2684 – Shanxi Prime, Solaris-Gamma system, frontier of United Earth Empire space.

The lone system star rose on the horizon of colony's capital city, New Alexandria. 11 hours now have passed since the start of Shanxi's liberation campaign, most of the planet was now again under control of UEE, though some remnants of invaders were still present, they were too few to pose any significant threat and soon would be dealt with.

Baker had mixed feelings about this, they saved Shanxi. Bu the invaders, who created them? Why they attacked? What is their purpose? What awaited them beyond the relay? And what was that squid-like talking ship, damn it. There were still many unknowns. Admiral Hackett's fleet would soon arrive, they would join them and probe the relay, again. But this time, they would be ready to face the bugs in full force.

5 hours later

Dozens and then hundreds of giantic wormholes tore the space and time itself as thousands of capital-class signatures emerged from them, the fleet Ouroboros under the command of Admiral Steven Hackett had arrived.

Serpent's holo avatar appeared on command console, "Sir, Admiral Hackett's flagship is hailing us."

"Patch 'em through."

Hackett's image with his flagships bridge behind him appeared. Baker saluted, "Admiral." Hackett nodded, "Vice-Admiral, at ease. Good job of getting rid of those pesky bugs, High Command are satisfied with this operation. However, our job is not done, yet. You already know you will be joining us in our little assault, don't worry, Shanxi won't remain undefended, HIGHNAVCOM already sent another fleet to guard this world." Baker nodded and asked, "How's the morale on the fleet, sir?" "Everyone is more than eager to pay back the four-eyed bastards, so let's not keep them waiting."

Baker's fleet joined fleet Ouroboros in their formation, ships then engaged their warp drives as the wormhole drives were still cooling down.


Solaris-Gamma system Mass Relay

Galaxy's Scape which was near the relay for quite some time sent multiple stealth probes at Hackett's orders, they would scout the system for potential hostiles and bases, sending data in real time through QEC. At first he scans were nothing unusual, 4 planets in the system, 2 of them were gas giants, a regular main sequence star, and an asteroid belt, but then scanners showed something unusual. One of the probes detected a large element zero signature in orbit of second system's planet, when the probe dropped near it to get a visual view, it found a space station, The station was cylindric in shape, about 5 kilometers in length of the cylinder and 1,7 kilometers wide, it was made of the same alloy which invader ships were made of.

Hackett ordered a small fleet of corvettes and frigates to be dispatched and scout the system with their advanced sensors, in command of this scout fleet was now-commandore Jones, captain of Everlasting Eclipse who was in charge of ill-fated battlegroup Forsaken during the first probing of Mass Relay. "Here we go again." Jones thought. They now were nearing the relay…

"Send a short EEZO pulse fleet-wide, we're entering." The scout fleet accelerated beyond the light speed as the relay sent them into the system on the other side.

2 minutes later

"We have no hostile contacts any near us, we are clear to proceed to the station's locati- Commandore, there is a small fleet of unknown vessels near the station, they do not match invader warship signatures, they all have high element zero readings. They are numbering 179 vessels, it is unknown if they possess any weapons due to distance." Serenity reported.

"Sent a report to Hacke-" Serenity interrupted him, "They engaged FT-" ironically, she wasn't able to finish too as the fleet they just discovered dropped out of FTL near them.

"I'm done with this bullshit, REQUEST REINFORCEMENTS IMMEDIATELY! Send first contact package and gather into arrow formations, warm up spinal cannons and target onto them everything we have, prepare to deploy nuclear mines." Angrily ordered Jones.


THS Sharpest of Claws, Beyond Citadel Council space.

"What do they think they are doing?!" Captain Kaeus was nearly shocked from such impudence, some pirates (or possibly even a batarian fleet) activated a relay and thought they would get away with it.

"Sir, we just received a data package from the fleet." Comms reported.

"They are trying to hack our systems? How pitiful, now we will show them why we are galaxy's best fighters. Open fire."


UES Everlasting Eclipse, B55323 system.

"Return fire!" it now seemed that every alien civilization they encountered wanted to kill them, little the aliens knew, they had a massive fleet just beyond the relay, which in fast was now making a transit through it.

First ships from Ouroboros dropped out of FTL and moved to assist the scout fleet in their engagement while more and more ships were arriving into the system through the Mass Relay. The battle soon turned into a massacre. Alien ships were killed very fast, all remaining enemy ships then tried to run but were destroyed while they tried to align with escape vector. Every but one of those ships were destroyed, but it was done on purpose…


2167 - Caibius Prima, Turian Hierarchy space, 2 days later.

THS Eternal Defender

They lost. They lost to unknown fleet In Terminus. His reputation would be ruined and career over if Hierarchy Command would want so. No turian fleet was defeated so easy since the Krogan Rebellion… All Kaeus now got was hope he don't get gravely punished for his mistakes as officer in command of a now-gone fleet.

Admiral's assistant exited room and waved for Kaeus to enter. It was standard-sized room for a commanding officer's office, in it was a turian awaiting him, from which now depended Kaeus' further fate.

"Please sit, captain." Turian gestured for Kaeus to sit. "You know why are you here, so I will get to the point. What happened at the relay?" the man asked.

Kaeus hesitated first, but then spoke, "We were patrolling the system when our sensors detected activity at the relay, when we got there we found a fleet that presumably activated the relay, we then enga-" he was interrupted by the Admiral.

"But before you did that floolish act you received a data package from this mysterious fleet, the fleet which had no identification marks nor matched any Citadel Council race ship designs, it also had very weak eezo readings. But nonetheless you had no suspicion about that nor you even bothered to check the data package."

"Sir, are you saying that…"

"Yes, captain, you opened fire upon an alien fleet that tried to initiate a first contact with Turian Hierarchy."

It felt like time stopped and Kaeus realized how deep hole he just dug for himself.

Suddenly, the Admiral's assistant rushed in, she worryingly and loudly said, "Admiral! An unknown fleet just entered the system through unknown means of FTL and engaged a patrol fleet."

Admiral then looked at Kaeus, and if look could kill, he would be already reduced to atoms.