Mass Effect 1. Prologue

It is the 42nd millennium and the imperium crumbles.

Only just surviving the 13th black crusade and hive fleets leviathan and jormungandr, it was wholly unprepared for the return of the C'tan known as the void dragon, unleashed for the core of mars, its awakening started a catastrophic chain reaction causing the simultaneous awakening of every single tomb world in the known galaxy, each of these worlds alone was a threat but together they began to slowly overrun the imperium's defenders, reaching earth the Necrons destroyed the astronomican and the golden throne, extinguishing the emperors light and isolating each human world from the others. Only small pockets of resistance remained, mainly based around the space marine home worlds, one such island of resistance was the planet of nocturne home to the salamander.

It was to this place that many imperial citizens had fled, in the knowledge that the salamanders were protectors of the imperium not the destroyers of others. It was at the height of the siege, when the barriers began to crumble and barely a hundred salamanders still lived that the T'au arrived, with their numerical advantage they destroyed the Necron fleet in orbit, establishing a defensive perimeter around the planet. The salamanders were surprised when the T'au instead of destroying them from orbit instead requested an audience with their leader, Vulkan He'stan as the most senior salamander left alive warily accepted. Meeting at the gates of the last sanctuary city on nocturne, it was there that the salamanders learned the reason for the T'aus arrival, their own empire was under threat from a sect of T'au under the sway of the Necrons, 'the enclave' as they were known were led by one of their old heroes Shas'o Farsight, since the death of Shas'o Shadowsun their latest hero, the enclaves had had the upper hand, and so they had come to imperial space seeking allies but instead had found devastation, they had located several pockets of resistance including Fenris, Baal and Chogoris, but their offers of sanctuary in return for aid had been rejected. Travelling to Ultramar they had hoped to find a fortress against the Necrons, instead they had found a tomb, every living soul in defence of the realm. It was only on Macragge that they found a survivor, Marnus Calgar, mortally wounded, lay at the feet of his Primarch, his last brothers dead around him, hearing of the T'aus plight he had told them to travel to nocturne, as the salamanders were the only chapter left alive who might help.

Digesting this Vulkan asked what would happen to the imperials if they accepted, the tau replied that if they joined the greater good they would be given equal rights, settlement in a human dominant sept and all military personal could join the fire caste if they wished. Also the salamanders would be allowed a degree of autonomy, could continue to recruit from the human caste members and in time command sections of the T'au military. Seeing this as the only way to ensure the survival of the civilians, He'stan grudgingly accepted, recovering the tome of fire, the artefacts of mount Deathfire, and the nine gifts of Vulkan, the salamanders boarded their ships, as the civilians boarded T'au transports.

Over the next 200 years the salamanders settled into their roles as the defenders of the greater good, annihilating the farsight enclaves ensured the safety of the empire as the Necron forces could not cross the perdus warp rift without incredible danger, however the Salamanders were not without purpose as Orks, Tyranids, and chaos creatures continued to prey on the edges of T'au space. As on Nocturne the salamanders spread themselves across the septs helping the settlements in which they resided, often acting as wise men teaching all that wished to learn of the promethean creed, or as father figures to those orphaned in the search for the greater good. It was only when battle called that the salamanders gathered, and so it was on the sept of Fi'rios that a Necron force finally struck, overwhelming the garrison of fire caste and their salamander elite, after a lengthy battle, the relief fleet defeated and disabled the Necron Tombship and its attendant fleet. It was when these remains were examined were examined that an amazing discovery was made, the Tombships were sentient, and not only that but they were not from this dimension. After much deliberation it was decided that a single salamander would be sent through an experimental device to see what was on the other side, once their he would he would determine the state of that galaxy and if it was determined safe to signal a t'au envoy team through to broker an alliance with any sentient species to destroy the Necrons and their 'reaper' ships. Though many salamanders volunteered only one was chosen, sergeant Vel'cona T'kell the only survivor of Fi'rios, he had been found guarding a mass of civilians deep in the polar bunkers, embittered by the loss of his squad brothers, and nearly losing his adopted daughter Or'es T'kell, he had decided to get some very un-space marine payback.

When the salamanders joined the t'au, the earth caste had a great interest in the implantation process that created space marines, as no apothecaries had survived the siege of nocturne to continue recruitment, Vulkan was forced to allow the scientists to study and experiment on their gene-seed, the results were astonishing. Not only had they managed to recreate the process but they had also refined it, now instead of taking years it took only months with almost no chance of rejection. Many of the side affects had also been nullified, space marines could now dream and recall their childhoods, increasing their mental stability, an unforeseen side affect was that salamanders could now reproduce, even with their fluctuating genetic structure. Unfortunately these benefits came at the price of reduced size of the salamander, were once they were at least 9 foot tall, now they regularly only reached 7. They reduced physical presence and strength of the salamanders forced a redesign of power armour, all new or mark II salamanders wore phoenix pattern power armour. To compensate for the thinner ceramite of the armour, t'au shield drone technology had been built in to it.

It was in this armour that Vel'cona stood, staring into the teary eyes of his adopted earth caste daughter, Or'es.

"But why do you have to go?" she whimpered.

"because I must, by the promethean creed and for the greater good I cannot just stand by, I must avenge my brothers, and most of all I must make sure that this place is safe not for me, for you" he replied pulling her into a tight hug. He looked over her sobbing form at the waiting scientists standing next to the portal.

"T'kell if you are to go it must be now! The machinery is temperamental at best and will not survive the strain for much longer!" exclaimed the lead scientist.

Nodding, he released Or'es, without looking back he strode towards the scientist, stopping in front of him he waited.

"Brother-Sergeant Vel'cona T'kell do you understand your mission?" He nodded an affirmative. "That communication is delicate do not let it become damaged, for the greater good endeavour to succeed".

Bowing, Vel'cona stepped back into the portal, crouching to fit his bulk into the aperture, he intoned "Into the Fire…" and vanished in a crackle of lightning.


	2. Freedoms Progress

Freedoms progress

"Unto the anvil" Vel'cona utters rising from his kneeling position, scanning his surroundings he notices that everything within a 10 meter radius has been melted into slag. 'Must be excess energy discharge' he thought 'they should really work on that'. Standing his armour motion tracker instantly went haywire, looking towards the closest contact he sees a white mechanoid aiming a pistol at him. Ducking into the nearest cover, he grabs his bolter, after the first volley of incoming fire, T'kell rose from cover quickly assessing the enemies number and disposition. '50+ hostiles in range, closest 12.5 meters from position, one heavy weapon platform, the rest bearing small arms, possibility of shield breach... neligible, cover not required', the area assessed he vaulted from cover sighting his weapon to on the rocket mech and quickly disabling it with a double tap of bolter rounds, one to head, one to the chest. Repeating this fire drill Vel'cona mowed down the rest of the mechanoids. Once the incoming fire had halted and he had confirmed no more hostiles, Vel'cona moved on further into the forest of structures the mech had appeared from, scanning his surrounding he discovered an active channel that his suit couldn't hack into, deciding that it was either the source of the hostiles, or potential allies T'kell located the position of the transmission and moved stealthily into a position to observe the location, after a few minutes monitoring the position T'kell had counted 7 beings inside what appeared to be environmental suits, moving closer Vel'cona accidentally activated the doors motion sensor, surprising the 7 alien beings. Almost instantaneously 6 shotguns were pointed at the neck seal of his armour, an accurately identified weak spot. One of them stepped forward in a green suit and began shouting at Vel'cona gesturing wildly with its shotgun, T'kell slowly raised his hands palms out to show he meant no harm as a second alien stepped forward, the first alien shouted again.

"I'm sorry but I don't understand anything your saying" replied Vel'cona

The second stepped in front of the first pushing down his shotgun, and staring in awe at the size of him. Focusing on the approaching figure he noticed two things firstly, her purple suit left little to the imagination and secondly she seemed to be in command of this squad.

"What are you?" she asked in very broken English clearly struggling.

"I could ask you the same, who and what are you?" T'kell replied.

"We... We're Quarians" she answered, clearly thrown by the question "how don't you know what we are, who we are? And why don't you have a translator? Or an omnitool? Or a"

"I will answer your questions" Vel'cona interrupted, "but first did you attack this human colony?" he enquired, appraising the squad devising plan after plan to incapacitate them if the answer was yes.

"WHAT! No! Of course not! We quarians are peaceful unless provoked, we don't just attack. We came in search one of our own, he came here on his pilgrimage, he's called Veetor" the quarian replied clearly shocked that he would even suggest such a thing.

"Very well, I will ask only two more questions, one what is the year? And the second is what is your name?"

"The year is 2185, and my name is Tali, Tali'Zorah vas neema nar raaya. Why do you believe me?"

"Because Tali'zorah vas neema nar raaya" replied Vel'cona, as he removed his helmet exposing his demonic visage, "I can tell if your lying"

The gathered quarians gasped in shock at Vel'conas face, noticing their reaction he made to redon his helmet, half way through the motion his arm was stopped by Talii's 3 fingered hand.

"Don't we... we were just... you jus-st look l... like" she stammered.

"Daemon spawn" finished Vel'cona, "I understand, it frightens you"

"NO! Its not that, its just... Keelah you look like a quarian, like one of us"

"Really? You look like this" asked Vel'cona shocked, gesturing to his head.

"Yes, the black skin, the white hair, the glowing eyes, though red is rare" replied Tali, "and you look much more handsome than most quarians" realising what she had said, Tali blushed furiously almost lighting up the inside of her helmet.

Vel'cona unused to receiving compliments from anyone except his daughter was unsure how to respond, Or'es had always said that a compliment deserved a compliment in return.

"thank you Tali'Zorah vas neema nar raaya you look very beautiful too" he replied, moving to a nearby table to lean against and motioning for her and her team to take a seat.

Warily the quarian team sat down, but Tali just stood there stunned. 'Did he just call me beautiful? No one but Shepard ever called me that'

"Tali'zorah vas neema nar raaya? Do you wish to join us?"

"hmmmm, what?" Tali said as she came out of her daze. "Of course, its just Tali, Oh I'm sorry I never asked, what is your name?"

"Vel'cona t'kell, salamander of the adeptus astartes, a proud member of the tau empire" Vel'cona replied.

"T'au empire? I've never heard of that or rather them. Is it in the traverse?" enquired Tali.

Vel'cona just shook his head, smiling slightly. He then proceeded to tell the quarians about his universe, the imperium, the emperor, the astartes, the salamders, the T'au, the Necrons, their reapers and the galaxy wide purge that they orchestrated. The quarians stared at him in amazement, hanging off his every word as he wove and epic of galaxy at eternal war, with dozens of fanatical races constantly crusading across the galaxy. Tali shuddered as he described the necrons and felt ill at the mention the reapers had caused.

Once he was finished Vel'cona sat there trying to judge their responces, Tali appeared to believe him, the idiot in red who had first spoken obviously didn't as he stared at him in barely veiled contempt, the rest of the team stared looked at him like he was mad or with a mixture of awe and terror.

"So let me get this right, you come from a different dimension were at is the 42nd millennium, and the reapers have wiped out 95% of all sentient life there? And you've come here to form an alliance against them?" Tali asked slowly.

Velcona just nodded.

"okay then, how can i help"

"Tali you believe me with no evidence no reason, nothing. Why?" Vel'cona enquired.

"these reapers you talked about, I've fought one before, killed it actually" Tali went on to explain the events that had occurred two years ago, the attack on Eden prime, the betrayal of saren, Shepard becoming a spectre , the protheans, fighting the geth, and destroying sovereign. She also explained the citadel and its races, the council and its unwillingness to believe the evidence in front of them, how Shepard and garrus had become like brothers to her and then the day that Shepard died and the cover up the council performed, how the crew had raged against the slander levelled at their commander. It was as Vel'cona was absorbing this information that the doors behind the quarians opened once more, revealing 3 human silhouettes, Vel'cona quickly moved to the shadows, donning his helmet in the same movement, and waited to see what would happen. As expected the violent and arrogant quarian in red instantly threatened the 3 humans, a woman and two men, but Tali quickly regained control forcing him back.

"Vel'cona noticed that Tali was shocked when she recognised the middle figure. "Ibram! But you dead eyes or you die when the Normandy exploded!" She collapsed into Commander Shepard, hugging him tightly to make sure he was real, not at figment of her imagination. Shepard looks just as shocked to see Tali as she was to see him. Realizing that their family was partly reunited they began to cry. Eventually they both stopped and Tali led Shepard to the couch intending to find out where he had been, as they sat Vel'cona stand out of the shadows, Shepard merely nodded,' he knew I was there' all thought, the other two humans reactions were much more entertaining, they dark skinned man jumped back swearing reaching for a weapon, the other companion, a woman in a cat suit, when the as pale as he sheet as she stared into Vel'cona's glowing red eyes, annoyed by his companions reaction, Shepard scowling like turned to face them "calm down you big babies, if he wanted to kill us he would have done it the moment we entered the room." Still wary of the black, green armoured giant the two of them backed up into the furthest corner away from him. Turning back to Tali, Shepard quickly filled her in on what had happened to him, what he was doing, and who he was reluctantly working with, in return Tali told them about what had happened to her and garrus, after this Tali introduced Shepard to Vel'cona and he explained where he was from and how we wanted to fight the reapers here.

"Well I'm going to need all the help I can get, so welcome aboard Vel'cona", turning to his companions he forestalled their objections, "No this is not negotiable Miranda, Jacob Trust me, and no Miranda you will not tattle tale to the illusive man."

"Ibram, me and my team will head around the side to distract the mechs, you, your companions and Vel'cona the main avenue to the warehouse, that's where he's hiding, we will meet up there and get Vee'tor together."

Shepard jumped his feet and saluted Tali "sir, yes sir!" Earning a grin from Tali, they left.

Moving out Vel'cona was immediately impressed with Shepards skill, using cover and using the two biotics as distractions the two of them, mowed down mech after mech with precision bursts of fire power and well placed grenades. Everything was going swimmingly until Tali reported that a team had mutinied, rushing ahead to secure Vee'tor before Shepard and Cerberus operatives got there, she was are recorded the activation and several YMIR mechs that were keeping her pinned. Rushing ahead Shepard and Vel'cona were confronted a scene of utter devastation, the blasted remains of it dozen mechs and Tali's team was strewn about the courtyard. Confirming that Tali was all right Shepard and his team put up a wall of fire halting the YMIR's advance on Tali's position and cutting down most of the smaller mechs. By this time Vel'cona had managed to move to cover near Tali to protect her from the YMIR's, after several minutes of furious crossfire all but one of the YMIR's had been destroyed and only a few LOKI mechs had survived near it. It was in the closing stages that it happened, was the incoming fire now slackened off enough for Tali to move to a more stable, and covering structure, she was halfway to Vel'cona's structure when the YMIR noticed, firing off a barrage of rockets that Tali had no hope of avoiding, Shepard was pinned but the and unable to move as he watched the rockets home in and explode obscuring his sister from view, as the smoke cleared his tears of sorrow turned to joy as he gazed upon the now revealed and smoking form of one pissed off Vel'cona T'kell standing in front of an unharmed and shocked Tali. With a binary roar the YMIR lumbered forward determined to finish off Vel'cona with its own hands, Vel'cona noticing the YMIR met its charge, unsheathing his power sword as he did so, hurling himself at his foe that he disposed with one of its lesser at the end of his bolter, and promptly rammed his sword through the mechs chest to the hilt. It screeched, only for T'kell to head butt it with his battle helm, cratering its armoured head before ripping it off completely with a savage pistol whip from his still smoking firearm. He tossed the bolter a side, seizing the failing mech in his gauntlets, the other hand gripped tightly around by hilt of the crackling sword, and lifted the mech into the air. In a stunning display of strength, Vel'cona raised the beeping mech above his head and flung it into a prefab opposite.

"Fucking die, you piece of shit tin can." He growled, staggering and collapsing to one knee.

Tali instantly rushed over to her fallen saviour worried that he had hurt himself saving her. Halting at his side she quickly scanned his suit for damage, and Vel'cona for injuries. Slowly rising back to his feet he wiped a thin trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth, gazing at Tali he tried to reassure her with a smile, before turning to the approaching Shepards concerned face.

"Go get Vee'tor and take Tali with you," Vel'cona said forestalling Shepards questions, "I'll be fine for now, but I'll need a medical check to be completely sure"

Several minutes' later Shepard and Tali returned to see Vel'cona slumped against a fire damaged prefab, with Miranda leaning over him performing detailed scans on the unconscious salamander.

"Commander, we must turn this thing over to the illusive man, his altered biology, physiology, weapons and Armour could guarantee Cerberus' supremacy..." announced Miranda.

"No! You can't do that Ibram, he trusted you!" Shouted Tali shocked that such a thing could be considered.

"You" Shepard said pointing at Miranda, "shut up, you are at no point to take anything or anyone to the illusive man, got that?" Miranda just stood there dumbstruck; no one except the illusive man had ever talked to her like that before. "Now Tali" said Shepard, turning to his adopted sister, "can you get back to the migrant fleet by yourself or do you need a lift?"

"I'll be fine Ibram, our shuttle can us back fine." She kicked he glanced away to check on Vee'tor, "as soon as I get the chance brother I'll join you, and I know Garrus will do the same if you can find him and."

"Don't worry Tali we'll find him, and don't worry about Vel'cona either I'll make sure he doesn't become a science experiment"

After a heartfelt hug and a kiss to the top of Tali's visor they separated, Tali back to her shuttle, and Shepard with Vel'cona's deadweight and Miranda and Jacob in tow, returned to the Cerberus station. There Shepard received his greatest surprise of the day, his beloved ship, his home! Resurrected from the ashes, and with Joker to pilot the Normandy once more, but this time it would be permanent.

(AN: sorry for the long wait got sucked into work and only just got back to it. Review if you have suggestions, flamers will be fed to the thresher maw. This is Thranos signing off!)


End file.
