Deployment =52 hours: 15 minutes: 32 seconds ( Reformer Yayap Mission Clock)

How did he get talked into this? Yayap held onto the collector platform for dear life as it ascended the shaft. When he started taking orders from the Analyzer, he at first thought it strange the tactics he had them run over. Then he and the other unggoy began to realize that the objective of said drills were to preserve their lives as much as possible. When the Analyzer revealed himself and his intentions, he offered the squad and their brothers the chance at a better life. Most of the squad believed him and the rest just followed suite.

As it turned out, to their surprise, the sangheili was telling the truth. When they arrived aboard the Tarantula they found methane suites far more comfortable than any the Covenant had. Not to mention the respirators that were requisitioned to them were very comfortable to wear. At least until, Xel called for volunteers for an infiltration mission. All the Reformers on the ship met on the mech's hangar deck. When Xel addressed them, he talked mainly to the mgalekgolo and unggoy.

In his pearl-white armor and cape of flowing chrome, the Analyzer seemed almost ethereal. Xel explained that the Spartan Master Chief was giving them a chance to convert more of their brothers so that not all had to die. He explained that because sangheili were far from easy to convince and kig-yar were untrustworthy, no attempt should be made to convert them. Xel said it was a volunteer-only mission because it was high-risk. When he asked all the volunteers to step forward, all the mgalekgolo still in Covenant-issued armor stepped forward without hesitation. Most of the unggoy that were with the UNSC initially also stepped forward. Those that had duty manning the Tarantula, stayed in line. The new unggoy including himself gingerly stepped forward one by one.

Xel smiled like he was proud of them and ordered the new unggoy and mgalekgolo to supply. Yayap and his brothers followed the sangheili to the forward lower level of the Tarantula. The humans on duty in the supply section activated a holographic ledger for the Analyzer to sign out equipment. A device was attached to Yayap's armor. He didn't know what it was until a collector puts a couple of transparent devices into his eyes. Then he saw something on his wrist he did not see before. The veteran unggoy laughed as they explained the basics of the device they called an "infiltration omni-tool."

He was later led onto a series of platforms by the veteran unggoy, which lurched as they detached from the hangar deck and rapidly traversed the subterranean tunnels before ascending up a chasm. The veteran reformer unggoy laughed as the new guys cowered on the platform. Soon they were beneath a threshold. Yayap practically leaped off the platform. The veterans got off and began to casually began to talk to the Covenant unggoy, who stared as they climbed off the platforms. It was almost embarrassing how quickly his fellow unggoy were persuaded to turn on the Covenant… and how quickly they turned back when a sangheili major walked through the door.

The sangheili was little confused when he saw a dozen more unggoy on the ledge then when he was last there. The unggoy veterans, who had worked with the UNSC for many years, approached the sangheili with confidence. The Sangheili asked where they came from when they unleashed a series of overloads upon the sangheili, dropping his shields. The sangheili drew a plasma rifle and roared at the traitorous behavior. Another veteran decloaked behind the sangheili and used an omni-blade to slash the tendons in the back of the sangheili's legs. The major toppled to the floor, catching himself with his hands. He looked up in time to see an unggoy in front of him deploy another orange-hot omni-blade and run it up through his neck into his brain.

Yayap was shocked at how quickly and efficiently the veterans took down a sangheili and did so without so much as batting an eye. Another veteran blasted the corpse with an incineration, reducing the body to ash in seconds. The veterans proceeded through the entrance but instructed Yayap to remain behind and keep an eye on the "new recruits." He was more than happy to oblige.

Deployment =52 hours: 18 minutes: 20 seconds (Captain Jacob Keyes Mission Clock)

The Captain watched as 36 and Dr. Xaal went over the sangheili corpse with their omni-tools. It had its chest ripped open, like some feral beast had ripped into it.

"Well? What is the diagnosis?" asked the Captain.

"His heart was ruptured but not before he struggled with whatever killed him." Said 36.

"My diagnosis is the same but I have found unusual organic material both in his chest and under his fingernails. It is unlike anything I have ever seen before." Said Xaal.

"Could it be a new 'friend' of the Covenant? As I remember, they don't all get along nicely." Asked Sergeant Johnson.

"Doubtful, the Analyzer would have informed us if there were when he was still under cover." Said 36.

The samples Xaal gathered were stored into a stasis container flash-forged from Xaal's prosthetic arm. He handed the cooled container to a nearby Private.

"Catch the next Pelican back to the Pillar of Autumn Mark II and hand this to the first geth mobile platform you see and instruct him to take it to my lab." Xaal said to the Private.

The Private saluted and ran off. The Captain watched the private leave before turning back to the ancient krogan, who was being helped to feet by 36 and Sergeant Johnson.

"You called the Autumn, Mark II, why?" Asked Captain Keyes.

"When the original was brought to the shipyards for modification, I took one look at her super structure and I preceded to order her complete decommissioning. She was taken apart and melted down.. I then had her rebuilt from the ground up maintaining the original Halcyon design, which I must admit is a very sturdy design considering your limited manufacturing capabilities, why the UNSC abandoned the design I will never know. In any case, in order to support requested modifications, the Autumn Mark II required several technological mediums in order to make the hybrid ship." Said Xaal.

"So, you oversaw the shipyards, why you and not one of our own and not either the collectors not one of the White Reapers?" asked Keyes as they walked through the Forerunner structure.

"The White Reapers have built only eight ships, themselves and the three Collector cruisers, and even then they were improving on premade designs. Plus, among the collectors, they have not picked up too many shipbuilders. " Said Xaal as he stumbled along.

"So you were the best they could muster? That is not particularly comforting." Said Keyes.

"On the contrary, back in our universe he was the finest shipbuilder the galaxy never knew." Said 36.

"Huh? What do you mean?" Said Keyes.

"Before the war, Xaal was not exactly the most popular scientist in the Galaxy." Said 36.

"That's an understatement, I had a kill-on-sight standing order with about every military in the galaxy short of the Human Alliance and the Illuminated Primacy." Chuckled Xaal.

"Are you some sort of mad scientist criminal? What did you do that you had such an order on you?" Said Captain Keyes taken aback.

"Understand Captain, that my people nearly destroyed the galaxy with their aggression and numbers, so to halt the krogan advance, the central galactic government deployed the Genophage, a virus that afflicted all krogan with a reduced reproductive system. I was into my second millennia, when the Genophage was deployed. Now my people did not have too many scientists, but most of the ones we had specialized in weaponry. I was one of the few who possessed extensive experience in genetics...among other things" Explained Xaal.

"Stop your enemy through chemical warfare and kill any scientist smart enough to rectify it. Smart." Said Keyes. "How did you evade them for a millennia?"

Xaal smiled and tapped his head with his organic hand.

"Right." Said Keyes, understanding what was implied.

"By the way, I must say that you and your officers have handled the Mark II admirably. " Said Xaal as he used his omni-tool to activate a light-bridge across the room.

"Thank you. You did wonders with her Doctor." Said Keyes as he walked beside the Krogan.

"However, I would like to make a request." Said Xaal.

"What is it?" Asked Keyes suspiciously.

"I want the command of the crew of the Autumn to fall under the geth platform Solomon should the command staff be compromised." Said Xaal.

"What is wrong with Major Silva?" Asked Captain Keyes, concerned.

Xaal began , "Well for one, he cannot command a starship to save his life, second, his reluctance to effectively utilize assets because they are not human is quite ridiculous and will get people killed. Third, his experience, though great when it comes to ground forces, is severely lacking when it comes to anything that leaves the ground. Fourth…"

"All right, all right, I got it. He is not a preferable individual to take command but what makes Solomon the better option?" Asked the Captain. Distant sounds of gunfire came from the next room.

"Well for one geth communicate at the speed of light and if we have geth in UNSC equipment then you have a command structure that is literally down to Earth and aiding you every step of the way and is constantly assessing enemy fortifications and capabilities. Solomon is a collection of the most aggressive and combat-capable of the geth consensus, a capable combatant on both the ground and in space." Said Xaal while they waited for the all clear from the Marines.

"Let me get this straight: you want a series of AIs giving orders to my men and not human AIs but Xeno AIs? You do realize how ridiculous that sounds right? It is one thing to take advice from beings who can process and analyze data better than us but to take orders? You might as well ask me to defect to the Covenant." Stated the Captain.

"This is not about what race they are be they White Reaper, Reformer, or Geth. This is about the survival of the crew of the Autumn Mark II in the absence of yourself and your command staff. As they stand, the Collectors, Krogan, and Geth are here merely as an advisory and support role but know that I am grooming Solomon to be one of the captains of a new generation of intergalactic warship." Said Xaal as they continued through the next room.

"I thought the Pillar of Autumn was the new generation of warship." Said Keyes.

"Nope, the Mark II is merely a test bed for several new technologies of my own design and several experimental design concepts but back to the matter at hand, I want you to consider integrating platform Solomon temporarily into the existing chain of command." Said Xaal as he casually glanced at some of the surrounding architecture.

Captain Keyes face scrunched in thought as he considered what was asked of him.

It's not like he is asking me to step down as Captain nor replacing any of the command staff, he is just providing what he thinks is a viable alternative to the Major. But what do I know of the geth or this "Solomon?" Nothing. So I have to take the word of a xeno scientist that rivals Halsey in intelligence and probably has more secrets than her? Yet at the same time, he asked me directly when he could have easily gone behind my back and forged my authorization with the resources of the geth and the collectors. It is a gamble but at the same time should I risk the lives of my crew just to keep a human in charge?

He turned and addressed the Krogan scientist, activated his omni-tool, and entered his command codes," Very well, should the entirety of the command staff be killed or compromised, command of the Pillar of Autumn Mark II and her crew will fall to the geth platform Solomon until a suitable replacement becomes available."

The old krogan merely nodded as they continued through the forerunner architecture.

Deployment =52 hours: 45 minutes: 06 seconds ( Analyzer Xel Mat'ee Mission Clock)

Another pelican arrived, dropping armory mgalekgolo in addition to dropping additional reformers and the spartans off at the same ledge the unggoy were dispatched to earlier. The Tarantula was taking an alternate path to the control room. The Analyzer, with his pearl-colored armor and chrome colored cape, disembarked the pelican with a few more of his sangheili brethren and the Spartans. As far as the Analyzer was concerned, Master Chief petty officer 117 was in charge but as one of the four analyzers, he was entitled to offer advice as he saw fit.

The Master Chief looked as the new unggoy recruits loaded their plasma pistols and needlers into crates, which, when full, were shipped back to the Pillar of Autumn. The heavily modified cruiser was actually sitting underwater in one of Halo's bodies of water. It was a gamble by Keyes but it seemed to pay off as the Covenant had yet to find it. As for the concerns by Chief engineer Purdy, as to whether or not the ship's hull integrity would hold underwater and if they could even start up the engines after they were wet, became a moot point as kinetic barriers stayed the water's force. Interestingly enough, the cruiser had submerged right on top of an access way into halo's subterranean caverns, so pelicans and other aircraft could easily transition in and out of the cruiser without fearing discovery.

With the Pillar of Autumn secure, the collector general gave leave for two more forces to enter the fray: the geth and the krogan. The Analyzer had seen very little of either race since becoming a reformer, but he had heard about them. On the rare occasion they were deployed, the krogan had viciously smashed through Covenant lines. Their aggression balked even the sangheili but the jiralhanae just roared and charged… only to be gruesomely gunned down by graal spike throwers, originally designed to fell a terrible creature called a "Thresher maw." The Analyzer had seen projections of the creature and hoped he would never meet one.

The geth, on the other hand, were different altogether. When they had arrived with the White Reapers in one of the collector cruisers, they had struck out on their own into a dead system. While very little was heard from the synthetic race other than being one of the UNSC's primary suppliers of Eezo. The Analyzer knew the geth had the ability to make more of their own in a similar manner to the huragok, except the geth do it in seconds. The geth had not been idle during their 27 year stay. When a Covenant battle group entered their system to cut UNSC Eezo supply lines… they were not heard from again.

The Analyzer walked in silence alongside the Spartans. They were not particularly chatty nor did he have anything to say. They emerged from the passages onto a bridge. He and the Spartans looked to their right as the Tarantula climbed over the edge and down to the icy chasm floor. Its hydraulics could be heard hissing as it stretched its legs and its feet dug into the walls.

He suddenly heard the familiar sound of a plasma sword activating. He turned left towards the sound to see the sword in question running towards him with its handler nowhere in sight. He sent an overload from his left hand omni-tool. He pulled his omni-pike off his back and extended it. His neural interface communicated to the pike to activate its closed-scythe plasma blade. He brought it up just as the other blade came down, creating a burst of electrical energy as the two containment fields collided. The overload did its work as the cloak around the sangheili dropped, revealing the golden armor of a zealot.

"Traitor!" spat the sangheili zealot in their home tongue as his eyes burned with hatred and betrayal. The Analyzer sized up the other Sangheili while he noted that the Spartans held their weapons at the ready in a circle around them. The zealot was shorter than him and though their builds seemed to be relatively the same, the Analyzer knew that due to his augmentations he was stronger than any sangheili. When the zealot leapt backwards, the Analyzer rapidly closed the gap, delivering a swift uppercut to the zealot's chin. The zealot's eyes rolled up into his head as he fell to the ground unconscious.

Xel deactivated, compacted, and restowed his omni-scythe onto his back as he withdrew the Szn'ftel uploading device.

"Uh… Analyzer? Is that absolutely necessary?" asked Jorge as he threw his Geth Switchammer over his shoulder.

"As you recall from Reach, Spartan 052, zealots are usually dispatched to retrieve Forerunner artifacts. He will likely have information on this canyon, what forces we are to expect, and maybe the specific location of the control room. All this information is recent so I do not have to perform a complete extraction." Said the Analyzer as he attached the device to the zealots head.

"How will this affect him?" Asked the Master Chief.

"It will erase his short term memory but he will be relatively fine, other than the hole in his skull. Anything more extensive would render him to a vegetative state or dead." There was a drilling sound heard as the Analyzer attached the cable to the implant in the back of his neck. The zealot spasmed a little bit then went still.

The Analyzer stood up and activated his omni-tool.

"General, request the deployment of seeker swarms towards the following coordinates." Said the Analyzer to the Collector general, who was in the control room of the tarantula below.

"Request granted." Replied the General. Throughout the valley, swarms of the mechanical insects swarmed from their storage packs towards the designated area. The Tarantula stopped on the chasm floor and lowered its abdomen to deploy Grizzlies, Warthogs, and a heavily modified version of the Covenant ghost.

The Analyzer picked up the zealot's inactive plasma sword and placed it adjacent to his omni-pike where a purple omni-app seized it and began to drain it of its remaining plasma. The Analyzer checked his Omni-tool as the swarms clarified the topography and several sizes of red dots representing enemy positions appeared on the three-dimensional display. He looked from the display to the Spartans, whom, to his surprise, were jumping over the side of the bridge. He stood up and looked over the side, to watch them all activate their built-in jet-packs before landing on and adjacent to the stationary Tarantula.

I may be a servant of the White Reapers but I am still a Sangheili and I will not be outdone. Xel gave his equivalent of a smile as he too leaped over the edge. Like he was taught those many years ago, Xel visualized the complex equations that included when he would have to activate his 'gift.' He brought his hands to his sides and braced himself as his limbs coursed with dark energy. He sent a series of mass effect pulses through cone-shaped barriers in the shape of rocket nozzles. It slowed his descent, in a manner that was no doubt flashy, especially with his cape flapping through the air.

Once he reached the bottom, he overheard the Master Chief explaining biotics to Jorge, who, due to his time with noble team, was not deployed with collectors or reformers and thus did not know much about them. The abdomen section of the Tarantula was on the ground and countless vehicles were spilling out of their back end. Some of which were combinations of UNSC and Covenant vehicles, courtesy of the huragok. There was a Grizzly with Wraith boosted gravity propulsion pods instead of tank treads, newly dubbed a Poltergeist. The treads were turned into individual vehicles with components obviously derived from Ghosts, they were given the name Fleas. There was even a Warthog with a heavy plasma mortar supported with dual tank pods instead of the normal tires in the rear, called a Roach.

The Spartans mounted up while the collectors took to the skies. The Tarantula stood up once more and began to plod forwards. Once it cleared enough area, a pod landed behind it. It opened up to reveal a pair of blocky vehicles barely able to squeeze inside: Krogan transport trucks, Tomkahs. They rolled out and the pod rapidly departed as another landed in its place, deploying two more. The Analyzer jumped and grabbed onto the side of a regular Grizzly as it drove by. The vehicle leaped over the small ledge, landed and slid on the ice before finding purchase and moving forward. The Tarantula angled around the corner as it followed over the convoy.

The little area it led to split to a continuation of the ravine and a sizable cave. All the vehicles say for the Tomkahs went into the caves. The trip through the caves was short as they emerged, guns blazing, to a large area filled with Covenant defenses and Wraiths. The air was filled with plasma and mass accelerator rounds. The allied forces surged over the Covenant forces… until a shadow was cast over the area. The Analyzer looked up to see something he had only heard about when he was in the Covenant … a Super Scarab leering down on them.

Like a great eye, it head opened up and fired its plasma projector right at the Tarantula's control room. The collectors fell from the sky. The Analyzer suddenly realized that the Super Scarab had taken out the Collector General and with him the Collector Communication Network he maintained.

Fleas- Built from tank pods and ghost components, these high-speed vehicles can carry two passengers in a similar manner to the mongoose except the driver can fire a pair plasma cannons and a couple of rocket launchers with VI targeting systems. While its main propulsion is derived from the tread, the vehicle has the ability to use mass effect fields to leap high into the air, often to the surprise of their enemies.

Roachs- A rapid response heavy-hitter, this vehicle bears only the faintest of resemblance to its original warthog form. Taking to tread pods from Grizzly tanks and installing them in the place of the rear wheels, this vehicle has the ability to support heavy weapons such as plasma mortars from Wraiths or a 155mm mass accelerator cannon, controlled from the passenger's seat. Plus, with the addition of a vertically-aligned eezo core the vehicle can climb near-vertical cliff faces in a similar manner to the M35 Mako from the Mass Effect universe.

Due to its ablative armor, originally designed by the asari in the WR home universe for starships and cataloged by Enigma's collectors, this vehicle garns a reputation for being nearly indestructible.

Poltergeists- Modified from the M850 Grizzly, this vehicle has swapped its tread pods for four gravity propulsion pods taken from Wraiths giving the vehicle uncanny speed for its size. When the huragok were asked if they could equip a vehicle the size of a Grizzly with a personal cloak… needless to say they jumped at the challenge. The vehicle is also equipped with a smaller version of Eldim Xaal's Shiagur Cannon while significantly reduced in scale and power, its devastation is without par with the exception of the Tarantula's mass accelerator cannon and the Scarab's plasma cannon.

Combined with its cloak and its devastating weapon the Poltergeist quickly garners a reputation for destructive chaos in enemy ranks especially with its ability to attack and disappear. The vehicles only limitations are its power supply, which can support the hover pods for about six hours, and the 15 min it can sustain its cloak before needing to deactivate it and vent its heat sinks.

Combination geth Spitfire/ Pulse cannon "Switchammer"- Due to the variety of enemies in the Covenant military, the geth combined the armature pulse cannon with the Spitfire to create a versatile heavy weapon that switches between auto fire and single heavy siege pulses. While a limited number of the weapons have been produced, they have proven to be devastatingly effective. They have been dispersed among the geth primes, krogan heavy weapons specialists, and Spartans.