A/N; So I decided to try my hand at a real ME/Halo cross, so tell me what you think people, is it good enough?
Uncharted space- 40 light years away from Harvest remains of the UNSC Lowrentz, March 4th2586
The UNSC Lowrentz was a ship of the line during her heyday; she was a powerful UNSC Destroyer that could give just about any other ship in the Human arsenal a run for their money, unfortunately when compared to a Covenant Battleship she might as well have been a single ship for the damage she had dealt. She had been hit by a Covenant plasma weapon during Cole's last attempt to win the battle… which he did and the unlucky crew of the Lowrentz never got to see the first Covenant ship out of over three hundred to fall to Cole's tactical genius, instead they died in the cold vacuum of space over a planet they thought immune to war, which seemed to plague humanity wherever it went, they were killed by an alien they had never seen before or even knew existed until that day
XX
Uncharted space-Asari Republic Exploration Vessel Goddess Sunrise- 2153 Citadel Standard
Inside the cavernous CIC of the Goddess Sunrise, Captain Asri N'lorik was pacing, they were still around forty light years away from the nearest star system, that meant almost three weeks travel by conventional FTL travel, her crew had already been going for over a month and they were getting bored, it was one of many down sides to a deep space expedition, having nothing to do while in FTL for extended periods of time.
A deep space expedition held many dangers but none was more pressing than the build-up of heat and static electric energy and with no planets to discharge the Mass Effect core nearby the designers of the Goddess Sunrise had to get creative. The Sunrise was only as big as a standard Citadel Frigate, but it had no weapon systems, instead the space was used for food and water storage, it even towed along a large container full of supplies. To overcome the heat build-up several huge heat sinks were installed near the core and were cooled by a new Salarian coolant system, the Static build-up however is trapped in an artificial electromagnetic field in a capsule behind the storage container and extra fuel tanks.
Asri was about to leave the bridge for her quarters when the NAV officer called out to her,
"Captain, I'm picking up a large object on the long range scanners directly in our path." Andrios K'Sana informed Asri,
"Well then drop out and get us on a path to the system without something in our way," Asri snapped at the younger Asari Maiden, Asri hadn't meant to snap like that but the long trip was taking its toll, even for a patient and 'wise' Asari Matron.
Soon after the Sunrise dropped out of FTL with a slight shudder, 'strange transition out of FTL is usually seamless' Asri thought to herself,
"Ma'am, multiple objects have struck the hull… but there hasn't been any reported damage," sensor operator Valavi T'Lona reported, "Uhh… Ma'am? The object… it's artificial," Valavi added after the initial scans had come back,
"Artificial? Like a Ship?" Asri asked, intrigued now, Valavi nodded and pulled up an image of the object, perhaps the trip would be more interesting than originally thought.
The image showed an object around the size of a cruiser, its hull was a dark grey with patches of white, Asri assumed it was part of the language used by the creators of the ship, its rear end had been melted and had sheared off, following the wreckage on its path through the empty void of space, several other holes in the hull seemed to indicate that it been struck by several shots of what ever had disabled it. The halo of debris around the ship was made up of stray pieces of metal and small chunks of the ship, it was then that Asri realised what had impacted the Sunrises' hull… bodies and debris that had been thrown ahead of the main wreck, her ship had literally ploughed through a grave yard.
Blocks of ice had started to form at the front of the boxy grey vessel, it clung to the AAA Helix turrets that dotted it hull, leaving it looking like it came out of a snow storm.
"Run a scan on that ship, I want to know everything there is to know about it, now!" Asri ordered, and the bridge crew immediately set to work, after nearly an hour of scans and analysis the data was sent to Valavi on sensors,
"Scans show the hull is some sort of Titanium alloy, stronger than anything currently used in current council ship designs, armament consists of one large Dreadnought sized cannon, several missile pods and a projectile based triple-A system. Internal layout scans were mostly blocked by the intact armour and ice build-up but I think we've located the bridge of the vessel." Valavi reported, she took a quick breath and carried on, "The entire rear end of the vessel is either in the orbiting debris field or has been turned into molten slag along with whatever powered it, there isn't a single trace of eezo on board but I think it's been drifting for too long… leaving any eezo trace behind and as for its age… we think its roughly eighty years old based on the ice build-up and debris spread,"
Asri pondered this for a moment, perhaps some of the computer systems were still operational but without power, maybe they could find out what had happened to it, although the lack of any trace of eezo worried her slightly.
"Get a team ready, I want a team on board that wreck ASAP to try and recover anything from its data banks." Asri ordered.
XX
Manchester Greater Industrial Complex-Apartment building A315- Residence of Philip Walters-Earth-Sol System Thursday February 23rd 2586 Military Calendar
2nd Lieutenant Philip Walters was awakened from his peaceful slumber by his personal comm pad, someone was trying to get hold of him and it was letting him know, loudly, why someone thought that calling him in the middle of his shore leave was a good idea he didn't know. Quickly grabbing the offending device he tapped the screen and the face of his Commanding Officer greeted him, even while still in bed, and in the buff none the less, he saluted while still lying down and his cheeks instantly burned red, after all he was technically naked in front of his CO and saluting while still in bed.
Even though being in the Navy or military in general one gets rid of personal issues like being naked around one another, his problem stemmed from the fact that his CO was incredibly attractive and he had some sort of crush on her, what was worse was that she knew it as well.
"Saluting in bed Lieutenant? I'm sure you're not the only one that's saluting right now," she started and his cheeks flushed brighter, giving her the answer, "But onto a more serious matter im here to inform you that shore leave is being cut short, you're to be back on the Gorgon by 0700 hours on the 3rd, CENTCOM has a lovely mission for us, enjoy the rest of your leave Lieutenant, Jones out." Lieutenant Commander Katlin Jones finished before her face disappeared from his comm pad.
He let out a loud groan and looked at his watch before groaning again, he was to meet up with an old school friend at one O'clock and it was already half past twelve he still had to get up and shower before heading to meet his old friend.
'I am never ever drinking that much again.' He thought to himself, the he didn't get particularly drunk but he had an annoyingly high alcohol tolerance, meaning more damage was done to his wallet than his memory of the previous night.
XX
UNSC Officers quarters- UNSC Dry dock-Liverpool ship building yard-Sol System February 23rd 2586
Recently promoted Commander Katlin Jones sighed; she had just finished informing the last of her crew about the cutting of their shore leave, most of them were pissed at the news, especially those that had a family or partners. But she had been given the orders by Lord Hood himself and they were indeed interesting orders, she and her crew were to scout out the 'Glasslands' for any outer colony that may have been left untouched or was at the very least able to be re-terraformed.
The brass was having them sent out as soon as possible, which was the 3rd of March, leaving a little over a week of shore leave left out of the four more they were promised, the worst thing about the mission was the ships that would be under her command, all three of which were as old if not older than MAC technology, hell the Jericho and Petra were old warships that should have been decommissioned five decades ago, but instead they were used as training ships during the war and then now after some refits they were being used as border patrol, just like they had been many, many years ago, during the Callisto incident in 2494, nearly a century ago, hell the Gorgon had been reclassified as a light Frigate and the Jericho and Petra were considered Corvettes when they had all been considered Destroyers when they were built.
The two ships, Jericho and Petra didn't even have a MAC gun, but they had been given some fairly standard shields and lot better armour along with an overhaul to the computer systems and missile silos which had been turned into Archer missile pods and some mass drivers to give them at least some teeth to bite with.
The three ships were so old in fact that they still had spinning sections for artificial gravity and they still had rubber floors, none of the shiny new decks and gravity plates the newer line of war ship used. The entire scouting mission was under the Command of Rear Admiral Jack Newman on board the Marathon-II Class Cruiser Ripper.
The Gorgon, Petra and Jericho were to scout out several systems starting with the Eridanus system and Eridanus II, they were also ordered to check out the asteroid belt near the heart of the system for any form of rebel survivors, the report form the Spartan-II seemed to indicate that they were killed by Covenant forces after Admiral Whitcomb left the system, leaving the rebels to their fate.
XX
Uncharted Space-Inside the wreckage-Hallway Alpha 7- Fourth deck- Near Hull Breach-2153 Citadel Standard
The team had just boarded the wreckage, some scattered debris floated around the otherwise empty hallway, small bits of ice had started to clump together at the corners where the wall met the floor, or roof. Ashona Fera landed with a small thump on the rubber floor of the hallway, the rubber floor mean that the teams magnetic boots wouldn't stick, leaving them floating in the deserted, empty and downright creepy hallway.
The only light source for the team was either from the shuttle that had just dropped them off or from their own personal Omni-tools in built torch (flashlight), illuminating the dull frosted grey metal in small patched before it got swallowed by the darkness as the light moved.
"Sunrise this Tia, we are currently inside the wreck and are about to continue further into the ship, do you copy?" Tia A'reena, the team leader reported,
"We…hea…ou…a…'re brea…p…" the comm burst into static, leaving the team all alone in the foreboding hallway,
"Great, looks like we're on our own for now," Tia said although it was unneeded, they had already figured it out for themselves.
Tia slowly made her way forward before the rest of the team followed, they were careful to keep each other lit up, not allowing them to get plunged into the horrible suffocating darkness that surrounded them, to Ashona it was one of the creepiest and most terrifying moments in her hundred and thirty year life
The team came across a door; a large heavy metal door with several heavy locking mechanisms visible on its surface, a small manual console was on the wall next to it, covered in a thin layer of ice which Ashona quickly brushed away revealing a device embedded into the wall that was no bigger than her Omni-tool display, it was just a blank dark screen and without any form of power it was more than likely going to stay that way,
"Tia, I've found a console for the door, but it doesn't have any power," Ashona reported, "I might be able to hook up one of the portable generators to it and power it up but it'll take some time splicing into the alien system," Tia seemed to ponder this momentarily before agreeing,
"Do it, but don't take too long, even I can't breathe in vacuum," Tia told her in the deep voice that was common among Asari whose 'father' was a Krogan, Ashona quickly got to work but was difficult in the lack of gravity or without her magnetic boots.
It took about twenty minutes before she could even get the generator connected to the door, the power cables that lined the walls of the ship were meant to handle a whole lot more power than the generators could provide, and then there was the automated protocols that had tried to use that little amount of power for something else.
By the time Ashona had finally gotten the door open, nearly a third of their oxygen had been used up and when the door did open the team was left breathless.
Whereas the hallway section they had entered in had been devoid of just about anything the corridor beyond the door however wasn't. The team' lights illuminated the hallway in front of them and Ashona nearly threw up in her helmet, parts of the original crew were floating lazily along with some whole bodies, but the poor souls had been exposed to the cold, harsh, unforgiving darkness of the vacuum, leaving the bodies flash frozen and in pieces after the sudden and violent change in pressure, some had gotten what appeared to be breathing apparatus but had suffocated or had frozen to death.
There was probably only around four or five crew members but all the frozen innards from the ones that had died from the change in pressure made it look like a lot more,
"Eumenia, Siani take one of the intact bodies back to the shuttle and tell them to take it back to the Sunrise so the biologists can go crazy," Tia ordered and the T'Nair sisters got straight to work,
Weaving in and out between the bodies they managed to get to the next door on their path towards the vessels bridge, and Ashona once again got to work on opening it, this time however was much faster than the first and by the time she was done the T'Nair sister re-joined the team at the door.
The path to the bridge was excruciatingly long as they were hindered by the heavy metal doors nearly every dozen meters, sometimes it was longer than that but it was still slow going, although they had collected several interesting objects that had been floating around like a small data tablet and what Ashona had guessed were personal items of crew members they kept passing, Tessa Jianni had muttered several prayers for the deceased members of the ships original crew, hoping they found peace in whatever afterlife they believed in, if any.
They had just returned to the shuttle, which had returned after dropping off the body on the Sunrise to change out their oxygen tanks and get some rest before they carried on, they were tired after several hours of zero-g work and weaving in and out of the frozen, dead crew. Even Tia was exhausted, it didn't help that there was absolutely no lights in hat wreck except the ones they took with them. The Captain of the Sunrise had told them that they were to get back on that wreck as soon as they were rested, and then told them they had done a good job so far.
After several hours rest the team headed back into the wreckage, and head straight back to where they left off, they were just outside the bridge waiting on Ashona to get the last door open, which she promptly did, it had been a lot harder to get open then the rest simply because it was the door to the bridge, she would have been surprised if it hadn't been harder to crack. When it did open however they were once again rendered speechless.
XX
UNSC Gorgon Bridge-UNSC Dry Dock-Liverpool Ship Building Complex-0900hrs March 3rd 2586
Lieutenant Commander Tristan Davis had been appointed as the XO of the Gorgon by Admiral Newman after the Commander's promotion and he was currently stood right behind Walters back, breathing down his neck while Philip tried to make sure all the weapons and shield systems were green, but it was near impossible with Davis' fish scented breath next to his ear, 'Why does he have to be close?' Philip silently wondered to himself, it didn't help his breath smelled of fish which was making him gag with every breath Philip took.
Davis finally moved away and did the same to 2nd Lieutenant Pangilinan on the NAV station, the Ensigns had practically shrunk in their seats when he came near and then sprung back up as soon as he was gone.
Just as the final checks were being completed Commander Jones walked into the bridge and the entire bridge crew sat even straighter but didn't stop what they were doing,
"All systems are green and ready to go for lift off Ma'am," Davis reported, even his voice was irritating, it sounded like it was coming out of his nose more than his mouth,
"Good, Nav make sure we're clear to leave the docks and then get us into orbit and fall into position with the Jericho and Petra" Jones ordered, her voice sounded like an angels when compared to the XO's, or was that just him? She hadn't even taken her seat in the Command chair.
2nd Lieutenant Pangilinan or AJ as he was called by the rest of the bridge crew set to work on the assigned tasks while Lieutenant Owens was going on about some of the new refits to the Gorgon, while they weren't excessive they were noticeable, certainly to Philip as one of the upgrades was the improved Comm and sensor systems and some new duel turret mass driver cannons had been added, unfortunately whoever oversaw the overhaul didn't see fit to install some more modern reactors, this meant that he could only ever have the MAC and shield working or the Mass driver turrets and shield working, not both and even then the recharge for the MAC was slower than normal and the shields took several minutes to warm up before activating.
Of course he made his concerns known and the Commander told him, 'it will be fine, what are the chances of anything attacking us out there?' he had gone to reply with the odds but she cut him off,
"It was a rhetorical question Lieutenant," she told him, he rolled his eyes and went back to calibrating the guns, it was probably all he would do during the entire mission,
"We're clear to leave the docks Ma'am," AJ reported, "keying engine start-up sequence…now." He finished as the massive engine cone on the back flared a brilliant blue, the gigantic engines propelled the light Frigate up into the air and then orbit, Philip could see the massive orbital defence platforms and part of the Home Fleet, and of course the largest ship in the UNSC Navy, the Infinity, last he'd heard the Infinity was on some sort of super-secret mission near the edge of UNSC space.
The Petra and Jericho were waiting for them near Luna's orbit and as soon as the Gorgon was in position the Commander opened an Alpha Fleet comm channel and informed the Petra and Jericho that they were to commence the jump on her go which she gave at roughly 1000hrs, the three ships entered the eleventh dimension and sped on their way to system abandoned by the UNSC fifty six years ago.
XX
Uncharted Space-Inside the wreckage-Bridge-2153 Citadel Standard
Ashona and the rest of the team had set up multiple generators to supply power to the bridge consoles after they had moved the bodies out the way, the body in a chair at the centre of the bridge had a more decorated uniform, probably signifying that it was the Commanding Officer of the vessel, that being had commanded a very powerful vessel was it some sort hero to their people or was this just one of many ships like this in this peoples Navy?
Once all the power generators had been connected the bridge lit up, dozens of consoles lit up and a red emergency light doused the cavernous room a dark crimson, it was incredible the bridge seemed to be fully operational, and the view from the three super-strengthened glass windows at the front of the bridge was breath taking, Ashona could see the large white strip of the galaxy and it was magnificent.
They had already started to download any information from the ships logs and data library but it was slow, very slow, there must have been at least a dozen terabits per subject, unfortunately most of the data seemed to have been corrupted during the many years of drifting and degradation to all the systems.
She pulled up several files; all of it was in the written language that the aliens used as well as multiple long and complicated sets of symbols and lines, if she were to guess she would have said they were equations but for what she had no idea. The equations she was looking at were in fact partially completed Shaw multi-variant calculus Slip-Space navigational input parameters, another file was a letter that was to be sent to the crewman's wife after the battle and another was a text only file- a book that was being read by one of the bridge crew during the few hours of down time.
The data transfer took longer than initially thought but it was eventually completed and all the scrap data was dumped, there was no point in blocking up the Sunrise's memory banks with useless corrupted files.
The team was soon back on the Goddess Sunrise where a team of Xenoscientists took any more of the items the team had recovered from the wreck for study, hopefully they would come up with a basic translation of the text soon.
Asri had contacted the Matriarch Council on Thessia who in turn notified the Citadel Council of the findings, they were to head back to the Citadel, on the way they were to try to translate and decipher as much as possible.
So the Goddess Sunrise turned about, her engines flared and propelled it forward, back the way she came, the multiple objects that she towed slowly aligned themselves again before with small wink and a blue shift she zoomed into FTL.
XX
UNSC Gorgon-Slip-Space near the Eridanus System-0437hrs Tuesday April 4th 2586
Philip Walters was quietly singing an old twenty first century song to himself, using his hands on his console as if it were a drum while waiting for his station to finish yet another calibration, the rest of the bridge crew were busy on their own stations even though it was still at least a day or two before they were scheduled arrival.
So it came to a bit of a shock to every one when the Gorgon shuddered and entered real space along with the Jericho and Petra,
"Report!" Commander Jones ordered and Owens started giving out the details,
"Looks like an 'eddy' got us; we dropped out at the edge of the system, ten million kilometres from our destination, I'm picking up five contacts on the long range scanners, too far away for any detail though," Owens reported as she took in the information displayed on her console,
"Get us closer to those contacts, I want to know who we're dealing with here, Weapons, raise shields and prep the MAC gun, I don't want to be caught with our pants down," Philip immediately set to work on getting the shields online but the generators weren't having it and the shields stayed down, the MAC gun did however start to charge as the Gorgon rumbled slightly as the main engines kicked in.
"Sir, shields aren't responsive, the reactors won't spare the power!" he called out,
"Dammit, Comm tell someone in engineering to get the reactors to spare the power for the shields," Jones barked,
"Contacts are gone…Wait five contacts three thousand clicks ahead of us… INCOMING!" Owens yelled, Jones cursed and opened a ship wide comm,
"ALL HANDS BRACE! BRACE!" Jones yelled before several shots impacted the two meter thick armour causing multiple hull breaches and shoving the multi-thousand ton Light Frigate off course, the air around Philip condensed into fog before explosive decompression blasted the air out of the bridge, the force of the decompression flew Philip into his console knocking him unconscious.
So was it good? Review and what not if you liked it.