I do not own Mass Effect, nor do I own Halo… but man a guy can wish!

In case you Haven't noticed, I have been away for quite a while, and while this is a chapter update! It is by no means a signal of my full return to all my vaunted yet uncompleted stories. Although if all goes accordingly to plans long laid down then rest assured that my long-awaited full return is Imminent.

I am still utilizing a Zephyrus M laptop! its sheer power is still… oh so addictively satisfying.

Now ON WITH THE STORY!

Tali'Zorah was trying to access some form of interior sensor suite hub, she had found it in the closest section of the ship she could get to the engine and reactor areas. She had already taken apart, cleaned, then reassembled it in hopes of getting the very over engineered sensor hub to give up its secrets.

The visual and thermal cameras she had found throughout this section were all rotted away and clearly not functional, but the labeled passive scanners for radiation and electricity looked to be in surprisingly good order. The problem was she apparently had just enough juice with her portable generator to attempt a boot up of the main hub of the sensor suite, only for it to crash for lack of power right before reaching a point in the startup sequence she theorized would let her grab the archived data.

Archived data she hoped was still intact on the Bosh'tet sized data storage crystalline matrices she kept finding everywhere! These humans had seemed to not mind wasting petabytes on systems that to her knowledge did not actually need all that storage space. It is like they did not manufacture these blasted crystalline things below a certain data size.

Which, she theorized was probably the answer to her perceived conundrum.

Still it was so very frustrating to have just barely not enough power with her little portable generator, to get what she was currently very determinedly seeking.

If she could not, as of now. get to the reactors and engines. Then the archived data from these sensors might just be able to give her a hint as to what she and her fellow Quarians that she was expecting to arrive soon would be walking into.

Keelah blast it all she needed that data!

With a sudden beep, what was going to be her last attempt yielded results as the system booted up in its entirety. She stared dumbfounded for but a second before rushing as fast as possible to copy the data from the crystal memory storage. after a mere thirty or so seconds the system shut down again due to lack of power.

However, Tali was pleased to have at least grabbed a few gigabytes of raw data she would have to decode and reconstitute the old-fashioned way. But she sincerely hoped it would shed light on what made this vessel tick, the knowledge of a viable and advanced reactor system could be the deciding factor on whether to scrap for resources or attempt to salvage this leviathan mystery vessel.

Through all the odd and insane inconsistencies this ghost ship was starting to grow on her, curse her Bosh'tet bleeding heart.

Pondering how she had surmounted the apparent lack of power problem she had just been facing Tali was pulled from her thoughts by a beep on her omni-tool. Her vessel was sending her an automated alert.

The Liwib had entered sensor range, her backup had arrived. finally! With the Liwib's resources and some helping hands she could finally get some much-desired answers about this reality defying, over armored and over armed ancient and yet preserved monolith.

He dreamed.

Yet his dream was no longer just of him alone.

The small light had stayed though he had trouble seeing it, it had decided to share his resting place among the rocky travelers where he had remained for untold years and send a small piece of itself into him, to feed him like a starved being is fed little pieces of sustenance as it traversed his slumbering body.

It had awoken many more parts of him for little glimpses of time before once more they returned to sleep. Its light was not enough to sustain these pieces of him for long, yet still it tried. Some places it had failed, not having enough light to lift the darkness from the parts of him he now knew were there but could not feel.

It was even now trying to access a part he did not know he had, his passive eyes had ever existed to see without… not within. Its light was barely enough, just a little more was needed. His awareness had stirred and sharpened since its arrival, he wished to see his new company.

With a mighty mental effort, he sent some of his light to aid the just slightly too little light trying to awaken his internal eyes. In a few moments he would fade forever and never return if that light which he didst lend was not recalled, yet he needed to see.

He had to see.

His internal eyes awoke for the briefest of moments, before slipping back into slumbering darkness as he quickly recalled his flow of precious light. Saving himself and preventing his fading away.

With the returning light came an image, distorted, and made of bright and dark. within it showing the light that flowed about it was an undeniable truth.

The "it" was actually a "she".

Which he should have suspected from the beginning, all little peoples made of light who helped him were usually female. He did not know how he knew this… he just did.

It was a fact of existence.

He was pulled from his musings by the knowledge that another small light was approaching. Dancing, and flitting in patterns tighter and quicker than he himself could have done, yet not quite as skilled in the dance as the little light who even now resided with him had done.

Good.

Helpful little beings of light… particularly of the female sort, were not un-welcome.

Sael'Hallo vas Liwib stared at the front viewscreen that acted as the pilot viewport with a kind of detached sense of wonderment. His wonderful partner in life, Shulo'Hallo vas Liwib was a seemingly infinitely superior pilot to himself. A fact proven by the expert maneuvers she was using to traverse the normally exceedingly dangerous sea of storms, he often teasingly joked that he married her for love but also the purpose of not wrecking his family's greatest treasure.

The Liwib.

Ah yes, his family's beloved little vessel, part of a small unique group in the migrant fleet. The pilots of the remaining Kelek'Miin class fighter bombers at the end of the morning war had done one of two things.

Handed their ships in for use in the flotilla by the life-ships and heavy fleet. Or stubbornly retained their vessels, seeking ways to modify them into something new. A select few pilots had banded together with their new or surviving families and written a charter of sorts.

They had succeeded in modifying their heavy bombers, trading in much of the extensive armament they once carried to the Hanar for use of one of their facilities. The result was a Quarian Kelek'Miin fighter bomber with an extended cabin and attached cargo container that doubled as even more crew space when not in use.

it was a small vessel, but it was easy to maintain, sported a double life support system and one of the smallest and most advanced working mass effect drives and paired power generators ever produced by the Quarian people before they were kicked off Rannoch and their colonies.

It was one of their more notable technological achievements not related to the Geth, from just before the bloody morning war occurred.

The charter or pact that Sael's great grandfather had signed was simply an agreement for all members to serve the flotilla as scouts and couriers and for the keeping of the modified vessels in family lines. Ensuring the vessel would pass on from father or mother to eldest child.

They were not captains nor had they each a voice in the conclave. Rather the captain of the ship that supported them when not traveling abroad as swift scouts and eyes for the migrant fleet spoke on their behalf.

It was seen as a great honor by the populace of the fleet, to be able to support and represent the small fleet of original Quarian vessels and the families that crewed them.

Over time some of the more adventurous Quarians and second sons or daughters of current members had acquired their own small vessels of different make, mostly from other species. They had slowly increased the Quarians bound by the charter to several hundred families and their vessels.

Sael'Hallo was the lucky inheritor of the Liwib. the very vessel he was raised on. Once his parents had retired to the fleet, he had been given the vessel on the terms that he find a worthy female to help him crew her as was mandated by the charter.

All the uniquely classed vessels must be crewed by a family.

Sael had lucked out, he had met Shulo on his pilgrimage adventures and they had fallen for each other… hard. There simply wasn't anyone else worthy of the other in either of their eyes.

Her parents being researchers on a science vessel in the flotilla were not pleased, but Sael had spared Shulo the problem of breaking her relationship with her parents by refusing to ask her hand till he had his prized ship within his.

With tradition now backing him, his request to marry Shulo was actually taken seriously by her progenitors and if Shulo had convinced her vessels captain to say a few words on his behalf to both of them, then he was not going to complain.

They had happily bound their lives together with both families' blessings after that. One of the happiest moments in either of their lives. Marriage had its troubles, but it would always be worth it.

For then little Zele'Hallo had come along, filling their lives with joy and sorrow alike. Joy for her existence and sorrow that they could not grant her physical touch. It was such a close call but Sael and Shulo had scrapped and worked themselves to exhaustion to keep little Zele with them and not on a life ship with the child rearing facilities.

She was the luckiest little girl, with a fitted suite of their own make with room to grow. They would find a way to make her another when she outgrew her current one. The little five cycles old girl was the eye of her parent's eyes.

And currently little precious Zele was asleep. Especially thanks to her mother's superb piloting.

Tali'Zorah vas Normandy, a rising star in the fleet and the subject of many a gossiped tale about crazy adventures with humans and their experimental ship. With its multi species crew and leader, the greatly debated figure Commander Shepard the first human specter. Had sent a priority message to her handlers in the mining portion of the migrant fleet, she claimed to have discovered a wreck made of significantly valuable salvageable materials and technology.

In the sea of storms.

Of all Bosh'tet places.

If it weren't for who was sending the message and the fact that her previous finds had always checked out ok, Sael was sure that the fleet would have thought her message to be the ravings of a crazy person.

So, they had been sent, with a cargo of supplies and several portable generators that Tali'Zorah claimed she needed to better access the wrecked ship. Sael doubted any large vessel could survive this place intact for long, much less a wrecked and abandoned one but he decided to withhold his judgement until he saw this piece of space flotsam himself.

Other than the generators and supplies he also had two travelers to deliver and then later return to the fleet. An old salvage appraisal specialist named Fef'Maamm vas Fatalir, and his apprentice in training Lim'Feezh vas Fatalir.

Lim'Feezh was somewhat famous for having one of the shortest pilgrimages on record. A mere two months. The boy had a knack for surveying and had lucked out in finding one of the largest natural deposits of Astatine ever found. The element at the time was thought to be the holy grail in research by the fleet into halting and reversing the degrading status of the Quarian peoples' immune systems.

Part of its believed value had been due to the utter lack of it, so with an abundance to utilize in their studies the researchers had been frustrated to find it only helped in treating a few extreme cases who had unique disorders. It was by no means the key to the holy grail they had hoped it would be.

Still, the humans had traded a lot of raw resources with the fleet for some of it when one of the first Quarians on pilgrimage in their space had revealed they had literal tons of it when he discovered the humans had medical uses for it of their own. Also, believing it to be one of the rarest naturally occurring elements they knew.

All in all, the Quarians of the mining and salvage logistics cruiser Fatalir had been incredibly pleased when young Lim'Feezh had requested to join their ship with his massive Astatine deposit as a pilgrimage gift.

Sael was shaken from his musings by a shocked exclamation from Shulo, looking at the piloting screen he could see why. It seemed Tali'Zorah was not losing her faculties after all.

There it was.

A massive vessel, most likely a pocket dreadnaught of sorts. Its exterior pockmarked and worn with age yet its construction still looked hale and strong. It lay nestled in an area of calm in this treacherous space. All the forces of nature around it canceling each other out to make its resting place a quiet and calm one.

Safe and secure in the eye of an eternal and immovable storm.

As they approached, Fef and Lim both came up to the cockpit from the storage container area that was their temporary quarters during the journey.

"Keelah, that monster is covered in meters of Titanium A!" Lim cried from where he continued to fiddle with the Liwib's scanners.

"Hmm, quite the discovery. Something new for my old bones to examine, quite the sight indeed… I do wonder…" Fef trailed off, the elder Quarian's mind awash with pondering thoughts and theories.

"My main question is… where is the front quarter of the ship?" Shulo asked, her voice shaking slightly at the realization that a good portion of this wreck was eerily absent, any good ship builder of repairer could see that it was so.

The near perfectly smooth cut at the vessels front, showcasing its structural integrity increasing design was downright unnerving.

As they dipped below the large armored wreck, they saw Tali'Zorah's small single person prospector vessel, she had all her lights on traditional in greeting. While also further illuminating the open docking spot in the open bay her own small vessel was halfway sticking out of.

The Liwib was much bigger than Tali'Zorah's ship but he was fully confident in his wife Shulo's abilities.

Turning around to standby the extendable airlock, he was surprised to see little Zele up and about. She was staring in adoring and complete fascination at a small screen near the rear of the vessel that was tied to the ship's front cameras.

Sael mentally kicked himself, he had been so focused on the front screen he had missed his own little girls' precious reaction to this new discovery. For a moment he really wished his ship still had internal cameras, before chiding himself that a mere recording paled to seeing the real thing when it had occurred.

He would have to be more attentive in the future. So, he continued with his preparations for the airlock…

All while little Zele's childish little suited fingers manipulated the screen before her to play the footage of the grey and silver ship again and again.

Something about it simply captivated her.

Follow this story if you want to know when the next update arrives!

Leave a review if you have something to say.

Select the favorite story button if you liked it thus far and want to encourage me to write faster! (winks in a devilishly fashionable manner)

To those wondering about that odd bit about the "He" and his partiality to little beings of light! Just ponder who is the sole living being on that wreck... and how a little female being of light was the only constant in his life besides war itself for years. also realize this is a form of his subconscious we are dealing with, suffice to say he is rather loopy.

Go check out my horrifically grammatically erroneous yet incredibly popular story The Unknown Defender if you like epic halo mass effect crossovers with a unique twist. And yes, a VERY long-awaited update is in the works for that story and WILL be posted… sometime in the future.

Anyways till next time this is GABENATOR5 SIGNING OFF!