an elaborate arched ceiling. There were also relatively large statues on either side of the corridor. Their regal looking bodies and adorned heads suggested these were depictions of the Forerunners themselves, but there was little in the way of distinguishing features. The face were blank, making the sculptures in general more abstract.

"For a cargo ship it's very well decorated," Kat observed as they kept walking.

"It's possible this area was retrofitted afterwards," Taq suggested. "If the Forerunners could alter how their ships looked it's likely it wouldn't have taken much time or energy to reconstruct the Command Deck to a design of their choosing."

"It's still just transporting cargo," Linda reminded her. "Even if they did do a makeover, why bother with sprucing the place up? What purpose does it serve?"

"If you mean operational wise, none," Taq stated flatly. "It serves no purpose. However, given the Dauntless was on a mission to colonize a new dimension while this one was getting torn apart by these Flood creatures you mentioned, my guess is they did it for morale. I doubt the ship was only transporting artifacts, I bet a few extra people came aboard hoping to flee the end times. They probably reserved the best accommodations for the elites in their little civilization, up here on the Command Deck. So they tried to make them feel more at home on their exodus."

While that a made certain sort of cruel sense and had historical precedent, Tali somewhat hoped Taq was wrong about that. Surely a race as advanced as the Forerunners wasn't so divided along class lines. They must've transcended that long ago. Then again, perhaps she was just projecting her own values a little. Given the history of her own people, she couldn't help but feel a little bit of kinship with those who had tried to use this ship to escape to better life. Even if she knew anyone who escaped this universe back then most likely met a similarly gruesome end when the Reapers arrived back in her home universe, at least it would've felt like a new beginning for a short while. The subject of the Forerunner Exodus of course prompted another question in her mind, one she hadn't really gotten the answer to before.

"Taq, before we met and Zek told you about the Flood, what exactly did you think killed the Forerunners?" The quarian asked curiously. "You mentioned before you didn't believe the Covenant's story."

"Because it made no sense," Taq snorted with a slight chuckle in reply. "Top of their game, whole galaxy at their feet, why the hell would they leave all that for some mystic mumbo jumbo enlightenment? No, I believed they had all died out for another reason. A massive epidemic they couldn't get ahead of fast enough. Uprising from the various little races they felt they controlled. They killed each other during a very bloody internal conflict. New enemy even they couldn't beat. Those all seemed like far more likely scenarios than whatever nonsense they tried to feed me. Turns out I wasn't too far off with my educated guesses. The Flood was both an epidemic and an enemy they couldn't beat from the sound of it."

"Now I'm wondering how you stayed alive in that school you studied at," Linda noted. "Doesn't sound like you could've been very popular."

"Not acting like a self-righteous douche who already knows all the answers will do that," Taq shrugged nonchalantly. "I didn't need friends in that shithole anyway. I just needed to last long enough to get the education I needed so I could work on getting the answers to my questions. Specifically the ones that none of my teachers would even ask themselves. I stuck to smaller, less controversial things for my papers, things that weren't heretical to talk about. When I felt I got what I needed I started playing rabble-rouser again, figured they'd at least let me finish up before denying my doctorate. Guess I was being overly optimistic up until the point they told me I was no longer welcome."

Tali now kept wondering about what a Covenant school would look like. She remembered her classes aboard the Flotilla, how they related more to basic survival than anything else. From the sound of things, Covenant College was more akin to religious indoctrination than a real learning experience. Of course, getting expelled from a place like that usually had more consequences than losing a degree.

"Did they... do anything to you?" Tali asked cautiously, not sure if she should prod.

"Nothing I wasn't prepared for," Taq admitted, not at all as troubled as Tali had feared she'd be. "A brand on my shoulder that blacklisted me from any other schools and any legitimate job in the Covenant Archaeological Wayfinder Corps. Basically just another branch of the military, not where I wanted to be. I wanted more freedom, more independence, the ability to plan my own expeditions. They unwittingly forced that option upon me. I guess that's why I fell in with pirates so fast, as much as I hate to admit it, Zek and I do share some things in common."

Before she could continue that line of thought though, Taq's eyes were suddenly drawn away from the group and towards a terminal spanning the length of a wall up ahead of them. Behind it was a large abstract looking piece of machinery. None of the parts that formed the device seemed to be connected, but they resonated with an orange hue. Taq rushed up to it, her eyes alight once more with curiosity.

"Is this the security console?" Linda asked as they caught up to the Jackal.

"No, the Bridge is still a bit a ways," Taq explained as she began overlooking the console before her.

"Then explain to me why we suddenly need to stop here when we still have a job to do," Linda requested sternly. "We don't have time to hack another computer when we still got one managing this wreck's security."

"We don't need to hack it," Taq assured her. "This looks to be public use. We just need to reconnect it to that device up there. Shouldn't take too long, I promise."

Linda, seeing that they'd get no work done with her distracted like this, motioned to Kat and Tali to see about helping her. As they moved up to assist the Jackal, Linda took watch, pointing her rifle back down the corridor they had walked through. Just in case there were any of the crawling terrors following them.

"If you don't mind me asking," Kat spoke up as she opened up a panel on the side of the console. "For someone who doesn't believe they were Gods, why take such an interest in the Forerunners?"

"Besides the fact it's all you ever hear about when you're a kid?" Taq responded curtly as fiddled with some of the console commands. "I suppose I've always been fascinated with history. My mother owned a salvaging company, went after all kinds of old wrecks like this one. Never Forerunner, but a lot of old ships nonetheless, some from even before the Covenant showed up at our doorstep. For her it was mostly just about the money, me though?"

She stopped her work suddenly, her voice and thoughts clearly wandering as she spoke.

"I always wanted to know more," she stated distantly. "I wanted to know about who had lived aboard those vessels, what their stories were, how they lived. My mother only ever really understood the value of scrap metal and discarded weapons systems. I saw value in the smaller, personal things, mementos of those who had worked aboard those ships. She let me collect a bunch of them, something to keep me distracted while we were on jobs. Was she surprised when selling my collection paid for practically my entire tuition."

"Cute story," Kat admitted. "But that still begs the question, why the Forerunners?"

"Because someone had to start asking real questions about them," Taq declared, snapping out of her nostalgia instantly. "Someone had to get to the real story and not all this crap they kept feeding us that could never be true. Everyone around me was either too indoctrinated or just didn't care, like my Mom. It wasn't enough to just say I didn't believe the doctrine, I wanted to know who the real Forerunners were. They were the biggest mystery no one wanted to solve."

"So it's about the truth for you then?" Tali asked. "Discovering the reality rather than the myth?"

"Not all kig-yar only value the shiny things," Taq told her, turning back to the console. "Many, like me, consider material wealth secondary. There is power in history, in old stories and legends, if we only seek it out. Our people have had so much of our culture lost, I suppose it was only natural that I sought to uncover the truth of lost civilization."

Tali understood that feeling all too well. Seeking for answers, trying to bridge the past and the present. She could relate to that desire in more than a few ways. Of course, Taq quickly muddled any sense of comparison when she spoke next.

"I do still like the shiny things though," she suddenly added, losing the sombre tone and growing a wicked grin upon her beak. "They're nice to look at and they keep me from starving."

Tali rolled her eyes a little as Taq continued her work on the console. As she pressed a command, however, a buzzing sound resonated from the terminal and the panel flashed red. Taq slammed her fist onto the board in frustration.

"Ugh, command error," she growled. "See, this is why they weren't Gods. If they were divine beings, half their shit wouldn't have these kinds of problems a million some odd years later."

"Don't worry," Tali assured the Jackal, activating her omni-tool. "We'll handle this. Cortana?"

The AI soon appeared on Tali's omni-tool and just as quickly connected herself to the console itself.

"Defragging the code now and reintroducing connection," the AI explained. "It just needs a power reroute. Noble Two, there should be a power node near your section. You just need to realign the-"

"Got it!" Kat suddenly spoke up.

Almost immediately, the machinery behind the device began to spin slowly. It formed into an hourglass shape, the top half turning clockwise, the bottom half turning counter to it. The orange light resonated brighter before it activated a small beam which soon spread out in a large holographic image. Pictures slowly flashed on the screen, detailing what looked to be cities, ships, people, accompanied by what looked to be text. Even Linda couldn't help but take her eyes off the corridor and stare up at the screen in a bit of awe.

"Alright, what am I looking at?" She asked hesitantly.

"From what I'm reading off this terminal, it's history," Cortana answered dutifully. "This is a log detailing a portion of Forerunner history, downloaded into this machine for preservation purposes."

The images continued to play on screen, flashing before their eyes like a vid at double speed. Cortana tried to slow it down, but even then the information still came at them in a hurried pace. Tali could scarcely follow anything herself, not until Cortana up and paused the program outright.

"Near as I can tell, there's about seven hundred and fifty years worth of historical records in this mini-archive," Cortana explained. "From what I've managed to skim, it's mostly about their civilization through the ages during their early expansion after the defeat of their great rivals, which go unnamed."

"Erasing your enemies from history," Kat noted. "A favorite pastime of Joseph Stalin and the Pharaohs of Egypt as I recall. Seems the Forerunners invented it first though."

"Any files in there about conflicts?" Linda asked curiously. "Wars? Weapons? Something pertaining to the relic we're after?"

Cortana shook her head.

"This doesn't cover that," she answered, pointing her thumb back at the holo-screen. "It's about infrastructure, important philosophers, explorers, agriculture, the construction of settlements that grew into cities. Basically they boring stuff that doesn't make the blockbuster vids for the summer but cover the majority of a lot of historical periods."

"Well if you're rebuilding your civilization, you probably want to keep a record handy on how you started it out," Taq surmised. "Obviously, this is something of a instruction guide for when they were to arrive in their new home."

"It's more than just that," Tali intercede suddenly, her voice more sombre than the rest. "It's... it's their history. It's everything they were. Even if it's just a small part, it's about who they were as a people. They watched their Empire crumble around them. They were trying to save small piece of it in some form."

The quarian looked over to Taq with a thoughtful expression in her silver eyes.

"It's like you said before," she reminded the Jackal. "Not everything valuable is material. Stories are valuable too, and this is theirs. At least one chapter of it anyway."

Taq looked to Tali a bit surprised at first, and then she grinned.

"Careful there," she cautioned the quarian. "I might just end up liking you."

"She tends to do that to people," Kat informed her. "Now then, are we moving onto the bridge?"

"Yes, there's far too much data here for us to compile in one sitting and we don't have that kind of time," Taq said hurriedly. "I'll try to get what I can later, we still have our grand prize to net first."

Taq led the group over to another sealed door. After a few seconds of having Cortana interface with the lock, the door opened wide and allowed them access to the Bridge at last. Through the large window at the front of the room, a wall of rock resided. It was a grim reminder of how far the Dauntless had literally fallen. Within the room itself was rather spacious, filled with various computing terminals similar to that of what they had seen before. The captain's chair was at the far back, surrounded by a command console that was functional, but flickering in and out. The the aging readout screens and bits of worn ancient tech were of little consequence though, everyone's eyes were drawn to the center.

There, sitting what could be presumed to be a large deactivated holographic image display, was a glowing green hexagonal-based pyramid, pointed upward as energy surged around it. At its base was an X-shaped metallic handle of some sort and attached to that were a series of heavy duty cables and wiring spread out to various parts of the bridge. It was clear that none of this was meant to actually be on the bridge, it looked so makeshift, hastily put together from scratch. While it was unclear what all the jury-rigged electrical wiring did, it was evident to all what it was attached to.

"Is that what we're looking for?" Linda asked, pointing at the green tiny pyramid.

Tali got out her omni-tool to perform a scan, and watched as her readouts spiked into the red.

"I'm getting a massive power fluctuation output from it," she told the others. "It's practically resonating throughout the room, but seems focused through the cables."

"This is it," Taq said excitedly, resisting the urge to jump up and down. "The Relic of Power! We found it!"

Kat moved up slightly to get a better look, cocking her head slightly to the side as she did. Her eyes traced the various paths of the cables and wires attached to the relic. They were all either plugged into walls or snaked down through and into the floor and walls respectively.

"Looks like they were using it to power the ship in someway," she reasoned.

"Only one way to be sure," Linda told her, looking over to Tali. "Let's get Cortana in there and see what she can find."

Tali acknowledged with a nod and connected her omni-tool to the captain's damaged but still functional command console. The AI managed to stabilize it somewhat and began pulling up some technical readouts.

"A lot of the systems are inaccessible from here, but it looks like Kat is right," Cortana reported. "They set up a makeshift secondary power grid. Most of the ship's primary functions can subsist off of various backup power supplies, but they used the relic to set up a sub-system for their security net. I'm guessing that means our crawling friends out there."

"So it's a symbiotic relationship then?" Linda questioned. "They're protecting the very thing that's keeping them running."

"In a sense yes," Cortana confirmed. "But this was a massive undertaking from the looks of it. It would have required practically every surviving member of the crew all their time and effort to put it together. Cutting through rock, laying the cables, establishing a stable connection to the attack bots, they put all their effort into making sure we wouldn't get this close."

"Then I'm guessing we can't just pull the plug then," Kat surmised, slowly stepping back from the relic's pedestal. "They probably planned for that too."

"There is security override designed to be lethal to anyone attempting to remove the relic without disengaging certain protocols, yes," Cortana confirmed as she searched through the data. "We can't get to it until we shut the system down. Otherwise... I don't know, electrical shock, vaporization, all I'm sure of is that it's fatal."

Taq grimaced a bit at this news, crossing her arms and glaring at the relic.

"Don't be smug, Shiny," she told it snarling. "You're leaving with me whether you like it or not. Cortana, how do we disengage the system so I can grab my Mother Lode?"

"Give me a second, Taq, there's a lot here," Cortana informed the jackal, pooling over the data before her eyes. "Shutting all this down requires the proper sequence and authorization codes. Once we input them into the corresponding terminals on the bridge, it should shut security down."

"Along with the crawlers right?" Tali asked pleadingly.

Cortana's face remained grim.

"I'm not so sure," she informed the quarian. "According to this, while the alert status will be shutdown and half the crawlers will deactivate, the other half remains active. They'll stay on high alert to remove any potential enemy combatants that remain. And they'll remain activated even after they're sure everyone is dead."

"There has to be some way to shut them off," Kat stated. "A kill switch code or failsafe guard."

"From what I'm seeing in these technical logs, you need to deactivate something called a primary control box," Cortana explained, squinting at the screen in confusion. "It's some sort of separate system they've set up autonomously to keep a portion of the robots running at all times. There isn't a precise location here, but it's somewhere in the catacombs beneath the wreck of the Dauntless. If we want to kill all these things, that needs to be taken out along with the main security system."

This was precisely what Tali did not want to hear. If there was just a simple kill switch as Kat had suggested, they could end this almost instantly. Instead there was another hoop to jump though, one that for all they knew no one else was aware of. With the communication channels problematic within the depths of the tunnels, there was no clear way to contact the others. No direct line to tell them what they needed to do. However, remembering what Cortana had said earlier, she soon thought of a possible way. It was a longshot, but it was better than nothing.

"Is there anyway you can hijack the security system's communication arrays?" She asked. "If it's able to send out orders to all those crawlers, then the signal has to be strong enough to remain unaffected by the tunnels. We can warn the others about what they need to do that way."

"I think I can do it," Cortana assured her. "But I'll need to send the instructions by text only. Otherwise security might intercept the transmission and block it. I'm not taking anymore chances after what happened earlier."

"That still leaves our end of the puzzle though," Taq informed the AI. "Look, if this system can only be disengaged through specific protocol, I'm betting the Dauntless' captain had all those on file. Is his cabin close by?"

Cortana brought up floor plan of the command deck and traced a line from the bridge to a small room of to the right of their current position.

"If your hunch is right, we should find everything we need in the Captain's personal log," the AI informed them. "It's not connected to the bridge's network so I can't access it from here. I'm going to have to slice into it manually. I'll set up a connection with Tali's omni-tool to this terminal though, hopefully I can hack into the communication array while we're looking through the Captain's log."

"Then let's get moving," Linda ordered. "The sooner we pull the plug on this place the better off everyone will be."

---

Shepard let loose another shockwave attack, ripping through another group of the crawling robots. One avoided the biotic wave by jumping onto the wall. It returned fire, forcing the Commander to drop back down behind his boulder. As he reloaded his shotgun, he looked over to Varvok, blazing away with a stream of assault rifle fire. He stopped, however, when one of the energy bolts came too close for comfort. As he pulled back into cover he looked to Shepard.

"We're not getting through this way," he told him. "They're just pinning us down until more come up behind us."

"We need to double back then, take another tunnel," Shepard stated. "We'll need some cover first though."

Varvok reached into his pack and held up a smoke grenade in his hand. He started counting down with his fingers and Shepard got ready to move. Shotgun in hand, Shepard sprung up and turned just as Varvok let the smoke grenade fly. He fired off a single shot that ripped apart two of the attacking machines and then took off running just as the plume of red smoke began to spray everywhere.

He and Varvok rounded the next corner as metallic screeching echoed from behind them. Shepard looked back over his shoulder briefly and in the darkness he could clearly see the glowing orange eyes of their pursuers. They had gotten up to leave just in time it seemed, as there were tons of the aggressive little metal monsters now chasing after them. Shepard sent rippling shockwaves at them, hurling them back and into each other. He added a few shotgun bursts, but it did little to deter the wave.

The momentary slow he caused, however, had apparently given Varvok time for his own plan. When Shepard turned back, he saw the batarian throwing a ready-made explosive charge on the wall. More specifically, one charge of three he had set up around the tunnel.

"The hell are you doing?!" Shepard shouted in shocked rage.

"Blunting the incoming tide," Varvok declared adamantly. "Just get ready to run."

Varvok was already readying the trigger switch in his hand. With the machines closing, he had no more time to argue, so he just kept running. They got barely two feet away before Varvok pressed the switch and detonated the charges. The explosion rocked the tunnel, it was only pure adrenaline that kept either of them on their feet. The shaking rumble soon gave way to the sound of rocks crumbling and crashing down around. They could hear the smashing metal against the now collapsing ceiling and feel the plume of dust catching up to them. Shepard could barely keep ahead of the falling debris he could feel crashing just behind them.

With one final effort, Shepard dove ahead, tackling into Varvok's back as the last bit of the tunnel fell away. It took a moment for the dust to clear, when it did, they saw a large wall of rocks blocking the path they had just come from. The machines were no doubt buried beneath a lot of it. Shepard forced himself to his feet as Varvok stood up, seemingly satisfied with the results. A feeling Shepard did not share in the slightest.

"What in the hell was that?" He screamed at the batarian. "Are you completely insane or just stupid?"

"I just saved both our lives," Varvok countered. "Those little monsters would've completely overrun us if I hadn't done something drastic."

"You used three explosive charges!" Shepard furiously reminded him. "One would have been more than enough to rip their ranks apart and given us a chance get away! Instead you collapsed the whole tunnel! The same tunnel we were in!"

"We made it out, didn't we?" Varvok questioned. "We're alive."

"Barely," Shepard stated angrily. "You can't just go throwing charges on walls like that, you could've shaken this whole section apart, not just one tunnel. We could've been trapped or crushed because you hit a very important support wall or whatever."

"I didn't exactly have time to do a full scan of the structural integrity of the stupid catacomb, thank you very much," Varvok argued. "We needed to cut those bastards off, not just blow a few up and hope we outran them. I took the initiative and saved our lives."

"You decided to act on your own again without consulting me and almost got us killed," Shepard said pointing at his chest. "We could've come up with a plan together."

Varvok knocked his away hand in disgust.

"I didn't discuss my plan because I knew we'd get into this nonsense again," Varvok snarled. "I knew you'd waste time or only go for the one charge. We needed to cut off their pursuit route, not mildly inconvenience them by damaging their numbers. Now we're wasting time arguing about what's already been done, so I suggest we get moving before the advantage I provided us is squandered further."

Varvok marched down one path up ahead, with a fuming Shepard following at a distance. He tried to hold his tongue, suppress his feelings, but it was a struggle. Varvok was pulling at his last nerve and he wasn't sure how long he could take the batarian's utter disdain for him.

More importantly, he was wondering if he could survive it for much longer.

---

It had become rather clear to them that they had been dropped in what seemed to be killbot central, or at least that was how Zek put it. Kowalski found it hard to argue with that point, given how they had only avoided the numerous scampering death squads scurrying around by the skin of their teeth. Or beak in Zek's case, he supposed.

Every other tunnel seemed packed with a roving group or two, moving out into the other tunnels beyond. With no cloaking tech on them, the best they could hope for was that the shadows would conceal them and the robots would just pass them by. That meant a lot of stopping, staying quiet and then running as fast as possible when one group had moved on. It wasn't easy going for the Marine, Kowalski was the least used to sneaking around compared to Samara and Zek. Stealth wasn't usually the operative word for the average devil dog.

He wasn't the only one having a tough time with all this though, Zek wasn't happy about this either. When the latest scampering group passed them by, he voiced his concerns aloud.

"There's more of them the further we go down these tunnels," he told Samara. "You're practically leading us into their nest."

"Given their synthetic nature, that is probably an inaccurate term," Samara suggested plainly. "It is more like a central power node or some other mechanical device."

"Whatever," Zek snarled. "Point is you're leading us to a foreboding agonizing death. Do you have any idea how many of those crazy robots are probably waiting there for us?"

"Would you prefer we follow the machines currently spreading out into the catacombs at large?" The Asari asked. "There is no safe place within this underground, not as long as these machines remain active. Knowing Sergeant Johnson and Lieutenant McKay, they likely know this as well. Their best course of action in this scenario is to locate the source of the enemy and eradicate it. If we follow where these crawling machines are coming from, we shall more than likely run across our companions."

Zek snorted in derision at the explanation.

"More likely you just have a death wish and you're dragging me along for the ride," he growled. "Just be honest here, you want to kill you some robots cause you got this crazy obsession with crushing things you don't like with your mind."

"I am not dragging you anywhere," Samara reminded him. "If it were up to me, I'd let you wander off and get yourself killed. However, as Private Kowalski pointed out before, we cannot be down a gun in our predicament. And honestly, I doubt you actually want to take the risk of trying to get back to the surface alone."

Zek just glared at the blue alien, a low growl rising under his throat.

"Well," the asari pushed further. "Tell me I'm wrong, pirate."

Zek just let loose a snort and continued following. It was under protest obviously, but he couldn't deny he had no choice in this matter. Kowalski could see a rare bit of smug satisfaction on the usually reserved asari's face. It was a bit strange to see her take pleasure in shutting down the Pirate Leader's arguments, but the Private could clearly see that it was starting to work on Zek's nerves.

"I know you don't like him," he whispered to her. "But maybe you shouldn't keep prodding him."

"Perhaps he should stop complaining in general," Samara answered rather bluntly. "Despite my feelings about him, I am keeping him alive to the best of my abilities. Make no mistake, Private Kowalski, were this situation reversed in some manner, and he had more authority, he would abandon us both. It is simply in his kind's nature."

"I can still hear you both you know," Zek called back. "Whispering in a tunnel is kinda impossible."

"I am merely speaking the truth of the situation," Samara informed him harshly. "I see no reason to hide it from anyone."

Zek turned about and looked to Samara with a glare.

"Is this how it's going to be until you get us all killed?" He asked snarling. "Just you telling me how much you loathe my guts because I'm a crook? Just waiting for the excuse you need to snap my neck or something cause I'm such a horrible, terrible, wretched creature?"

"I have found it far easier to hold my tongue with others in similar vocations as yours," Samara said rather plainly. "All of them were quick to prove they were more than what they appeared. While my Code still compels me to eventually see justice done, I feel regret over that reality. You, however, have proved nothing more than opportunist since Commander Shepard met you. You are the embodiment of what the Justicars stand against and I have no desire to be more accommodating while I suffer your presence."

Samara moved ahead once again, walking past Zek as he glared at her. Whatever fears he once had about her before seemed gone in the moment. He now seemed more focused on firing back at the asari, rather than quivering behind Kowalski in terror. He kept a steady pace behind her as they walked, looking up at the back of her head.

"This little black and white view of things you got is hardly fair," he stated firmly. "I guess it's easy for you to be all high and mighty about morality and shit being who you are. I can tell, your regal posturing and thesaurus ready vocabulary, you were born in comfort. You never had to worry about frickin starving or about getting your throat cut by some fucker with a grudge. You think I just woke up one day and decided I wanted to rob and steal other people's stuff? No, I fell into it cause it was the only way I could survive the day to day."

"I am more than aware of the difficulties that lead people into crime," Samara assured him. "But an unjust act remains unjust, regardless of motivating factors. And piracy is a career built upon various unjust acts."

"Not every pirate is the same," Zek stated firmly. "I, for one, rarely found the need to murder anyone. I attacked a civilian ship, I took their cargo, most of the time no one even got hurt. It was only when some gun-happy mercenary decided to make it an issue and play hero that anything ever got messy."

"You can soften it all you want, but it changes nothing," Samara sternly countered. "You took what was not yours and killed in the pursuit of it. Stealing and murder are both unjust, it doesn't matter if you tried to mitigate it."

The Jackal suddenly stopped in his tracks, crossed his arms and glared smugly at the back of her head. A thought has occurred to him just then. Kowalski could see it in the bird expression readily.

"I bet you wouldn't care if I spent most of my time attacking the Covenant," Zek suggested. "If the only people I killed were folks you hated, you'd be cool with me. If I targeted them specifically, we'd have no problem."

"Make your point," Samara said groaning.

"I mean, you really think all these Marines and humans have never done something wrong?" Zek asked. "For all you know a few of them were forced to enlist to get out of a prison sentence. But because they're fighting the Covenant, they get a free pass, huh? No sense getting on their case with them helping you wipe them out I suppose."

"If I knew any who specifically committed murder, I would feel the same sense of disdain for them," Samara admitted. "They, however, hide their crimes. They at least feel a sense of shame, you do not."

"Why should I be ashamed of what I am?" Zek asked, his voice indignant. "I'm free, lady. Free to live my life without restriction, without anyone over me. If that means I gotta get violent at times, so be it. All I want is the ability to make my own way in the galaxy. I live by the Code I forged for myself, not some crazy super space cop religion or whatever it is you follow."

Samara glare turned from disdain to right out anger, she started approaching the Jackal with an aggressive stride. Zek stood his ground though, he didn't even for for his gun. Kowalski quickly moved between the two to calm them down.

"Alright, okay, you both don't like each other, fine," he said, holding up his hands. "Can we leave this debate alone for now until we're out of these tunnels."

"I will if she stops giving me guff over everything," Zek assured.

"If he stops questioning my motives and resolve, so will I," Samara added.

Before the two could come to an agreement though, there was a screeching sound down their tunnel path. Crawlers were coming. Kowalski looked about for a place to hide and spotted a small alcove. He led Samara into it, Zek following close behind. The three managed to squeeze themselves inside, just barely. There they stood, while the group of killer robots scampered by them. Their glowing yellow eyes lit up the darkened tunnel, singularly focused on what was ahead. They could hear the many metal claws clanking against the rock as they ran by the alcove, completely unaware of their presence. Eventually the lights and sounds faded, as they always did before, signaling they had moved on.

For a minute they seemed in the clear, until one straggler stopped a few inches away from them. It did not move, it did not follow the rest of its kind. Instead, it began to swivel its' head about, searching for something. There was little guess among the trio what exactly it was looking about for. Kowalski noticed it seemed interested in the ground near where they had been standing moments before.

Samara almost readied her biotics, but Kowalski grabbed her by the arm. He shook his head and she understood his meaning, they others would likely hear her attack. Thankfully they had other options, as Zek pulled out the hilt of his currently deactivated plasma machete. The crawler itself began to circle about, edging towards the alcove proper, the sound of metallic claws edging closer to them,

Without hesitation, Zek acted quickly. As soon as the freakish metal monstrosity for close, the Jackal activated his blade and slashed it down onto the robot's head. The lights in the machine's eyes flickered and then died suddenly. The killbot dropped to his stomach, feet sprawled out along the ground. Zek pulled the plasma machete out and smashed the head in with his foot for good measure. The trio slowly clambered out of the alcove one by one.

"Okay, we've stayed in one place way too long," Kowalski informed them. "We gotta get moving."

"You still wanna go towards these things, human?" Zek asked. "This just proves it's going to get harder to hide from them the further in we go."

"But the last place I think they'd bother looking for us, is so close to their home," Kowalski suggested. "Now, I know Sam is being hard on you, but you gotta admit she had a point there. It's either go where they're all coming from, or follow them into the maze. Both options suck, but if I know Marines, they'll head to where the action is rather than wait for it to come to them."

Zek sighed softly at the argument.

"I can at least trust you humans would be that stupid," he admitted. "Fine, let's keep going then."

Zek started walking again as Kowalski looked to Sam.

"You can make anyone act against their nature if you give them the chance," he told her simply. "Sometimes it just takes more carrot than stick."

"Wise sentiments, Private Kowalski," Samara concurred. "But while I will admit that is often true, it changes nothing about the person in question."

Samara pressed on and now Kowalski shrugged in defeat. He knew it wasn't really his job to help these two find common ground, but it would've been nice to make some progress. At least they weren't arguing anymore, better than nothing he thought.

---

Kaz kept on point as their little band made their way through the dark. The tunnels were a bit more cramped with the extra squads of Jackals and Batarians, but McKay didn't really care. So long as the EFD helped them avoid any major skirmishes as they moved through the tunnels, she was okay with the extra baggage. Besides, they'd need everyone they could get if they were going to reach that possible origin point and shut these things down.

They still encountered some of the smaller patrol squads, but were able to avoid the larger contingents entirely. When they came upon three of the metal menaces scampering around, they were quick to silence. Jackals with energy shields blocked the incoming fire and used their plasma pistols to destroy them relatively quick. That did impress some urgency on McKay though.

"Keep moving," she ordered down the line. "If they heard the shooting they'll be here before you know it."

They picked up the pace, the batarians themselves pushing themselves up through the line more than most. Not always with the most grace or courteousness, pushing past ODSTs and not bothering to even give them a second glance. McKay noticed this and looked over to Revtok.

"They are not making this easier," she told him. "Could you please tell them to keep formation?"

Revtok growled a bit under his throat. McKay pressed on him by keeping her gaze affixed, eventually forcing his hand. He looked back to his men.

"Maintain unit formation," he ordered down the line. "We'll all get our chance eventually, no need to rush."

He clearly didn't like telling his people to play nice with the humans, but at least he was smart enough to know this wasn't the time or place for sowing discontent among their combined forces. The Jackals were strangely enough far more well behaved in contrast, although McKay imagined it was more because most of them were in no real hurry to throw themselves at the enemy. At least they kept pace, even if they held back further down the line.

At that moment, Kaz stopped in his tracks, his eyes still glued to his device's screen. As he tilted his head and tried to make sense of whatever it was he was looking at, McKay got behind him. She could clearly see their eventual objective, but there was a steadily growing patch of orange in one of the larger caverns ahead. A patch that was growing more steadily by the second in fact, as if it was being reinforced.

"Looks like they're amassing there," McKay deduced.

"Yeah, it just ballooned up over time," Kaz said. "We can go around it though. There's some tunnels that just avoid this cavern altogether. Straight shot to-"

"No," McKay said. "Those Crawlies are reinforcing that area for a reason."

McKay took a moment to walk up just a little more ahead, it only took that much to hear what was happening close by. The faint echo of gunfire was clearly resonating throughout the cavern.

"Marines," she said, heading back. "I can hear them engaging the machines. That's where they are."

"Then they are drawing away the enemy," Revtok presumed. "We can use this to our advantage and assault the origin point directly."

"Not an option," McKay told him. "They're in trouble and they need our help. We're going to flank those machines together and save them. Then we attack the origin point together."

"It would be more strategically prudent to continue," Revtok claimed. "They will be more focused on the Marines than on us."

"Would you be saying the same thing if they were batarians?" McKay asked bluntly.

Revtok growled slightly, but it eventually subsided.

"This is a mistake," he claimed. "But I won't go on alone and you will most certainly won't follow if I do. So, how do we save your fellow humans?"

"Like Kaz pointed out, there are other tunnels leading into and around the cavern," McKay explained. "We coordinate our strikes we can hit them from all sides before they even know we're there."

"Well, okay, that could work," Kaz admitted, pointing at the screen. "If we go on this left passage, me and the other kig-yar might have some elevation on them. Revtok's batarians could actually get behind them through here and you humans can take the right. But I'm just going to say I'd really prefer to walk around. I's why I fixed this thing in the first place. Fewer killbots, all I'm saying."

"Duly noted," McKay responded. "Please inform your men of the plan."

Kaz sighed and walked back to talk with his fellow pirates, probably regretting he had suggested the possible strategy like a blabbermouth. Revtok just nodded in accordance and reported to his men. That left McKay to do the same with her group.

"Alright, sounds like a doable plan," Jack admitted once McKay was done explaining. "You think Johnson's leading those Marines?"

"We can hope," McKay answered. "We could use him assaulting that origin point."

"If the good Sergeant isn't already trying to do just that," Buck presumed. "I mean, he seems headed in the same direction."

"All the more reason to link up with his unit," Thane concurred. "Our numbers must be a match for our foes if this energy source for the machines is as well defended as we believe."

"And no one else here is concerned with the fact the plan hinges on us relying on the fucking birds and four-eyed assholes?" Lendon asked with a snarl. "We should just split up the unit and do this ourselves."

McKay did her best not to sigh in indignation, of course Lendon would have a problem, he always had a problem with everything. Well she wasn't about to let him stir up trouble, not now.

"We don't have the numbers to divide our forces like that," McKay told him sternly. "We work together or we die apart, period. We're not wasting time bickering about this, we're going with the current plan."

"You're asking us to trust Jackals to follow through on this," Lendon retorted. "That's not a plan, that's just plain stupidity."

"I'm asking you to follow orders, I don't care if you don't trust anyone," McKay corrected him. "If you can't accept we're working with the damn birds, sit here in the dark and complain alone. Otherwise, do as you're told, Sergeant."

Lendon kept scowling, but he didn't continue bickering. McKay counted that as a win and called for the ODSTs to move out. They headed down their designated tunnel, the sounds of gunfire becoming louder as they moved forward. McKay stood on point, doing her best to not make too much noise. They didn't want to alert the machines to their movements after all. Before long the echoing became almost deafening and they came upon the exit of the tunnel into the wider cavern.

As expected, a battle was already underway and looked to have been for some time. Numerous crawling robots were scampering up the side of a steep slope, as Marines up top in some rocks tried to hold them back. They may have had the high ground, but the machines had the numerical advantage and just seemed to be replacing lost units faster than the Marines could take them out. They'd be pushed back or overrun eventually.

McKay acted quickly, signaling the squads under her command to move out into cover. There were some more rocks nearby they could hide behind while they waited to make their move. They were right on their flank and the machines weren't bothering with much cover themselves. As she moved behind a small stalagmite, she watched the other entrances for signs of the batarians or the Jackals, her finger waiting impatiently on the trigger. She was happy Lendon wasn't nearby, she imagined he was probably preparing to say "I told you so" if things went south.

If she was being honest, she had similar nagging concerns at the back of her mind. That Revtok would change his mind, that Kaz would get cold feet. There wasn't the same kind of trust there. She was going on practicality, that no matter their misgivings, both groups would follow through. Neither of them would want to walk around these tunnels with the robots around making things difficult. They weren't in any position to honestly try to escape or complete the mission on their own. So she wasn't putting trust in them, so much as she was putting trust in their ability to realize they needed each other right now. That, and maybe, if they saved more humans, that meant they'd all be less likely to get shot themselves. Not exactly the noblest of reasons to stick with your team, but it would probably be the one that won out.

Sure enough, she spotted something moving in the shadows of the left tunnel exit. It was a little bit higher up the slope, but she could clearly see the Jackals moving out into cover. She looked back down and spotted the batarians at the very base of the slope, setting their sights on the Crawlers' Ranks. They had the enemy surrounded, time to engage.

She popped up from her cover and began shooting, taking aim at the heads of the two closest machines and destroying them utterly. Zaeed unleashed a torrent of disruptor rounds from his assault rifle, taking down the synthetic enemies with ease. Buck tossed a grenade into the mix, while Jack and Thane used their biotics to assault the enemy lines. Before long, every ODST was tearing into the synths with reckless abandon.

The machines began to turn some of their forces around, redirecting their attack back onto the flank they felt was in the most danger. That was when the Jackals struck. Plasma bolts and needles rained down on the crawlers, melting their metal casings as pink explosion clouds tore them to shreds. When the machines returned fire, they energy shields the Jackals carried managed to block most of their shots.

Distracted by the enemy to their front and sides, Revtok moved next. His men fired grenade launchers as an opening salvo, ripping into the lower ranks. They then rushed in outright, shotguns and rifles blaring. Ruthlessly and without mercy, they began slaughtering the machines. They stomped on their heads with their boots before unloading round after round into their metal stomachs. When some tried to leap at them, their omni-blades sliced them apart. They fired electrified netting at the machines, trapping whole groups for other batarians to blow apart.

McKay kept up her attack, but watched Revtok's men work all the same. There was a precision to their actions, even through all the chaos. It was up close, dirty and unrelenting. They didn't give the cralwers a chance to even breathe. It felt like they had done this before. Knowing what batarians were from the logs Shepard had given them, she imagined they had and it had not been against creepy little robots who shot lasers out of their mouths. But she pushed the thought aside, this time it was being used against a shared adversary and it was working. No sense in complaining about it now.

Before long, the mass of crawlers was routed. More reinforcements tried to push up, but Revtok quickly established a defensive line at the base of the slope. With added Jackal and ODST forces, they were able to hold. McKay chose to link up with the Marines at the top first and get a handle on their situation. There she found, who else, Sergeant Avery Johnson, no worse for wear and seemingly in his element.

"Lieutenant," he greeted with a casual salute. "Good to see you're kicking. Thanks for the assist. Weren't sure if we were going to break through anytime soon."

"Just glad we found you, Sergeant," she assured him. "What's your ammo and casualties count?"

"We've patched up some of our wounded and we still got enough bullets between us," he answered. "We figured out where all these bastards seemed to be coming from and tried to track down where their little hideout was. Guess they figured out we was coming and tried to stop us from reaching home."

"Well you were at least headed in the right direction," McKay told him. "One of our Jackal friends has picked up an energy spike and we think it might be their power source or some kind of computing hub. Whatever it is, it's likely where a lot of these bastards are coming from. If we take it out, we might at the very least slow them down a little."

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Buck approach her, his omni-tool activated.

"I just got a ping on the open channel from an unknown signal, but I think it's from Cortana," he explained. "I can't really reply, but it seems like she knows about what we're looking for and that we need to destroy it alongside them shutting the security system down."

"Then the sooner we get moving the better," McKay stated. "Let's gather up everyone and start making a push, before more of those things move in and regain the momentum."

"Fine by me," Johnson declared, loading up his shotgun. "Time to shut these bastards down for good!"

"The sooner the better," McKay concurred. "I just hope anyone else out there got the message. If what just happened is proof of anything, it's that we'll probably need every hand on deck to pull this off."

---

It didn't take much analysis to realize that this cave hadn't collapsed naturally. There was just far too much debris and there was reason to assume it just given way. No, someone had blown it up and since this had been the most likely place Shepard had come through it stood to reason he or his traveling companion were the cause. For Chief though, this meant the tracks had been lost. They could double back and find where this collapse ended and start again, but that would take too much time

"Legion," he said, looking over to the machine. "Where exactly are we right now?"

The Geth was already looking at the map anyway, so it was quick to provide an answer.

"We are approaching the larger chasm separating the two sections of the Dauntless," it answered. "It is likely Shepard-Commander is trying to make his way towards the Bridge section as close as he is able to."

It made sense, it was probably his best real chance at getting out of this and back to the others. While he was close though, so were the machines. Just avoiding the patrols had become a chore now. The last few appeared to have been circling the section of the tunnels they were currently in. It was difficult to say, but it felt like a typical sweep pattern. The crawling killbots had an idea of where Shepard was headed to it seemed, which was not good for the Commander.

However, perhaps they could use that same tactic to locate Shepard first.

"What's the quickest route from this tunnel to that chasm?" Chief asked.

"It would take them through an open cavern approximately a kilometer north," Legion calculated. "I have already devised our shortest route to the same location."

That was all Legion could get out before a metallic snarl filled the tunnel. Legion turned quickly, weapon already out. It fired a successive bust of rounds at charging crawler as it prepared to fire its weapon. Unfortunately, even as the machine died, its friends filled the void it had left. Dozens of the little killer machines, clambering on the walls and ceiling of the enclosed tunnel rushed at them. Chief unloaded his own assault rifle into the mess of enemies, but only for a moment.

"Move! Now!"

Legion was already moving, using a combat drone in an attempt to slow their attackers down. Chief fired one last burst before taking off himself. They followed along the pathway Legion had designated, but they soon found that their assailants weren't only behind them. A metallic claw lashed out at the Master Chief, almost slashing through his visor. The Spartan grabbed the arm and slammed the robot down hard on the ground.

Of course, that was just one, he soon looked up to see about five more firing at them from up ahead. His shields blocked some of the attacks, but he was forced to hug the wall tightly.

"Guess they're not just encircling Shepard," he reasoned aloud.

"Affirmative," Legion concurred. "Activating defensive protocols."

Legion boosted its shields as it rushed out into the open, firing a blaze of shots at the enemy positions. Chief backed him up with additional fire, advancing close behind him. Together they killed at least two of the machines and then turned a corner to avoid the rest. Another of the little synthetic monsters smashed out of a wall and started charging its gun, but Chief quickly raked the wall with fire, taking the menace out.

Behind them still was a small squad of the robots, quickly gaining ground and firing on them, With few options, Chief grabbed for the gun he had pulled out from the head of one of these things before. Pulling and holding the trigger he charged up the shot, expecting it to be like a plasma pistol. Instead, the barrel seemed to spread itself wide and resonate with orange energy. He had no time to figure out why, so he just released the trigger. The wide shot that resulted eliminated the pursuing machines with a single burst, striking them all in the head and deactivating them with ease. Chief marveled at the weapon for a moment.

"What do you know, it was handy," he thought aloud.

The discovery would have to wait though, they needed to catch up to Shepard now before he was surrounded by these things. As he raced back up behind Legion though, he got an incoming message on his omni-tool... from Cortana.

---

They moved into the cavern with weapons held high, ready for anything. They had been trying to outpace various patrolling robot squads forever at this point. The constant echoes, the screeching, the scampering of metal claws, it was all becoming incessant. Shepard took comfort in the fact they were almost out, they were almost to the open chasm in the middle of this damn catacomb.

The cavern itself was of medium size more or less, with high walls, slopes, big rocks, lots of dark corners and stony pillars. Not that it mattered to take in the surroundings, they wouldn't be staying long. Just a little further and they'd have a straight shot for the Bridge, practically home free as far as he was concerned. As he checked one last time to see if there was anyone waiting to pounce he turned to Varvok.

"I think we managed to pull away from them," he said.

"More likely they're waiting to gun us down as soon as we head out into the open," Varvok argued. "They've been hounding us since the start of all this, you really think they've lost the scent?"

"We're this close," Shepard countered. "There's no point in backing out now."

"You're walking us into a trap," the batarian growled back. "They're all around us at this point, don't deny it. We have a better shot at this point standing our damn ground. This cavern is plenty defensible, we can probably hold out within those stalagmites over there, next to the boulder."

Shepard couldn't believe it, he was planning a last stand now? Even admitting that there were probably a ton of enemies surrounding them, he wanted to just stick it out and see how long they remained king of the hill? He could not be serious. Then again, given everything he knew about Varvok, it was hardly a surprise.

"I get you might think us going on is a bad idea, but what you're proposing isn't much better," Shepard stated firmly to the batarian. "There is only two of us, we're going to get overrun easy if we just wait for them here."

"Not if we plan accordingly," Varvok countered vehemently. "They want to trap us so bad, let them. We'll show them how much of a mistake that was."

"How? You lure them in and blow up the cave while we're still inside?" Shepard asked sardonically. "That worked out so well last time after all."

"It worked, that should be all that matters to you," Varvok shot back. "Instead you keep acting like I don't know what I'm doing."

"I don't think you're incompetent, Varvok," Shepard responded sternly. "I know you're a capable officer, I've never pretended you aren't. All I want is for you to listen to me for once and bother to talk these things things through."

"So you can scrutinize every strategy and correct me constantly or simply block me at every turn?" Varvok asked, grunting in disapproval as he did. "I don't think so. I'm not one of your lackeys, Shepard. You can't just boss me around like you own me."

"That's funny coming from a batarian," Shepard smirked derisively. "I don't own anyone, for your information. My crew are a team, period. That is what we should be."

Varvok scoffed and turned away from the Commander.

"Typical human holier than thou garbage," he grumbled loudly. "Looking down on anyone who doesn't submit to their little inclusive coalition of goodwill."

"You see, that's the problem here," Shepard shouted, pointing an accusatory finger at him. "You still can't get over the fact you're working with humans. If I was a batarian, you wouldn't be giving me all this guff of yours, but I'm not. I'm a filthy abolitionist, democratic, freedom loving human and you hate me for it. You've made that clear ever since we first met."

Varvok reeled around back at the Commander almost instantly.

"My problem isn't that you're human, Shepard," he shouted. "My problem is you, just you. It may have been my idea to reach out to you, but it sickened me to do it. The only reason I did was because I had to. Because if I didn't, my men would've died! The fact I had to ally with the so-called hero of the Skyllian Blitz enrages me. I admit it, are you happy now, you sanctimonious jackass?"

Shepard groaned, he should've known this was about to come up.

"It always goes back to Elysium with you, doesn't it?" Shepard snarled back. "What would you have preferred, Varvok? Should I have just NOT defended the civilians your people were trying to either enslave or murder? Maybe I should've just let you ransack a whole planet because of your petty little grievances. Is that what you think I should've done? Because if the situation was reversed, and my people were attacking one of your civilian colonies, I doubt you would've have done anything different."

"Elysium wouldn't have been necessary at all if you bastards had just stayed in your own systems," Varvok answered venomously. "You kept steamrolling over worlds we deserved and used your Council muscle to keep them. The Traverse was supposed to be ours and you stole it from us. Stole resources that could've fed our Empire's needs for centuries to come."

"Maybe if you had bothered to play nice with the Council before, they would've listened to you," Shepard informed him plainly. "You squandered any goodwill you had when you annexed, bombed and repeatedly attacked Council Forces and worlds without provocation. All we ever did was expand a little faster than you liked and that somehow justifies murdering civilians. Come off it, Varvok. You don't have the moral high ground here, your people never did."

Clearly incensed, the batarian approached Shepard aggressively, but the Commander did not move an inch. Even as Varvok got right in his face.

"We deserved better," he snarled. "We still do. The Council gave you the Traverse to spite us. Simple as that. Did you really expect us to just roll over and take it? We had to fight, we had to make a stand. If you didn't want your civilians put in harm's way then you shouldn't have put them in our way."

"Believe whatever you want," Shepard told him, already tired of the whole affair. "Right now we're a whole universe away from all that. Leave the baggage there and let's actually try to tolerate each other instead. Bickering like this gets us nowhere."

Shepard pushed past him, but Varvok didn't let up, shouting at him as he walked away.

"No! You brought this up, Shepard," he bellowed. "So I might as well finish it! You think you know everything about us batarians? That we're all just sore losers over the Blitz? Well news flash, that's only the tip of the iceberg! I could handle you beating us, but the aftermath was unforgivable!"

Shepard knew what Varok was referring to instantly and it stopped him in his tracks. He looked back, slightly more solemn than before.

"I wasn't at Torfan," Shepard reminded him. "I've never even visited the place."

"But your victory in the Skyllian Blitz directly resulted in the retaliatory strike there," Varvok argued. "Our defeat emboldened you to pursue and fulfill your revenge! A revenge that was paid for with the lives of my brothers!"

Now they were getting to the heart of it. Shepard had heard rumors about this story, but he never brought it up. Varok had family on Torfan, a criminal infested moon in the Traverse. It was like the Hollow, a lot of the operations were underground. Slavers, pirates, murderers, crooks of all the worst kids and most of them were batarian. That was Torfan, a cesspool of villainy in every sense of the word. Then the Alliance arrived and showed no mercy. Shepard probably would've gone if he hadn't still been on the press tour, the poster man for the ideal Alliance Marine, the Hero of Elysium. Torfan though was not nearly as glorious a victory.

As he understood it, the idea that everyone there was the worst kind of scum appealed to a lot of Marines and the Commanders in charge. With cries of "Remember Elysium" and "Payback for the Blitz", the Alliance let go of their usual restraint. Kill on sight, shoot first, questions never. They tried to sell it later that it was all about justice for those who died in the Blitz, who suffered that unprovoked attack. The images spoke different. It was revenge, not justice, more a purge than a legit military operation. Stacks of dead batarians, most of them butchered beyond belief. Burnt out residences, tunnels collapsed from orbital bombardment, and scores of reports concerning executed prisoners.

Was it any wonder the Alliance tried to bury the whole operation? Alongside the massive casualties the Alliance suffered for the victory, the way they won gave many of the other races pause. Sure, their targets may have been criminals, but the whole thing reeked of overkill. Public perception was the Alliance had overstepped their bounds, massacred a whole moon out of a petty desire for vengeance. The public relations nightmare made humans look like bulldozing bullies more than ever. The only good thing to come out of it? The batarian Hegemony retreated from the Traverse, the price of their attempts at expansion laid bare.

Shepard was not about to defend Torfan, he felt they could've accomplished the same goals with far fewer deaths. The cowboy mentality that took over was pointless. None of the traits that he admired about the Alliance were present in that operation. They hadn't acted their best and it was a permanent blot on their galactic record.

"I'm sorry to hear about that," he lamented. "What happened on Torfan was senseless, but I wasn't there. I couldn't do anything to stop it."

"Spare me your false sympathies," Varvok snorted cruelly. "You don't care. Everyone on that moon was just some faceless slaving bastard to you humans. You never imagined they had families too I wager. My brothers were just trying to help the family business, but they were murdered because of what that business was. They were killed mercilessly by humans, because we believe in the importance of blood and heritage. Freedom is not meant for everyone, but because you can't accept that you persecute us. My family is one of many victims of your war on our right to own our lessers."

Shepard sighed, he was trying to be understanding, but this was getting on his nerves a bit.

"Your brothers didn't need to die," he relented. "Even if they were slavers, they deserved a fair trial first. But if you expect me to apologize for the Alliance's efforts to stop slavery, it's not happening. Imagine the pain your family felt when your brothers were taken from you? Can you even imagine what it feels like for some human kid to get ripped away from their parents? Forced to work for some stranger for next to nothing while constantly under threat of torture or death?"

"Don't compare my siblings to those of lesser blood," Varvok growled. "They weren't cruel, they weren't evil, they were good to their family, to me."

Varvok's eyes grew soft for once, his voice turning low and solemn.

"Whenever I was feeling down or lonely, whenever I felt things were working against me, I always had them to back me up," he claimed sadly, his eyes drifting off to the side. "I remember how they protected me from bullies, how they helped me with my homework, how they always bought me tickets to the vid theater and never expected me to pay them back. I knew they'd always be there for me. Until one day...when they weren't there. They were just... gone. And nothing would ever bring them back."

The sullen look in his eyes lasted a few seconds more. For once, Shepard saw Varvok vulnerable, his defenses gone. Revealed behind them was a lonely boy who lost his family, the two best friends he ever had.

And then the fire returned as soon he looked back at Shepard.

"That's because of your kind, your actions," he declared angrily. "I swore to fight against you. I swore to stop you. And now, I'm forced to help you! I'm forced to dishonor the memory of my brothers every second I'm stuck with you and your damn crew. You want to know what justifies our actions? You want to know why we've chosen this path of terrorism and violence? You forced us! You left us with no choice but to fight because it's all we have left! You stole too much from us, from me, for us to back down now!"

"So because humans hurt you, because they killed your brothers, you decided to hurt others?" Shepard shot back with a glare. "You decided to inflict that same pain that your family went through on countless human families? That's your justification for all this? For hating me?"

Whatever restraint he had before was now gone. He was not going to apologize for stopping slavers, for protecting innocent people. He was not going to claim the Alliance was somehow the bad guy in all this. Even with Torfan, even knowing Varvok's losses, that didn't change anything. He wouldn't back down, so neither would he.

"Well look where that's all gotten you, Varvok," he stated loudly, raising his hands up. "You joined up with Balak, who sold your people out to the Covenant for revenge as well. Then he kicked you ove here into this dimension! Now your people are probably going to get subjugated by a foreign power, and for what? So you could finally get back at the humans for not tolerating the enslavement of sapient beings? Hope that was worth it."

"Shut your mouth!" Varvok snapped back. "I'm trying to help you stop them now! I've given up my country, my honor, my standing, to help you!"

"You gave that all up because you learned too late what revenge costs you in return," Shepard countered, rage boiling over in his tone as well. "You felt killing humans would somehow make it better, somehow give meaning to the deaths of your brothers, but instead it destroyed your life. So now you're taking it out on me, like you apparently do with everything! Face it, Varvok, you're no better than the Marines who killed your brothers!"

That was it, he stepped over a line. He knew he had the moment the words left his mouth. He regretted, but he couldn't take them back. Shepard barely had time to react before Varvok was charging at him, fist raised. He pulled up his biotic barrier, but not in time. The hook connected with the left side of his face. He responded with his own haymaker to Varvok's face. The batarian held his jaw and went for another strike. Shepard caught it with one hand and unleashed a biotic blow at the Varvok's sternum, sending him flying back. The batarian didn't stay down, he rushed back to his feet, rage taking over now, adrenaline surging through him.

"Can't even fight me without your damn powers! Coward!"

"You don't want to do this, Varvok," Shepard warned sternly.

"No, I really do," the batarian claimed. "I really fucking do!"

Shepard dodged the next wild punch, but was forced to block the next. He let loose another punch against Varvok's temple, who responded by clasping his hands together and delivering striking the Commander's jaw. Shepard stumbled back, but maintained his footing. He thrusted a power jab into Varvok's nose in kind, but the batarian answered with a swinging body blow to Shepard stomach. Shepard had to knee him off before kicking at the batarian's leg to make him kneel. He then drove home with a strike across the batarian's upper right eye, sending him down to he ground.

He didn't stay there though, he was quick to force himself back up and charge again. This time Shepard's block didn't hold and he got hit right between the eyes. As his head was spinning, Varvok threw another punch into Shepard's jaw. That was enough to get his thoughts back in order. As the batarian attempted to deliver a double overhead strike, Shepard grabbed his arms and threw him backwards. Even falling over flat on his ass, Varvok was not giving in. He scrambled to his feet and now dared Shepard to charge at him, motioning his hands towards him and snarling.

Shepard did charge, at first because he wanted to sock the stupid batarian in his other upper eye. He was tired of this, tired of stepping around egg shells, tired of just barely tolerating Varvok's constantly belittling remarks. Then, that changed in an instant. Shepard reached for his gun and Varvok's eyes went wide. He tried to do the same, but Shepard reached him first, leveling his weapon upwards and then... throwing Varvok aside and firing at the crawler robot behind him.

The machine had been powering up its weapon and had been just about to shoot. Shepard had luckily stopped it in time. Unfortunately, while he managed to kill the Crawler, it had friends close by. A lot of friends, if the screeching was any indication.

As the bots began to swarm inside the cavern, firing sporadically at their position, Shepard rushed back over to Varvok and held out his hand. There was a moment's hesitation, and then the batarian took it. Boosted back up to his legs, Varvok grabbed for his rifle and opened fire on the advancing horde of machines, Shepard backing him up by send a shockwave rippling through their ranks.

Sustained fire from a stalactite up above forced them to retreat into the rocks, but Varvok was quick to fire his explosive omni-blades at the offending sniper. The blades dug into the rock and detonated, not only killing the robot, but sending the stalactite hurtling down on even more of the crawlers.

Together, Shepard and Varvok ran towards the rocks for cover. Shepard figured they wait for an opening and make a run for the exit. That was probably going to be a problem given how many of the little metallic freaks were suddenly in the cavern with them. Shepard let loose with his shotgun, blasting away at the charging attackers while Varvok focused on the ones firing from downrange. The batarian managed to scrap two of the machines as they tried climbing some stalagmites for a better vantage point.

Then, suddenly, a glowing grey combat drone charged onto the field. It entered the fray as a few frag grenades landed among the enemy machines. The drone self-destructed just as the grenades went off, taking a whole mess of crawlers with them. The combined explosion only blinded Shepard for a second, but he still managed to track where the grenades had arched from. There, standing close to another exit in the cave, was the Master Chief and Legion, now currently firing on the incoming machines that remained.

"Didn't think I'd leave you to face this alone, did you, sir?" Chief asked.

"I suppose I shouldn't have, Chief," Shepard said, more than a little happy to see the Spartan. "You too, Legion!"

"We are pleased you are undamaged, Shepard-Commander," Legion replied, still firing off rounds from its rifle. "We suggest an immediate exfiltration from this area regardless."

Shepard and Varvok got up from their cover and rushed over to the two, they all began to pull back into the tunnel Chief and Legion had come from. This confused Shepard a little.

"Wait, shouldn't we be heading for the Bridge?" He asked.

"I got a message from Cortana while I was searching for you," the Spartan explained. "If we want to stop these things, there's something we got to take out. She identified it for us, we'll need your help to pull it off."

Shepard didn't argue. As much as he wanted to get to the Bridge and back Tali up, it seemed that the mission needed him down here more. He was just grateful he didn't have to face it alone.

"Lead the way, we're right behind you," he told the Chief.

They raced into the tunnel, leaving the devastated mass of Crawlers behind.

---

Tali and Taq closed up the junction box, their work complete. Power had been restored to the Captain's Quarters, along with the personal computer within. Tali quickly uploaded Cortana onto the system and the AI set to work. The encryption here was greater than anticipated, but at this point Cortana had become familiar enough with all the Dauntless' systems and codes that it wasn't too difficult to crack. In fact, the greater problem seemed to be sorting through all the data not pertinent to what they wanted to find.

"Come on, come on," Cortana grumbled. "Where'd you keep all your passwords, pal? Seriously, this is getting annoying."

"Check any of the later personal logs and run them through translation," Tali suggested. "Maybe we can find a clue in there."

"Way ahead of you," Cortana assured. "I'm already finishing up with his log entries now, but they're incredibly detailed. Guess he had a lot of time to write. I'll put it up for you."

The screen filled with several files, some including diagrams or technical specs. Some of them were easily recognizable, specifically the one detailing the crawler robots. Tali took special interest in that one, looking at its construction and variants. There were apparently more than a few available, designed for different tasks. It seemed the one that they had encountered the most was designed basic pathfinding and threat location. Lucky for them, since it was only armed with a basic energy weapon. Powerful, but not devastating. Tali searched for something that would tell them how they were making so many, but Taq interrupted her search.

"Get a load of this," she said, enlarging a file for the others to see. "It's an after action report of some kind, looks like it details the cause of the crash."

"From what Johnson's team reported, the engine room looked like it had been sabotaged," Kat reminded her.

"It was," Taq confirmed. "But not by a bomb or a treacherous crewmate. According to this... it was those crawling synthetics."

That was bizarre, considering how diligently they had been protecting this wreck. Taq quickly filled in the blanks as she read further.

"Apparently these things were loaded onto the ship without the crew's knowledge and set to be activated in the middle of their voyage," Taq explained. "They're some kind of advanced synthetic warrior the Forerunners created to fend off extreme threats. The Captain had his suspicions that it was an agent of a disgraced leader of theirs. Their mission was to prevent this guy from getting his hands on the relic, they couldn't risk him getting its power because of what he could potentially do with it."

"So one of his allies got wind of this plan and managed to sneak some of these crawlers aboard the Dauntless to prevent them from escaping with their master's prize," Linda observed. "The robots activated and they took the engine room apart before anyone could stop them. Then the ship crashes."

"The survivors managed to deactivate the remaining bots, but their problems didn't end there," Taq continued. "They knew Halo was going to be activated soon it seems so they knew they weren't getting rescued. They had to rush preparations to secure the relic, keep it out of enemy hands. So that's where all those security measures and other crap we've run into so far all came from. It was their attempt to ensure no one would even get to the relic."

That answered some questions, but not all. It made sense now that the survivors had designed the ship to defend the relic long after they were all dead. The ship's security was tied into its ability to shift forms, the relic was keeping everything powered and directed properly, all the failsafes they had run into to further increase the odds against intruders, that all made sense. The crawlers didn't though. If they had been designed to assault the ship, how had the survivors managed to capture and reprogram so many of them? Had there been that many just to attack the ship's engine room in the first place?

Tali accessed the terminal herself with her omni-tool and started looking over the files herself. She paid attention to any that seemed to talk about the Crawlers in some way. There was a lot of research about them actually, more than she expected. It was rushed, messy, not always coherent, but some answers began to form. None of them good.

"Guys, you should listen to this," she said, catching the others' attention. "There's a lot more in here about their security measures. Specifically how they hunted down and destroyed all the original machines. Then they repurposed the parts to create more."

"They could do that?" Kat asked, curiously. "Just destroy all of them and build new ones out of the wrecks? It's that easy?"

"Not exactly," Tali answered. "When they destroyed the bots, they killed the AI inside with it. They couldn't function without a body. They got around that like how the Geth do, they created a hub where the AI could retreat to if a body was ever destroyed."

"A hub?" Linda asked. "Like a server?"

"Yes, and according to this, it's localized in a special device they fit it with," Tali continued. "This what all that research into those design seeds was about. They created one from scratch to build it along with the server. This machine takes in matter, reconfigures it at the subatomic level and creates more of the Crawlers based on schematics they downloaded into it. To simplify, a matter converter engine. They also programmed a command into the robots that were online to collect any matter they find and feed it into the converter. Rocks, metals, basically everything down here."

Linda was probably not the most tech savy among the group, but she quickly picked up on what Tali was saying.

"That's the thing that's spewing out all these bots," she deduced. "The secondary system we learned about. The one that we need to destroy so we can shut all these machines down."

"Looks like it," Tali confirmed.

"Well where did they get the new AI?" Taq asked. "There's no way a single synth can control all these machines at once. It would be too much to handle, even for a Forerunner program. Did they have like a dozen spares?"

"According to the logs that was precisely the problem they had to solve," Tali answered dutifully, reading at a mile a minute. "They didn't have a monitor that that could oversee everything. The Crawlers would only respond to direct input, that's apparently how they had been designed. They... well..."

She stopped just short of the full truth. It was hard to express, hard to fully process. She could see they were all eagerly waiting though. Instead of just saying it out loud, she enlarged the image on her omni-tool so they could all see it. The familiar image of the strange pods they had found not long ago filled the room. Before they could properly ask what this was about, Tali filled them in.

"Remember how AIs are made on Earth?" She asked them. "By digitizing brainwaves and such?"

"Yes, or cloned brain matter like me," Cortana reasoned, then her face faulted. She came to the conclusion first. "Oh God, are you...?"

Tali could see the AI looking over the information herself and the expression of shock growing across her face as the realization hit.

"They digitized themselves," the AI blurted out. "They digitized themselves while they were still alive."

"You mean their brains?" Linda asked, equally shocked. "Like what Halsey did to make you?"

"No, not their brains, themselves, as in every piece," Cortana clarified frantically. "They broke down every bit of their genetic code and fed it into the hub to create enough basic AI programs to fill the quota they needed. The hub then split those AI into more AI, fragmenting them, copying them, anything and everything to give them enough bots to maintain their security grid."

"We've been fighting the crew," Kat simplified for everyone. "This whole time, we've been fighting the crew."

That summed it up pretty well. To Tali it was almost unimaginable, abandoning everything you were to become data. She had heard of the concept, of transcending matter and becoming digital information. It was a nightmare quarians always spoke about, the ultimate surrender to the machine, organics choosing to become synthetic. In light of the situation, Tali supposed she understood it, but it still rubbed her all kinds of wrong.

"The Captain was the last one to undergo the process it seems," Tali told them. "The last one to become... well, one of these Crawlers himself. His last entry is basically a final checklist, a few remaining things he needed to do to ensure everything would keep running after he was gone."

"I've heard of fanatical dedication to your mission, but this is a whole other level," Linda stated. "It more or less confirms this relic must be dangerous if they were willing to do all this just to keep it safe."

"Or that the guy they were afraid was gonna grab it really was a nasty piece of work," Taq suggested. "Either way, I hope none of you are getting cold feet here. We're not getting out of here alive unless we shut them all down, so we might as well take the relic with us."

"Relax, Taq," Linda assured her. "We're not backing down, but it is something to consider going forward. The Covenant and Snarlbeak want this thing. If the Forerunners were afraid of it falling into enemy hands so much that they went to such extreme lengths to protect it, that tells us we need to take similar precautions as well."

"I'm not turning myself into data," Kat spoke up. "I'm just saying that right now."

"And on that note, I have the passcodes," Cortana announced. "Buried deep in the captain's logs, but I have them."

Everyone gathered around the main terminal again as Cortana brought the codes up, a mixture of symbols and signs designated by color. They were good to go it seemed, but as Tali suspected, Cortana had found a catch.

"I know the procedure," she assured them. "I can get it done easily. Problem, there's some extra security added to the initialization. It activates the second I start downloading. It's a silent thing though, I think it is meant to catch us off guard. But after what happened in the security room, I was more careful in checking the code. We're going to have a bit of a fight on our hands."

"Crawlers?" Linda asked concerned.

"Sentinels, about eight," the AI answered. "Modified with tougher shields and armor. Not easy to kill."

"Then we blow them apart," Linda told her. "We can handle a few of those modified rustbuckets. Download the code, Cortana. It's time to finish this."

Cortana just nodded and began the download. As she did, Tali got her shotgun ready, anticipating something to jump out any second. The others did the same. As she scanned the room, she thought she saw something moving in the corner. A metallic whirring sound started up as a red sentinel's eye appeared and targeted Kat. Tali reacted quickly, calling out to the others and pointing. Kat ducked just in time to avoid a sudden laser shot from out of the corner of the room. Tali returned fire with her shotgun, unloading several blasts into the machine as it detached from the wall.

Everyone else joined in, unloading on the Sentinel as it tried to fire again. Under a blaze of bullets and needles, the sentinel took a ton of punishment before it finally exploded and fell to the ground. The heap of molten slag sizzled and sparked loudly as they all looked on.

"About seven left to go," Cortana stated. "And I have the codes, let's get back to the bridge, ASAP."

Seven more sentinels, they could handle that. Tali was more concerned for everyone else. They had a few heavily armored flying bots to destroy. The others had a whole army of killer Crawlers to fight through. With any luck they'd pull it off. Otherwise, no one would be getting out of here.

---

Creeping over rocks at a steady pace, the Master Chief led the way into the cavern and found himself a small ledge overlooking the area. Bullets and plasma were already flying when they arrived. While the ceiling was mostly rock, he could see bits and pieces of the Dauntless poking through. Magnifying his helmet's visor, he took look at the fighting below them. He could easily spot Marines and ODSTs engaging the Crawlers. He could also see a number of Jackals and batarians among their number. They were attempting to encircle the Crawlers, who had formed a defense around a cylindrical hub in the middle of the cavern. Its construction resonated with a bright orange. Small shapes hovered and twisted in the air above the object.

Most curious though was a lone Crawler parading along the surface of the device, one with significantly larger spikes on its back. It screamed out at the various other killer machines scurrying around the area and they appeared to respond in kind. Was this some kind of command unit? An AI directing others? It made a bit of sense, given what the command Guilty Spark had over the Sentinels, it stood to reason other Forerunner AI had the same ability. And if Legion's analysis earlier had been right, then these things had some kind of rudimentary AI in all of them. As Shepard, Varvok and Legion moved in beside him, he pointed everything out to them.

"It seems we found your people, Varvok," he said to the batarian. "They're helping the others assault that structure in the center of the room."

"So that's the thing we need to take out to make sure these things stay shutdown then," Shepard reasoned. "Seems simple enough."

Shepard took a peek through his weapon's scope at the device, soon spotting the wandering command unit Crawler. He quickly reached similar conclusions to Shepard.

"Some kind of leader bot," he discerned near instantly. "Looks tougher than the others."

"Legion, could you snipe that thing from here?" Chief asked the geth. "We take him down, it might give the others the chance they need to destroy that device."

"Possible," Legion replied, already looking through the scope of its Widow rifle. "However, we believe it will only be a temporary solution. Observe left lower section."

Chief followed the geth's instruction and took a look. He saw the device light up and out from a slot at the bottom of the object, another robot crawled out to take its place in the firing line. Now it made sense why taking this thing out was important. It was building these things, not just powering them.

"So that's why there are so many," Varvok growled. "They have a mini-synth maker."

"Scans indicate similar additional functionality to a Geth Hub," Legion warned. "Any attempt to destroy Leader Unit will only mildly disrupt Enemy Unit Cohesion. AI will return to Hub, reinstall in new body and return to combat. We can see only one solution, terminate or disable the device."

"That's going to be a bit tricky, given how many of them are in our way," Shepard noted. "We do got one advantage, they're focused on our friends right now. They don't know we're here yet."

"Then we open up a second front," Varvok declared. "Force them to divide their eyes. That will allow our forces to properly encircle them."

"Good plan," Shepard concurred. "But lets spread out a little, we have a good position up here in the high ground, lets not waste it. Chief and me will take the center, Varvok, Legion, take the left and right. We hit them from as many angles as possible, try to draw them away from the device if you can. We need to get an opening if anyone is going to have a chance at taking it down."

The four split up along the ledge, the Master Chief and Shepard taking position among some fallen pieces of debris from the Dauntless. Shepard brought out his grenade launcher, while Chief readied his assault rifle. When everyone was in position, they made their move.

Shepard fired a volley of grenades at the mass of Crawlers, exploding among their more tightly packed defensive lines. Chief unleashed his assault rifle at the same time, spewing hot lead into the robots as they scurried to avoid the incoming fire. As they moved to return fire on Shepard and the Spartan, additional gunfire struck their flanks. Legion's expert marksmanship easily put down at least three of the machines before they could reconcile what was happening. Varvok was no slouch either, managing two headshots before firing one of his explosive ballistic blades into the crowd.

Almost instantly, the lead Crawler took notice. It roared at Shepard and Chief, before spewing off a burst of rapid fire at them. Apparently this model had an automatic weapon of some kind, at least the eons old debris held up against the assault. Shepard returned fire, but the nimble machine ducked into the crowd of fellow bots. It didn't matter, they had accomplished the objective, as the mass of Crawlers soon redirected their efforts towards them instead of the main force assaulting them.

Chief could now see a few of Shepard's crewmates among the friendly forces. Jack was throwing biotic punches left and right, sending charging machines flying. She was covered by Thane, who's skill with a rifle proved ridiculously efficient. He managed to kill at least two of the Crawlers with one shot. Chief also saw a burst of flame scorching the Crawler lines. Tracing the fire back to its source, a flamethrower, he spotted Zaeed. He apparently was using the weapon to create a barrier while a small group of Marines and batarians moved into flanking position.

Still, even with all this, they couldn't seem to break the defenses. The hub's construction protocol was churning out Crawlers faster than they could eliminate. It stood to reason that eventually it would run out of resources to keep making them, but Chief didn't like wasting time trying to accomplish that. Chances were there were more Crawlers in the tunnels, on their way to reinforce this position. If they didn't take the device out soon, they'd be the ones encircled. He turned to Shepard, who was keeping up the fire with shotgun and the occasional biotic warp to decimate any charging enemies.

"We need to cut a path to that device," he stated. "They're still trying to reorganize right now, they're vulnerable."

"I know, but it's really hard to make an opening," Shepard explained through gritted teeth. "If we just had a rocket or something maybe..."

A furious barrage of enemy fire cut Shepard off, as he was forced to hug his cover tighter. Chief tried to take aim at the offending hostiles himself, but found himself getting hit by long range fire from crawlers further back in the defensive lines. He had to retreat back to cover as his shields suffered. The sound of Legion's widow suggested that he ended to the long range threat, but now the hostiles shooting at Shepard were charging at their position. Chief readied his weapons and waited for his shields to recharge before he attempted to engage again, expecting them to be upon him before that happened.

Instead, a wide ranged biotic throw struck all of the attacking bots from the side, sending them hurtling away. Chief and Shepard looked out behind their cover to see a most welcome sight, Samara had arrived. She was further down the slope, but she was finally there and unloading into the crawler ranks with reckless abandon. Another closer look and Chief could see another Marine with her, along with Zek. That was certainly an unexpected person to find accompanying the Justicar.

"It seems we arrived just in time, Shepard," Samara called up, throwing a Biotic attack into a mass of Crawlers. "I hope we did not cut it too close."

"You're fine, Samara," Shepard assured her jovially, before quickly addressing the mission at hand. "We need to get to that device in the center. Think you can help me clear a path to it?"

"Of course," Samara assured, turning to the Marine. "Cover us, Private Kowalski."

Kowalski just nodded and resumed firing. As Samara moved up into the fray, Zek followed her, shield in hand. Chief didn't question it, he just followed Shepard down the slope to their target. The Commander threw a Biotic Shockwave into the Crawler ranks as the same time the Asari struck one of the machines with reave. The resulting detonation of the two attacks, sent several machines flying into the air. As Shepard picked off a few with his pistol, he looked over his shoulder to the Chief.

"Head in with Samara, take that thing out!" He ordered. "I'll cover you!"

Shepard took a knee by a large rock and began opening fire into the hole they had just made in the Crawlers' ranks. Chief ran right into it, following after Samara and Zek as they charged for the device in the center. The Crawlers responded quickly, trying to close the gap in their lines. Samara threw biotic punches to knock the machines away with one hand, while she fired off shot from her submachine gun in the other. Chief did his best to watch her back and control the rest of the swarm around them. They could see the device just ahead, if only they could reach it.

As they pressed forward, a pair of Crawlers scrambled up to the top of the stalagmite and began raining fire down on them. Samara dropped to the dirt behind a small boulder, as fire rained down on her. Chief opened up on the attacking Crawlers with his assault rifle, taking their attention off the asari for a brief moment. It was all Samara needed to use her submachine guns to spray a barrage of bullets at the synthetic nuisances. As the robots fell, Samara pushed ahead with even more reckless abandon, her biotic attacks lashing out with devastating impact against any Crawlers nearby.

At that moment, a burst of energy bolts flew at the asari, ripping through her barriers and striking her in the leg. Samara stumbled, falling to one knee in mid-stride. Tracing the shots, Chief spotted the attacker, it was the Lead Crawler, his spine spikes unmistakable. He fired on with a series of bursts, but the machine dodged the incoming the attacks, racing towards the asari on nimble little clawed feet, its weapon charging for a point-blank attack. Chief could see Legion aiming at the machine, tracking it, but slower than usual and not firing like he should.

Then, out of nowhere it seemed, Zek leapt in front of Samara and used his shield to block the incoming shot, saving Samara in the process. The lead Cralwer kept coming though, intending perhaps to charge through the Jackal's shield. Instead, it found its head get sliced off its body by Zek's plasma machete. He turned to Samara, who was busy activating an emergency omni-gel application.

"Come on, get up already!" He shouted at her extending his hand. "We got a machine to smash apparently."

Just as surprising as Zek's timely save, Samara actually took his hand's offer of assistance. The asari stood once more and sent a powerful throw directly at the enemy lines. As Crawlers went flying, Zek moved up, covering whatever spot Samara wasn't shooting at with his shield. Chief moved up behind them, catching up quickly to them. He imagined the Lead Cralwer was already back online as per Legion's analysis, they'd have to work fast to press that advantage.

He didn't really have any significant explosives on him, not enough to damage the Crawler Maker, or whatever it was called. In fact, he had used up all his grenades at this point. So that option was out. He did, however, spot a possibility. Overhead, he could see bits of the Dauntless' superstructure poking out of the rocks. There was one such jagged piece of debris hanging over the device itself. Remembering how they had sought cover behind fallen bulkheads before, he thought now that perhaps they could force a similar issue. They just needed a way to dislodge it. Keeping in cover behind a small boulder he called over to Zek, hopeful that what they needed he could provide.

"Zek, I need a grenade," he shouted over to him. "You got any?"

Zek dug in his pack as he defended Samara with his shield, the Justicar kneeling down behind him. Eventually, the Jackal produced a plasma grenade in his hands.

"Only one," he stated.

Great, that meant there could be no screw ups here. Judging the angle from the floor to the ceiling where the piece of hanging debris was, he did not like the odds of throwing it right. He needed more power, that's where Samara came in.

"Can you use your biotics to force that grenade into a specific position?" He asked the asari.

"It is possible," Samara replied. "Where do you wish it to go?"

Chief just pointed at the jagged bit of Forerunner ship metal above the Crawler device. The Asari understood instantly. She took the grenade from Zek as the Spartan readied Forerunner pistol in his hands. Samara reeled back her arm and threw the grenade at the ceiling, sending a biotic wave right after it. The wave managed to keep the explosive on a steady trajectory, hurtling towards the piece of debris. It was now down to the Master Chief, he took careful aim with the alien weapon, charging it to full blast to increase his odds. When he saw the grenade get close to the piece of jagged bulkhead, he fired the shot right at it. The charged bolt sailed through the air and collided with the grenade.

The blue explosion erupted near the jagged bit of a metal. It shook for a moment or two and then completely dislodged from the ship itself. As it fell towards the device below, Chief, Zek and Samara fell back, running as fast as they could. The debris smashed down, stabbing clean through the Crawler device. Second later there was a eruption of electrical sparks and fire. The power source must have been ruptured in some way. The resulting shockwave from the blast threw Chief and his two companions to the ground as the orange glow from the device itself died.

One by one, the crawlers still remaining dropped to the floor dead, their link to the security node within the device completely severed, along with whatever programs remained within the device's AI hub. There was a sudden rising cheer from the Marines, Batarians and Jackals. Zek only offered a sigh of relief as he rolled over and laid on his back. Chief pushed himself up instead alongside Samara and greeted Shepard as he regrouped with them.

"This is only half of the equation," the Spartan reminded the Commander. "There are still active Crawlers running around controlled by the security system within the bridge. Until that's shutdown, we're all still in danger."

"At least they can't replenish their numbers," Shepard said, remaining optimistic. "If Tali and the others are on the Bridge right now, that other problem will sort itself out. Until then, we regroup for a possible counterattack."

That, Chief thought, and hope they heard from Cortana soon.

---

Kat opened fire sporadically on the Sentinels as they swarmed through the air. Their shields were a lot stronger than the ones they had fought on Halo, however. Her bullets were not nearly as effective as they should've been. She had other means at her disposal though. Activating her overload function installed in her robot arm's omni-tool, she fired a power surge directly into the middle of the swarm, killing their shields with ease.

"Their defenses are down," Kat shouted aloud to the others. "Hit them now before they regenerate!"

Taq took aim and fired a spread of needles at one of the machines. Pink shards embedded themselves in the tough armor of the Sentinel. A pink burst soon enveloped the robot and it plummeted to the ground in a flaming heap. In retaliation, a Sentinel turned and fired at Taq, forcing the Jackal to duck behind a console lest she be sliced in half by the incoming beam.

"How much longer until the system is shutdown?" Taq asked as she crawled to better cover.

"We're working on it!" Tali insisted, keeping her head low as she worked feverishly on one of the consoles. "It's hard to input the procedure when you're being shot at!"

As if to illustrate her point, one of the Sentinels shot at Tali's console, forcing the quarian to squat down to protect herself from further fire.

"Keelah, that tears it!" She growled, activating her omni-tool. "Chiktikka, fry them!"

The purple combat drone materialized and instantly rolled into the fray. It fired a devastating blast right into the belly of the nearest Sentinel. It survived the blow and returned fire, slashing out a powerful beam. Chiktikka managed to avoid the attack by strafing to the left and fired another electronic blast that hit the Sentinel right in the laser beam's power source. The resulting explosion ripped the head off the Sentinel entirely and it fell to the floor dead.

"Three down," Tali called out as she returned to work.. "Five to go! Keep distracting them Chiktikka."

Tali finished up on the console as fast as she could. Cortana appeared moments later next to her hand.

"Okay, first phase complete," she reported. "I'm inputting the passcodes now. It will take moment to connect to every individual console. One they unlock, pull the relic out of the system as fast as possible. We can't risk it rebooting automatically if we take too long."

Given how many failsafes they had encountered so far with this whole ship, Tali didn't doubt that there was probably another one that restarted the system if you didn't do just that. At that moment, another laser beam sliced over her head just barely missing her. It was enough to mess with her shields though. In response, she fired her shotgun at the Sentinel. The machine took damage, but remained active.

"Just hurry, Cortana," Tali insisted.

Tali moved away from the console, the Sentinel chasing after her. It was so focused on the quarian though, it didn't notice Kat rushing up from the side to smash it in the face. Or at least what passed as a face. The machine flew out of control, smashing into a wall. Kat stomped on it with her foot, firing her pistol point blank into its body until it started to sputter.

"I almost forgot how much I hated these things," she snorted as she reloaded her weapon.

Two of the four remaining Sentinels moved in on Kat, firing their beams at the Spartan. Forced to retreat to cover, Kat fired back at them from behind a small console. Just off to the right, Linda readied her sniper rifle and leveled it at the two Sentinels. She held her breath and then, with careful aim, fired a single shot at the Sentinels. The shot slashed into the side of one of the machines and then exited out the other side to slice into the second Sentinel's power source. While that Sentinel exploded, the first one started to fly out of control and smash into the ground. The machine tried to fly once more, only for Taq to smash her plasma axe into the robot as it sputtered to get airborne.

"Two more!" Taq called out with glee. "We got this girls!"

"Celebrate when the other two are dead!" Linda shouted at her.

A laser shot forced Linda back down into cover, the Sentinel firing it speeding in from above. Taq responded quickly, throwing her plasma axe into the attacking machine. With the energy blade still stuck in it, the robot pulled away from from its attack. Good for Linda, not so much for Taq.

"Hey! Get back here!" She called out at the Sentinel. "You know how hard it is to find one of those things on the market!"

As Taq went after her plasma axe, Tali vaulted over her cover back into the fray. By now, Cortana had to be close to shutting the system down. They needed to be ready to pull the relic out when that happened.

As she rushed to get closer to the central platform, she spotted the other remaining Sentinel closing in on her. She fired her shotgun at it in successive bursts, ripping off pieces of its armor. It steadied itself, however, and took aim at the quarian. Before it could fire though, the other Sentinel smashed into it. Both of the machines collided into the wall. Tali looked to where the other Sentinel had come from and saw Taq lying on a console with her plasma axe in hand.

"I got it back!" She announced, waving the tool around.

At that moment a klaxxon sound began to ring throughout the bridge. The central platform itself began to vent steam as cables started detaching themselves. Cortana popped up on one of the consoles.

"Shutdown commencing," she shouted. "Get the relic now!"

Tali raced from her position, charging up the platform as fast as she could. The relic resonated with powerful glow, almost blinding, as the system began to shutdown. Tali darkened her visor's shading as much as she could, but even then it still hurt to look at. With no more time to spare, she grabbed at the Relic and began to pull.

And that was when a powerful shock hit her system hard. She was flung back off the platform, slamming into the Captain's console before falling to the floor. She could hear the whole bridge powering down, the klaxxon growing dimmer and softer. What became much louder was the ringing in her head, like something pounding at her skull. She came out of it as soon as it started, however, when her vision unblurred and she saw Kat standing over her, shaking her shoulders.

"Tali," she called out frantically. "Tali, are you alright?"

"I'm fine," the quarian responded, slowly sitting up. "I'm okay."

She then looked down and saw, cradled in her arms, was the relic. Its resonance had dimmed, becoming a more moderate glow that did not hurt her eyes. She could see its form more clearly now, the hexagonal pyramid shape easier to see, the X-handle removed to reveal a slightly pointed base. Even with the glow gone, she could still feel the power coursing through the artifact, pooling over her hands.

She didn't feel it for too long though, as Taq was quick to rush over to the quarian. Sensing what she wanted, Tali let the Jackal take the relic. Taq's grin was one of absolute joyous exuberance, as she held the artifact in her talon and lifted it above her head. She started laughing with glee and Tali wondered if she was about to cry, but the avian tomb raider held it together and managed to remain relatively composed.

"Cortana," she said, her tone one of sincere elation. "See if you can contact the other teams. Tell them we've done it, we have what we came for."

---

Everyone eventually managed to regroup in the bridge section of the Dauntless. The various deactivated Crawlers outside in the caverns suggested that they had succeeded in shutting the security system down. McKay had the ODSTs keep a secure perimeter around the area just in case though. At the same time, Kat was trying to boost the communication systems on the bridge in order to report back to the surface. They needed to know the operation was a success. They were no doubt concerned by now after being out of contact for so long. They'd be happy to know that the relic was now in their possession.

Taq held onto the artifact itself, placing it in her satchel for the time being. She was busy working with Tali to dig deeper into the Dauntless' archives. The bridge's security was disabled now, making progress on that front far easier now. Shepard was just happy to see that Tali was okay, a little shaken maybe given that she had taken an unknown energy blast at point blank range, but she was okay. He'd still make sure Chakwas took look at her when they got back though.

Once the teams had reunited, the whole picture of the Dauntless became clear, with Linda explaining things to Shepard and the Master Chief best she could. It was a lot to take in, especially the fact that they had been fighting the crew this whole time. Shepard couldn't help but astonished at the lengths the Forerunners had gone to just to protect this one little artifact.

"This whole mission certainly brings a whole new meaning to the term Ghost Ship," the Commander noted. "They must have been really scared about the prospect of that relic falling into the wrong hands."

"And we still don't even know what it does," Chief added. "Although I think we can now assume it's nothing we want the Covenant getting their hands on."

"With any luck, we'll find out more about its purpose when we're done looking through the ship's logs," Linda assured the two. "For now, I'm just happy this whole mess of an operation is over."

"It wasn't that much of a mess," Shepard corrected her. "Despite everything that happened, we all managed to work together regardless of history or background. We pulled this off together, McKay alone proved that by leading the initial assault on that Crawler Device."

"I'd like to think that, sir," Chief was quick to cut in. "But animosity doesn't go away overnight, not in my experience."

"It doesn't, but it's a start," Shepard assured him.

As they spoke, Shepard noticed Zek walking up to Samara and Kowalski. The two were conferring with Kowalski's squad from the looks of it. When the asari noticed the pirate leader walking up to her, she turned gracefully towards him.

"So, it all worked out it seemed," Zek claimed. "We helped each other and took out the device. And I'm not too proud to admit we couldn't have done it without you. For a self-righteous cop with a murder fetish, you're not all bad."

"And you're saying this because...?" Samara asked.

"Because what I told you before is true," Zek insisted. "I'm not that bad a guy and just because we have different philosophies doesn't mean we have to hate each other. So why don't we bury the hatchet, and I mean in the ground, not in each other's backs. Sound fair?"

Zek held out his hand... but Samara did not take it. She just looked at it stoically, unnerving Zek somewhat after a few seconds.

"I will admit, I did not expect you of all people to protect me during that assault on the device," the asari eventually relented, her voice as cold as ever. "You perhaps possess more admirable qualities than I originally believed. You are a pirate, but you are not entirely wicked. I will admit to that, for I am not so proud myself. However, this changes nothing. The code is clear on these matters and I will continue to respect my code."

Samara walked off, leaving Zek hanging and looking a little bit perturbed. As he and Kowalski looked on, he took a brief look at the Marine with a critical eye.

"Good luck with that one, human," he snorted. "She's a level of crazy I don't deal with. Not anymore."

Zek walked off next, leaving a rather flummoxed Kowalski behind.

"What the hell does that mean?" He asked in confusion and frustration.

While Zek's failure to truly create a bridge between himself and Samara was disheartening, it did remind Shepard of one other thing he still needed to do. He excused himself from Linda and Chief and made his way towards the a group of batarians currently on the bridge. Varvok was with them, looking somewhat contemplative. When he spotted Shepard, he waved his people off and walked over to him, clearly sensing the Commander's desire to talk.

"I just wanted to say... I'm sorry," Shepard told him quickly.

"For what exactly?" Varvok asked skeptically.

"Not for what you probably want," Shepard replied sincerely. "I'm not going to apologize for humanity and I'm not going to try and give another excuse for Torfan. It won't be genuine if I try. Whoever your brothers were though, whatever they did, they still meant something to you. They were your family. And I know how important that is. I shouldn't have touched that nerve, it was wrong."

Varvok didn't say anything, but his expression was enough. The batarian just nodded and let his eyes sink a bit. Shepard continued, hoping to get out more of what he meant to say.

"I know this isn't easy for you," he explained. "Maybe in some ways it isn't for me either. I like to think I don't hold any animosity for your people. I may have fought them in the Blitz, but I don't hate them. That's at least what I hope is true, some days I don't know."

"What are you trying to say, Shepard?" Varvok asked, sounding somewhat impatient.

"That I know this isn't how you planned to serve your people,"Shepard told him somberly. "That this isn't what you intended to do with your life. I know that better than most and therefore I should've recognized it earlier. You and your men are basically exiles now. I can still go home when all is said and done. You? Even if we do get back to our dimension, you'll still be outcasts. You're in a bad situation and you're not happy with it at all. I get it, I really do."

Varvok let his defenses down a little, his face softening.

"I should be more open to what you have to say," Shepard continued. "You're a capable leader and you deserve more credit for that. At the same time though, I need you to understand, I'm not your enemy. I never was. Now that we are on the same side, we need to start acting like it. Today proved we need each other if we're going to survive this war, if any of us want to have any hope of stopping the Covenant and getting home. We need to listen to each other, that goes as much for me as it does you."

Varvok made a sound under his throat, one that sounded for once more agreeable than that of a grunt of irritation. His expression completely softened now, the bitterness and anger draining out of it. He looked back at Shepard with an earnest conviction in all four of his eyes now.

"I can look past it all," the batarian claimed. "The anger, the hate, I can let it go, I think I can at least try. Honestly, fighting you is too tiring and I can see it's not helping. That much was clear when we were being chased by the Crawlers. In the middle of my rage, you still protected me down in those caverns. I won't forget that, but I can't promise all my men will be as willing to let go. As long as you understand the why though... I can live with working with a human. So long as it means we take the Covenant down."

"That's what we both want, Varvok," Shepard said, extending his hand. "So why don't we help each other make it happen?"

Varvok looked at Shepard's hand for a brief moment and then took it. He shook it once and then let go. That was enough as far as Shepard was concerned. For now at least, he knew where Varvok stood and perhaps it meant they could move forward.

The moment was interrupted, however, when Taq started shouting a loud.

"Zek! Zek!" She yelled excitedly. "You gotta see this! Come on!"

Shepard and Varvok's attention was instantly caught. They both walked over to see what Taq was yelling about. The Pirate Leader in question was already there at her side, leaning over both her and Tali and trying to see the screen on their console.

"What is it?" Zek asked. "What did you two find?"

"We found mission logs, that's what," Taq claimed. "The Dauntless was apparently on a second mission of greater importance. One that was secret to all but a few officers aboard."

"From the looks of it, they had started out on their journey well before the Halo Array was completed in order to give them enough time," Tali continued. "They weren't headed directly to the wormhole. They had... other stops to make."

Tali activated a command on the dashboard of the console. The central platform where the relic had once resided now activated. A holographic starchart now hovered above it, showing the huge expanse of the galaxy before them, but only four key systems were highlighted. Four systems and four planets, to be precise. Each planet had a clear set of coordinates on it along with a data entry next to it. And each entry contained the key phrase that they had first seen in Taq's data module, Relic of Power.

"They were going to pick up more," Taq exclaimed, her eyes wide with excitement. "We have the coordinate for three more relics!"

"You gotta be kidding me!" Zek shouted, almost laughing at the news. "Holy crap, this is... this is amazing! We find one treasure and it leads us to even more! How lucky can a bird get?"

Shepard understood that this was a great find, but he was more focused on one of the planets indicated on the starchart. That was because they had been there, it was the first planet they had ever stepped foot on in this reality. Reach, there was another relic on Reach. When Shepard realized that he turned to Chief and saw he was transfixed on the very same thing he was. It wasn't hard to figure out what was currently rolling around in the Spartan's head at that moment.

However, he wasn't able to look at it for long, as Taq apparently had more information to share.

"It's not just those four relics, Zek," Taq insisted. "I translated some of the logs with Cortana's help. The relics when brought together reveal the location of a fifth artifact, one I think we're intimately aware of already."

"What are you talking about?" Zek asked, confused.

"Cortana," Taq said. "Put up the file you uncovered, now."

Cortana followed her instructions and the image of the starchart changed once more. Now instead a different image appeared. It showed a figure of some kind, holding aloft what appeared to a sword with energy radiating off it. Above both the figure and the sword, a slash in the very sky, with fire and lighting pouring out of the breach. Shepard had no idea what the significance was... but he could see on both Zek and Taq's faces that they did. Before anyone could really ask what it was all about, Zek spoke up.

"Is that what I...?" He began, his tone one of disbelief more than anything.

Taq just nodded, her astonishment evident in every word she spoke.

"It is," she insisted. "I'd bet every little thing I have in my name on it. We just found the map to the Astral Cutlass!"

---

AN: Questions? You probably have a few. Feel free to ask them in your reviews. And do come back next time where you'll get some of those answers soon enough. All you need to know now is that this treasure hunt is far from over. Thanks again for reading and see you next time.