General Desolas Arterius was getting bored. They had been patrolling this system for possible hostiles, as the Hierarchy had found out the relay in this system, Relay 314, had been activated. Fearing the worst, they had sent General Desolas as a patrol force, intent on finding out who or what had activated the relay.

"Sir!" One of the turian technicians at the scanners shouted, grabbing the Generals attention, "We're detecting something!"

"I want to get a read on it and alert the rest of the patrol force,"Arterius snapped back to attention, deadly serious once again, "I want to know exactly what is coming through that relay."

"Sir we can't get anything off the relay, it's not in use." The turian squinted at the holographic screen, "Something's coming near the relay, showing an unknown energy signature."

'I swear if the Salarians are experimenting with advanced ship tech, I'll-' Desolas was dragged out of his thoughts by something outside the ship's main window. In a small flash of light, a tiny, swirling vortex of bright blue energy phased itself into existence. Within a few seconds, the vortex had expanded to a much larger size, and something began to emerge from it.

"Sir there's a ship coming through!" Another turian shouted.

"No shit' Deolas thought.

"We have a full image of the ship sir."

"Good," Desolas began to observe as the blue swirling vortex closed behind the lone ship, "I want every possible scan run through it, and hail it as soon as possible, we need to know who this is."

The design was completely alien. The vessel was a mixture of blocky, angular and smooth, with a vaguely rectangular central core, a smooth underbelly and angular overlays covering up large portions. It was armed with a not so insignificant amount of weapons, but most importantly to Desolas was the spinal mounted cannon.

"Sir, our scanners are unable to penetrate the ships hull, its protected by some sort of energy field, nothing like our kinetic barriers. So far, all we know is the ship measures about 140 meters."

"Hold your fire, keep the guns trained on it and monitor all communications." Desolas ordered, praying to Palaven that the other patrol craft wouldn't do something stupid.

As he was giving orders and sending a message back to the Hierarchy, the ship gave off a purple shimmer, which was clearly visible to the turian ships.

"Sir, the energy barriers are down, what should we do."

"Desolas, this vessel has lowered it shields and I have a perfect firing solution towards it, what are you ordered?" Before Arterius could answer the technician, another one of the turian ships chimed in.

"Hold your fire, we don't know what this ship is capable of-"

"Which is exactly why we should bring it down." The third patrol vessel interrupted, "This is almost perfect. New technology, and a chance to show these people that the Turiana are not to be taken lightly. We need to punish them, you all know that there is a serious penalty for opening Relays without Council permission."

"..." Desolas knew they were right. The Council had strict laws in place, laws that the Turian Hierarchy were bound to uphold. He knew what he had to do, but that didn't make it sit easier with him.

"Fire at the enemy ship, shoot to disable, not destroy, we need it intact and its crew alive," Desolas folded his hands behind his back, "Understood?"

"Yes sir!"

The three ships watched with bated breath as Desolas's vessel, the Hunters Pride, launched a Mass Accelerator Slug at the unknown ship, aiming for the engines on the back of it. The ship was turned, their broadside facing Hunters Pride, making for an easy shot.

What they weren't expecting was the ship to begin a turn at a surprising speed, even for a smaller ship. The slug still managed to make contact, grazing the starboard bow, giving the ship a gentle nudge. After another purple shimmer, Desolas fired again, and watched as the slug collided with a barrier of some kind. Where the slug struck, there was a bright flare around the ship, briefly illuminating the barrier, showing it again to be almost like a 'skin tight' suit for the ship.

As the ship continued to turn, it let out a blast of its own from a mounted cannon, leasing a fast moving, bright green projectile, that flew across the space between the opposing forces and slammed into the kinetic barrier of the Hunters Pride, producing an explosion.

"Sir," A technician shouted at Desolas, "Kinetic barriers down to 70%!"

"Fire again, try and disable their engines, alert the others."

"Sir it fired again!" This time it was a blast from the spinal mounted cannon. This weapon released a large, swirling ball of what looked like orange and red plasma. Fortunately, this shot missed the Hunters Pride, and smacked into the ship off to the port side of Desolas. The ball mostly ignored the kinetic barrier, only slowing down slightly, before smashing into the hull, searing through GARDIAN systems and quite a few layers of armor.

"What the hell was that!"

"Thank the spirits that wasn't us…"

"Sir, the ship is opening another...uh...whatever that is!" The turian in question pointed out the window at the large, blue vortex that was currently enveloping the ship, before disappearing entirely.

"Hunters Pride to Veltius, damage report!"

"Still operating, although now missing a few GARDIAN lasers and a couple layers of armor. We need to go after them, that kind of technology could be disastrous to fight against long term."

"Preparing to use the Relay."

"Captain! The enemy vessel is firing at us!" A technician shouted.

"Bastards!" Telron gripped his command chair hard enough to crack it, "We lower our shields in a gesture of peace, and they attack?"

"What do we do sir?" An elven crewmember asked.

"Prepare an entrance to Subspace*, and get me a firing solution on the lead ship."

As they were speaking, another attack struck the ship, glancing off their energy shield.

"Solution acquired."

"Fire a Pharon Missile*, target their spinal cannon."

"Firing!"

The cannon fired, and the green, plasma coated missile shot toward the ship, screaming through empty space, until it detonated, causing the blue corona surrounding the enemy ships to flutter slightly as the green blast faded.

"Negative impact sir, it's protected by some sort of energy field." A dwarven weapons operator shouhed.

"Fire the primary Plasma Caster*, target the ship off our port side, aim for the hull."

"Firing!"

The spinal mounted cannon barked, launching a swirling orb of red and orange plasma at the port side ship. As the ball made contact with the enemy shields, it faltered slightly, slowing down, but ultimately passing through.

"Positive impact sir, the energy field was ineffective."

'They must only be using kinetic barriers,' Telron briefly debated attempting to destroy the alien vessels, 'If we were prepared, we could take them, but they already managed to damage one of our Ion Drives.'

As the plasma dissipated, the warp drive opened the portal to subspace, and the ion engines pushed the ship through, sealing the portal behind it, and heading back to the relay they came from, knowing the aliens would no doubt be using their own form of FTL travel.

Callern was a very content beastkin*. He had lived the last dozen decades of his life on The Wage*. Hungering for more in his life, he had joined the Terran Stellar Navy, and eventually found himself as a security detail in a far flung system on board a scientific vessel, monitoring an alien construct.

Callern loved life offworld. The wide, yawning majesty of space, alien planets, nebulas, supermassive stars. The sights were incredible, and he constantly sent pictures and videos back to his parents and siblings on Hextor.

While the eggheads were poking around with it, it somehow activated, and sensors simultaneously registered a ping, a considerable amount of light years away. Using the two points, the construct on their side and the unknown ping, a vessel had been sent through, just as a simple recon craft.

However, when the recon craft, a small ship named the T.E.* Siaac dropped back out of subspace calling for a red alert and claiming they had encountered hostile aliens, Callern started to get understandably nervous.

He shouldn't have, he reasoned to himself. He was well trained, well armed, clever, and skilled enough in pyromancy* to hold his own. But he had no real idea what the aliens were capable of.

With the red alert up across the system, Callern flicked the safety off his firearm, a Model 8 Helmar Assault Rifle*, and checked his sheath, making sure his SI Longsword* was with him. Tapping a few quick buttons on his wrist mounted tablet, his Mark 17 R-SEC Exosuit** powered up, the dual Mark 28 Magitech Micro RDP Generators* located in the backpack was turned off standby, letting the metal skeleton attached to his BDU* enhancing his already impressive natural abilities. Additional clamps locked down, attaching to his elbows and knees, in addition to his wrists and ankles, and locking onto the Selectively Magnetic Strips* on his BDU.

The Determiner, the science research vessel Callern was stationed on, was unarmed, barely armored, and not equipped with a warp drive. And as such, would be an incredibly easy target for any vessel.

As the ship began to power up its ion engines, the alien construct gave a bright flash of light, and three alien ships, each measuring about 250 meters long, dropped into space around it.

The three quickly surrounded The Determiner, as the small ship was only around 100 meters long, and began drawing a firing solution. Callern gulped.

"Fire!" Desolas ordered, intent on taking the remains of at least one ship with him. As the three patrols began attacking with mass accelerator rounds, the turian noticed something wrong. Not only was it not returning fire, it didn't even seem to be equipped with weapons, and the purple shield present on the other craft wasn't making an appearance. The weird situation only got stranger as his communications officer relayed him a message.

"Sir," the turian stood at attention, before giving the general her report, "The alien ship appears to be hailing us."

"Put it through, lets hope they know how to surrender." Desolas couldn't help but let his pride swell at the completed mission. They had successfully halted unregulated expansion, and were now about to capture a hostile alien vessel.

"Khhhs-broadcasting through all chan-kshh-nels, we are being attacked by a hostile alien rac-BOOM, shit, you two, make sure that didn't breach the engine room, and someone put out that fire! BOOM" The resounding bangs from the turian assault and the crackle of the damaged radio were breaking up the audio from the injured ship.

"Who are you, and how do you speak Turian?" Deoslas questioned.

"Advanced-ksssh-Translation Spell*-BOOM-Please cease fire! The Determiner is an unarmed research vessel we have-BOOM BOOM-civilians onboard, cease fire!"

Just as Desolas raced to halt the attack, a well placed shot from the ship off of his starboard side ripped through what must have been something important, causing an explosion to tear through a few rooms of the ship, sending debris and shrapnel in all directions.

"CEASE FIRE IMMEDIATELY, THERE ARE CIVILIANS ON BOARD!" Desolas all but screamed through the intercom and to the other ship, who scrambled to stop all guns from firing. As he desperately tried to scan the ship for life forms, a turian on the scanners gained his attention.

"Sir, we've detected an unconscious lifeform in space, just a few hundred meters from the alien ship."

"Can we catch them in the hanger?"

"It's possible sir."

"Do it. We need to know who we've just provoked into war." Desolas

Callern was furious. He had shouted, pleaded with the aliens, told them it was a non combat vessel, and they still managed to blow him out of the ship. Looking around, he saw what must have been some sort of hanger, and a light circle of five aliens surrounding him.

They were strange looking, with some form of light carapace, mandibles and backwards facing spikes, all of which complemented their angular style of uniform. Their guns were strange, being very blocky, and seemed to be made of too many separate parts to be very durable.

Acting on instinct, Callern aimed his carbine at the closest avian/insectoid looking alien, prompting them to speak.

"Drop the gun, alien, and come quietly." One of them said, aiming their gun at him. Already, scans from Callerns Hud* had told him that there was a 97 percent chance that he could decapitate one of these aliens with a horizontal neck strike.

Callern slowly lowered his hands, aiming the gun toward the ground, then releasing his forward hand from the forward grip. Seeing one of the aliens nod in approval, he smirked underneath his faceplate as he flung the gun toward the alien directly to his right while sending two kicks to the one on his left, snapping a knee backwards and cracking its gun. As the main ones aim snapped back on him, he darted forward, driving a knee into the aliens stomach, or whatever was in roughly the same spot.

Seeing it kneel over in pain, he swung his body around it as an alien opened fire, unleashing a stream of very high velocity rounds into his back. Feeling his armor start to give, he swung around the alien using it like a shield as the others continued fire, unintentionally peppering their friend with strange ammunition.

Seeing the captive aliens personal shield flicker, they stopped, as Callern delivered another knee to its back, producing an audible cracking noise as its spine bent at a weird angle. Booting the body forward, Callern focused on the one he'd thrown the gun at, sending an exoskeleton enhanced open hand chop to where a collarbone would be, followed by two hooks to the abdomen and a final chop to the neck, putting it on the ground.

Hearing the sound of automatic fire and feeling a few rounds punch through the unarmored BDU he wore and dig into his flesh, Callern activated the High Strength Collapsible Polymer Shield* stored in the left forearm of his exosuit, which was only marked with a series of scrapes on the clear plastics surface. His suits Magitech Atmospheric Exo-Thrusters* gave him a boost toward one of the remaining aliens, and he rammed into it, before re-collapsing the shield and giving it a very substantial uppercut, followed by an elbow to the chin and a slam into the ground, knocking it out before the shock from its shattered jaw could even register.

It turned to another alien with a gun, delivering a spinning round kick to the temple, sending it sliding across the floor, dead or unconscious, Callern couldn't care at the moment.

With another loud bang, Callern felt another alien projectile tear through the armor on the back of his lower thing, ripping through muscle and embedding itself in bone. Supressing a yell of pain, Callern grimmaced and turned his attention to the alien, who's gun had just started emitting smoke. Instead of cooling it with some basic aquamancy, the insectoid avian dropped it to the ground and extended a glowing orange blade from a wrist mounted device and holding its free hand out in a grip. As a blueish purple glow surrounded the aliens hand, Callern felt a force lift him into the air, holding him in place.

"This is your last chance to come quietly you barbaric primitive." The alien spat at Callern, practically daring him to attack. That sent pissed him off. Barbaric? Possibly. But primitive? Just hearing something that couldn't even be more than 4 decades old talk down to him like that? It was just infuriating, and he could already feel his furry ears flattening on top of his head and his tail bristling at this things words.

He was a beastkin damn it, and a Wolf-kin* as well, and his pride wouldn't let this alien best him. Releasing a Sonic Disruption Pulse* from his exo suit, Callern forced the alien to release him, and use its hands to clutch its ears for a moment or two. The second his boots touched the ground, the wolf drew his sword, and swung vertically. He was somewhat surprised when the alien managed to block his strike with its orange holographic arm blade.

"What? How did you block an omni-blade?" Apparently, this surprised the alien as well.

"Enchanted crucible steel," Callern leaned in for emphasis, "dickhead."

"Dickhead?" The alien muttered, mostly to itself before making a strange squawking sound and ducking, dodging a horizontal swipe from the wolf-kin and retaliating with a swipe from its omni-blade, which was parried by the blade of the longsword.

After blocking two more slashes from Callern, the alien thrust its free hand out towards the wolf-kin, sending a wave of purplish blue energy toward the beastkin. Allowing his armor and exosuit to tank the damage, Callern retaliated immediately after with his own freehanded magic; pyromancy. A jet of searing orange flame blasted forth from his open palm toward the alien, who was unprepared for the onslaught, and found itself caught in the searing flames.

It quickly rolled out of the way though, undamaged save for a few scorch marks. However, as soon as an enchanted steel longsword buried itself in the aliens shoulder, did it realize the fire jet was just a distraction, allowing Callern to move forward. Placing both hands on the grip of the sword, Callern lifted it out of the aliens shoulder, and gave a low diagonal swipe, taking its leg off at the knee, and a final horizontal swipe as it fell.

Callern flicked the blue alien blood off his blade as the aliens mandibled head rolled to a halt a couple feet from its body. After sheathing the sword, Callern hissed in pain as he used his combat knife to dig a few shards of metal, none larger than a grain of sand, put of his leg. A necessary evil, as his nanomachines would just heal the wound around it were he not to remove the bullet, sealing the metal in his leg.

Recalibrating his exo suit to assist him in a walk, Callern picked up his gun and began making his way through the alien ship.

"Spirits above..." Desolas gasped as he watched the security footage, and saw a lone alien eliminate the soldiers he'd sent to contain it. They assumed that once it was on a hostile ship, surrounded by soldiers, it would give up.

Once the alien had taken down the soldiers, it picked up its gun, and began making its way into the ship. Already, it had taken down another two soldiers, overwhelming their kinetic barriers with ease as its gun spat automatic fire. Viewing the video in still frames, he could see that the alien wasn't even using mass accelerator technology, apparently operating using gas blowback and solid metallic slugs to achieve automatic fire.

Primitive, yet brutally effective was the only way to describe this aliens combat style. Gunpowder bullets, physical shields, even a metal sword were all used to monstrous effect. To make things even worse, every time the alien ejected a magazine from its gun-box magazines? Seriously what year was it?-it simply pulled another from a small bag on its hip, which looked physically impossible.

The sound of a mass alccelerator shotgun blasted through the radio, and Desolas saw the aliens entire torso jerk back as a turian shotgun clipped it.

He then watched as it slapped a gun out of the turians hand and gave a punch with its right, the mechanized exo suit it was wearing probably enhancing its strength several magnitudes.

With a heavy sigh, he opened the audio channels, and spoke.

Even without an exosuit, beastkin are significantly stronger than humans, elves and dwarves. But with an exosuit, their impressive strength only gets more lethal, as the alien currently about to be sandwiched between a metal ringed fist and a spaceship wall was about to find out.

The effect of the punch was similar to what one would encounter when they throw a glass ball filled with tomato sauce and spaghetti at a brick wall.

Crunch.

Callern withdrew his fist from the remains of the aliens head, wiping the viscera off as best he could with his other hand, grimacing as he wiped it on the aliens uniform. He grunted as pain wracked his entire right arm while he stuck his left hand down his Bag of Holding*, withdrawing a small canister of Medigel*, which he intended to use on his right, where one of the aliens had gotten a serious shot off, the point blank shotgun blast tearing through his shoulder. His nanomachines had already started stopping the bleeding, but it would be up to him to patch it up.

Magnetically clamping his carbin over his shoulder, Callern gave a few taps on his wrist mounted tablet. His R-SEC Polymer Helmet* deactivated, the faceplate folding into separate plates and sliding back over the top of his head into a compartment on the neck of his armor. The remaining parts of the helmet, which covered everything but his face, detached from his head and folded up into the suits neck, giving him a taste of the alien ship.

The air was breathable, but a little stale, and the smell of gunpowder was faintly present. Hearing the speakers above him crackle to life, Callern quickly drew his carbine from over his shoulder and snapping his aim down the hallway, canine ears twitching and attempting to gain any extra information.

The alien was very strange to look at. It had the same look of an asari, with two eyes, a nose and a mouth, but possessed a masculine quality no asari had. Its skin was a light shade of pink instead of the asari blue. On its head was not a series of tentacles like an asari, but a thick, coat of greyish fur that formed a wild mess around its face. On it head were two large, triangular ears coated in a much shorter but thicker layer of grey fur.

Its piercing eyes were a bright shade of amber, and as the radio went on and the alien snapped to attention, aiming his gun down the hallway, Desolas could see a set of fairly substantial sharp teeth set in its mouth as it growled at the radio, ears twitching and folding close against its head.

"Unknown alien, lay your weapons down and surrender," Desolas spoke, "we will give you one last chance."

The alien gave a gesture with its left hand, where it raised only the middle finger on its hand, before shooting the camera.

"It seems its not listening to us."

"No way in the Nine Hells* am I listening to those fuckers." Callern growled to himself as he rounded a corner, opening fire on a lone alien, grinning in satisfaction as its kinetic barriers were overwhelmed and it was forced to hide behind a wall.

Callern fished out a Mark 10 Thermal Detonator*, cranked the dial to three seconds and threw it down the hall. Hearing the detonator explode, the wolf-kin leapt out of cover and sprinted down the hall, firing his carbine, and watched as half a dozen powerful rounds blew a few holes in the aliens face and dropping it permanently.

He started running down the hall, and seeing a couple more aliens round the corner and open fire, he started runnign faster, adrenaline and glovesuit administered painkillers coursing through his body as high velocity sand sized projectiles ripped through his flesh, punching through his left forearm, right leg and one even lodging itself in his chest.

When he got closer, he activated his collapsible shield, and when he was only about a meter away, he gave a push with his thrusters. Barreling through the small force, he continued on, eventuslly rounding the corner.

Seeing another eight aliens running down the hall towards him, dressed in body armor, Callern ducked into the closest room he could find, and slumped against the wall slightly. Even with the iron will drilled into the forces of the Terran Empire, the hopelessness of the situation was still prevalent. Alone on an alien ship, in what is about to be a warzone, bleeding out from multiple serious wounds, with no backup whatsoever.

"This is Callern Torus, R-SEC for The Determiner, Identification code AJX3-2846-00294, can anyone read me?" He asked, trying his communication systems in vain, "I am onboard one of the enemy ships, I repeat, I am onboard one of the enemy ships. Can anyone read me? Over."

"Callern Torus AJX3-2846-00294, this is Salem System* LCCAMC*, do you copy?" A response crackled over his communicator after a minute or two, filling him with a sense of hope.

"I copy. Over." Callern replied.

"We are currently preparing a small scale defense force, and attempting to neutralize the enemy ships. Do you know which one you are on?" Mission control said to him.

"Negative. Any further orders? Over." Callern asked.

"Can you disable the ship?" They responded.

"Possibly...what would you suggest? Over."

"Current data shows all three vessels are currently moving. If you can disable the engine systems of the one you are on, we'll have a way to distinguish them." The person behind the communicator explained.

"Looking around," Callern gave the room a quick one over, seeing the large contraption in the middle. It was a large, spinning, glowing blue cylinder surrounded by a series of loops that all rotated at different speeds, as well as a wall of cable and terminals connecting it to the ship, "I think I might be in its engine room right now…"

"New orders. Prevent the ship from further travel by disabling the engines. If we can stop it from going FTL, we can disable it long enough for capture." Callern smiled at his new goal, and gave a small 'yes sir' into the comms.

"Now to shut down and FTL drive without making it go critical...great.." Callern grimaced at the task before him.

"What do you mean it locked itself in the engine room? These doors don't even have locks!" Desolas shouted into the radio, watching his men try vainly to pry open the bulkhead that locked them off.

"The alien destroyed the terminal as soon as we opened fire. The doors shut and we can't open it without demolishing the door." One of the soldiers explained.

"We need to get out of here five minute ago," Desolas shouted again as he watched the Veltius get blown to pieces by a new alien vessel, one measuring about 700 meters and blasting the turian ship apart with a hail of green explosives, "the alien's ships are more powerful than we anticipated." He said, as he watched another shot from a second 700 meter ship, this time firing a massive conical spike of metal wreathed in orange energy from a spinal mounted gun, splitting the ship in half at the middle, leaving the Hunters Pride alone.

He was just about to jump to FTL, and could see the glow as the mass effect field began to envelop the ship in blue energy, when there was a sound like a cap gun going off over the radio, and a massive shudder as the field abruptly shut down.

"Sir, the mass effect core is offline, the alien must have disabled it." A technician shouted up to the command chair, sweating profusely as he looked at the massive list of technical failures pouring into his console. "We have no way to leave the system. What do we do sir?"

"Immediate evasive ma-"There was a loud bang as the ship jolted forward again, and a new wave of technical failures flooded the bridge.

"What in the spirits was that?" Desolas demanded.

"Sir, half of our engines were just taken out, we can't outrun anything-."

"Sir," A communications worker interrupted, "We're being hailed by something."

"Patch it through."

"Done."

They waited for a few seconds with bated breath, the warning lights of engine failure and an offline eezo core throwing harsh glare around the command center. And to make things worse, Deslas hadn't heard from the soldiers he'd sent down to the engine room in a few minutes either.

"This is the T.E. Lastone," Came a booming, electronically altered voice, "surrender immediately or face annihilation."

"We have one of your soldiers here too," Desolas decided to try a bluff, "perhaps we can trade? Our freedom for your soldier."

"The abducted R-SEC officer you claim to have captive is currently regrouping with the boarding part we sent onboard. Surrender now or face annihilation." The voice spoke again.

"Boarding party, they never sent a boarding party on here…" Desolas muttered as he checked the scanners again. Right as he started checking his scanners, there was a third bang, and the voice returned.

"We are assuming your silence marks a surrender. Do not attempt to resist."

Desolas was silent.

"Fuck…" Callern groaned as he attempted to pick himself out of the wreckage of the engine room door before collapsing in pain, "That's definitely a rib or two broken…"

Disabling the engine had produced a sizeable explosion that blew him and the door across the hall, coincidentally crushing the alien soldiers that were trying to open it, and happily fucking his chest up. Something was not right, considering the extreme pain and the dificulty breathing that was making itself a problem.

He looked up, only to be greeted by the barrel of an alien gun. Just as he was about to try and reach his sidearm, there was a series of loud bangs, five in succession, and four bullets took down the shield the alien had, and the last one buried itself in the aliens shoulder, forcing it to drop its gun.

Callern was about to draw his own sidearm and finish it off, when a grey and black armored blur shot over him and landed on the alien. Shortly after, there was a sickening slicing noise, and the alien dropped to the ground, a slit throat leaking blue blood.

Callern was pulled to his feet by the person who saved him. Their helmet folded up and retracted back into the neck of their exosuit, allowing the wolf-kin to get a decent view of his savior.

She was quite attractive, with sharp features, rich forest green eyes and neck length rust red bobbed hair. She took a look at him, and noticed his hand clutching his chest, and frowned, emphasizing a small scar right under her lower lip. She pulled out a medigel syringe and injected it into his abdomen, intent on stopping the bleeding.

Callern gave her a weak nod of thanks, as she took a quick look over her back to make sure the hallway was clear, allowing the wolf-kin a look at her back. More specifically, the stiff, four foot long tail at the base of her spin that was covered in a black glovesuit and grey exosuit over that. Hearing two clicks on the floor, he looked down at the ground.

Her feet were those of some kind of lizard, with three digits, covered in a set of special articulated boots that were fit to that kind of saurian foot. The only notable feature about them was the long, curved sickle like claw that adorned the first digit of each foot, which had its own specialized curved blade covering, designed to enhance its cutting abilities.

Seeing the killing claw and the slashed alien throat, Callern put two and two together. She must be a velociraptor*, a species of vicious saurian pack hunting dinosaurs that originated from Terra. She gave him a quick pat on the back.

"You good, mate?" She asked, with an accent that Callern recognized as Aussie*, from the planet of the same name.

"Not really," Callern coughed, and then spat out a glob of red blood, "I think my ribs are shot…" Callern looked down the hall and saw three more people coming towards them.

"Probably." One of the newcomers, and elf probably, said as they examined Callerns side, "five fractures, seven breaks and a punctured lung. Thats not even touching the fifteen holes in you. What the hell happened here?"

"Orders were to disable their FTL systems," Callern gestured to the smoking engine thing in the room, "But it didn't really like a few well placed bullets and a longsword in the console, so it blew me out the room and fucked up this door." He motioned to the crumpled steel door behind him.

"Well you did it," Another newcomer said, retracting their helmet, allowing everyone to see that they were human, "you're lucky it didn't go critical and blow us halfway to Hell."

"Yes we are, but we have new orders," The final person said, their retracted helmet showing themselves as half-elven, "we need to secure the bridge and pacify any resistance."

"Any intel on the aliens?" The half-elf asked Callern.

"Not much," Callern winced at his injured, well, everything, "Basic kinetic shields of some sort, but weird weapons."

"How so?" The elf asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Weirdly big and bulky for how underwhelming their firepower is, but they fire fast, so good luck dodging the rounds."

"Can you fight?" The velociraptor asked, motioningnto Callerns legs, earnign a short, sharp mocking laugh from the wolf-kin, followed by an almost comically dog like whine of pain as his nanomachines continued repairing nerve damage.

"I can barely walk," Callern then motioned to his exo suit, "this things is essentially proping me up right now."

"Then stay behind us mate."

"Alright, form up," The human barked, equipping his helmet and stepping in front of the group and activating his SM Particle Shield*, the barrier casting an orange glow over the hall.

"We've got a ship to take."

"Sir they're almost at the bridge," A security officer told Desolas, "what should we do?"

Now ordinarily, Desolas would have fought tooth and nail if there was even a chance to defeat an opponent. And while it was theoretically possible that him and his crew could defeat this boarding party, the two, no, three (now that Desolas took another look out the window) 700 meter long ships surrounding him would be more than able to bring his ship down.

Hearing a bang, and turning around to the door, Desolas and the rest of the bridge saw a vaguely boot shaped dent, followed by some swearing and clearly angry muttering.

'Perhaps,' the turian thought, 'it would be best to surrender…'

"So…" Callern piped up from the back of the group, trying to make small talk while they traversed the corridors of the ship, "Who are you guys?"

"We're from the T.E. Lastone, there by blind luck when they called for a boarding party." The human in the lead with the particle shield said.

"I kinda meant, like…names and stuff," Callern suppressed another pained yell by gritting his teeth for a second as the nanomachines in his body fixed a previously torn nerve, sending a spike of pain through his chest, "If we're gonna be gunning down a bunch of aliens, I'd like to know who I'm hunting with."

"Well I'm Veron," The half elf said, "and this is Elran, the human up front is Charwin, and the velociraptor is Kalyah." Veron said, pointing to the elf, human and velociraptor beastkin respectively, all gave waves, except for Charwin, who stayed focused and stoic.

"I'm Callern, nice to-"

"Hey, zip it back there! We're at the door." Charwin said, before deactivating his particle shield. Taking point, Veron stepped forward and wound his leg back, readying a kick, before releasing it, planting his foot on the door. With a loud bang, the door suddenly had a large, boot shaped dent in it, and Elran found himself on the ground.

Grumbling and dragging him out of the way, Charwin performed his own kick, this time putting it directly on the hinge of the door. With a bang and a crash, the door flew off its hinges, and the human managed to activate his particle shield just in time to catch a few alien bullets, before the entire squad returned their own fire, a combination of their own powerful firearms and the particle walls bullet acceleration effect making short work of any and all armed aliens on the bridge.

"Put your hands in the air, now!" Veron shouted, and watched as the still living aliens slowly placed their hands above their heads, to which the half elf nodded.

Seeing the bridge pacified, Charwin opened up communications again.

"This is Sargent Charwin, we have control of the bridge, over." He said, waiting for a response from LCCAMC.

"We read you Sargent Charwin, this is LCCAMC, the T.E. Valiant Sun is en route to the alien ships position. Portal opening in three, two, one...opening." Hearing the mission control respond, Chawin looked out the starboard side of the alien ship, watching as a huge, yawning, swirling, blue vortex opening up and disgorge a massive ship, all sharp, with geometric angles formed around a central hexagonal tube, made to resemble something like an oversized shark, with a triangular fin on the top, two on the bottom, and a large pointed bow.

The ship, measuring about a kilometer long, opened a single hangar with a bright, white light shining in the blackness of space and gunmetal grey of the ship. With a gradual tug, the alien ship made a deep groaning noise as a series of Magitech Gravity Beams* slowly pulled it into the hanger.

Once the ship was in and settled on a landing area, the hanger doors closed with a weighty ka-chunk, and yet another bang as the main entrance was forcibly opened. After a few minutes at gunpoint, the turians on the bridge were greeted with a veritable flood of aliens soldiers, all of varying heights, some with body features others didn't have, but all wearing the same style of black and grey digital camouflage BDU, grey metal exosuit and smooth, featureless polymer faceplate.

As he felt a pair of heavy, metal cuffs not only bind his wrist but completely encase his hands, and connect to another thick metal cuff around his neck through a metal shaft, Desolas gulped in fear.

He just hoped the Hierarchy wouldn't do something stupid.

Codex

Magitech Micro RDP Generator: A very portable, highly efficient miniaturized Magitech Refined Dark Plasma Generator used to power things like combat droids, exo suits and some energy weapons.

Exosuit: The catch all term for mechanically and/or magically powered metal skeletons that enhance the physical abilities of the wearer.

Sonic Disruption Pulse: An exo suit ability that sends out a loud wave of sound in nearly all hearing ranges, useful as a distraction, especially against those with external ears.

R-SEC Exosuit: An exo suit designed specifically for indoor use on research facilities; Research-SECurity.

Magitech Atmospheric Exo-Thrusters: Personal Magitech thrusters designed to work in an atmosphere, use airomancy to propel a stream of non-toxic gas out of a series of vents located all over an atmospheric exo suit. Less effective outside of the atmosphere.

Magitech Gravity Beam: The collective name for a series of devices commonly fitted on spacecraft that project concentrated and controllable beams of gravity to move objects. In extreme cases with the most powerful gravity beams, they can be used to physically tear apart ships, space stations and even planets, literally tearing apart physical matter, sometimes at the atomic scale.

HUD: A graphic display digitally projected onto the retinas of the user from the interior of their helmet or eyepiece. Shows valuable information like vitals, location, direction, weather conditions, time, date, ammunition count and basic strategic evaluation. Capable of wirelessly interfacing with any Terran Empire digital device. Heads Up Display.

Glovesuit: A skin tight undersuit worn directly beneath the BDU, which helps to regulate temperature and administer painkillers and medication if needed.

Selectively Magnetic Strips: Certain metallic portions of a BDU enhanced with magic to magnetically adhere to exosuits.

SM Particle Shield: A form of squad based defensive gear that generates a field in front of the user and any people behind them, providing a three meter long and two meter wide particle energy shield situated about a meter from the user. Its unique characteristic is its ability to deflect incoming kinetic fire, while amplifying the velocity of any outgoing kinetic fire. Selective Matter Particle Shield.

Pharon Missile: The primary explosive projectile used by the Terran Empire, consisting of an explosive charge enveloped in a plasma coat and propelled by an miniature ion drive.

Plasma Caster: the catch all term for any projectile weapon that fires balls of plasma

Model 8 Helmar Assault Carbine: The 8th model of the Helmar AC line, this is a select fire semi/automatic assault rifle designed for use in tight corridors. Chambered in 5.56x44mmTE*, it is a fast firing compact gun, useful in spaceships.

SI Longsword: A basic steel longsword, featuring a two handed grip, straight quillons, and circular pommel. Given out as highly versatile, entry level infantry weapons that is very easily enchanted; Standard Infantry Longsword.

5.56x44mmTE: The standard assault rifle and carbine round in the Terran Empire. It is a rimless bottlenecked intermediate cartridge used in the vast majority of Terran Empire Military guns.

High Strength Collapsible Polymer Shield: A collapsible personal shield stored in the forearms of many defense and security class exosuits. Often strengthened with magic.

Subspace: The location entered when a Magitech Warp Drive activates. Subspace is a perfect vacuum, being a vast, empty space with no naturally occuring matter. Despite being a much smaller space than actual space, they are both connected, allowing ships to skip large areas of normal space while in subspace.

Beastkin: The catch all term for humanoid members of the Terran Empire that bear non human features, most commonly ears and tails of animals species.

Wolf-kin: A common type of beastkin, being a human with furry canine ears on the top of their head and wolf like tails as well as sharper canines and a carnivorous diet. Their notable features are canine ears, tails, foot paws, enhanced sense of smell, resistance to cold and fur on their lower legs.

Velociraptor: An relatively uncommon type of beastkin with traits of a Velociraptor, a member of the dinosaur family. Velociraptor Beastkins notable features are their long, stiff tail used for balance, digitigrade legs, exceptional speed and their signature killing claw, a long, curved claw on the first digit of their foot used for extreme damage. Scaled legs, arms, tail, neck and back.

The Wage: A standard amount of money given to civilians of the Terran Empire, enough to live fairly comfortably.

T.E.: The abbreviation used in front of the names of naval vessels; stands for Terran Empire.

Pyromancy: Magical control over fire.

Medigel: Magically enhanced solution designed to heal wounds and stop bleeding. Works very well in conjunction with nanomachines. Derived from pre-unity age healing potions.

Advanced Translation Spell: A very advanced translation spell developed in the event of sapient alien contact. The spell allows the user to perfectly understand and speak the intended language, even over and through digital and radio communication, rendering the language barrier relevant and non existent.

Bag of Holding: A magic bag capable of holding and containing an almost endless amount of matter. Standard issue for Terran Military; used as a utility bag.

The Nine Hells: Also known as Baator in the Infernal language, The Nine Hells is the home plain of devils and demonkind. Often used as an analogy for someplace undesirable.

Mark 10 Thermal Detonator: Fairly common explosive ordinance

Salem System: The solar system in which Relay 314 was found.

Aussie: A planet in the Terran Empire, known for its harsh environment, dangerous outbacks, and very hostile wildlife.

LCCAMC: Local Command Center And Mission Control. The acronym of the stations located throughout the Terran Empire that serve as a main hub for their respective solar system.