Expansion Edition

by Danen5

Its a game. Or is it? Turians get to welcome the denizens of a Stellaris based civilization that is hell bent on the extermination of all aliens, well except for some. Of course the Turians fired first, Galactic laws and all that bullshit. In return they are faced with an enemy that doesn't play fair. Warning: HFY. Read at your own peril AU Fic. Edit: On indefinite Hiatus

6. Chapter 5: Reset

Disclaimer:

I don't own Stellaris or Mass Effect and anything associated with them other than OCs and some random stuff. Also I don't own SOASE and Homeworld and any other RTS features that belong to them. (Added for story telling purposes)

AN:
This chapter will feel a little like a rewrite but I've kept the main elements that I started with except with wide a wide variety of differences RTS-wise, think of this as an alternate (Stellaris) timeline where similar or not so similar events occurred right up until the Geth boarded the battleship Nathan was on in the last chapter, comments are welcome but anyways on with the story…

PS:

I left a lot easter eggs in this chapter see if you can spot them...

=/\=

Early 2018
0850 hrs

I was notified of one of my un-merged ships going dark, as in gone missing, now this would have undoubtedly not make much of a difference for any playthrough that I manage to actually finish, but for some reason the little helpful popup icon tooltip was displaying several ? symbols where the date of reappearance would be. I was naturally curious and thought nothing of it as I watched as yet again my powerful space fleet of advanced warships of only three hundred ships managed to rout just a little over 2000 Turian ships. Not to brag but that's just a given, what with my civ's advanced tech and superior tactics…okay now I'm just gloating but that's not the point.

Nope.

The point at this point in time, is that right now I'm staring at a pile of smoking piece of junk that used to be my laptop. It had blown up, literally, in my face as I watched the Turians flee the field. In my short-sighted excitement I managed to knock over my cup of coffee, which had kept me going for the past 13 hours or so, right into my latptop's keyboards which no doubt leaked into the damned thing and short-circuited everything in it!

I hate Saturdays.

What really pissed me off though is that I'm gonna have to buy a new laptop and that's not cool, I can barely manage to keep my apartment let alone afford a new one. I'm going to have to sleep on it till I figure out what to do about it…not to mention the lost data from my games, I'm going to have to start over again, man I hate Saturdays.

On Monday…

So yeah, I was at the bank this morning, to take out a loan when I suddenly had a bright idea! Not gonna loan from the bank, but I do know of a place where they can give you a decent loan…I just need to pay back every dime afterwards. My sister would probably break every bone in my body for just thinking about it buuut…

If all goes well I can get a new computer within the next few hours and be back playing after that. I'm pretty much addicted so…yeah. Now the guy I'm loaning from is actually, or was, a sort of friend of mine from high school, good guy but with his family history I just might die for even knowing him…here's to hoping I don't. Even then I made sure to write down about what I do and who I met and kept a meticulous account for where, when, how and who I do my businesses with and with this guy it was especially important. Atleast if I die, those who killed me wouldn't get away with it, I made sure to record a few of our conversations as well, a sure way to get me killed with this crowd but I needed the money and my sister would never indulge my little hobbie.

"So Ray, we good?" I asked my loaning buddy as he took moment to mull it over, in reality he was just putting on that little show for intimidation purposes which I totally get, though not really afraid of him, I am a little scared of the big hulk Hogan lookalike standing at the door behind me. Every now and then I glance at him just to make sure he's still there and not, say, an inch or two from my back.

"Oh, we're good…but there's just one question I have to ask." He said to me while staring right into my eyes, I swear he could see my soul as he did that. I managed to keep eye contact but I began to waver but fortunately he broke it off as he sighed. "Why the hell would borrow a measly 700 bucks when you can easily afford that amount of cash with what you're doing?"

I blinked twice remaining silent…I didn't have the heart to tell him I was fired really recently so I've been putting more time into video games than I would have normally did these past few months. So I just shrugged.

"Listen, I've known you since high school and even if we weren't that close I kinda still remember what you did for me back then." He said, I saw a slight hint of reminiscent smile on his face. I was honestly lost as to what he was referring to because I certainly didn't remember doing anything of note that…oh crap, this is something to do with whatever happened that time I woke up to suddenly find out I'm an uncle of two…I didn't really put much thought into it but I think maybe this is something I need to look into before a surprise I don't want decides to rear its ugly head. Not that being an uncle to two wonderful kids whose anime hobbies are something I'm proud they picked up from me…but back to the current point.

"I'll give you the money and we'll call it even." He told me as I sputtered out a reply but failed miserably but he laughed at that. "Just make sure you don't show up here again after this, because you're a good guy and I seriously don't want to have you owe me money, verstehen?"

I nodded.

Apartment…

I returned to my place 700 dollars richer than when I left it and from there set my plans to go out and get me that laptop I saw. It was a nice one, affordable and reliable, plus it was brand new and one of the few deals I could actually get with my current unemployed status. The last job I had was not too demanding but the manager was not someone who I liked very much, so when I filed a formal complaint, I got back a reply telling me I was fired. WTF!

So now I'm jobless, my friends lent me money but that was a pitiful amount compared to this, of course my sister's husband managed to sneak a couple of grand over to me which I wisely kept in hard currency instead of depositing it in the bank. That money I burned through with rent, food necessities, electric and water bills, fuel for my ride, and a few other stuff too boring to mention. Not much left of it…

I looked at the time and it told me I should go to sleep which I did and with a small smile on my lips I drifted off into sleep.

=/\=

"Sir! We're getting killed out here!" I stare angrily at the radio as the man's voice from the other side came in. "Our position is too heavily compromised, we've got enemy flankers on our sides and the platoons carrying our heavy guns are gone. What are your orders?!"

"Fight to the last man," I screamed into the transmitter to him, "We can't let those fracking tin heads have this ship!"

I cut off the line before turning to the man beside me, he looked grim as if he knew what I was going to say. Can't blame him, since it was inevitable and quite frankly still had me pondering the shit out of my brain how the fracked synthetics managed to get the better of my men! Not to mention this state of the art ship I was given command of…some state of the art it's turning out to be. Pfft.

"Lieutenant, initiate Scuttle protocol." I affirmed with a grim nod, he only stared at me with blank saddened eyes and a slight nod. "I'm afraid this is the last time we see another fight. By the Holy One I just hope there are actually 72 virgins waiting for me at the other side…and hopefully not a 72 year old virgin."

I say that part out loud enough that the men could hear, some laughed at that but others just stared forlornly at their monitors. It was a tough decision to make and it was perhaps the only one currently, mayhaps there was another way but I can't let this kind of tech only we possessed fall into an unknown's hands in this galaxy.

A few minutes later I keyed in the codes needed for the reactors to overheat and as the world around me was engulfed in white blinding light I can only think of home and the little baby girl I left behind without a father….I'm sorry my little angel know that I lo—

=/\=

I woke up feeling a lot less relaxed than I anticipated and maybe that was because it had something to do with that weird dream I had last night but I got over it and began doing my morning routine, you know, the usual shitting, bathing, breakfasting, and so many other minor stuff we take for granted each and every day we get out of bed. It occurred to me that not many appreciate the fact that they wake up every morning, and not dead. But I digress…

This morning was going to be different, because as I head out the door and got on my bike, I felt the air shift in the direction where I was going and knew instantly that I was going to be one lucky owner of a new affordable gaming laptop. It was a Lenovo one but specifically made for games in mind, other brands such as MSV or AlienWare were good but I kept up to date with the latest trends of game laptops and found out that a Lenovo brand was making headway as on top but then again there's always the HP and DELL brands which were close behind. Quality was something I wanted and be affordable too so when I saw the deal with this one I just had to have it…though there was something shady about the dealer when I met him.

Fun fact is that it came with a small VR headset too and that was going to be useful for those new fighter pilot games I wanted. This is going to shape up to be an exciting time for me. Though I will still play Stellaris, if not to continue it, then only because the new update was proving to be exciting with new features straight out of something LUCASARTS would have thought about.

It took the better part of the day to actually buy the laptop, the guy was a chatty one and he spoke to me about various subjects all ranging from microprocessing power, memory storage, RAM space, SSD drives and a few other things that went completely way over my head. I know a nerd when I see one, though this one dressed oddly, I'm as much a geek as the next guy but not that much! An hour later and I'm sitting on my desk back in my apartment setting up the final touches to my new computer.

I'm not an IT so the least I could do to make sure my stuff was protected by the best security software program available and also to setup many other features needed for smooth sailing a new game and make sure it worked well. I paid a hefty sum to get this all done (left over from the 2k), but it was worth it as I began reinstalling all of my games from one of three external drives I kept as backups in case of such emergencies as an exploding laptop. So when the final green line finished and I organized my games into a manner I can easily manage them in, I took to connecting my computer to the wi-fi in the building and got a firm and strong connection. One of the many benefits of having an apartment in this district was the free wi-fi, it was a blessing and it was fast too so no complaining from me.

I decided to open my mail and see what was going there, I found nothing of note, only a couple of new mails from some colleagues and they were rather dull. After that I decided to skip any social media stuff and head straight into the game itself. Said game being Stellaris, because I said so, and when I had finished adding the new update and opening it, I was actually surprised to see the same thing that greeted me the last I ran the game. There in all its glory was the Mass Relay but there was a difference this time around, the sequence where a small shuttle craft approaches the relay was instead replaced by a large structure off to the left side, just barely inside of view. It was a space station I think, but I didn't pay it too much attention, though I caught a glimpse of the little shuttle, just as I quickly pulled up the load menu and got exactly what I expected to see.

There was that button with the red trashcan icon that says the saved file was incompatible with the current update. Although I still had the same race of humans when I looked at the new game menu, which was kind of lucky or suspicious depending on how you looked at it but that's another story, which had a few new races added to it, mostly mechanical and the new type of humanoid species (or in the Tunarin's case – Tunaroid), but to tell the truth I was downtrodden and feeling a bit mad about the abrupt ending of my playthrough and therefore subsequent loss of my saved data but I decided to soldier on and make do with a restart. Hopefully the new features will offset my disappointment.

I did notice that the title, which still said Expansion Edition, in the main menu sported a different writing style and had Cherryh 2.0.1 written at the end of it in small fonts, not discounting the slightly smaller cursive font that said, Apocalypse, in a creepy orange color. Also the style and color of the relay was different somewhat, not silver with a dark purplish-blue orb at the bulging end but was more beige and brown with a slightly lighter shade of blue where the same bulging gyroscope was located. It still retained that tuning fork look it's so famous for but I think the small color change was a nice touch yet insignificant, though I still can't tell how big it is and whether or not it's a main relay.

Honestly though, I just wanted to see the new Colossus and Titan class ships in action and what their effects were like, nothing is more satisfying than seeing things happening with your eyes where your hands caused the actions than to watch youtube videos about it. Anyways, I selected my own custom race, the Tunarin Imperial Covenant and decided that a small change in history, ethics and government was in order. Nothing too big, although the new humanoid ship type was interesting so I went with that too, otherwise it was mostly the same, the design of the banner was also something I changed into the two headed Aquila. Finished with the refinements I pressed the done button and instead of giving me the menu where I can customize the type of galaxy I want, the thing just blinked out on me before coming back on with the loading screen.

For the next few minutes I stared at the unreasonably long loading bar making its way through the first quarter. By this time I was pacing back and forth in front of my desk waiting for this insufferable thing to finish loading. It used to take no more than a minute two for it to load but this is just ridiculous! I look at my watch and saw that it's now been exactly 34 minutes and 21 seconds and counting since I pushed that done button. I don't know why but I got an odd feeling as I watched the same pictures loop over and over again, but I ignore it. Giving up I actually found myself in the small living room doing the pace once more in front of my TV. Plopping down on the sofa I waited for what seemed like ages when I grumbled and got back up heading back into my room and I saw that the loading had finally reached near the end of the bar. I sighed in frustration as I sat down and glared at the screen before the damned thing finally shifted to the now familiar sight of the greeting message.

Only I actually stopped my usual dismissal of the message as I saw what was written on it. It was sort of flattering and a little informative but nothing else. I quickly dismissed it and began the usual drill of having my scientist to survey the system but stopped when I noticed something new…something that I was sure the new update hadn't implemented as of yet, and certainly something that brought up memories of me wanting to ask the developers about this Expansion Edition that had popped up in my laptop. It seemed to me that it was trying to focus my attention on Mass Effect but wouldn't a mod be the same? Is this even a mod? And how come there weren't any announcements about this in the first place? All good questions...but...uh...what was I thinking about again?

I got this strange feeling that I missed on something, there's a blank page, sort of, that I can't seem to put my finger on...huh, crazy. I stare at my computer and the current issue I'm having right now is that there seemed to be a large rearrangement of the size disparity between the planets and everything else, including the space station floating near the now appropriately sized star. The new computer also seemed to be worth the graphic cards I had installed just in case, it was an awesome addition but the new up to scale sizes still had me in a loop well after the novelty ran out. I then noticed that I didn't need to build any mining or research stations due to the already existing structures so I turned my attention the planet. Thankfully all the usual stuff hadn't drastically changed aside from the fact that now I had a limit on how many fleets I can call up and maintain as well as the fact that everything is up to scale.

I seriously can't tell what is going on other than there may be more changes in the update than what was shown…I have to check the web later to make sure. For now however, I mouse over the downward pointed arrow on the upper left bar and saw that the sub-menu still showed the usual stuff from the previous update. Nodding to myself I got rid of that and moved on, there were the contact, situation log and the other menus on that bar with the double Aquila on the far top left corner which was the summary of my empire in all.

I checked over the planet and found it to be a nice and big one with 24 tiles. 8 of which were unoccupied, 4 were blocked by slums or industrial wastelands and the remainder occupied. I had in my coffers 1k energy, 2k mineral deposits, 500 influence, and 0 unity, the first two caught my attention when I looked at them, this was weird. Generally when starting off the first two resources were more in the 100 range as was the influence if not less, but I wasn't going to complain, more resources means more time for me to invest in meaningful projects and get a sizable economy going much earlier than my previous playthroughs. Though when I selected my science vessel, oh and did I mention that the new ship types were also much more aesthetically pleasing and cream-white in color but with red highlights across their surface hulls. It was sort of refreshing to see the ship becoming more like it should when orbiting a planet, as I watched its floating form silhouetted by the planet's darkside. Said world was a lush tropical moon orbiting a giant gas world which had a mineral mining station hovering over its large body, the station tiny in comparison to the gas giant. One must have wondered why I wasn't freaking out about this but I frankly couldn't care less, but I was feeling giddy on the inside, but maintained a calm exterior look if only to stop myself from cackling like a madman at the new look the game had.

It certainly had that SOASE or Homeworld feel to it now but it still retained the features that made it Stellaris such as only being able to control ships in a group or fleet, though a single ship can be a fleet on its own but then they'd just get shredded. There's something that I can't put my finger on at the moment…like something is watching me, I can feel a kind of tiny bit of pressure that comes and goes…ack…what the hell am I saying, at this rate I'm going to go insane. I looked over at the top right and see that, yes, indeed I've started over again from the default point of 2200. 01.01, this is going to take a long time. Maybe I should just open the ~ menu and use those helpful commands?

Anyways, with the science ship selected, I mouse over the galaxy view button and found the camera zooming, rather quickly, out of the system before settling over the usual sight common to the Stellaris map of the galaxy. I scrolled out and as the view reached its highest point I let go of the mouse and just stared at the screen for a looooongg while. I finally spoke, mostly to myself, as I recovered, the words I uttered as I still stared somewhat disbelievingly at the screen were, "This is new..."

Understatement of my current playthrough or any other ones I went through. Also I've been meaning to ask the devs on Steam about this Mass Effect stuff…but I'll leave that for later though. Looking at my screen now has got me thinking as to how the heck my graphic card is keeping up with this much data…not to mention the last time I played on my other laptop.

=/\=

(Beginning of sorta like in-game history flashback…)

(Gameplay Time: 2 hrs 36 mins 24+secs)

2230. 3. 23 CC
Holy Swift/4th Fleet

Composition:
15x [Annoyance Class - Corvettes]
10x [TorpSlinger Class - Corvettes]
15x [Interceptor Class - Corvettes]
Total Contingent: 40 Corvettes

[Youthful Shot – Annoyance Class Corvette]
[Capt. Nimda Wennyporth]

"What's the status on the hyperdrive, Ensign Moor?" The Captain, a burly, barrel chested late-middle aged man, with graying hairlines and a scowl that seemed permanently affixed to his face, asked of the young fellow seated on the terminal a meter to the right and front of his command chair.

"Hyperdrive is charged and ready to engage, on your orders sir." Ensign Moor, a lanky teen with a small soul patch under his chin replied smartly and quickly. Something the captain approved of in his subordinates.

"Good, order fleet to engage their hyperdrives at max speed." Capt. Nimda ordered but continued on, "What's the projected estimate of travel?"

"No more than 3 days, sir." Ensign Moor informed him and he nodded his thanks before turning to the Chief Security Officer, whose terminal placed him directly to the captain's left side. "I want weapons primed but put the safety on just in case."

"Understood, sir." The CSO confirmed but had the 'look' as it were, he was naturally curious as to why the captain wanted weapons online. Seeing the affirmation, the CSO continued. "We expecting trouble on the other side?"

"Nothing much." Nimda spoke confidently, projecting his aura of authority over the CSO and in addition to the crew. Though he did impart caution, "Planetary sensors detected a large cluster of unknown objects that seemed to be moving of their own accord in the system we're heading to. So keep alert and tell the other ships to do the same."

"Aye, sir." The Communications Officer, a woman whose name he hadn't remembered or knew, spoke up. 'Must be new.' Nimda thought as he returned to watching the fleet's status as the greenlit for hyperjump to commence. He liked this part of space travel, one where an object could literally bend some of physics rules to achieve faster than light travel. Mostly however, it was thanks to the discovery of the hyperlane networks that allowed for his people to traverse the distances between the local star cluster they inhabited by breaching hyperspace and access the lane between two stars. Usually this would take a lot of time but with the new upgrades to the hyperdrive, the charge up and recharge time were cut down by a significant margin.

"Hyperdrive is engaged, we're through the breach in 3…2…1."

The world around Nimda seemed to sudden shift to the front as his vision formed a tunnel as the forward bridge expanded like a rubber being pulled and just as suddenly it all snapped back into normal. Feeling a bit disoriented from the push into the hyperlane, he got up and turned to his XO on the right of his seat. "Commander, you have the con. I'll be in my cabin when you need me."

"Aye, sir." Nimda gave a curt nod as he passed by his XO heading to the lift. It opened and he stepped through it. As the door was closing he smiled to himself as he watched his XO get comfortable in the command chair, he had high hopes for the young man…if only his mother was here to see him, his thoughts darkened as he remembered a life so distantly in the past, a life of hard choices made and of promises not kept, of when he was a young fool seeking to claim fame and glory. Well look how that turned out, a wife who hated his guts, a child he never knew and a life wasted in pursuit of things he could never have. But now he was going to make amends, even if his kid didn't know it, he'll do everything he can to make sure his son becomes a greater man than he could ever be.

The door to the lifts closed.

Altair System
3 Days later…

Captain Nimda Wennyporth woke up to the sounds of alarms blaring and banging on his cabin door. He quickly got up and staggered to the door shaking his head, the noise and blinding red lights causing him to disorient. He pushed the pad on the door and it slid open, in front of him was a black clad security officer, he looked at the man and saw the bruise on his face.

"What the hell is going, Trooper?" Nimda grounded out the words, still refocusing on his surroundings, the noise and lights weren't helping him.

"Sir, we're under attack." The trooper said, his voice wavering but more in anger than fear. His weapon tightly gripped and horizontal across his chest and abdomen, he continued, "You're needed on the bridge."

The captain nodded and began a steady pace toward the lifts, gradually coming into focus once more when he broke into a run. Reaching and entering the lift he waited impatiently as it moved, the doors barely opened when he burst through and ran over to his command chair. His XO returning to his seat when he saw him, when he was seated he barked out, "Report!"

"Unknown entities broke through our formation, sir." The CSO, Martin his name was, informed the captain. "Our weapons were online so we were able to hold them off long enough for our ships to get their bearings, but we lost five corvettes."

Nimda closed his eyes in silent prayer to the Holy One before his eyes snapped open, steeling himself and taking in the visual information as fast as possible. He looked them over again before asking, "Numbers?"

"Over twenty-three sir but these things are tough to crack." The Sensor Officer reported grimly. "Our energy based weaponry is having minimal effect. Kinetics work just fine though."

"What are we up against?"

The Sensor Officer looked at his terminal, "Unknown sir, the sensors aren't making any sense. I'm getting chemical composition readings on the unknowns…dimensions put them at roughly the size of our corverttes or smaller but no discernible weakness other than their vulnerability to kinetics…which I might add we don't have a lot of."

The captain, growled in frustration, as he thought back to the designs of the corvettes, too reliant of laser DEWs with only single coil guns on the Interceptors and Annoyance class of corvettes. However, he set that aside as he ordered full visual of the enemy, the things were made of jagged edges and blocky tower like surfaces that were faintly glowing and reflective and came in different colors. From somewhere within them…they were like floating crystals in space and from what he remembered from the TOP SECRET report he was handed when the fleet left for this system, the top egg heads were working on figuring out what these things were.

"Sir," The Comm Officer, that woman whose name he really should know before he makes a fool of himself, pulled him out of his thoughts. "Orders from the Admiral, coordinates have been sent to us."

"Alright, hand them over to Ensign Moor." She nodded and typed a few commands on her terminal. He turned his gaze over to the Ensign to address him, "Moor, punch in those coordinates and get us out of here."

"Aye, sir, Punching in coordinates…prepare for micro-jump in 3…2…1." The ship lurched and similar to the effects of hyperspace travel, the ship's view was stretched forwards before snapping back into normalcy. The captain shook his head, thinking 'never gonna get used to that.'

"Status report!" Nimda called out to the crew of his bridge most of them looking confused and disoriented.

"Sensors are recalibrating."

"Weapons are still online."

"Communications are offline."

"Secondary hyperdrives are in cooldown. Time to next micro-jump is 30 minutes. Thrusters are online, reorienting."

"Hull integrity at 87%, hull breaches detected in sector 4 and 7. Blast doors have closed off the affected sectors."

"Medical reports several crew injured, four dead and six in critical condition."

The report went on before it finally stopped and the Comm Officer yelled out in triumph as she said, "Communications are back online!"

Captain Nimda sighed with relief. He needed to contact the Admiral and the rest of the fleet to get their bearings, "Patch me through to the flagship."

"Aye, sir, patching you through now, expect minor static interference." He thanked her before the call was established and the voice of the Admiral came over his personal comm.

"…an…is..s…miral…T..r…o…n…wha….ur…stus…ver…" Nimda couldn't make out what was being said so he glanced at his Comm Officer who was working furiously on her terminal to fix the heavy interference. After a few moments she looked back and nodded to him. Again the call came in but this time it was a bit more clearer.

"Can…ou…hear…e…this…Adm…a…Tyrieoon. What is your status, over?" Nimda immediately replied.

"Admiral, if you're hearing me, this Captain Wennyporth. We're shaken but okay, our ship is still in this fight."

"Good…o…hear." The Admiral replied, his voice was still being randomly cut out by static but Nimda can understand what was said now. "..thers have…ported in. We're all here, ou…pus..back toward th…nemy will…comm…nce in 20 minutes. Confirm?"

"Confirmed, this is Captain Nimda Wennyporth of the Indomitable Soul ready and waiting. Out." The Captain cut his line before turning to his crew. "Looks like we'll be going back in to teach whatever those are a lesson."

The crew cheered but remained solemn. They had lost a lot of good friends when those ships were lost in the initial attack, now they were going back in and potentially putting more lives at risk but they were warriors blessed by the guiding hand of the Holy One, even if sometimes that hand led them to their deaths. In the end though, it was all done for the greater good of all Tunarin people, the Covenant pact made with the holy entity at the dawn of their civilization is binding and ever present, though in recent times it has become less and less visible. Wherein the past the people as a whole would be gifted with resources and miracles, now the Holy One's presence seemed to have diminished though there were still signs of His power here and there. Such as when a fleet is sent out, armies marched to war, and generally things that needed direction. Nimda noticed these things but never commented on them, others have said that the imperator was the Holy One himself but Nimda dismissed that idea as ludicrous.

It was widely known that the Holy One worked His miracles by using exceptionally gifted individuals who became, in time, known as the Imperators. Not just anyone could just become an Imperator, one must have strength in the gift in order to be considered and then seated upon the Imperial Throne which is said to be crafted from a fallen star and had magical like properties that allowed for a better connection with the Holy One when the Imperator sat upon it.

For now the captain focused on the task at hand as the his ship went into formation with the fleet and the order was sent for the ships to charge the crystal like entities. He always sent a sideways glance to his XO and smiled inwardly with pride as he saw him with that determined expression he knew of another person would often get. He returned his attention to the matter at hand as the fleet drew closer, the battle ahead will no doubt prove whether or not the Tunarin people are ready to face the galaxy's dangers but with the Holy One guiding them, there can be no doubt that they will prevail.

'Hopefully…' he thought grimly as the opening volley from their Torpslingers sent dozens of torpedoes toward the crystal menaces.

(End of sorta like in-game history flashback…)

=/\=

2183 CE
[Unknown Location]

A large star within the centre of the system that had few to no celestial bodies in its orbit floated there in a serene yet chaotic show of existence, its surface a hotbed of solar flares and heat waves battering the singular artificial structure suspended in geosynchronistic orbit around said star. It was a peculiar design, vertical and narrow with slight curved slants above and below, several jutting structures dotted is surface in its midriff. Lights from external viewing windows and ports showed signs of life.

It was a space station owned and operated by none other than the foremost of humanity's best, the home of one Illusive Man, currently seated on his throne with monitors providing additional lighting in his very dark office. Spaciously carvernous and quite a bit lonesome if the Illusive Man was honest with himself but it's just how he liked it. The clicking sound of heels he knew so well approached him from behind as he puffed out smoke from the cigar he had in his right hand, tucked comfortably in between his index and middle finger.

"I trust you have something important." He puffed out another plume of wispy smoke, annoyed at the interruption but welcoming it anyways, it can be rather dull just watching the holographic monitors every day, but the view of the white star did provide some sense of calm and serenity to his workplace.

"Of course," A woman, whose voice was punctuated with a rather hypnotic alluring accent, stood in a casual pose behind the Illusive Man's chair. Said man just stared at the monitors before turning around, his cold blue mechanically glowing eyes staring at the young woman. She wore her signature skintight catsuit, white with black and had the vertical orange Cerberus hexagon above her right breast. The Illusive Man was no pervert as he took in her appearance but he's not one to miss out on appreciating the perfection that was Miranda Lawson, a byproduct of his friend's madness to leave a legacy. He gestured for her to continue as he brought his cigar to his lips taking in a breath before letting it out in a cloud of smoke swirling around his head.

"Our agents detected Geth activity outside the Perseus Veil, in Turian space." She said, she was the picture of professionalism as she began her report. "Said agents managed to secure a rather promising specimen from the wreckage of spaceship we believe matched up with what rumors we keep hearing about from the edge of Turian held space, toward the outer rim."

"What specimen did they bring?" She cleared her throat as if apprehensive to divulge the information but a glare made her part with the information.

"Our agents were initially confused but were professional about it," Miranda was still not sure whether to believe the scientists but she had seen the specimen for herself and what she found certainly startled her, and she wasn't one to easily be surprised. Yet there are some things even she couldn't quite fully come to terms with, such as not being able to firmly control the way things would turn out, but alas this concerned the Illusive Man and he was someone not to be underestimated. "The specimen, from what our initial examinations could tell us, was human. The agents did a scan on him and saw he had an anomalous organ tissue in his skull that was attached to his brain which turns out to be a biomechanical implant of some kind.

"Our scientists are still trying to figure out what it is but they know that it had more processing power, enough that it is as close to a rudimentary AI system if used on its own." She explained, the Illusive Man listening intently but she couldn't tell for sure as he sent another wisp of whitey smoke streaming out of his mouth. "We're trying to analyze the material but so far we've had little success. Then there is the armor he had on him, it was heavily damaged and unsalvageable but the metal, and what circuitry we found in it, used to construct it proves that it is far advanced than anything we have. Also he had a single weapon on him, for all intents and purposes after we determined its properties it is a true handheld directed-energy-weapon."

That last bit of info had the Illusive Man's eyes widen a short margin. His expression made the young woman smile, "What can we expect from reverse engineering the tech from this specimen?"

"Aside from the metal from the armor, which proved to be more durable than current metal used in armor today," Miranda pondered, "the weapon will prove to be more difficult but given time we'll be able to field less powerful but nonetheless effective firearm prototypes. Though the cost will be immense to even produce a small number of them, what concerns me is the specimen. He's clearly human but the level of evolutionary development is rather worrisome."

"How?"

"Large traces of nuclear radiation were found in his organs and what remained of his blood arteries and veins." She explained, watching the frown appear on the Illusive Man's face, she went on. "That had us put the corpse in quarantine, we were able to determine that the radiation is harmless but we're not taking any chances. We did check the armor and other equipment he had on him but none showed signs of radiation. Further testing showed he had extensive enhancements made to his skeleton which we found to be denser and more larger, thus making him taller than an average human, easily over seven feet.

"His remaining internal organs were quite extensively damaged, one of his arms was severed below the elbow and shrapnel were embedded along his left side. His face was a mess, burned and melted by something. He died a horrendous and excruciating painful death. His remains were found floating in the void by our agents as they searched the wreckage, there was sign of a ship but I believe it has either been hauled off by someone but I cannot be too sure."

"Keep the specimen on ice for now, learn what you can about the enhancements he has." The Illusive Man turned around to look back at the monitors and as the clicking sound of Miranda's shoes echoed away he spoke her name. "Miranda…"

She paused, he'd never used her first name without a good reason, and its usually when he wanted something done and overseen by her personally. She waited patiently. He didn't disappoint.

"We may have to utilize a certain asset when the time presents itself." He said casually but she frowned at what he was suggesting. "I know you'll not disappoint me."

"Of course, Illusive Man." She replied and headed out of the large dark office. The Illusive Man, Jack Harper, curled his lips into an evil smile as he beheld the benefits from the unknown human's gifts, with this he could further his other plans…but for now he felt a headache as a new report came in from his agents about another Cerberus facility going dark. 'Damn Spectre.' He scowled as a video footage of a Mako APC tank rolling through said facility, gun blazing and wreaking havoc, causing him untold property damage.

=/\=

2183 CE
[Citadel – Human Embassy Office]

"What's this I hear about an attack on the Turians?" Donnel Udina, the annoying piece of shit that was humanity's ambassador to the Citadel asked the stern faced military officer sitting across from him. They were lounging around the office having just arrived from the small cafeteria on the same floor their embassy was on.

"Nothing much to say, just rumors." Captain David Anderson, a military man through and through and the mentor and father figure of a certain, first human, Spectre. "The Councilors hinted they may need our help soon, I've already informed Admiral Hackett."

"Help?" Udina raised a brow in response and then proceeded to angrily complain. "WE need the help, not the Council. Our colony was hit and they need our help for TURIANS?!"

"We're part of something greater." Anderson retorted, sure they were Turians, whom humans had a bad first encounter with, but that wasn't an excuse to ignore their plea for help…wait scratch that, not a plea but a demand. He sighed, "Listen, Udina, I don't want to argue about it, so just drop the subject."

Just then the doors open and in stepped a heavily armed and armored individual, behind her two people, an Asari and another human followed in. They stopped and looked at each other, Anderson regarding the woman in front of him with pride. Udina just scoffed before he grounded out, "If anyone needs me I'll be in the restroom."

"What a jerk." The other woman, Ashley Williams, Anderson remembered her well, from their first meeting on the Normandy when they had left Eden Prime. 'That was a mess,' the veteran human soldier thought with a grimace.

"Yeah, he is." The first woman agreed with a snort. "Captain, sir."

Anderson motioned for the three of them to sit and they took their seats. Once settled he asked, "So what brings you out this way, Commander?"

"Supplies and a bit of shore leave." Jane automatically supplied but the scowl on her face told him something was off.

"Something's clearly on your mind." Anderson pointed out trying to coax it out of her. Nothing ever good happens when she bottles up her emotions that mess on Torfan is self explanatory.

"If I may speak freely sir," Anderson sighed. He'd gone through with this speech before but he knew she wasn't going to listen to him, she was as stubborn as her mother, whom Anderson was a good friend for many years.

"You may, Commander."

"I recently received a transmission from Admiral Hackett to do a recon of the area near the Perseus Veil." She began but the Captain suddenly became more interested in what she had to say. "What we found was a wreck, it was too badly damaged and frankly disturbing to say the least. I reported back and was told the Salarians would be moving in to take what's left of whatever that was, then I get another transmission saying I should come to you. What I want to say is that I can't well take my fucking time while Saren is out loose in the galaxy somewhere doing god knows what."

"Calm down, Shepard." Anderson admonished her but felt a pang of protective worry as she slumped back in her seat.

"I am close to finding him, I have a lead after Feros but I can't do my job of finding him if I keep getting sidetracked by Alliance Command." She said grinding her teeth. Her two companions shifted uneasily in their seats, for Ashley she was uncomfortable with being this close to a superior officer and her CO's rather relaxed and familiarity with said superior. For the asari, who Anderson indentified as Liara T'soni, daughter of that Matriarch the Commander was sure was working with Saren, she was uncomfortable with the not so subtle glares Ashley was throwing her way.

"I know but there's little I can do about that." David Anderson sighed, "I—"

He didn't finish as the pinging noise and then the chime that followed drew their attention to the monitors on the wall of the small embassy, which had a nice view of the Presidium lake by the way. On the monitor an Asari reporter came on as behind her chaos broke out, explosions and gunfire was heard and the camera rocked uncontrollably before the reporter managed to speak.

"I'm *static* here on the Turian colony of *static* you can see behind me the explosions *static*" The monitor blanked out for a few painstaking moments before coming back on but the view that greeted the Commander, the former Captain of the Alliance's most advanced warship, the asari and the human woman was a sight that would be engrained in their memories from that day on.

"Get off me!" The Asari reporter screamed as two burly men, body profile identified them as Tunaroid, decked out in black military fatigues and plated armor held her down. A third one stood off to the side with a pistol aimed at her. She screamed and let loose a biotic blast that threw off her attackers. She got up and ran toward the camera, picking it up she activated its follow mode and bolted just as gunfire and bullets whizzed past her. She yelped in pain as a shot grazed her left arm. She stumbled and fell the camera drone following her all the way.

"No! Get away from me!" The reporter screamed her warning as her biotics flared up again, this time the three unknown attackers didn't approach her. They just kept their distance, one of them pointed at the camera and one pointed its firearm at it. The monitor cut out again and the small group watching the monitors all looked at each other before the chatter broke out.

"What the hell was that?" Ashley asked as she tried to process what she just saw.

"Apparently somebody is raiding Turian colonies this time around." Udina smirked but Anderson and the others ignored him.

There was a ping and they all turned to see that the Council was calling the human embassy. Udina tried not to look at it but it was compelling and so he answered and the three forms of the Turian, Salarian and Asari Councilors appeared as holographic images.

"Councilors, to what to do I owe this call?" Udina's false smile of appreciation was enough to get a groan out of Jane as she watched the Turian councilor frown, one can't tell much from a Turian's face.

"We don't have enough time for your antics, Ambassador Udina." The Turian growled. "We called because we have a bigger more material problem than Saren and we need your help with it."

"Know that this was a decision made with extreme difficulty." The Salarian Councilor spoke up, Anderson was not sure what to make of him, shifty as he was. "But the Turians cannot face this danger alone."

"What danger?" Ashley blurted out before she could stop herself causing everyone to look at her. She felt uncomfortable with everyone staring at her, so she deflected. "What? Someone had to ask."

"As improper as that was," Shepard shook her head, "she's right. We need to know what we'll be facing if we're going to send help."

The Councilors all looked at each other, the Asari was forthcoming if Shepard read her body language right, she clearly wanted to tell the humans what they needed to know. The Salarian was hesitant but open to it while the Turian was clearly uncooperative but begrudgingly nodded.

"You've seen the news report that ended in a rather abrupt manner." The Turian was the one to address them as Anderson nodded, they all did. "Well suffice it to say that for the past few days we've been hard pressed to deal with an incursion into our territory from the outer spiral. The details will be explained further when Palaven High Command is in talks with your Alliance about a possible merger fleet to beat back these aliens' push."

"Why can't you tell us now?" Udina in that annoying tone of voice of his butted in. The Councilo was not amused by that.

"There are some things that shouldn't be discussed on such an open line of communications." The asari councilor cautioned, though there was that hint of warning in her voice even behind that fake smile she gave.

"I'll contact Admiral Hackett about this." Anderson promised.

"We thank you." The councilors' images dissipated and left the group to ponder on their words and the fact that one of the Turians colonies was being attacked. Who the attacker were was still a mystery and one that Anderson ordered Shepard to find out if she can.

"Don't worry, Captain." She saluted, "I'll find any pertinent information and bring it back here or send to the Admiral but I have my mission and I won't abandon it." Pausing a moment she strained out, "Saren needs to be taken down, there's just too much of a possibility of him bringing about the end if left alone for too long."

"Very well," Anderson conceded even as he ignored the pointed glare the Ambassador was giving him.

After the Commander and her team left the office, Anderson couldn't help but feel that things were going to take a turn for the worst somewhere along the line. The Turians getting attacked was something on his mind, but it wasn't the Geth that did the attack which led him to believe that whatever danger the Councilors wanted help against was something that shouldn't be ignored and neither was the threat of these so called Reapers that Saren was trying to bring back to the galaxy. He was the only one who believed Shepard when she began rambling on about what she'd discovered after getting the cipher.

=/\=

(Gameplay Time: 1wk 8days 12hrs 48mins 57+secs)

2999. 12. 31. CC

7th Fleet/Holy Breach

Fleet Composition:
1x [Imperator Class - Titan]
2x [Carrier Class - Battleships]
2x [Artillery Class - Battleships]
2x [Support Class - Battleships]
13x [Torpedo Class - Cruisers]
10x [Hunter Class - Cruisers]
15x [Javelin Class - Cruisers]
35x [Corsair Class - Destroyers]
30x [Streamer Class - Destroyers]
25x [Privateer Class- Destroyers]
55x [Annoyance Class - Corvettes]
60x [Interloper Class - Corvettes]
50x [TorpSlinger - Corvettes]
Total Contingent: 1 Titan, 6 Battleships, 38 Cruisers, 90 Destroyers, 165 Corvettes = 300 Ships.

[Flagship Breach – Imperator Class Titan]
[Fleet Admiral Harald Vandersen]

[Admiral's Cabin – Command Deck 1(3)]

No one wanted to bother the Admiral, even as they celebrated their victory over the avian xenos, outnumbered over a large margin they still managed to walk away with a victory but it was dulled by the Admiral's gloomy disposition as he walked out the bridge that day. Someone had whispered into his ears and just like that his smile had faded away fast and a depressing aura surrounded him, the crew watched him walking away with the FO hanging his head looking at his retreating form.

So now the Admiral was locked away in his cabin, drowning his sorrows in alcohol, his eyes were puffy and red, his uniform a crumpled mess on the floor standing in front of the cracked mirror he had in on hand a bottle and in the other hand was a firearm, pointed at his head.

He contemplated ending his miserable life right there and then but he just couldn't do it…after all it was the alcohol influencing his actions thus far. But the news that had reached his ears, and no doubt that of his younger brother, concerning the fate of their youngest brother had broken something inside of him. He knew what they were getting into when they joined up but risks weren't there as the sense of patriotism, faith, and adventure was something the three of them had always wanted. Their parents had encouraged them into it, even though the dangers of such a life could have easily deprived them of their children. It was something that every parents dreaded but must comply with as it was tradition, it was something that was ingrained upon them by their ancestors whose lives depended upon their martial prowess.

It would have eventually led to death, this path of theirs, and they accepted that but at times it felt like a useless venture but his faith must not waver in the face of this news. His brother has passed on and he will mourn for him always, but as a commanding officer he must compose and conduct himself in a manner befitting his station. Dropping the weapon on the bed he downed and emptied the bottle then promptly fell back onto the bed, eyes staring at the ceiling for hours until sleep finally took him.

5 hours later…

He woke up feeling refreshed, stretching and standing up from the bed he set about getting ready. Showered, had his meal and then stood in front of the holo picture frame of his family. A photo of him and his parents and two younger brothers, the youngest of whom he placed a finger over and then to his hearts, a single tear streamed down the side of his face as he bit back a sniffle. He'll always remember the little devil, his pranks and even his bad table manners. For now he steeled himself and walked out of his comfort zone, his cabin and headed to the lift. He had xenos to fight and also to avenge his brother, for somewhere out there someone was responsible for his death and he will not rest until his vengeance is satisfied. He just wished he had the support of the Colossus in his mission to conquer these Turians, though he is holding out hope that High Command would deploy said colossus in short order.

'Bureaucrats are the worst,' Harald shuddered at that thought. In his opinion, pencil pushers were a waste of time, money and space but luckily for the government he wasn't the revolutionary type because if he was then the bureaucrats would be the first to go.

As he walked the length of the corridor he found himself in, heading toward the Command bridge, he stopped by a shrine to the Holy One situated in the middle of the corridor, set under a small alcove. It was in the shape of the majestic two headed Aquila sat upon a golden halo, there was incense burning at the small shrine indicating someone had already said their prayers here, quite a few someones from the number of incense sticks that he could count and observe. Taking one that was not yet lit, he flicked the tip and it began to burn and a wisp of smoke floated from it. Placing it in the small vase beneath the shrine he bowed his head in prayer to the Holy One and then marched on his way to the bridge.

[Command Bridge – Deck 2(3)]

"Admiral on deck!" The crew stiffened in salute as Harald walked in, he returned the gesture before taking his seat. The men and women on the bridge returned to the posts with practiced ease and began their routine status report indicating systems function, fleet status, weapons and so forth. Harald took all of this in stride and perused a detailed report given to him by his FO.

"Sir we're getting transmissions from the 6th Fleet." The Comm Officer Uriel said from his terminal.

"How are they doing?" Admiral Vandersen inquired, his thoughts on the 6th Fleet were that it was an obsolete and outdated group of floating junk, but one that still had enough firepower to waste the xenos if need be.

"They've secured a beachhead on the Turian world," was the reply, Harald rubbed his chin in thought, when suddenly the Comm Officer continued. "Sir, the 6th is requesting relieve forces for much needed repairs. Admiral Kane is on the line, shall I send it to your personal comm.?"

"Do that." Harald nodded as the officer typed a few commands before accessing their NeLI. Harald mentally clicked into his bioimplant and accessed the NeLI system whereupon he noticed the red flag in the message tab. He opened it via mental pressure and was greeted with the smug looking face of Admiral Thorn Kane. With a thin smile Harald greeted is counterpart, "Admiral, what do you need?"

"Oh, nothing much, just your help if you're not too busy." Kane replied, that smug smirk never leaving his face. Harald mentally sighed and hoped he didn't have to put up with him in person, they were rivals after all but they had to tolerate each other for the sake of winning the war, a feat unto itself. "I'm a sitting quacker here if you don't come and relieve me and my boys."

"What's the status of your fleet?" Harald ignored that last statement, wishing this conversation was over with.

"To business eh?" Kane had a lopsided grin before adding, "Well, I can understand that. We're doing fine, except we lost a lot of corvettes in the initial engagement. Intel was off by a large margin. There was over six hundred xeno ships, destroyers mostly and we've managed to capture a shipyard so our egg heads will be happy to study how they build their ships."

"That's a lot of information for the egg heads." Harald was genuinely surprised by this new development, it would mean the Covenant was this much closer to cracking how the xenos were utilizing Zro to such effectiveness. Not that it was any of his concern but it would definitely come in handy for the navy's corvettes and destroyers to enjoy maneuverability of the caliber the xenos had for their ships. "Standby for relief forces. We'll be there within two days."

"Glad for that then," Kane's grin faded to be replaced with an actual smile, Harald was confused. "See you when you get here and if you meet up with the 34th Convoy, tell them to contact me. I've tried raising their CO but he's not answering his damned comm."

"Will do, Vandersen out." Harald cut off the line as he returned to normality and his bridge. He looked at the helmsman, "Helm easy now and gently take us away from planet orbit." Turning next to the Comm Officer, "Comm inform the fleet we're moving out, bring them into formation and prepare for Jump toward these coordinates."

"Aye, Admiral." The ship's inertial dampeners were great, allowing him to not feel the ship's struggles as it moved and turned away from the planet they had found after they'd gone through the gateway. It was a large world, large enough that it was turned into a new fortress world, one where the military would be resupplied and new recruits would be churned out for the navy and army. He thought back to his younger brothers and though his ached at having lost the youngest, he vowed once more that he will have his revenge.

"All ships reporting in." The Comm Officer informed him. He nodded and with a knowing look to his FO he felt the unnatural weight of the ship as it began initiating jump procedure. It wasn't anything like hyperspace travel where a bluish-white swirling tunnel was the norm, jumping was more like an instantaneous thing where a flash of light, innards that felt like they've been torn apart mashed around and then put back together, before finally the flash went away and when your sight was cleared you were at your destination. It was a feeling Harald hated and loved at the same time, utterly astonishing and weird.

"Prepare for jump in 3…2…1." The helmsman spoke and with a small gesture on his terminal there was that familiar feeling of being turned into slush and then put back together again and they were at their target destination. Though they were at the edge of the system, the fleet would make good time to reach the Turian colony and relieve the 6th Fleet. Harald was not surprised when his Communications Officer reported receiving transmission from a certain general.

"Put him on the main monitor." He said to which the Comm Officer complied and the holographic image of the general's head floated on the main tactical monitor. "General Thigh, a displeasure to make your acquaintance once again."

"Same here, Admiral Vandersen." The general replied with no small amount of disdain. "My boys will handle the ground operation and will expct no interference from you. Do we have an accord?"

"Couldn't have said it better myself. As long as you don't go overboard with the occupation, I wouldn't want to have to report your conduct to High Command like last time." Harald smiled at the general who glared at him, hate and loathing evident in the man's eyes.

"Is that a threat, Admiral?" Thigh growled, squinting his eyes at Harald who was not fazed.

"No, General. It is a promise, I do not take kindly to your antics." Harald answered honestly, his fierce glare daring the general to retort. The other man did not.

"Stay out of my way, Admiral." The transmission cut out and Harald scoffed, muttering about the general having bad manners.

"Sir," FO Merallus interrupted the Admiral's thoughts. "We're not going to have trouble with the general again, will we?"

"I don't know, that will be up to him." Harald sighed, he really wished it was some other general or mere colonel or brigadier but somehow he always ended up working with people he hated or disliked or simply indifferent towards and never someone he actually liked. "Forget about him though. We have a job to do."

=/\=

[Captain Johann Jacobs]
Unknown Turian colony
East Quadrant, Unknown Turian city…

The fringe heads were a tough lot, couldn't have found a better enemy to fight, atleast that was the opinion of one Johann Jacobs. A veteran pirate hunter and anti-terrorist specialist, he was assigned with the 45th Mechanized Infantry under Colonel Edvard Thigh, the cousin of their illustrious General. He wasn't one to gossip but he knew that the only reason the Colonel got his position was because of said familial connection though he quickly proved to be an adept tactician and commander, offsetting how he had gotten the position in the first place. Johann couldn't care less though, he was a soldier, even if he did spend the last ten years of his life as a glorified space cop in the frontier colonies.

Right now though he was sitting on a dropship, heading into one of the landing zones that was cleared by the 6th Fleet. He was in the opinion that the navy should have just kept bombarding the xenos until nothing was left and thus making his job that much easier but alas the army and the navy had an agreement that he wasn't privy to. Leave the ground for the army to invade and don't destroy the targets outright from orbit, was the agreed terms of that pact between the rival branches of the Covenant military. He just hoped that the navy would stick around for when the xeno colony was finally subdued, in the even that it didn't the navy would then have the field and completely bombard the planet to kingdom come.

'Now that would be a sight to behold,' Johann thought in grim satisfaction. A mental picture of a devastated alien world, burning and crumbling under the sheer firepower of the mighty steel ships of the Tunarin Navy, he was thrown out of his day dreaming when the dropship violently rocked and began spiraling out of control. The PA system came on as the voice the pilot called out in alarm.

"We're hit! Brace for impact!"

Johann grabbed onto the harness holding in place and closed his eyes shut grinding his teeth as several tons of Force-G pressure threatened to suffocate him when he jerked forward then back and hit his head. He blacked out, the screams and high pitched noises fading away along with his vision.

…

When he woke up, it was to see that several of his men were dead, a few had been impaled by the jagged edges of the debris that was the dropship. A few were still alive but wounded, he himself was in no shape to move yet, a long shard of deformed metal had lodged itself in his left shoulder.

'Damn.' He groaned in pain as he chanced a move, he stopped when the pain shot through him. He looked at the men who had survived and they looked back at him, concern in their eyes but he ignored that in favor of giving out orders, "Stop gawking at me and get out there!"

"Sir—" A corporal began but was promptly shot down as he whittled under the Captain's glare.

"Do not tempt me, just get whatever you can and move out. Now! I want a secure perimeter around the wreck!" Johann barked out the orders, biting back the pain in his shoulder with every word.

"Sir, yes, sir!" The men quickly moved to obey and did so expertly, grabbing whatever gear they could get their hands on and breaking through the damaged exit. As soon as they moved out into the open gunfire streaked in and killed two of Johann's men. The Captain cursed when he saw the life signs wink out from his helmet's HUD.

"Fuuucckk!" Johann screamed as he dislodged himself from the shard falling to his knees but careful not to drop on his left side. He got back up painfully groaning as he moved to the exit, taking cover he barked out commands to is remaining men. "Jen get your ass back here!"

A private hastily crawled back to the wreck and took cover just as bullets thunked into the ground where he'd been prone on. "We're surrounded sir!"

"Way to state the obvious, genius." Johann smirked at the private who grinned nervously back at him. "You got the comm?"

"Yes sir." Private Jen nodded.

"Good. I want you to get on it and call in a strafing run from our flyboys." Johann told him and the private opened the comm lines. "Also tell them we're gonna need a lot of body bags."

"Yes sir."

Johann then took a peak out of the damaged doorway and could make out a lot of fringe heads with what looked like kinetic assault rifles and a few heavy machine gun emplacements just a few hundred meters to their front. From what details he could get, he and his men were way off from their course. He rolled his eyes and shook his head quietly cursing the xenos for having shot down his dropship. He lost an entire platoon of 50 men, well only about 19…scratch that, 14 made it through. All of them wounded in some way but still able to shoot.

'Thank the Holy One for small mercies.' He thought with a grimace as he saw another of his boys get shot and out of the count. "Get your asses to better cover!" he shouted to his men, fearing they'd overexposed themselves to enemy fire.

The men crawled on their stomachs, sliding backwards toward the small ditch made by the crashed dropship. "Hyde get your head down!"

Lance Corporal Hyde, one of Johann's best men complied just as a bullet barreled straight through where his head was a mere second ago. Johann sighed with angry relief at that. Sometimes he wanted to strangle his men for being idiots.

"Sir!" He turned his attention back to the private.

"What is it?"

"The flyboys are busy!" Johann could only scream in his head as he saw his situation go from worse to fucking screwed.

"Well kid its been nice knowing ya." The Captain smiled at the private who returned the smile with a lopsided grin.

Johann grabbed a pistol from the ground and checked its charge, it displayed that it had a full battery before expiring. He took a deep breath and then popped out of cover taking potshots at the enemy line. He thought he saw one of the fringe heads fall over but as he took cover he wasn't sure.

The private meanwhile was down on the ground, sprawled against dirt with blood oozing out the hole in his head. 'Fucking sniper!' Johann dreaded that thought, his men were sitting quackers in this wreck. But atleast there would be more cover in the dropship.

"Hyde, Morris, Lander, and the rest of you fuck heads get your asses back in here!" Johann shouted at the top of his lungs, "careful not to make yourself stand out, there's a sniper out there!"

"Copy that!" Hyde replied as he and the rest of the platoon crawled as quickly as possible back into the dropship.

"Well that was exciting!" Lander, a private, laughed. The others all laughed along with him only to be shocked into silence as Lander's head exploded into a bloody mist.

"Fuck!" Someone yelped as they scrambled into cover. Johann growled in frustration and anger, cursing the alien sniper and whoever that was who shot his dropship down.

Just then the radio crackled and through the static Johann could make out a voice. It was saying something but was too mired in static interference to be of any sense. He desperately wished that some sort of miracle would come and save him and his men…what's left of them anyway.

"…peat…is…ngo…ltro. We're…icking…up…ur…gnal…payload….nger close!" The broken voice said but there was too much interference for any of the men, Johann included, to make out what it was trying to say. That said, they had to keep their heads down as the sniper was still out there, occasionally taking potshots so as to draw the men out. So far no luck there for the sniper, there was no way in hell the men were going to make a meal out of themselves, not after poor Lander bit the dust.

He was still on the ground, just lying there, head all mashed up above the jawline. Brain matter and gooey blood meshed together with the dirt and blood of the dead or wounded. Yet the men knew their position was a precarious place to hunker down, with no back up they were dead.

"Well gentlemen, its been an honor fighting alongside you." Captain Johann Jacobs looked into the eyes of each of his surviving soldiers. Beaming with pride at them not losing their heads, sorry Lander, during the initial shootout, "I don't have much to say except that today I want you to know that I couldn't have been more prouder of you than I ever could."

"Atleast be more happy when you say it!" Hyde quipped as he chuckled when Johann glared at him.

"Damn it, Hyde!" Johann's eyes twitched in annoyance as he glared at the offending soldier, who had the decency to look sheepish enough but who then yelped as a ricocheting enemy bullet nearly slammed into his head and instead punctured a hole in the wall behind him.

Everyone dropped down on the ground in the blood and muck, all of them muttering curses and yelling out a colorful stream of profane words. Then all of a sudden the world seemed to abruptly go silent. Johann's ears were somehow blocked, he batted the side of his head on both sides but the silence just seemed to go on. Then he was abruptly thrown off his feet along with the rest of his men as the entire dropship they'd taken cover in tumbled and rolled round and round with them inside of it.

His hearing came back with a loud popping noise before he cringed in pain as he was rag dolled around the inside of the dropship occasionally crashing into one of the dead bodies or one of his surviving soldiers all of whom were screaming their lungs out at the highest decibel they could muster. He was actually surprised to hear that Lance Corporal Hyde had a nice set of soprano pipes on him.

Seemingly floating for a moment he cursed his luck when he saw where he was dropping this time around as his world became black, but not before feeling the pain shoot throughout his face from its point of origin which happened to be his nose.

=/\=

[Lieutenant George McLaughlin]
Unknown Turian Colony – Designated XC-01-2999
East Quadrant – 5 hrs after Turian city was taken…

George was by no means one of the more xenophobic of his race, heck, he was actually slightly more tolerant of aliens than most his kind but even then he was raised to question the motives of the xenos. It was this mentality that made him aim his sidearm at the strange Tunaroid female, she was blue and had a strange fringe like head where the hair was supposed to be. Her frantic screams and shouting as she glowed blue made him keep his distance, the two men from his squad pointed their weapons at her awaiting his orders to shoot. But for whatever reasons he could not order them to fire and instead told them to keep their weapons trained on her while he himself slowly holstered his weapon and approached the xeno.

His gut feeling and instincts were screaming at him to back away and order her shot but he was curious. So far the only aliens he'd seen had been those birdlike xenos with the strange mandibles and metallic exoskeleton, which makes this Tunaroid blue alien woman an oddity in this entire warzone. Which also reminded him of the floating drone like device that had been following her, when one of the men had checked it after shooting it, they found it to be a camera. Oddly advanced but utilized a set of programming and processing power vastly different from any used in the Covenant.

The alien's body glow intensified and George stopped in his tracks. She glared at him and he was mystified by the way her facial expressions were so much like a Tunari, he glanced back at his men and spoke on their internal radio frequency. "When I give the signal, you tranq her, got that?"

Both men gave subtle nods as they, discretely as possible, pressed a button on their weapons switching out the lethal rounds with stun or tranquilizer rounds. They still aimed their weapons at the blue alien but this time shuffled around to get a better shot whilst George distracted the alien by moving and backing away from her, she was obviously not used to stressful and violent situations judging by her fearful sideway glances and sudden widening of her eyes as she figured out that the other two men were moving around her. Before she could blast them again with that strange power of hers George had done his famous quick-draw, pulling out his sidearm and with it on full stun fired off several bolts.

The other two soldiers fired off a few stun rounds and while the alien managed to get off a blast at George, who flew off the ground and landed a meter away, she quickly dropped to the ground having overdosed on the huge amount of tranquilizer and stun bolt rounds. It unnerved the two soldiers however, when she began snoring lightly, one of them having an itchy trigger finger but snapped out of it when George limped toward them.

"Well this seems like a wonderful find," George remarked excitedly as he looked down at their newly acquired prey. "Wanna have some fun with this one?"

The soldiers looked at each other and shook their heads, the one on the left, with the vertical optic visor on his helmet spoke in reply, the disgust evident in the tone and harshness of his voice.

"I don't swing that way, Lieutenant." He said, "Such thoughts are impure and not one you should indulge, also we should just shoot her and be done with it…sir."

"I agree with this lughead but I say a woman's a woman, even if she's blue, or don't got hair." The other soldier said, he sounded eager at the prospect of trying out the new alien woman. "I wonder what kind of experience she'll bring or if there are any others like her, who says we can't enjoy ourselves on the job."

"Whoa, settle down both of you." George looked alarmed at both of their replies. He quickly sought a way to dissuade them, mostly the second guy, of their thoughts. "She's now a prisoner of war, any violations of her rights as a POW will not be tolerated."

"You started it, Lieutenant." The first guy deadpanned to which George slumped his shoulders in defeat and nodded muttering 'yes I did, didn't I?'.

"Anyways," George straightened up and smiled behind his helmet, "Let's get her back to the FOB, I'm sure High Command will want to analyze how she got here in the first place. Now…who's going to carry her?"

Both of his men were nowhere in sight as he looked up. He had just looked down at the blue woman for a moment as he asked that question and suddenly the two of them had disappeared! 'Insubordinate punks!' George growled as he bend down and with a careful haul he had the woman's unconscious form over his right shoulder whereupon his two underlings, as if by magic, reappeared with their weapons at the ready and heads on a swivel.

"We got you covered, Lieutenant." One said as George sighed, with a shake of his head he stomped on toward the FO—

"uh, Lieutenant, the FOB is this way." The other soldier helpfully pointed out, if George wasn't burdened by such a prize he would have clapped the guy upside the head. Then again…

"Corporal Giovanni," George said, opening a secure one-to-one communiqué with the first soldier, a smirk on his lips, "I order you to slap Corporal Muller on the head."

"With pleasure, sir." Giovanni grinned as he moved around the Lieutenant careful not to draw his comrade's attention. When he was right behind his fellow Corporal he raised the butt of his weapon and slammed it as hard as he could on the back of Muller's head. In a rather comical display, Corporal Muller didn't immediately collapse, but staggered groggily from side to side, managing to catch himself as he was about to fall and then finally keeled over and fell on his back.

George stopped and stared with a mixture of conflicting emotions ranging from disbelief to relief, confusion and glee. He then looked at Corporal Giovanni and with a sigh he pointed at the now cataleptic form of Corporal Muller and ordered, "You're carrying him, now."

"Oh man…"

"And don't bitch about. I told you to slap him not knock him out!"

The two men now equally burdened made their way past the marching column of mechanized tanks, APCs, IFVs, Walkers and Crawlers. A single Titan beast in the distance was visible but those nearest them gawked at the two men and a few outright laughed though they stopped when they saw the blue alien woman.

Entering the Command Prefab building and dumping his burden, George snapped off a salute before standing at parade rest. The Colonel, looked at him, then at the xeno woman he'd brought before shaking his head and then dismissed non-essential staff members leaving him with the Lieutenant, another Colonel (junior grade), two Battalion Commanders, three Mech Commanders, the Commander of the Super Soldiers, the four Clone Commanders and the lone Psi Commander. All in all there were about 14 officers in the command prefab including George himself. He didn't feel nervous, oh no, he was downright soaking in his sweat as he felt the eyes of all those senior officers on his person.

"Explain why you've absconded with an alien woman, Lieutenant?" The Colonel, Markus Thawne, said in an amused tone as he stole a glance at the blue alien. "Not planning on evoking your Clamstruna, are you?"

"Wha-no, sir!" George stuttered but grinded out his reply. "I don't intend to do that…I have a wife, sir."

"That hasn't stopped anyone now has it, am I right lads?" George cringed as the officers all laughed at the colonel's joke. "Jesting aside, I am glad you brought this to my attention. You may leave."

"Sir!" George put on a hasty salute before hurrying out of the building, glad to get out of the old man's sphere of bad influence.

=\/=

[Covenant Imperial High Command – Tunar Homeworld]
[Tunar City – Government District]
[Ministry of Benevolence – Level B29]
[Nondescript Office]

A darkened room with sparse lighting sat a long oval shaped table. All around it sat men and women in different uniforms all wearing the same drab and sour expressions. They've been waiting for almost four hours now in this room waiting for the arrival of a person of great importance, one who should not be kept waiting but who saw fit to keep everyone else waiting…rather ironic and frustratingly annoying to say the least, as is the opinion of the people in the dark room.

"How much longer do we have to wait for that brat?" Melinda Wiles, the Head of Imperial R&D, whined as she checked her chronometer via NeLI. "He may be the Imperator but I've got places to be—"

She was cut off as someone, interrupted her, the voice was smooth and young, same as the person who wielded it. He walked through a seemingly invisible door, which was in fact the wall, and settled himself above Melinda's chair. He looked down at her and winked, causing the woman to blush and her face beet red, the pressure he exuded enough to wet herself. She squirmed uncomfortably and was disappointed as he took his seat, then seemed to recover herself before glaring at the young man from across the table.

The others present barely held back their snickers of amusement but one look from the Head of R&D and they stopped. The Imperator, a young and impetuous man, began the meeting with the opening words…

"By the Holy One's grace we gather this meeting, for with his wisdom and power do we seek guidance and a swift resolution to our agenda…"

The gathered men and women nodded to each other and with a clearing of his throat, the Imperial Spymaster began his usual report, mostly involving the not so discrete underground resistance movements within the conquered territories, from those few worlds the Covenant didn't bother to eradicate outright. Slave uprisings on those same worlds had been quelled but resources were lost, action was needed.

All eyes fell on the Imperator as he looked thoughtful, a mere second later and his eyes were glowing purple and just as fast it dissipated. Looking at the gathered members of this meeting, he relayed the orders of the Holy One. "Pacification of the populace is no longer feasible, the Holy One demands total and complete eradication the Xu'ur race, the 70th Convoy is to deploy the entire contingent of Xenomorphs on their world."

Nods of agreement went around and the Spymaster once again made his report, this time on current incursion from the Unbidden. Not much there for the Holy One to do about except demanding the 3rd Fleet to attack their last stronghold in the Opalari system in the Theraia nebula of the Uwari Sector, their most northern position relative to their homeworld.

After that all attention was drawn to the new war. It was what everyone was expecting throughout the meeting as it began, the situation reported was that the aliens had fired upon a science vessel. In response the 1st Fleet was dispatched to assess the threat and neutralize the hostile force if possible. It turned out to be a slaughter as the enemy fleet was quickly decimated, what data was recovered from the wreckages and of the studies conducted on the corpses indicated that these new aliens came from beyond the void barrier between the outer galactic arm and the one closest to it. It was through a gateway that their territory was open for further incursions, the drain in resources from that invasion when it began was significant but with the focus on mineral processing and mining due to the near limitless bountiful energies of having two Dyson Spheres, the drain was negligible at best. Though it still put a dent in the economy just to maintain the fleets as they were all deployed around the Covenant and in enemy territory, as pointed out by the Finance Minister, for now the current focus was on the intelligence gathered from the deciphered alien codex which proved to be a fascinating read.

"So this alliance…or rather xeno conglomerate, rules the galaxy?" The Minister of War, Sotark Bull, stated with a hearty laugh. "Delusional at best and at worst they are insane to believe themselves masters of this behemoth!"

The Minister waved his arm around the table at the now holographic image of the galaxy. He went on to point out, indicating with his pointed finger where their empire was located, on the outer galactic arm near the edge, in that bundle of clustered stars were probably millions of stars all possible hosts to life and the ever present dangers…

"Even their galactic map is a sham! Look at it!" The image of the galaxy as seen by the Turians and their allies compared against the galactic image of the Tunarin showed huge gaps in the former, "We've not yet explored outside of our own clusters but the data we received from the Curator archives shows us that there are more stars in this galaxy than meets the eye or scanners."

"Uh, Sotark, I think it's best you leave the science to me." Melinda smiled sweetly at the man before she added, "Otherwise you'll be as intelligent as I am."

The man in question went red with rage but he was stopped before he burst. "I believe that's enough out of you two…behave yourselves." The Imperator warned them each with a hard glare, before motioning for the Spymaster to continue his report.

"Thank you," Spymaster Bleden Mark, bowed gracefully then cleared his throat. "Aside from the usual, such as that satellite we found sneaking around our FOB in Gelanix Beta, reports from the newly conquered planet we're designating XC-01-2999, one of the squads stumbled upon a living Asari."

This elicited gasps from those around the table as they sat on the edge of their seat now to listen closer. The Imperator's attention was likewise completely enraptured with the new information.

"The general in command of the operation on XC-01-2999 has seen fit to put the Asari on the next transport back here to the capital. As we speak the transport is in transit and will be reaching Jump range within the next fifteen hours."

"What of these 'humans'?"

Silence permeated the room. The subject regarding the humans was blasphemous at best and discussing it was downright treasonous, Science Minister felt the gaze of the Imperator burning a hole in his head and turned away.

"We'll deal with that later." The Imperator's word was final on the matter, it would remain be seen whether or not they would be discussing said topic on the existence of the humans.

There was a lull in the conversation as whispers of information and excited voices exchanged information between one another before the Imperator sighed and the silence that followed was apprehensive. He looked at each member of the meeting and spoke with a tired voice, "Let us adjourn for now, we'll meet back here in….ten minutes. Gives you time to mingle and discuss this, oh and Bleden I want to speak to you so you stay here a moment."

"As you wish." Bleden Mark bowed once again and waited for the others to leave the room before turning to look at the Imperator with concern. "What is it you wish to speak to me about?"

"I'm in dire need of an heir…" The Imperator said despairingly, his seemingly chipper and demanding demeanor suddenly faded away to reveal a tired man, bags under his eyes, dark rings around said eyes, pale skin and as Bleden looked in his eyes, they were red.

"How long do you have?" Concern building in his stomach as well as fear…if the Imperator should die without an heir, without another conduit, then the power of the Holy One…His guidance would be lost! "Whom have you chosen?"

"Calm yourself." Bleden's face heated in embarrassment as he recovered his wits. "There is still enough time to find a suitable candidate…I know of one whose potential is unmatched even by me."

The old Spymaster frowned in doubt at this revelation. Surely the Imperator was delusional in his weakened state. What was he even talking about?!

"Don't doubt me!" The Spymaster winced, he forgot that the Imperator could read minds…bloody psychics…oh wait, he was a psychic too, how stupid of himself to forget that too! "Are you really that stupid?"

"Sorry."

"Nevermind that. I need you to ensure that the boy is secured and safe," The Imperator instructed, "He is currently in a hospital here in the Capital, he's comatose but the power within him is strong and immeasurable. Promise me you'll guide him when I am gone…he is to be the future of our race, a beacon and the seal that ensures our pact…our Covenant with the Holy One remains intact. Promise me."

With a solemn vow the Spymaster nodded enthusiastically as he agreed, "I promise on my life that I will make sure the boy is enthroned as the new conduit."

"Good…now what's this I hear about your daughter running off with a spice merchant?" Bleden's mood suddenly plummeted as he glowered at the leader and prophet of the Tunarin. 'Sometimes I forget that he's a bit of a knucklehead…' the Spymaster grimaced internally as he fought back a sigh.

=\/=

[In a dark room somewhere…]

Voices

There were voices…I could hear them but they're so distant.

I fade in and out of consciousness it's become annoying yet the voices are still there. I hear them now…angry…shouting…an argument? I can't tell…oh no the darkness…

There they are again….the voices are back…calm and more peaceful this time, no more arguing…I feel cold…so cold…I-I can't feel my body…I can't see anything…why?

The voices…I hear them…clearer yet not…

"…waking…ert…te…ri…ing…."

So disjointed…disorganized…unintelligible. I don't understand why this is happening. I'm so cold…now I'm warm…I like this warm feeling it's…refreshing…

The voices they return more clearer now I can finally feel but now I don't want to…the pain…AAARRGGGHHHH!

NOOOO! MAKE IT STOP!

…

….

Make it…mak…make…it…it…sssstt…too…stop….

"…Laz…r.s…P..oj..ct…s…succ…ful…mo…to…ext…cedur…"

My sight begins to fade and in the end…as the darkness embraces me again….I feel content….

=/\=

Longest chapter yet at over 17k words, different POVs, and cookies for anyone who can guess what the last bit was about. Again, I would like to thank you all for reading and taking the time to Fav and Follow. After such a long time taken to update this story, I apologize once again for that but with the new update I just had to include them somehow and this was how I did it but I feel like I could do better.

But I guess I'll do so in the next Chapter. As always, I'd like your thoughts on where I can improve on my mistakes which I'm sure you'll see where I didn't. Have a nice day or night or whatever. Anyways I've seen people do these sort of things and in no way am I copying if a lot of them do it but here it is below.

=\/=

I watch with interest as I opened the menu. There it was, Crusader Kings 2: Game of Thrones Mod v2.0. I couldn't remember how long I've waited for this mod to come out, oh ever since I heard about and seen its trailer, is how long! Cackling like mad I selected the new game menu and was greeted with a similar menu from CK2 where the main houses, the biggest ones and most powerful ones that is, are shown. The mod is set in and during the start of the books or was it the TV show, I can't remember which, but anyway that's the starting point however, there is that option to start a little over 200 years before the events of the books or the show, to just before the time Aegon conquered Westeros.

I moused over the various houses available for players and found that there weren't that many of them, mostly because the information about the minor houses themselves was not enough for a full reconstruction of the books and show to be incorporated into the game mod. However, that didn't mean we couldn't customize a house if I wanted to and that's exactly my plan, as soon as I figure out where the hell I'm going to start because I wanted to prepare for the Long Night looong before it comes.

So let's see here, I guess it wouldn't hurt to start a little before Aegon's conquest. I made the necessary selections and watched as the screen shifted to accommodate the landscape and weather of that time period, I have to hand it to the modders for this very awesome effort they put into their project. I give them a straight 10 for this. I decided to go with Essos and moused over a lot of what were equivalent to CK2's counties or baronies in this case.

Finding one that was ideally located between Essos and Westeros, isolated but with enough materials and resources and people for me to start my fledgling empire. It also helped that the territory I selected was independent which brought along a lot of risks as well as high rewards for owning such an area. The difficulty bar was nearly full, from what I can guess would be over two thirds of the bar.

I selected the customize house button and renamed the house and redid the sigil of the ruling noble family there. The ethnicity of my noble house that I decided on was Valyrian, their dynasty name Valkarion, and for the patriarch of my house I named him Vitiate of House Valkarion, a rather tall man of 30 years, with a trait of Strong, Stubborn, Kind and Wrathful. I made increased his Martial skill to 12, Steward skill to 9, Intrigue to 8, Diplomacy to 8, Scholar skill to 11 and increased his health by 5. I also made him a Skilled Tactician. It occurred to me that his age hadn't changed much and remained at 30 as I added his traits and skills, must be a glitch.

His profile picture, as it were, showed a square jawed man with platinum silver hair cropped with a single braid of his hair hanging past his collar bone. He wore chainmail armor with a leather tabard bearing his sigil over said chainmail. The sigil itself was nothing special since I found that there was a rather nice knock off of the Imperial dragon banner from the Elder Scroll series in the flag menu. There was also the saying of the house, it's motto, that needed to be customized and but I couldn't find an appropriate slogan to use.

Taking the better part of twenty minutes and 45 seconds, and deciding that history wouldn't mind, I took the words, "Veni, Vidi, Vici…" as the words of my noble dynasty. It wasn't original but then again I'm not really creative when it comes to these sorts of things.

I made the finishing touches here and there and redoubled my checks before I felt satisfied enough to continue. I pressed the play button and set the rules to default and then as I pressed past that and waited for the loading bar to fill up I got this odd sensation…like a needle was being pricked in the back of my head. I ignored it initially but then it became an unbearable pain and it was itchy as hell so I scratched it until I was on the floor scratching away furiously at the back of my head before getting back up, the itch was gone but that prickly feeling remained. Then as the bar was filled up I lost consciousness.

Only to wake up in a room I didn't recognize and found myself in a body that I knew wasn't mine, lying in a bed that I know wasn't mine either. Though I did see that Imperial Cyrodilic dragon banner hanging from the wall and after shaking my head I remember thinking, 'What the hell is going on…where the heck am I?' When without warning my vision narrowed as dark edges embraced my sight and time seemed to slow down to a grinding halt and in front of me a large box appeared with bright colored words written on it. It said:

[WELCOME VITIATE OF HOUSE VALKARION]

[You have gained: Admin Privilege –A passive ability that is able to tap into the CK2 Command Console via thought-activation. This ability has a cooldown time of 10minutes after use, and cost 100 MP to Activate.]

=/\=

Work has let up somewhat but these cases still stack up everyday. How did you like that? Please leave a review or PM.

Cheerio,
Danen5.