First Cerberus infiltrates ONI (to an alarming degree, and I am worried that Ackerson has thrown his lot in with them, which makes the Spartan 3’s dangerous, and means that these plants will have sent [potentially] the Illusive Man the schematics for UNSC Slipspace drives), and now the First Strike is about to be way-layed by a Jackal that now wields a Precursor Super Weapon! And that is not counting the coming attack by the Covenant on the Systems Alliance that is being orchestrated by Balak! I can’t see HOW the good guys will come out on top without being SEVERELY decimated militarily than in canon when the Reapers arrive!

Shut up sithking zero this story is great. General rage is the author it’s his decision on how things are written honestly I can see how Zeknis supposed to be come on have none of you played assassin’s creed black flag he’s basically making Zek Edward Kenway who had an obsession with the observatory and it wasn’t until he was betrayed by Robert’s sent to prison and Mary dieing in his arms that he turned his life around and officially joined the assassins and became a better man .this is the same for Zek he’s been obsessed with the astral cutless ever since finding out it was real believing having it would make all his ambitions come true just like Edward and the observatory. Along the way as his obsession grows he becomes more and more of a liability and after the humans want to break up their alliance he does it first losing his new friends and his crew and now he finally realizes the consequences of his actions now that snarl beak has the sword and what he plans on using it for. Just like Edward he will have to step up and fix his mistakes and become a better man. Honestly Zek is a interesting character that I think people are just glossing over Edward kenway was a cool but self destructive character but people liked him jack sparrow was a interesting but extremely wierd and selfish but always did the right thing in the end I see zek as a mixture of the two and I can’t wait to see him redeem himself and kill snarl beak.

*Slow golf clap* Well done. Shades of the point when he died in the alternate time line, he finally gets to live in this one though. I wonder if he's gonna hallucinate his dad in the process.

Just as I anticipated, Kasumi hadn’t really betrayed Shepard, and left behind a means for Zek to be tracked.

I admit, it had stuck in my mind that the Astral Cutlass was the name of Forerunner ship, so the revelation that it was a literal if powerful sword threw me a bit.

And Zek finally realizes how much he had screwed up. The sugar trade had given Zhoc a lead on their location, his secession had opened a brief opening for Zhoc to realize where the humans were going next, and Zek going off by himself had made it easy for Zhoc to ambush him and steal the Cutlass for himself.
And to top it all off, Zek is going to feel even worse once he learns Shepard had intended to go after the Cutlass, rendering his split from the alliance unnecessary.
So yeah, Zek has a lot to make up for once he’s been returned to the fleet.

And while Zhoc as the Cutlass, at least word will be brought back of his intentions, so the UNSC won’t be launching their assault ignorant of the trap, and can change their plans accordingly.

Looking forward to the next chapter!

Ironic. Zek gets turned into a cooked bird right around Thanksgiving.

Can't exactly say I'm happy with Zek surviving, but I'll trust he has a reason to live beyond "He's our PoV Kig-jar."

I get the feeling the ending is going to be involving letting go of the Cutlass, too much power for anyone to wield, and too much trouble.

Look, General, I'm going to level with you. I absolutely loved When There Was A Tomorrow. And Guilty Sparks? Somehow even better. I've been reading this story since the beginning. I love how you've meshed together the worlds of Mass Effect and Halo without one overshadowing the other or putting in author biases.

Now I'm guessing you can probably hear the but coming. The But in this case is... Zek. Zek was fine in Guilty Sparks. But I personally feel that Zek completely took over this story. Every action needs Zek going and commenting and whining and complaining about how the UNSC is stopping him from living his Pirate Dream, despite their repeated insistance that "We do not want to go extinct." Now normally a character would manage to get this lesson drilled into their heads after witnessing the Flood or Halo's destructive potential. Zek does not. Zek is a manchild who acts like a manchild and the entire story seems catered to him doing a plot catered to him, allowing him to act smug in how he's "Getting one over" on the authority figures.

Given that the price of the failure of this is the extinction of the entire human race in two dimensions and the galaxy being plunged into an unrecognizable hell the likes of which we cannot conceive via Reapers and Flood, This does not make me like Zek. Zek is, to be frank, *annoying.* And every time he shows up, I actively dread reading more of the story because I know he's going to do something stupid. The revelation that the UNSC knew all along about the sugar and weren't going for the Cutlass because of that? I loved that scene. But then we had Zek's escape. Zek managed to convince the one person who could use Tali's super-amazing Mass Effect Slipspace Drive to use it to let him get away, sacrificing everyone and everything he loved to being caught. ANd still, despite ALL OF THIS, we have Retz singing Zek's praises. Saying how wonderful he is and how much potential he has. The last character that I heard this much unearned praise heaped on was Wesley Crusher.

And I'm going to level with you- I really hope Zek doesn't make it. He betrayed literally everyone at this point except for Taq, his actions could lead to the final hope of humanity being extinguished, Zhoc has the Cutlass, and Haverson was right all along about him. Quite frankly, if Zek were to perish from his injuries here, that would be the natural endpoint of his story- the consequences of his actions catching up to him. His crew sold out by their shipmaster, Retz utterly wrong, and every bond he's made about to be destroyed in plasma fire. His name cursed as the worst sort of being, used as an example of what not to do or how to act going forward.

I"m trying to be as nice as I can sir, but to be honest this has been building for years at this point. I'm with you to the end, but I could not hold back that I rejoiced when Zhoc was turning Zek into mincemeat.

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Ooooooooo, this is getting exciting.

Shep and crew rescue Zek, Taq and Kasumi, Snarlbeak has the Astral Cutlass and seeks to destroy Operation: First Strike in it's tracks in order to replace the Sangheili.

Eagerly anticipating the final chapters of this remarkable journey we've been on!

Haha, I knew Kasumi had some sort of plan

Figured that the cutlass had to be a Precursor weapon, though admittedly I wasn't expecting for an actual Precursor to use it to play pirate in a war against the Forerunners

Damn, now it's a race to stop Snarly before he destroys the alliance

Very cool Chapter, and the way you wrote the Kig-Yarov lore could more than stand alone as
part of the Halo Core Canon. Please CONTINUE writing other Legends and Myths in this
Wormhole Chronicles Series, it will be more than interesting to hear your version of the
lore regarding the Ancient Singedli and Ancient Jerallhanai and Ancient Hunters (Tank worms),
I am more than sure it will be Wonderful.

Looks good on how this went here.

Awesome work please continue the story it's amazing

well shit. this be all around devastating

the situation with Retz was a huge gamble but understandable in the fact he wanted zek to lose big time, to hit the ultimate bottom of the barrel, to learn his lesson and actually do something with his life and move forward with the cutlass and doing something right in helping humanity stop the covenant.

and we see that Kasumi did indeed do all this on purpose in playing along with the treachery to help push Zek along and scoring the cutlass for everyone. as shown a powerful weapon like that would be useful against the covenant, reapers, flood and beyond.

We even see the origins in it being another weapon of the precursors who used it in a revenge spree across the universe after the fall of their race. and it seems to have uplifted the ancient kig-yar to serve as his crew against the forerunners.

it is interesting in the perspective of the forerunners that essentially one of their gods went insane and decided to be a pirate and start raiding their empire. they probably tried to brush it off as just a random pirate (and also probably hiding the fact they killed their gods and took the mantle for their own so to admit one of them went crazy from the genocide they committed would not be a good look). but then the raider went too far and attacked the main capital, which pretty much pushed them all to end this threat. most likely the didact himself led the charge with the librarian wanting to spare the kig-yar.

it also brings most how it was the precursor that planted the seed of piracy into the kig-yar or at the least influenced them further, which would lead to the kig-yar of the present.

brings more context in a sense how different destiny for each species, the kig-yar being the scions of the pirate god precursor is an interesting lore perspective.

of course zek took the wrong lessons from this in about how selfishness and viciousness leads to catastrophe and to everyone around them. to which instead of using it for the benefit of all continues to be selfish with it. though this more likely hiding his guilt for knowing he fucked up and knowing he should be better but digs deeper cause he doesn't want to face that reality.

there is good in him but he needs to reach more into it.

but it seems things have taken for the worse with Zhoc getting the cutlass. with which things have gone quite dire indeed with zhoc becoming the new raider with the cutlass driving him insane even further.

and even more perilous being that Zhoc knows about the battleplan against the covenant invasion force and has started a plan in motion to slaughter them and have the invasion continue. and with the cutlass he may be able to do it in destroying the alliance in one fell swoop.

thankfully shepard saved Zek and taq before they were killed but now their in a worse situation with Zhoc escaping and on his way to commence his attack.

Haverson really was right after all.

but its gonna take everyone working together to stop this. which will be easier said than done after the priates betrayal.

It was interesting to see Varvok had been excluded from Zek’s plans, and I was surprised to hear Varvok claim he would have gone to Shepard if he had known of it, considering his more established relationship with Zek.

I admit that after all the trouble the Jackals have put the UNSC through with their schemes, it was rather cathartic to see them panic and flee whenever they saw the Master Chief.
Especially enjoyable was when karma came in full force to the Kig-Yar when the Unggoy sabotaged the Fallen Serpent and helped the humans stop it from escaping.

I wish that someone had said to Agent Persephone before her death that her fanaticism gave her more commonalities with the Covenant than the rest of humanity.

And while the alliance has been broken, the fact that no Kig-Yar killed humans and vice versa, combined with how Zek actively helped save a couple humans even when it would have been easier on his escape not to, means some embers remain that could rekindle the relationship.

I doubt Kasumi has REALLY betrayed her friends. More likely she also believes it’s important that the Astral Cutlass be found, and unaware that Shepard had already convinced the UNSC leadership to allow him to search for it, she decided to play along with Zek’s scheme.
There are two outcomes I’m predicting in this scenario. First, she left behind details of their heading behind for her Normandy friends to find so they can follow.
Second, once the Cutlass is found, she’ll try to convince Zek to return to the UNSC with it to aid against the Covenant. And if he fails to listen to reason, Kasumi plans on stealing the Cutlass from him. After all, she *is* a thief…