Disclaimer: I don't own mass effect or Warhammer 40k please support the official products and their creators.

Authors Note: I deleted a few guest reviews because they seemed to just be ranting about 40k fluff. I would ask reviewers if they could keep reviews relevant to the story itself. I welcome constructive criticism, and if you think I am inaccurately portraying the lore of Mass Effect or 40k I would appreciate correction and to hear your thoughts on the matter. Please bear in mind though that this story takes place in the 30th millennia, just after the great crusade has begun so the Imperium doesn't really exist yet outside of Terra itself. Also this story will mostly be focusing on the Mass Effect side of things for now, don't expect big E to show up any time soon.

Prologue: Child of the Stars

Eight years ago

"Spectre Valern?" A voice asked from the behind the young Salarian, interrupting his attempts to enjoy some truly marvelous soup. "Do you mind if I join you for a few minutes?"

Valern glanced backwards at the speaker. A human unsurprisingly, considering this was Elysium after all. The man himself was about as inconspicuous as possible. He had short brown hair, under a ball cap, turned down just enough to put the top of his face in shadow. His clothing was in the current jumpsuit style, that humans had taken a liking to, but it was shaded just right color to blend in rather well with the scenery. He was a very forgettable man. N7 probably, certainly some one used to the usual cloak and dagger stuff.

"Don't let me stop you." Valern said indicating the seat across from him. "I don't suppose you would believe me if I said that I really am here on vacation?"

"Oh I believe you." The N7 said taking the seat, passing a small data chip across the table. "That makes this the perfect opportunity from some very informal reporting."

"Informal reporting?" The spectre asked as he briefly scanned the chip for malware before inserting it into his omnitool. It was possible the human might have something rather nasty on the chip, but this was his off duty omnitool, nothing on it the System Alliance could actually want to know.

"The System Alliance believes that the Citadel Council should be made aware so certain recent developments but would prefer if these events remained as secret as possible."

"How secret are we talking here?" Valern asked as he accessed the chip which contained a small set of libraries filled with a number of military reports, communications, pictures, and medical scans.

"If anyone asks, I was never here, this never happened and the SA formally protests the slanderous lies the Council has unfairly leveled against them."

Valern paused for a moment at that. Clearly the SA wanted Citadel support for something and dreaded the idea of anyone finding out about it. There were only a few things he could think of that could require this kind of 'informal reporting'. He did not like the thought of what those could be.

"What exactly is this about Mr. Not-Here?" Valern inquired holding the human's gaze.

"The chip has everything we know about the incident so far." The man said, gesturing to Valen's omnitool. "In short, ten days ago a cruiser of ours on patrol near the Terminus systems commanded by one Sara Shepherd encountered a rather strange object."

Valern motioned the man to continue speaking as he looked over the first few reports on the chip as well as a personnel file on the captain. The captain's record was fairly standard, a veteran of the Relay 314 incident back when she was still a lieutenant followed by a few engagements against pirates and slavers. Valern's eyes widened as he saw the spectrographic report attached to her first recorded message sent back to SA command.

"While on patrol she briefly detected a burst of very strange radiation nearby. She moved her ship over to investigate, and found a small cloud of debris in the area."

"A destroyed ship?" Valern guessed, a mass effect core going off could produce some very strange results, but he had never heard of anything like what the cruiser's sensors recorded.

"Not nearly large enough. Honestly most of what the captain eventually recovered seemed like office equipment and a few rather large destroyed computer banks. The only thing of note was a single large metal cylinder about two and a half meters tall and maybe a meter wide. She believed the cylinder might have been an escape pod. The pod was made mostly of steel, though steel that had been interwoven with carbon in an almost plastic like way. There was some electrical equipment on the outside, housed in a very unusual casing."

Valern glanced over a metallurgical report on said casing. He promptly did a double take as he saw the molecular composition of the metal. He glared at the report and muttered to himself.

"That's impossible."

"Every metallurgy expert we've shown that report to has said the same thing. But that is what the stuff is made out off. It's damn near indestructible."

"And the electronics themselves? Were you able to interface with them?"

"No, unfortunately. The system is based on binary, but it's both rather archaic and unspeakable fast. It also houses a rather nasty VI security system that takes itself very seriously. The first time we tried to link it up to one of our computers it invaded our system and overloaded the console's power supply, it destroyed the computer in an electrical surge."

"Nasty."

"Quite."

"So did you all managed to get the pod open?"

"Yes quite easily in fact. The controls on the system were labeled with small pictures and so the crew was able to open it up with no real hassle."

"What was inside?"

"A small child. Male, about maybe 12 years old or so. The Captain got him clothed and sent down to the med-bay almost immediately."

"And the Citadel Council needs to know about this child because?"

"The shipboard doctor did a quick scan of the child," The human explained with a strange air of smugness about him. "While they got him something to eat. Then he readjusted his equipment and checked for any flaws and scanned the child again. Those scans were confirmed at an Alliance military hospital when the cruiser returned to Elysium nine days ago. Those medical scans and the subsequent DNA tests run on the child are included on that data-chip. You should read them."

"So the kids not human." Valern commented as he looked over the x-rays of the child's skeleton. He also noticed several growths and organs present where they shouldn't be if he remembered his extra species biology courses.

"That's the leading theory at the moment."

"Leading? There are others?"

"The kid's DNA contains the entirety of the human genome."

"Contains?"

"Well he's got a whole extra helix and a few more chromosomes than is normal. But everything that makes a human human is in there."

"Genes not found in your species are usually a good sign that the creature is question is not from your species. If the fact that his ribs have fused together into a chest plate didn't already give that one away. Or the fact that he has a second heart. And a third lung."

"But for him to have all our DNA and then some? Even parallel evolution can't explain that, the odds are too ludicrous. Even the Asari vary from human DNA by a whole 4%. Some of our geneticists have suggest that is looks like someone took the human genome and bolted on a whole load of extra stuff to make it better."

"So either we have a first contact scenario in spitting distance of the terminus systems with a species whose biology puts the Krogan to shame, or some non governmental human organization is experimenting on children presumably to develop some kind of genetic super soldier?"

"Worst case scenario yeah."

"Well there goes my vacation. The citadel will want a spectre involved in this, probably several."

"The SA appreciates the assistance so long as we can keep this on the down low."

"That shouldn't be a problem. Where is the kid now? His existence might be a violation of several citadel laws."

"His creation might have broken several laws, and he might also be the last survivor of an unknown species spaceship. Right now he is being kept an Alliance military research station here on Elysium. The eggheads are monitoring his health, trying to make sense of his body, and trying to teach the kid English."

"He doesn't speak any human languages?"

"As far as we know he doesn't speak any languages at all. But he's learning real fast. Captain Shepherd has taken the role of his legal guardian for now."

"If he's not saying anything the trauma of what happened may have wiped or repressed his memories."

"Maybe. Hopefully in a few weeks we can just ask him what happened and move forward from there."

Valern chuckled quietly to himself before responding. "Let me tell you something Mr. Not Here, in this line of work things are never that simple."

Present day

Of course things hadn't been simple. The kid had actually learned English a few days before Valern was contacted. But he had kept quiet for another week before he felt he could trust Sara Shepherd enough to speak to her. But it didn't do any good. The kid's first memories were of waking up in Shepherd's ship. He didn't know anything about himself or others.

The humans had named him John since all unknown persons in the SA are called John Doe till proven otherwise. He took the last name Shepherd though instead of Doe after Sara since she had proven to love him like a son. A trait she shared with all the other genetically altered kids that they had found over the next eight years.

They never found out anything about Shepherd or where he had come from, but apparently there had been quite a large illegal gene therapy and custom baby black market growing under the SA's nose. Valern had rescued dozens of children from designer baby hospitals to full on super soldier training programs being run by the terrorist organization Cerberus. Most of the kids either had no living relatives or none who weren't going to jail for dangerous gene tampering, so many of the kids ended up living on an Elysium military base alongside Shepherd and his mother.

Space exploration in the region where Shepherd had been found, yielded no real results. No signs of any advanced civilizations or any of the strange radiation that had preceded his discovery. No wreckage of any other down or failed ships were found in that region either. It seemed as if the boy had just appeared out of literal nothingness.

Attempts to access the computer that controlled his pod eventually resulted in its VI committing suicide and frying its own electronic systems. Not only did this destroy any data that could've been gained from it, but it also severely damaged the internal mechanisms of the pod itself, preventing much in the way of analyzing its technology. Several theories were proposed on how the metal of the pod itself could've been constructed, but since most of them involved working with temperatures close to the core of the average star, none had been proven successful.

And that was where the story of Shepherd mostly ended. There was simply no further data to act on. His existence was impossible, and unexplainable. So it was mostly ignored and the boy was left to simply grow up. He was still monitored by SA scientists since his physiology was so strange. The man was now almost three and a half meters tall, his strength would be considered monstrous by Krogan standards. Most importantly though, he possessed an impressively analytical mind. By the second year of his education, he had been found in the alliance garage one day, disassembling a Mako tank. By the end of that day he had also put it back together and had several ideas on how to improve the design.

It was around that point that the Citadel had put its foot down in one regard. Being surrounded by soldiers and raised by a navy captain, it was natural that Shepherd would be attracted to the military way of life. But with no evidence that a species like him existed in the galaxy, and plenty of evidence that several organizations existed in the Alliance that were experimenting on the human genome, it made it clear that Shepherd must be the product of some genetic experiment. And while the Citadel wasn't about to condemn a man on the circumstances of his birth, if the Alliance knowingly used a gene enhanced man as part of its military it would do so in violation of several Citadel accords. Shepherd would never be allowed to join the SA army or navy, or even research new weapons for that matter.

In this purpose the Citadel had one unexpected ally in the form of Sara Shepherd herself. While she was proud of her service to the Alliance and her military career, she considered it an utter waste if any of the enhanced children under her care used their talents in anything less than the pursuit of the galaxy's greatest good. Despite his incredible physical power, she insisted at every turn that Shepherd must use his talents to help the most people possible, which meant either some great research project or driving the galactic economy to new heights. Yet for now, Shepherd remained content on Elysium with his rather vast adopted family.

Councilor Valern found himself reflecting on this as ambassador Udina ranted and raved against the Batarians on the Citadel floor. It had been a few years since he last saw Shepherd. He had spent nearly a quarter of his life and most of his specter career in Alliance space hunting down rouge genetic scientist and playing nice with one of the galaxy's more volatile species. Eventually his many successes had led his Dalatrass to maneuver him into politics and eventually a position on the Citadel Council. Truth be told, it wasn't the future he had ever envisioned for himself and he often missed the days when just shooting people was a legitimate solution to his problems. But the Council did provide amazing challenges of its own. Every negotiation was like a 3D puzzle where you couldn't see half the pieces. Once you figured out all the motivations that people were keeping hidden from you, it was usually fairly straightforward to find a solution that would at least satisfy everyone. Finding those motivations, secrets, and all the other little leavers that people kept hidden from you was the real challenge and so, so satisfying to pull off.

But this? There was no secrecy to this whole rotten business. No intrigue, no real class to it at all. The situation couldn't be more simplistic. The System Alliance was frustrated with the Council blocking most of their attempts at peaceful expansion into traditional and safe regions. This was necessary to both keep some method of control over the young hot headed species and to keep them out of certain regions of space until the Council was certain it could trust them with more serious matters. So the SA began settling in the Verge, a region not under as heavy Council regulations as others. The Verge was also being settled by the Batarians for much the same reasons sparking tensions between the two races. The Hegemon couldn't afford to back down in the face of Human aggression, but also couldn't provoke open warfare against a race that had gone toe to toe with the Turians. The natural solution had been to fund pirate and slaver rings to disrupt SA colonial efforts and attempt to force them back.

Now the situation had escalated too far. The major human colony of Elysium, well outside of the Verge had been attacked and tens of thousands of humans had been carried off by the pirates. This put the Council in an awkward position. If humanity attacked the Hegemony, the Council would need to defend the Batarians to prevent the System Alliance from gaining too much power. But justifying that war and drumming up the popular support for it would be nearly impossible after such a tragedy. Plus the fighting would mostly fall to the Turians to carry out. And while half the Turians would love nothing more than to put humanity in its place, the other half would want to give them guns, a friendly pat on the back and a push in the general direction of those slaving bastards who had thumbed their noses at the Hierarchy for centuries. And in all honesty, more than one Asari Matriarch and Dalatrass had not so subtlety suggested the same thing. At the very least the Council was going to have to give humanity a free hand in the Verge with Spectre support and hope that humanity would be satisfied with wiping out the pirate population and that the Hegemon would be smart enough to pull all support for the pirates and cut his losses. It would've been very nice if all of this was Councillors Valern's greatest concern.

But there was the video to consider. The STG had descended on Elysium's security systems as soon as word of the attack had come through. The mission was simple, delete all visual evidence of Batarian special forces on the planet and prevent the situation from escalating completely out of control. While rooting through their systems the STG had found something very interesting and reported a video recording of it to Valern. It was that video that had Valern deeply concerned and thinking of the past.

"Ambassador" Valern interrupted, "Your fury at the situation is understandable and the Council's sympathy goes out to all the victims of this tragedy. But this Council chamber is not the place to air these baseless accusations and conspiracy theories against a valued member of the Citadel community."

This was the wrong way to handle the situation and Valern knew it. The humans needed some catharsis after this tragedy and letting their ambassador rave in this way let them all know that their government was taking the crisis seriously, and that they didn't need to take matters into their own hands. Also if the Council could keep the Batarians in suspense over weather or not they would let humanity directly pursue their vengeance into Batarians space they could force greater concessions out of the Batarians and this matter to close more easily. Interrupting the rant now would only further frustrated humanity and emboldened the Batarians. Valern would be more inclined to follow that line of thought if his greatest concern was human Batarian peace. But it was not. It wasn't even in his top five concerns at the moment.

Udina glared at the Salarian just a hair short of complete fury. Some of it might even be genuine, the ambassador rarely appreciated being interrupted like that. Mostly though it was just another mask the man wore to advanced the needs of his people. The Batarian ambassador smiled all to smugly to himself realizing he wouldn't even need to speak out in his own defense. Definitely growing all too confident from the exchange. Sparatus seemed to raise his head at the interruption in approval. The old Turian was definitely part of the camp that wanted mankind under tighter Council control if not to just resume the First Contact War and make them a true protectorate. Tevos raised a single eyebrow at her fellow councilor. A veteran diplomat who had managed the Council for dozens of Salarian generations, she was well aware that Valern was making a misstep in interrupting the ambassador no matter what her personal feeling about humanity might have been. That she did no more to get in Valern's way was a testament to the trust she put in his capabilities despite the short time they had known each other.

"Rest assured," The Counselor continued, "Mankind will be able to count on the full support of the Special Tasks Group and the Citadel spectres in tracking down these pirates and rescuing your lost citizens."

That one made Sparatus give Valern a glare. The STG and the spectres both were already hard at work tracking the pirates and would've 'leaked' the location of any pirate bases in the Verge to the SA as quickly as possible so mankind could have its vengeance and move on. But direct cooperation between the two? That was going a step too far, it might just embolden the SA to go hunting for their lost people into Batarian space. Udina looked questioningly at the councilor doubting his intentions. Tevos nodded to herself, this was the best way to cover Valern's previous misstep and keep mankind and the Batarians guessing at which side the Council would fall on. The Batarian all but quivered with outrage. He knew that those words had ended the fight over the Verge. The pirates were now doomed and if the Batarians tried to salvage the situation they only would give the SA all the proof they needed to strike directly at them. And if things actually were that simple Valern would've eaten his own leg.

"But for now I feel you have wasted enough of our time on this matter." Valern concluded eager to move on to what was actually important. "Ambassador Jath'Amon, the Council apologizes for you having to sit through all this. I trust the Hegemony will soon publicly condemn these criminal and offer them no succor in your sovereign space."

"Of course Councilor." The Batarian ambassador responded with one of the most plastic and unconvincing smiles Valern had ever seen. "All the Hegemony's thoughts and prayers go out to our human brethren in this time crisis. I do hope that we can all move past this incident and learn to work more closely together in the future."

"Thank you ambassador." Valern nodded at him. "Ambassador Udina, now that we are done with that unpleasantness, the Council needs to speak to you on urgent matters of state. In a sealed chamber."

That one took everyone by surprise. The Batarian ambassador froze in place. Udina took a physical step back. Sparatus and Tevos exchanged looks, nodded to each other, and then to the C-Sec officers in the gantry around the chamber. The officers quickly set to work clearing the chamber of the reporters, representatives, interested citizens and all the other various folk who for whatever reason felt the Council's chambers were the ideal place to pass the time and conduct business. The Batarian ambassador held his ground for a few minutes, but he had been dismissed and soon was politely asked to move on by C-Sec.

After the chamber was empty of everyone but a few trusted C-Sec officers, the ambassador and the councilors, Valern scanned the chamber with his personal, spectre grade omnitool. He detected several bugs, and a few viruses in the security system, all of which he quickly crippled. His actions did not pass unnoticed by his fellows who now showed open curiosity at the precaution. It was very rare that the Council had a truly sealed meeting. This was certain to set the rumor mills turning and lead to a large increase in the Shadow Broker's prices. Finally the Councilor spoke to the real issue at hand.

"Ambassador where is Shepherd?" Valern demanded.

"I'm sorry wh-" The Udina started to reply, his face falling into the perfect mask of confusion.

"DO NOT play dumb with me Ambassador." Valern interrupted with all the scorn, force and presence his role of councilor allowed him to project. "There is no way you weren't updated of the situation the moment the research station on Elysium was attacked. Now explain to this Council where exactly mankind's three and a half meter tall super soldier is at this moment."

Sparatus did a full double take at Valern while Tevos's eyes widened in recognition. Both of them had been Councilors when Shepherd had first been found years ago. But nothing had ever really came from that investigation, so it was understandable that the two had forgotten that the man was still living on Elysium. That their aides had not reminded them of that fact the moment the name of planet under attack by the Batarians was known was either a serious oversight on their parts, or the Council had taken mankind's request for secrecy on that matter much more seriously than Valern had thought. The ambassador's face went completely blank for a few seconds as he evaluated his options before he spoke again.

"We don't exactly know." Udina explained, "The Batarians were very well informed about Elysium's defenses. Their special forces hit the research station directly while the pirates raided civilian sites around the planet. The military did its best to protect the children from the slavers but they were hard pressed to hold them off. Eventually Shepherd lead a group of the more biotically capable and older children in a direct assault against the Batarians. He broke their offensive and rallied the base's security before counter attacking and driving them off. Shepherd himself vanished into the surrounding woodland pursuing the retreating Batarians accompanied by Jack and Miranda. Based on the reports from civilians we've gathered, he made his way to a few nearby settlements, where he continued to fight the Batarians and rescue civilians. We have yet to find out exactly where he ended up, but we should soon enough. He left behind a rather distinct trail of bodies after all."

"You people unleashed that genetic monster into actual combat?" Sparatus demanded, "Do you have any idea how many treaties you humans just broke doing that?!"

"We unleashed nothing!" Udina insisted, "Shepherd was under direct orders from his MOTHER not to interfere. After the initial attack was stopped base security ordered Shepherd to stand down at GUNPOINT before he laughed at them stormed off into the woods. Mankind is not responsible for the Batarians stirring up that particular nest of hornets."

"You think that's any excuse? You people have probably been looking for any excuse to set that MAN loose on the Batarians, since the raid on Midior."

"Sparatus," Tevos interjected, trying to deescalate the situation. "Shepherd has a right to defend himself and his fellows. Mankind has complied with all Citadel requirements with Shepherd and the other gene enhanced children, they do not deserve to suffer these accusations."

Sparatus glared at Tevos but dropped the matter. Valern had heard that the Turian councilor had wanted to have Shepherd and the others executed to preserve citadel peace. Thankfully he had been voted down by the other two Councilors in that regard. Valern would probably have helped the kids go into hiding if he had ever been given that order. Valern had done some ethically monstrous things as a spectre, it was part of the job, but he drew the line at murdering children for no other crime than existing.

"But Shepherd continued absence concerns me." Tevos continued. "With all the military on Elysium now, how hard could it be to find one giant human?"

"The humans won't find Shepherd on Elysium" Valern explained, as he transferred a video file from his omnitool to a nearby holo display. The video was taken from a closed circuit camera at one of Elysium's space ports. It showed a number of drones and workers lifting cages, some empty, some full of people, into a docked ship. The time stamp on the video corresponded to a time when the first SA reinforcements began to arrive in system. So the pirates were understandably panicked, and rushed to load as much of their illegal cargo as they could. While the workers rushed forward to grab more crates, a short time occurred when no one was looking towards the ship. During that window two cloaked figures rushed to an empty cage being carried by a pair of drones. By themselves they might have looked like an adult and an young child, but with the drones to give proper proportions, it was clear that one of them was simply gigantic, the drones and his compatriot barely came up to his hips. The gigantic figure effortlessly pulled two the bars apart on the cage, allowing him and his partner to climb aboard. The drones paid no mind to the event, their VIs not smart enough to process this abnormality, and by the time the pirates had turned back to the ship, the cage had been loaded with the rest. Shortly thereafter, the ship closed and took off.

Udina swore to himself as the video ended, turning the attention of the Councilors back to him. He tried to stare them down, mustering all the defiance he could in the face of their judgement. He spoke at last to preempt another tirade Sparatus was working himself up to in the silence.

"We believe the second figure was Jack." Udina calmly stated, responding to perhaps the least important question raised by the video. "We found Miranda this morning helping out at a hospital. She said the other two were alive last she saw them. Acting like a pair of damn fools, certain to get themselves killed in her opinion. We were holding out hope that the two had seen sense, and actually spent the night hopping bars or something."

"And what exactly did she say they were going to do?" Tevos asked.

"They are going to rescue the captured civilians no doubt with some damn fool heroic scheme." Udina deflected. "Hopefully we can find them and rescue them all before they get anyone hurt."

"If he wanted to free those people, he could've easily done so before the ship took off." Valern pressed, "Answer Tevos's question Udina. What did Miranda say Shepherd was going to do."

"She said," Udina finally relented, "She said, that Shepherd plans to solve the problem of Batarian slavery once and for all."

"Solve Batarian slavery?" Sparatus questioned, "What does that mean?"

"It means Sparatus," Valern explained, "That a very nearly unkillable biological weapon of mass destruction, who can spit acid and bend steel like clay, with a genius level intelligence, and the kind of charisma that founds and destroys empires, had decided to launch a one man war against the Batarian Hegemony. And unless we can stop him, he will soon turn an entire planet of oppressed slaves and betrayed pirates into his own personal army to do it. It's enough to make me feel sympathy for a group of Batarian slavers."