Hello FanFiction! This is my first story, so please do not flame. Constructive criticism is appreciated though!

Disclaimer: I do not own Mass Effect or Halo. Those belong to Bioware and 343, respectively.

UNSC Forward Unto Dawn

2554 A.D, UNSC Calendar

Unknown Coordinates

Cortana, for the 9,238th time, ran diagnostics on the Forward Unto Dawn. Once again, the hull had slightly more damage than the last hundred diagnostics. Still missing most of the ship. Power for the cryotube still there. Sensors still not picking up anything. The distress call still played over and over.

Sighing, Cortana dismissed the diagnostic, forced to think until she would run her next diagnostic (which, for an AI, is a long time). For over a year, she had been doing the same routine. Run diagnostic, fix any problems that she could, think about life, repeat. The only thing other thing she could do is calculate pi.

She looked at the cryotube longingly, wishing she could hear John's voice again. Wishing that rescue of some kind would come. Hell, even a Covenant fleet would cheer would be better than thinking herself to death. She quickly dismissed that thought, knowing what a hostile fleet would do to the ship.

An alarm went off in her head when she detected a single object entering the system, heading directly towards the Dawn. She directed all her attention to the unknown object, which had started scanning the system. The unmanned probe sent some sort of signal out, simply continuing on it's course. It would have crashed into the Dawn had the debris from the Dawn over the years not smashed into it first, reducing it to a heap of scrap metal.

Cortana groaned, flustered that the probe only had programming to scan the system and continue and coordinates of where to sent a message to. No manufacturer, no organization, no ID. She sighed again, looking to Chief. A small smile graced her "lips". This day had gotten much more interesting.

Normandy SR-2

2185 CE

On route to unknown system, ETA 15 minutes

Shepard walked through the CIC, moving confidently towards the bridge. Over a week ago, he had gotten a message directly from the Illusive Man. One of his unmanned probes had detected something in the far reached of the galaxy. While to probe was destroyed, it had managed to detect a single life sign and a ship of unknown origin. One of Human make.

This alone was enough to peak his curiosity. First the Collectors attack Horizon. Now an unknown ship? While it was likely to be a coincidence, he wasn't taking the chance. Arriving on the bridge, he spotted Joker talking to EDI. "Unknown Human ship, huh? Sounds a bit far fetched to me." Joker said, A huge grin on his face, "Probe probably malfunctioned."

"Cerberus probes are made with the best equipment known to man, Mr. Moreau. The chance of one malfunctioning is astronomical." EDI replied, causing Shepard to grin.

"Joker, how much longer until we reach our destination?" he asked, snapping Joker out of his conversation with EDI. "ETA 5 minutes commander. Would have been here in less than half the time if we could use the Relays." Was Joker's reply, "and before you say anything, let me just say that the chances of us finding a new Rachni is... really, really tiny!"

"Expect the unexpected, Joker. We've already met a living Rachni Queen, killed one of millions of machines hellbent on killing us all, and discovered that a race of bugs are kidnapping humans from colonies in the Terminus Systems on orders from said homicidal machines. Overall, this isn't all that strange."

Joker just shrugged, turning back to his console. "Well, whatever waits for us in this distant part of the galaxy, we're about to find out. ETA is 30 seconds." Shepard nodded to this, staring intently out of the cockpit. 10 seconds... 8 seconds... 4... 3... 2... 1...

The ship lurched out of FTL at the far end of the system, about 10 kilometers away from their unknown contact. Well... half of it. Only the aft half of the ship remained, which was about 200 meters long. The boxy vessel's remnants were scorched and beaten, explaining the debris surrounding the ship. Shepard frowned. Whatever had done this was not something he wanted to meet any time soon.

"EDI, scan the ship. I want to know everything we can." He said, "See if you can hack into their systems while your at it. Get it's origin."

"Acknowledged Shepard." EDI responded, "I will begin immediately." Shepard nodded, exiting the cockpit and heading for the armory. "Zaeed, Garrus. Report to the hangar in 30." He said over the coms, "Your coming with me to the unknown vessel." Said crew members gave their acknowledgment. Shepard, nearly finished equipping himself, could only smile. They were prepared for whatever was on that ship. Hopefully, they wouldn't need to be.

Cortana had been preparing for over a week. Firewalls were in place. Any doors that could be closed were sealed shut. The only thing she couldn't be prepared for was how strange the Human ship was. It was smooth, sleek and graceful as opposed to the UNSC's boxy ships. She could only hope it wasn't a new ship from some remnant of the Insurrectionists.

Suddenly, she felt something enter the ship's systems. Something intelligent. An AI. It attempted to bypass her firewalls immediately upon accessing the system. Her firewalls held steady, even as the AI tried every method in the book to bypass them. She knew it would get through eventually, but it wasn't as good as a UNSC smart AI. Once it got pass a few of them, she could box it in and attempt to counter hack it's systems.

While she could handle a simple AI, she was worried about something else. The shuttle that had been deployed from the Normandy (at least she could see the name of their ship) was inbound. They were more likely to get through. And if they were hostile...

She only had one option. She needed him. He could combat them much better than she could. It was time. He needed to wake up. Thus, she finally said the words she had wanted to say for years. The three words she had longed to hear.

"Wake up, John."

Short Chapter, I know. I plan on making longer ones in the future. Next one is gonna be short as well... but after than I plan to make longer ones after that. Anyways, if you're wondering, Shepard has the default look. He comes from a Colonist/War Hero background and is a Vanguard. He chose to save the council, Kaiden died on Virmire, and had not romance in ME1.

Sizes of Halo ships are coming from the Halo Wiki. I like to ensure that I get as many details correct as possible. Now that this is done... I'm gonna play Pokemon Y for about an hour. Been playing nonstop since I got it. Kinda like when I first got Skyrim...

Enjoy this chapter? Follow and Favorite! Then you know when I update. Please, leave some advice. I could use it.

Edit: Made some minor changes to the chapter.