JULY 4TH, 2149

2115 HOURS EARTH STANDARD TIME

WARLOCK-CLASS DESTROYER

UNIC MERLIN

ORBIT OF PLUTO

-O-O-O-

Captain Jacob Keyes had a rule. It just one rule, one simple to follow, but hard to accomplish. Still, it had served him well during his rise through the ranks of the UNIC.

'Luck and tactical awareness go hand in hand.'

It wasn't chance that got him noticed; it was his dogged determination throughout his stint at the academy that got him to an accelerated position, on the first Terran space warship, no less. He might not have been the top of the class, but he could get things done without any qualms or hesitation. Apparently, being decisive was something that the higher-ups looked for – the same could not be said for those who flunked out. Either way, Keyes made his own luck, which was something he was happy to do than rely on chance alone. It was why he was scrolling through his data pad and relaying orders even before the Merlin had begun her deceleration. He didn't want to take anything to chance, not when he was approaching his rendezvous with Gagarin Station.

"Report status," he barked.

Fingers fired away across their keyboards, becoming little more than a blur.

"All engines green – hydrogen fusion reactor online. Nuclear conversion stable."

"Long-range scanners operating within normal parameters. We're getting chatter from Gagarin; we can hail at any time."

"Weapons cold and stowed."

Keyes nodded, then turned to the woman operating the weapons station. "Bring them online. I'm not leaving ourselves without any options."

With a grin, the woman operating the weapons station began flicking toggles. "Lancer torpedoes one through twelve are hot! Nuclear reaction detected in all point-defense cannons – Tachyon density is rising. We'll be ready to fire in five."

There was something he didn't like about the situation. He couldn't place his finger on it, but he knew something was going to happen. Like his mantra, his gut instincts rarely led him astray. Eyeing the row of workstations before him and the technicians who manned them, Keyes didn't dare let himself relax, or even sit at the captain's console behind him. It might've had the same data that any of the other stations had, but he preferred to be walking among his crew. Have his feet on the ground, as it were.

No matter what, however, he just hoped that what they accomplished today would help save their race. Even with the fleet that was slowly being built up back home – with lessons learned during the construction of the Merlin taken into account – they were running out of time. Whatever they did today would decide the direction their species could go.

Jacob Keyes could only hope that it would be the right one.

-O-O-O-

Shepard's boots clanked with every step as she strode down a metal grated corridor, wasting little time as she dodged technicians. It was a big moment for all of them, and despite the incomplete state of the station, none of them wanted to leave anything to chance. Footage would be streamed back to the Admiralty back on Earth, so the need for perfection was doubly so. Seeing the need for urgency, Shepard had relented and collapsed her rigging in the bulky, squarish block of Titanium-A affixed to her back and continually sent out weak radar pulses from the thick, metal band that laid across the back of her head, looking for the halls that had the least amount of people. At a jogging pace, she'd reach the bridge relatively quickly. Perhaps she shouldn't have been strolling around with her cannons in full view, but damn did it feel good to stretch out. It was funny – though her Outfit was merely steel and titanium, it had felt ungodly stiff when she'd first attached herself.

She made her way down a hall and up a flight of stairs, and after a short elevator ride, found herself only a few levels down from the bridge. The problem now was that, as she got closer, more people were scrambling to prepare before the operation began – the corridor she was on was utter chaos as people pushed and shoved their way through the throng, and only promised to get worse the closer she got to the bridge.

"Great," Shepard muttered to herself, ducking into a recessed hatch for a maintenance tunnel. She was barely able to fit with her cannons on her back, even with them collapsed, yet this thought was far from her mind as she eyed the workers from her safe haven. "Should've come sooner, this is a mad house…"

"If you think this is insane you should check out the AI Chamber. I swear, these guys think I'm going to crash any second now."

The voice came from the intercom at Shepard's elbow, tinny and echoing through the tiny speaker.

Shepard frowned. "Misato?"

"What other random voice would talk out of the blue? Of course you might also be developing psychosis, but that's a whole other can of worms," the AI sarcastically remarked.

"Funny."

The AI sniggered. "Having issues?"

"I nearly stepped on some guy's foot – how do you think I'm doing?" Shepard snapped.

"Urgh. Ouch. That would've hurt," Misato muttered, infuriating Shepard with her statement of the obvious. "Of course, it doesn't help that your body is held together with about one and a half tons of hyper-condensed 20th century rolled homogenous battle plate nanofilament. And another three in Titanium-A."

Shepard, through her irritation, could picture the AI shuddering.

"I mean, just… squish."

"Misato…" Shepard grumbled.

"Like a bug."

"Misato!" Shepard scolded. "Unless you have a better idea than me plowing through these people, go bother someone else!" the Shipgirl hissed at the control panel, earning several curious glances as people passed her by.

"Yeesh, touchy. Fine – if you go through maintenance I can get you a direct route to the CIC. Just follow my little buddy," Misato quickly said, before the intercom clicked off.

Shepard quirked an eyebrow. "'Buddy?'"

As if on cue, the hatch slid open with a hiss of hydraulics. Though the tunnel within was pitch black, Shepard could see what had come to greet her through the gloom; a bipedal, yellow robot that had probably seen better days, its paint faded and chipped and limbs dented in multiple places, yet the machine seemed to function perfectly fine as it turned its blocky, cyclops head to her and scanned her its single glowing eye.

A Marvin? I thought those were decommissioned.

"Yamato-class Shepard?" the Marvin unit asked, its voice flat and grating. With its body perfectly still, the only way for Shepard to judge it was the cartoonish yellow smiley face emblazoned on the screen in its chest.

Shepard nodded. "Yes?"

"I have instructions to escort you to the command deck. Please follow me," the machine said, before it promptly spun on its heel to venture back into the darkness of the maintenance corridor, forcing Shepard to chase after it. The Marvin had the presence of mind to activate the miniature spotlights on its shoulders and chest, lighting up the drab, machinery-filled tunnel.

The Marvin's strides were long and efficient, though they were easy enough for Shepard to keep up with. The maintenance tunnel, meanwhile, was a whole other story – it was like a city unto itself, a maze of crisscrossing, narrow corridors that had but the barest of ambient lighting from the flickering lights and groans of working machinery, the access ports of which jutted out slightly into the corridor. Indents lined the walls occasionally, the purpose of which apparent when she passed one and noticed another red colored Marvin tucked into the alcove only for it to continue on its way as soon as they passed, moving on to its appointed duties.

Shepard didn't know why, but something about the upcoming operation was making her uneasy. She understood it at a basic level – humanities greatest scientific minds would board the most advanced ship built by humanity, fire off an alien radio frequency at Charon, and hope that nothing went wrong. Herself and Melina were merely there as figureheads for whenever footage was released to the public. But, something just felt wrong, and for the life of her she couldn't figure out why. She was put somewhat at ease since she had her cannons, but it was bugging her to no end.

Lost in thought, the Marvin had led her down another hall, taking a left, and up a ladder to the next level of the station before Shepard felt… it. It was at the very edge of her perception, but she felt It. Alarmed, and hoping against hope she was wrong, Shepard's eyes glowed before she sent out a powerful burst of sonar and radar, the twin pulses coursing their way through Gagarin.

Almost immediately the Marvin halted in its tracks and its head spun a full 180 degrees, its single eye giving her a baleful glower. More than that, Shepard could hear the mechanical screeches of other Marvin units, ones networked together, as their connections were suddenly severed before they fell like dominoes, their falls echoing through the tunnels.

"Jane Shepard, what the hell do you think you're doing?!" Misato's voice screamed through the Marvin unit. "You just knocked out half the station!"

Ignoring them, Shepard concentrated on her readings, translated half by her and half by the presence that shared her body.

Mass tonnage: 11,840,000 long tons (est).

3,178 biological units detected.

1,932 synthetic units detected.

WARNING: 1 anomaly detected.

A sharp ping echoed back to Shepard, making the lights flicker.

"And there goes the other half! Fuck!"

"Where is it," Shepard muttered.

The sonar, unlike the radar, had to travel through each and every barrier before it could return a reading – this made it much less like a quick glance that the radar gave, and more of an in-depth look of what exactly was going on. Due to its nature sonar was rarely used on land, but it was invaluable when searching for something in an area that made it otherwise impossible to search quickly… such as an incomplete space station.

Reading detected: 37 degrees off starboard bow, six o'clock. Distance, 600 meters.

The Marvin turned to face Shepard. "Shepard, will you fucking answer me? What the hell is going on?" Misato growled.

"Misato, what's six hundred meters below us?" Shepard demanded, brushing aside the AI's question.

After a long pause, Misato sighed. "You better have a damn good reason for this… it's Hanger Four, why?"

Shepard's blood chilled. "…Please don't tell me that the Merlin is docking there."

"Uh… it is?"

She muttered a curse under her breath, before she looked back to the Marvin and barked, "I need to get to the bridge now. Priority one."

-O-O-O-

It breathed, letting out a shudder. The Warmaiden had almost sensed It, which was something It couldn't have, not when It was so close. Dressed in baggy coveralls and jacket, It hid among cargo containers in the Reclaimer's metal monstrosity, having overheard that their newest Lady was coming to partake of some kind of grand experiment. Knowing the sheer destruction that their Light had wrought on them, the Hive simply couldn't leave them to their own devices. So, the Hive had done something unprecedented – it thought like a Reclaimer. Needing information, the Hive bred a new type of Child, an Interloper that could dig deep into the Reclaimer's defenses.

It had done so.

All It had to do now was wait for the perfect moment.

-O-O-O-

The bridge of Gagarin Station was somewhat similar to ones in the original seafaring vessels before they were destroyed by the Abyssals, overlooking the main body of the station below. It was based around a central pillar of computer mainframes and the primary elevator, with computer consoles radiating outward in sections – Life Support, Security, Communications, Engineering, and General Administration, though this was mostly handled by Misato, the station's Synthesized Intelligence. In fact, she had a hand in all of the station's workings, though most higher level management was left to humans.

The bridge was, in actuality, an offshoot from the main body of the station. Offset like it was, the wraparound transparisteel partition of the bridge offered a stunning view of the cosmos, as well as the station below.

Vice Admiral Andrew del Rio, a stocky man who was balding before his time, was admiring this view when the maintenance hatch to the mainframe behind him was pounded out of its frame, courtesy of an armor-clad foot, and followed by an irate young woman who pulled herself through the opening despite the utility Marvin attempting to hold her back.

"Admiral!" she roared, shoving the robot off her.

Virtually all activity stopped, everyone turning to stare at the angry Shipgirl. Del Rio merely frowned and demanded, "Yamato-class Shepard, what the hell are you doing?"

The Marvin approached Shepard once more and gently grabbed her elbow. "Shepard, stop," it said in Misato's voice, trying to warn her.

It's hand was brushed off, and Shepard confidently strode towards the Vice Admiral. "I apologize for the intrusion Vice Admiral, but I needed to report to you immediately," she stated, before coming stop with her feet spread and hands clasped behind her back in parade rest.

Del Rio frowned and checked his watch. "I'd say you should, Shepard – it's 2155 hours," he commented, and glared from behind his Admiral's cap. "However, being late doesn't excuse you for kicking in an armored security door."

"This couldn't wait," she insisted, though she couldn't help but wince at the Admiral's words. "I have reason to believe that there is an Abyssal presence on this station."

One could have heard a pin drop in the silence that ensued. Nearly ten seconds had passed before Del Rio sighed. "So," he began skeptically, "you begin an altercation with Shipgirl Melina, you tour the station with your cannons in plain view, you send the station into chaos with both a radar and sonar pulse, and you expect me to believe that an Abyssal, a mindless, bloodthirsty monster, has somehow wandered its way through a starport, boarded an HLLV, and missed detection on board the most highly secured facility in human history, and all the while humanities best and brightest have been sitting around with their thumbs up their asses?"

He snorted. "If you weren't a Shipgirl I'd court-martial you. As it stands, as Vice Admiral of the British Fleet I'm tempted to strike you from active duty. Permanently."

Each incident made Shepard cringe, but she recovered herself with a calming breath. "Admiral, may I speak freely?"

The Vice Admiral pointedly turned from her, tapping away at the datapad in his hands. "You may not."

At once, Shepard's face twisted with fury before she reined herself in. "Vice Admiral," she said carefully, "You don't understand. I felt something on this station. We Shipgirls feel the presence of the Abyssals. I don't know how and I don't know why, but something that shouldn't be here is here. You can't just –"

"What I don't understand is why you're still attempting to convince me of something that doesn't exist, Shepard," Del Rio said, refusing to look up.

"You're damning every single person on this station!" Shepard snapped, her fury finally showing itself on her face – her anger even made her cannons react, with several panels snapping open to release boiling steam.

Del Rio finally looked to her, though if he was afraid of the three and a half ton woman that could bend steel as if it were paper, he didn't show it. "Remove yourself from the bridge and await further instructions in Hanger Four," he growled.

"But sir, I –"

"That is an order," Del Rio intoned, coming within inches of Shepard's face. "Put one more foot out of line today, and I'll recommend you for scrapping."

Shepard did nothing for a moment, the seriousness of his threat sending a trill of terror through both her and her ship spirit, before she schooled herself into icy impassiveness. "Yes sir," she said, and snapped her arm up in a sloppy salute before she spun on her heel and strode to the waiting elevator, flanked on both sides by a nervous security guard with a bulky rifle in their hands, attached to an equally bulky pack strapped to their backs by a thick hose.

"At ease, officers," she said, smiling somewhat to put the men as ease as she passed them.

As soon as the elevator closed, Shepard slapped her forehead with a thunderclap of metal. "Stupid, egotistical moron. How the hell did he get to Vice Admiral?"

"Well, it certainly wasn't based on any merit of his. Admiral Lord Terrance Hood owed the man's father a few favors. Vice Admiral Del Rio is… acceptable, but he's more of a manager than a leader," Misato said from the elevator's intercom, having abandoned the Marvin back in the bridge. "He's not really inspiring, is he?"

"More like insulting," Shepard spat.

"True. So what's the plan?"

Shepard raised an eyebrow. "I thought you were the all-powerful AI? Aren't you the one supposed to be making the plans?" she joked.

Misato chuckled. "That's SI, just so ya know. And I'd love to, but I don't really have any specialized Abyssal detection equipment on the station so I can't help you there. Are you positive that you sensed an Abyssal here? 'Cause if there isn't and you do something, you're fucked –"

"– And if there is and I don't do something, we're also fucked," Shepard finished. "Del Rio is a fool. I know I felt something, Misato. It put chills down my spine, I know it's an Abyssal." She slammed a fist into her palm. "That thing doesn't belong on this station. Besides, it's not like I'm disobeying orders if I head to Hangar Four."

She paused. "But… how the hell did he know about me and Melina?"

Misato's logic processors froze for several milliseconds. "Erm… he must've been looking at the security cameras…" she mumbled, sheepish.

"…Misato?"

"Yeah?"

"You suck."

"Oh, fuck you."

-O-O-O-

Gagarin Station, even incomplete as it was, was otherwise fully functional. It boasted four docking hangars that were, in theory, capable of servicing any vessel. Granted, the Terran fleet currently had a grand total of one ship to its name, but a couple months of dedicated construction from a Rorqual-class would solve that readily enough. That was another reason for the mission; to test and find technologies that worked and others that didn't. So far, the only one that had been touch and go was the mass-altering properties of the new element uncovered within the alien cache on Mars, simply refusing to cooperate with the Titanium-A that comprised most of the structural and armor plating in the Merlin. Scientists had determined that the lommite used in the smelting process was simply unaffected, countering the mass-altering effect perfectly.

While primarily a research platform, Gagarin had a dedicated ore refining and manufacturing plant. Trailing through its walls were tunnels for constructors, small, AI-guided drones could quickly ferry components directly to where they were needed, invaluable for repair jobs or even ship construction. Of course, this was all in the background. The few occasions where most people remembered constructors being used were during the laying of the Rorqual-class mining ships, where their original purpose had been disposable recon and mining drones. These tunnels also happened to be part of the same network that the station's complement of Marvins used to make their own rounds, albeit lesser used ones.

Tucked away in a darkened alcove, It tried to make itself as small as possible as it watched the occasional constructor flit past. While it wasn't impossible for It to continue hiding in the actual hangar, Mother had instructed for It to hide in an area where It could easily make itself way into the Lady when She arrived. It was a decision the Hive fully supported. This endeavor simply couldn't fail, not just to know what the humans were planning to do with their Light, but for the survival of the entire Hive. The Great One's death at the bottom of the Deep Blue released the Hive from its servitude, but there was always the possibility that the Great Ones would return. If there was even the slightest chance that the humans had found a way to escape the grasp of the Hive, then the Hive would use it to escape the grasp of the Great Ones. One way, or another.

It took a slow, even breath. "We will… never… sink…"

-O-O-O-

"Attention all hands, this is Vice Admiral Del Rio. The time is 2202, Operation Looking Glass has begun. UNIC Merlin will arrive within ten minutes. Remain on standby alert. That is all."

"I may have had the wrong idea…" Shepard muttered to herself. Her plan had been to patrol Hangar Four to 'discourage' anyone or anything that would have wanted to cause any… shenanigans. She was, after all, a battleship, even if she had guns that she'd never fired.

Now that she thought about it, something had to be up with those things; the barrel was the right size, but the bore was so much narrower. The original Yamato had been equipped with 46 centimeter rifled cannons, reflected in Shepard's own cannons, though on a much smaller scale. She wasn't sure how it worked; no one was sure how it worked, only that it did, much like how the Shipgirls simply were.

There were a good few decades that had scientists frothing at the mouth for the blatant disregard of physics.

Shepard's original Type 94's had a bore of around three inches. However, whatever the techies did had reduced the bore to an inch and seven eighths, which would have been roughly 20 centimeters full-scale, and she couldn't for the life of her figure out what they did. Perhaps it had something to do with the strange tingling she felt in her stomach, which had only grown stronger the longer she wore her Outfit. Perhaps it was simply her body integrating the adjustments that had been made, but she still didn't like it.

Either way, speculation wouldn't solve her current dilemma. The football field-sized hangar was positively bustling with activity, and it took Shepard all she could to keep from getting lost in the madness. Technicians raced towards their destinations, while mechanics waited alongside stacked crates and loaders to resupply the incoming vessel. She could see it now, through the rippling blue haze that separated the hangar from the pitiless abyss of space. Massive magnetic clamps had been lowered from the ceiling, having already been checked that they would not fail. Absolutely nothing had been left to chance.

Except that there was possibly an Abyssal that had somehow gotten on the station.

Shepard resisted the urge to growl as she scanned the screens. She couldn't very well alert all these people that there was something on the station, as it would simply cause undue panic that she really couldn't afford. And she couldn't let off another radar pulse without knocking out something that might be important.

Admittedly, she'd already done so.

Regardless, she had a soulless monster to find. Abyssals never acted without purpose, so whatever had drawn it to Hangar Four – alone, with all the witnesses and guards with weapons that could severely damage it – could only mean one thing: there was something it wanted on the incoming ship. It had taken her several minutes to think this through, and by the time she did, the Merlin was already closing in to the station. It would have been foolhardy to try to patrol the entire hangar even if there was no one in it, let alone packed full of people and on a time limit. Without the use of her radar equipment she needed as many eyes as she could get, so she'd planted herself in one of the hangar's overview stations, a two-story tower that offered not only a much better view of the hangar, but it also controlled a good portion of the station's constructor droids. The tower was merely one of four, one at each corner, and Yamato had taken the one that would have been at the Merlin's portside nose.

The technician who manned the tower, a portly man that strained the seams of his overalls, nervously shuffled his feet as he said, "U-um… I really don't think you should be here."

"I have a mission, now shut up and keep an eye on the door," Shepard snapped, eyeing the holographic screens that wrapped around the control room. Each screen was showing a live feed taken from a constructor droid, shifting every few seconds to a different one. Almost three hundred constructors had been given orders to remain on 'standby' in the hangar, where in reality they were Shepard's eyes in the sky, watching for something, anything. So far she'd been unsuccessful, and it was pissing her off to no end.

Especially when she kept getting chills down her spine. It had to be here. And it had better show up soon, otherwise the portly technician would have a front row seat to what happened when a control console was introduced to a fist empowered with 72,000 tons of furious Japanese-American steel.

-O-O-O-

Hey-o! Sorry it took so long, real life over here and the fact that my brain won't stay focused on a single idea. Plus Space Engineers. That thing's like Legos on crack.

Anyway, I planned to have a whole fight scene in this chapter, but I thought that this would be a good break without going another two freakin' months. Before we continue, however, I'd like to explain a little science. At least, how I figure it. It's my story, so I reserve the right to fib. You're welcome to skip this tidbit if you don't want to read it, it's not vital to know. It's mostly for myself, anyways.

Positron Cannons. How they work is that they jumpstart a nuclear reaction inside the barrel, which is obviously sealed at the end. As the reaction builds, particles get a little wibbly-wobbly and build energy of their own – since they have nowhere to go, they're stuck building up steam. Like, potential energy to the max. A good amount of magnetism controls how much the reaction feeds itself, preventing it from getting out of hand and consuming the barrel. This would obviously be bad. Anyway, once the reaction reaches critical mass – or however much its allowed to grow – the barrel is opened and all those particles stuck building up energy suddenly have an exit. They shoot out like bullets, carrying the radiation with them, and hit the target at near-light speeds. It's like a directed nuclear weapon. This is basically how the Zeus cannon destroyed itself – it built up too much energy, and melted itself to slag when it fired. Even the Abyssal's freakish regeneration and immunity to conventional weapons wouldn't hold up to that kind of bombardment.

Another point of contention for myself is the hydrogen reactors. Hydrogen is used in real-life, both in fuel cells and reactors, but I wasn't clear enough with myself which was which. I'm divided because reactors are fucking huge. Chernobyl was the size of a town for a reason. What I need to clarify is what the 'reactors' that were installed on the Shipgirls actually are. One reactor would be able to fit an entire ship in it, so no. What the Shipgirls got were hydrogen fuel cells, more efficient than coal or fossil fuels, and upgraded their boilers to liquid-cooled hydrogen-injected ICE's to take advantage of the hydrogen and still be capable of using the Syracuse cannons, and only need to drink water to refuel. Sort of like Halo's Warthogs. Of course, there's also what Shepard has, but it's a surprise…

XD

Granted, I know this isn't how shit works in real life, but this isn't real life, now is it? Things would get boring if I spent eleven pages describing this shit in detail. Like Tolkien on a door. A brilliant man, but holy shit was he dry.

There have been some concerns brought up by you guys. Namely, how the Terrans survive the Reaper War, and the lack of American Shipgirl presence. The first one would be major spoilers if I answer it in full, so let me just explain how they survive the Abyssals – since it will come up in the next chapter, this shouldn't be too much of an issue. Plus I'd like to answer it now, given that I'll most likely forget. First off, their escape builds off several technologies that are going to be coming in the decade between this chapter and the deadline to the Apocalypse; ship construction, cyberization, and AI (or SI) implementation. This entire time, humanity have been experimenting different ways to build ships, but a major constraint was the weight. The bigger the ship, the more it takes to move it, which makes it even heavier. Element Zero counters this, but has only been discovered for a year and they quickly find that it is ineffective for many of the designs they have, either due to size or materials used.

What happens is that people are scrambling to optimize this new technology, which suddenly makes big ships viable. Of course, the whole ordeal next chapter turns them off implementing it everywhere, which I won't go into because reasons. When Misato diverted processing power to her 'secret project', in reality she was designing a supersized colony ship that can carry as many people as possible. The design I'm basing the ship off of is TMC-Deluxe's Horizon Colony Ship, from DeviantArt. For a point of reference, the scale I'm using are the pylons along the ship's spine – my guess is that each pylon is around 500 meters apart from the other, roughly the length of a UNSC Paris-class heavy frigate, give or take another 1500 meters for the ship's nose and stern. All in all the ship is 6420 meters long, plus that rough estimate puts the ship at almost eight kilometers. Ludicrous as it may be, there is reasoning for this – the Rorqual-class mining ships. There are already six of them, doing nothing but stockpiling resources. Almost one hundred years has the Terrans sitting pretty on a very nice bit of stuff to work with, and if all the Rorqual-class focus their efforts on building the Horizon, each carrying several thousand construction robots, things get done quick.

Of course, even a ship of that size would only be able to carry so many people. By my estimate, only around five hundred to six hundred thousand people, let alone 1.5 billion. Of course, I don't want to give away everything, but I will explain how the Terrans go about this. Cyberization interfaces technology directly with people's brains a la GiTS, but someone has the bright idea to combine the technology with SI creation. The end result is that people can freely jump out of their own brains and wander the Interwebs, making them a sort of digital race. That's the whole plan – a select few of the population will run the ship and eventual fleet, while the majority of the populace dumps their brains into a massive server farm on the colony ship and run the electronic side of things, with the promise that they will receive new bodies. Sort of like Soma, but without the creepy goo. Of course, this is just a temporary measure to make sure to save as many people as possible. As more ships are constructed, blocks of the population will be pulled out of cyberspace into their new bodies, which would either be a cloned body using their original DNA map for a normal citizen or a cybernetic-augmented body if they decide to join the navy. Of course, some people will decide to head to Mars, but its only one city with a limited amount of resources, and it would take a tremendous amount of time to expand. Since by this point the asteroid belt will be mostly depleted of ore, the fleet will head to destinations unknown, gathering resources and planting the roots of viable colonies as they wander the stars.

Next is the lack of American Shipgirls. I can't go into too much detail, but think about it – the Abyssals had to come from somewhere, the deep obviously, but there's a reason why the entire Western continent is nothing but an Abyssal factory. I'm not saying they turned into Abyssals (which is debatable given the end of the last episode), but when you have a limited number of them against a growing horde, in what is basically ground zero, things get pretty hopeless. Any American Shipgirls would have been killed fairly early on, but as Kitakami and Ooi have proven, don't count them out just yet.

Last note. Terran ships will be predominantly ships from the Halo universe. They're big, ugly, and have a nice big anti-son-of-a-bitch cannon. Gotta love those. That said, I'm open to suggestions.

Anyway, that's all for now. Thanks for reading. Oh, and make sure to put in your votes soon. The poll is closing with the next chapter. As it stands, the Quarians will meet the humans (Terrans) first, with the Krogan and Asari tied for second. Even if this doesn't change, I have a few ideas in mind.

-RYNO