CENTRAL OFFICE, ARCHONAL PALACE

ARCHONA

EARTH, SOL SYSTEM

DOMINATION OF THE DRAKA

MARCH 3, 2000

Eric von Shrakenberg gazed out the window to his office, expression solemn. The sky was overcast and gloomy over the familiar sight of the dome of the House of Assembly; the winds had been cold, these past winters. Cold and full of death. But the land would recover, if not fully before he laid his bones to rest. The grass stood green, though the gardens that made the Domination's capital famous weren't able to bloom back to their previous colored brilliance yet.

An exhalation from his nose as he turned his face, blank of expression, back to the terminal and the data-plaques on his desk; the closest he came to a sigh these days. Rebuilding had taken on a faster pace over the past couple of months, ever since the New America had transmitted the last specifications on their comp-plague before disappearing through the mass relay. With their computers free and clear, the fleet was able to truly reconnect the far-flung outposts of the solar system with each other.

The corner of Eric's mouth quirked upward. They had also investigated what was left of the Belt after the Alliance's fleet had departed for the mass relay. There had been nothing of use left; the reports from the soldiers on the scene had had a grudging admiration for the asteroid-habitats stripped bare and sabotaged into uselessness. Those few Alliance civilians who'd been left behind had largely taken up his offer of Metic Citizenship, though there had been pockets of fanatical resistance here and there, easily crushed by ghouloon troops hunting them down in the narrow corridors.

A grimace as he recalled the fuss some of the Militants were still kicking up over giving so many 'damnyankees' Citizen status. "A third of the human species dies, and Louise Gayner survived," he muttered under his breath. He and his political rival hated each other with a pure, concentrated loathing that was almost intimate in its intensity. A grim smile. But I am the Archon who won the war. He had sent her to Australasia to pacify it. Butcher's work that she's probably enjoying, the twisted bitch, he thought. He just hoped she ended up doing it badly enough to give him an ax-swing at her neck.

A beep from his desk; he reached a hand over and keyed the intercom. "Excellence, everyone has assembled for the meeting you called."

"Send them in." Eric sat up in his chair and straightened his cravat.

The doors to the Central Office opened, and the men and women he had called filed in. The Directors of War and Security, the Dominarch of the Supreme General Staff, the Council members, and Strategos Snappdove, the head of the War Directorate's Technical Section. They went to their seats and stood in front of them, then brought their right fists to their chests in the Draka military salute. "Service to the State," they chorused.

"Glory to the Race." Eric inclined his head. "Please be seated." After the rustling of cloth and sigh of cushions gave way to silence: "So you sent one of our ships through the Charon relay," he stated. "What did they find?"

The Dominarch cleared his throat. "The other end of the mass relay is in a system around the star Arcturus, a K-type red giant located in the constellation Boötes. A bit over thirty-six light years away." A pause as everyone took that in; everyone had a reasonably good idea of the sheer immensity that represented. The whole solar system was a flyspeck in comparison.

Eric felt a bit of that awe himself. Wotan, when I was born we were flyin' biplanes, and now we're travelin' through the galaxy. A lot of that was due to the Protheans, but all in all it was still impressive. "Any sign of the Yankee fleet?" he asked aloud.

The head of the Domination's military shook his head. "They were long gone by the time we got there, Excellence. The Arcturus system only has gas-giants, ice chunks, and some rocky debris around it, no terrestroid planets. It's likely they used the Arcturus relay to go somewhere else." He shook his head in answer to the next unspoken question. "We don't know where they went, either. That relay connects to dozens of others, as opposed to the one at Charon which just connects to Arcturus. We'd be a long time tryin' to find them."

Eric narrowed his eyes as he leaned his elbows on the desk and rested the fingertips of each hand against each other. "So that relay is the only one that connects to our solar system, but also connects to the galaxy at large," he mused. "Sounds to me like that there's a chokepoint." A smile came to his face, and for a moment he was the young centurion of Century A, 1st Airborne Legion again, organizing the defenses of Village One on the Ossetian Military Highway against a German counterattack.

The Dominarch nodded slowly, following the Archon's train of thought. "A stronghold, Excellence?"

Eric shook his head. "A fleet, Dominarch. We know the Yankees are out there, and it's possible we not the only ones in the galaxy." He gestured with one hand as he continued, "The Race didn't conquer the solar system by takin' half-measures. A battle station, larger than anything we've built before, and a fleet using it as a base."

"Can we afford that, Excellence?" One of the Council members had spoken up, a frown on her face. "We still rebuildin' an' pacifyin' the New Territories."

"This isn't buyin' up some fancy from the auction block," Eric said coldly. "This is necessary. We opened up Pandora's box when we unburied that relay and started usin' it. Think about it. There's an entire galaxy on the other side of that thing." He paused and looked around at them as he let that sink in. "Anything could be out there. Fo' the sake of the State, fo' the sake of the Race, we need to set up defenses in that system to protect the only route to our home, to Earth."

He leaned back in his chair. "Of course, we never been ones to jus' sit on our laurels, either. That fleet can also be used to send out reconassance patrols through the Arcturus relay, to look fo' the Yankees and scout out the ground. See if there are other planets suitable fo' colonization, and meet any threats as far fo'ward of Earth as possible."

"Ah, hmm." Snappdove tugged at his beard in thought as he considered the Archon's words. "As the Dominarch said, the Arcturus system is deficient in metals. We'd have to, hmm, tow some metal-rich asteroids through the relay, mine them to build the battle station... maybe use the mined out asteroids fo' habitats..." He trailed off into mumbles, lost in thought.

Eric inclined his head towards Snappdove. "Have a plan drawn up fo' the station and a resource analysis soonest, Strategos." The head of TechSec nodded abstractedly.

"Now," the Archon continued, "seein' as this is vital to the security of the Domination, I'm hereby openin' up our element zero reserves to our mass effect ships to assist in rebuildin' Earth's launch capacity an' our orbital fabricators. I'm given to understand that with they mass effect fields, they'll be able to haul a goodly amount of cargo into and out the atmosphere. We need that infrastructure to build a new fleet of warships with mass effect drives. One of our priorities in explorin' the relay network should be seekin' out new sources of element zero and alien technology."

A few glances exchanged between the people seated in front of the desk. Up until now the element zero stockpile they had discovered on Mars had been a jealously guarded strategic reserve, doled out to a relative few FTL ships and research projects with TechSec and the Combines. Nods of agreement.

"Very well." Eric pulled up another report on the infosystem and text filled one of the wall-screens, next to an satellite picture of southeastern North America. "Now, on to this runnin' sore in No'th Carolina..."


JEFFERSON

SAMOTHRACE, INVICTUS SYSTEM

JUNE 28, 2002

Frederick Lefarge skimmed through the latest reports on the progress of the outlying settlements; several had been established within the past year as a pioneering spirit had swept through the colonists. He frowned slightly as he got to the report about Akatsuki, the settlement that had been championed by Patricia Hayato – the lifesystems specialist of the old New America Project – and established exclusively by the ethnic Japanese from among the refugee fleet in the southern hemisphere. It was, by far, the most remote settlement on Samothrace.

He could see their wanting to recreate a piece of Japan on this new world, especially considering the fate of their home islands on Earth, but it went against the grain of the new nation he was hoping to build. I want it to be like the old America, the nation I grew up in, the nation I joined the OSS to defend, he thought. The melting pot, welcoming the refugees looking for freedom and weaving them into the fabric of the nation. Hayato and her supporters instead called for a 'cultural mosaic', a society of many individual, 'pure' cultures that mixed but remained distinct. She had found a lot of sympathizers among the Brazilians, British, and Indonesians who were putting forth their own proposals to preserve their own unique cultures with remote settlements on Samothrace or California; admittedly, her ideas already had credence in the way they had all already been unified by a common purpose in the old Alliance for Democracy.

"Well, it will be interesting to see how that all plays out," he muttered to himself as set those reports aside. The refugees were all still under military jurisdiction under his command, but Jefferson and other settlements further along in development were already electing local politicians. He and others were still trying to work out exactly the system of government that would let the civilians take over the administrative duties. Can't happen soon enough, he thought morosely as he grabbed another folder from the pile on his desk.

Lefarge's frown deepened as he read through the next report. There had been a spike in significant physical defects among children from three to fours year old ranging from cancer to organ damage and birth defects. The doctors were at a loss to explain the phenomenon, but were saying that they suspected a connection to a spate of spontaneous abortions back in '98, during the Fall. Included was a request for access to more detailed military medical records.

Approved, he wrote and scrawled his signature beneath it. I hope to God they can find the cause. There are too few of us as it is.

He had just set that folder aside when his phone beeped. Swallowing a sigh, he keyed the touchplate. "Lefarge here."

"General, MacDonald here." The face of the admiral appeared on the screen, his expression far more grim than was usual even for him. "The Alaungpaya just arrived in orbit, heavy damage. They say they were attacked."

Lefarge sat bolt upright. "The Snakes?" he snapped, tense. Damn it, why'd they have to find us so soon?

"No, sir," MacDonald replied. "They were attacked by unknowns."

Lefarge blinked, caught off guard. After a moment, his mind began working. "Protheans?"

"That's what I thought too, sir, but by their reports it doesn't sound right. The unknowns' capabilities sound closer to our level. If it was the Protheans – if they're still around – I don't think the Alaungpaya would have been able to escape."

Lefarge considered, then nodded. "Assemble all our remaining FTL ships. They are to proceed to the coordinates where they met the unknowns and engage." His eyes narrowed. "Whoever they are, we're going to teach them that we do not take kindly to attacks on our ships."

"Yes, sir!" MacDonald saluted, then cut the connection.


HORSE HEAD NEBULA

AUGUST 5, 2002

Chalak Kan'terah glared with all four eyes at his subordinates, all batarians as he was, tilting his head to the right to signify his superiority over them. Having so many of them gathered at this planetside base was dangerous, even though this was a rarely visited system. Though there were persistent rumors that the ancient krogan warlord Moro had had his base here during the Krogan Rebellions.

"How hard can it be?" he shouted. "We beat those damn krogan when they stuck their heads into this cluster a few years back. It's just another pirate gang! The Hegemony doesn't claim territory anywhere near here, and the turians don't patrol the Attican Traverse."

Chalak had carved himself a nice setup in this cluster, pirating merchant vessels and raiding colonies on the fringes of Citadel space for slaves. Over the years he had built up a respectable fleet that answered only to him. A fleet that had been steadily getting decimated in recent weeks.

"They're too organized to be a pirate gang," one of the captains insisted. "And their ships are nothing I've seen before."

"What are you saying?" he jeered. "That they're aliens who just appeared out of nowhere with a fleet capable of taking us on?

"What I think," he continued, his voice dropping to a menacing hiss, "is that you're making excuses. Nobody takes on Chalak Kan'terah and lives! Get back out there and–"

Chalak stopped as one of his captains' radios let out a loud squawk of feedback, then a voice started talking fast. "They're here! They're here! We're going to–" The voice suddenly cut off, leaving behind an ominous silence.

Before the gathered batarians could do more than exchange uneasy glances, the floor began to tremble beneath their feet. "Orbital bombardment!" someone shouted, and panic set in as everyone began running for the hangar.

Chalak began to run after them when a particularly close hit sent him sprawling. Had things been less urgent he might have been chagrined at the irony of the situation, or filled with an incandescent rage at the presumption of these interlopers. But, as he got back to his feet, all he could think of was escape.


Anson MacDonald smiled grimly as he watched yet another alien frigate attempting to take off from the surface of the inhospitable planet below explode under the concentrated pounding of New America's eleven auxiliaries; Alaungpaya was still in orbit around Samothrace, getting repairs and being refitted with new armor plating. All of them had been refitted with mass effect cores in the couple of years since they had left Sol behind.

He could have had his communications officer send down a demand for surrender to these four-eyed bipedal aliens, but the thought never crossed his mind. Most of them had seen how these raiders operated against their more remote outposts: ruthlessly killing most of the people there and trying to implant some sort of control devices in the skulls of the survivors – without anesthetic.

It's obvious they don't represent a central government. That makes them pirates. MacDonald's smile broadened. We can kill pirates. The few ships they had managed to capture had an obvious slapdash look to their maintenance and repairs, and their numbers were too few over a star cluster that didn't seem to have any established settlements or infrastructure. Besides, they had already captured plenty of prisoners. The former OSS agents and some scientists were working on them, trying to figure out their language and gather intelligence. It had taken them this long to discover their center of operations.

"We've had enough of border clashes and atrocities from the Draka," he muttered under his breath. Damned if we're going to let it happen again out here.