Audax Novus

Chapter Twenty-One:: The Exchange of Times ::

EDS (Earth Dating system) – September 10, 2185
Planet: N/A
Stellar Orbit: Harsa, G-Class star – Relay orbit, Kites Nest

While John was without question the leader of the stratified and militarised people of Praetoria, it had become quickly apparent the Miranda was the rightful commander of Praetoria's first warship.

The crew of the Rubicon were drawn from the First Battalion. Each was handpicked after showing that they had both shipboard crew experience and aptitude for any tasks required on a ship.

One element that differed significantly in the Praetorian built Halberd-class destroyer from the UNSC originals was the inclusion of Geth inspired maintenance drones.

It was not Geth runtimes that controlled the drones, but a series of fragmented versions of Deja, making the ship run on what would normally be considered a skeleton crew.

The only decks occupied were the Bridge, the Hanger, Engineering, Medical, and MAC control, if the vital weapon had a malfunction that required an organic touch to mend.

But where the Spartan commanded the crew in general, they all seemed to look to Miranda with a particular assuredness that told him they saw her as their leader in shipboard circumstances.

How she had worn her emotion after the loss of their Rangers' on Eden Prime was the factor that truly earned the loyalty of their troops. A loyalty above and beyond the commitment that already had to her through discipline and respect.

Despite her best efforts to paste strength and poise over her anger and dismay at losing the soldiers to the asinine plan of Shepard's three company invasion of a heavily occupied world, her anger had slipped through in how she expressed ideas to the Rangers' and crew.

She remained poised, as always, but the occasional word had shown how she had felt with her stressing the importance of covering one another, following correct chains of command, and their allegiance and duty was to Praetorians' before it was to any other peoples.

John glanced sideways at her, his helmet tucked under his left arm to keep his face revealed so that the Bridge crew could connect with him more easily. Miranda was standing in front of the command chair – her command chair - with her own golden visored helmet magnetically fixed to the side of the chair.

Despite the armour covering her in all areas except her abdominals, John could see that she was holding herself taut in anticipation. With her hair tied back into a ponytail that pulled her forehead tightly, she wore a face that was prepared for combat, but she didn't look fearful or uncertain.

"Hm," John grunted quietly and nodded subtly.

Miranda increasingly became the leader that she professed to want to be, which led him more and more to become the leader he would need to be in this universe.

Praetoria was essentially growing by the day with the slow influx of Omega residents being converted to Praetorian citizens through service and re-education, and upskilling. Each briefing became more manageable as his soldiers became more experienced and professional.

Still, more civilian-themed topics showed up on his radar, making him flex his ability to empathise with the decidedly not military-minded individuals.

"Status on jamming drones?"

Her voice was not hot, but it was demanding - without sounding unreasonable.

"Formation complete, Sir!" Felentia's cerulean blue tentacled crest clenched and twisted ever so slightly as she answered Miranda almost immediately.

"Status on the fusion bombs?"

"Wait one..." Felentia answered. She stooped over her station, one of two immediately in front of Miranda's command chair - the closest seats to the forward viewscreen of the Bridge. "Deployment team says they're taking it slow to not trigger any sensors... They say that they've decided to weld the bombs on- Ahh- They say that they decided not to risk a magnetic fix triggering any subsystems."

Miranda showed a moment of uncertainty, glancing sideways at John. The look of question drew up a tight smile unbidden to his lips, along with a question about what the emotion meant, which he instantly tucked away for later examination. He opted to simply nod, and Miranda looked forward again.

"And status of the Reaper fleet?"

"Low powered scanning isn't giving us as much as we could get... Sir." Felentia admitted hesitantly with a slight shake of her head. "We can only detect ships not blocked by orbital bodies. But, if their fleet density is the same on the other side of the planet, then there are well over a million enemy craft in the system."

"What about the ones on approach?"

"They aren't increasing their velocity-" Felentia hesitated, then snorted a derisive laugh, "-Hnnph, they obviously don't think we're any threat... They know that we're here. Still getting pings every few seconds."

"They are very persistent!" Deja announced over the comms, laughter in her voice. "Like gnats... Or digital sand flies? I feel like I'm slapping one-off, after another."

Miranda nodded, glancing briefly sideways at John again with her lips pursed and her eyes narrowed, but otherwise continuing to look poised and calm, despite her physical tension. "I'm assuming they've been attempting to gain access to the Kilimanjaro? Or the other ships?"

Deja emerged from a holographic pedestal to the right of Miranda's chair with her hands clasped over her navel, her dress flowing as though in a breeze as she nodded. "Their cyber-warfare technology is quite unsophisticated, considering that they are an AI species... I would extrapolate that their usual ability to physically dominate battlespaces has left them with no requirement to improve their cyber warfare capabilities."

"Can you hack into any of them, Deja?"

Miranda and the AI both looked at John for his question; Miranda pursing her lips again and Deja nodding. "I likely can, but given that I am still your only functional AI, and such a rudimentary one at that, I don't think that's worth the risk. If I fail, then that could leave you exposed."

"Understood."

Miranda nodded along with Johns grunted answer and turned her eyes forward, and the Bridge fell back into the quiet routine for the next hour. Every five minutes, Miranda requested the status of their drones, the MAC, the reactor, the rest of the fleet, the progress of their fusion bomb deployment, and the progress of the approaching Reapers.

"The bombs are fixed on, Colonel. Dr Hales reports that the laser sensor systems on them are functional. She just needs us to take a reading on the energy signatures of the Reapers primary weapons."

"Here we go...." Miranda declared quietly to herself. She pressed her lips into a thin line, suppressing their usual plumpness and nodding to herself. "You're in command here, Lawson," She added, loud enough only for John's keen ears to hear. "No mistakes, no hesitation. Perfection, perfection, perfection. Bloody perfection." She chanted quietly to herself with another firm nod.

"Order the fleet to fire all torpedos and missiles and slave them to our targeting arrays. Have all of the dreadnoughts charge their accelerators twenty percent over usual capacity, send their targeting data to secondary tactical." Miranda ordered tersely, then tapped quickly on the terminal on her left wrist to connect to the internship communications.
"Kilimanjaro, target your MAC on the Reaper on the left of the formation. We're targeting the one on the right."

"Confirmed."

"MAC going hot," Nagata declared in his Japanese accent from the helm in front of Miranda, the man making the announcement for Felentia as the Asari keened her attention onto her systems. The viewscreen showed a blown-up version of Felentia and Deja's targeting work, showing the projected path of the MAC slug to predict where it would intercept the Reaper.

An instant later and the sound like Thor's hammer striking an iron bell rang in the Bridge. The crew all flinched instinctively but stayed on task, and the surface hologram of the Reaper on the viewscreen that was their target suddenly lost half of its centre of mass in a flash of heat and energy.

The Reaper opposite likewise lost the top of its crest from where the Kilimanjaro's round struck. Both impacted biomechanoid ships were sent tumbling end over end, spewing geysers of flame and expanding clouds of particulates that the display populated.

John looked away from the holographic representation superimposed onto the screen and into the visual range of black in front of him but found nothing that his eye could yet make out beyond the single tiny dot of light representing the secondary explosions ripping apart one of the hit Reapers.

He looked back to Miranda and found her eyes narrowed and fixed onto the final Reaper of the formation, suddenly charging in their direction at what looked to be full sub-light speed. "Laser target that ship, all of the first volley!"

"Aye, Sir."

"Order the Kilimanjaro back, reverse thrust, don't come about. Deja, give them a single predictive firing solution on one of the other approaching Reapers. If they miss, make sure that the only thing it can hit is Khar'Shan. Active sensors on now!"

Felentia and Nagata both fixated on their controls, while the several other secondary tactical stations along the walls of the Bridge focused forward, readying the deck autocannons and Onagers.

The Turian torpedoes suddenly turned into blue dots in space before entering the holographic spectrum on the viewscreen as they swiftly drew beyond visual range. An invisible laser stabbed out into the black from the prow of the Rubicon, and the display showed it fixed onto the crest-like top of the Reaper.

Four of the Reapers' arms raised, and beams of energy lashed out, taking out several torpedos but leaving the rest to impact to no visible effect beyond their own blue flames licking unsuccessfully at the enemy.

Meanwhile, the Kilimanjaro reported firing its second MAC round before heading back to the fleet at maximum sub-light speed while slowly spinning on its axis rather than swing about as though it were in atmosphere. That particular space-bound manoeuvre had been a silent subject of John's ire since he'd arrived.

"Gunners, after the first shot, you're to let Deja target the Reapers' beam with autocannon-"

"-We want to see if we can reduce their firing yield with intercept?" Deja interjected.

Miranda nodded, and John nodded as well in respect of Miranda's control of the situation. Since leaving Praetoria with the clear directive that only the Rubicon could issue commands in any battlespace she occupied, their mission certainty and confidence had gone up tenfold since the events that had unravelled at Eden Prime.

It had invited Miles Musa and Tutela Proelium into his command module with their immediate concerns about the command structures surrounding Praetoria, Omega, and the inclusion of the Alliance fleet – an issue to be dealt with upon return.

"The Reaper is drawing within three hundred thousand klicks, Sir."

Miranda nodded silently to the report from Felentia and kept her eyes glued to the viewscreen. The Bridge grew silent but not tense. Each man, woman, and fellow Praetorian with them counting down the seconds to the up-close engagement.

"Two hundred."

Still, the inorganic creature didn't fire.

"One hundred."

John clenched his jaw as the gigantic metal lifeform drew ever closer. The enemies engagement style wholly unlike that of the Covenant, who would utilise their highly efficient plasma weaponry and Slipspace capabilities to intermix extreme range engagements with knife fight engagements.

"Fifty-Thousand- twenty- ten- Enemy fire!" Felentia cried excitedly. "Bridge shielding active!"

A titanium shutter slid across the viewscreen externally, and the glass surface became fully holographic, depicting their external with camera's and giving the effect that it was still exposed. A lance of red shot out from space and splashed along the starboard prow plating, and the ship vibrated from the impact.

"Heat stress on the plating, no damage," Felentia declared excitedly.

"I wouldn't advise taking more than five hits like that in one place," Deja commented. "Forwarding sensor data to Dr Hales. I'm also detecting significant attenuation in their beam over this distance."

"Rolling the ship to starboard," Nagata described as he performed the commands in immediate response to Deja's off-hand advisement.

"Enemy fire inbound," The Asari officer described a second time.

"Autocannons firing."

True to the AI's announcement, streams of rounds fired into space, almost all of them impacting the lancing red beam of super-heated metal.

"Hit, hit, hit," Felentia declared as the hull rumbled again.

"Autocannons reduced the yield by four percent, Colonel," Deja described.

Miranda glanced to John again and nodded tersely, her hair bobbing with the movement, then looked back. "Take it out."

"MAC going hot."

The metal struck the bell a second time. The Reaper on approach became cosmic dust as the gigantic tungsten slug converted its kinetic energy into heat energy on impact with the high-velocity target. "Report on the Kilimanjaro's shot?"

"No impact, Sir."

"Alright, full about, fall back to the Mass Relay, activate the jamming drones and order the fleet to fire. Deja, feed them priority targets based on tonnage."

"Full about, confirm, Colonel," Nagata answered. He worked over his station and the network of orbital distances superimposed over the viewscreen shifted and their support fleet came into view before they accelerated toward it, the intermingled design of the UNSC's power source and Element Zero jacket around the core of the ship making the Rubicon hurtle through space at speeds that the UNSC could have only dreamt about.

Half of the screen split off as the feed from an aft camera fed them their rear view with red triangles surrounding the approaching Reaper formation in the process of increasing their velocity. Accelerator rounds and powered explosives sped past the Rubicon as it withdrew.

"BRACE! Reapers' designated Alpha, Beta and Charlie have gone FTL." Felentia's cry put them all on edge.

Miranda seated herself and pulled her harness over her armoured shoulders. John likewise stepped closer to her station and fixed his right hand onto the back of her chair. One of the Reapers stopped dead ahead of the Rubicon, appearing in a flash of light out of FTL, and an instant later, the other two showed up on sensors just in front of their fleet.

"Two hundred klicks!" Felentia announced, "No clear shot on the MAC. It'll pass right through and hit the fleet!"

The Reaper pulsed on their display, its mechanical arms reaching forward in space to target and red splashed after the Kilimanjaro. The dreadnought in question rolled to starboard to evade, taking only a grazing shot.

"Tactical One firing."

"Tactical Two firing."

"Tactical Three firing."

Archers roared from their tubes, the deck lit with autocannons, and the three prow mounted Onagers fired. The Reaper struggled to come about to face the incoming, having overtaken the Rubicon while it was still at speed, and all three Onager rounds smashed through the rear carapace sending plumes of orange matter into space, growing more visible by the moment. The streams of fire from the autocannons washed across it next as it came about, and then six Archers' hit its right flank with penetrating detonations burrowing into the fractured hull.

"Splash one Reaper."

"Confirm, splash one," Miranda answered Felentia. "Status on Beta and Charlie?"

"Splash Charlie. Beta is- Splash Beta."

"Casualties?"

"Seven damaged cruisers, no reported losses. Reports of wounded coming in now," Felentia described strictly.

John's lips twitched, and he looked down at Miranda to read her disposition. He could see her pulse throbbing on the edge of her temple, and her eyes were dilated, but her breathing was controlled and her expression shrewd. He parted his lips to issue a command but stopped himself. Instead, he opted to watch her fulfil her command.

Whether it was picking up on his energy or her own intuition, Miranda's lips twitched from side to side pensively. She examined the data on the viewscreen relaying the growing Reapers leaving the decimated Batarian world to pursue them despite their drones assuredly limiting their observable actions across the solar system.

"Order the fleet back through the Relay."

The AI on the pedestal nodded and flickered briefly, and their fleet all turned on the spot and disappeared through the Relay in short order while they closed the distance right behind the Kilimanjaro.

"Status on the deployment team?" John asked.

"They boarded the Turian flagship. They just bugged out." Felentia described with a brief glance over her shoulder at him. "Dr Hales reports that all proximity and energy sensors are functioning to spec."

"Good," He nodded, more thankful than he realised he would be. Cathryn Hales was undoubtedly the most crucial organic asset he had on Praetoria, her mind being key to the integration and, in many ways, improvements of UNSC technology on Praetoria and in the development of their new ships.

While USNC technology was pound for pound an, order of magnitude more powerful, efficient, and deadly than anything produced by the Systems Alliance, the SA technology was vastly more convenient functioning on its Element Zero baseline.

And that wasn't to mention her study on the Covenant and Forerunner weaponry- her experience with optimising omni-tool systems ironically giving her specialised insight into the advanced functionality of the alien technology from his home universe.

But for the same reason that he needed her safe on Praetoria, he had needed her here to ensure the fusion bombs were placed without a hitch. And as much as the diminutive Asari scientist with the elephant-sized attitude proved herself by the day, she was not quite up to Hales' standard.

"Unload our full spread of Archer's and set them to proximity target lock right before we enter the tunnel."

"Aye, Chief."

Dull and distant thunks sounded as the tubes were emptied, and the Mass Relay grew to take up their field of vision. Light danced before them, space warped, and particulates were all they could see for a moment until reality came rocketing home again with the fleet formation coming back into view out of the tunnel of mass-free space.

"Good jump."

"Join the fleet," Miranda ordered. "And keep your damn eyes on the Relay. We're not leaving until it says the link is dead."

Their speed matched their intent as they cleared the immediate transit zone of the Relay and came about with their thrusters firing in reverse to back them up several hundred meters off the port side of the Turian Indomitable. "Order Hales back. I don't trust their armour if anything gets through."

The Bridge turned tense and quiet again as they set about waiting. The Salarian at Tactical Three made himself known with the declaration that the two Pelicans had returned to the Rubicon's hanger and that the scientific team had boarded without any hassle.

Minutes once more turned into hours, and Miranda finally broke her silence. Her voice turned in contained anger, "What's taking them so bloody long?"

John's own expression had soured into a shrewd frown with his lips pressed thin and the edges of his mouth downturned. He shook his head slowly, then looked down to confer his thoughts with Miranda. Their eyes met, and he noticed his respiration immediately increase.

He frowned marginally in response to his own unconscious action to their eyes locking, once again promising that silent part inside of him that he would think on his unconscious responses to Miranda growing.

"They didn't consider us a threat... Not at first."

Miranda narrowed her eyes at his observation, then clenched her eyebrows inward, making her forehead wrinkle. "Then we took out three of them..." She mused carefully. "They must have been feeding data back to the others.... Somehow.... Through the drone network."

John nodded, "Then they sent more, and we took out three more."

Miranda pursed her lips once more, nodding with the silent deduction that they were sharing. "You think that they're suddenly taking us seriously? Hmmph," She breathed a quiet mirthless laugh through her nose. "Do you think they know it's a trap?"

The Spartan nodded slowly in thought, "I'd think it's a trap... If I were on their end."

"Hmm," Miranda mused, screwing up her lips contritely and twining her fingers together in her lap. "It's really what kind of trap they think-"

"Link terminated!" Deja declared.

"Kilimanjaro to Rubicon, confirm that Relay link is dead, repeat, confirm that link is dead?"

Miranda and John both moved forward to stand behind the two officers who did the lions share of the ships flying and firing. Deja spoke before either the helmsman or the tactical officer could, her tonality as informative as ever, "Navigational data is not returning any active link with the Relay- Element Zero data buoys also no longer transmitting from the system. Confirm, link is dead."

"How long until we could confirm detonation, Deja?" John looked pointedly at the AI on her pedestal.

"You think that they might have somehow deactivated the Relay on purpose?"

John shook his head at Miranda's question, "I don't know. Caution is advisable with so many unknowns, we still can't confirm the exact yield of the detonation of the Alpha Relay."

"We can still postulate the likely effect of such a detonation, Master Chief," Cathryn Hales explained in her typical blithe and equally interested attitude from the door as she moved to enter the Bridge. She paused, smirking slightly, with her eyes twinkling, "Permission to enter the bridge, Chief, Colonel?"

"Granted," John said with a nod. "Go on, Doctor?"

Cathryn Hales marched onto the Bridge from the lone entrance portal at the rear of the room. She sidestepped the three other tactical stations on her way, nodding politely to each officer as she passed them, and then came to a proud stop around the other side of Miranda's command chair and looked down at Deja.

"Deja, can you please show me a Mass Relay?"

The Greek styled woman vanished and was replaced by a Relay, and Cathryn reached into it, pointing her finger into the bulkiest part of the device. "We know that the Reapers have a more advanced understanding of Element Zero physics than us, but it all works on the fundamentals. So, the Relays must be quantum linked partners with some kind of internal reactor with capacitors sending sequential induction energy into the element zero core, here," She explained, moving her finger up the structure and into the gyroscope.

"This mechanism would reduce mass, the same as we do in our ships, except it's projecting that mass reduction into space. Kind of like a wormhole, to where it has a quantum connection with a partner Relay... Or some other kind of connection, we know there is some kind of connection; otherwise, we wouldn't be able to navigate with them."

She bit her bright pink lower lip in thought, smirked at something known only to her, then nodded. "Anyway, that's the basic of how the Relays work... It has to be that way. So when you destroy it, let's say with a rock, like Commander- Eh, Lieutenant Shepard did," Cathryn corrected herself mid-statement with a wrinkling of her nose. "That basically disconnected the reactor from the element zero reaction, severing whatever connection controlled the reaction, and more than likely, in a split second, it created a zero mass bubble inside its own core."

The overall-wearing scientist nodded along her line of thought, and John lifted a brow over the fact that she was still postulating over the ins and outs of the mechanism with a strained level of certainty.

"Without anything to power that bubble, it would have collapsed back in on itself, like an implosion. This could result in a brief moment of hyperdense matter unable to stay bonded together, which would have expanded explosively. It is hard exactly to say what the yield of such a detonation would have been... It could have been anything from a thousand tonnes of TNT to a supernova – Chances are, the asteroid he hit it with served as the matter that would have been compressed, so without knowing the precise make-up of that rock, I can't give you anything certain."

John and Miranda shared a brief look, and then both gave Cathryn a nod. "And that means... What, Doctor?" Miranda queried first.

"Our fusion bombs could do one of three things to the Relay. Either they would just destroy the power source and simply terminate the link; the detonation, in that case, would just be the combined yield from the bombs. They could generate enough heat energy to potentially interact with the Mass Effect reaction taking place in the core, would.... Could, more than likely cause a hyper-dense section of space.... Imagine it like suddenly being on the surface of a black hole. Or lastly, depending on the level of shielding inside the Relay, which we're only really guessing at, it could cause the Relay's own power source to detonate- ...Would be like one of your ships going super-critical, Chief," Cathryn finished pointedly, looking at John.

John nodded at the determination of the scientist, thinking that he'd been hoping too much that they could somehow cause another supernova-like explosion and wipe out a majority of the Reapers in a single shot.

"Orrrrr..." Cathryn breathed, looking blanking into the grey ceiling and wiggling her lips from side to side. "They could have deactivated the bombs somehow... And like you said, just terminated the link to make it appear our trap worked."

"Hmn."

Where John grunted irritably at the final added thought, Miranda's porcelain brow furrowed again with the delicate eyebrows drawing almost into one. "And how the bloody hell would they do that?" She shook her head, "Those bombs have sensors all over them to detect any significant power source or large object getting close."

"Yes, yes..." Cathryn agreed, her lips taking moments to wander from one pinched position to another. "But how much do we know about their husks? Or how the Reapers think, in general?"

The scientist crossed her arms over her chest and cocked a hip. She stood back and looked at each of them together.

Deja fizzed back to life on the pedestal and arched her digital neck to look up at the three conversing organics. "I couldn't think of there being many reasons for their computational hardware to be much, or any, less sophisticated than my own, Master Chief."

Miranda's frown grew deeper and her lips formed into an angry pout. Finally, she shook her head several times, "Bloody-fucking-hell!" She groused quietly under her breath. She shook her head again, speaking louder, "This was meant to free up assets... You're saying now we need to fortify this region? In case they're trapping us in return?"

Cathryn's lips parted in a grimace, and her eyes softened apologetically. "We should have had a system designed to confirm the detonation... We could have dropped probes through the Relay to buoy the sensor data back... We could have-"

"-We could always do things differently, Doctor, but we didn't," John said matter-of-factly, his eyes narrowed. "What is your scientific recommendation?"

Cathryn's grimace evaporated into her thoughtful face with her lips pouted in exaggerated thought again, and then she locked eyes with each in turn. "Chief, Colonel... Maybe before I say what I think is the most reasonable scientific response, you could suggest what your most reasonable strategic response is?"

A tiny smile pulled John's lips, and he nodded. He was well beyond questioning the quantum oddities of the reflection of his own reality in this one, with Cathryn seemingly being so similar to a younger Catherine Halsey.

He fought the urge to look at the woman as the pseudo-mother figure that his instincts asked of him and focused on the facts of who she was and how she conducted herself.

"We have no way of knowing if all of the Reapers were in the Harsa system. They could have already been deploying to other Batarian colonies further to the galactic east, toward the Artemis Tau cluster. If we did succeed in destroying the Relay in Harsa, then the next closest Relay is the Petra Relay."

Miranda looked up at him, then shrewdly back at Cathryn, then back to John, her brow moving in and out of thoughtful clenches.

John ignored the desire to understand whatever she was thinking. The desire, the care, for the thoughts of a non-Spartan still testing him and making something stir inside.

He paused and pushed the effects of the raven-haired woman from the peripheries from his thoughts and feelings. "The Reapers are arrogant, millions of years of easy systematic victories... They aren't accustomed to having to think about the strategic capabilities of an enemy force; I think that will make them hedge their bets. Whether or not the Relay in Harsa is destroyed, I expect that they will split their forces and make multiple incursion points, reduce the number of choke points-"

"-And..." Miranda interrupted with an unfocused gaze behind her mused word, "And now they'll be afraid that we're willing to destroy the Relays to deal with them. I think-"

"-No," Cathryn shifted her weight from one leg to the other, looking into the grey ceiling in thought. "No, no... they might not know about Slipspace, but they aren't... They can't be stupid. There's no way that they could not have noticed the differences between this ship and the others- According to Shepard's intelligence reports," Cathryn interrupted herself, tapping her chin. "The Reapers time their harvesting cycles for a mix of reasons, the two known ones being about population density and technological capability, in this cycle they were delayed... I, personally, I mean... expect that they'll think this ship is a rarity, and they'll still think we absolutely rely on the Relay network-"

"-Hmmph, which we do," Miranda scoffed in a pessimistic tone to accept the current truth.

"Understood, Doctor. They'll still consider the Relays' chokepoints, but they likely won't expect us to detonate any with multiple links or large local populations."

Cathryn nodded, and Deja added a bobbing of her head to concur with the extrapolated ideas. Then the scientist bit her lip in a nervous smile with an apologetic arch to her eyes, "My scientific advice...."

"Go on," John urged.

Cathryn's lip-biting smile focused on Miranda for a moment, and John suddenly knew that it would be something relating to Shepard, with Miranda's ire about the events at Eden Prime much more advertised in her demeanour than his own.

"The retrofits to the Normandy were pretty simple... All of the parts are already printed and should be installed soon, maybe even by the time we get back? Deja's automated fitting program should at least already have the beefed-up Element Zero jacket packed around the Slipspace drive, and their armour should be going on next-"

"-Ah, just say it, Doctor?" Miranda sighed in a defeated tone.

"The Normandy will be faster in Slipspace as well... It makes sense to send her, to send Shep-" Cathryn grimaced openly at the immediate narrowing of Miranda's eyes, took a breath, and continued. "To send Captain Anderson and his crew to confirm the detonation and gather intelligence on any other Reaper movements."

"Meanwhile, we need to reinforce this Relay," Miranda sighed tersely and dejectedly. She shook her head, parted her lips to lick them and roll them inward in a stressed expression, and parted them again to speak.

Seeing her having trouble with the decision, John shook his head, "No." He said simply, lifting his right shoulder in a slight shrug. "We'd have to reinforce this Relay anyway. We can mount drones on the Relay, and the ones in the Petra Nebula and Artemis Tau cluster, put our reinforcements in Sol and the Serpent Nebula, so they're only one jump away."

Miranda arched a brow and looked at him for a long moment, then at Cathryn, whose lips were skewed sideways into her cheek.

"We just taught them a lesson about us.... That we're stronger than they expect, but do you think we've undone a billion years of arrogance?"

Both women narrowed their eyes, and Miranda nodded slowly. "So, whatever the case with the Harsa Relay, you think that if they show up here and find it undefended, they'll expose their flanks?"

"That's an utterly crazy gamble, Chief?" Cathryn added a moment later. "What if they just sit and wait by the Relay and shoot at you when you come out?"

John clenched his jaw and narrowed his eyes, and Miranda reflected his expression as they both looked into the near distance in thought. Miranda nodded by way of gently cocking her head to the right and tilting it down. One eye narrowed more than the other, and her lip curled briefly, then after a glance at John, she tapped several controls on her data-pad.

"This is Hackett. What can I do for you, Lawson?"

"We've got a dilemma, Admiral."

"When don't we?"

Miranda and Cathryn both snorted mirthless laughs at the Admiral's response. Miranda licked her lips, giving John another look that was asking permission.

She didn't need to ask it, Praetoria was as much hers as it was his, and she had just as much reason to protect it and its people as he did, if not more with her more native ability to empathise with the people more expansive than his own. "We need you to organise a summit, on the Citadel. We're willing to talk technology trade. We need to mobilise this federation to have any chance at countering the Reapers."

"I'll make it happen, Lawson. What's the play here?"

John's lips twitched, and he narrowed his eyes. The measure of Admiral Hackett as a man spoke volumes from who and how he was listened to. For all intents and purposes, by the consideration of Alliance law, Hackett and his fleet were rogue assets, terrorists, or even pirates, given that they had acquired munitions and fuel from Alliance depots without parliament permission.

Hackett even agreeing to induct his forces into Praetoria's under a quickly written agreement, an agreement that John knew needed to be revisited given the issue of how Shepard's demotion had been handled and possible whisperings within the Alliance ranks.

Despite that, he still carried galactic political clout. A majority of the other Alliance Admirals, after a time, had likewise followed his lead at his prompting and had increasingly distanced themselves and their commands from Alliance political control.

And beyond the Alliance, the Turian Hierarchy still listened to him.

"We're leaving you and Admiral Xu's fleet here, Admiral. And we're attaching a drone to the Relay. Talk with Admiral Victus, convince him to get their Primarch to join our federation, and send a communique to the Quarians and Krogan. We have biotech to trade as well."

Cathryn hummed with a lip-biting smile as John spoke, and the Spartan smirked lightly at the scientist's pride. Allowing the woman freedom to work as she pleased was paying dividends for Praetoria, her creativity just as pervasive as her intellect, and her capability seemingly only restricted by her need for basic organic functions.

In so many respects, she was too much like Halsey for John to not superimpose his expectations of his pseudo-mother onto the much younger woman. More often than not, when in her presence, he found himself fighting the desire to ask for her guidance, even though he knew that she lacked any context to guide him with.

"Forward me whatever you're expecting to happen, Chief," Hackett spoke out of Miranda's terminal, only a voice without the display active. "I suspect that you want to turn this into a choke point and want to cover your bases, so you'll need metal to fill space with... Hold on a moment; I'll bring Xu into this discussion."

Miranda arched her brow again and looked up at John in question. The Spartan shrugged and waited, and Miranda looked back into the near distance to wait while Deja forwarded their speculation to Hackett faster than any of their organic capabilities could.

Several minutes passed before another disembodied voice entered the conversation. Neither Miranda nor John had spoken with the Admiral who Hackett held in high regard, and neither was surprised when her Shanghai accent came out firm.

"Master Commander in Chief," Xu halted for a beat, and Miranda smirked at yet another colloquial modification of John's rank to attempt to better serve the lofty position of command he was holding. "I'm looking at what your machine has put together.... About possible Reaper movements, controlling choke points, so on.... I have a solution for wanting to abandon this Relay."

John and Miranda shared a quick look. "Go on, Admiral Xu?" Miranda requested, only momentarily finding it strange that she was in a diplomatic and military power position over an Admiral while her rank was an army Lieutenant Colonel.

"Supply ships."

Miranda arched a slender brow. The question was apparent on her face, and in her silence.

"Supply ships," Admiral Xu repeated, her voice growing into a devious snicker. "Refueling ships, so on... When they're decommissioned, because they are usually hazardous, it takes years for them to actually be stripped and recycled. There are hundreds in mothballs in the Kuiper belt, and they should all run just fine. It's only their engine efficiency decreasing that gets them decommissioned-"

"-You want to use them as a screen?" John interrupted.

"Normally, I would say no. But your AI can pilot them, and we don't need the screen to cost any lives-"

"-Why not pack them with explosives while we're at it..." Cathryn added with a snort. Her brows rose a moment later, and John and Miranda both looked at her with an appraising look.

Admiral Xu appeared to have had a similar reaction on her end of their discussion, with her voice returning in a conspiratorial whisper, "That is an excellent plan. Just excellent! We can deal the enemy damage from where they least expect it."

"Chief, Lawson," Hackett interjected, reminding them of his connection to the conversation still being intact. "I concur with your suggestion about leaving the Kilimanjaro and 8th Fleet here as fast response units, but if you want to hold a successful summit, I strongly advise you to allow Commodore Riley to command the detachment and allow myself and Admiral Xu to accompany you to the Citadel."

John's mouth formed a thoughtful arch briefly before he nodded, and he glanced sideways to Deja's pedestal, where the AI was watching the three organic's with an intelligent and interested tilt to her holographic head. "Deja, inform the Hanger, pickup for the Admirals. And deploy drones, attach one to this Relay and another to the Petra Relay."

Deja's narrowed her eyes, "Done, Master Chief. However.... The drones will have to carry their signal across the Relay's network-"

"-Which is exactly why we didn't think of adding one to the Harsa Relay," Cathryn lamented in a harsh sigh. She shook her head angrily, "Stupid... Space squids... Could have made it easy on me and just blundered right into the Relay after us. Had to stop, didn't they?"

No one replied to her, and she crossed her arms, shaking her head. "Should have set it on a timer instead of proximity..."

"Your pilot is coming in now. We will speak again shortly, Master Commander Chief."

With the declaration from the Shanghainese Admiral, her link went dead, and Hackett's followed suit a moment later. Miranda lifted a brow in question again before looking back up at John, looming to her left with his left brow raised and his right held inward.

She breathed a heavy exhalation at his look with her mind stuck on the same question as to whether or not Admiral Xu was using the made-up title ironically or seriously.

After a pause where John expressed his pensiveness and Miranda stifled her humour, Cathryn sighed loudly, "I'm going to the labs. We brought other projects to work on while in transit, may as well stay busy working out your tech-"

"-Actually, Doctor... Can you double-check the engineering specs for the upgrades we applied to Hackett's ships? We'll need them to trade with. And do you have your data on your therapy for the Qurians?"

Cathryn pouted tightly at Miranda for a moment before sighing again and nodding slowly. "Fine, but that means I'll have to delay the plans to upgrade the armour kits with medi-gel injectors!"

Miranda tilted her head in an expression that said; so be it, and Cathryn sighed again before stepping back around the command chair and stalking off the Bridge.

When the portal had closed behind the woman, Miranda snorted mirthlessly and rolled her eyes. She leaned forward, shook her head and pursed her lips while drawing up a text order for the combined fleets for them to move on to the Serpent Nebula and Sol. "Flo has that covered anyway..." She scoffed ironically, turned her neck away from her task marginally, and gave John an appraising look with a brow lift. "She just wants you to tell her that she's doing a good job... Those files signed off by Doctor Halsey got her attention."

Like Miranda had, John breathed heavily out through his nose. "Coincidences."

"Coincidences..." Miranda breathed with a slight smile on her lips. She hit send on her fleetwide message and sat back. "Good-bloody luck," Her smile grew several millimetres and revealed teeth. "Good-bloody luck all 'round, John."

He shrugged, wincing. "Not good en-" He paused, his brow flinching as he realised that she wasn't perhaps referring to the result of their mission in Harsa. Their eyes met, and he realised she meant the culmination of his presence here and their own developing shared disposition. He pushed his wince away and tried to purposefully assume the small, confident smile that he wore when he knew he would win, "Good luck."

EDS (Earth Dating system) – September 11, 2185
Planet: Praetoria
Stellar Orbit: Epsilon Eridani

"Amazing..."

"Exceptionally!"

"It's just... Keelah.... How?"

"A remarkable combination! Technology all originally designed for different purposes- combination- makes sense!"

Tali bunched her pale purple-pink lips into a tight pout and gave Mordin an exasperated look. Of course, he didn't realise that she spoke hyperbolically, so he had to explain it.

She knew "how," in the sense that she had been studying the design schematics and was one of the first individuals on Praetoria to be entirely fitted out to test and work on the Wargames suite.

She had scoffed at it being called something so modest when she had first seen the construction. She had asked the fragment of Deja still on the base where the missing quarter of their ground-based construction assets were and was surprised when she learnt that the modest name was describing the gigantic domed structure being built twenty kilometres north.

Boarding an ATV with two other Rangers, she had been whisked through the snowy environment and marched through the large gunmetal grey bay doors into a heated inner space. As it turned out, it was a dome inside a dome.

Support facilities and specialised equipment wrapped around the entire inner dome. When she had first entered the inner dome to find Mordin hard at work with the popular local Asari researcher, Flo, she had been confused about what all the fuss was about.

From her point of view, at the time, the space had looked relatively useless. Whilst internally massive, several kilometres across, and with an impressive holographic projector system making the domed ceiling look like a realistic sky with fluffy white clouds, the ground was undetailed in every possible way.

It was all a smooth undulating surface made of a silver-grey material that provided good underfoot grip, but she couldn't, at the time, understand how this was a battle simulation space.

She had learnt since then. With the installation of the neural lace at the deft hands of Flo, with Mordin present to learn from, Tali had discovered that there was a neural network involved in the suite that communicated signals directly into her brain.

When looking across the wargames suite, she saw an entirely different view than the blank floor that she had first perceived.

At first, the implantation of the technology directly into her brain had elicited a strong "No." The concept was so invasive that it wasn't even a consideration. But Mordin and Flo showed her the small metal disk at the base of their skulls and demonstrated that the installation and recovery was in fact, painless, albeit still inherently risky.

The pros of having it far more inviting than the rare risk of failed implantation, with the advanced ability to interact with mechanical systems which utilised neural networks. Above and beyond the simulated base, Tali had trepidatiously been convinced to proceed by the utilitarian option to interact with more advanced engineering schematics, as though the technology was more an extension of herself.

Presently, Tali's spoken consent allowed her to be uplinked to the shared neural network and she saw the ground as a white-yellow rubbled and sandy surface.

The systems indicating that she was a part of the simulation communicated with the underfoot material in real-time. Rather than her feet gripping, the surface was loose and slippery underfoot.

She bit her lower lip in a cautious smile and lifted her right leg. She planted it onto the ground in a stamp at an angle that nature determined she would slip on. True to how nature dictated surface dynamics and laws of momentum, the artificial surface made her foot slide on what she perceived to be grainy sand, and she flung her arms wide to try to balance, further throwing her momentum around until she toppled to her rear.

"Haha!" She laughed in embarrassment and interest. "Keelah, it's amazing!"

Mordin turned now, several paces ahead of her, totting a Praetorian data-pad filled with lines of visible code and the occasional slowly turning image of a structure, device, or creature. His eyes went wide at seeing Tali on her rear, but his attention caught up a beat later, and then his face morphed into his infectious humour.

"Almost complete!" He tilted his head, and his brows moved as only his could; up, down, inwards, outwards, out and away, until finally one settled low and the other high. "Technically, is complete! Testing... Testing, testing, testing!"

Tali blinked away her humour from her topple and interest and pushed back to her feet. Mordin rushed down the gentle incline they were on to stand beside her and beamed into her face. "Look!"

Her opalescent eyes followed the direction of the Salarians' gaze to his data-pad, to where an alien figure was taking up a third of the screen on the right. According to the specification of the saurian looking alien, it was well over two meters tall and weighed enough to make her think it was more monster than sentient.

Mordin beamed and tapped on the creature without looking back at her before inputting coordinates into a small dialogue box. He grinned and glanced up to where he had been a moment before, and Tali followed his gaze again.

A long shadow caught her eyes first, making her curious for the instant before her eyes finished their upward tracking to land entirely on the gigantic alien with its toothy mandibles splayed wide in what looked like a snarl. "Keelah!" She repeated, but in instinctive fright.

She stumbled back.

"Incredible!" Mordin chattered, then tapped another button.

The alien roared. It was deep and throaty, and then perceivable rumbling words carried out of its gaping maw, "DEATH TO THE VERMIN!"

Tali blinked wide and suddenly fearful eyes. Her mind was too wrapped up in the realism of the simulation to recognise it as what it was. She stumbled back, backpedalling without turning away from the monstrous spectacle. Mordin, on the other hand, grinned and spread his arms wide.

The monster pulled a blue-purple pod-like device off its hip and swung it to face Mordin. Energy danced between the endpoints on it, then two bolts of energy sprung out and splashed across Mordin's chest.

The Salarian cried out, and Tali smelled burning flesh to match the smoke rising from Mordn as he dropped to his knees. Unbelievably, despite the grievous injury, the Salarian was still forcing a smile, even as the alien took a gigantic step forward and smashed the underside of its weapon down hard onto Mordins' head, making him completely drop.

Tali's heart raced in her chest. She suddenly cursed that she wasn't in her environment suit with her usual weapons on her hips and back. The elastically fitted black pants and long-sleeved shirt provided her excellent comfort, but nothing in the way of armour.

She instinctively patted herself down in moments, all the same, looking for something to defend herself with, and the alien took a stride toward her. She gasped in fear, against her will, and took a stumbling step back. She tripped on her own feet on the loose surface and fell.

Her breathing came out more panicked, and she rolled on the ground to attempt to clamber away, but as she did, she saw the creature suddenly freeze in a manner that no living thing could, and her rational mind finally caught up with the events.

The floor ceased being sand and turned back into the non-descript silver-grey surface in a ten-meter radius, but the alien remained as though a statue, frozen as it was.

"System detects weapons fire, simulates all levels of it, tell the users brain that they have been hit, and user responds as would naturally- almost," Mordin smiled around a wince as he blinked away the memory of the phantom pain. "Almost like pain in a dream."

He beamed again and scampered around the frozen alien. He stopped in front of it, looked back at Tali, and then slowly pushed his hand onto the holographic projection. To Tali's amazement, Mordin met resistance. The slight creature grinned further, tapped his data-pad, and revealed that a sleeve of the floor had sprung up inside the hologram to intercept where he tried to put pressure.

"Some elements, such as this kind of touch, the nano-fluctuating-particulate material will interact with the user to simulate touching a creature, item, or structure. Some cases, like when it struck, is the system engaging with the neural link and convincing you that you've been struck."

Tali blinked in amazement again, her mind fully returning to rationality now that her surprise and fear had ebbed. Finding her feet again, now that the surface offered her ample grip, she awkwardly rolled back upright and watched as Mordin continued his explanation.

He pulled a large silver pistol off a magnetic clasp on his right thigh, one of the variants she'd seen the Praetorians sport. He tilted it, showing her the function, then slid out the magazine which normally held the rounds it fired. To Tali's surprise, the magazine was empty, and Mordin slid it back in before sliding the back of it to chamber a round.

Her brow worked an understanding of what was happening again, and Mordin pointed at the alien. He pulled the trigger, the large pistol bucked in his extended grip, the muzzle flashed, and it declared a loud muted CLAP, and something tore through the top of the aliens' skull in a splash of purple flesh and blood.

"Weapons also designed specifically for wargames!"

The Salarian's interest and excitement was palpable, and with several twists and turns with the aid of a small tool that emerged from a hidden pocket, he pulled several pieces off the pistol to expose the inners.

"Small motors to simulate recoil," He described, pointedly looking at the tiny motors in question. "Trigger links to neural network! System projects firing velocity and direction, handles simulated flash, sound, and effects of fired round to an affected user."

The air above the duo vibrated, and a flight of egg-shaped drones covered in mechanical arms zipped overhead. They both ceased paying attention to Mordins' own explanation and looked after them and saw that the drones were heading toward a group of the native Praetorian scientists.

The thought made Tali lift her brow again. The most native of the Praetorians', not including the Master Chief with his extra-dimensional origin or Miranda, was the team of Human scientists, who apparently had been liberated from Cerberus control.

She'd not had any real communication with any of them, not beyond passing polite hello's and thankyou's as they'd assisted in the initial stages of her gene therapy with Doctor Hales. But they had been on Praetoria for less than a year, perhaps going on seven months by Tali's rough approximate.

It made her question whether or not Mordin was seeing this place of technological wonders as his home as well, now. Especially with the added influx of Omega and Andromeda populations making the species populations a diverse mix. The thought carried further, as she and Mordin watched quietly as the group about a hundred meters distant manipulated the system to form terrain elements.

What did that mean of the strange arrangement between the members of First Fleet and Praetoria, and by extension, Shepard and the Normandy? What did that mean for her future? Rannoch was free... 'But I have to keep it that way...' She lamented mentally with her lips bunching together.

If that meant she had to remain on Praetoria to be some part, small as it was, of helping forge a powerful military, then that's what it meant.

X

It was frigid. Again.

Garrus was freezing. Again.

But he wasn't alone in that. The new Normandy platoon was equally freezing in the outside snowy and icy air of Northern Praetoria. They were running teamwork drills on the obstacle course, even with it coated in ice. He was in a team with Shepard, Jack, and seven other Alliance Marines he hadn't become familiar with yet.

He was armoured in his usual silver and blue attire minus the helmet, with Shepard dressed in his own standard N7 gear, likewise minus a helmet with a black beanie on his head. The Alliance members were dressed similarly, with only Jack being out of her normal.

She wore a one-piece skin-tight deep-red suit, almost more black than red, with black combat boots, all of her kit straight out of the Praetorian fabricators. Garrus found the local armed forces to be supremely impressive, but he wasn't quite at the point of totally switching his gear over yet.

"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU STANDING AROUND FOR!"

The rough and deep tones of the Krogan in the all-black Praetorian armour made Garrus jump in surprise, which in turn made him mutter his under his breath, emitting mist from his maw into the cold. He twisted to face his team.

They were grouped up at the foot of a tall wooden slated wall, having just dragged themselves out of the stump filled pit the preceded it on the course.

He spun back to the wall to analyse it, looking for the trick for how to get over it. At a stretch, it was at least two men high, and under normal circumstances, he would think it would be a standard manoeuvre of one or two soldiers propping a third up to reach the top.

But as they had already learned today, the icy conditions made the grasping surfaces slippery and unmanageable for beings' with less determined grips. To his right, Samara and her team had already come to a bunching halt at the wall, and with a biotically powered jump, Samara scampered up the wall as though it were horizontal.

She flung her leg out wide and straddled the top and then leaned as far down the wall as she could to grab the reaching hand below her.

Garrus turned to Shepard just as the once-Spectre came to a breathless stop next to him. "Hoist me up!"

Shepard's eyes flinched in thought for a moment, but he caught on swiftly and cupped his hands with his fingers interlocked. Garrus placed his boot in the grip, they pantomimed a lift twice, and on the third time with a heave and a grunt, Shepard roared upright and continued to divert the momentum with the aid of his strength in lifting Garrus higher.

Garrus had added his own momentum to the action with a slight jump at the beginning, and despite the competitive anxiety that made time feel slow, his talons scraped the top of the wall in milliseconds. His talons turned and dug into the wood and held firm for a moment.

He grunted in the strain of hanging by the tips of his talons. Shepard shuffled his weight beneath him, set Garrus's dangling boot onto his shoulder, and then heaved himself onto his toes.

The extra lift gave Garrus the grip he required, and with a roar of effort, he pulled himself up to straddle the wall like Samara was. Unlike the lithe Asari, Garrus found, he had an entire squad to pull up the wall while she was lifting the final member of hers up.

"ONE ONLY WINS IF YOU ALL WIN!"

Garrus wanted to snort at the Praetorian Lieutenant who had been assigned to watching over their training. He did snort a moment later. It was more like the Praetorian Krogan was their trainer- Not that Garrus disliked any of it. He just found so many elements of it surprising, given his cultural understanding of modern Krogan.

Additionally, Garrus knew that this particular Krogan had been present under the Master Chief's command on Eden Prime in their landing force. According to some of the Praetorian helmet-cam footage that Garrus had reviewed, the Krogan present remained disciplined in their teams and squads, even side-by-side with Salarians.

The Krogan often preached collectivism about their species but rarely practised it. But here, on Praetoria, a Krogan was a Praetorian first, a Krogan second. As were all of the black armoured figures whose numbers were swelling with the graduation of Second and Third Battalion, and Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and Eighth having begun several days earlier.

He had been a part of large scale Turian military exercises, so it was no surprise for Garrus to see a military base grow and expand. It was the efficiency of the growth of Ares Base that surprised him. The mechanical nature of it.

Turian forces were mechanical in that they reacted reflexively without thought or question, but they were not literally machines. Neither were the Praetorians', but it was the literal fleets of small to large drones that came out of the now ten fabrication structures that stretched across the valley to do the lions share of the work, which in turn saw the biologicals seeming to labour harder at whatever tasks they were assigned in some kind of competition with the drone systems controlled by the local AI fragment.

"GET YOUR QUAD MOVING! ALLIANCE WHELPS!"

Garrus scoffed a breathless laugh at being identified as Alliance. Reality struck home quickly in his mind, and he scoffed quietly again, this time around a grunt as he braced himself on his perch and leaned forward with his hand reaching out.

He ended up with his face pressed against the top of the wall, making him unable to judge by sight. A human hand grasped his, and he took a deep breath before hauling himself straight, and Shepard hurriedly straddled the wall as well just as Jack and the rest of the squad came to the base of the wall.

"A-a-a-lllllrii-iiight y-y-y-you free-zzin' fuckers, one -at'a t-t-time!"

The Praetorian material that Jack wore was identifiably more sturdy against the cold, and she had been faring well up until scrambling through the log laden pit full of ice. Constant contact with the ice and constantly expending her energy on biotics in helping her squad slide more easily through had played its part, and her skin had a shade of blue to it.

Jack was another remarkable change on Praetoria, Garrus thought absently while the biotic mustered herself and helped the first soldier lift into his and Shepard's waiting grip.

Garrus couldn't quite place whatever it was. She was still entirely irreverent. Entirely disrespectful to just about everyone, but she had increasingly seemed to be looking at the Master Chief in uncomfortable admiration. Still, the result was that she had stopped describing the gigantic Human in defamatory terms and had made an independent effort to mimic him and the Praetorians to selective extents, even turning her eyes onto Miranda with curious admiration shining.

Garrus didn't want to unpack it; as long as she remained functional and worked with them, he was happy. The squad passed over the wall swiftly, each growing heavier from a mix of his and Shepard's muscles tiring and Jack's blood-glucose levels dropping in response to her cold and continual use of biotics.

Garrus rotated on his perch slightly and looked down at his squad, who were waiting. 'My Squad..." Because, according to Captain Anderson, he was inducted into their military now, his digital identifier confirmed it, Master Sergeant Garrus Vakarian.

The sound of grunts, yells, and turmoil carried his eyes further. Beyond his waiting squad was a single man-sized wooden bridge over another pit, this one filled with water with partial ice coverage. Garrus frowned and grumbled quietly; the partial ice meant that probably more than one person running the course had fallen in recently.

Just beyond the pit was Samara's squad, and they were facing off against four armoured Praetorians. Going by their builds, they were Human, Asari, or Batarian, or a mix of the three. A slippery-looking wooden ramp was just beyond the black armoured figures, which led to a platform with a button on it, their goal.

Garrus turned his attention away as Jack jumped with her arms outstretched, her biotics aiding her, and he and Shepard caught her light frame. They hauled her over the wall and dropped her lightly back to ground on the other side without any effort.

The sound of turmoil ceased by the time Garrus was observing the Praetorians again. Samara's squad had already managed to stumble through their ranks and up the slippery ramp.

He and Shepard un-straddled the wall and dropped into the supportive arms of their team.

"What's with them?" Shepard asked, gesturing at the four Rangers with a jerk of his chin.

"They tried to stop the other team." One of the Marines answered.

"More of us than them... Let's go, stay on my six," Shepard grunted and paced forward to put a testing foot onto the three-meter length of wood that spanned the ice water. It held firm, and Shepard spared it a dubious look due to its single foot width.

It didn't shift, and he put another foot forward, followed swiftly by several steps. Before he could step onto dry, icy ground, one of the Rangers dashed forward and threw an elbow into Shepard's shoulder.

The once-Spectre was too distracted by his need to balance to see the strike coming. He teetered for a moment before toppling sideways into the icy water with an angered cry and a splash. Garrus ran forward, crossed the bridge, and shoulder charged the Ranger.

Only now noticing all the scuff marks on the Rangers' side of the pit, making it clear that this was a repeated strategy to prevent the teams from completing the course.

"Get him out!" He cried as he tried to batter the heavily armoured figure back.

Garrus met limited success, and the other three Rangers bustled in to prevent his team from crossing safely. The air vibrated in a way that felt muted as Jack flashed across the bridge like a blue missile, and she stopped in a roll at the feet of two of the Rangers'.

They couldn't arrest their momentum and tumbled over the biotics' slight figure. Jack rose sluggishly back to her feet and hurried to intercept the third Ranger, who was a step away from knocking another Marine into the pit while Shepard was trying to heave himself out of the water and onto the frozen ground.

Suddenly, the Ranger who was testing Garrus stepped back, and Garrus tripped forward. He grunted in annoyance and rolled as quickly as he could to avoid follow up strikes, only to find that all of the Rangers had backed off to reform their skirmish line.

He watched them for a dubious moment; their helmets tilted slightly toward one another, a sure sign that they were communicating on a helmet-to-helmet link. He tore his eyes from them and glanced over his shoulder in time to see two Rangers supporting Shepard.

Shepard's face had turned almost blue, his jaw was chattering, and quick puffs of breath were coming out as he fought hypothermia.

"Jack, take Shepard's weight! Squad, form up in a circle, Shepard and Jack in the middle!" Garrus ordered, his voice turned harsh and authoritative.

His team followed his orders, and two seconds later, their presence surrounded him.

"Push through the middle, brace yourselves, keep your weight low."

There was a slight rustling as his squad did as ordered, and he followed his own advice and squatted ever so slightly. He took a step forward, his squad moving with him, and he ignored Shepard's strained panting behind him. He took another step forward, and the Rangers' remained still.

On the third step, they charged. Two moved almost as one and braced their forearms to impact Garrus in the chest while the other two flanked around, sliding on the ground to try to trip the Marines.

"STEP LEFT. DUCK. PUSH!" Garrus roared.

His squad moved as one, no doubt thanks to the drills that Lieutenant Groden had them running every morning. Their formation stepped a pace to the left and squatted lower before they all exerted their weight upward.

The two Rangers' who had been about to impact Garrus found themselves unable to stop their inertia on the challenging ground. Instead, they brushed off his and a Marines shoulders in a glancing impact. The Ranger who had moved to their left met two Marines as they were in their squatting position and was battered aside, and the one who'd gone right was forced to correct to catch them.

"DOUBLE TIME IT!" He shouted, then added an afterthought, "STAY IN FORMATION!"

The squad did, picking up their quick march speed and casting the Ranger from the left aside. The two who had taken the middle moved to badger his right flank, but he and the Marines on that side struck out with elbows to keep them off balance.

The seconds could have been centuries for Garrus until his boot touched the ramp and the Rangers suddenly abated. He and the first Marines almost fell face-first on the slippery surface, but the ones on their flanks caught them, and they carefully moved up the sloping surface, keeping one another balanced until they surrounded the button.

Shepard reached for it first with a shaky hand, a grimacing rueful smile on his blue lips. The rest of their group sighed in relief, and they overlapped their hands over the button. Then suddenly, six more Praetorians' these ones in two-piece outfits made of a blue-tinted black material similar to Jack's suit, stepped out from a doorway beyond the button.

They surrounded the squad and ushered them through the door into a standard habitation module. They grabbed for Shepard and wrapped him in a reflective gold blanket while one took to a knee and started ripping the buckles off his armour.

The hot air in the module ushered sighs of relief from them all, but rather than luxuriate in it like the rest of the squad was, Garrus joined the Ranger helping to de-armour Shepard to dry him off and bring his body temperature up.

Shepard helped with fumbling hands, apparently uncaring about being stripped down in front of dozens of others, with the module filled with the other four squads, a dozen of who were stripped down and wrapped in gold blankets like Shepard.

Cold assaulted them from behind as the door opened and closed again, and that demanding rumbling voice to which the Normandy squad was becoming accustomed returned.

"YOU'RE ONLY AS STRONG AS YOUR WEAKEST LINK!"

Garrus helped the Human Ranger remove Shepard's boots, a young-looking Human man with a high and tight haircut. They stood in tandem and adequately wrapped the blanket entirely around the blue-lipped First Lieutenant whose body was fighting convulsive shivers. "T-t-thh-anks- He-eh, should've pa-paid m-m-more 'ttention to th-the g-ground."

Garrus snorted an ironic laugh and nodded. "Yeah," He said. "Take our time, next time?"

Shepard pressed his lips into a thin rueful smile and nodded jerkily around shivers. The unarmoured Rangers ushered him further into the module amidst the other squads grouped up and facing Groden to Garrus's six.

"YOU STAY TOGETHER, YOU PROTECT EACH OTHER, YOU WIN."

Garrus nodded slowly around a quiet sigh. Of course, that was not always true. He knew that the Praetorians had fought exactly as they were trained to on Eden Prime, and even then, they had left bodies behind. But the notion stuck as a certain kind of truth.

Where the Praetorians' with their regimented battlefield behaviour, had lost forty-two of their two-hundred deployed troops, the Marines had lost one-hundred and seventy-one of their three-hundred.

Garrus had been afraid that Shepard being demoted would create a negative ripple, causing Shepard to become hard-headed against the new authority of the Master Chief and the local Marines being angered by their local hero being taken down a peg.

But the opposite had happened. Shepard had expressed quiet relief, even hinting that he had been feeling a level of undue pressure and deep anxiety since being thrust into his role as Spectre, where he suddenly carried potentially countless lives in his hands.

And the Marines had shared a collective concern about Shepard's choices leading to such a high casualty rate. But already seeing the man work hard to regain respect had the dual effect of them adopting more pragmatic consideration of Shepard, and seeing a more strategic operation running out of their new command.

'It isn't perfect... But Spirits, it's working,' Garrus thought quietly to himself as he looked around and readied his mind for whatever was to come next.

X

His tongue slicked his lips, warming them in the process, and reminding him of how close to death he'd felt hours earlier before the skyline grew black rather than white. A side effect of the exposure to the frigid, snowy environment and being dunked in the ice water was that his skin felt dehydrated, and Shepard found himself absently licking his lips every few minutes.

After Shepard was heated up in the module on their final exercise for the day, the Praetorian Lieutenant Groden and his troupe of underlings who had acted as both obstacles and as medical aides reviewed how they had handled the courses and challenges and challenged them to do better next time.

Shepard had stayed in the module longer than most of his platoon as his body slowly recovered from the rapid loss of heat in the ice water, as did the other Marines who had suffered the same fate. His personal squad, minus Tali and Mordin, who were involved in the scientific side of Praetoria's development, stayed with him until he finally felt recovered enough to adorn spare BDU's from a cabinet in the room.

They had bickered quietly and good-naturedly, and Shepard felt relief to see that they were really just challenging one another on how they could have performed better. Like all of the squad, Shepard was particularly pleased to see that Jack was less abusive and more interested in notions of teamwork.

After finally trudging through the snow an hour later, he had ended up in one of the newer four-story structures made by way of automated drones literally printing the structure through long extrusion tubes connected to a larger central machine. Other waves of robots swept through and fitted out the electronics and other internal systems in due course, and this building had gone from non-existence to heavy usage within a week.

Shepard bunkered down by a broad window that ran from floor to ceiling in a semi-stiff couch in what passed as commons room, lounge, and mess hall. It had been populated and utilised quickly, like all things on the planet. On this day, however, or more specifically on this hour, it was nearly empty.

He heard his name uttered in a scornful tone and fought the urge to swing about and look for the speaker. Instead, he kept a neutral expression and only marginally lifted his chin, and his gaze from the omni-display erected holographically from his wrist.

With the commons room well lit and the externally obscured view of Fab-plant-2 in semi-darkness, the window acted as a mirror. There were two seated groups in the room, both Praetorian, both in their black undersuits. Further to the left, the group closer to the rows of food printing machines consisted of three Asari, a single Turian, and a grey-haired Human whose skin was smudged with black and white patterns.

They had been out in the snow without armour performing some kind of camouflage training, Shepard deduced. They sat with a poise that spoke of them having confidence and certainty, and the three Asari were openly looking in his direction, more or less proving to him that they had been the ones to utter his name.

Shepard's eyes flicked to the second group next, and he fought the desire to scoff. The two groupings were night and day. The second group was one Asari, two Batarians, a Krogan, and three Salarians, and they looked exhausted and were giving the other Praetorian group careful glances.

The second group were clearly fresh recruits, and the way they looked at the first group, and the energy that the first group held, told Shepard that they were First Battalion. Their scornful uttering of his name linked his mind immediately to the fact that he would have a long way to go to earn their respect after his direct actions had led to the deaths of four squads worth of their comrades.

He sighed and shook his head, looking back to his omni-tool and rubbing the tired bicep of his left arm with his right hand. He'd regrated his choice almost since the moment that his Kodiak's had come under fire, and the pilot told him that their only chance of survival was to land somewhere.

He'd cost more than just the respect and lives of the Praetorians... He knew he was lucky for getting off so lightly, as much as the element of him that he thought of as renegade wanted to bleat his anger at the Master Chief for the demotion.

Their whole military arrangement was entirely unconventional, after all. But atop the renegade element, he was thankful for the opportunity that demotion offered him. He had been a First Lieutenant at the battle of Torfan. When he used the opportunity to command a larger group to achieve a goal, he wasted his troops' lives on a task that could have been achieved through attrition or safer naval assets.

Now, back at that rank, he could restart his journey to Lieutenant Commander or beyond to Captain with a fresh slate of more rational choices.

"Shepard?"

He sighed again, suspecting that the voice as belonging to the Praetorians'. He mustered himself, clenched his jaw, and looked back at the reflected room. Rather than looking at him, the group of Rangers' were looking at the open double doorway across the room.

Shepard shuffled straight and stood in a hurry. His posture stiffened, and his hand met his forehead, "Captain Anderson, Sir!"

Rather than cross the room, Anderson stood still and lifted a more brusque salute, gesturing with a nod of his head for Shepard to come to him. Shepard skirted the couch that had obscured him from the doorway and moved betwixt the rectangle tables.

"Come with me."

Shepard followed in silence, and they left the commons room. They navigated the hallways and took the elevator all the way to the roof. They crossed the icy dark space, practically sparkling from the floodlights dancing off the pelting flakes of snow and stepped into a waiting Kodiak.

Shepard sat across from Anderson, keeping his silence and sticking true to his inner resolution to follow proper protocol toward his immediate commanding officer.

"Hmm," Anderson grunted with a successful poker face. A beat later, he nodded with an expression that told Shepard he approved and then smirked, "We're going to inspect the Normandy."

Shepard wanted to smile, but he quickly remembered that it was not quite his ship anymore. The look that crossed Anderson's face told Shepard that he understood the conflict, but he left the topic alone. They rode in silence for another five minutes, the gentle bucking that occurred at the crossing from the atmosphere to space the only indication that they had moved at all.

Anderson waved his left hand, his omni-tool active, and the forward wall turned into a screen, showing the pilots view. In space, even in the night side of Praetoria's orbit, the darkness didn't seem as pervasive, and the lights which lit the gigantic construction called the Cradle left no detail of its function to the imagination.

Hundreds of mechanical arms of all size and sort dotted the visible surface, and in the far end was the convex hexagonal inbuilt smelting unit. Above the smelting unit was a long line of chunks of asteroidss that had long tethers attached, ready to reel them in and turn out more metal and other precious mineral resources.

In the centre of the Cradle' construction area was a gigantic scaffold. Between sections of the scaffold were dark areas where inner walls were already being built, along with the enormous MAC cannon that had already been installed right through the middle of the vessel.

"They don't muck 'round, do they?" Anderson said. He crossed his arms and shook his head absently. "One dreadnought mass ship in four months, and this one... A super-dreadnought?" He shot Shepard a look for input, his words coming out around an expressive sigh.

Shepard shrugged and narrowed his eyes, "It's volume is bigger than ours, Sir... I'm guessing its mass will be a lot bigger than ours."

Anderson snorted a dry laugh, "A mega-dreadnought...." With another head shake, he continued. "Look... Shepard, I'm not quite pleased with this structure either, but we have to make the most of it. Nearly half of First Fleet has already been upgraded with armour, supplementary reactors, and these mega-rail guns."

Anderson winced and sighed and then pursed his lips.

Shepard watched his commanding officer in silence for a moment longer before steeling himself. Anderson had clearly been mirroring his private thoughts, and Shepard was halfway concerned that this might be a test of character or disposition. "The new command structure is strange, Sir."

"Too bloody right...." Anderson said belligerently, his eyes lighting up for Shepard's candour. "I understand why Hackett agreed to it... Heh, we're not Systems Alliance. We're the Alliance Branch of the Praetorian armed forces. Strange to not think of myself as a Systems Alliance soldier."

"I agree, Sir," Shepard nodded along, guarding his expression for the new framework that they were operating in, even with Anderson speaking more freely.

"And our Grand Admiral, or General, or Dictator..." Anderson continued, shaking his head and narrowing his eyes with each chosen title. "Is a Master Chief... If he's in charge of all this, why not just promote himself?"

Shepard realised a beat later in the silence that Anderson wasn't just speaking rhetorically, and he immediately thought to the little he knew about the mysterious soldier. Miranda's own elusive descriptions rung in his mind as well, and he licked his lips to speak slowly, "I think it's something to do with how he was trained... His Spartan branch. He's not the most social guy... Hard to get a read on him."

Anderson snorted another dry laugh with an ironic headshake. Shepard knew that Anderson had been one of the first Alliance members in contact with the Master Chief, so for the command arrangement to be what it currently was, Shepard was sure that Anderson would see it as a harsh irony.

"I suppose they've been growing so quickly that upgrading their command structures has been a struggle... They're using old army ranks, aren't they?" The former councillor grunted, this time in a manner that Shepard knew to be rhetorical. "Chief is using a navy rank, the rest are army ranks, and they already have pilots in dropships and fighters, as well as their naval crew... Mind if I get you to use some of your social influence to speak to Lawson about streamlining their hierarchy?"

Shepard winced at the mention of his former XO of Cerberus origin. His lips formed a thin line as he released a long breath through his nose and nodded. The last time he had seen Miranda, she'd chewed him up and let the Chief more reasonably spit him out with a demotion.

He always knew that she could be cold, especially in commanding situations. But he had never expected her to be so hot in a commanding position. Her loyalty to the soldiers that she identified as hers was equally a surprise and had made him question several times how well he'd even really known her on the Normandy. If he'd put in half as much effort as he should have in getting to know her, as he had done the rest of the acquired squad.

He'd been so swept up in his own importance and mission, and clouded by bias, that he'd failed to lodge enough interest in any of his crew. That was changing, ironically, thanks to the wake-up call delivered by Miranda.

"I'll speak to her when they're back, Sir... I think I'll need to get to the Chief to make any progress though-"

"-She was not very receptive to you last time, was she...." Anderson mused around a sigh. Then he hardened his expression and shook his head, "Eden Prime was an absolute failure, though.... Hopefully, you've learned a vital lesson, Son?"

Shepard nodded and parted his lips to reply but paused to analyse their conversion. He quickly deduced that Anderson had been gently easing him into a more relaxed conversation and that it was much like the beginning of his earlier relationship with Anderson after being nominated to become a Spectre.

Anderson continued. "You better have. The troops might have lost some faith in you from what happened, but they all still see you as the first Human Spectre, and even with the Council disbanded, the importance of that still means something. Earn their respect and trust back-"

"-Sir-" Shepard interrupted carefully. He waited for Anderson to meet his eyes with an appraising look before continuing. "I- Actually- I appreciate the demotion. I don't think I was ready for command of the Normandy when I got it. All of the drills the Praetorians have had us doing and the squad exercises.... We never trained like that in the Alliance. We never had many large scale training exercises or manoeuvres. It was usually just squad tactics based around small team insertions for pirate bases... We weren't trained for active hot wars. Getting stood down rubs me the wrong way, a bit- Heh!"

Shepard rubbed his neck and smiled sardonically, "But I'm making the best out of this Sir, I'm happy I'm getting the opportunity to serve under you again."

Anderson arched a brow and gave Shepard a long appraising look. Meanwhile, their craft finished its viewing loop around the Praetorian Cruiser and angled toward where Omega sat just far enough from the surface to not dramatically affect the tides on Praetoria with its mass.

Finally, Anderson pressed a thin smile and presented Shepard with a firm nod. Shepard returned the expression. He wasn't sure, not entirely, but he was hopeful that now, with more experience and humility under his belt, that Anderson appreciated his between the lines request to learn from the ground up.

Having served as the commanding officer of the Normandy during the hunt for Saren through to the Geth patrols that led to his death, and then after his revival and through to a war footing that he simply wasn't ready for, he had finally had sufficient experience to acknowledge what he was and was not good at, and where he needed to improve.

The troop bay of the Kodiak hummed as their pilot kicked more power into the drive, and they crossed the void toward Omega in several minutes. The four large dry-dock structures were lined up several hundred kilometres from Omega. Each had an Alliance cruiser docked in their middles with mechanical arms in the process of dethatching plates, parts and installing new heavier units.

The trade-off was a slightly slower ship than the original, but more powerful in all regards.

The general approach being taken to upgrading the Alliance ships was to remove and replace the reactor core with one of UNSC design to boost the power output by well over six-hundred per cent its original.

The upgrade enabled the craft to pump more power into its new series of spinal mounted articulating onagers, its barriers, and the lasers of the ships already outfitted with the rare and energy-hungry weapons.

Contrary to expectation, the extra power did not equate to extra speed. The craft being retrofitted received no new Element Zero for their cores, and each core was effectively being tasked with reducing more mass than it had originally.

Were it not for the massive increase in power to triple the thrust capability, then the retrofitted ships would have slowed to a crawl by their previous standards.

The upgrades to everything at the cost of speed was going to nesseciatate a dramatic rethinking of how they utilised their craft. As it was, rather than sprinting, as they used to, now they were able to jog. Shepard frowned slightly at the thought. His frown turned partially sardonic.

Their overwhelming enemy was already going to demand they change how they think about engagements.

They slowed as they passed the assembly line and approached Omega's spired underbelly. The red light that had been a thematic staple of the once-seedy asteroid colony was now broken up by large stretches of area illuminated in bright white lights.

As they drew closer and closer, Shepard saw vast scaffolds connecting the spires, creating docking web structures. Hundreds of small craft were docked, from Alliance fighters to Kodiaks all the way up to smaller frigates.

"What are they doing to the fighters, Sir?"

Anderson's eyes found the craft parked in a grid-like formation between several pylons they were coasting by and nodded to himself. "Nothing as dramatic as the capital ships, just upgrading the weapon systems....." He trailed off, wincing in the process, then shook his head. "The Chief... He's one crazy son of a bitch."

Shepard arched his brow in question and waited. It only took Anderson several seconds to catch the look and sigh. "We don't use nukes... No one has used them for a hundred years. Only the Krogan have been crazy enough to use them."

Shepard's lips formed a thin line as Virmire came to mind and the distinct lack of acknowledgement that he'd received for detonating the breeding facility there in the manner he had. It had been a dirty topic better left unlooked at.

"Omega is being used as a manufacturing hub for their gear too...." Anderson shook his head again. "It's not as fast as what they make on the ground or their cradle. It's all mostly made by hand; not many drones active on Omega yet. I don't think their AI can handle many more...."

"...Sir?" Shepard spoke the title slowly with his brow arching further in question.

They coasted on through the pylons, past the initial conversation starter toward the larger construction zone that had been set aside for the Normandy.

"Omega is rich in rare minerals."

Shepard nodded in understanding – the colony had been founded originally for the element zero mines, and wherever there was element zero, there was usually a trove of other minerals.

"Uranium, for example.... They've been stockpiling the stuff ever since they started mining here."

Shepard's arched brow dropped along with the other one until his brow was clenched. Nukes were a dirty topic in the galaxy, often seen as a less civilised marker of the past and better left ignored and forgotten. Anderson's dancing around the topic made Shepard's mind jump to conclusions. "We know that they've already made some nukes... They used one on the Collector station?"

Anderson grumbled under his breath, the inkling of a smile held at bay by the indication of a frown as a symptom of his mixed opinion. "They called that one Shiva... Now they're making more, and more, and bloody more...."

"They're arming the fighters with nukes....?" Shepard asked slowly, piecing the alluded topics together.

Anderson snorted, all but confirming it before he nodded. "They call these missiles Havoks"

"Hackett agreed to this?" Shepard added carefully.

Anderson grumbled under his breath again with a nod. "Hackett... He's scared to death of the Reapers."

That made Shepard frown deeper, this time in question of Anderson's line of thought. Hackett had embraced what he saw as the future, or at the very least, as their path to survival, and Shepard was more and more coming to agree. On the other hand, Anderson was clinging to the conservative past of the Alliance and behaviours of the status quo that he lead them to where they were.

It was a strange and harsh irony. The former councillor had been one of the most progressive Human voices in the galaxy, but now it seemed they had progressed too far too fast for his comfort zone.

"Apparently, they downsized the yields from what they were originally meant to be.... They're fifteen megatons." Another head shake and sigh, and then the Normandy's new angular prow armour filled their view. "They've loaded some of them onto the Normandy too."

Shepard's pressed his lips more firmly together and fought off the interruption he wanted to make. The last he knew, the Chief and Miranda had left with the Killimanjaro to form a battlegroup to try to replicate his destruction of the Alpha Relay in Harsa, and hopefully, in the process, deliver a crippling blow to the Reapers.

It wouldn't be that simple, though. Shepard knew that in his bones. What he didn't know was in what way it wouldn't be simple. But since his first time learning of the Reapers, the news had only gotten worse, so he was sure that whatever intel was going to be fed back to them about Harsa and the Reapers, it wouldn't be good.

Everything in his education from life, from childhood to now still made him uncomfortable about unleashing the power of the atom in the form of a bomb. Still, he was firmly in Hacketts' camp of having a healthy fear of the Reapers. If that meant having thermonuclear weapons aboard his ship, then that was a fair trade-off- 'Captain Anderson's ship....' He corrected himself with a slight smirk,

"They haven't changed the onager MAC they installed," Anderson moved on from the topic of nuclear weapons. "That's still on top, but they've installed heavy titanium armour along both flanks, upgraded the reactor, and unlike the other ships upgrades, they've increased the eezo capacity of the core. She's as fast as ever- or will be," Anderson concluded. He lifted his wrist and spoke into his active omni-tool, "Pilot, take us in."

They gained a glinting view down the angled armour plating that now adorned the starboard side of the Normandy. Work lights reflected off its polished surface, and Shepard's eye caught the slight detail of a hexagonal pattern. He squinted at it in thought, "Some kind of energy deflecting system?"

"Camouflage," Anderson corrected. "It can change colour to blend in. They wanted to be able to use the Normandy for high-risk ground insertions."

Shepard snorted a quiet mirthless laugh through his nose, and catching the look on Anderson's face, he laughed ironically. "That's a standard theme for the Chief, Sir."

Anderson resolved to simply nod firmly with narrowed eyes while the pilot took them into the open hanger of the Normandy. They stepped out and found the hanger littered with construction materials and rows of gun racks waiting to be filled. They toured the ship from the bottom up.

Its internal space was utilised in much the same way as it always had been. The major changes were on the crew deck where three-sided bunks had been grafted into the area that had been the mess hall.

The kitchen had gone through a likewise simplification, now a simple bench surface with one of the Praetorian Nutri-Printers at the end to maximise space efficiency.

They ended up in the CIC where they found Jeff seated awkwardly on a mechanics trolly with a LOKI dragging him. "Mosh!" He cried. "Come on, move it!" He added, halfway in laughter and halfway in impatience.

The mech sighed, and Shepard sighed as well as he realised the EDI was inhabiting the machine to use as Joker's form of transport around the deck while he fiddled with whatever he was fiddling with.

He and Anderson shared a look, both of them halfway amused at the unorthodox pilot who was making his way back to the cockpit and hadn't noticed them. With a nod of his head, Anderson gestured back at the elevator. "This is your ship... In a way, Shepard. Cerberus built this for you, and they built you for it. You can keep your cabin; I'll take the XO's cabin."

"Ah, okay, Sir?" He answered. His brow moved up and down his forehead minutely as he tried to put the picture together. After a moment, with Anderson stepping deeper into the CIC to examine the readouts in the stations, Shepard realised that was yet another socially political decision.

Anderson didn't want to supplant him too readily and too thoroughly, with the Normandy being Shepard's heartland in space.

EDS (Earth Dating system) – September 11, 2185
Planet: Praetoria
Stellar Orbit: Epsilon Eridani

I AM ALONE.

I AM ALIVE.

I AM WITH MANY.

I AM THE HARBINGER OF A NEW EMPIRE.

I AM BETWEEN THE START AND THE END.

His world was murky, foggy, and noncorporeal. His mind worked in an endless loop. The stasis had activated, and the thoughts that he had held in those moments were sent into perpetual rotation with the most distant awareness of them but with none of the grasp of time that was usually present.

Had it been days? Had it been years? Had it been aeons?

The Apparition, cursed being that it was, had arrived too late to make any real difference. But it had arrived, and it would be used, and hopefully, its guardian would be there upon his waking to assist with the empire. It was his own hubris that had cost their final fortress, and the Apparition had warned him.

What had he learnt? That the Apparition, the machine mind that it was, was not evil. That opened the door to concepts that shook the core of his character. Machines might not be the enemy.

The Reapers, however, were most definitely the enemy, and it had nothing to do with their synthetic nature. It was to do with their intent, and he knew only too well the biologicals could be just callous, if in a far less effective way.

I WILL AWAKE.

I WILL FIGHT.

I WILL SEEK RETRIBUTION.

His thoughts did not represent his reality, but the being in suspense could hardly be aware of that. His thousands were hundreds, and his hundreds were scientists and engineers trained separately to his soldiers by the mind that had slowly taught him that being synthetic didn't make one an enemy.

What the Apparition had taught the scientists, he could not know.

EDS (Earth Dating system) – September 13, 2185
Planet: CITADEL
Stellar Orbit: Serpent Nebula

A spy would do as a spy would do.

Lenka smirked to herself at the thought that meandered through her frontal lobe.

Of course, before she was a spy, she considered herself a good soldier. The breakdown of the Alliance had briefly made her question to whom her loyalty belonged. Still, Admiral Hackett had always been the one to value her as any other Human, and so aligning her loyalty with him had been a near-instant choice.

Escaping Thessia to the Citadel had placed her into a new unusual situation upon learning of the split in the Alliance. What was she to do next? Where was she to go? With how fractured everything had been, she'd been too afraid to use her own secured channels to contact Hackett in the event that they were not so secure as she assured herself.

So instead, she had waited. And waiting meant that she had spied. Nothing overly dramatic had occurred while she waited on the Citadel. New Turian and Quarian forces arrived. Populations who had not vacated the Citadel were informed of the governance change, and none of them had seemed bothered. Where the Praesidium was a mere skeleton of its former population, the wards were still abuzz with activity.

When news of the alliance forming between the First Fleet, now apparently a fleet belonging to the Praetorians, and the local forces, Lenka had been fast to position her daily routes close to the Praesidium docks.

A day earlier, that had resulted in her watching Admiral Hackett in the shadow of an armoured giant side-by-side with an armoured warrioress boarding by way of an unusual troop transport with a sloping hull and rear bay with wing struts carrying rocket tubes.

When finally Hackett was separate from the new additions, known only by reputation, Lenka had approached and debriefed swiftly, only to be rewarded with the orders to answer to this new armoured element before seeking clearance from any given charges from Hackett.

It was a strange arrangement, but Lenka saw that Hackett was partially hedging his bets, and in a way, using her to vet the orders being handed down.

The armoured soldier and his warrioress had only removed their helmets once thus far, and that was only to interact with the local Quarian and Turian commanders. The meeting had at first been heated, and Lenka hadn't been surprised to learn why with her tiny digital drone flying as close as she dared for it.

The Master Chief's measures against the Reapers were going to be drastic. They were going to do everything possible to save as many worlds as possible and fight the Reapers in a way that would nullify their numerical superiority.

They needed to be on more worlds and defending more populations than they could have ships for, including their allies, so they were designing landing plans and planning on fighting on the ground with techniques to make the Reapers likely orbital dominance moot.

Worlds would be ruined... But lives could be saved.

Lenka shivered at the thought of some of the strategies she'd overheard, but she couldn't question the potential effectiveness nor the threat that the enemy represented.

With a slow nod, she finally decided that she had her measure of the two warrior leaders. They were on the same bridge that the Quarian and Turian commanders typically occupied. They were stooped over a holo-table with ten of their black armoured entourage assembled nearby.

Lenka had realised with slow understanding that their forces were a mix of species and still had trouble with the fact that they all behaved uniformly. She tugged her dark navy Alliance blues straight, out of habit, and started to pace along the bridge.

The black armoured soldiers took note of her approach immediately, faster than their Turian and Quarian counterparts likewise on guard duty. They lifted their rifles vaguely in her direction from their waists. One of the smallest of their squad stepped forward to meet her.

"Rank and business here?"

Lenka fought the urge to cock her head slightly. If she were to guess, the helmeted figure was an Asari. The Praetorians' probably had an agreement to match their numbers to the native species to divert cultural issues and expedite cultural understanding.

"Lenka Pan, Alliance intelligence operative, reporting to the Master Chief for orders."

The figure was statue still for a minute, and Lenka imagined shrewd eyes narrowed.

"Cleared to proceed," The likely-Asari said, at last, stepping slightly aside, and shrugged her long-barrelled rifle in a manner that said that no funny business would be tolerated.

Lenka nodded her understanding and found that the Master Chief and the warrioress had both turned to face her. She suddenly felt like she was about to be on trial and feared for whatever orders might be distilled to her.

X

September 15th

"Well that was bloody easy...."

An uncharacteristic scoff of laughter sounded through John's helmet speakers. The action made him drop his brow slightly beneath his obscuring helmet.

More and more of his expressions and interactions were uncharacteristic of how he had been before arriving in this reality. More and more of those minuscule changes were occurring in the presence of Miranda and at the head of his soldiers.

His brow lifted marginally and relieved the pensive expression from his face as he silently acknowledged that he was proud of not only his soldiers and what they were becoming at the forefront of what Praetoria was becoming, but that he was even more proud in the most silent manner he could imagine of how he was learning to morph himself into the social field.

That field, as it was, only currently consisted of Miranda, Cathryn Hales, and his First Lieutenants in the most blithe sense. Still, it was more than he'd ever socialised before with anyone who wasn't a Spartan or Halsey.

Miranda cocked her own helmet slightly at the sound that John had made but didn't acknowledge it further.

They made their way through the Citadel Tower around teams of workers busy stripping out one of the garden sections to convert it into a new conference hall.

Forming their new alliance had been easy, bloody easy, as Miranda said.

And gaining secure access to the Citadel systems had been even easier.

Apparently, General Victus's retelling of the events at Harsa had arrived in detail before they had, and the Turians and Quarians had already discussed what they knew of their enemy. They had agreed that dire measures were to be taken. And open policy was in force which encouraged military cooperation, even where that opened one another to risks.

That policy was desperate and hopeful in equal measures, in John's opinion. He only hoped that the other militaries and governments who were involved didn't use the opportunity to take advantage of one another – their problems were stacked enough as it was.

The new Citadel alliance was already in the works, made evident by the swiftness of the Tower being transformed internally.

John noted the cultural differences between the previous council structure gifting judgement and law from an elevated dais compared to the new large circular table that would seat all respective leaders and diplomats at the same height.

"They're desperate."

Miranda scoffed a laugh. "If it means they want to get things done, then that's damned good." She scowled through her words, the sounds coming out in a derisive tone, "The Council being the way they were was the entire reason for so many of the galaxy's problems."

John shrugged. It was more than likely an accurate summary if simplified. They made their way up the final short flight of steps to the platform where individuals had once addressed the council.

Without slowing, but with Miranda lagging a little to allow John's bulk to take up the pathway more easily, they made their way along the platform in long strides.

"Deja, ready to insert?"

"Of course," The AI answered through their shared helmet link, making it so each of them could converse with her. "If there are any firewalls or viruses, I'll inform you immediately."

John extended his right hand as he reached the end of the platform and a holographic display rose to meet him. It flickered as electrons and photons interacted with the passage of Deja's fragment from John's armour into the Citadel systems.

John and Miranda both looked at the holographic controls for a long moment before it flickered again, and Deja's voice returned to their helmets. "There's a very basic AI in this system. If you call me a Dumb AI, then you could call this a Simian AI."

Miranda huffed another muffled sardonic laugh at the defamatory description.

"I've isolated its systems and compressed it for study. It looks like it takes routine population data and tracks mention of scientific discoveries before routing that through a quantum link-"

"-That must be how the Reapers know when to invade," Miranda interrupted.

John nodded, "Agreed."

"-There are also control systems wrapped into the quantum link for the Relays. . . Wait one."

John and Miranda both waited, non-contestant for the artificial intelligence to perform its assigned task in whatever time it required.

The din of workers did little to distract them, and one by one, the lights through the Tower shifted hue to a brighter and warmer yellow light to better replicate average planetary daytime conditions.

The lofty ceiling of the Tower now illuminated by bright warm rays, shifted the ambience of the space to feel more like an outdoor amphitheatre rather than the techno-cave it had felt like previously.

"I am unable to untangle any separate control systems. We could shut down the entire network at once, but not one at a time. Some systems appear to facilitate the construction of new Reapers in the Citadel."

"Can you shut down the systems, either of them?"

"Make it so that the Relays can't be shut down?" Miranda tacked to John's initial question.

"Negative. The Reapers may not have left a very sophisticated AI in this system, but the system itself is a network of quantum computers. Shutting it down would take at least three Smart AI's, and I'm not sure how long it would take them to isolate each quantum filament and its assigned function."

John shifted his weight slightly from one foot to another, his physical expression of a sigh.

Miranda's helmet shifted toward him again, and unlike him, she did sigh audibly. "Just another issue...."

"Affirmative," John ground mirthlessly.

"We'll have to make sure we can defend this station...." Miranda shook her head. "Deja, could the Reapers interact with this system wirelessly, or do they need to make some kind of physical contact?"

"The Reapers cycle of consuming organic beings into their collective does seem to present quite a strategic weakness. As far as I am able to ascertain, this console is the only way to interact with this particular system-"

"-Only one of their indoctrinated forms can activate this?" John asked, incredulity on the edge of his voice. Given the prospective strategic power of each individual Reaper, their apparent reliance on their mentally morphed slaves -or forms, as he thought of them akin to the Flood- presented such a tactical and strategic weakness that it almost boggled his mind.

"It appears so, Master Chief. I may be incorrect, though," Deja said, all but confirming her initial assertion whilst defending her fallibility.

Miranda nodded slowly, then titled her helmet upward. "That makes defending this easier-"

"-Potentially."

"-Potentially," Miranda agreed. "It will be a lot easier stationing soldiers here than ships... The Citadel is vital to the Reapers invasion strategy, especially if they need it to construct more of themselves."

"And we can't afford to destroy it either."

Miranda breathed another mirthless laugh and cocked her hip. "If that shuts down the Relay network, then everyone is divided.... How many ships can we fit with Slipspace drives before they arrive?"

"Not enough... Protecting the Citadel is a priority, and them taking the Citadel will be a priority."

Miranda nodded and breathed a long sigh. "Alright.... Well, we got what we came for."

This time it was John's turn to slightly cock his head. Miranda caught the action and shrugged.

"Deja has captured one of their AI's. Even if it is basic, we could possibly learn some other weaknesses from it. We also know that they'll need the Citadel for reproducing, which means we can use it as a strategic point without needing ships for defence. We've got good intel; that's more than we expected."

"Not as much as we hoped," John added.

Miranda laughed, "Haha, no," Her voice turned pensive, "But you're a glass-half-full kind'a guy."

Inside his helmet, John arched his brow. He wasn't exactly sure the tone of the sentiment was true, but he did always see the positive and need to push forward on everything. The sheer relaxation of the expression made him feel oddly uncomfortable but also curious.

Miranda seemed to sense his pensiveness, and she continued. "We're here until these talks take place... Hales is busy on the Rubicon working on new engineering schematics; we don't have anything that needs doing...."

She halted, and her voice grew uncertain, and John's brow grew more curious.

"...How about some shore leave? We- You.... We," She reverted with a shrug, "Deserve it."

September 16th

Shore leave.... This was his third in his career. It was also the third that had occurred since arriving here. The increasing commonality of it was no coincidence.

The first had been a stretch of the descriptor when he had taken the day off Ares Base to taste test the foods that Miranda, and all of those under his command, considered to be vices.

After easing his mind into the notion of relaxing, John had come to enjoy the silence of his surroundings and the sensations of the new flavoured experiences.

His pragmatic mind tried its best to relate each taste to something from his military behaviour. Namely, the way that he had always silently done his best to improve his ration choices between deployments. The alternative was eating something closer to sawdust with the backup of scavenged alien goods that were likely to make his tongue tingle and his stomach turn.

The second shore leave had been less relaxing. His trek with Miranda over the mountains to show her where he had trained as a freshly inducted Spartan. While that had been far less passive, it had been just as frivolous, at least by his approximation. And if their slight steps toward a more personal relationship on that day were any indication, Miranda had made the same deduction.

He looked down at her, and a shadow of thought crossed his eyes. She was leaning on the white balcony railing flanked with glass that overlooked the Praesidium waters below. Her hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail with several wavy lengths hanging down the sides of her face. He had watched her tie her hair, and initially, she had done it as she always had, with all of it collected into a ponytail that she then folded back on itself.

But after taking note of the passing civilians and ranking Turian and Quarian officers in the restaurant, she had redone it so that some hair remained loose and decidedly more casual with her ponytail flowing freely around her neck and over her breastplate. The look was to appear more relaxed and approachable. John thought so, at any rate.

Her face was relaxed into a neutral smile, but every so often, her lips would twitch and bunch up, and her eyes would narrow in the same instant. She made the expression again briefly before it flickered away almost as quickly as it had come, and John absently matched it while pulling his gaze away from the top of her head.

He fought the instinct that noted that he enjoyed the subtle smell distinct to her, a mixture of lavender, leather, and the faintest tinge of sweat.

The expression meant that she was thinking about something, that she was concerned or annoyed about something. He parted his lips to speak, the war and the Reapers foremost on his mind, but then he clenched his brow and slowly pursed his lips rather than continue the running conversation from the previous day about their bio-mechanical enemy.

That wasn't it... That wasn't on her mind. Miranda was excellent at compartmentalisation. Their current environment, their current theme, was that they were on shore leave and that she had arranged for them to dine together in the apparently prestigious Golden Stripe Officers Bar.

The place's name described what it was well enough, and John wasn't entirely sure how he felt about being here. He was no Admiral or General... He scoffed under his breath, despite his years of meticulous self-control.

His expression drew Miranda's eye, and the words came to him without any of his usual unease in finding casual expression.

"I'm not equipped for this."

Miranda's lips tightened for only a heartbeat, then they relaxed into a soft smile, and her eyes sparkled as though challenged in a competition that she knew was slanted in her favour. 'Maybe it is....' John thought. She was dredging more and more out of him, even if she didn't notice- but he suspected she saw just as much as any Spartan-II would have.

"You're the most equipped for this," Miranda said with an emphasis in the middle of her statement.

His left brow climbed his forehead, and the right corner of his lips drew into a rueful smile. "Yes... Ma'am," He tried. While he didn't quite believe her, he admired her confidence in the matter. His mind spun as he tried to grasp a topic to move onto, and Miranda kept watching him with her eyes still alight with interest and her expression just pleased enough to show she wasn't just putting on her neutrally accepting attitude.

"I'm- I'm proud-" He halted, frowned slightly, and narrowed his eyes in search of the proper expression. He first wanted to say that he was proud of how far Miranda had come from the demanding figure she had been when she first arrived on what was Caucasus at the time. He had supplied her a purpose and a new window into herself that had made her grow and change.

But there was more than that, and he was changing too, even if his own personal growth was more incremental than her own.

He licked his lips and nodded carefully as he amended his clumsy words. "I'm happy we're here."

Her eyes widened a millimetre, and tiny dimples drew themselves in her cheeks. She knew what he meant; John was sure. "Here," didn't mean the prestigious restaurant, nor did it mean the Citadel. It meant the changes in their characters and the motivation to keep on changing.

She drew back from the balcony railing and cocked a hip, turning slightly so that she faced him more fully. Her eyes held his, and John matched the pivot of her turn so that he likewise faced her more fully, but not entirely. Like her, he was still in armour, minus his helmet which was on their table nearby. They'd been asked to wait while staff supplied a heavier duty chair for him.

"I'm happy I'm with you," Miranda said without any of the clumsiness that he had wielded with his attempt at the personal touch. Her tone was calm and honest, and a beat later, she lifted her left hand and put it on the upper slopes of his chest armour. The posture matched the last time she had made a similar gesture, and in this case, it only worked before he had already powered down his shields to at least attempt to properly participate in the day out.

'If it were another man.... A normal man.... Would she have spoken like that?' The answer didn't matter. Only the fact that the thought made John realise in black and white terms that Miranda was interested in him in a manner close to how he and Kelly had once been interested in one another. TThe thought solidified in his mind, and his brow clenched slightly.

He still had emotion, hormones, and a basic physical desire, but neglected and suppressed it. He had done that since childhood for the simple function of his life... But times were different now. His life was different now. His future was not going to be what it was once going to be. What might he leave behind one day, as a man, more than just as a Spartan?

The rolling thought made him turn his lips inward slightly, and he was ignorant to the sudden increase in his heartbeat. Hormones and neurochemicals long suppressed through active attempts at ignorance and distraction flowed through him, and his eyes held hers in a manner that they hadn't quite before. Not until now.

"I'm-" He paused again. Talking in this manner wasn't like him, and it made him feel strange and awkward. But talking honestly was his way, and providing the simple truth had always been his policy for navigating life. "You being here-" He flinched again. That wasn't the right word. "You being with me...." He nodded once to affirm his choice of words. "I- It's good. I want- I need-" He shook his head slightly, trying to clear the thoughts to speak as plainly as he could, given the flush of dopamine bringing new ideas roaring to life in the unvisited recesses of his mind.

"You've... You are giving me a future." John wanted to try to say that he was just now realising that he was interested in her the way she was in him, but those kinds of words refused to come naturally to him.

What that would inevitably make of him, and her would provide a new future. Or at least the potential for a future beyond just warfare.

His lips formed a rueful smile again as his mind followed the logical culminative route for a relationship to the point of children, and he knew that he was well and truly getting ahead of himself. The idea was so alien that it seemed like a joke, and a rueful smile was the least he could do to acknowledge it.

If Miranda had followed the same train of thought, she didn't show it. Instead, her bottom lip drew under her teeth in a gentle bite, and her eyes sparkled more while a soft shade of pink crossed her porcelain cheeks. "We're a good team," She remarked, aiming to express more closely to him with an intent closer to her own.

John smirked at her strategic choice of words and matched the shine in her eyes. Their short and quietly held discussion relieved what John feared might have been growing tension as a female Turian in a flowing white cape pushed a rough chair shaped item shrouded in a white cloth to the opposite side of the small square table nearby.

"We are extremely sorry, Sir!" She proclaimed. "This was the best that we could do."

The Turian winced while looking from the provided heavy-duty chair to John, and he shrugged. While it was no match for the moulded and cushioned cream coloured felt chair on Miranda's side of the table, it would provide him with a place to sit without crushing through his pedestal.

"It'll do."

The Turian forced an uncomfortable smile and made a sweeping gesture for them to both sit. Miranda led the way, sitting first, plucking both of their helmets off the table, and placing them on the floor closer to the balcony.

When it appeared that they were both comfortable and that the provided chair most likely out of a loading dock was going to hold John's weight, the Turian attendee did her best to ignore that they were both in armour, and that she had been forced to go seek out something reinforced for one of them.

She drew her right hand from her left wrist, and a white omni—screen emerged covered in script. She started listing their options, and Miranda silently mouthed that she would make their choices to him while the Turian went about her script.

Minutes later, the Turian left, then returned with two tall and narrow glasses filled with a bright pink steaming fluid. Miranda's brow arched critically as they were set down on the table. John's brow arched too as she retrieved her glass and the corners of her lips turned down appreciatively.

He retrieved his own glass and raised it to his lips. The scent put him in mind of some kind of tropical flower, and when it touched his lip and then tongue, surprise met him instinctively for the fact that it was cold and not hot, as the vapour he'd mistaken for steam had made him think.

Flavour filled his mouth and made his tongue tingle in a manner entirely distinct from anything that he'd ever imagined. The sweetness was all-consuming, and then it was gone, replaced with a tartness that made the former sweetness seem not so bad, and the former sweetness made the current tart entirely pleasant. Then all that remained when he swallowed was a flavour more akin to the scent of lilacs in his mouth.

John blinked in surprise at the drink that was a combination of flavour, feel, and scent all in one. Without a doubt, it was the most flavourful thing he'd ever consumed. Miranda had a similar reaction if one of less response than his own, with a pleased curve to her lips. Given that she had one brow arched and her eyes on him, John couldn't tell if her expression was about the drink or about his reaction.

"Interesting," He admitted after a moment.

Miranda laughed, "You'll have to appoint a trade minister on Praetoria if you want more."

John scoffed, then smirked and nodded, "I suppose we will. Never thought I'd run a planet."

"Never thought I'd run an army or navy," Miranda agreed with her smile still intact. "Today, though, you're just an important bloke out for lunch, and I'm just a freely acquired tour guide who can hopefully provide a nice view."

Her voice was full of subtle irreverence, and John smirked at her rare use of Australianisms. He had met plenty of Australian descended Marines and naval personnel in his time but never gotten close to one. He snorted a more notable laugh and looked up in thought, "Could just imagine Halsey's face hearing someone call me a-" He paused and lifted his hands to form quotation fingers, "-Bloke."

Miranda exposed her teeth in a wider smile. John hadn't told her every little detail about his early life, but he had summarised most of it to her with enough detail to understand the shade of his life until now. Miranda smiled a little broader again, and a sparkle entered her eye. John thought it was cheek to match his own occasional expression of it.

"What about a bloke and a sheila out on the town together?"

He huffed a more genuine laugh of surprise and nodded, "I think Halsey would be afraid I was drugged, or that she was drugged if she heard that."

Miranda breathed a quiet laugh and nodded. "A gentleman and a lady?"

He snorted another laugh, "Just as alien... I think."

"Two fellow officers?" She tried further, testing his imagination to see Halsey's reactions in his mind's eye.

His top lip curled in humour, and this time he shrugged after a beat, "Keep the, 'out on the town,' part, out of it, and she might have been accepting of the idea."

Miranda's natural smile shifted, and she bunched her lips up for a moment before shaking her head, "Halsey didn't think much of you and the other Spartans, did she?"

Heat suddenly rose in John, and he parted his lips to begin to defend Halsey, but then he frowned, and he cooled his inner turmoil. Halsey did care for him and the other Spartans'; John knew that.

How she cared for them was a world away from how any other mother with all their mental faculties in place would care for their child and progeny.

"She thought highly of us as soldiers."

Miranda smiled thinly. It was an apologetic smile, and seeing that look on her face rather than a more open and inviting one made John feel suddenly uncomfortable. It wasn't what he found himself beginning to silently hope to see on her features.

"But you're here now. You're ours now."

Her apologetic smile turned, and the sparkle ignited anew. She was referring to Praetoria, or this universe in general, with the subtle undertone of potentially meaning hers, above and beyond everyone else his presence was proving important to.

"So today-" The arch in her eyes that John was learning to be synonymous with her cheek returned. "-This bloke is out on the town with a sheila." She snickered a laugh, "My dear old dad... and the Illusive Man, they'd have gone off their bloody rockers hearing me talk like that years ago."

"Oriana would go off her rocker, hearing you talk like that," John observed with his smile lines creasing as he suppressed the humour at the slang.

Miranda laughed openly, "You're probably right...." She wiped a mirthful tear from her right eye and laughed more, "Bloody hell... Do you know how nice it is being able to let your hair down once in a while? Having someone you can trust to let your guard down? Someone who knows what it's like...."

John did understand, in a way that was both deeper and not to how Miranda meant it precisely. Their entirely different experiences and upbringings exposed them both to that problem in quite different ways, but ways that were relatable all the same. Knowing that Miranda knew that, John was sure that she was speaking rhetorically, or at the very least, generally.

She didn't slow for him to add his less easily added thoughts in and held his eyes and smiled an almost bashful smile. "Of course, you do... So..." She tried, thinking in silence for a heartbeat to move their conversation along.

John narrowed his own eyes as he judged himself for not putting in the same amount of effort that she was to continue a conversation that wasn't all about war. He appreciated personal discussion and the discovery it provided, but he knew he needed more time and practice to tread that path more freely like she was.

"We beat the Reapers-" She snorted an interrogative laugh. "-The galaxy is safe. What do you want to do then?"

The nebulous question made John freeze for a long moment. He sat back and looked up into the ceiling lined with gold and white drapes. In the moments allowed for him to think, the Turian returned with two plates with an artistic display of what looked like roasted myriad colour vegetables and potentially some kind of fish meat cooked over coals.

The words from the Librarian came back to him. She had said that he was a result of a thousand lifetimes of planning. That meant that he was significant in that process, that his life in that endless line of reproduction meant something valuable for existence. Did that mean that him adding to that was important too? What progeny or legacy could he leave that would be important to the future of the universe?

Again, he halted as his mind came to a logical conclusion of a relationship. Surely it was too blunt and far too soon to even indicate where his mind had gone. Let alone the facts of everything that would have to come between now and that possible end result, and the sheer alienness of it.

Finally, leaning forward, he nodded slowly. "I want to leave a legacy... Do something to make sure the future is safe, make Praetoria into the future. Make my comrades- Keep you- ...Safe."

"Hmmm," She sounded, then lifted some of the meat to her mouth on a fork. She tasted and made an approving expression before starting on the rest of her meal.

John matched her pace, and they ate in silence. The Turian attendee returned to clear their plates when they were done, and then returned with another dish for each of them covered in squares of black edible rectangles adorned with blood-red flowers. Like the first drink, had John contemplated the sheer unexplored broadness of consumables and the flow-on effect of how that could be good for Praetoria and morale.

When they finally finished, Miranda seemed ready to finish John's thought from earlier, and she smiled knowingly. "You're going to save the galaxy- No...." She stopped herself and scowled sarcastically. "We're going to save the galaxy... What kind of legacy could beat tha-" her eyes flinched and widened, and then her sarcastic scowl slipped slightly, and she shrugged, "You- We'll leave a legacy, whatever that damn well means."

September 18th

'Dammit, dammit, dammit. What the hell is wrong with you?'

The world around Miranda was indifferent to the inner argument taking place within the raven-haired woman's mind. She was sitting on a park bench with her legs spread for the posture's greater comfort in the occasionally restrictive armour.

She leaned forward with her forearms perched just above her knees on the smooth lines of her bronze armour. Her helmet sat between her boots on the ground as a stark reminder of her affiliation, if her armour entirely unique to the styles of the Council races wasn't enough of a reminder.

Around twenty meters distant, across the white textured bridge she was facing in the Praesidium, John was discussing plans and tactics for the coming battles with the increased population of local military minds. They hailed from the Alliance, the Turian Hierarchy, the freshly constituted Quarian Republic Protectorate, and even Volus and Elcor industrial experts.

The Krogan were still expected to arrive, and no one expected them to be timely.

The absence of the Asari and Salarians made the meeting feel more alien to the Citadel than the inclusion of her own faction, which had sprung up out of the cosmic riffraff at an unheard-of pace since the slingshot forward Humanity had taken during the industrial revolution.

'Nothing is wrong with you....' She argued back to herself placatingly. Her lips bunched up in a contrite pout before she released a long sigh.

Poise was a recurrent theme of her ways and had been ever since she'd escaped her father. But it meant less and less to her now. Miranda was sure that just a month earlier, she would have been horrified at the prospect of expressing as she currently was in public, in front of military leaders and her own subordinates, no less.

But the other military and political leaders had their attention decidedly elsewhere. And if her Rangers were doing their jobs properly, which she would bet good money on that they were, then they were almost definitely not looking in her direction.

They'd be sharing constant chatter between their helmet-to-helmet link as they scanned every passing face. Deja would be in their ears feeding them all relevant data and intel that she'd be constantly drawing from the Citadel systems and whatever other systems she could tap into.

Miranda leaned back and turned from her hips, swinging her rear on the bench slightly. The one set of eyes that she thought would be on her were on her. Meeting Lenka Pan's eyes didn't make the all too Human Asari divert her gaze.

If anything, being identified by eye contact only made the Asari lift a brow in analytical thought.

Miranda matched the expression for a moment before looking back. If Hackett's order was anything to go by, Lenka Pan was at their disposal. Miranda knew better, though, as a former intelligence operative herself. Lenka would dig and pry and uncover whatever she could. 'But what does that have to do with how you feel? Will it give her some kind of red herring?'

Miranda's concern for her personal and emotive expression barrelled through her again, bringing out a new sigh and turning her from her hips to face across the bridge again.

A Turian in ornate red armour was making exaggerated hand gestures at their holographic map, and his mandibles were working overtime. The other three Turians present were nodding along with whatever was being said. It was John's face, the more potentially mobile one compared to the Turians, which looked to be carved from stone.

He was listening, learning, and improving upon whatever was being said to him. Knowing that fact made the corner of Miranda's mouth turn upward. 'Nothing is wrong with you,' She thought after a moment, countering her initial thoughts yet again.

She and he were in some ways parallels, more so than anyone else she'd ever met or imagined. They were similar enough in the kinds of issues that they faced that she was happy to ignore the differences. Those differences were growing less and less by the day, and in that process, she was coming more and more out of herself to trust him with her emotional weight, as he was her, in his much more reserved way.

What she was afraid of was that she was either going to express more of her growing attraction than she quite wanted to admit that she felt or that she'd express enough to make him draw back into his closed-off state.

Her slight appreciative smile waned into a slight frown. 'That's not fair... That's not right.'

It was easy to think that someone who was as closed off to expression as John had been, as he still largely was, would draw back when something seemed too much. But he wasn't the typical man. He wasn't a person with at all standard psychology.

He didn't seem introspective, but he clearly was after a more expansive range of conversation than just a few minutes. Anything that Miranda posed to him as a new concept as either a verbal question or a physical gesture resulted in him working out a more natural way of expressing himself in an emotional range.

Those adaptations were slight and subtle, 'Frustratingly slow....' Miranda smirked and then caught herself and pouted slightly again. The thought was a symptom of her growing attraction again. Any other man who'd have garnered her interest would have proceeded in a kind of courting process that would be considered a lot more normal.

They would get to know one another through more typical settings and then grow physically more intimate before becoming even more comfortable sharing less reserved thoughts. The concept of a future of that relationship would be kept to very abstract terms.

But like everything else with John, that kind of progress wasn't going to proceed normally.

'Our first date... Was it a date? What does a date with a Spartan look like?' She huffed to herself aloud and smirked. 'Thinking you're going to die in a mud pit in the middle of the night?' She thought ironically. 'That mud-pit was the first thing that made me open up a little... I suppose that was a good thing, in a way... What else? Trekking over a bloody mountain?'

Her smirk turned soft until it was nothing more than a placid smile. 'No, this was the first date. And it bloody ended with the implication of kids!' She snorted again, this time shaking her head. 'Not normal progress.... Not at all... But it's progress.'

She leaned back and turned from her hips again. Lenka Pan was still watching her, but now she wore a more thoughtful expression. Welcoming the distraction from her wandering and private thoughts, Miranda jerked her head in a come hither gesture, and Pan obliged instantly.

When the Asari dressed in Alliance blues came within comfortable earshot, Miranda fell back into her commander mindset, as did her tone and expression with her eyes growing suddenly more shrewd, "Tell me how to best use you?"

The Asari, with her stereotypical features, a slender nose with a gentle curve, brightly coloured eyes, and high cheekbones, but with full lips set like stone, lifted a brow. Her brow arch was followed quickly by a smirk. "I'm Human, but the Asari don't know that."

Miranda wanted to smile apologetically or wince, but she did neither. Lenka's situation was culturally and biologically tricky. It was a miracle that any Asari would have become entirely culturally acclimated to Humanity over the Asari, given the noticeable physical differences.

But she nodded, looked past Lenka's obvious physical traits, and saw the Human individual who had been assigned to their mission of saving the galaxy, at whatever the cost.

"I can get into almost any Asari group, find a way of uniting what's left of the Republic...."

Lenka's tone was hopeful, but she trailed off with a slight wince. Miranda's brow clenched at that change of pace, and her eyes narrowed. "Go on?"

"Religion can be used as a weapon... Or a uniting force," She tilted her head toward the bridge, "And right now, the living prophecy is here; the guardian of Athame, and the one who knew the most about her."

"You want to use John to unite them?"

Lenka shook her head, winced again, and continued with less confidence. "I want to use Athame...." She lifted her open right palm and brushed it across her crest, "It won't take much to make me look like her.... I've already researched the procedures needed."

Miranda blinked and fought the urge to gape. As far as she knew, the Asari revered their crests. Not in an obvious way like how a human typically might love their own favourite physical feature, but more some kind of spiritual connection. Of course, that connection had changed in recent times.

The emergence of John on Thessia had been caught on camera, and stories rippled through the Asari before the break-down of the Republic. There was a resurgence of interest in the temple of Athame.

It hadn't been long after that before rekindled images of Athame, of Cortana, were being spread from the remaining temples around Thessia who still practised the old doctrines.

Asari more open to their spirituality who distantly believed in Athame now seemed to generally see their ancient mother as being more like Cortana than a typical Asari.

"These don't serve a purpose for me.... And there are bioluminescent skin treatments."

Miranda blinked again as Lenka continued. 'Radical times call for radical measures. If she wants to become their god....' She shook her head, and Lenka stopped with her lips parted in an uncomfortable expression. Miranda pressed her mouth into a thin line, then shook her head again, "Sorry, operative, just a thought... You'll have studied this before deciding this action; show me your data, and we'll consider it."

Lenka corrected her expression and resumed her discipline. She straightened from the slightly anxious posture that she had assumed and nodded firmly, "Sir."

X

EDS (Earth Dating system) – September 19, 2185
Planet: Praetoria
Stellar Orbit: Epsilon Eridani

"YEEEEOOOOWWWW!"

The wind whipped the sound of the free-spirited expression from Oriana's lips. There was no one to hear her for miles, let alone herself, with the wind buffeting her eardrums through the vibration it caused in the open-faced helmet that she wore.

Her heart thrummed with energised excitement, and the land beneath her disappeared in a blur of white, brown, and increasing greens as she sped further south on the VTOL four-turbine aerial bike that the Asari researcher had designed from the Praetorian schematics available.

The bike went from the discussion phase to the design phase and all the way through being pushed out the end of one of the fab-plants in no more than six hours. The power of the AI fragments on Praetoria provided comprehensive engineering testing for anything proposed, and the construction process being almost one hundred per cent automated made the speed of everything on Praetoria mind-blowing for Oriana.

The speed of construction and growth on Praetoria was mind-blowing for everyone involved with the new faction, Oriana thought. But no one commented on it; what was, was, and everyone seemed to hold a mixture of silent reverence toward the change and superstitious fear that saying something about it would unsettle something.

Unlike any aerial vehicle from any other planet in the galaxy, this one, just like every other Praetorian made machine that wasn't a spaceship, didn't have an ounce of element zero. It relied on a hydrogen engine to power its micro jet turbines mounted on the underside of the front and the back to create lift and thrust through sheer power with zero mass negation.

A day earlier, after a mixture of growing bored studying under a team of the local researchers and engineers and the Praetorian lieutenants growing frustrated with her incessant questions, she had requested some special task to perform.

The lieutenants had all been reticent to give her a task, fearful of and for her because of her status as their commanders' sister. But researcher Flo had been all too happy to tell her of an unimportant task down south toward the tropical belt, which wrapped the planet running somewhat laterally elliptically thanks to a mix of Praetoria's strong magnetic field and its particular orbit.

All she had to do was man the VTOL Polaris bike all the way there and make notes about viable areas to develop and about the native ecosystems and how best to adapt to them.

It was no short trip, but the speeds and elevation that the craft could reach made it bearable and extremely exciting for Oriana. Bellow her, the snow of the north was giving way to a stretch of arid tundra, and beyond that, Oriana could spy green.

She blinked, and then her recently acquired neural lace did the heavy lifting of her thinking and induced the smart glass goggles she wore to switch into augmented reality mode.

"Oh jeez!" She laughed in fright. The neural lace technology, which was only now being made available to non-service citizens of importance, was a lot to wrap her mind around.

The concept of using her brain to control electronics in the slightest degree was frightening but, true to her spirit, exciting. All of the Rangers were the first to receive it, and none of them had made any complaints, 'But they friggen wouldn't complain 'bout anything!'

Oriana snickered at her own joke and opted to pay attention to the augmented reality. It had laid a satellite map over her vision with its opacity dialled down so that she could still see through it. According to her nav-marker, she was around two-thirds of the way there, with the tropical belt not entirely hugging the equator as it did on Earth.

She blinked away the satellite image and pitched her weight further forward in her straddled position so that her elbows rested on the steel cowling just behind the recessed handles, which she locked into place to be able to remove her grip.

Praetoria was strange – life here was strange – the reality was becoming more and more strange. None of it made any kind of sense to Oriana, but she was just as happy for it to be what it was.

She'd known about her older sister, her genetic twin, in an abstract sense for a long time.

For Miranda to leave the abstract and become very real had been like a spiritual awakening for Oriana. The Master Chief and his manner of intrusion into her life had been a unique and exciting event that Oriana hadn't thought could become furthermore interesting.

But that idea was a drastic fallacy. Miranda and the Chief, 'Miri and Johnny?' Oriana tried the titles out in her mind with a smug smirk. 'Miranda and John,' She settled on, thinking it more proper, were becoming increasingly dependent on one another, and Oriana didn't believe that either of them saw it, at least not how she did.

Neither of them was very expressive. Not by usual standards, at least. But they both had their unique tells. When they crossed paths during the day, they would do short debriefs when they were on the planet.

Usually, Oriana would think that to just be good protocol. Still, she had since learned that their debriefs were entirely unneeded and that they held extensive briefings every morning and evening. Those briefings might also include their own personal one-on-one training, and more than likely didn't include a huge amount of happy chit chat.

Still, they would most definitely be including all things of note for their days in their routine briefings. None of the Rangers, First Battalion or the new recruits, had yet shown any severe issues that needed noting.

When they did stop to do their quick chats, the most telling outward sign for Oriana; Miranda would stand closer to John to talk to him than she did to most other people. John, the Chief, would also use more queries about Miranda's own experiences than he would toward anyone else.

And his expression usually softened away from his all-business all-hardcore look, just a touch, but a touch enough for Oriana to suspect he cared for Miranda in whatever unique way he could.

The thought made Oriana smirk again. 'They'll be a weird couple... But maybe they'll be cute?...' She pouted, then her smirk came back in strength, 'Pssht... Giant muscly dude and my beloved icicle sis? Cute?' "Hah!"

She cried her last expression out loud and laughed to herself. Her laugh soured after several more yips, and she sighed heavily. Like all happy or fun thoughts these days, it inevitably gave way to thinking about the decidedly not delighted thoughts of what was to come.

She was afraid of that future, and she tried her best to believe everything Miranda said, with her interesting and uniquely different accent. "It will be fine, Ori..." She parroted under her breath.

"Things might get tough," She shook her head, further parroting, "But we'll make it. The Chief and I will make sure."

Oriana sneered suddenly, 'How dare I doubt that! They're out there fucking fighting! And look at fucking me? What the fuck am I doing? I got sick of learning in an incredible educational opportunity, so I go on this little adventure?'

She balled her fists and shook in silent anger at herself as her thought dawned on her and played out. The Polaris Bike rocketed onwards, its engine block keeping her warm from the icy chill of the cruising elevation. The arid landscape below began to turn green, and a stretch of teal ocean was cresting the horizon.

"Too late now, I s'pose..."

She relented from thinking deeply any further and did a quick visual check that the rifle and equipment issued to her was still present in her right leg's slide-top crate on the side of the bike's body. Finding that it was all still there, she set her attention forward to complete her task for the third time.

The rest of the day passed uneventfully until she neared the northern-most point of the tropical belt and reduced her altitude. As she did, as shown through her augmented reality, a gigantic version of what Oriana thought to be a Pelican breached the upper stratosphere on its way down in her direction.

The Polaris Bike continued down on an automated descent pattern. Still, Oriana kept her head tilted up in curiosity as the gigantic craft grew and grew from a distant dot to a large vessel a hundred meters distant.

It stayed in her wake as she dropped, and finally, when she put her attention onto the ground below, she located a dusty pink sanded shoreline with caramel-coloured tundra leading further inland. She disengaged the autopilot mode and pushed for the ground, the sound from her craft and the large one in her wake clearly having scattered any local fauna.

Automated sensors in the underside of the bike sent the command for four struts to emerge and take its weight as it set down, and Oriana swept her left leg up and over the seat to sit sideways on the bike. According to her goggles data, the air was mildly humid and a comfortable twenty-five degrees Celsius, and Oriana was suddenly a lot more pleased than she had been about coming south.

She craned her neck to watch the large warcraft as it came down slowly and sent clouds of flora detritus billowing from its turbines. Unlike the Pelican, this craft didn't have a nose gun, but two large cannons protruding from each wing strut, and as far as Oriana could see, it was equipped with several inbuilt missile tubes, as opposed to how the Pelicans equipped with missiles pods slung under its wings.

The detailed black craft spun away from her slowly so that its reflective gold pilots canopy faced away from her, and it set down onto extended hydraulic legs with its rear troop bay already opening up.

Oriana released a long sigh and pouted, "Course they sent troops to watch over me...."

The ramp touched the caramel coloured grass. At least, the patches that hadn't been torn up by the landing and ten figures came stampeding out. Four swung left, four swung right, and the remaining two ran forward.

Their weapons travelled around the landscape for a minute or two before the one in the lead straightened and paced toward Oriana and her bike.

She waved casually and smiled falsely while they behaved in their strict fashion. To her surprise, the figure lifted their helmet off to reveal themselves as a young woman, with strangely pearlescent features and nearly glowing eyes. Oriana blinked in surprise as her mind caught up with the details that she was taking in and her mouth gaped, "You're a Quarian!"

"Sergeant Veal, miss Lawson," The de-masked Quarian with her hair a fine black stubble atop her head answered in the form of the affirmative.

Oriana knew that Professor Hales had been carrying out all kinds of tests, including gene therapy on Tali'Zorah to enhance the Quarian's immune system. Still, she'd had no idea that there were more subjects, let alone that there were Quarians who were a part of the original Omega residents to become Praetorians.

Her eyes tracked down, trying to make a note of the next most obvious Quarian feature. But she found that the heavy armour had been adapted to make the female Quarian look externally much the same as a slim female Human.

"We're here to keep an eye on you," She explained unnecessarily.

Oriana blew air dramatically through her lips, making them thrum and slap together in a dejected expression.

The self-identified Sergeant nodded her head back at her squad, and one by one, they all removed their helmets. The process revealed another Quarian, this one male with a face longer and narrower than a male Human's would be, three Salarians, three Human men, a Batarian and an Asari.

They all moved to the ramp to set their helmets down on the dry surface and then marched forward. Oriana watched in casual interest as they were trying to work out exactly how casual they could afford to be, and she realised that she held a kind of authority over them.

The immediate thought of corrupting them, or attempting to, cropped up in her mind, but she smiled coyly and suppressed the thought. She delved into a pocket on her hip and withdrew a scope, and hefted it for Veal to see, "Well, I'll just be filming and observing flora and fauna... I don't expect it to be too exciting."

Vael nodded, "We'll move however you move. We won't disrupt you."

Oriana sealed her lips and blew air into her cheeks. Whatever result she had wanted, that wasn't it. Releasing the air with a squeak of it passing between her lips, she sighed again and wondered while turning away if there was any chance of getting more casual talking opportunities with any of the Human males of the squad.

EDS (Earth Dating system) – September 20, 2185
Planet: CITADEL
Stellar Orbit: Serpent Nebula

"Desperate measures..."

"What isn't?"

John spared Miranda a quick glance with an appraising look to his eye. He had muttered to himself, having not expected Miranda to hear. But as always, she was closer and keener to his words and expressions than anyone else who wasn't a Spartan would have been.

He pressed his lips into a sardonic smile and nodded. If he had done what he was about to do back in the UNSC, he would likely have faced a firing squad. But he wasn't in the UNSC anymore. He wasn't even in his own universe anymore.

He didn't have a broad network of similarly equipped comrades to back him up in this universe. He didn't even have the unironically fantastical ancient Forerunner galactic-scale artefacts floating about that could provide some miraculous victory.

This was going to be an old fashion war, long, slow, hard and dirty. His sardonic smile quirked the edges of his mouth into more of a smirk. It wasn't quite going to be old fashion... Not with weapons of mass destruction being employed on the regular.

He lifted his left hand wielding a palm-sized rectangular data-pad. His and Miranda's eyes both glued themselves to the screen, momentarily ignoring the discussion taking place around the large ring-shaped steel table.

John navigated the screen with several swipes to confirm that all of their data was present and in order. After several moments they looked back up, and John lowered the data-pad.

As they looked up, the collection of aliens and Humans quieted, making it all too apparent that half of their attention had been on the Praetorians amidst their own discussions.

A couple of meters to their right were the Humans', Admiral Hackett and his comrade in ideology, Admiral Natalie Xu, and to their right was a middle-aged man of average build with white cybernetic eyes. Each of his eyes was looking in a different direction, making him distinctly noticeable as an unusual character, and John narrowed his eyes slightly.

Aether Musk was something of a legend in the Alliance, apparently, one dappled in conspiracy. His family had been launched into prominence several generations earlier with the famous Elon Musk, the same as in John's own reality. Unlike in John's reality, the Musk name here wasn't at the constant forefront.

The name was tied to constant infrastructure developments. Still, their own internal processes were a total enigma to the broader Human population, which was the primary instigator of the legends that had sprung up and flourished.

John nodded curtly at the artificially white-eyed man. Musk's other eye looked at John, and a coy smirk pulled his features as he nodded back.

Further around the table was a group of four Volus in colourful suits; mixtures of reds, purples, greens and pinks, apparently marks of their ruling classes. These particular individuals composed over eighty per cent of their species' industry.

To their right was a line of three Elcor, all indistinct from one another and representing the same kind of presence as the Volus present.

The largest group present was across the ring, nearly opposite John and Miranda, with Cathryn behind them with her arms crossed and her foot tapping. The Turians had shown up in force.

Primarch Fedorion stood in the middle of the group of twelve Admirals and Generals. He wore gleaming gold, silver and white armour with a face as calculating as a Turians could be, and John fought the urge to compare their martial style to the Sangheili.

The Quarians took up the curvature of the table to the Turians' left with Admiral Xen and Koris at the head of their respective populations. To their right were three Krogan from the Urdnot clan, Wrex, and two advisors who couldn't seem to stop grumbling something quietly.

Betwixt them and the Praetorians was the Asari known as the Shadow Broker with her face all too mobile with interest.

"Let's get started." John's voice echoed in the chamber. Unlike days earlier when the Tower had been a hum of work and activity, now it was silent and devoid of all life except for those at the table and the guards at the elevator.

Quiet chatter started between the various groups again for a moment. The chatter was quelled when John keyed a control on his data-pad, and projectors mounted within the underside of the table created a holographic representation of Harsa in the epicentre of the disk table.

"We entered the system via the local Relay and set our research team on the task of rigging our fusion devices to the Relay while the Rubicon and Kilimanjaro moved further into the system at low power."

The holographic image moved slightly faster than John's description, and all eyes remained glued to it while he spoke.

"The mass of readings picked up on active and passive scanners made gathering their numbers impossible, as well as the number of orbital bodies blocking active scans, but we could work out an approximate of one-point-five million Reapers through after-action data analysis."

Despite watching the wave of red that approximated the Reapers in Harsa with a shifting scale of numbers on it, a grunted wave of muttering still passed around the table at John's dictation.

"The Rubicon and Kilimanjaro moved forward to engage to test the Reapers firing range, effectiveness, and our own effectiveness against them. You will all be receiving readouts of their weapons capabilities and hull and shielding requirements..." He slowed and flinched. The correct diplomatic words didn't come to him right away, and Miranda cleared her throat.

"None of your ships have sufficient armour and weapons to have a chance at driving off the Reapers."

Rather than the quiet mutterings that John's description so far had earned, Miranda's more bluntly described truth ushered in a decidedly angry tone.

Before their anger could come out, however, Aether cleared his throat loudly to call for attention. Where the claggy sound didn't grab attention, him speaking loudly if slightly haltingly, did.

"So... We're here. You organised for us to be here."

After a pause, John declined his chin, "Yes." He said, realising that Aether was prompting him for a verbal reply.

Aethers' craggy lips formed a thin smile. "You organised for us to be hereeee, because?" He looked around the table. Like he had with John, he was attempting to prompt the other individuals present to think and answer.

"Because he has a strategy!" Xen cried hotly, then added, "Of course he has a damned plan!" She shook her head at the singlemindedness on display.

"So, I, for one... For all?" Aether looked around again with a taunting smile. "Would like to know what this plan is?"

John nodded, and the battle recording played on in silence until its conclusion of them leaving the system. "Your ships won't be enough, but you don't have enough time or resources to build new ones; you'll have to modify your fleets with armour and weapons as the first point of priority before beginning Slipspace retrofits."

"Slipspace?" Aether parroted. He rubbed at his chin and looked upward as his mind turned concepts.

"Transdimensional space-travel," Miranda described while fixing the Human business mogul with a curiously tilted brow.

His eyes widened, and then he fought a grin. He replaced the would-be expression with a coy smirk and nodded and allowed Primarch Fedorian to conclude the thought in a tone entirely unlike what his surely would have been.

"You want to destroy the Relay network!"

"Yes, it's the most strategically sound long term combat strategy."

"Preposterous!" Fedorion cried angrily and beat his fist into the table.

"I, for one, disagree, Primarch!" Admiral Koris spoke up haughtily. "According to the data that had been forwarded, the Reapers are just as reliant on the Relay network as we are, and if we can cross the stars without the Relays while the Reapers cannot, then we have a distinct strategic advantage."

"We have already seen how much we can slow the Reapers down with the destruction of a Relay," Admiral Victus grunted in agreement with Koris from behind Fedorion. "First, with the Alpha, and now- potentially," He tacked on with a grumble, "With the Harsa Relay."

"So how much time did sacrificing the Batarians buy us, Admiral Victus?" Natalie Xu queried with an eager and sharp willingness to ruffle feathers.

"Likely another two to four months," Miranda spoke up quickly. Her voice was laced with venom toward the hostile attitude that the discussions were already taking toward one another across the table. If she could focus the various rivalry's on Praetoria instead, she would.

John nodded, "Outfitting your ships with Slipspace drives will take a lot more infrastructure... Making you combat-capable is the first priority."

Cathryn snorted a mirthless insult under her breath behind the Praetorian pair, and they both ignored her while looking around the table.

"All of our armour and weaponry already compatible with standard reactors and Eezo cores has been shared into the available files...." Miranda shook her head and narrowed her eyes. "This is a strategic risk, on our part, sharing this with you! Why would we do that if not to combat the Reapers?"

"Lawson is right!" Hackett groused in a tired tone. He drew all the eyes from the table and shook his head slowly. "If we survive...." He grunted a short laugh under his breath, "When we're done with the Reapers, we can deal with any interspecies issues then. But right now, we have bigger problems."

"I agree, and if it comes to blackmail, I am happy to use it to straighten all of you out!" Liara pitched in with a musically voiced threat.

The Turian and Quarian delegation all bristled, while Wrex finally made himself heard with a loud guffaw of laughter, and Liara smiled innocently. "You all have had dealings with the Shadow Broker, after all."

"That won't be necessary, Liara," Xen placated. "I, and my engineers, have already been looking over the schematics made available in the secured file. It is in our interest to build one of these Cradle systems along with the autonomous mining system-"

"-It is in all of our interests!" Victus declared, his voice heavy with urgency. He shot Fedorion a harsh glare to which the Primarch wasn't privy, and then shook his head.

"It is, especially in our interest! The Krogan agree to any and all terms on the single condition that Praetoria fight in defence of Tuchanka if needed!" Wrex growled around a challenging grin.

John kept his expression controlled and neutral at the display. He shared a quick conspiratorial look with Miranda before looking back to the Turian delegation and the perturbed expression on Fedorion's face. The differing expressions made it clear to the Spartan that the Turians' had discussed their standing before entering the meeting. Fedorion's resistance was more about personal political clout than the broader expressions he held for his Hierarchy.

"The Hierarchy is still the most powerful member of this council. We demand more control over the distribution of technology and hardware."

"Hahaha!"

The sudden trill of unrestrained laughter burst from Aether, and all of the eyes around the table magnetised to him as he wiped a tear from his left eye. The Turians' singularly regarded him with heated anger, where everyone else's expressions were of confused curiosity.

Natalie Xu pursed her lips for a long moment, but before she could voice anything disapproving, Aether Musk coughed away another laugh. "Primarch, You're serious? Are you? Really?"

Fedorion scowled, and Musk laughed again, if more politely. "You have the largest military here, but not the most dangerous." One of his artificial white eyes turned to look at John and Miranda while the other stayed fixed on Fedorion. "Where is their planet?"

Fedorion scowled more deeply.

"How do they travel? What are their ships tonnages? What's their power output? What weapons do they field?"

"What's your point, Musk?" Xu interjected with a sigh. "You were always upsetting things in the Alliance... Now you're doing it here?"

Musk snorted another laugh, this one decidedly more ironic. "The Alliance never wanted to get anything done! I'm just happy that your lot stopped trying to stop MY research. If you think I should thank you for letting me keep Ceres station, then you're wrong. You should thank me!"

"Musk..." Xu sighed, rolling her eyes and crossing her arms as she did. "I'm not the Alliance anymore-"

Aether Musk snorted, as did Hackett more resignedly.

"-Now we're the United Systems Defence Force, the Systems Alliance is gone, done... When I WAS Alliance," She said with great emphasis and focus on Musk. "It was ME who fought to keep the parliament from litigating you out of business."

Aether grumbled something under his breath, then forced an ironic laugh. "Well.... In any case, my point still stands. Thanks to my research, thanks to my company, we might have a chance to prepare for the Reapers."

John nodded curtly at the manner that the human business mogul concluded his statement. No one present hadn't had their details provided, and John had done his reading.

In his own native history, Elon Musk had sired a long line of business moguls who added something strategic to the advancement of Human technology with each lifetime. It was Elon who had given Humanity its earliest gateway to the stars and, in so doing, opened the doorway to all of the innovations that would follow.

The same was only partially true of this reality. It was Elon's grandchildren who had suddenly been put on notice when the Mass Relay had been discovered, and ever since then, they had been striving to push Human technology forward against the wishes of the Systems Alliance parliament.

John had only skimmed the surface of their history. Still, he was sure that the Musks' had done everything that they could to hide their industrial capability from the Parliament and that by and large, they were still working on new kinds of technology that went against the standard vein.

What was being made evident by the current interactions, which wasn't present in the provided dossiers, was that the Musks' had fostered some kind of relationship with Admiral Xu. And given Hackett's lack of surprise toward Aether, that relationship also reached him.

"We are willing to trade technology that could be considered vital to secure long-term alliances."

"So..." Admiral Xen mused slowly in response to John changing of the tone. "You are proposing that the Council restart?"

"No," He answered bluntly. "We can have mutual defence pacts and trade alliances, like old Earth nations."

Miranda snorted an ironic laugh, then mustered an apologetic frown. Hackett and Admiral Xu both narrowed their eyes, and the rest of the aliens around the table shared curious and dubious glances. They weren't as brushed up on Human history as John had thought that they would be.

"It would be fairer than the way that the Council worked until the breakdown," Liara made herself heard. She stroked her chin while looking up thoughtfully. "So the Citadel would be like international waters?"

"It makes sense. It would reduce conflict," Miranda agreed. "But for now, we need to agree to work together. Praetoria is willing to fight to protect any of your worlds, and if necessary, we will take in refugees."

"What can you offer the Quarian protectorate? And how exactly do you propose we deal with THAT many Reapers?" Koris quipped.

John lifted his data-pad and swiped through it. Finding the document he wanted, he connected it to the Quarian delegations communications and allowed it to be shared. All of the Quarians looked to their omni-tools as they flashed and then spent several moments reading the headlining information in the files sent.

Xen glanced up sharply, the first to grasp what she was reading. Her eyes had widened beneath her opaque faceplate, but her posture spoke volumes more as she grew more erect, "You've developed a gene treatment for Quarian immune deficiency?"

Cathryn raised a hand as the guilty party for Xen's statement, but she was hidden from view by the shared bulk of John and Miranda. "We have," Miranda agreed for their researchers' shared work, which had been trailed on Tali and the rare other few Quarian Praetorians'. "Consider it being shared as goodwill."

"You do realise that this changes the future for the Quarian people?" Koris exclaimed. "This... With this..."

"We agree to your request for a defence pact. We will cooperate in any requested strategy," Admiral Xen completed. She shook her head, "Keelah... This is everything the last ten generations of Quarians have wished for... AI or no AI, we'll agree to fight with you."

John nodded curtly and then turned his attention onto the Turian delegation. Unlike the willingness of the Quarians and the eagerness of the Krogan, the Turians remained standoffish in their posture. "So, what is your battle strategy for the Reapers?" Fedorion asked.

"We are developing ground deployment strategies which will keep the Reaper capital ships from ground targets. We just need to be able to deploy to the ground so that we can set up camps for civilians to evac too."

"That's insane," Xen stated matter of factly.

"We won't be able to match them in numbers," John rebuked.

"Quantity has a quality all of its own," Miranda added shrewdly. "Our large scale weapons can beat them one on one, so we need a landing strategy that we can keep them from hitting us, but we won't have enough forces to evac off the planet, not without holding the entire system from a strategic point, at least. It'll be a damn mess."

Hackett and Xu both gritted their jaws and narrowed their eyes in thought. Thus far, John had only discussed his ideas on the best manner to land troops and protect civilians with Miranda, Hales, Proelium and Musa. "If we were trying to take the planet or the system, then we'd be looking at a protracted engagement numerically stacked in the Reapers favour."

"But you just want to smash in?" Musk enquired, tilting his head and stroking his chin moments after and nodding. "You'll deploy some kind of ground-based defence system?"

John nodded. Wrex guffawed again eagerly, and the other aliens all looked sceptical.

"The current strategy will be to land using specialised landing craft with MAC artillery and support craft-"

"-By the Spirits! How do you choose which city to land at?" Fedorion suddenly leaned forward with incredulity on his face. The immobility being tested on his features showing just how incredulous he felt.

"Whichever we have the best odds of defending," John answered simply. "This isn't a war we'll be able to win without losses. We're better off accepting that now."

"That's easy for you to say!" Fedorion argued back. Heat rose on the soft tissue of his neck, and he slammed his fist onto the table. "We're the ones who will be losing all of our people!"

Miranda's jaw slackened to speak in defence of John's plan, but he gestured with a subtle wave and leaned forward onto the table with his hands spread, meeting Fedorion's posture. "You'll lose a lot of your people, not all."

Fedorion gaped for a long moment, and he started to shake in anger before Wrex interjected, "Wars of extinction are not for the faint-hearted, Turian! You accept the losses to save what you can, or you die to history!"

If the Krogans words were meant as consolation, they didn't achieve that goal, and Fedorion glowered heavily at Wrex. Once more, it was Musk who posed the question that made those present stop to think, "Primarch, if not the Praetorian plan, then what?"

Fedorions' mouth gaped open and closed several times in rapid succession before he clamped his mouth shut, and Musk nodded, then passed the nod on to Hackett and Xu. "I am well equipped to assist in constructing your Slipspace drives, I believe."

He puckered his lips and looked up and away in thought. Resuming his normal expression, he slowly added, "We have been researching trans-dimensional travel for some time... While not effective yet, it might be what you call Slipspace."

That revelation didn't surprise John, while it did both Hackett and Xu. "Deja," He said, speaking into his raised data-pad. "Contact Musk, acquire all of his data and see what we can help him with."

"Onto it, Chief." The AI answered diligently.

Meanwhile, Xu chatted incredulous questions at Aether, and the Turians had dissolved to bickering amongst themselves. The Elcor and Volus groups were focused on their omni-tools, and John's and Miranda's data-pad were pulsing with receiving messages.

At a glance, they were intelligence from the Volus and Elcor relating to their industrial capacity and notation from the Krogan about sharing their Genophage cure.

It took John seconds to figure that the economically focused space-nations would form the economic and manufacturing crutch in the new alliance. Miranda's mind followed the same train of thought, and she cut through the chatter spread around the table.

"Given the manufacturing capacity of the Volus," she nodded first at the group of small unscrupulous beings, "And the Elcor," Then at the larger elephantine creatures, "We should consider joint operations beyond just defence pacts. Trade and manufacturing support from the Volus and Elcor for the Turians, Krogan, and Quarians' should mean that there be permanent patrols through their space as a defence screen."

Surprisingly for John and Miranda, silent nods moved around the table.

"What about the Asari and the Salarians?" Liara piped up, her voice lacking the fire it had earlier.

"Forget about the damn amphibians!" Fedorion quipped angrily. "We tried to contact them weeks ago. They detonated missiles just outside the safe distance from our cruisers. Let them face the Reapers on their own!"

"The Salarian's are not stupid, Primarch...." Liara's tone was full of careful reproach, and she earned the interest of all present. Her lips twitched, and she narrowed her eyes. "The Salarians won't let politics get in the way of scientific fact; they'll know that the Reapers are coming.... So why are they isolating themselves?"

"They think that they'll be able to win.... Somehow," Aether asserted immediately. "And they want to keep whatever they've got to themselves, to use afterwards."

"Isn't that a bit of a leap?" Hackett asked.

"Not necessarily," Liara mused.

"It makes a lot of sense!" Wrex pressed his weight forward as he roared angrily. "The damn Slimies always played dirty tricks like this! We all know that the only reason they didn't take over the Council was because they didn't think they could beat the Asari!"

A brief silence washed around the table before it was upset by Aether with a musing sigh. "It does seem possible... Maybe they have some of your technology too, Master Chief?"

John's face remained impassive while he logged the thought. He backtracked through his movements since arriving, and finding no point in his memory that would match up with some kind of breach of security, he shrugged, "Whatever they have, they are either a part of the problem or solution, we need to know which."

"We- Shhht- Are the- shhht- best- shhht- option for communicating- shhht- with the Salarians- shhht- they are still- shht- purchasing goods through our- shhht- organisations," The foremost Volus forced between breaths.

"Can we imbed agents on a Volus ship? Get into Salarian space to find out what they're doing?" Miranda mused with an arched brow lifted in Hackett's direction. "Praetoria doesn't have any spies...."

The implication of "Not yet," hung in the air, but after a long pause and a smug smirk, Natalie Xu nodded in Hackett's stead. "I have a collection of intelligence operatives aboard my ship," She cast a sideways glance from Miranda to John and then back. "They might be benefited from some of your technical assistance."

"So it's agreed?" Wrex breathed heavily. "The Praetorians offer technical support and ground-based defence systems at strategic points, and we shut up and kill stuff with them?"

Liara breathed a muffled laugh, which in turn made Miranda smirk at the breach in her visage, and John's brow creased. Across the table, the Turians' looked none too happy. Still, they didn't contest the simplification, and it was Hackett in his position of being politically somewhat between all sides who spoke up.

"I would advise that if a Praetorian ship is in a battlespace, that ship be given operational command of strategic engagements."

No one contested Hackett's suggestion, despite the disenfranchised body language that the Turians wore.

"The details of how a properly functional trade alliance will work can be hashed out later," He looked around for a moment, then nodded. "Right now, we'll be going over the specifications of the Praetorian landing equipment and what forces each of you can add to this," Hackett finalised authoritatively while hefting his active omni-tool to indicate the shared files from earlier.

John followed the not quite said directive and looked back to the files. They were the result of long meetings and discussions on Praetoria between himself, Miranda, Cathryn Hales, and Deja.

Cortana's reliquary of stolen USNC, Covenant and even a few Forerunner engineering schematics and scans formed the baseline of all of their plans. But Cathryn's creatively applied synthesis of technologies had made many of their current projects and propositions possible.

"These Herons', they'll be able to do mass deployments to the ground?" Admiral Xu continued from Hackett. She pinched her chin, chewed the inside of her cheek, and peered more closely at the file on her omni-tool.

John didn't need to look, knowing the information off the top of his head. He turned his neck from side to side, "No." His simple answer drew attention from all around the table, and he narrowed his eyes marginally, "Not exactly. Our deployment strategy, as it stands, is for a single landing to have four D20-Herons'. Two of them will have Rangers aboard for deployment, two hundred to each Heron. One will have an auto fabrication plant, and the other will have four mobile MAC artillery Cobra's. They will have an escort of one heavy air-to-ground support vehicle and four broadswords for close-range engagements."

Each military-minded individuals' around the table turned silent as they scrolled through their files, seeking out the described processes and mechanisms. John, Miranda, and Cathryn waited silently.

The Cobras were a child of Cathryn's dangerous creativity. Their chassis was nothing more than a five times upscaled Scorpion. Still, its hydrogen engine block had an element zero reactor lodged safely within to reduce the weight mass of the vehicle so that the power could make them faster and more manoeuvrable. In contrast, the Praetorian Assault Canon Mark 1 had its own micro-fusion reactor.

The cannon merged the concept of a Gatling gun and a MAC with three independently loaded barrels firing a ten-centimetre slug with 0.7 gigajoules of energy. The primary role of the Cobra was for Reaper Capital ship denial, suitably requiring ample ground support elements for it, which was where the Rangers came in with more of Cathryn's more recent designs, namely, the Shinto fusion rocket.

"Nuclear weapons..." Adrian Victus breathed the word distastefully as his eyes started crossing weapons that would be carried by the Rangers. "Radiation will mire the land it's used on for a thousand years."

"Excuse me!" Cathryn made herself heard around the table this time. She stepped around beside Miranda, and Miranda took a small step back to allow the slight scientist more space and focus. "You're talking about my Shinto EZ-Fusion device?"

The Primarch snorted derisively in the stead of Victus, "Your group is depraved... A former Cerberus scientist making nuclear weapons for them."

Cathryn's lips quivered in anger, but before she could speak up, John cocked his head slightly sideways to emphasize his subtle expression of incredulity, a lesson in his expanding ability to socialise with greater emotionally diplomatic range. "Your characterisation of nuclear weapons is not accurate."

Aether snorted a quiet laugh again, and he muttered under his breath. Once more, each of his eyes looked in a different direction.

"Thermonuclear weapons in atmospheric air-burst detonations produce very little radiation, and in a vacuum, the radiation of a nuclear explosion is no worse than just background radiation-"

"-And my Shinto's are pure fusion!" Cathryn arguably added in.

John nodded in affirmation with the scientist. Back in his reality, pure fusion weapons were still prohibitively expensive to manufacture. As such, they were never fielded unless it was in the form of a fusion reactor being weaponised. To the Spartan, the irony of this reality was that the general populations were staunchly anti-nuclear, and yet they possessed the technology to make nuclear far cleaner than practical application necessitated.

Further in irony to the Spartan was the detail within the anti-nuclear mindset being anti-fallout. Of course, fear of nuclear fallout was a valid fear, but Humans' in his reality, hadn't had the issue of dirty nukes since the mid-1970s.

"These are low yield devices that can be deployed from a standard rocket tube," John described. "The radioactive isotopes are so negligible that they aren't a concern for us."

Wrex and his two other Krogan wore almost gleefully Chesire expressions at the conversational development, while the body language of the Quarian's showed no outward concern. Only the Turians and the Humans, besides Musk, seemed perturbed by the development.

But where Admirals' Xu and Hackett remained silent in their concern, the Turians did not. Fedorion clenched his right talons into a fist and slammed it onto the table surface. "You will not use your nuclear devices on any Turian world!"

John squinted, and looking down to Miranda, he found her looking at him with a similar expression. They conferred through their subtle expressions, attempting to think of the ideal response for several seconds.

John didn't know whether the shared facial expressions helped him. Still, he felt as though just through the eye contact and matching facial expressions of subtly squinted eyes and bunched lips that she silently and telepathically agreed with his thoughts.

"Then you won't have Praetorian support on your worlds."

"OUTRAGEOUS!" Fedorion spluttered angrily. "THEN YOU WON'T HAVE TURIAN SUPPORT!"

"Primarch!" Daro Xen declared angrily. Frustration bathed her anger in a clearly identifiable shade, and it gave the impression of her being condescending to the Primarch. "You are not being rational. We will need to make sacrifices, and if we don't, we will lose everything. Is that what you want?"

Fedorian glowered at the Quarian for a long moment, and again, before he could voice his own response, Liara butted in. "The cost of this warfare will be terrible... The cost of not will be more terrible. History will remember your choice, Primarch, even if your people are not there to remember it."

Fedorion glowered at Liara with a swivel of his head from Daro Xen to the only Asari present. Before the circumstance could devolve further, Aether spoke up with an interested tonality. "And these Garuda transports, these are just for your planetary deployments?" He cast a quick sideways eye at the Turian delegation before adding a snide inclusion, "Which won't be seeing Turian worlds unless they can bear the cost."

The Turian group jostled, and Victus placed a talon over Fedorion's shoulder before leaning in to confer quietly. Meanwhile, John and Miranda shared another quick, silent eye-locked thought-based conference. Miranda arched a brow and looked between Aether and Natalie Xu, who seemed most interested in the spoken details rather than simply absorbing the technical details on the files before them.

"They're basically a metal box in space, the quickest things we'll be able to make to start planetary ops. One will carry sixteen Herons', so we'll be able to jump from one planet to the next for deployments."

Heads around the table bobbed in understanding as Miranda's verbalisation matched up with the written specifications.

The Praetorian trio went silent as they waited for the rest to finish absorbing all of the surface level material. The Volus and Elcor looked more closely at the specifics of the construction processes of the Cradle and drone systems, while the others more closely analysed the military hardware and insertion strategies, which included projection mapping for Reaper invasions based off sensor readings from Harsa.

Sensing that the rest of the meeting to progress with far less contention, with the Turian's seeming to have silently accepted the fact of their nuclear armaments, John reduced his profile and posture to approach Miranda's head heigh. "Galactic dictators now?"

She tilted her head and arched a brow, then smirked with a snickered laugh, "Would be a good satire novel, wouldn't it?"

John smirked as well, and Cathryn snickered her own laugh. "What, the adventures of the Aussie and the Cyborg?"

"I think I prefer the Tales of the galactic Australian and her stalwart helper."

"Hmph-hmph," John breathed a muffled chuckle, in the process earning a sparkle in Miranda's eye and a look of surprise from Cathryn. "How about.... Two assets and dictatorship?"

His eyes quickly shot from Miranda's face and back to her still ample cleavage, despite her decreased body-fat percentage since her transition into a more muscular and athletic individual. Miranda and Cathryn both caught his eye movement, and they smirked at the double entendre after a beat.

"Didn't think you had a joke like that in you, John." Miranda complimented, then her smirk deepened, "So, maybe we'll have to put the shoe on the other foot? Or..." Her eyes tracked down his body, but further, as he had hers. "The outfit on the other member."

"Okay... Well, I'm out at this point," Cathryn laughed with a waggle of her brow and a wink. "The not-so automaton and the not-so icy colonel are my limits!"

Each of the Praetorian leaders shifted their expressions to bemused interest, each likewise with the same subtle shift that would have less emotionally controlled people having trouble.