June 3rd, 2399 CE, CSS Fromer, Shanxi System

The Fromer had finished yet another Teleport jump. Well, technically it was called a Relay, but barely anyone called it that. With the Gorgon destroyed and Garvey in a coma, Captain Angela Dukov was now the only high ranking navy officer left on the system. Her ship and her crew, the only one from the military ships of the 5th Exploration Fleet to survive the aliens. The population of Shanxi had been quickly evacuated on the ground support and the civilian ships, which had left after unloading their equipment on the planet. Now they were alone in the system, powerless to stop the alien armada from bombarding the poor saps that had been left behind on Shanxi. They were soldiers of the Commonwealth, and would do their duty, but the simple truth was that they had been left behind to save the civvies.

"Captain, the enemy fleet has finished their orbital bombardment." One of her officers told her.

"What's the damage on the planet so far?"

"Hard to tell, ma'am. From what little we've seen, they mostly aimed at the fringes of Yao Guai City. Probably just enough to allow their own soldiers to advance."

"That's good, then. If they wanted to destroy the city, they would just nuke them. This means that they want the colony itself. We can work with that." Dukov thought out loud. "Gannon, what's the status of the tech team? Any progress on breaching the enemy's comms?"

"None, captain. At first we thought that the enemy wasn't even broadcasting anything. We tuned to every frequency and found nothing. Then we started to expand our search to other forms. After some thorough analysis, we identified several strange signals coming from the alien fleet in rhythmic intervals. We believe that the aliens use some wildly different form of communication. As of this moment, however, we have no idea how to even begin to decode it, not to mention translate it after. It's vastly superior to anything we have, ma'am. With regards to our own comms… Well, either it's too primitive for them to even consider or, most likely, they are just ignoring us"

"If only we had a ZAX II like Nicky with us… Very well, keep me informed of any new developments."

The situation was dire. Dukov couldn't do anything other than sit back and watch the invasion of Shanxi proceed. The enemy, somehow, had figured out the flaw with their repulsion fields and were no doubt on high alert. Plus, being alone against 12 other ships, they couldn't do any more Prydwens. She had been trying to just harass them from afar, but it seems the aliens were experts in kinetic warfare. Their nuclear yield Gauss Cannon just bounced right off the enemy's barriers. Even that lone light cruiser guarding the other relay just shrugged off their attacks. As far as she knew, she had her hands tied until reinforcements arrived. That could take months. Shanxi was the most remote colony of the Commonwealth. Gunderson's fleet was based in Arcturus, and while their call for backup should have reached them yesterday, it would still take quite some time for them to arrive. While Gunderson was most likely coming at full speed now, their fleet wasn't known for their speed. Most of them still had last gen TP Drives, after all. It would seem like she could do nothing but wait. At the very least, the aliens had yet to identify their stealth probes, so she could still keep an eye on their movement.

Year 2899 GS, Planet Codenamed "Valluvian Rest", Relay 314 Alien's System

Private Maclianus had been sent on to recover some of the alien Geth that had been reported as destroyed during the bombardment. He didn't like them. The things gave him the creeps. Not only because these things had butchered half of his friends, but also because they were extremely creepy. Just looking at them made him feel uneasy. Almost as bad as the feeling of being watched that those black birds that dotted the landscape passed. He had tried to shoot them, but his sarge told him to stop messing around. Now here he was, carrying some metal skeletons back to base. These things were supposedly unstoppable, but the severed pieces that he was carrying said otherwise... He really didn't like doing this. Maybe his brother in the logistical lines was having a better time... He hoped not. He hated that inconsiderate piece of shit.

"Private! Snap out of it! You're not being paid to daydream. Now finish unloading these things and report back to your unit." Some asshole officer told him.

"Yes, sir." He answered half-heartedly.

He kept thinking about this invasion. A few of the scouts had talked about fighting the aliens… Well, their mechanical lackeys, at the very least. No one had actually seen any of them yet. Supposedly there were pictures of them on the smaller settlements they had secured outside the city. Rumour was, they looked like Asari, only with males and more hairy. And they had five fingers. As if this Galaxy needed any more fingers. Three on each hand was more than enough, if you asked him. Any more was just… Blergh… Disgusting, to be honest. He approached the lab door and entered. As he carried a box filled with metal robot parts into the RnD room, he could hear all the science nerds talk their nonsense words.

"... primitive and advanced..."

"... physically impossible…"

"... too primitive to remotely hack…"

"... astoundingly reliable…"

Whatever, he wasn't paying attention. That wasn't his job. Let them figure these things out. As long as they told him where to shoot them, he'd be happy. As he was about to leave the room, one of the nerds did something he would never forget

"... and when you flick this switch, this happens. Observe."

A blue laser was shot out from the silly looking gun, turning the test dummy to ashes. He stopped dead in his tracks… An actual, handheld laser gun. Straight out of science fiction. He thought that the surviving scouts were joking. Spirits, he'd seen dozens of those things when he was packing up the Geth things. One for every one of them, to be exact. Was this for real? Every single one of the alien foot soldiers carried laser guns? And they were supposed to be primitives? If those aliens could field these things, what else could they do..? Now wait a minute… He'd also heard rumours of green bolts being shot from nowhere before these Geth appeared. Was that also true? This little colony on an empty system was packing this much firepower? Spirits, the big shots were way over their heads now. He could only hope that the navy would just bomb that city from existence so he could go home. He didn't feel like fighting anymore.

June 3rd, 2399 CE, Yao Guai City, Shanxi System

This was bad. The aliens had started to bombard them. Marine corporal John Holt had been out in the field when the first shots landed. One of them landed very close to his unit. A couple of his buddies had been consumed by the fireball, and he was sent flying. A lot of shrapnel penetrated his power armor and he had been badly injured. Luckily, his STC kicked in and teleported him back to base automatically. As he was being operated on in the Auto-Doc, he could only think about why this was happening. What had they done? They were just exploring, and those damn aliens shot them for no reason. No warnings, either.

He could understand if the Mexicans hated them. The Commonwealth hadn't exactly been the most friendly of neighbors. He could understand if the Post-Chinese hated them. If rumours were to be believed, the Commonwealth regularly sabotaged their fledgling space program. He could understand if the separatists in California hated them. Their "peaceful" annexation had been anything but. Hell, he could understand if pretty much anyone else on Earth hated the Commonwealth. He wasn't a hypocrite enough to not admit it: They kind of abandoned them when they could very well uplift the entire planet... But these aliens? What had they done to them? They'd hadn't even known them long enough to properly wrong them. Did their mere existence insult them?

"Mr Holt. Apologies, but your left leg will have to be amputated." The synthesized voice of the machine operating on him said. "A synth replacement will be provided to you once you are transferred to a Commonwealth hospital. Please relax."

'If I live long enough to be transferred back', he thought to himself. As the anesthesia took effect, he muttered his last words before darkness took him.

"Fucking alie…"

June 18th, 2399 CE, Yao Guai City, Shanxi System

Commander West was looking at himself in the mirror. His synth skin was starting to peel off again. He knew he should've maintended it better, but he had been kind of busy in the past two weeks. Defending a cut off colony from a superior foe wasn't easy. Even his anti-ferals were running out. He scoffed to himself. Over three hundred years, and still no one could figure out why exactly Ghouls went feral or how to stop it. At least eggheads in the CIT had found a way to postpone it. That counted for something, he guessed. Regardless, if he didn't procure more pills soon, he would have to step down from his post. Commonwealth regulations were strict like that. Maybe there was more in all those supplies the civilians left behind. There must have been at least one Ghoul among all those people, surely. He brought up his holo Pip-Boy and called his assistant.

"Diane, could you please tell Donovan in the warehouse to bring me some more anti-ferals? I'm afraid I'm running out."

"Lieutenant Donovan was killed during yesterday's bombardment, sir. But I'll tell his replacement, don't worry." His assistant answered.

Good lord. Things were going to shit real fast. Not even in Anchorage had things been this hard. At least they still had plenty of Gen 4s to throw into the meat grinder and hold the line. Sure, the aliens were advancing through the empty city, but they were headed straight into another trap. Besides, with the casualties they were causing on the enemy, they had to pull out soon enough. Didn't they?

Year 2899 GS, Turian Planetside HQ, Planet Codenamed "Valluvian Rest", Relay 314 Alien's System

"I don't care how many died! Tell them to keep advancing! We have broken through their main line and half the city is ours! Victory is near, so tell them to keep marching!"

General Maurcolus was shouting at this point. They had suffered horrendous casualties so far. Those cowards holed down in that city didn't fight fair. Even the constant orbital barrage he was calling didn't do anything to make them back down. At every street corner, there were dozens of traps waiting for them. Waves of Geth were charging the brave Turians. Those invisible cunts would shower them with plasma from the shadows Suicidal Geth, strapped with small nuclear devices, were turning both their own city and his men into ash. It didn't help that the "streets" of that Spirit-forsaken city were so narrow. He couldn't even move his tanks in to support his men. Did those primitives not have vehicles, for Palaven's sake? And now that they had finally managed a breakthrough, his subordinates wanted to stop? So what if a third of their forces were dead? When you have the enemy on the run, you keep pressuring them until you exhaust yourself, that was basic military knowledge. Reinforcements were due any time now, anyways. But he was aware that morale was getting lower and lower. Already, the men were calling him the "Valluvian Butcher" behind his back.

"Y-yes sir… Relaying your orders now." One of his officers answered.

"Sir, may I have a word with you?" One other asked.

He quickly turned to the other officer. It was the one responsible for the technician unit, Adracus.

"What is it? Make it quick, I have an invasion to manage."

"Yes sir, but I really think you should see this. Please, follow me to the RnD Labs."

"Fine, you have 5 minutes."

As he followed the officer through the RnD room, he passed the many instances of captured alien technology they had gathered. The laser rifles were simply magnificent. Capable of turning a full-grown Turian to ash with a single, well-placed shot, their most amazing feat was the fact they didn't seem to run out of ammo... Ever. He had even issued a few of them to some of his own men, with standing orders to capture as many as they could. He could already imagine an army of Turians marching with these rifles. Beautiful. And then there were those white metal mechs. Whatever they were, they were huge. Bigger than a Krogan, even. They had only managed to capture two, so far, and they seemed to have some sort of emergency system that melted everything, including any relevant tech, inside it. The techs said it was piloted by one of the aliens, but it was impossible to open it. It was only useful as a very large piece of modern art now. As he reached the end of the lab with Adracus, he came face-to-face with a flimsy looking contraption.

"What is this heap of junk? Is this what you wanted to show me?"

"Well, sir. When you first told me to crack their comms, I thought it was an impossible task. There were no signals coming from the city, or anywhere in the system for that matter. It shouldn't be possible, since they were clearly coordinated. Me and my team even considered that they may be some kind of hive, communicating like the Rachn-"

"Get to the point, Adracus."

"O-of course, sir. Well we broadened our search, and eventually we found something very interesting. We thought that we couldn't pick up anything because they were using some form of advanced communications. BUT! It was the exact opposite! We couldn't pick up their signals, because it was too primitive for our sensors to pick up! The aliens are using radio!

"So what? So do we."

"Yes! ...No! Well… Sometimes we call them that… But they're not! We don't use actual radio frequencies, haven't for almost a millennia. We couldn't pick it up because we no longer bother to manufacture anything capable of picking it up."

"So that's it then? We can't pick up their signals?"

"That's the beauty of it, sir. It's such a primitive technology that we can build a receiver from scratch using bits of scrap. We are lucky that one of my techs was a radio hobbyist. We managed to put this thing together earlier today, and lo-and behold!"

Adracus pressed a button on the strange contraption, and the speaker came to life

"-sed, we have a large force of birds coming to your location. Diverting mor-" It ceased to speak as he turned it off

"The entirety of the enemy's communication, unfiltered and with no codes or anything as far as we can tell. All that we need to do now, is to translate the language." The tech officer beamed.

The general was taken aback. Just like that? Spirits, they might win this thing earlier than he had expected.

"Great work, Adracus! Very good work! Get a linguistic team on this as soon as possible." The general said. "With this we have the edge we were lacking! You might have just won us this invasion… Great fucking work! After you're done with the translation, get this to the command center. Can this also be used by Captain Primus?."

"Well… That's where it gets tricky… We tried to see if we could pick up any signals in space, at least any leaving the planet. We did! Not in space, but leaving the planet… Unfortunately… Those do seem to be using some very advanced form of comms on those. It's like they are being… Teleported out, really. The aliens are probably using whatever they use to propel their ships to FTL on their radio signals, just like we do with our comm buoys. It's almost a pattern with these aliens. On one hand you have some very primitive tech and on the other, an impossibly advanced one. I would love to find one of their technicians and discu-"

The general wasn't listening anymore. He had stopped doing so after Adracus had said "it gets tricky". It didn't really matter to him at that point. He had what he wanted. Leaving the lab to go back to his post, Maurcolus was already thinking of how to apply this newfound intelligence. He would make those aliens pay for the lost Turian lives. He would rip those hairy apes from their hiding holes and this planet would burn, he could promise that much.

Year 2899 GS, Council Chambers, The Citadel

It had been almost two weeks since the Turians had sent their "patrol" fleet to deal with the primitives. Two weeks since Oriencus had said that "the Hierarchy would resolve this by the end of the day". Still no resolution so far. The Turian was being evasive, sometimes outright refusing to answer any questions with regards to the action beyond the Relay 314. Not that he needed him to know. The STG regularly sent him reports on the siege of the primitive colony. The Turians were being beaten. The primitives were ruthless when using their Geth, and the Turians were losing more men than they were making progress. They couldn't keep this up, not until the reinforcement fleet arrived. He was making sure to delay that one too, directing his agents to sabotage it as much as possible. It would arrive, eventually. But by then, the primitives would probably be able to present their own response. It was tricky, Welus knew. He was acting with a lot of variables. Maybe the primitives hadn't even bothered to prepare a relief, choosing instead to fortify themselves beyond the system, abandoning the colony to its demise. No matter really. The Turians would have to go to war to finish this. It would be costly, and it would set them back for years. Exactly what the Salarian Union needed. The Hierarchy had gained too much political power after ending the Batarian Crisis. They needed to be culled, to rebalance the Status-Quo. As the Turian Councillor argued with Tevos for the third time today, Welus did the same thing as he had done the other times. He said nothing.

"-so either the Turian Hierarchy releases the status of the action on the primitive system, or I will submit a Liberty of Information Motion request. You said one day! It's been over two weeks! This farce has lasted enough, Oriencus." Tevos made her ultimatum.

"If you submit the request, I will simply submit a veto. The Hierarchy is dealing with an issue in its own territory. We are under no obligation to share anything with the rest of the Citadel." The Turian simply retorted.

"But the action is currently being performed in the primitive's system. Unless the Hierarchy is claiming that system as its own?"

"W-why you… The action concerns the activation of a Relay leading to Turian territory. Any ramifications of that, unless breaching into the territory of any other associate of the Citadel Council, will continue to be solely the Hierarchy's business. The law is clear on this matter."

Welus laughed inwardly. Citadel law was a lot of things, but it was not clear. Ever since the Batarian Crisis had started, almost one hundred and fifty years ago, the laws of their organization had become increasingly complicated. The Citadel had become a lot more powerful, but at the same time, the three council species had grown further apart. The civil war in Batarian space had spread to the rest of the Galaxy, and it had caused so much damage, that an ever increasingly large stratification of society had been needed. The rights of the population were being subverted - not that they cared, bread and circus, after all - the Treaty of Farixen had to be rewritten, restarting an arms race in the Galaxy. The STG had expanded its operations to a point where 80% of all civilians were being monitored, one way or another. The Asari had increased their monopoly on all sorts of sectors, further increasing the strain on the associate economies. The Turians now had twice as many ships as everyone else combined. Many feared they could simply take over, and no one would be able to do anything about it. Welus knew better. The Turians had become too reliant on trade from the Asari, and the Salarians held so much knowledge about their shady deals in the Terminus that if they ever released even a fifth of it, the Turian society would implode. The balance of power had become so fine, that a simple mistake would tear down their house of cards. And that was exactly what the Daltrass wanted, so that's exactly what he was doing. He knew about Tevos' plan to step in and guarantee the loyalty of the primitives. It wouldn't work. Yes, he did have the orders sent to the 14th Patrol Fleet rewritten - something the Turians would never admit had happened. Her plan had seemingly been set in motion, but she'd never be able to reap the benefits of it. The STG had made sure of that. The primitives would never receive aid, at least not from the Republics. Welus continued to ignore the bickering of his colleagues and relaxed upon his seat, satisfied with the direction that the current discussion was heading: Nowhere. Being a politician in the late 29th Century was one of the hardest, but most rewarding jobs.

CODEX - Mk VI Recharger Rifle

The Mk VI Recharger Rifle is the standard issued infantry rifle of the Commonwealth's armed forces. The weapon's design is simple, being housed in a slim polymer box with no apparent features other than a removable stock, a pistol grip, a switch on the side and simple glow sights. The Mk VI, like almost everything made in the Commonwealth, is designed for extreme reliability, ease of repairs and mass production.

The Mk VI fires a directed blue laser beam through a reinforced focus lens array in an semiautomatic pattern. The weapon can fire 12 shots before the user must switch the MF Breeder Cell being used. The weapon is not particularly powerful nor extremely accurate like other human energy weapons, but due to it being a laser based weaponry, it has no recoil, it ignores kinetic barriers and it is able to pierce even armored targets like heavy vehicles with enough concentration of fire. The weapon's most notorious feature is not the fact that it is a practical infantry laser weapon, but it's twin MF Breeder Cells. The MF Breeder is a miraculous energy core that allows the Mk VI to have virtually infinite ammo without the constant "cooling periods" of mass effect powered weaponry. After 12 shots have been fired, the user must simply turn a switch to connect the second cell to the lens array and allow the first one to recharge. Although supposedly there is a limit of how many laser beams they can fire before the MF Breeders are spent, the manufacturer's manual simply reads that "The gun will break first".

Due to the lack of moving parts other than the simple manual cell selector, the rifle's reliability is legendary, with certain units over four decades old still being actively used with minimal maintenance required. Because of these factors - and the novelty of owning a laser gun - the weapon is constantly in extremely high demand in Council space. A few of the ones that were captured in the Relay 314 Incident were stolen from Turian armories and sold for absurd prices to Terminus mercenaries. A single Mk VI in the black market will sell for as much as a luxury skycar, sometimes more, and owning one is a sign of extreme prestige.

Author's Note

Boom. Another chapter. I'm on a roll, baby. All right, let's make this quick. Before any of you point out that there's no such thing as a "Batarian Crisis", keep this in mind: This isn't happening during the same year as ME1, or the events preceding it. This story happens almost 200 years later. If a lot of shit went down on the Human side of 314, a lot has also happened on the other. The political landscape changed. How much exactly, will be revealed as the story progresses. Let me also address this before anyone else does: The Reapers. Yes, they should've already begun their invasion. But ask yourself this: What was the trigger? Why did they begin specifically when they did in canon? It couldn't have been because of the development of sentient AI like they say, otherwise they would've done it centuries ago. The Geth rebellion happened during the Industrial Revolution. The 50k years period? No way, that's too specific and opens a lot of what ifs. So what was the trigger? My headcanon? Humans. Them joining the galactic society is the trigger. My two cents is that they need all sentient species to have met each other to start the next cycle. And if that's my headcanon, then it's the same in this story. Maybe I am dead wrong, but honestly? Whatever. Also, fireknight10: Yes, I know what you mean. I teased it a little in Holt's monologue, but the truth is that the rest of Earth and Humanity will be relevant later, so I don't want to spoil it just yet. Keep reading, and you'll find out. Peace.

RM.