Chapter 9

Edited by a person of many names Blood Raven AKA TimedRaven117. Go check out his story Mass Effect: X-Com Theory!

East Federation territory, Shanxi system, above the eastern line, April/26/2329 AD

Private Velupillai Floculus checked over his weapons once more. He, like most of the Turians aboard the landing boat, had very little intelligence on what was happening. He knew that they were here to reinforce a new friendly species from a hostile one. He also knew what the Humans looked like, but he had no idea what the aggressor species looked like.

He did know the basic strategic situation; the enemy was already in the process of withdrawing from the besieged city, they had taken heavy casualties, the Humans weren't in much of a position to keep up the counter attack alone, and that the Skinnies command staff was isolated. The fleet should be chasing them but apparently one group was still attacking the Humans, so the fleet was deploying ground units with limited aerospace support, to beat off the enemy counter attack.

Velupillai looked up when the sergeant called the last minute check before landing. He took a deep breath and prepared to let his training take over, he didn't know what would be outside the craft when he the doors open, but he was sure they would win, with the expertise of the Humans, and fresh soldiers like himself leading the charge, the Skinnies would crumble. They were Turians, they were the best military in the galaxy, nothing could stand up to them.

The landing boat came to a stop, defense guns suppressing anything that didn't look Human. Doors opened up and ropes deployed for the Turian point squad as they jumped out in groups of six sliding, to the ground. Velupillai was the third man out on his rope and landed in the slowly expanding battle square, making room for the large lander to land properly to release the mechanized elements of their company.

The first thing he saw of the world was torn up soil and rock, and the dead. The field was literally carpeted in corpses. It reminded him of the photos of the krogan rebellions. They could only see so far though as the air was clogged with smoke and dust.

"Anyone got sight of hostiles?" He heard someone question, as his sergeant pulled off the landing beacon and set it down.

It was then the enemy showed themselves, towering three meter giants as wide as krogan and wearing cloth robes rushed out of the smoke. They came with deafening screams and wielding some kind of glowing bladed weapons. In response the landing craft and the Turians facing that way opened up, staggering the charge with their assault rifles.

However the Skinnie came in a tide of flesh and green robes. One of them, carrying what looked like a cannon, fired a shot that caused the landing craft to spin out. It tried to return to its position, but three more shots caused the craft to fall from the sky, billowing smoke. Crashing thirty feet away from the battle square.

Then riders came out of the dust storm riding massive beasts, lizard like creatures that shrugged off the sand grain sized projectiles from their weapons.

Snipers went to work on the riders and the beasts seem to lose control, turning on fellow mounts, but it was insufficient to stop them all, and groups of three riders impacted the square in several places, letting their mounts try and tear the Turians limb from limb. The experienced marines didn't make it easy though, as the second line of Turians brought out their shotguns and brought the beasts down, a few even using primed grenades spun down their throats. The Turians run over by the riders were not in that bad of shape, their armor taking most of the damage, however the break in fire output had allowed the Skinnies to close the distance.

They brought weapons to bear, glowing glaives ignoring armor and barriers equally.

Velupillai shot a Skinnie, and grabbed his glaive. His rifle overheating at the last kill. To his surprise the glaive ripped right through the Skinnie's chest, tearing out organs and massive amounts of gore.

"The glaives! Use their glaives!" He yelled out victoriously, not sure if he just sent that message to his squad or the entire planet as he began to use the glaive to cut into the oncoming enemy using it like an ancient pike.

Several of his comrades heard him apparently as they grabbed up the enemy's fallen weapons and began cutting into the ill disciplined horde as well. The battle was starting to favor the Turians weight of fire and skill, then what had to be the Champion of the Skinnie rushed out of the smoke, it carried two glaives with their handles cut in half, twirling them around his body and killing any poor soldier who came into his path.

Velupillai made to hold him off, hoping his squad would help him by shooting the bastard in the back. Unfortunately, this Skinnie was much more proficient in the weapon's use, and with ease he parried his strike and with speed that amazed the veteran, easily slicing his arm off.

Falling to the ground his opponent looked poised to end his life, when some fast moving object collided with it. Velupillai blinked as the enemy took a couple steps back as the grey armored object got up to its feet. The figure reached onto it's back and pulled off a rod that extended and ignited electric sparks from twin prongs at one end, the Skinnie said something and the figure titled it's head, the armored individual said something in its own tongue as he prepared a duelist's stance, the figure picked up the weapon in Velupillai lost arm. "Hope you don't mind me taking this off your hand?" He imagined that's what the armored figure said to his blood starved mind.

Velupillai barely noticed another grey clad soldier appeared at his side and used some kind of expanding foam to seal the hole his arm used to go through. Looking over he saw there were more Grey clad troopers and mechs coming out of the smoke storm from the direction of the city, as if magic the smoke lifted from their forms and revealed the city edge.

Some of the Greys were helping to clear out the area, the others, marked with red intersecting barslines, were seeing to the wounded with the foam or assisting Turian medics as best they could. He was glad to see that there was only a few of the his comrades that had permanently fallen, "Hey you still in there?" The figure said moving a hand in front of his eyes, her voice sounded funny and tinny, like she was using a shitty translator.

"Ya." Velupillai replied as the standoff between the Skinnie and the Grey ended in a headlong charge at each other, at the last moment the Grey activated jets on its back and jumped over the Skinnie champion, using the staff to electrocute the Skinnie's back screaming in rage.

The Grey turned and used the glaive to block both attacks then she shocked the champion's leg making it take a knee. The Grey used that moment to chop one of the Skinnie's hands off.

In full control of the entire engagement, the Grey shocked it again, forcing it to release the grip on his other hand, the Skinnie in desperation tried to wrap his arm around the shocking weapon. But he had failed already, and his arm was sliced off.

The Grey roared out in anger. Ending the engagement, the prong of the shocking weapon was forced right into the Skinnie's wide eye socket.

Velupillai fought off vomiting as the wretched stench of fried eyes and brain matter reached his olfactory sense. The Grey soldier pulled off its helmet, revealing an Asari like face of what he knew as a Human Female. Smiling at him with a very satisfied look she mock saluted him, said something he could never hope to translate, and stalked off, joining the execution of the enemy wounded.

Velupillai looked to the Terran next to him and asked, "What did she say?

The Human shrugged and said, "Need a hand?"

East Federation territory, Shanxi system, leaving the system, April/26/2329 AD

Tel'Rock looked at the screen of the planet that had withstood the Petolemaic Hegemony in anger. Years of planning, preparations, and alliance building had gotten him in the position to launch this historic attack and now they were all for not.

He would lose all the influence he had on the Hegemony council, but he was sure it would take a few years to build up to the levels he had before this failure and in that time who knew what would happen.

"My lord, the last of our ships are leaving the planet now, we evacuated 90% of your personal forces, and about 30% of the other forces. Many of the commanders not under your purview refused to retreat."

"Fools, they will be dead by the end of the day." He muttered hoping none survived, it would be hard to make case that a withdraw was needed if they survived and managed to get something of value from the planet. Impossible of course, he had all the ships, and he doubted the Federation would be that stupid enough to let them escape.

Projak was probably right, damn his soul, the Terran would screw up what relationship they were building with these "Turians", but that was not good enough. Looking over to his comms slave, he ordered, "I want a few ships to break from the fleet when we leave system and come back and scan the device the Turians used to enter the system."

He didn't know what it was or where it came from but if there was one, he knew there were more, perhaps there was one in the Petolemaic Hegemony that led into the Turians territory, if so he would reap his revenge on them. A smile came to his face as he imagined fleets of ships flying from all over the Hegemony to use the device. It wouldn't even take much to unleash slave raids and Tribal migrations on the Turians territory, just place a rumor here and there about unknown worlds free for the taking.

Little did he know, that both would be suicidal, and ultimately doomed to failure.

East Federation territory, Shanxi system, Crash site, April/26/2329 AD

Jack ducked as another volley of fire scythed over the trench. "I thought the Skinnies were retreating!" A Turian complained as he ducked down to avoid the death happening a mere few feet above him.

"These Skinnies must be the dumbest motherfuckers I've ever seen! That or they think they can get off world using your ship." Ben replied as a speeder craft tried to fly over the mine field in a bold attack.

It exploded in the face of a rocket, long before they reached them, scattering the survivors into the mine field and setting off a few more.

"These guys have no military order at all, how are they a problem for your government?" The Turian asked as he fired over the lip of the trench.

"THEY AREN'T! Fuck, that was close, they use massed attacks in the tens of thousands and slightly better tech to raid us! An attack of this scale hasn't happened before." Ben replied miserably as he cleaned dirt off his weapon, shaking it off good so it wouldn't jam his rifle.

"Ben!" Jack yelled in annoyance.

"What?! That shit is taught in School for Christ's sake, It's not exactly classified." Ben said, taking some pot shots at a Skinnie raider who rushed the line. The Skinnie fell under the fire but it inspired another speeder to rush the line, this one managed to get a good deal further, before it blew up by the Turian lasers, sending the rider flying over the trench and onto some razor wire, screaming as he was slowly encumbered into it and ripped to shreds.

"They're depleting the field!" Eva Core said as several more speeders attempted suicidal charges, two did worse, however one managed drive right into the lines. the rider started to fire at the Turians who stuck their heads out, striking their Kinetic Barriers which took the bullets in stride. The Turians fired back killing the Skinnie and bringing him down with sniper fire. That was lucky, those shields were good, but their armor was worse than light trooper armor, made to absorb impacts. The significantly larger rounds used by the Skinnie's was not even slowed down by the armor.

"This is just great, when are reinforcement going to get here?" Jack demanded.

"60 SECONDS!" The CHAS said, as it duel wielded a pair of squad support weapons in its metal hands, having run out of ammo for its main weapons, gunning down any Skinnie it saw get in its range.

"And how do you know that?" Ben asked.

"I'm detecting several aircraft coming in from the north." It announced proudly as he blew apart a Skinnie who stuck its head out a bit too long.

Everyone including the Turians nearby spared a glance north and they could just barely see dark dots in the northern sky.

With a cheer that the Skinnies swore shook the hills, the fire towards the Skinnies intensified. It proved to be the enemies undoing, as they were now suppressed sufficiently for the Bombers overhead to get static targets.

"Well about time." Ben commented with a bit of relief.

As the bombers came over from the north alongside a few Turian gunships, the Skinnie offensive was annihilated. With a cheering that any would consider deafening, Jack looked on in approval at the burning hills, "Congratulations Ladies and Gentlemen, this will forever be known as Turian Point!"

East Federation territory, Shanxi system, Orbit , April/26/2329 AD

Vice Admiral Kalio Gainus sat in his captain's chair, looking over the reports from the planet; the Skinnies had evacuated the planet rather quickly, and not in a blind rush as he had assumed these barbarians would do but in a basic military order, not a good military order, but nonetheless disciplined in their manner. Of course assuming that their raiding tendencies were correct, then that's no big surprise.

It almost convinced him that they weren't totally backwards tactically and strategically, of course those "Brutes" had been an ill disciplined lot, but considering their equipment, he wouldn't be surprised if the enemy commander just decided to use them as an effective distraction to keep the Terran's from overrunning his retreat. The tough bastards were still holding out in isolated pockets across the city, and even with fresh Turian soldiers, they were still making a fight of it.

The brutes had been the first taste of combat for the ground troopers and it was a mixed bag. The losses were minimal mostly, but the use of those disruptor weapons which completely ignored their shields gave pause to his ground forces, showing that the Skinnie tech was not something to be trifled with, despite their barbaric tendencies. They may be barbarians, but they were barbarians with nukes, a dangerous combination.

Realizing he didn't really know if they had nukes he decided it was time to contact the Terran Commodore, and discuss an introduction with the Federation to the Council. He called to his communication officer to set up a secure channel to the Commodore.

It didn't take long to get the Terran on the phone, if he had to guess, she was waiting for the call. The Terran appeared on a screen on the bridge, though she appeared to be at her command station, he noted she was drinking tea again and he worried about the new influx of addictive goods that could be traded.

The Terran put down her tea and smiled awkwardly, "Vice Admiral a pleasure to see you, I have just heard from Brigadier General Williams of the Mobile Infantry Garrison, your soldiers are doing a wonderful job of mopping up the remaining Skinnies."

"Yes I'm getting similar reports from my forces, it looks like the matter of Shanxi will be settled within the day." He leaned over and picked up a drink he had on his chair, "Which brings me to the next issue that needs to be sorted out."

"Next Issue?" The Terran lowered the Tea from where she had been holding and looked at him suspiciously.

"Yes, an issue the Turian Hierarchy is more than willing to pass on, what with the war on these Skinnies, the Turian Hierarchy is only one third of a much bigger governmental body. We're what you could say is the military and police, and our civic leaders are going to want to talk with you about certain matters and treaties."

The Terran commodore nodded, "Alright so I take it you want to get a representative to go with you?"

Kalio looked at her keenly and stated "You could be the one, though I assume that your government would much rather prefer to send a trained diplomat, or someone in power such as the Sky Marshals you mentioned."

The Terran's face seemed to pale a bit, and he wondered what that was about. "The sky Marshals can't meet with your government, there was an incident a few years back, that resulted in a lot of problems, as a result we're a lot more careful with our leadership, as for a trained diplomat, I'm not sure we have any available at this time."

Kalio looked at her dumbfounded, "Define not sure."

"Well … We haven't NEEDED true diplomats for decades, we got Internal Resources and SICON who handle most of the interplanetary negotiations between our various political factions, but we don't exactly have any trained for this kind of situation. Most of the time whenever we meet a new species they try to kill us, and we try to kill them back in return, and it gets lost from there." Taking another sip of her tea, she added, "But, I'm sure SICON can get you a true representative who is invested with some decision making powers by the end of next month, if not sooner."

Kalio nodded, and asked, "That is a little longer then I think they would like to wait on this issue, is there any way to get a diplomat sooner?"

The Terran shook her head, "As I said, never needed a true diplomat for decades, there is nothing I know of that can make this happen sooner, other than directly taking your councilors to our representatives. What's the rush anyways? We will need time to set up a meeting, the venue, other diplomatic crap, learn your languages directly so we won't need to rely on flawed translators, and to appraise my own government on the whole situation in the first place. And we have so many documents to exchange in the first place, like setting out our borders, culture, language, and other nonclassified stuff."

Kalio nodded in understanding, "I think that should hold them over for your requested time. And you're right, there shouldn't be a rush, after all the Citadel Council has never been known for doing things quickly."

Citadel Space, Citadel, Citadel Tower 2657GS April/30/2329 AD

Councilor Gallius sat at the the wooden table looking over the reports, waiting for the other councillors to arrive. Vice Admiral Gainus had done as ordered and recovered the planet, AND he even gave the Skinnies the chance to resolve it peacefully like Tevos had requested. Granted it was a rather hostile demand, giving over the leader of that attack was never going to happen, but it was respectable attempt.

The fact they were going to have to wait to meet the Terrans in person was taxing the other councillors patience, which was ridiculous considering the history of the species they just met. But they were very interested in meeting them and finding out for themselves what kind of aliens they were. Thankfully the reports the Terrans had sent along would help with that… unfortunately it also raised some concerns all on there own, and even if they wanted to turn a blind eye to this region they couldn't anymore.

One of their exploration vessels had finally gotten around to figuring out where they were in the galaxy and it was not good. It was the Skyllian Verge, the large portion of space claimed by the Batarians. It was half the current size of citadel space and they had taken their time colonizing that region of space so it was understandable why they had yet to meet the others in the region.

Gallius didn't like the Batarians and he doubted any of the other councilors did either, but they were useful tools to keep the terminus systems at bay when they weren't actively cultivating ties with slaver and pirate groups out there, that being said he didn't like the idea of the Terrans and the Batarians meeting.

The Terrans already have a problem with one species and their raiding tendencies. If the Batarians ever provoked the Terrans he had no idea where the public would land on the issue. And he had a sinking feeling the Terrans wouldn't take an apology and the return of prisoners with compensation. He had a feeling they would react to raids with nuclear violence.

Before he could get too deep in to hoping the Terran-Batarian War didn't turn out to be the biggest pain in the ass in the universe, Tevos and Cenike entered the room.

"Peace or War? What was decided?" Tevos asked jumping on the biggest issue on the agenda.

Gallius went ahead and explained, "Yes and No. The aggressor has been beaten off with relatively light casualties on our side, we failed to capture any of the leaders, but the Humans, or Terrans, are thankful for our assistance for scaring off the foes. We are currently using some emergency funds to help supply the planet with raw materials so it can recover. I would like to follow the 'Skinnie' to their home world, but their ships are faster, longer ranged, and don't rely on the Relay network just like the Terrans-."

"What!?" Councilor Cenike said in surprise, and it just dawned on Gallius that he had forgotten to mention that detail before.

"I… well this is embarrassing." He muttered under his breath before he began, "Remember when I said we assumed because they had no element zero we they were new? Well according to the Terrans, themselves, the Skinnie, and at least three other semi hostile species have methods of travel, that do not require element zero, they also claim they have been expanding for the last hundred years."

The other councillors looked shocked and taken aback, Cenike was the first to recover, "They have possibly five different methods of travel without the relays… how fast are these methods?"

"No idea, but I don't think they're anywhere near as fast compared to a relay, which is basically instantaneous, otherwise I think we would have run into them before this. But judging by the fact they have the means, we have been really missing out on other ways of travel. Imagine, no more Element Zero restrictions of ship manufacturing, no more being limited by just the Relay network. Their technology can unlock new applications in everything, and we have been sitting here in the citadel with tech that has had no major advances in two thousand years!" Gallius said impassioned, but reasonably.

"Five species… do we know anything about the other three?" Tevos asked.

"Two of them are a mystery. The third though, the third is a problem if their comparison is correct." Gallius replied with a sudden sigh, "According to the commander who was hosting the Terran commander we picked up, she explained her people have been at war with a species called the Arachnid Empire, and the best comparison she could make is if you took the Rachni and gave them the ability to be able to adapt to any environment in a couple generations and much more harder to eradicate, now to be fair she is a biased source so she could be over selling the threat, but if the Arachnids are anywhere as bad as the Rachni we must be ready to begin military build up."

The room went silent as they processed this news, after a while Cenike spoke, "I apologize for making that Rachni joke when this matter first appeared."

Gallius nodded, "Apology accepted."

Councilor Tevos shook her head, "Could this get any worse?"

Gallius looked down at the table, "We confirmed this region to be inside the Skyllian Verge." He heard the others, including the aides, make various signs of annoyance and pain, with at least four expletives at the prospect of having to deal with the Batarians

Citadel space, TFS FF-400 John D. Sloat, May/26/2329 AD

Commodore Erica Chavez sat in the central chair of her bridge as they traveled through another relay to their final destination. After the last of the Skinnies were wiped out, the Turian fleet had stuck around and provided humanitarian aid, a very pleasant surprise for the colony, and something that was needed badly.

It was estimated over 50% of the original soldiers who had been on the planet were wiped out or critically wounded, and 15% of the civilian population was missing presumed captured or dead, but it could have been higher. All and all not the worst raid the Skinnie had performed on the Federation. There had been cases where planets had been left completely empty after a raid, the Humans taken deep into the Hegemony.

Thank god the Turians had come to their aid in time, because now they could begin rebuilding that world and prepare to make it a stronghold. Not too long after the world had been cleared, the William Wallace had returned, adding to the defences and then the rest of the promised fleet arrived. It was the bottom of the barrel stuff, nothing as big as Athena's, Valley Forges, or dreadnaughts, but there were plenty of destroyers and Roger Youngs to help clean up the world and start rebuilding the satellite network that would allow them to send messages back to Earth.

Not like anything bigger was needed, they just routed the formerly biggest Skinnie raiding force the Terran Federation has faced, and they inflicted disproportionately greater casualties on their enemy, literally more ships lost and nearly five times greater casualty rates to boot.

Once she was sure the planet was in good hands she had gone about the work of putting together this expedition to the Citadel after the mass funerals of her lost ships, participating in several personal funerals, and attending and awarding those lost crews the highest honors she could, while picking up a few of her own.

With the help of the Sloat's AI she had chosen the best candidates for this mission. First was the Diplomatic Face, she had chosen a SICON agent by the name Tomas Maghernus who had come in with a Roger Young carrier, the AI recommended him highly compared to the other two, which meant he was the best man for the job, or just the best man of the three, either way anything the diplomat came up with in the way of agreements with this Citadel would have to be approved by her before being sent to a vote by the Federation council, so the screw up should be minimal. Technically.

Technically he outranked her, was invested with the power to make agreements with a foreign power, and had infinitely more experience than she did in these manners. He was also the governor's representative, and while yes the government was military focused, many people still ascribed that the people came before the government. They had an entire civil revolt, the Sprange Rebellion, happen over these issues, and they were still being argued from the top to bottom of their society. As much as the Federation News Net tried to make it seem small, it only made the writing teams seem pathetic in their attempts to hide it.

She had also chosen to bring aboard the Tawns to show the Citadel species that the Federation did not just represent Humans, and some of newly formed Williams Wall brigades from Shanxi, to give a perspective of the fighting on the planet.

She would have brought Brigadier General Williams himself, but he retired as soon as he woke in the hospital, and already signed his discharge papers. As soon as the mess was cleaned up and a new commander either chosen by him or shipped in he was, quote, 'going home, taking a nap, and seeing my grandchildren everyday.' Erica heard the statue they were erecting of him would have that among many quotes of the battle. Nothing less for the Hero of Shanxi. It was unfortunate for him that because of his widespread popularity as a war hero, he would be elected as the Governor for Shanxi more than likely when Shanxi applied for Statehood.

The last thing she had needed to do was determine which ships would become her retinue for the journey, of course she was taking the Sloat, but it had taken a bit to come up with the others. She wasn't sure if she should bring fire power or not in case things went horribly wrong, but then again it could go wrong if she brought five of the biggest ship she could find. After some deliberation she had decided to bring two destroyers, and a flagship. The destroyers were fast and packed a punch, while the Flagship, in all its glory, would be there as proof they were strong and unafraid. She actually would have settled with the two destroyers but Ambassador Maghernus insisted on a big ship for the diplomatic front. A small fleet to show we are unafraid, but a powerful ship to show we have a big stick.

"Ma'am, we will be arriving at the Citadel in thirty seconds." The helmsmen reported.

"Thank you." Erica responded as she looked out the forward viewscreen. A moments later they swung past a relay, observed the strange effect this method of travel produced, and then they could see the Citadel.

It was not as impressive as she thought it would be, it was big and grandiose, but she didn't see any defenses on the station itself beyond the fleet. And as much as some people said otherwise, size can be a burden. The lunar dock yards encircled the moon giving it an artificial ring and many defense guns to protect it and Earth. People lived on it and built ships for just about everything, this appeared to be just a floating ant farm in space, a nice ant farm, but still an ant farm. The only strategic value was it was the supposed center of the Relay network. All roads lead to Rome, but those roads didn't help Rome when the Barbarians came.

"Ma'am... I'm detecting a two kilometer long ship." Her sensors officer reported.

"... Are you sure Lieutenant? While the time is right for jokes, that wasn't a funny one." Erica said before pulling it up on the nearest view screen. This ship impressed her, but while she was not one to jump to conclusions, its size must make it terrible at moving, and judging from its shape it was made more for aesthetics than war. However it was still a serious accomplishment, if they could make one two K ship, they could easily make more for war.

"Contact docking authorities please, get us permission to land." She ordered quietly looking out at the blue nebula and the ships that soared by. Indeed anyone not doing anything joined her in the view.

to be continued