Before I start this chapter I want to explain a few things. The jao namings system focuses on three things: kochan, clan and marriage group. Kochan is the last part: like Pluthrak, Narvo, Dano, etc. Then there's clan. When a taif is formed it takes the denomination of one of their founding fathers and it goes after krinnu. Last there's the marriage group. Jao don't have a single mate. A male may, and will, have several several female mates, and a female will have too several male mates. This marriage groups will breed and raise the offspring of all its members and they determinate the ranking in a clan. The first marriage group will have the 'ava' preffix, the next ones will hold the 'vau' preffix. It's nightmarish to fully grasp, in my opinion.

So, let's say a Jao belongs to Terra. His full name would be like Wrot krinnu Aille ava Terra.

Chapter 2.-The beginning of the battle of Shanxi.

Commander Steven Hackett krinnu ava Terra was shaken. Both jumps had been rough, to say the least. And the vission of a whole alien fleet right in front of his eyes hadn't made much in the way of calming his nerves. Like humans liked to say, his nerves were of steel, but even steel can broke upon sudden and extremely violent changes.

Liutennant Hannah Shepard approached him. The young, redhaired woman wore the uniform according to the books. It was blue, the color of the jinau, or auxiliary forces, designed to all non-Jao races that served in their military. And she wore a red sash, meaning that she had been trained by a Jao, instead of a jinau officer. Right now she was adopting the postures of bafflement-surprise and unbelieve. Shepard, like many terrans that belonged to a wealthy class and lived in one of the nations that most resisted the Jao, had been introduced unwillingly to the arts of jao body language. That is, she had been assigned a Jao guard that would be her executor in case she didn't prove herself of use. Said practise had been abolished with the downfall of Oppuk, but it was painfully clear she had sticked the habit. She was, alongside Caitlyn Stockell (or Kralik, call her by whatever surname you please), one of the most proficient human body-language speakers.

"Commander. Terra Admiral Dannet via channel one."

The image in the screen dissappeared to give space to the jao admiraless. She wrinked her snout and her whiskers trembled. The line of her body, though struggling to supress it, showed an undeniable pose of worried surprise. He stared her vai camitti, or face markings, before speaking.

"Terra admiral, we activated this... catapult-let's call it this way-then we suddenly ended up in a wholly unknown part of asume this since none of our charts matched the region."He gulped."We found live, intelligent and advanced life."

By a fraction of a second, it would seem that she was going to lose control over his body and explode over a dozen variants of surprise, angst and inquire. She, though, managed to adopt the posture of deep interest. He understood that gesture as an order to proceed.

"Before jumping back we found a total of seventy to eighty vessels, of varying sizes and designs. All of them seemed to be fitted for war duty."

For a moment Dannet didn't catch it, then he understood it. While all jao served on their military (at least for a part of their lives) humans loved to specialize things: army, air forces, navy. All was part of their obsession to regimentalize, to divide and control, things. For a Jao, a ship was a ship, not a cruiser, a freighter or a tug. A ship, and end of the question. Still, one couldn't deny that seventy vessels was a mighty force.

"Can you make an estimation about the danger they can pose to us, any grasp of what may be their fighting capabilities?"

"Moderate to dire. Only four of their ship equaled ours in size, but they had many other vessels, and appear to be highly mobile. I suppose they will go for hit and run tactics."

Which was an idiocy, thought Dannet. A hit and run war, what humans loved to call guerrilla warfare, required freedom of movement. Depending on a single spot to enter made it impossible. Then again, they may have more proficiency on manipulating those... catapults, perhaps they were capable of reaching the whole system with it. Who knows. And in said case, would they try and engage them or establish diplomatic relations? She made a tremendous effort to wonder those cases.

The answer would come soon. In the form of seventy vessels.


Now every commander was in his flagship. Saren went to speak with Desolas. He was excited, more than before. It was obvious they were going to have some action there. Who would they met? He imagined these aliens would look like the rachni, he just got that feeling. He imagined himself fighting them, defeating droves of those monsters. Saren Arterius, the slayer of the invaders, a hero of the Citadel, like-

"Saren!"Shouted his brother."Are you awake?"
"Wh-what? Yes sir!"He had been taken aback by his brother.

"God heavens, I hope you don't look so dense when the things get ugly."

He was already foreseeing his little brother ending up in big trouble in the battlefield. All youngsters tended up to that thing. The desire for glory, or better said, the urge to prove themselves in the eyes of their elders fueled that events. He couldn't blame Saren, the Hierarchy propaganda had been high on him as of late due to his successes against the rebels on Horus II. And he had raised him like a father after the rest of their family perishing a pirate band killed most of their family when said band attacked the cruiser they were traveling in. Desolas had to fill the role of father, mother and big brother. An overdose, perhaps.

Still, Saren was good material. He knew he had been preselected (among a thousand other candidates) to become a spectre. And he was sure he would succeed. Saren Arterius was good, a great soldier with potential to become a fabulous leader. He just needed time and staying alive for enough time.

"Do you truly believe things will get ugly?"

"Easy there, young lad. I see you're getting excited about it."Admonished Desolas."Right now, what I believe is that Kirrahe will turn things ugly. He and the other salarians."
"I don't understand."

"What is the way of waging war of the salarians?"Asked the general. It was a retorical question, though."They win the war, then they go to it. They get to know everything about the enemy, then they use it against them. But now? Now they found someone who may be their enemy, and they know nothing about them."

"But we have bumped into other cases of first contact."

"Yes, and that's the problem, another part of it at least. When we make first contact with another species, we are the 'active' part, we are the ones that come to their worlds. Not viceversa. Also, most species are pretty backwards, in technological terms, when we encounter them. But here we have a polity capable of deploying big vessels just for the sake of exploration-because I doubt they had a similar version of the Rachni Wars. And to boot, they don't use Element Zero."

Now Saren's eyes widened in disbelief. Even the protheans depended on element zero. Just what wonders they might held?

Desolas thought about that too, but he added the belief that he would just see the warring part of those wonders, since that fool Kirrahe would ruin things. Worst part of it? He couldn't stop him. As a member of the STG he could ignore his orders for the sake of gathering intelligence.

An hour after making a skewy first contact, his fleet parted ways towards this new species.

Desolas' prediction was flawless. Kirrahe and the rest of the salarians, though they seemed calmed and even bored, where under a great stress.

Things would escalate quickly, for the worst.


Major General Williams was inspecting the communications room when he received news from the fleet. He was informed about Hackett's encounter, and was wary, like all high ranked officers. The Jao were strict when forming their troops, and Williams was no fool. If a sizeable fleet was being massed around what the called now the 'slingshot' then things may develop and result in a war.

The same thought General Ed Kralik, commander of all the ground troops. Right now he was inspecting their new base at the space port. It would be more suitable than their actual headquarters. It's main advantadge was the fact it sitted in really rought terrain, at the outskirts of the spaceport. The only way to reach the base would be via air transport (provided that the enemy managed to survive the Anti-Air sistems) or using maglev drives, like the ones the Jao used. Those little jewels could run in any terrain without problem, and climate didn't affect them. And with kinetic guns (superior to lasers in atmosphere and photosphere), plus all the jao gadgets, they resulted in a damn good tanks.

During the conquest, the Jao had a 10 to 1 kill ratio, but it was mainly because their superior targetting systems and, more importantly, their air superiority. A jao fighter could out maneuver any aircraft build on Earth like a bycicle could outmaneuver a heavy truck, and generally the Jao fighters were like the truck in terms of power. Now the new models would give nightmares whoever oposed them. Most of them were stationed here, in the base, since only the Star of Valeron and the Trafalgar-Class frigates had designated space for spacecraft fighters. The Jao didn't give a thought about using fighters and bombers in space because the Ekhat didn't. Indeed, the Jao fighting doctrine was mostly the same they had when they were thralls of the Ekhat. It was the humans' job to do the innovative job. Well, at least the Lleix would help now, since they decided to become a taif too of the empire (and the Naukra Ludh had allowed it).

Williams knew that, despite all their shortcomings, the jao were warriors, and he had been put under command of one of their divisions. He would have to follow vithrik, what is correct, what one could call duty spiced with a bit of warrior morality. If things turned ugly he would have to face them, no matter what they throwed at him.


At last the citadel made contact with the empire. Kirrahe then got a true seizure.

There were those four dreadnoughts, with a dozen more of their friends. And those other ships... they clearly surpassed any known vessel in citadel space in terms of size. According to the datafeed, four of them would be around the five kilomiters of width. Five kilometers! Yes, size doesn't make might, but it can allow to have more might, more space to stuff the finest guns and ships.

" at the size of those ships."Laughed histerically one of the technicians in the bridge, moments before fainting.

It was painfully obvious they intended to invade them. Scans indicated that the planet barely had half a million citizens, it wasn't their homeworld but a forward base! As a salarian, he followed his species customs when fighting a war: strike first, without giving the enemy a chance to react first.

"All vessels fire!"

Desolas could see how the salarian fleet opened fire, so did Benezia. But where Benezia T'Varu simply sighed, since he could not avoid now the bloodshed, the turian general was furious.

"That fool! They have more than a dozen dreadnoughts and he wants to take them head on! Get me this lead-for-brains on the screen on the double."

"Sir, he just blocked us, there's no way we can establish contact with any salarian vessel."

"Damn it! Tha jackass...fine, we will play his game."
"Sir?"

"Patch me with all the fleet, all the ships you can."When it was ready he spoke."To all soldiers and officers, this is general Desolas. Right now, the salarian fleet has engaged without consent our unknown species. It's unfortunate to have such a bad start, but the last thing I'm going to allow is having my soldiers downgraded to the state of living targetpractice. As of now you are ordered to engage the enemy. All forces that take part in landing are ordered to take prisoners, not only to interrogate them. Any summary execution of the local civilians or surredered military shall be punished by death. Good luck, my heroes. Desolas out."

With this the turian vessels began their ounslaught. Benezia T'Varu followed Arterius' example too. Right now the Asari and turian dreadnoughts charged the biggest enemy vessels, which they nicknamed 'leviathans'. The smaller (the frigates they encountered and the Star of Valeron) ones would be 'firstcomers', and the rest fell under the category of 'warships'. Easy to name, easy to refer.

The Smile of Thessia's (her flagship) main guns fired on the closest leviathan. It caused a nasty hole, but nothing severe: it hitted on one of the weapon spines which, in case of suffering severe damaged, could be segregated from the ship. Terra Captain Kaul didn't doubt it for a second. Nor he doubted to attack. His other seven weapon spines fired all their payloads. The nuclear sabots hammered the barriers, nearly breaking them, but the worst came from the lasers. If the Jao vessels used kinetic weapons was because inside a star, lasers weren't of any use, and because the ekhat vessels weren't that resistant. But energy weapons in open space? They outclassed the kinetic ones, even the most reluctant humans recognized it. Against a ship with no energy barriers they truly did a splendid result. The cruiser Torch of Menae literally got thorn to shreds between the sabots and, specially, the lasers. It's crew barely had time to get to the scape pods. Only a tenth part had survived, surely less.

But neither Desolas nor Benezia (whose flagship had suffered severe damages) faltered. He ordered the disembark of his troops (Saren's unit included, he wasn't going to give him a special treatment) from the Palaven's Sun and the other dreadnought, the Nanus' Hammer. Benezia disembarked five squads of huntresses, all she could deploy considering her status. Eight corvettes and two frigates landed too. Fourty thousand soldiers, all in all.

And so, the battle of Shanxi began, both in the planet's surface and orbit.