4 Years after drop

UNSC Infinity

Chapter 1: The Rookie

The Rookie awoke in her pod as an emergency klaxon wailed over the speakers. Whereas most might be groggy after their nap, the Rookie wasn't. She spent all of her time training, fighting, surfing the internet, or sleeping. So for someone who spent a quarter of their day asleep, it wasn't hard to get up.

She looked around to see a group of soldiers stumbling around like idiots. Albeit, they were her idiots. They bumped into holo tanks and shouted obscenities when running into each other, in a horrible mess of trying to get armour on. Suddenly, as she got up out of her pod to help, a red wall of light passed through the room. All of the electronics in her armour were EMP'd, and had to reboot themselves. One of them spotted her and jogged over, trying not to trip on the various items scattering the floor. Though he had armour on, she recognised him from the snipers shoulder armour and headgear. Romeo.

"Good to see it didn't take a sniper stock to the face for once. I'm guessing you didn't know what happened?" She nodded in reply to his question. "We were just sitting around when all of a sudde-"

His sentence ended there when a huge creaking noise carried throughout the room. Sounds like the hull is under stress she thought to herself. That could only mean two things. They had sustained heavy hits in a firefight, or they were entering a strong gravity well. Another one of the troopers connected the dots too. Buck. "Shit. We're making planetfall. Infinity isn't designed for this. Everyone get ready to drop." They all looked at him with shocked faces. "I have a feeling the captain is going to want everyone off of this ship." Everyone just stared, completely dumbfounded. "Get all the equipment you can carry." They hesitated a moment longer. "Pods. Now." Finally they did as they were told.

The Rookie ran up the the armory station and grabbed all of her favourite weapons. An M7S SMG and M6 pistol, SRS99C - S2 AM sniper rifle, and BR85HB SR battle rifle. And of course, her trusty combat knife. She stuffed them all in her pod wherever they could fit, and climbed in, waiting for the go sign. Sure enough, as Gunney had guessed, the captain ordered full evacuation. Marines to all available space capable craft. Non-essential navy personnel to the lifeboats, and ODST's to their pods. They of course, would be the first to leave.

All the front hatches closed on their pods. The pod launch tube doors closed so as to avoid the room being exposed to vacuum, and the launch doors opened for them to see what was happening. Below, was a vast metal ball, planet sized to be precise. And in some sort of hatch on the planet, the Infinity was being pulled into. It was massive, and it looked like pure blue energy occupied it. Soon enough, the ship would begin to enter it, and who knows what would happen once it did.

Gunney's voice came in over the radio again. "The captain has sent us all the order to enter it. Apparently it is a scanning barrier, that big blue thing. On the other side is jungle from what their AI can tell, but he doesn't want to have anyone not needed on board for when they do reach it." He added skeptically "If there is anything down there. We have our orders. Oorah?"

In a rather unenthusiastic tone, everyone besides the Rookie added in an oorah too. She simply stared down at the blue thing growing bigger beneath their feet. A small bump was felt as they were lowered to launch positions, and a countdown timer began to read off the seconds till inevitable death, or one of the craziest theories she had ever heard becoming realized. 5... 4... 3... 2... 1 The Rookie always thought that pause between 1 and launch was longer than the rest. Like reaching 100% takes twice as long as reaching 99%.

Launch.

Her pod dropped, and she saw many other do the same. For a second, there was that amazing feeling of weightlessness and adrenaline pumping through her body. But as normal, it dissipated in a few seconds. She took manual control of her pod as was routine too, but this was in fact, a very bad move this time.

The frigate Nerataza, one of the Infinity's escorts, had also been caught in the gravity well. Unfortunately, it wasn't as lucky. It didn't have the structural integrity that the Infinity did, and was ripped apart by the overly strong gravitational pull.

Its slipspace drive steadily went through space. It was already primed s the captain had attempted to activate it, but the gravity interfered too much. Now through space it went, alongside humanities new flagship.

Just as it passed by the underside, the ODST's launched from there. The chances of one hitting the other were extremely slim. And yet, people beat the odds continuously.

One pod was a little accelerated in its launch. The countdown obviously was a few milliseconds too fast. But that was enough. In that time the drive would have avoided the Rookie, and she would have just thought it a lucky miss. But instead, something marvelous happened.

The pod, on its milliseconds head start, smacked into the drive. Normally, the drive would have not been affected, but it was already primed, and as it had no power source, it had to rely on its dwindling one. It took measurements of the pod and opened a portal for it. Where it would go was randomised, possibly not even to slipspace. The odds of the occupant surviving even in a full planned jump were 0.01%. And yet, in this most unlikely of situations, those odds were beaten. The pod fell through the portal, causing the occupant to fall into instant unconsciousness.

The Rookie awoke in her pod as a small warning chime sounded over the speakers. This time she was groggy. Probably because she just made a drop onto the planet asleep. She tried to move forward, but soon realised the pod was on its back. Just my luck. She tried to see what was outside, but could only see dirt on the small windows. At least Gunney and the AI were right about this one. She sighed and keyed in the release key. She waited a moment and then the pod hatch blew off into the air. Thankfully, she wasn't coated in dirt from it. She saw a red sky. Odd. No tall trees. Maybe the AI was wrong about the jungle bit? She put her hands around the edges of the pod to pull herself up, and when she did, she almost wished she hadn't. Definitely not jungle she thought to herself.

In front and around a mile away, she saw large towers that looked like habitats. She guessed on Forerunner. That would be a reasonable assumption, seeing as it was a Forerunner world they were investigating. But then something caught her attention. On the side of these buildings were the words "Eden Prime". Forerunners didn't speak or write in English. So what were these doing on a Forerunner world? That wasn't what made her wish she hadn't left though. There were two reasons. The first was around 20 metres back, to her 8 o'clock. A group of humans were impaled on 10 foot tall spikes. She knew they definitely weren't UNSC thanks to the clothes they were wearing. That meant that they could only be Insurrectionists. While she still hated them for that, and them on spikes only added to her questions, they didn't deserve something like this she thought.

The second thing that worried her was that all around her, she could see AA fire, and hear small arms too. And off in the distance a ship was just sitting about. It wasn't the biggest ship she had seen, not after the Infinity, but it was still damn big, It was also completely unknown to her. Didn't look Covenant, and no way does the UNSC have something that looks like this. It looked sorta like a sharp clawed hand with a really oddly shaped forearm. Maybe it is the Covenant. They make their ships look like space whales. Why not giant crippled space arms? The Covenant's logic in anything completely perplexed the Rookie.

As she stood in her pod, she leant down to pick up her weapons and put them on her. Sniper on her back, SMG and pistol on right and left thighs respectively. She had her BR in her hands and her knife already strapped in on her left breastplate when she realised she forgot to bring grenades. Gunney did complain of an abundance of my explosives hurting his ears. No biggy.

She stepped out of her pod so she could begin to get a move on. Quickly, she opened UNSC E-BAND. Oddly enough, no-one was available on that frequency. She checked all the standard ones, none functioning, besides one playing reggae reggae for the radio station "Momma's Station". She really hoped that it wasn't the marines having a laugh. How could they stoop so low? she thought jokingly. She decided to broadcast on all frequencies. This was one of the few situations she ever spoke in.

"This is..." She didn't want to use her name in case it really was Innies, and they found out who she was. Still, she had to risk it. "Lance Corporal Jane Doe of the 105th Shock Troops Division. Requesting assistance at last known area. Appears to be..." She looked around for landmarks, anything that could give an idea of where she was roughly. "A cliff which faces towards three towers with "Eden Prime" painted on the side of them."

That would have to do. She placed a physical beacon down too, with the message encoded, and proceeded down the incline that was in the opposite direction of the cliff face. She didn't get far before she saw something big and floaty that resembled a Huragok. Something came to mind. She tried whistling to to it, a very particular whistle. Nothing, however, happened. She wasn't going to shoot one, though she didn't think they were in fact engineers like Virgil. He was a pretty damn good guy. For an alien anyway. She continued on still wondering what the hell this place was when all of a sudden a ship flew overhead. It wasn't big at all, more like a corvette, but still. She decided to stay on the side of caution, and hid behind a tree. She was now at a much narrower part that had rocks and trees in plenty. She quickly found cover and propped up her BR against it in case the people in that ship got her beacon and weren't feeling like playtime.

Well then. Lets see how you like energised lead in your face.

Shepard, Alenko, and Jenkins jumped off of the Normandy. They knew things were going to be bad, but almost instantly they were a) Repulsed and infuriated. b) Intrigued.

They saw something they were completely unprepared for. Three spikes stood tall, emerging from a bluish purple base, with humans stuck halfway down them. Innocent colonists. Whoever this was is going to pay, Shepard thought to herself. I promised to my family and I will not let that go now. Alenko stood and simply observed it, as if trying to figure them out. Jenkins, however, had his mind occupied by other things. "Hey, commander, look at this." At first it looked like a pile of loose dirt, a mass grave or something I'll bet. But as she got closer, she saw that it was something covered in dirt. She looked in a hole on the centre and saw a pod, slightly taller than herself, with a single seat in it. There were instruments all over the damn thing, and at the armrests were two joysticks.

She stood and simply sighed. She had no idea what to think. "Jenkins, this thing looks like it had a door, go find it." He looked a little annoyed at the fact that he couldn't stay to observe it, granted it looked pretty cool, but they had more important things right now. Alenko walked over too. "Any ideas?" she asked him.

He looked as perplexed as she. "No. First those spikes, now this. I'd really like to study this though, see what it does." He paused a moment. "From what I see right now, it looks like something that gets dropped from up high. Couldn't say the exact function though. I th-"

"Woah, this is fucking cool." here again was Jenkins, holding something that didn't look like a door. "I couldn't find any doors commander, but I found this. Don't know what it is, but I figure you might. She took it from him, and looked it over. It was very simple, some switches, buttons here and there. Nothing weird about it really. Just as she twirled it around, her fingers caught on a button. A voice emitted from it. Female.

"This is..." There was a short gap. "Lance Corporal Jane Doe of the 105th Shock Troops Division. Requesting assistance at last known area. Appears to be..." A slightly longer gap came up. "A cliff which faces towards three towers with "Eden Prime" painted on the side of them."

That just asked far more questions than it answered. Shock Troops? Jane Doe? Not knowing where she was. This was a perfect set up scenario. "Alenko, any opinions?"

He took less than a second to answer. "Trap ma'am. Most definitely."

"Agreed. Everyone on full alert, we've wasted enough time here already. Jenkins, you're on point, move out."

The Rookie had waited for a good five minutes before taking her leave and continuing on. Most likely the ship flying by was just trying to get out of here. She went on, taking in the sights around her, occasionally stopping to check her motion tracker. All clear asides from some birds. She reached a wooded area what led to a small slope down to another flat piece of land. This time it was different however. She saw a woman in white and pink armour running for her life from some small flying drones. The woman was being shot at by them, and was shooting back.

The Rookie also noticed two large figures standing about beside some more of those odd spikes. They looked really weird. Like, weirder than some of Romeo's jokes she thought. Then she saw it. They were robots. Damn robots. Not sentinels. Actual biped robots. With guns. Well, if they're not human, I've got free reign. She shouldered her BR and set it to semi-auto, so as to test the waters of her new enemies. She let off a single shot, and saw a shield flare on the robot they hit. Shielded means tough. She let off another two shots, the robots still confused as to where they were being shot from, were easy targets. What she didn't expect however, was that last shot broke through the shields and completely disintegrated the robot. Crap shields, I guess. She focused fire in the second one who had no chance now. At least that's what she thought.

He was hit by the first and second, but suddenly his shields flared up again and withstood her shots. What the? She fired off a few more, but to no avail. Instead, she then helped clear the flying drones from the woman's position, though the stranger now seemed to be in much more control thanks to her cover. Once that was finished, she looked over to see the robots shields flaring down once again. This one was clever though. He knew her position now and suppressed her. She could take a few hits, but she didn't want to try it. Fortunately, it didn't count on the stranger. She had finally regained herself fully, and popped up to quickly put six rounds in the head of the robot and finish it off.

The Rookie scanned the area with her new night and day VISR before deciding it was safe again. She held the rifle the the grip in one hand, and slid down the muddy slope to the strange woman. She cautiously walked up to her. The Rookie still didn't know if the woman was Innie or something else completely. The woman held out her hand and the Rookie shook it. The woman started first "Gunnery chief Ashley Williams o-" The Rookie instantly snapped off a crisp salute, standing to her full height of 6'1". Williams said "At ease. I'm part of the planets garrison. I heard your distress signal, you're the shock trooper, yes?"

That made sense of why the woman was running in the Rookies direction. The Rookie simply nodded at the statement. Williams looked a little taken aback that the Rookie hadn't spoke to her. At all. "Umm, well, I guess you're here to help then." Williams asked a with a hint of hope in her voice. The Rookie wasn't sure of what to say so she just shrugged. "So what, you might be here to help us, might not?" That seemed to be about the gist of it. So she just nodded her head. "Do you ever speak?"

"Sometimes." the Rookie said. She didn't know why she spoke. She just did. Weird.

A loud series of gunshots were heard from over where the Rookie had come from. She put her hand up to interrupt any further conversations from starting. She made a get to cover hand signal and fortunately Williams understood it. A lot of things about this whole situation seemed wrong, but now wasn't the time or place for her to go into detective mode. They took cover and Williams also kept an eye on the direction where the drones came from. Nothing for a while, then the Rookie saw two figures emerge over the slope. They spotted her and took cover behind a tree. One of them, a woman, shouted "Commander Shepard, Alliance! Who are you and what are your intentions?"

Williams stood up and proceeded to the commanders position. What the hell is the Alliance. Insurrectionist group maybe? "My name is Gunnery Chief Williams. Alliance too. I'm part of the defense garrison." She waited a moment before adding the Rookie in. "The other one is a shock trooper. Doesn't talk much. BlackOps I'm guessing."

That was apparently good enough for the commander. Wait. If they didn't recognise me as ODST, they can't have been Innies. ODST's have been fighting them for, like, ever. The Rookie saw an opportunity and took it. "Correct. BlackOps. Classified." Shepard looked at her suspiciously.

"You're right, Williams. Doesn't talk much. Kinda like a Geth." Shepard joked. "Hang on a minute." Her and the other guy with her slid down the slope. She almost tripped and just laughed it off. The ODST was observing her when she saw something shimmer behind the commander. She pulled her BR up and fired six shots, to make sure the thing was dead. The first shot disabled a cloaking device. It was another one of those robot things. The second, third and fourth removed its shielding. The fifth hit its armour and damaged it. The sixth hit the damaged spot and the whole alien disintegrated in front of everyone's eyes. The commander and her crew mate just had a bizarre look on their face. They turned and Shepard just said. "I take it back. I've never seen a weapon like that before. I now know for sure this is a BlackOps thing. No idea what branch though. I suppose that gives you command right?"

The Rookie shook her head. She didn't want to lead, especially lead a squad of possible Innies. Though she was now doubting that theory. "You're higher up. You lead." she said simply to the commander.

"Umm, okay. Eh, I kind of want you in lead, but I don't know your name. Your real one at least." So she did hear my signal. Good things BlackOps can get twisted like this. She doesn't know what to believe.

"Rookie."

"I kind of wanted your real name, or some operative name, or something better than that." The Rookie just shook her head. "Okay, why Rookie then? That kind of accuracy or skill isn't something rookies have. And BlackOps don't take rookies." The Rookie really did wonder why she was called that. She thought back to Buck, always calling her that. It must've started in New Mombasa.

"Nickname that stuck." was all she could muster.

"Alright, enough chit chat. Williams, what happened here?" Shepard was back to her cold professional self.

"I was just on routine patrol when that big mothership showed up out of nowhere along with those robots. I told my men to fall back, though we got stuck, and everyone except me was killed. And when I heard that a shock trooper was here, I bolted it to the cliff." Williams was a little distressed while saying this. It made sense, she had just lost all of her comrades. Shepard walked up to her and put a hand on Williams' shoulder.

"Hey it wasn't your fault. You did all you could, and you're still alive, so something must have gone right. Listen, I need you at the top of your game, got it?" Williams nodded.

With a steely resolve in her voice, she answered "Yes ma'am!"

"Good." The commander continued. "Well, Rookie, I want you on point. Alenko and Williams fall behind with me." She added at the end of that to the two newcomers, "By the way, this is Lieutenant Alenko, nice guy, biotics too." The Rookie had no clue on what "biotics" were. Maybe they're like bionic prosthesis' but different? And what did she mean by Geth? "Mov-"

Before she could finish her sentence, Williams spoke up. "Sorry to interrupt commander, but all I have now is this crappy pistol."

"Right, well I'm a biotic as well as Alenko, so you can take my rifle." The Rookie seemed confused as it didn't look like Shepard had a rifle. But much to the Rookie's surprise, Shepard pulled a block off of her back, and at the switch of a button, it expanded into a rifle. Not a rifle she had ever seen, yet still a rifle. Damn, I wish my guns could do that. "You need a sniper too?" Williams nodded.

The Rookie thought to the rifle on her back, and how damn heavy it was. She coughed, and everyone turned to look at her holding her rifle one handed by the scope, outstretched to Williams. The commander said gleefully, "Looks like you're gonna have a lotta fun lugging that around."

Williams sighed and took the rifle. She looked for something on it, and eventually asked the Rookie, "Where's the fold up switch?" The Rookie just shook her head, grabbed the rifle, and put in on Williams back, her armour's magnetic clamps keeping it in place. She struggled under the weight. "Damn that's heavy."

Shepard smiled. "Now if that's all, let's get a move on."

The Rookie took point, followed by Shepard, Williams, and then Alenko. She raised her BR to her shoulder, and they moved forward until they reached a small platform raised off the ground, and a dip in the centre of it. Williams spoke up.

"That's where the beacon used to be. The Geth must've taken it with them."

"All right, look around for anything useful. Rookie, search that crate over there." Shepard was pointing to a blue and white crate nestled in a corner. The others split up, Shepard found another crate, Williams secured the perimeter, and Alenko looked for anything else of interest. The Rookie walked over to the crate, but noticed something odd. It had no keyhole, only a keyboard and screen. She attempted to remove the keyboard, but the whole thing was inside the crate, not outside it. That was weird. "Uh, Com- Shepard, this crate doesn't have a keyhole, and the whole lock's inside."

Shepard just gave her an odd look. "Rookie, get your wits about you and use your omni-tool." The Rookie looked at Shepard's crate and saw it that it was already open. Well, I don't know what an omni-tool is, but I've got the next best thing. She shouldered her BR again and put a round through the keyboard. Shepard jus watched as the keyboard disintegrated and the crate door slid open. "That works too I guess." Shepard remarked. She thought for a moment, before asking "Wait, do you have an omni-tool?"

The Rookie shook her head. "What's that?" she asked. Shepard now had suspicion written all over her face again. Shit, I guess that was the wrong thing to say.

"What do you mean 'what is that'? Everyone has one. Literally." Well, I've fucked things up. I don't even know what's going on anymore. Are these guys Innies? Am I even on that planet. There was that point in the drop whe- When I blacked out. What happened then? "Rookie, answer me before things get messy. Who are you? Really." At this point Williams and Alenko were staring, as the commander started raising her voice. "Rookie. Now." she growled.

The Rookie came up with a question that could at least answer if they were Innies. "Have you heard of the UNSC Infinity?" Everyone looked completely blank. Alenko spoke up.

"What is that? What's UNSC?" Well, that at least confirmed they weren't Innies. Rather worryingly, they didn't know of the UNSC though. Everyone knew of the UNSC. How couldn't they?

"What about the Covenant? Or the Forerunners? Or the Flood?" That didn't bring up a single response, just more blank looks. Jeezo, way too much talking today. And besides, who are these people?

"Rookie, you'd better start explaining yourself before I call in the guys with white coats and butterfly nets." That sounded pretty bad. The commander thought she was crazy.

"Commander, this world is under attack. You can give me a psych eval or I can help save this place. Your choice." The commander gave her a look that could stare into the soul of a hunter and make him weep on the floor for days.

"Fine," the commander said, ice flowing through her voice, "let's go. Alenko, keep an eye on her at all times." Alenko nodded once. "Let's move up."

After a 30 second jog up a hill, they came across a small burnt down encampment, and some more of those weird robot spikes. There were also people on them too, but not people as they should have been. Williams commented "Good god, what did the Geth do to them?" Geth. Ooooooh, they must be the robots, good to know. Whatever it's worth now. The people on these spikes were covered in something like electronics, glowing blue and bright, and had a metal looking, grayish skin. If you could call it skin. Williams suddenly shouted "Shit! One of them just moved!" She was right.

The "people" began to struggle on the spikes, and all of a sudden, the spikes went into their base and kicked off the people. They were more like husks of a person. That's a pretty good name for them. Husks. When the Husks got back to their feet, they began to wildly run at the group. Alenko shouted over their strange gurgling noises "Don't let 'em close to you!" And he was right. The Rookie shot one of the husks with her BR with a three round burst and he disintegrated, only two of those shots were needed as well. One however managed to run up, and while she got it, it proved to be nothing more than a distraction. Another one ran up to the side of her. Normally, her squad would have spotted it and saved her from harm, but these guys weren't her squad, and they didn't get to her in time. The husk slashed at her with extremely sharp talons, and it cut through the jumpsuit between her right shoulder plate and gauntlet. It was a small opening in the otherwise protective armor, but even though it was a small cut as well, it stung like a bitch. She screamed out in pain and put a round into the creature's head. It disintegrated on the spot.

She saw the others finish off the last few. Williams ran by a piece of debris, took cover, and began to fire rather wildly at the husks. While it would be good against Innies or the Covenant, these creatures seemed not to understand the concept of suppressive fire. Still, there were enough bullets to take out a few. What she saw from Shepard and Alenko though completely caught her off guard. They were surrounded by blue force fields of some sort sort, and energy was shooting out of their hands. Some things they did were different. One bolt could rip the husks apart, while another made some weird singularity that lifted everything into the air. As well as these strange powers, they also just gunned some down with their pistols. Alenko was firing off his like crazy, when all of a sudden it stopped firing and steam blew out from the sides. Their weapons overheat? Only Covy weapons do that. She thought of questioning those odd abilities that Alenko and Shepard seemed to have, but remembered how the whole omni-tool thing had given away her short lived lie. She regained herself and took out two more, before all the husks were finally dead.

She looked at her ammo counter on her BR. Two rounds left. She ejected the clip and slotted a new one into place with a satisfying clack noise. She stooped down to retrieve the clip off the ground. Might come in handy later. You never know. She looked around to survey the damage. 13 dead husks and an angry wound. Williams looked Rookie looked at her and gave her a what is it? shrug.

"Rookie, you don't have a shield either do you? And was that a clip in your weapon?" The Rookie just shook her head. How would I have a shield? That stuff's expensive. How do you even have one? The commander turned to the Rookie as well, while Alenko inspected the husks. Shepard was angry still.

"You got a deathwish? No shields or barriers? You'd better start telling me what's going on."

The Rookie just grunted. "The feeling's mutual."

"What's that mean?"

"Nothing"

All of a sudden, a gunshot went off in the distance, rather loud, and only one. They all looked at each other.

Shepard simply pointed for everyone to move up. They continued up and past some destroyed container looking things. After a minute or so, they reached an small overhang and saw some kind of loading are occupied by Geth and husks. "I call 'em Husks." Everyone looked at her. "Those people things. Husks." Well, that didn't help my cause.

Alenko spoke up. "Hey Williams, use the Rookie's sniper to take out some Geth from here, you'll be able to take them out easier." Ash nodded. Sounds like a plan. The Rookie gave her input.

"Just lie down." Williams seemed to get the message. She lay down and unfolded the bipod. The Rookie gave her an extra clip, and a quick demonstration of how to reload. The three continued down the hill, and when took cover behind a group of rocks, opened fire on the Geth. The Rookie decided to work through this horde of two dozen or so like a video game boss. Minions first. While Alenko and Shepard shot whatever was closest to them, The Rookie went for the husks first. Her BR was on semi auto, she fired two shots at every husk head. Meanwhile, Williams was slowly but surely taking out the farthest away Geth. Every time she fired, it was as though her shoulder dislocated. One Geth attempted to flank the Rookie, but she finished him off easily enough with the new sniper. While she liked the rifle, she did, however, need to ask the Rookie why this fired bullets.

They kept up fire, moving up a stairwell once the husks were cleared out. Williams was now also running up behind them to catch up, with her assault rifle in hand. Finally they reached the top and finished off the Geth. Alenko was looking at a body on the ground, trying to turn it on its back, but struggling. "Damn. Commander, it's Nihlus. Look." Shepard walked over and pulled Alenko away from the Rookie and Williams. The two just looked at the body. Something didn't seem quit-

"Williams, what is that?" the Rookie asked, nudging the body with her foot. It was still face down.

"Hey Rookie, you don't have to call me Williams, Ash is fine. As for that, well, what do you mean by that."

She nudged the body again. "That."

"Well, that, is a special armour mad-"

"No. I mean, you know, what is it? It? Human?"

"Ohhhh, you mean the whole thing. That is a Turian, the Council's main military species. Wait, how don't you know that?"

"How don't you know about UNSC Infinity?"

"Touchee."

"Just don't tell your commander I didn't know. I'll tell her myself.

"Got it. Us grunts have to stick together right." The Rookie just grunted in agreement. That was one of the longest conversations I've had in a long time.

They waited a little longer for the commander and Alenko, the Rookie hoping Ash would keep true to her word, and sure enough, she did. They were getting given the move out order again when something popped up in the corner of the Rookie's eye. She spun and almost shot before realising he was human. She looked him over. Late 40's/ early 50's, short, civilian clothing. Shepard kept her gun pointed even as everyone else put theirs down.

"Who are you?" Shepard asked him.

"Wait! Don't shoot. I'm one of you, Human!

"Sneaking up on us like that nearly got you killed. Who are you anyway?" Ash asked.

Sorry, I was hiding, I didn't want to be killed by those... things. My name's Powell. I saw what happened to that Turian. The other one shot him.

I need to know how he died. Shepard said, with a commanding attitude.

"That one there, he was looking around when this other one showed up, Saren, I think he called himself. They acted like they knew each other. Your friend seemed to relax. He let his guard down. Then, Saren shot him right in the back." He waited a moment before adding, "I'm lucky he didn't see me hiding behind those crates."

"Where did he go?" Alenko asked him.

"He jumped onto the cargo train over there, took off with some robots following him. Oh man, I need to get off this planet. First the mothership shows up here, then everyone gets killed by robots, I'm the only one left." The man looked as though he was in shock.

"How come no one else hid. How were you the only one who survived?" Shepard suspiciously asked him.

"Well, I was already hiding. Every shift, I go behind these crates to get 40 winks." he said nervously.

"Lucky break for you I guess." Shepard commented.

"Oh, yeah, there was one more thing. This fell out of the sky, and somehow survived, while I was hiding." He rummaged in his pocket, before pulling out a small chip, about the size of half of the Rookies palm in width, but much shorter in length. It was almost extremely thin. Something about that seems fa- Suddenly the Rookie jumped to the guy and pulled it out of his hand. She put her rifle on her back, pulled out her pistol, and placed it on the Powell's forehead. "Shit, what is this, why!" he shouted. Everyone looked shocked, but figured a possible BlackOps agent knew what they were doing. Even if they did doubt the Rookie's story, they weren't going to chance it.

The Rookie simply asked "Do you know what this is."

"No!"

"Did you learn anything from it?"

"No. Please do-" He was weeping now.

"Do you know who it's property of?"

"No! I don't know anything about it!"

She removed the pistol from his head. "Looks like you're free." She paused a moment. "Go." There's no way I'm just let an AI fall into possible Innie hands.

The Rookie didn't enjoy having to threaten a civilian, but if he had learnt anything from it, he would've given it up at the hint of torture, so the UNSC needed to make sure no one civilian knew about any classified intel. In her time, she had seen a few ONI agents go somewhere secluded with loose ends, usually civilians, and come back without them. Hers was not to question, but she didn't like it. Not at all.

The Rookie looked at the chip in her hand. She had thought it to be an AI chip, and it was, but there was no AI in it. Odd. She'd have to investigate later. She slumped a little. An AI would be great at this point. Would've liked to see Virgil again. She thought of the whistle from Sadie's audiologs.

"Why did you just whistle?" She turned around to see that it was Ash who asked and Alenko and the commander were just watching.

"I didn't realise I did. Come on. We've got work to do." She began walking to the cargo train. Ash was the first to catch up. The Rookie quickly swapped her pistol for her BR again. A short 10 second walk led them to a large train.

It looks like the controls are on the front of the train. Come on, looks like there are Geth to fight on the way. As they stepped onto the train, a round went just over the Rookies head, and she did a forward roll to a short wall, one that the train was covered with for some reason the Rookie couldn't even hope to figure out. She quickly popped up but couldn't see where the coming fire was from. Cloaked maybe? It looked like the others were having an equally tough time getting targets. The Rookie suddenly came up with an idea. "Commander, roll over here now." Shepard hesitated, but then just decided she had nothing better in terms of plans. She rolled, and as she did, the Rookie leaped up and over her cover, activating her VISR. She saw a massive cloaked guy like the one behind Shepard earlier. She ran up and fired, but she only got one round out of her gun. She must've used up the clip in that last fight. It deactivated his cloak, so that was good. He was however charging at her, and her squad- no, the squad, didn't have a clear shot, and she didn't have the time to reload. So she did something no one else would have done.

Making stuff up, and taking a page from Buck's book, she waited till it was four metres from her. She then ran, jumped onto a small train wall, and jumped again. It had been timed perfectly so that she grabbed its neck as it ran by her. She swung onto its back, the Geth was around seven foot, and she was six, so it was pretty possible to swing, and wrapped a hand around its neck, while another went for her trusty knife. She pulled it off of her torso, and drove the knife straight into the centre eyepiece if the Geth. That must have been its processor or something similar the Rookie thought, because that just switched it off. But, like it did to Buck it fell back on her and she was trapped underneath. She heard the others walk over to her.

"That was pretty damn impressive, I'll give you that" Ash told her.

"Thanks." the Rookie said rather dryly. "Now will somebody please get this thing off of me?" They all obliged and lifted the body off of her.

"If the Rookie's show is over, lets get on with the mission." Shepard said. Ash and Alenko helped the Rookie to her feet, she retrieved her gun, and they walked to the front of the train where Shepard was waiting. "All right, we all ready?" Everyone nodded. "Good. Here we go then." She hit a switch on the panel and the train began to move forward. The Rookie finally reloaded her BR. Then they waited.

Five minutes later, the train finally arrived at the place where Saren went. Shepard was fairly certain this Saren guy also had the beacon. She was going to ask Powell, but the Rookie had started threatening him over what looked like a credit chit or storage unit. Damn, and I thought she was already crazy. A mute braindead psychopath. I play too many games.

Shepard finally pulled out her pistol, and as they stepped off she noticed a large somewhat cylindrical device to their left. It took her awhile to remember what it was, but then she thought of a mission against batarian slaver when her squad destroyed a base with charges. "Demolition charges, the Geth must have set them up. Hurry up and find them all before they blow!" She knelt down in front of the charge and began to work on it. This was definitely not her area of expertise, and after a minute she was still struggling. "Damn! I don't know how long this'll take, go find the others, quick! They've only got a three minutes."

The three ran ahead, and soon found themselves facing heavy resistance as they moved along a walkway. They only managed to reach the second bomb of four when the timer hit T-minus 1:00. The Rookie leaned over her cover and shot two bursts at a Geth soldier and killed it outright. She ducked again. 0:57 left. Ash worked on the bomb, but she wasn't qualified just like the Commander. She could only think of one thing that would put out the bombs. A tactical EMP blast. Her armour could pull it off, but only with an AI, and she only had its chip.

Well, we got nothing else. She accessed the chip and pulled up its files. Oddly enough, it still had all of the functions of an AI, but it was missing the actual intelligence file. She was now holding the most powerful computer ever made, essentially. That means the EMP would work. The problem was, if she used it now, she would never be able to again. The suit only had a one time use on it, for situations like hers. Only way of survival. She brought up the arming file, and started it. 0:15. Quickly, please.

She felt a large tremor in her body, and she collapsed to the ground from a strong electrical shock. As she fell, she saw the bomb lost all lighting, and the Geth fall over, dead. Good riddance, you bastards. She hit the ground and slipped into unconsciousness.

Alright, this is my first FanFic, so here goes. Reviews would be appreciated so I can see where I inevitably mucked up. Also, I am doing the Rookie as a woman. I have read quite a few Halo/ME crossovers, and they all appear to be 1) MC goes to ME Universe, kicks living shit out of everything OR 2) UNSC vs. Turians and/or Batarians in massive steroid/testosterone fueled war. So it's nice to have a lead female character from Halo, and I really wanted to write it in the Rookie's perspective. I also wanted to write a story about Lucy, but being a Spartan, she would be damn OP in Mass Effect, even if she is an S-III. So FemRookie seemed like the perfect compromise. Hope you enjoy. If you don't, tell me how I can improve. If you do, tell me how I can improve. If there is something I don't elaborate on in the chapter that seems pretty major, it'll be explained in an upcoming one. I hope. If I remember to. Well, enjoy.