Ah, to hell with you!

- James Raynor

Shanxi

3525 A.D. February 3

Captain Marcus Jenkins of the Shanxi joint defense fleet was not having a good day. Hell the last few hours was pushing his ever building migraine to no ends. Soon he'd have to visit the med bay for proper medication. Hell no wonder. First contact, going sour again. The irony of it all, was the fact that today, on the day. it was one thousand years since first contact occurred with the old Covenant on Harvest. The second contact, that a patrol group initiated on February third outside of Reach borders, four hundred and twenty five years ago ended well. The Protoss and to the UNSC's surprise, Human allies from the Terran Republic joined the UNSC and the Covenant Republic after months of official meetings that culminated with the creation of the, Confederation of Species Alliance or CFSA for short.

Marcus sighed, closed his eyes and started to rub his temples for a few minutes. His headache reseeding a little. Snap's his eyes open and takes a glance around the bridge of the FSA Dawn of war the newly built planetary defense class ship, meant to act as a mobile Command ship for all naval and planetary forces in and around a system, while a command center planet side acts like a backup. In case of the unlikely scenario that the defense fleet was destroyed.

The crew of the bridge was performing its duty admirably. Marcus sighted and turned towards the communications officer. "Jones, ETA on reinforcements?"

Watching the com-officer spin around in his chair, noticing his weary eyes, Marcus asks. "What is it Jones?"

He notices Jones take a deep-breath before clarifying what's going on. "ETA one hour Captain... And..."

Marcus rubs his stub on his chin with his right hand. "Spit it out Jones... What's bothering you?" The bridge goes quiet, seems every one, are interested in what Jones has to say, fine with Marcus though, he doesn't keep secrets from his bridge-crew if he isn't ordered to do so.

"Sir... A new message arrived from Highcom..." He watched Jones clear his throat before continuing. "It's seems like they've decided to Activate Flood protocol sir".

Marcus felt a shiver run down his back. Highcom only activated Flood protocol if the treat was deemed high enough or in case of a launch point for an invasion force, since the Flood protocol is basically what it says, you send enough ships to flood the system in firepower and manpower.

Marcus shook his head before answering. "Why would they do that Jones?"

Jones scanned the surrounding crew before settling on the Captain again "Sir it seems like the CFSA ruling body together with High command has decided to I quote... End this new treat before it even has a chance to begin". Jones shakes his head before giving the last part of the message. "As such, the CFSA and Highcom has decided to send twenty thousand FSA ships with additional five thousand ships from every member government". Jones look Marcus straight in his eyes. "Sir that means twenty thousand FSA ships. Then five thousand ships from the Terran Republic, five thousand ships from the Protoss Protectorate, Five thousand ships from the UNSC and finally five thousand ships from the Covenant Republic. That's a total of forty thousand ship's Captain, with support crew, vehicles, infantry, special operations soldiers, air support... Well you know sir".

Marcus rubbed his temples and slowly exhaled, before wording what everyone on the bridge thought. "This is more than overkill... it borders on insanity" Marcus locked eyes with every crew member on the bridge before continuing. "You all know what this, with all things considered means... Confederation of species alliance has effectively declared total war on the Turian Hierarchy... So people, total war for shooting down a research vessel by what in all likelihood was a mistake... Or maybe it wasn't, still I hope the Turians and their allies as stated in their codex that we captured and translated, begs for forgiveness for their mistakes, because we as a part of the FSA forces shall give no quarters and do our duty to the end". Marcus raised his voice at the last part of his speech, effectively raising the morale of his crew.

In his mind he thought the Turians and their allies on the citadel council would and will burn for every single CFSA member that got killed by their unprovoked attack and destruction of the science vessel TRN Intelligence wins the day.

END

AN: Now this story will not play buddy, buddy with the council, I've read a story called overkill before and while its good, I haven't seen an update for it, for a while, so decided to start something like this myself... Besides, there is so many play nice with the council and jump into the mass effect time line and pretty much tells the story of some kind of "other Shepard" like he/she is a Spartan or a Space Marine or whatever and in the end Ash or Kaidan dies on Virmire anyway and so on, it makes no difference in the end... or the story plays nice with the citadel, now I'm not saying these stories are boring, quite the contrary if they are well written, but there are too many of them, with so few differences it makes me want to puke sometimes.

So if you have any questions then ask and ill answer when I have time! :)