AN: Here it is, Ladies, Gents and Xeno's of all ages, another chapter complete it's been in the works for a good while now it's another politicking and world building chapter, sorry for that but it can't all be endless war... unless its WH40K then it definitely can be endless war.

Good news: I found new music namely bands such as: BLAZON STONES, favourite song so far has been War of the Roses; BATTLE BEAST with the gem of a song titled Out of Control. Been Listening to them non-stop for the last couple of days, give them a listen to on You Tube would you Kindly.

Also, I was swinging between days of being blind drunk and stone cold sober, the lads from discord can attest to this seeing as those bastards drove me to the bottle at times, Morriss I'm looking at you. Tosser.

Now onto the reason this took so long to write up, I've been working alongside the lads on my (75th Reserve Battlestar Group) Discord to produce the official Wiki Fic that will have as additional world building.
Its also for me to fact check my shit so I can't DEUS EX MACHINA anything in the future, it'll basically set the ground rules on what can and can't be done.

It'll be a fun read once its published so keep an eye out for it.

December 13th 2207 EMC [Earth Military Calendar] 2151 CE [Common Era].
Turian Frontier Space, Agamemnon System.
SSV Lion, Combat Information Centre.

It had taken a solid week, to organise and file the necessary paperwork, for the Lion to transit further into Hierarchy space, the fucking things had to be signed and countersigned in triplicate, Liam's wrists and hands had cramped something fierce, yes hands as in plural, it'd been a good long while since he had to use his off hand to sign anything.

Anyways, the crew knew that the lion would be a vessel of many 'firsts' considering the mission, First to travel the unknown regions, first to make first contact, not once but twice and now she would be the first human vessel to fly the Primarch's flag.

Why?

To expedite our priority to transit into the heart of Hierarchy space, that and it was more than likely a political statement to the Salarian's and Asari, a metaphorical middle finger to the Dalatrass and Matriarch political elite.

Humanity was after all playing for keeps, so why would Liam refuse such an offer?

"Lieutenant Vakarian, send the necessary data for Mass Relay transit, helm and navigation match course and speed with the Sixth fleet, with your permission Primarch." Liam turned to the third addition to the Lion's war table.

"Permission granted captain." Primarch Tullius Romullianus replied dressed in a fleet admirals day duty uniform as was the custom when the Primarch took upon the role of what was the human equivalent of Lord Admiral of the Systems Alliance Navy.

December 13th 2151 CE [Common Era] 2207 EMC [Earth Military Calendar].
Citadel Space, Widow Nebula.
The Citadel, Private Council Chambers.

"Just what in the name of Athame are your people playing at!" Councillor Tevos barked at her Turian counterpart who just looked towards her with an absolute poker face.

"Taking it upon themselves to negotiate with a race that was compassionate enough to send, one of their heavy-dreadnought's into the spirts damned void to bring back our missing crew." He bit back, before continuing. "Our Primarch is heading the negotiations personally and from what has been reported to me personally, the negotiations will be continued in orbit of Palaven." The word confidentially had been purposefully left out of the sentence, as it was quite obvious that the STG had tapped his comms when the first video had hit the extranet.

What a video it was, seeing the gunmetal grey super-dreadnought come screaming from the heavens like some arbiter of death its underside ablaze from the sheer friction of the air impacting the hull, all to launch a fleets worth of fighter craft to provide air support for the besieged defenders of Agamemnon's capital city.

Which had recently been named in the dreadnought's honour.

"You do realise that future negotiations between us will be heavily penalised?" The Salarian Union's councillor retorted.

"The Hegemony is calling for your new allies to be arrested for war crimes!" Tevos rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Utilising a mass nuclear strike, what kind of savages use nuclear weapons, except Krogan?" She growled.

"Was that before or after the Hegemony attempted to glass Agamemnon with a mass nuclear strike of their own? We have salvaged the two dozen black boxes; we have all the evidence to declare that they escalated the war." The two other councillors recoiled at that news. "Leave that little fact out, did they? Or how about the fact that the 'animals' that had managed to get planet side, begun systematically raping women and girls some as young as four whilst executing the men and boys."

"That's…." Tevos tried to cut in, but was thoroughly cut short, by her the Turian Councillor.

"How about the fact that the Hegemony had deployed eighty or so STG issued Disrupter Stealth Mines? Mine which I might remind you are declared as recognised WMD's and failing to report them as missing or stolen is a crime." Now it was time for the Salarian Councillor to go bug eyed at that titbit of information.

Tevos was quick to shoot a glare towards the Salarian at that bit of news, causing the Salarian to sigh. "It's under investigation, we believe someone in the STG has been compromised for a month now, we've been trying to find whomever it was, since the transport failed to make it to one of our STG Anchorages."

Tevos couldn't believe the political shit storm that was brewing, the hierarchy was baying for blood they had three or more pieces of evidence to rake the Hegemony over the coals, neither the Republics or the Union could interfere to bring the war to a diplomatic close.

Even if they supported the claim that these humans had committed a war crime the Hierarchy could counter claim that the Hegemony itself escalated the war to the point a full nuclear strike was the only option to prevent a colony from being glassed.

Not to mention the sheer fact that the Hegemony used stolen WMD's from the Salarian Union's STG of all people, which would mean the Union would have to admit that they had failed to report eighty WMD's had been stolen from them and seeing as it was the Hegemony that had used them.

That was something that was best left alone. If at all possible.

December 14th 2207 EMC [Earth Military Calendar] 2151 CE [Common Era].
Human Systems Alliance Space, Frontier Colonial Systems.
Ragnar-Alpha Sector, Ragnar super gas-giant.
Demeter Anchorage, Combat Information Centre.

Orders had just been passed down from Lord Admiral Terrace Hood himself, Demeter alongside her attached battlegroup had to redeploy to the 'New Frontier' colony of Shanxi, besides Demeter, six Phoenix class colony ships as well as a pre-assembled Colony Defence Battlegroup, consisting of twenty-four frigates, twelve destroyers and three light cruisers would be making transit to the world in question.

It'd been a year since last direct contact with the SSV Lion had been made via Quantum Entanglement Communications, a year since Humanity had made contact with the Montressians, a year since Humanity began re-deploying their once unwanted mass relays to create a 'Mass Relay' Relay 'Supply Line', by jumping them to isolated systems between the Frontier Systems and Hierarchy Space.

Said systems just so happened to be secured with liberal deployments of Limpet Stealth Nuclear minefields as a security precaution, each mine capable of independently Identifying Friend or Foe, each one capable of independent tracking or swarming enemy contacts.

With sixty percent of the relay supply line complete, only the last five and a half months of travel would need to be completed using regular FTL methods, all they had to do was wait in the Montressor system, link in with their QEC Satellite and wait for the Lion to transmit through their navigation data when the Turian QEC Satellite linked up with the budding QEC network.

Rear-Admiral James Cutter could only hope that things had gone well with the Hierarchy, then again if it hadn't that was what the SSV Vanguard was for, the current flagship of the Demeter Reserve Fleet.

A ship designed to with the sole objective of hunting down and killing hostile capital ships, her main battery guns were so efficient that they tended to over penetrate any grade of capital ship Battleplate and had a nasty tendency to produce fifteen-million degree plasma equating to 3.2 kilotons of TNT, making her even deadlier in a 'Knife Fight' engagement.

A plasma which had a nasty side effect of transferring all of that heat directly through Kinetic Barriers onto the hull, the results were…. Messy to say the least, it'd been a controversy when she had been deployed at the height of the Insurrection twenty some years ago.

Only just scraping through as conventional weapons, rather than being labelled as Weapons of Mass Destruction.

How the navy managed that one was still a bit of a mystery to the elderly Rear-Admiral, he had no reason to complain about it however, the massive boost in firepower was a welcome addition if everything went to hell in a hand basket.

Picking up his wireless mounted in its base on the Demeter's war table, Rear-Admiral James Cutter, gave his next order, whilst starring at his wife who stood beside his Executive officer. "This is Demeter Actual to all Actuals, Irene, I say again Irene, procced to the rendezvous co-ordinates."

"Phoenix 1 Actual, copies last." A female officer responded.

"Phoenix 2 Actual, Reads five by five." Another female officer replied in kind.

"Phoenix 3 Actual, let's make history." A rather brash sounding young male proclaimed, causing Colonel Hailey Cutter to rub the bridge of her nose with her fore finger and thumb.

"Shanxi Battlegroup Alpha Actual, we'll take point, Demeter Actual." One Commodore Yang Wen-Li replied with his usual laid back tone, the young dual national Chinese-American being one of the top ten youngest officers to achieve the rank of commodore.

Cutter raised his wireless to his mouth once more. "Demeter Actual copies your last, god speed Commodore Li."

"This is Vanguard Actual, all ships are secure in their births, all hands present and accounted for." Came the final confirmation from one Captain Morriss reported from his post aboard the SSV Vanguard from the cruising bridge atop of the SSV Vanguard nicknamed the 'Tower of Doom' in homage to the Royal Navy's Battleship superstructures from world war two.

"XO are we secure for FTL transit?" Captain Kallen Kozuki, formally the Executive Officer of the SSV Lion looked Cutter directly in the eyes. "Aye Admiral, all departments have declared secure for FTL transit." She replied.

"Excellent FTL proceed with the jump, we have a new home to settle." The massive anchorage, in orbit of its previous home the super gas giant of Ragnar was consumed in a blinding flash of light, as its bank of super massive FTL drives folded space and time to transport itself to its destination.

December 15th 2207 EMC [Earth Military Calendar] 2151 CE [Common Era].
Turian Space, Apien Crest, Trebia System.
SSV Lion, Portside Landing Bay.

Captain Spruce trekked the length and width of the portside landing bay, dozens of stalls had been assembled which were manned by the crew of the SSV Lion, equipment, uniforms, vehicles and weapons systems were open for the public to interact with.

Many schools had been given guided tours to see multiple key systems such as CIC, hydroponics, medical, the launch bays, engineering and the mess halls, the crew had been encouraged to interact and answer any questions.

The Crown had been opened to 18's and above, for dextro-alcoholic drinks, pub quizzes and members of the ships band playing various rock hits from the twentieth century to the modern day, mostly, the greatest hits.

All the while on the orbital station, the Primarch had been gracious enough to dedicate a 'green space' for the crew to erect a rugby pitch in quick order, a small rugby union tournament was set up with teams formed around the nationalities of the crew.

A total of eight teams were formed, Group A consisting two matches. England Vs Scotland and New Zealand Vs Ireland; while Group B had Australia Vs Wales and South Africa Vs Japan.

The winning teams in Group A and B would move forward into the Semi-Finals, whilst the other teams competed for their placements against one another, with the victors of Semi-Finals going head to head in the Lion Cup Finals.

One wise ass in the Lion's workshop had actually 3D printed a trophy in the shape of Lions head, which would be displayed in the Crown once the tournament was over.

Today was an exercise to foster relations, get the Turians interested in Human culture and to facilitate that the Hierarchy News Network both 'civil' and 'military' were making their rounds reporting on what they were witnessing, both on board the Lion herself and on the temporary pitch on the station.

Which was undoubtedly being watched by tens of millions if not hundreds of millions of people in the greater known galaxy, not that the crew would miss out on the festivities, as the matches were being broadcast over the ships PA system.

Speaking of which. "…. It looks like a knock on from Scotland, the ref's called for a scrum to re-start play, the atmosphere here is quite electric while we wait for the teams to take their positions, turian crowds have gathered in droves, whilst crew members of the Lion, chant and cheer their fellow sailors from the side-lines…." The commentator gave a small pause before continuing.

"In fact, a good number of the individuals watching the match, come in all manners of shapes and sizes, a good number of Krogan visiting here today are actually learning the game alongside the actual match in an open section of the field beside the pitch…."

That's when a flanging male turian spoke up. "Not surprising really, Krogan excel in physical sports and have been trying to find something other than combat sports to keep themselves and their young entertained." A ring of a whistle was heard in the background.

"That's the re-start, both teams are vying for domination of the ball, we're down to the last minutes of the match if England can dominate this scrum and break through Scotland's defences, they'll win the match…. England are giving all they have…. They've done it, England's scrumhalf clears the ball, Jameson with lightning reactions chips the ball to the far left field, Churchill blazes to the ball barely preventing Scotland's captain Wallace from intercepting the ball!"

The roar of cheering fans could be heard. "He's done it, Churchill breaks past the last of Scotland's defences and dives over the try line, it was a magnificent play, the referee's whistle is blown the conversion is given!" There was a moment of pause followed by another whistle. "That's the game, England: 28 – Scotland: 21!" The commentator cheered as the end-game whistle was blown.

The crew on deck broke out in cheers, which gave some of the Turian visitors a bit of a shock, which gave some of the Turian crewmen serving aboard lion a bit of a chuckle at their families expense.

To Be Continued….

AN: This fic has exploded lately so I would like to give all of those who've joined in this great journey of ours a heartfelt thank you, new or old, I thank you, good news is I've got a two week period to get more work in on FanFic so hopefully (no promises are made) I'll get another chapter out a little sooner than what it took to get this one out.

Now with all that sappy shit over and done with, it's been a pleasure to entertain you now would you kindly fuck off.

see you on the bounce!

Until the next chapter this is GRLS signing off...