Edit AN: This is the second time I'm making this edit. The first time I did so was on the FF site itself. I'm not doing that again as the site experienced some kind of weird error when I went to save the edited chapter and deleted all the work I put into making these edits. Made some edits to the authors notes at the beginning and some of the dialog within the story. Otherwise, it's pretty much the same.

First off. I'm not a professional writer or even consider myself one. This is just a hobby folks. I can and will make mistakes. All I ask is that you point them out to me and I can and will fix things as necessary. As long as what you point out is done critically and intelligently I will do what I can to fix the issues at hand. This is all done by me. No beta readers.

AN: BOOM! We've crossed the 100k+ views and 1k+ followers mark folks! Man I'm still surprised at how much you all seem to like this story. There's a few of you who've been around since this started that know that my original plan for this story was much different. Now that I look back on that original idea, I see that it wouldn't have been as popular or interesting compared to what I'm doing now. But, hey, I appreciate all the attention and reviews that you've all submitted thus far. My hopes for this story is for it to progress into the several hundred thousand words mark. Oh and I have been reading 'On the Illusion of Might' by evevee since something like mid 2018. That's concerning Cooldude's review.

Those Wal-Mart loads they had me running gave me no time to myself after the end of the day usually. Sure there weren't many miles to drive with those loads, but they were just time consuming with what running those loads entailed. Ah well, I was getting paid for it so it wasn't that hard to get used to. Now I'm stuck dealing with the aftermath of those winter storms running across the northern midwest at the moment. 70+ mph wind gusts and such right now. Yeah, I'm staying right where I'm at. I'm too lightly loaded to be able to handle wind that strong. Thankfully I survived what winter weather in Wyoming and South Dakota can dish out and I'm back to running in the western region once again.

Ugh I've been doing loads lately that gave me very little time to myself afterwards. Just drive, rest, and sleep at the end of the day. Had no energy to sit down and work on this.

The kilowatt range laser thing for the Anlace class frigate pulse lasers comes from the Halo wiki concerning Covenant pulse lasers. They didn't give any definitive numbers on that front. They're probably in the really high kilowatt to almost the megawatt range in reality. Not real sure but I'm just going by what's in the wiki. Star Trek ship mounted phasers? That's some really ridiculously high number. Most people don't know this but Voyager would be able to glass a planets' surface a whole hell of a lot faster than an entire Covenant fleet could. As in within a days time or so by itself. That's mainly due to how phasers work in general. Those nadion particles can do some pretty crazy things when on a shipboard scale. Just widen the beam and it'll clear whole swathes of land really damn fast.

For any Captain's logs on the Star Trek side I'm just going to have them use the local timeline. I looked up what I could on the whole stardate thing used in the shows and found out that it's just not really useful for an accurate date. It was a made up system for the show that you couldn't use to find out the exact date.

Star Trek replicators are pretty broken if you ask me. They only need energy in order to make just about anything that you could need. It's a whole hell of a lot of energy though so that's the main balancing factor with them. They can even be used for recycling of old devices or useless matter. So as long as you can throw things into them so they can convert it into energy they can make what you want essentially. The writers of Star Trek hated them because they made a lot of things too easy in their eyes. Replication technology would break the entire economic structure of the Mass Effect and Halo universes if they aren't introduced properly. I can't remember where I read it or watched it in a video but during the Dominion war in Star Trek it would only take something like 15 industrial replicators on a large scale to rapidly build the hull and superstructure of starfleet ships. Not sure how long it took in general since all I'm finding are very conflicting build times. What couldn't be made by the replicators was built using conventional means and installed during the building process.

Edit AN: Replicators have one major limitation. They are not capable of making everything possible. They are limited by the quantum molecular structure of what they are making. If it's too complicated, they can't make it. It's as simple as that most of the time.

The weapons of Mass Effect 1 were pretty weak compared to the rest of the series. Mainly due to a very long period of peacetime resulting in them being scaled down for simple peacekeeping operations. The sand grain sized bits of metal do not have enough surface area or mass to be able to effectively impart their potential energy into their targets when in their stock state (no weapon mods). They would be prone to overpenetrating their targets for the most part without the addition of weapon mods to counteract that aspect of them. The hardsuits were designed the way that they were in order to stop the penetration and absorb the heat of vaporization of the rounds against the armor. Hence why they're made of ceramics and lighter composite materials instead of heavier metals. They don't have to contend with stopping a more massive round that can punch large holes in things and cause massive amounts of internal damage.

Edit AN: Adding weapon mods in Mass Effect changes the way the weapon functions and have their own drawbacks. Such as increased heat production, increased recoil, higher power drain, reduced potential projectile speed, and other things of the like. Unless the weapon is designed with these mods in mind and built to specifically handle these changes, they'll have potentially significant impacts on the weapons performance in general. You can't just slap a mod onto a gun that isn't really designed to operate in that manner and expect it to have no negative impacts on its performance at all. Nothing ever magically just works in real life. Cause and effect folks.

Edit AN: Now then, when characters in the story make their opinions known it is their opinion based on their viewpoints. Mass Effect ships do use spaced armor and other such methods of armoring their ships. I have read that before when looking up what I could on them. They pretty much use just about any and all methods possible to reduce the overall mass of their ships. More mass equals more cost in terms of element zero needed for their eezo cores. So in turn their superstructures are not nearly as robust as what is found in Halo humanity ships. They're strong enough, but not so strong as to be able to take massive amounts of abuse before finally buckling. Mass Effect ships tend towards composite materials and less towards heavier metals and thick plates of armor. They depend more on their kinetic barriers to protect their ships than on heavy armor plates.

If you want a modern day comparison for bullet size and speed look at what a 9mm bullet fired from a pistol does to a clay block compared to a 45 from a 1911 colt. The 9mm goes completely through the clay block with a faster muzzle velocity and still does some damage. But the 45, which travels slower, comes to a complete stop within the block and imparts all of its energy into the same block and rips it apart.

Everyone wants to compare halo weapons with modern arms. The simple truth is this. They've got 500 more years of refinement and development behind them. The metallurgy is more advanced, propellants are more advanced, and even the ballistics of the bullet travel is more advanced. With the UNSC's propensity to lace things with tungsten I wouldn't be surprised if they do the same thing to their armor piercing rounds for certain weapons. In Halo 2 you were able to use a gas operated weapon in a vacuum for crying out loud. The same with Halo: Reach when you were on top of the SDV Heavy Corvette. That's not even taking into consideration that they're firing an air cooled weapon in a vacuum. Wouldn't take long to overheat them in that environment. The propellant is more than likely some kind of solid rocket fuel styled charge of sorts which burns more effeciently and effectively (propellant mixed with an oxidizer). The M7 smg is stated as using caseless ammo with the propellant wrapped around the base of the round and triggered by an electric charge. They are not modern arms folks. The bullets have higher muzzle velocities and higher density as well. They punch a whole hell of a lot harder than what we've got today.

Basic Disclaimer: I do not own the properties in this work. Mass Effect, Halo, and Star Trek: Voyager belong to their respective owners. Absolutely no one has my permission to repost this for profit. Seriously, don't do it. I'd rather not have lawyers coming for my ass because of some greedy moron.

Chapter 12: Tentative First Steps. What do we have here?

April 10th, 2183

USS Voyager

Bridge

After successfully testing the new slipspace systems installed into their ship, the crew of Voyager were eager to start exploring the uncharted sectors of the new galaxy they were now in. That enthusiasm, however, started to shift to concern after they had scanned the planet they were orbiting. "One is troubling, two a coincidence, three is a pattern." Chakotay voiced his thoughts after Voyager's initial scans came through.

"I agree. Continue scans of the planet. Inform me if we find anything significant." Captain Janeway ordered. "Chakotay. Join me in my ready room so we can inform Captain Lasky of our findings."

In the next minute they were both situated in the Captain's ready room as they contacted the UNSC Infinity. The screen on the wall lit up with Captain Lasky's image after a connection had been established. "Captain Janeway. Good to see that your slipspace systems are working as intended. Did you find something?"

"That we have. And what we've found is troubling." Captain Janeway answered as she brought up Voyager's recent findings. "This is the third system we've scanned and found to have had intelligent activity in its past. We've found that these planets had their surfaces scoured of any such activity, and each instance of the event has been in approximately fifty thousand year increments. The oldest was four hundred and fifty thousand years ago according to our scans and had multiple instances of the event occurring."

"Fifty thousand year increments…" Captain Lasky trailed off as he looked down and rubbed his chin in thought. "What else have your scans shown you?"

Captain Janeway manipulated the data being shown. "Entire sections of the previous planets showed signs of having their surfaces cleansed of any signs of intelligent activity. Normally it would be hard to detect the signs of such an action, but whoever did this counted on time and erosion to do most of the work. Their work was sloppy at times, as we were able to detect unnatural objects buried under the passage of time."

"What kinds of unnatural objects?"

"Mostly degraded examples of these civilizations technology and remnants of structures. Nothing intact enough to gather any meaningful information from unfortunately." Captain Janeway said as she sighed. "Something is definitely happening on a recurring cycle of sorts. It may take us finding an intact data repository for us to be able to learn what we need to know about what's happening." She then took notice of something on the holotable behind Captain Lasky on the screen. "What has the Infinity been doing since we've been gone?"

Captain Lasky stood to the side before he spoke. "We're in the process of building an appropriate construction cradle and other necessary processing facilities. Your matter/energy conversion technology is amazing to say the least. The asteroid belt of the planet we're orbiting has plenty of matter available for conversion into energy to be used for the construction process. It's slow going since we're having to build the facility piece by piece in the deployment bays, but it's coming together quite nicely."

"Good to hear. If we find anything else during our exploration we'll inform you. Voyager, out." Captain Janeway sighed after the screen cut off. "Well, Chakotay. What do you think? Why is a cycle of supposed extermination happening in this galaxy?"

Chakotay shook his head and sighed as he thought on that subject. "Honestly… I've got no clue Captain. Either an ancient race wants to keep their place at the top of the food chain and kills off their competition when they become advanced enough, or some other unknown reason. There's really no point in trying to wrap our heads around this until we know more about the situation."

Captain Janeway dipped her head. "The Mantle of Responsibility…" She muttered as she trailed off in thought.

"This galaxy is our test…" Chakotay added. "We should be expecting to have some major fights on our hands if things keep moving in the direction they seem to be."

"That's something that I'd like to avoid if at all possible. We're not a warship. My crew isn't trained to handle all out war if it comes down to that." Captain Janeway admitted.

"Well… depending on how things progress, we may not have to, Captain. If we help this galaxy's people to advance and grow out of the technological stagnation they seem to be stuck in, they could shoulder the brunt of the effort themselves." Chakotay suggested his opinion.

Captain Janeway held a hand to her chin as she nodded at that. "If that's the case, then we'll need to provide concrete proof of this 'cycle' we think is happening. Otherwise, they'll just try to capture our tech for themselves and squander their chances of surviving the coming cycle."

"Agreed. If it comes down to warfare, then the UNSC would be the better choice as they're more accustomed and experienced in that area. They'll need a more solid advantage in that aspect if they're going to be prepared for whatever is causing this cycle. I'd rather they be more than ready to handle this unknown party than be underprepared for it." Chakotay expanded on his own thoughts.

They looked at each other for several seconds as they both came to terms with that statement. Nodding, they silently agreed.

April 20th, 2183. 1130 hours

UNSCCover of Night

Bridge

After dropping BLACK WIDOW spy satellites in systems with key Mass Relays in them, the Cover of Night continued on with its mission to set up a listening network within the Systems Alliances territory. Currently they were within a system near the edges of the Skyllian Verge as the inhabitants of this galaxy called it. "As new as the Systems Alliance is to the larger galactic community, they're doing surprisingly well. I'd say that they're roughly a century behind the other races in terms of technology." Cortana mused out loud as she looked over the information that their investigation had gleaned so far from the Systems Alliance.

"Hmm…" Daniels hummed at that. "They have a mostly even playing field concerning the technology of this galaxy. Element Zero reduces the energy requirements of nearly every technology it touches, but it has its limitations nonetheless."

"Despite the fact that they use a higher energy producing form of fusion, our fusion technology is more advanced and far more powerful." Cortana said as she idly monitored the communication relays of the system they were in. "Their systems aren't nearly as energy hungry as our own in retrospect. Our Strident frigates can charge up their MAC's to full capacity in just over a minute. It would take the fusion reactors of this galaxy far longer to do the same with our MAC systems. Even then, the recoil from firing the MAC would utterly destroy the superstructures of their own ships."

"Agreed. Their ships do seem a bit flimsy in terms of overall superstructure construction methodology compared to ours." Daniels replied.

Cortana stopped as she brought up a specific transmission that she had just intercepted. "That's odd. This transmission is using a highly encrypted format compared to everything else running through this systems' comm network." She looked at the encryption used for several seconds as scenarios ran through her processing matrix. "It's not something used by the Systems Alliance as far as I can see so far. It was sent as a single burst transmission that bounced around the network before making its way out of the system and away from the comm network."

"Have you cracked the encryption yet?" Daniels asked as his own thoughts ran through his mind.

"Not just yet, I'm close though." Cortana answered as she worked at breaking the encryption. "Got it. Well, would you look at that. I'd say that this has to be borderline military grade encryption. It's suspiciously similar to Batarian coding language."

"Contents of the transmission?" Daniels ordered.

Cortana gained a thoughtful expression for a moment before she responded. "Looks to me like it's a list of what resources this system of mining outposts has along with the projected patrol patterns of Systems Alliance ships near this system." Her expression shifted to annoyance as she further investigated the origin of the signal. "Looks like there's a greedy rat living in one of the mining stations. Not much else to say than that as it would take too long to search the greater extranet for any more info on the man."

Daniels tilted his head in thought. He then looked Cortana's avatar in the eyes. "Potential pirate raid." Daniels stated as he came to his conclusion.

"That's what I think. So… wait and see?" Cortana asked with a frustrated expression on her face as this was a human mining outpost.

"No." Daniels flatly said. "Investigate the transmission and find its destination."

Cortana nodded at that. "Aye, sir. That's something that I can definitely do."

It took Cortana all of thirty seconds to backtrace the signal to its origin point and find its final destination. "Found the signals destination point." Cortana then pointed to a spot outside of the system map on the holotable. "According to a sensor scan I just ran in that area there's a single ship sitting out there on its own just outside of this systems scanning range. It's running on minimal power with most of its systems powered down for the time being. It'll be several hours before the signal reaches the ship since it's traveling at light speed only."

Daniels looked at the holotable as he came to his conclusion. "Information courier. Plot a course to get us closer for an inspection."

After the Cover of Night placed itself into a sensor dead zone nearby within the system they dumped all of their excess heat. The Sahara Class Heavy Prowler then made a short jump over towards the general area that the mystery ship was occupying. "Cortana. What can our sensors tell us about that ship?"

"Ugly… that's for sure." Cortana bluntly commented. "Just a modular set of blocks with engines pretty much. I would guess that it's a light freighter of some kind."

Daniels nodded. "Cheap and expendable. Good. Should be easy to place a beacon on the ship and track it. Wake Blue Team, they've got a mission."

One hour later

Kelly watched as the blocky modular shape of her target slowly got larger in her field of vision. She was currently making a short EVA maneuver with an active camouflage module in order to attach the tracking beacon. The rest of Blue Team were aboard their stealth pelican nearby. "We think that once they receive the data packet this ship will leave the system. Depending on where they lead us to your mission parameters could be vastly different." Cortana explained as Blue Team watched Kelly close on her target from the troop bay of their pelican.

As Kelly approached, she noted to herself that the ships construction looked very flimsy. 'One C12 charge placed in the right spot could turn this ship into a pinata.' She could see a loose and poorly maintained panel near one of the ships modular connection points. 'This should do nicely.' She gently pried the panel open in order to place the tracking beacon in a suitable location. Once that was done, she slowly bent the panel back into its original position in order to hide her work. Flashing a series of green lights in her hud back to her team, she signaled the completion of her task. She lightly pushed off from the surface of the light freighter in order to propel herself back to their pelican.

"Now all we have to do is wait. The signal should be getting here within the hour. Plenty of time to get ready for the next part." Cortana casually said.

The light freighter didn't disappoint as it slowly started powering up its systems in that amount of time. It oriented itself out towards an uninhabited system nearby before flashing away into this galaxy's version of FTL.

After returning to the Cover of Night Blue Team stood at attention on the bridge awaiting orders. "According to that ships exit vector, they should be heading towards this system." Cortana said as she pointed to a star map of the local area. "It's going to take them a few days to reach their destination. So that gives us plenty of time to prepare."

"Cortana. Plot a course to their projected destination." Daniels ordered.

"Estimated time of our arrival is two hours time."

Daniels nodded. "Blue Team. Dismissed." Blue Team saluted as they headed to the armory to prepare for the mission ahead and strategize.

UNSC Cover of Night

Armory

Blue Team stood over the holotable that was situated at one side of the armory. Cortana's avatar stood with her hands on her hips in a casual stance as she observed them. "So… thoughts on the Citadel Council so far?"

John looked over to her before he turned back to the rest of his team. "They've gone soft. Too much peacetime and not enough action against terrorists and pirate factions."

"Yeah. I thought so too. Quite frankly, I'm surprised that civil war hasn't broken out closer to the lawless sectors of this galaxy. The fact that it hasn't happened is largely due to the deterrent that is the Turian Hierarchy fleets." Cortana stated her opinion of the situation.

"Have you been able to gather any intel on Systems Alliance military doctrine?" Fred asked as he added to the conversation.

Cortana snapped her fingers as she brought up files pertaining to Systems Alliance training methods. "All of their soldiers are given gene mods. Nothing drastic, but enough to get them up to the peak of human fitness and help keep them there after basic training has finished."

"How do they stack up in your opinion?" Kelly queried.

Cortana shrugged as she displayed a video file and played it for Blue Team. "See for yourselves." The video was a simple recruitment advertisement showing the kinds of training to be expected. "Discipline, as you can expect, is lacking compared to ours."

Blue Team watched the video file play. "Lots of flash. No real substance." John commented.

"I did manage to get my hands on some unclassified footage of actual engagements." Cortana said as she started playing another video file. This one was of local defenders warding off a pirate raid on a colony in the Skyllian Verge.

"Overly dependent on their shields." Linda spoke up as she stated her observation.

"Tech and gear can fail. The best way to not get injured is to not get hit." John stated.

"Their shields are only effective at blocking high speed projectiles. It offers no protection against hand to hand combat or heat based attacks. They would've been useless against Covenant plasma weapons." Cortana explained the main weakness of kinetic barriers. "We'll be arriving at our destination soon. Let's head back to the bridge."

Bridge

The Cover of Night arrived at their destination shortly after Blue Team entered the bridge. "Sensors. What does this system have to offer?" Daniels ordered his bridge crew.

After thirty seconds of running a scan of the system, his sensor officer answered. "Looks like there's a supply base of some kind on a small moon orbiting the sole gas giant of this system, sir."

"Show me."

The holotable had an image of the moon in question zoom in on one area of its surface. The base was comprised of several prefabricated structures and a large landing pad near a warehouse. A series of antennas dotted the roof of one of the structures with a much larger antenna next to it.

Daniels looked over the image as Cortana made her opinion known. "Looks like a staging area and storage for any stolen goods."

"Bring us closer to the base for intel acquisition operations." Daniels ordered as he looked over to Blue Team. "Prep for stealth recon."

Blue Team saluted as they headed back to the armory to prep for their mission.

"Continue scans of the system." Daniels ordered his crew as Blue Team left the bridge. "Once we've confirmed that our operation will not be interrupted we'll make a short jump over to the far side of that moon."

Several hours later had the Cover of Night exiting slipspace on the far side of the moon from the bases' location. After the ship had orbited the moon and maintained position over the location of the base, Blue Team deployed in their stealth pelican.

April 21st, 2183. 0100 hours

Outskirts of Skyllian Verge

Unnamed moon

Conveniently for Blue Team, a small range of hills overlooked the base. Cortana had found the perfect spot to set the pelican down and John was currently following the waypoint that she had set for their LZ. A light smattering of dust was kicked up as the pelican set down. Luckily this moon didn't have a very thick covering of regolith and zero atmosphere to deal with as it settled back down to the surface quickly. They all had active camouflage units equipped for the operation.

"Let's get to work, shall we?" Cortana said with a smile as John reached for her AI chip.

After inserting her chip, John turned to his team. "Blue Team, fall out."

Blue Team exited the pelican to the darkness of the shadow of the gas giant this moon orbited. They carefully made their way to the ridge of the low hill that overlooked their target. Linda used her advanced optics to scan the small compound in front of them. Cortana tapped into her MJOLNIR's systems and was relieved and disappointed at what she saw. "Well, they're awfully full of themselves. I'm not seeing any perimeter security systems at all. They've got scanners to detect any incoming ships but the base itself is basically open."

"Landing pad shows little use." Linda spoke as she continued looking over the compound.

"Yeah, little to no foot traffic in the regolith shows that this base must've been set up recently." Cortana pointed out. "This whole base looks like it could be picked up and moved at a moment's notice with the right ship."

"Can you infiltrate their systems from here?" Fred asked.

"I'd rather not risk it. They've got some good antennas for signal reception and that could set off an alarm." Cortana answered as she weighed her options. "My suggestion is to get up close for a manual insertion."

"Linda, overwatch. Fred, Kelly, with me." John ordered as Linda settled into position. "Cortana. Do you see any points of insertion from here?"

"There." Cortana said as she highlighted a junction box on the outside of the communication building. "That should house a hardline that I can use."

The very low gravity of the moon meant that the three members of Blue Team were literally gliding over the surface with little to no indication of their passing other than a slight shimmer as their boots touched the ground. It didn't take long for them to cross the two kilometer distance that separated them from the base. Upon reaching the junction box, John pulled out a small set of tools and removed the panel.

"That should work." Cortana said as she highlighted an open port in the terminal. After placing her chip into the slot, she went to work. John, Fred, and Kelly kept a watchful eye on their surroundings as Cortana gathered all the intel she could. After several minutes of waiting, Cortana's AI chip lit back up. John retrieved her chip and inserted it back into his helmet.

"Well, they're expecting a shipment of supplies within the next few hours. Other than that, we don't have much to worry about here." Cortana relayed the immediately important information that she had stolen. "It's a staging area, just like we thought."

"What's our next objective?" John asked as he processed her statement.

"Let's return to the pelican and set up for observation. I've gotten all I can from the systems in this base for now." Cortana answered as John replaced the junction box cover.

"Understood. Blue Team, move out."

After returning to the pelican just as quietly, Blue Team set up a series of sensors on the ridge in order to capture any and all images that they could of the base and incoming ship. Cortana sent a tight beam laser transmission up to the Cover of Night informing them of what she had found out. No reply was sent back in order to keep their presence hidden from the bases' occupants.

UNSC Cover of Night

Bridge

"Sir. We've just received a tight beam transmission from the surface." The communications officer reported.

Lt Commander Daniels stood from his seat and walked over to the holotable. He then brought up the communique in question. Quickly looking over the details, he called out orders. "Sensors. Watch for an incoming ship to this system other than the one we know is headed this way."

"Aye sir." The sensor officer calmly answered.

With Blue Team

"The Cover of Night should be watching for the incoming ship so they can calculate their entrance vector. Now we just have to wait for them to arrive and see what they're bringing." Cortana explained after she sent her transmission.

John and the rest of Blue Team nodded as they sat down and started reviewing what had been learned along with reading more of what the Codex had to offer.

Several hours later, the passive sensors of their pelican detected an incoming ship coming towards the base. The ship was around the same size as the Cover of Night, making it frigate sized for this galaxy's standards. It was armed and seemed poorly maintained overall. Its design leaned more towards troop transport or cargo hauling than combat. After setting down onto the landing pad, a ramp opened up on its underside. The sensors that Blue Team had set up didn't have the angle to see into the open bay but were still able to watch them start unloading large crates. Various species were among the individuals that stepped out to unload the ship.

"What do we have here?" Cortana said as they all watched intently. "Hahne-Kedar, Aldrin Labs, and other assorted crates… those first two are Systems Alliance manufacturers. Either they're gathering up their recent hauls…"

"Or they're gearing up for a raid." John finished.

One of the turians that walked out of the base to assist opened up one of the crates and confirmed their suspicions. He now held up a couple weapons in their folded up state and nodded appreciatively before putting them back into the crate.

"Definitely a raid. They wouldn't bother with bringing all this hardware here if they were planning on selling it. They'd just take it where they needed to." The AI spoke her opinion. "Those are stolen Systems Alliance goods. My suggestion is to let them handle this. And I've got the perfect Admiral to let in on the little secret we've come across."

After watching the crew of the ship finish unloading their cargo and taking off from the base, Blue Team gathered up their sensor gear and took off back to the Cover of Night.

April 21st, 2183. 1805 hours

Arcturus Station

Office of Admiral Steven Hackett

Admiral Hackett was currently finishing several reports for the day. He was about to shut down his station when he received an alert that an important message had arrived. It had come in on an official Systems Alliance encrypted channel and was labeled as top secret. Quickly entering in his passcode, he started looking over the files in question. Detailed topographical maps, still images, video files, ship names, and even system locations and ship exit and entrance vectors were included in the message. The only problem with this message though, was the fact that the sender wasn't identified. He got to the end of the message and came to his conclusion. Either someone had cracked Systems Alliance encryption protocols, or this was an Alliance Intelligence Services agent trying to keep their cover from being blown while on an undercover op. "Why would they contact me instead of their handlers?" He mused to himself.

Admiral Hackett tapped his intercom for his secretary. "Get the AIS on the line."

AN: I'm not too proud of this chapter in my opinion. The fact that it took so long is a sore spot in my eyes. Just got stuck at a certain point and couldn't think. Things will start ramping up soon as both crews start looking deeper into the happenings in this universe. I wanted to expand on the Voyager section but didn't really see a need to at the moment. They'll get their own chapter all to themselves soon though so don't give up hope.

Edit AN: Voyager's crew are experienced when it comes to combat. They're just not as experienced and brutal as you'd see among Halo humanity training and combat methods. They can fight pretty well, they just lack the combat instincts that develop during constant life and death struggles. Starfleet lost badly to the Jem'Hadar when they first encountered them.

Hopefully this updated chapter containing my greater thought processes fixes some of the confusion that's happening.

For now, I ride my 18 wheeled stallion.