AN:Trigger Warning, the second half of the chapter gets a tad dark, especialy considering the situation currently developing in a certain part of the world. So if you want to avoid it, stop near the the page break. I had planned for that part of the chapter and started writing it a while before the events of the last two days transpired, so, as a measure of safety and out of respect for the victims of the real situation, I made this author's note as a warning.

Godspeed to those in the affected areas.

Aboard the UNSC Sekhmet

Day 01

"... Understood, Admiral Xen. I will be careful, don't worry. The Spartans seem to be quite adept at handling things pertaining to security," The Representative aboard the vessel spoke over the ship's FTL Com system. He knew they were being monitored, but cared little. No reason to hide what was being said from the UNSC yet. They'd proven to be quite open, sans their xenophobic minority's voiced dislike of their people. To nobody's surprise, though. The Quarians had read about the issue of the Human-Covenant War and what it had taken from Humanity so long ago.

"Very well. Take care of yourself, old friend, and remind me to send you the data package the UNSC will deliver to us later today. They apparently hold enough trust in us to show us the reason the Black League has been arming up as it has," Cula offered as she tapped away on a tablet, waiting for their break to end. She spoke to the man, "Kal... Do you think we did the right thing?"

"What do you mean?" He asked as he sat himself back down at his desk, looking at the hologram of his old friend.

"... Letting them take us in. Do you think it's good for us all in the long run? I mean, we're alien to them. They're supposedly xenophobic beyond your average rank and file. Their ancestors fought and had to flee from a genocidal war much like our own. We hate the Geth, despite creating them... Should mankind not hate us for not being aliens, too? Certainly, the HPP speaks for that type of voices, but..."

Kal had to take a moment to consider the question posed by Cula. Humming, he scratched his chin beneath the suit. The room had been openly disinfected in front of him and he had been asked to brief the UNSC staff on board about how to properly set up the environment. They'd shown the kind of hospitality one would rarely find among their Galactic peers. He sighed deeply and answered, "Cula? I have no doubt that the Admiralty Board came to the proper conclusion of our negotiations within these six months. That they're entrusting their reason for rearmament to us...? I'd say it's a sign you and the others did good."

"... Keelah..." Cula rubbed her mask, then nodded, a faint smile visible even through the holographic shadow hiding her face, "You're right. And we may see our homeworld soon. The rocky cliffs of Rannoch, like our ancestors spoke of, like the photographs show. We may be able to go home and maybe even still the waters with our creations. Bless the UNSC and their AI if they succeed, I'll never look upon an artificial being as a threat again if you succeed..."

"Heh. Indeed," Chuckled Kal as he stood to his feet. He heard a knock on the door, then looked over to Cula's hologram and said, "I have to go. The captain probably wishes to speak to me. Take care of yourself at that meeting, Cula," his voice wary, but calm. He cared deeply for Cula, despite their different positions in the Quarian hierarchical status. A mere politician and representative versus and admiral, he thought to himself, an odd combo.

"You, too, Kal. Bring us home. Keelah se'lai." The woman nodded, then shut off the com. The man then turned toward the door and pressed a couple of buttons, letting the air filter out. He only paused, a hint surprised, when he saw the Captain sitting in the middle of the airtight corridor, hands behind his back and what looked to be a dark-green and gun-metal black suit with a respirator and mask that shined with the sheen of fresh polish.

The man nodded and said, "Representative Zoris. Hope everything's to your liking."

"O... Of course..." The man replied, awed, "Why are you-"

"Wearing an enviro-suit?" The Captain quirked a brow up. He then told him, "Simple reason, really. Due to you being the sole present Quarian aboard, the crew and I agreed that, aside from ensuring your quarters are safe, we would also ensure as much protection as we could for you for when you, the Spartans and Durandal are deployed to engage in talks with the Geth."

Kal thought that he had seen all of the UNSC's hospitality when they'd first landed on their Colonies, subsequently boosting them with hundreds of thousands of newfound population members, aside from the billions already settled onto them. No, this genuinely made the man appreciate their newfound allies a lot more than before. He bowed and said, "I appreciate the concern, Captain..."

He nodded and said, "It is no problem. I'll leave you to yours, then. Durandal will probably let you know when we're arriving or if we're near anything interesting. Farewell," before giving the alien man a wave. As the door closed behind him, the captain stepped off toward the elevator, taking it up to another floor of the vessel before removing his helmet. He marched ot the bridge, respirator helmet slung under his arm, then requested, "Status report."

The helmsman reported, "We've already entered Slipspace, sir. ETA for arrival at the Veil is approximately six days with drift estimates," and he turned to the sensor officer. Out through the forward windows of the bridge, a narrow trio of thick armored glass viewing slits disconnected by reinforcing metal girders. Viewscreens hanged off the ceiling and consoles shined a deep blue around the man, while the central holographic table flickered to life, displaying the stellar coordinates of the Veil as per the updated Galaxy map offered by the Quarians

"Alright. Keep steady on course. I want to make sure we're stealth before we make it into the first system behind the Veil. Tikkun's a place we probably don't wanna disturb too much, after all, lest we get on the Geth's bad side," The man ordered as he sat himself down in his command chair. He taped a few buttons on it, watching the holographic display form before him, then stated, "And tell Durandal to prepare to transmit any sort of reinforcement request beforehand... Just in case."

"Aye, sir," The bridge crew answered.

The com officer, a young woman by the name of Ayesha Callaghan, told him, "Durandal replies:All maydays prepared. Seems she and the Spartans are expecting trouble."

"Well, word is any prospector who is dumb enough to go into the Veil without any form of defense, be it stealth or weapons, winds up dead..." The Captain sighed. The Quarians really didn't instill confidence with that one written on their reports. Calmly, he then ordered, "Speaking of weapons, gunnery, give me one more status report on the pulse laser batteries and the plasma torpedo launcher. And the nuclear mine dispensers, should we need any sort of escape plan that involves blowing up a few asteroids."

"All weapons green, sir. Mines are in the ventral bay and crews are waiting orders to deploy," The weapons station officer replied as he tapped away on his screen. The Captain gave a nod and leaned back into his seat, watching the spinning whirlwind of Slipspace dance ahead of them. He leaned his chin on his hand, humming a tune. The Office of Naval Intelligence had actually chosen the Sekhmet for a simple reason, he thought. Stealth could potentially get them past Geth sensors rather quickly.

That and, even with the enhanced speed provided by Eezoo reducing their mass and the kinetic barriers keeping the ebbing waves of this goddamn not-dimension from breaking them apart due to the aforementioned reduced mass, they had a week to reach their intended target. Command had forbidden them from using the Mass Relay out of fear they'd be detected ahead of time.

Honestly, sort of bullshit, the Captain thought, but anyway. A little peace and quiet after spending 90% of their second tour on duty within the border regions was good enough for him. He was sure they'd be redeployed to deal with keeping the North-Western border secure, patrolling and/or scouting out new systems connected to them via the couple mass relays they had in what the Citadel and Quarians apparently called 'The Terminus Systems'.

He paused as he heard the door open, then heard the thunder of metal boots against a metal floor. He turned to see the Lieutenant and greeted, "Spartan," with a nod and a smile. Jackie gave a salute, then marched up beside him. He asked, "Things get boring down below?" as if he didn't know. He'd been hearing the muffled noises of Volt Team's little competition over a PA channel for a while now.

"I come up here for my peace and quiet, sir," She shot back in a deadpan. Lifting her left hand, turning the gauntlet downward and opening the palm, she let Durandal's form materialize, a grin on her face. The AI knew of the little duel between the Biotic Spartans down below and had even offered the Lieutenant a chance to come up for air, so to speak. The woman was far too serious for her own good.

"Who's your bet on, Durandal?" The man snorted.

The AI chuckled, "Rose, honestly."

"Always," The Lieutenant added in a murmur, the light of Slipspace flickering against her helmet's visor. She took her helmet off with her free hand, staring out into the whirlpool as she requested, "Permission to speak freely?" while Durandal kept watch on Rose and Ron through the shipboard cameras. The training room was seeing its fair share of use, at least.

"Granted, El-Tee. Always," The Captain nodded.

"Why put Spartans on this kind of deployment? Cultist movement's been reported near Nanshin as recently as two days ago," The woman voiced, though she still remained fairly straightforward. One would think a Spartan would be honored to be the type to deliver diplomats, especially her own AI and an alien trying to mend their relationship with their own artificial creations.

The Captain hummed and sighed, then replied, "NAVSPECWAR III has that. Teams Watt and Ohm should be able to deal with the Nanshin Innies and the guys in the Kuiper Belt near Ingalls easily enough. Whatever hideouts they had in the mothballed Quarian ships are already being stripped bare and the materials, repurposed... All that leaves them is a couple of asteroids to hide on. If you want to get into action, Lieutenant, hang tight. Maybe you'll jinx us and we'll wind up having to shoot our way out of the Veil."

"Sorry, sir," Jackie sighed, "It's just annoying that we can't help Watt and Ohm. We were made specifically to hunt the Cult... Did they even get a name?"

"Human Ascendance Cult, Biotic Future Cult, the Next Stage Party, the usual bullshit," The Captain shrugged as he pulled up a file on his tablet and handed it to the Lieutenant, "They had other names before, but they keep rebranding and there's even separate groups within them, one more radical than the other. To the point we're seeing the least radical of them surrendering to the Marines and Police out of fear."

"Sounds like the Frieden and Koslovics who had some remorse back during the Interplanetary Wars," The AI chuckled, arms crossed, "Though that does raise the question of how insane the group must've gotten. Especially if some of the more 'moderate' members decided to ditch now that their little pseudo-religious insanity has grown beyond their control..."

"Honestly, Durandal?" The Captain sighed, "I just hope they don't get access to nukes, even mining ones. Because you know they'd use them on a colony like the URF did that one time... Would hate to be the person who has to clean that mess up..." his voice growing low at the end. He'd had ancestors that had died in the blast on that colony, though he wouldn't mention it.

It was a scar that still hurt his family...

Ingalls System Kuiper Belt

Mining Station Vesta-13

Lobby...

Blood and expended casings pooled at the foot of a Cultist, the barrel of his MA37 still emanating smoke. The windows of the Mining Station's lobby cracked in spiderweb patterns across, a multitude of bullet impacts visible on the titanium walls separating them from the outside. The glow of scarlet and blue lights flashed into the building, highlighting the hooded figure with an assault weapon in front of the other hostages.

The corpse of a miner clad in radiation-resistant, armored and lead-lined grey overalls with yellow stripes, a composite materiel safety helmet and a gas mask, lay sprawled out. Multiple bullet holes from which blood still flowed spread across his back. The gunman stared down at the dead miner, then turned his masked gaze over toward two dozen civilians that had been huddled near the lobby's seating area. Three other gunmen guarded the place, each clad in haphazardly put-together armors with purple-glowing patches slapped on their shoulders and chests.

The gunman that had emptied his magazine into the miner sighed and dropped the half-empty magazine, slapping in his last fresh one and turning toward the fifth gunman, who'd just walked in. Glowing lilac eyes hid behind a pair of tinted goggles. The man, the seeming leader of the formation, stepped inside and looked at the corpse himself. He sighed and turned to the surviving civilians, some of which were wounded, and called out, "Attempt another escape and you will die like she did."

One civvie with a sucking chest wound was being tended to by the local doctor, who looked up at the Leader and begged him, "He's going to die... Please, just hand him to the medical staff outside. I don't have the facilities to keep him alive..." with tears welling in her eyes as she put pressure on the injury.

"That is your problem," He scoffed, "Your kind

The first of the men, the one, this one carrying a police shotgun he'd stolen off of one of the dead guards nearby, stopped the leader as he walked to the back of the room, then begged him, "Tom. Please, for the love of all that is holy and human, let her take him out of here," only for his leader to swat his hand away. With a scoff, the man grabbed him by the shoulder again and demanded, "What the fuck's happened to you?"

"Just following orders, Michael. You should learn to do the same," The man replied, his voice flat, completely detached, "The Supreme Admiral has denied us enough. They will either give us our own planet where we can stay with our flock and be worshipped as it was always meant to be, or they will have the miners of Vesta on their conscience. Mankind's next step of evolution requires sacrifice."

"This is insane, Jake..." Michael replied, taking his mask off to reveal a pale young man, probably a spacer like them who had, until recently, lived within the Kuiper belt's own mining areas with his family, "I'm begging you, man, reconsider and let's surrender so we'll get some lighter sentences. They've got a battalion of fucking Marines out there that're ready to storm this place the moment we make another mistake! Not Military Police or normal SWAT! Marines...! And for all we know, they've got those Spartans around, too!"

"The Leader has told us what must happen, Mike," Jake replied, his eyes empty, burning lilac, "What happens now is fated."

"I just had to watch one of ours shoot Sam in the back, you bastard!" Michael snapped, growling as his biotics flared, "Sam, our fucking childhood friend. She just wanted to get out alive, while we're, what, thinking we're better than her and so many others because we've got Biotics?!" and he motioned to the corpse by the door to the Concourse, "Tell me if that's something your mom would've wanted and I'll call your bullshit out! She was one of the other leaders of the group long before we were even born and she NEVER wanted this!"

"She died in a raid because the Admiralty disrespected the fact we are their next step, the New Human," The man seemed to be trying to justify this to himself, rather than to Mike, "Sam died for this cause, now, too. For her friends, whom she vehemently defended against some of the other kids that called us freaks. She should be proud of this one final act of defense."

"Jacob..." Mike grit his teeth, "You psychotic son of a bitch, I'll-"

"Enough, Mike," Another Cultist, a non-biotic, said, "Get back to your post."

Jacob freed his hand from Mike's grip, then walked away. He ordered, "If the Marines dare set one foot beyond the demarcation line without a negotiator, execute the rest..." with little remorse in his voice as he walked away. Mike sighed, then walked over toward Sam and slung his weapon over his shoulder, pulling a blanket over the corpse and whispering something to her.

He looked over to a couple of the civilians, then walked over to the medic and whispered, "I'm so sorry, doc Hanes..."

"No need to apologize," The woman sighed as she watched the man succumb to his injury. She sighed and looked at her bloodied hands and coat, then murmured, "There was no saving him..." before she looked over to him. She spoke, "Can you save yourself, Michael...? I mean, from this. You could just walk out, try and surrender... Save at least yourself..."

"Arkhipov would shoot me in the back, too," The man sighed, turning his head toward the guy with the assault rifle as he took position by one of the tinted windows, rifle at the ready. He told the woman, "Best bet is surrendering the moment the Marines kick the door... If they don't send in their 'rumored' Spartans, y'know..." before pausing as he thought he heard the cough of suppressed weapons.

His headset rang with a thousand bouts of static all at once, causing him to take it off and toss it aside with a yelp. He stood to his feet, eyes wide. He threw his weapon down and raised his hands, just before the assault rifle wielder aimed at him. The rooftop caved in above the man, crushing him underneath the weight of steel and rock, before three figures decloaked.

Silent weapons coughed once and the Gunmen, both those within the room and those that had streamed in to try and take them out, now lost their heads. Seven-foot-tall figures stepped out from among the smoke, MA40k Carbines with holographic sights on the top piccatini rails stepped forward, their jet-black armors glowing with lilac energy from the amps. Michael watched with muted awe as the Spartans of the Black League pushed in, securing the area.

One of them, a female from the looks, approached him and noted the shotgun on the floor. She kicked it away, zeroing her barrel on his skull. She spoke, her voice garbled by the transmission system of the armor into something unrecognizable and unintelligible. The team leader, one carrying a BR-75 with a 1,5x scope and a silencer, showed her to zip-tie him. She did, yanking him roughly to the floor and tying up his hands. Her voice switched over to something audible and clear, though tinted with a robotic fury as she barked at him, "Stay down."

The thunderclap of a biotic blast reverberated across the room as Jacob marched out, rifle in hand. The trio of Spartans' shields flared for a moment. Then, the leader's biotic amplifiers glowed. He shot his left hand outward and a biotic wave that dented the floor. Michael's heart stuck in his throat as he watched his former friend, a crazed cultist and god-complex bastard, became a smear against a dented titanium wall, the door knocked out of its frame.

The leading Spartan radioed something, with the woman that had apprehended Jake switching back to the garbled transmissions, before she pulled her rifle out. The group advanced deeper into the tunnels of the mining station. Before long, Marines burst into the Lobby as well, rifles up and scanning the area. Corpsmen retrieved civilians and the sole survivor of the Spartan onslaught was dragged out by the Marines, to the bellowing anger of civilians, biotic or not, in the station's Concourse. ONI was also already on-site, unsurprisingly. Probably the Spartans' handlers...

Deep down, Jake hoped they'd finally stomp out the Cult...