Two year later... 2076

For ten long years, Saren bid his time. He was convinced that Desolas didn't kill himself, his captors did. Ten years in training, from barely 15 years old at bootcamp all the way to the Blackwatch and now, now he was a Spectre. The galaxy had changed in ways none could have predicted just 10 years prior. The amount of influence those humans already had, and the Council Races, humiliating themselves allying with those upstarts. Even his Hierarchy, supposedly the great military force in the Galaxy, was seeking friends with the hairless pyjaks.

But he couldn't do anything to change this travesty, at least not yet. What he could do was avenge his brother and kill those who humiliated him. For that, he had a list: Admiral Pan Qiang, responsible for commanding the Chinese's relief force. She destroyed the main component of Nixem's fleet, that incompetent. A certain Vice-Admiral Gaius who declared a general surrender, including for the ground forces, who were Desola's responsibility. And, finally, General Tao, the man responsible for arresting and very much possibly killing his brother. They were all going to pay.

But for his plan to work, he needed information on the Chinese, and for all the Spectres and STG liked to gloat, they simply didn't have a decent enough foothold inside the core of human's political apparatus. So, he decided to try something very risky, but if it paid off, would help him immensely.

CIA headquarters, Langley, Virginia, April 2076

Jack Harper had had a busy day, so busy in fact that he almost didn't notice the 30 minutes allocated to a certain Turian Spectre. Wondering how, and why, it had just materialized on his calendar for today, Harper sighed. Going to the small kitchen near his office, he grabbed a coffee and went back to his office. The turian was already there.

"Please, Specter Saren, take a seat" And Saren took a seat on those flimsy human chairs, there wasn't anywhere on the chair to support his cowl, and his spurs kept hitting the underside of the seat.

Harper once again took the initiative. "What can I do for you today, Spectre?"

Saren couldn't decide if there was a mocking tone to Harper's speech, maybe a hint of dissatisfaction? Regardless, he still had a deal to propose.

"Thank you for having me Director Harper. I've come across sensitive information regarding the internal stability of the Hegemony, and I thought it could be of use for you"

Harper took the files and started reading them. "Ah, yes, it appears that portions of local elites are quite dissatisfied with the current Hegemon, so much so that the Hegemon has order brutal crackdowns against them. But the military is inclined to join the elites, or at least parts of the elites. To top it all off, there's a major slave revolt brewing. We could have a three-way civil war"

Saren inclined his head, a turian sign of confusion. Civil Wars for him were a very clear-cut matter. One colony wants independence, the Hierarchy goes and crush then, just two sides.

Harper laughed. "Remember me to tell you about the Syrian Civil War back in the 2010s, that was a shitshow, Europeans, Americans, Russians, Iranians, Israelis, Saudis, everyone supporting one group or another. It was so bad that groups financed by the American DoD were fighting groups trained by the American CIA."

Saren was… impressed with that information. How could a race so… dumb achieve so much in so little time? But digress he could not, he was here for a deal. Harper gave him the opening he needed. "And what do you want in exchange for this?"

Saren didn't miss a bit: "I want locations, whereabouts, of certain people, Admiral Pan Qiang and General Tao"

Harper reclined on his chair and asked. "Why, Mr. Arterius, you want their whereabouts? Planning on avenging your brother?"

Saren was taken aback. How did Harper know it? He took great care so that his surename didn't become widely available, even changed his name. He recomposed himself and answered, looking the director straight to his eyes. "What I'll do to them is my business, in fact, it's Spectres business, so, Harper, I'd be very careful where you go sniffing for more info."

Harper gave a quick laugh. Despite his bravado, the young spectre was easy to read, like an open book, he wanted revange on those he believed killed his brother. Still, he would help him, if nothing more to create a crisis in China to distract them for some time. "Sure kid, I'll see what I can do, come back here tomorrow, same time, and we will have your dossiers."

And with that, Saren left the office, banging the door on a mildly exasperated Harper.

3 months latter….

Retired Admiral Pan Qiang was an easy person to track. After leaving service as a hero, the commanding office of the first Chinese's victory over an alien invader (and, of course, the first human victory against an alien invasion) could comfortably retire anywhere she choose in Mainland China. Nowadays she spent her days on an upscale apartment in Shanghai, giving lectures at the Chinese Naval College and living a dream life for any retiree: long nights playing mah-jongg with her friends, upscale restaurants with her family, trips to the countryside when she felt like it.

But Admiral Qiang was also an international woman. Due to her status as a major player in First Contact, every year she was inundated with requests and invites for her to speak all over the world. This time, it seemed like she was going to South Korea, a short trip for her. Saren knew it, he knew the hotel she booked for the night, and knew her schedule and how she never deviates from schedule, probably a reflex of years and years in the military. All he had to do was wait for her arrive, no doubt tired after a day of speeches and galas and entertaining diplomats. He found her sound asleep at in her bed. She never did feel the injection of a powerful chemical designed to stop the heart of a person in seconds. Nor did she notice how her windows stayed open, long after her killer had left the hotel.

2 months later…

General Tao was even easier to find as he was involved publicly in a project at the Terminus-Asari border. Getting to him, on the other hand, was going to be considerably hard. The project was a collaboration between China and the Salarians, so entering the base was nigh-impossible. Luck for Saren, Harper's report mentioned that the old general was also a bon vivant, who liked to spend his shore leave in Illium, just a couple Relay hops from where he was.

Saren was sitting in a bar in Nos Astra, waiting for the general to show up. As predicted, the man was already drunk, being escorted to a taxi by two very beautiful asari. They didn't join him on his ride, so Saren simply called up another cab and followed the man to his home.

The hotel room was spartan, few luxuries one would expect for a man of Tao's reputation, but Saren figured that whatever he wanted from Illium, he wasn't getting it inside his room. Tao was currently in the bathroom; Saren could hear the shower on. Approaching carefully, he unholstered his silenced pistol, courtesy of working with american special forces more than once and fired three shots. The water from the shower started to blend with the General's blood, creating a rather impressive piece of abstract art on the floor. Saren confirmed his kill and left.

But, as he was about to leave the room, he noticed something on the general's desk. A suitcase, filled to the brink with documents. Most were bureaucratic garbage, but one got his attention. Something to do with his special project with the salarians: some kind of Prothean tracking device, who's been tracking some ancient ship for the past 50000 years. He took it, maybe it would prove to be useful sometime in the future.

Mindoir, Maroon Sea, 2078

The capital of Mindoir was founded by the Russians, hence the name Leningrad, but in reality, it was a melting pot of cultures and people from all over Earth. Brazilian mining conglomerates had headquarters there, coordinating resource extraction on the system. South Korea and Japanese industries based regional headquarters there, their fabrics proper high above the planet, orbiting a gas giant whose Helium 3 extractors were owned by the Russian giant Gazprom and closer to the raw resources the Brazilians mined. Mindoir was the poster boy of economic globalization at a galactic scale: several countries formed a joint venture to colonize the planet, and the capital city of 5 million reflected that diversity.

Outside city limits lived the other 20 million who called the planet home. Mostly farmers that came to the new world to escape rising cost of living and the scarcity and astronomical prices of land back on Earth. Small villages and cottage industries served as junction points for the distant farms to conduct business, sell their crops and buy their necessities.

The 25 million inhabitants of Mindoir, both urban and rural, didn't expect that their planet was about to be the stage for the worst pirate raid in centuries. The planetary defenses were the responsibility of the consortium of nations who controlled, nominally, the planet. As such, a respectable flotilla of ships from several countries roomed the star system. Some 8 cruisers, 5 of which were Japanese and Russian, and the rest Brazilian and Argentinian and 12 destroyers, along some 20 small missile boats.

What the local authorities didn't know, because their metropolitan authorities didn't as well, was the brewing civil conflict inside the Hegemony. The opposing factions needed resources to come on top of the struggle and, for a society like theirs, it meant slave. That fact was obvious for the Great Powers who went to great lengths to monitor the domestic situation of the Batarians, but the rest of Earth's nations couldn't afford to have such a complex intelligence apparatus. This failure of communication trough the diplomatic channel of the UN would generate geo-political ripples for decades to come.

Normally a Batarian slaver party would use secondhand equipment, frigates, and corvettes, rarely a cruiser, "stolen" from the Hegemony. The Batarians offloaded old hardware to these groups to ensure that they had enough firepower and to guarantee some basic deniability.

But as desperation grew on the Batarian home systems, so did their willingness to commit brand new resources flying their Navy's colors. The commanders of Mindoir's Defense Fleet were astounded when, trough the relay, came not the motley band of barely flyable "warships" people expected from pirates, but rather, a fully-fledged detachment of the Batarian Navy. 14 cruisers and 20 frigates, and swarms of dropships escorted by fighters.

The battle was fierce. Batarian naval tech wasn't, by far, the cutting edge in the galaxy, but neither were the forces opposing them. Russian cruisers were European designs, but with mass accelerator cannons firing tungsten slugs instead of the powerful particle lance used by the originals, the Japanese built theirs like the galactic standard: a long, spinal mounted gun with two barrels. Brazil and Argentina bought second hand American cruisers, with a mix of mass accelerator guns and anti-ship missiles. Their destroyers were the standard for Earth: anti-fighter missiles and anti-ship cruise missiles, but without all the fanciness of a Chinese torpedo.

The opening salvos of the Batarians did damage, but not enough to outright cripple any ship defending the colony. Admiral Hayato, commanding the defense, immediately ordered half of his destroyers to fall back and prepare to engage the fighters and dropships, their utility against capital ships available anyway as they'd be firing smart missiles.

Hayato then ordered all destroyers and cruiser with missiles to focus on the frigates, the nimble craft capable of evading shots from the main guns with ease. His strategy paid off, GARDIAN system couldn't hope to defeat so many missiles at once, and at least 6 frigates were destroyed outright, with a couple more disabled, but the superiority in number the Batarians had took its tool. As the ranges decreased, their shots became more accurate, and soon two of his destroyers fell pray to their cruisers's main guns. Their disadvantage could only be negated by bold maneuvering, and he took a page of the European's doctrine and ordered the 3 Russian cruisers to micro FTL right in the middle of the enemy formation. Since their guns were in turrets that could traverse a given angle much faster than a whole Batarian cruiser trying to do the same, they would be perfectly positioned to delivery crippling blows to the vulnerable broadsides of the Batarians, their broadsides cannons too weak to be a threat.

His strategy worked wonders and soon 3 batarian cruisers were out of the fight, one of them breaking in two. A portion of the Batarians cruisers were turning to intercept the Russian, but that was a mistake they paid dearly for. Exposing their broadsides to the waiting Japanese and south American cruisers, another two cruisers were knocked out. But his forces too were taking a beat. Most of the destroyers fell prey to the Batarian cruisers, 7 out of the original 12 were destroyed or severely crippled. His gun boats were not faring much better, the nimble frigates making short work of them, but not before some of them falling to a barrage of missiles.

When a Russian cruiser took a hit from a Batarian cruiser and was swarmed and destroyed by their frigates, he knew it was time for a retreat. As the combined Japanese and south american forces covered the retreat, another Argentinian cruiser was hit, catastrophic explosion wiping out an unsuspecting missile boat passing near it. He could only pray that the defenses on the planet would hold, and his destroyers had done enough damage to the landing party.

Hayato's gamble sending part of his destroyers to engage the landing craft paid off. 40% of the Batarian strength was gone before they even entered atmo. But still, there were at least 200 barges and dropships, and another 60 gunships ready to terrorize the population below. Their plan was attacking both the dispersed farmlands and the city, but the city was the secondary target, and so 150 barges and 30 gunships went their way to the countryside.

Those who stayed on course to hit Leningrad found a nasty surprise waiting for them. Built by Russians, one thing the city didn't lack was modern anti-aircraft systems. As soon as the Batarian crafts entered atmosphere above the city, they were marked by radars and laser designators. S700 missiles tore trough unsuspecting ships, the ones lucky enough to survive until past the minimum range of the missiles fell to a barrage of 20mm cannon fire. In the end, only 10 slaver barges got into the city, with virtually no air support, the gunships still alive fighting desperately to stay that way.

The response was quick on the ground. Special Police units converged on the landing sites and engaged the dazed Batarians. Few tried to surrender to the humans, none were captured alive.

But on the countryside, the Batarian tactic used in Amaterasu worked perfectly. Owing to the lack of sufficient air defense coverage, the Batarians could operate unimpeded, losing only a couple of gunships and barges to the enemy. The small villages fell with easy, the local police dying before they could even raise their guns. The population, as in Amaterasu, fought bravely, but with no result. By the end of the day, there were 140 barges loaded with new slaves, almost one hundred thousand colonists taken from their homes.

Kremlin, Moscow, two hours after the attack

…. Reports are coming in that a massive slaver attack has hit the international colony of Mindoir. Our preliminary sources say that more than one hundred thousand people were taken, mostly from the countryside. City official of Leningrad, the capital city, say that they repelled an attack against the city and inflicted heavy losses on the Batarian slavers, with at least 30 gunships and 40 transport vessels destroyed before touching ground. The remaining Batarian troops were killed in intense ground combat against special response teams, who estimate that at least 200 batarians were killed on ground action and another 830 dead on the destroyed landing craft.

Reports from space paint a grim picture for the International Consortium controlling Mindoir. Two cruisers, one Russian and one Argentina, were destroyed, and another two were severely damaged in the fight. The destroyer complement lost 7 ships out of 12. All 20 patrol boats were destroyed. Estimated space casualties are close to 1500 killed. The Batarians losses were heavy, but they had more ships committed and were able to drive off the defending forces and escape with the kidnaped colonists. Batarians lost four cruisers and ten frigates to some 1300 dead.

The Russian president turned off the TV. Mindoir was a disaster, and the UN and Great Powers were too slow to react. Something must be done, so he went to the communications room on the Kremlin. "Operator please, contact the Migrant Fleet, tell them Russia has an invitation"

A/N: So the drums of war beat ever louder...

And the quarians are coming

Also, I'd like to thank all my readers for all the faves and subscribes. Never had I imagined my first ever fic, one I started as a means to procrastinate my master's thesis would get such a big following! Special thanks for all the review guys. And since my self granted "vacations" from college technically ended with the new year, I'll probably upload less frequently now, but I'l try to give you guys at least two chapters per week.

As a thank you, here's a rough outline of where the story is going from now on

-Quarian/neutral powers accords

-Overt interference on the Batarian Civil War by the Great Powers (and everyone else who wishes to pitch in)

-Intensification of slaver operations against the Great Powers, culminating on the Skylian Blitz (yes, Elysium! But not only, remember, Terra Nova and Eden Prime are just a relay hop away...)

-All out intervention, blessed by the UN, against the Hegemony

-No one can agree on a objective for the war (do we annex them, do we regime change them, do we support a slave's and worker's revolution?)

-Some people will certanly discover some Hegemony's secrets by the end of it

-Saren arc and ME1