AN: In the words of Johnny Vegas: I did it! I did it!, thanks to some of the boffins on my server I've managed to combine chapters 16 and 17 into one bulk chapter, this has streamlined my production of chapters by a whole whopping…. 1 chapter.
This means the replacement for chapter 17, will begin the Council Arc which will probably end during the massacre of Torfan.
I'd like to thank you all for your patience, I truly appreciate you waiting for this rewrite's completion for so long. Now that it's complete, we can move forward at last.
December 6th 2207 EMC [Earth Military Calendar] 2151 CE [Common Era].
Turian Frontier Space, Agamemnon System.
SSV Lion, The Crown Pub.
[Play: Bear McCreary: BSG Soundtrack - Wander My Friends.]
The 'Knights Roundtable' had been set up for both parties Captain Spruce and a select few of his crew which were full time diplomats and lawyers before they were full-time sailors, occupied one half of the table whilst on the opposite side the Primarch and his team of the hierarchies best and brightest, as well as Admiral and Commodore Nyx sat facing inwards.
Ka'mara had been excluded from the talks to attend to the Lion, the ship still had to be run after all, besides asking a capable officer of the hierarchy to 'pick sides' as it were, was the epitome of bad form.
Neither side wanted that.
Dotted about the table were various note pads, documentation and the like that both sides had taken the last hour setting up.
Liam takes his time rising from his seat to address everyone in the impromptu negotiation suite.
"As the senior most representative of Earth, her colonies and the Systems Alliance, I would like to personally thank each and everyone here for attending these talks, as tiring and as trying as they may become, let's not lose sight on what we've achieved and continue on as friends if nothing else comes from these talks."
A "Here, here." Was muttered between the attendees.
Liam glanced over the room as he continued his speech. "I'd like to start with establishing the Systems Alliance borders in relation to the greater galactic community, if each of you could please activate the personal PADD's provided."
Everyone tapping the PADD's singular button the full screen display showed the codex standard galactic map, with multiple colours breaking down each species territorial claims, huge swathes of the galactic map taken up by a multitude of colours.
Liam took to his seat once more as he addressed the attendants. "As everyone can see the Systems Alliance's claimed territory is comparatively small in comparison to the big three and some rather controversial 'associate races'." Liam stated, everyone knew full well which races he was talking about in particular.
He continued onwards. "Whilst overall territory of the Systems Alliance is small when compared with the Galactic standard; our colonies are more densely packed; you'll be surprised to find out how many habitable or near habitable worlds there are tucked in between the Mass Relay network." Liam finished.
The display changed once more, this time green dots appearing within the territories, clearly marking colonised systems of each race, the stark contrast on just how solidly packed humanities colonies were in comparison to their own came as a bit of a shock.
"Just how many colonies does humanity hold currently?" Admiral Nyx asked.
"During the last census a little over a year ago, the Systems Alliance had 398 colonised worlds with a combined population of somewhere just over five hundred billion, and 1000's of minor settlements which act as permanent or mobile mining operations for precious metals and exotic minerals." Liam answered honestly.
"By the spirits, how do you keep the population from committing outright rebellion?" Primarch Tullius responded.
"By speaking softly while carrying a big stick…." Liam shook his head realising that the Turian delegates were confused, before continuing. "We'll try to be polite with politics, if they continue it's followed by sanctions, if it comes to armed insurrection…. We'll resort to military intervention." He finished.
"You're being rather open about this?" One of the diplomats spoke up, interlocking her fingers.
One of the Lion's Engineers spoke up beside his Commanding officer. "It's nothing you couldn't find on the net, our equivalent of the codex, the policies regarding insurrection have been the same for about a century, they get one chance to surrender before we'll put the insurrectionists six feet in the ground." Liam raised his hand cutting off the engineer before things got too far off topic
Liam spoke once more. "The Systems Alliance gave me a clear objective to establish our borders with our allies; seeing as we border the Hierarchy and the Hegemony, we'd like to know if this area of space has had any claims to it?" The area in question was highlighted stretching outwards towards the Hierarchies borders.
The Turian Delegation quickly pulled up their omni-tools and began searching for the relevant information, finally after half an hour of discussions and swapping notes, the reply came back.
"It seems that no other species has a direct link through the Mass Relay Transit System into Systems Alliance space besides Relay three one four, we had put in a request to the Citadel Councils Colonisation Authority to send probes through the relay for a possible expansion into the region, we've still got ten years before we hear their decision." Tullius clicked his mandibles and how would the good captain use this information.
"For resources or colonisation?" Liam asked.
The Turian's looked to one another, before looking back. "Both, if there was a world to settle, if not, we'd have just taken the resources."
Liam tapped his finger on the table. "The Systems Alliance is a little more liberal when it comes to colonisation claims; Three of our colony ships are already heading towards what we've called the Shanxi System…. It'll take them six months but they'll get there, Master Chief, you're a lawyer in civilian life, with a specialty in colonial settlement disputes right."
"Aye, cap'n." another of the humans piped up with a rather unusual accent.
"Recommendations?" Liam asked.
"Tricky one 'ere cap'n, usually we're dealin' in claims by two human parties, a joint venture maybe if we can get both colonial authorities to agree to push for joint development, otherwise we be shit outta luck on that front, cap'n." The Master Chief spoke rather candidly.
Liam nodded before addressing the Turian's. "How strong of a claim would you say you had to the Shanxi System Primarch? Could we compensate you for the capital lost on the claim, and give Turian Farmers and Businesses tax relief for say ten years."
That got a few murmurs, on both sides of the table, to purchase the claim for a fair price and a tax relief for an initial incentive, there wasn't a galactic precedent for the practice, then again there wasn't one against it either.
Tullius and his team of lawyers and diplomats were quietly chatting to themselves, before straightening up once more. "My lawyers will tally up what the claim has cost so far in capital, as well as what it would have cost to set up operations in the system. Any details on the system itself would prove invaluable." Tullius spoke.
Liam nodded. "I'll have Ka'mara send down the detailed charts when we all decide it's time to recess." He continued. "No rush, the fewer the mistakes now will save a decade of growing pains later." All parties nodded at the logic of that statement.
Tullius spoke up next. "What are your plans for when you introduce yourselves to the Citadel? To the Council?" he asked.
"The Systems Alliance is a sovereign democratic entity and will remain as such, until such time until certain concessions are made we can ill afford to gut our entire navy to placate fools on a council who know little to nothing on how our people operate, no offence intended towards your people's choice in councillor of course, we will not be cow towed by anyone." Liam retorted, before continuing.
"Or as my rather candid Prime minister put it in his rather blunt letter, addressed to me…. 'They can politely shove their superiority complex or whatever rod has been shoved up their fucking arses further in there, we will not beg, we will not bow, we will spill blood for our sovereign right to determine 'OUR' future.' Humanity is no one's lap dog. Signed yours faithfully. Prime minister Harold M. Johnson."
Gripping a single sheet of paper, he passed it clockwise around the table so it reached the Primarch, who with his contact lens which had been updated with all of humanities written languages gave a hearty Turian laugh.
"You humans take personal pride in your accomplishments, to think even your Prime minister writes such scathing comments, the Asari will see this as a slight against their established prestige and accumulated power." Tullius remarked.
"Let them, we don't care, they're nothing but a bunch of stagnant parasites as far as we're concerned; oh for sure we'll play nice to make more friends than enemies, but the moment they try to put a leash on us, we'll snap and draw first blood." Liam took a second to compose himself.
"Those amphibian pricks aren't much better in our eyes, try to hide it all they fucking want, but its fucking obvious those assholes have been updating the Genophage to cull the Krogan population; with an immune system as robust as theirs, the genophage would've been about as useful as a broken contraceptive after 50 years, they're like Nazi's in space. Killing off an undesirable race or ethnically cleansing them, we don't care, when one group of humans tried it, we had each and every one of them tried, imprisoned or hung for crimes against humanity."
Tullius coughed. "The Hierarchy did its part; don't you hate us?"
Liam gave a solemn smile before speaking. "You lot deployed the weapon to coerce a threat into surrendering to save more lives in the long run, we've done something similar with our own people, is it a black mark that will never wash away for sure; but here's the crux of it, you did it to save lives, to prevent the war from continuing to its bitter and bloody end. They on the other hand have been continuing to develop it like some sort of cruel and unusual punishment."
Tullius's respect for Humanity had gone up a few notches, even more so for the Captain, for lack of a better term, the man was very Human about his beliefs, almost Turian in dedication but something else at the same time.
"The TL; DR of it, we're sticking to our borders and our way of life, so long as the council stays on theirs, we couldn't give a damn on their opinions on matters, if we do, we'll ask them." The Turian's gave nods towards the declaration.
"What about border security? We need some kind of mutual agreement between both parties." Admiral Nyx spoke for the first time during the meeting.
"System 314, it'll be a single system buffer between our two people." Tullius chipped in, before continuing on. "Both sides will need to provide security for a waypoint station, where goods and vessels will need to be inspected."
Liam gave a nod to the proposal. "Both sides contribute half of the materials to a single station which could double as a neutral embassy, whilst each of us provide, say, a battlegroup and a unit of marines to act as station security."
"What about police forces?" Ardella chipped in.
"Could I suggest an Interpol? Which shares information while allowing both sides to execute warrants on the behalf of the other party." One of the Lion's junior officer technicians spoke up.
Notes and the like were being scribbled down all the while, as details were organised, taking an hour long recess somewhere in the middle of the debates for food and drink, somewhat shocking the Turian's when the Humans helped themselves to servings of Turian vegetables.
The kicker being Humans had evolved with the capability to process dextro without an allergic reaction it didn't provide much in the way of nutrition, but it had served to diversify rations on board the Lion after some poor sods had been volunteered 'See: Told' to sacrifice their stomachs for the greater good.
More than a few brow ridges had been raised on just how the discovery had been made, much to Liam's displeasure, having to retell something he had tried his damnedest to forget for a good long while after witnessing that particular car crash in slow motion.
With the initial negotiations dealt with a good couple of days were spent ironing out the biggest creases to the best of the Lion's dedicated crew men's abilities, it was then with a semi-final draft in both parties possession, Captain Spruce made an unusual request, for the SSV Lion to transit to Palaven to deploy a satellite.
More specifically a Quantum Entanglement Communications satellite, to allow Humanities best and brightest politicians, diplomats and lawyers to. 'Take what they had started with and run with it.' Another Human quote that the delegation had taken a while to. 'Get their heads round.' They'd especially enjoyed a lesson or two in deadpan sarcasm.
Especially if the Turian diplomats could sneak in some finger quotations as a quick jibe or two before the other races 'caught wind' on what the small innocuous gesture meant.
December 13th 2207 EMC [Earth Military Calendar] 2151 CE [Common Era].
Turian Frontier Space, Agamemnon System.
SSV Lion, Combat Information Centre.
[Play: Medal of Honour European Assault OST - Dogs of War (Main Theme).]
It had taken a solid week, to organise and file the necessary paperwork, for the Lion to transit further into Hierarchy space, the fucking things had to be signed and countersigned in triplicate, Liam's wrists and hands had cramped something fierce, yes hands as in plural, it'd been a good long while since he had to use his off hand to sign anything.
Anyways, the crew knew that the Lion would be a vessel of many 'firsts' considering the mission, first to travel the unknown regions of space, first to make first contact not once but twice and now she would be the first human vessel to fly the Primarch's flag.
Why?
To expedite the Lion's priority to transit into the heart of Hierarchy space, that and it was more than likely a political statement to the Salarian and Asari, a metaphorical middle finger to the Dalatrass and Matriarch political elite.
Humanity was after all playing for keeps, so why would Liam refuse such an offer?
"Lieutenant Vakarian, send the necessary data for Mass Relay transit, helm and navigation match course and speed with the Sixth fleet, with your permission Primarch." Liam turned to the third addition to the Lion's war table.
"Permission granted captain." Primarch Tullius Romullianus replied dressed in a fleet admiral's day duty uniform as was the custom when the Primarch took upon the role of what was the human equivalent of Lord Admiral of the Systems Alliance Navy.
December 13th 2151 CE [Common Era] 2207 EMC [Earth Military Calendar].
Citadel Space, Widow Nebula.
The Citadel, Private Council Chambers.
[Play: Halsey: Control - Control.]
"Just what in the name of Athame are your people playing at!" Councillor Tevos barked at her Turian counterpart Polria Drusnius, who just looked towards her with an absolute poker face.
"Taking it upon themselves to negotiate with a race that was compassionate enough to send one of their heavy-dreadnaughts into the spirit's damned void to bring back our missing crew." He bit back, before continuing. "Our Primarch is heading the negotiations personally and from what has been reported to me personally, the negotiations will be continued in the orbit of Palaven." The word confidentially had been purposefully left out of the sentence, as it was quite obvious that the STG had tapped his comms when the first video had hit the extranet.
What a video it was, seeing the gunmetal grey super-dreadnought come screaming from the heavens like some arbiter of death its underside ablaze from the sheer friction of the air impacting the hull, all to launch a fleets worth of fighter craft to provide air support for the besieged defenders of Agamemnon's capital city.
Which had recently been named Lion in the dreadnought's honour.
"Do you realise that future negotiations between us and the Hierarchy will be heavily penalised for this?" The Salarian Union's councillor retorted.
"The Hegemony is calling for your 'new allies' to be arrested for war crimes!" Tevos rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Utilising a mass nuclear strike, what kind of savages use nuclear weapons, except Krogan?" She growled.
Councillor Polria, dropped her neutral facade the moment the words left Tevos' mouth. "Was that before or after the Hegemony attempted to glass Agamemnon with a mass nuclear strike of their own? We have salvaged over two dozen black boxes, we have all the evidence to declare that they escalated the war."
The two other councillors recoiled at that news. Polria growled a little. "Leave that little fact out, did they? Or how about the fact that the 'animals' that had managed to get planet side, begun systematically raping women and girls some as young as four whilst executing the men and boys."
"That's…." Tevos tried to cut in, but was thoroughly cut short, by Councillor Polria.
"How about the fact that the Hegemony had deployed eighty or so STG issued Disrupter Stealth Mines? Mine which I might remind you are declared as recognised WMD's and failing to report them as missing or stolen is a crime." Now it was time for the Salarian Councillor to go bug eyed at that titbit of information.
Tevos was quick to shoot a glare towards the Salarian at that bit of news, causing the Salarian to sigh. "It's under investigation, we believe someone in the STG has been compromised for a month now, we've been trying to find whomever it was, since the transport failed to make it to one of our STG Anchorages."
Tevos couldn't believe the political shit storm that was brewing, the Hierarchy was baying for blood, they had three or more pieces of evidence to rake the Hegemony over the coals, neither the Republics or the Union could interfere to bring the war to a diplomatic close.
Even if they supported the claim that these humans had committed a war crime the Hierarchy could counter claim that the Hegemony itself escalated the war to the point a full nuclear strike was the only option to prevent a colony from being glassed.
Not to mention the sheer fact that the Hegemony used stolen WMDs from the Salarian Union's STG of all people, which would mean the Union would have to admit that they had failed to report eighty WMD's had been stolen from them and seeing as it was the Hegemony that had used them.
That was something that was best left alone. If at all possible.
December 14th 2207 EMC [Earth Military Calendar] 2151 CE [Common Era].
Human Systems Alliance Space, Frontier Colonial Systems.
Ragnar-Alpha Sector, Ragnar super gas-giant.
Demeter Anchorage, Combat Information Centre.
[Play: Electric Light Orchestra: Out of the Blue - Mr. Blue Sky.]
Orders had just been passed down from Lord Admiral Terrace Hood himself, Demeter alongside her attached battlegroup had to re-deploy to the 'New Frontier' colony of Shanxi, besides Demeter, three Phoenix class colony ships as well as a pre-assembled Colony Defence Battlegroup, consisting of twenty-four frigates, twelve destroyers and three light cruisers would be making transit to the world in question.
It'd been a year since last direct contact with the SSV Lion had been made via Quantum Entanglement Communications, a year since Humanity had made contact with the Montressians, a year since Humanity began re-deploying their once unwanted mass relays to create a 'Mass Relay' Relay 'Supply Line', by jumping them to isolated systems between the Frontier Systems and Hierarchy Space.
Said systems just so happened to be secured with liberal deployments of Limpet Stealth Nuclear minefields as a security precaution, each mine capable of independently Identifying Friend or Foe, each one capable of independent tracking or swarming enemy contacts.
With sixty percent of the relay supply line complete, only the last five and a half months of travel would need to be completed using regular FTL methods, all they had to do was wait in the Montressor system, link in with their QEC Satellite and wait for the Lion to transmit through their navigation data when the Turian QEC Satellite linked up with the budding QEC network.
Rear-Admiral James Cutter could only hope that things had gone well with the Hierarchy, then again if it hadn't that was what the SSV Vanguard was for, acting as the current flagship of the Demeter Reserve Fleet under the command of now Captain Morriss.
A ship designed with the sole objective of hunting down and killing hostile capital ships, her main battery guns were so efficient that they tended to over penetrate any grade of capital ship Battleplate and had a nasty tendency to produce fifteen-million degree plasma equating to 3.2 kilotons of TNT, making her even deadlier in a 'Knife Fight' engagement.
A plasma which had a nasty side effect of transferring all of that heat directly through Kinetic Barriers onto the hull, the results were…. Messy to say the least, it'd been a controversy when she had been deployed at the height of the Insurrection twenty some years ago.
Only just scraping through as conventional weapons, rather than being labelled as Weapons of Mass Destruction.
How the navy managed that one was still a bit of a mystery to the elderly Rear-Admiral, he had no reason to complain about it however, the massive boost in firepower was a welcome addition if everything went to hell in a handbasket.
Picking up his wireless mounted in its base on the Demeter's war table, Rear-Admiral James Cutter, gave his next order, whilst staring at his wife who stood beside his Executive officer. "This is Demeter Actual to all Actuals, Irene, I say again Irene, proceed to the rendezvous coordinates."
"Phoenix 1 Actual, copies last." A female officer responded.
"Phoenix 2 Actual, Reads five by five." Another female officer replied in kind.
"Phoenix 3 Actual, let's make history." A rather brash sounding young male proclaimed, causing Colonel Hailey Cutter to rub the bridge of her nose with her forefinger and thumb.
"Shanxi Battlegroup Alpha Actual, we'll take point, Demeter Actual." One Commodore Yang Wen-Li replied with his usual laid back tone, the young dual national Chinese-American being one of the top ten youngest officers to achieve the rank of commodore.
Cutter raised his wireless to his mouth once more. "Demeter Actual copies your last, godspeed Commodore Li."
"This is Vanguard Actual, all ships are secure in their births, all hands present and accounted for." The final confirmation came from Captain Morriss, who reported from his post aboard the SSV Vanguard from the cruising bridge atop of the SSV Vanguard, nicknamed the 'Tower of Doom' in homage to the Royal Navy's Battleship superstructures from world war two.
"XO are we secure for FTL transit?" Captain Kallen Kozuki, formerly the Executive Officer of the SSV Lion, looked Cutter directly in the eyes. "Aye Admiral, all departments have declared secure FTL transit." She replied.
"Excellent, proceed with the jump, we have a new home to settle." The massive anchorage in orbit of its previous home the super gas giant of Ragnar was consumed in a blinding flash of light, as its bank of super massive FTL drives folded space and time to transport itself to its destination.
December 15th 2207 EMC [Earth Military Calendar] 2151 CE [Common Era].
Turian Space, Apien Crest, Trebia System.
SSV Lion, Portside Landing Bay.
[Play: Imagine Dragons: Natural - Natural.]
Captain Spruce trekked the length and width of the portside landing bay, dozens of stalls had been assembled which were manned by the crew of the SSV Lion, equipment, uniforms, vehicles and weapons systems were open for the public to interact with.
Many schools had been given guided tours to see multiple key systems such as CIC, hydroponics, medical, the launch bays, engineering and the mess halls; the crew had been encouraged to interact and answer any questions.
The Crown had been opened to anyone 18 and above, for dextro-alcoholic drinks, pub quizzes and members of the ships band playing various rock hits from the twentieth century to the modern day, mostly, the greatest hits.
All the while on the orbital station, the Primarch had been gracious enough to dedicate a 'green space' for the crew to erect a rugby pitch in quick order, a small rugby union tournament was set up with teams formed around the nationalities of the crew.
A total of eight teams were formed, Group A consisting of two matches. England Vs Scotland and New Zealand Vs Ireland; while Group B had Australia Vs Wales and South Africa Vs Japan.
The winning teams in Group A and B would move forward into the Semi-Finals, whilst the other teams competed for their placements against one another, with the victors of Semi-Finals going head to head in the Lion Cup Finals.
One wise ass in the Lion's workshop had actually 3D printed a trophy in the shape of Lion's head, which would be displayed in the Crown once the tournament was over.
Today was an exercise to foster relations, get the Turians interested in Human culture and to facilitate that the Hierarchy News Network both 'civil' and 'military' were making their rounds reporting on what they were witnessing, both on board the Lion herself and on the temporary pitch on the station.
Which was undoubtedly being watched by tens of millions if not hundreds of millions of people in the greater known galaxy, not that the crew would miss out on the festivities, as the matches were being broadcast over the ships PA system.
Speaking of which. "…. It looks like a knock on from Scotland, the ref's called for a scrum to restart play, the atmosphere here is quite electric while we wait for the teams to take their positions, turian crowds have gathered in droves, whilst crew members of the Lion, chant and cheer their fellow sailors from the side-lines…." The commentator gave a small pause before continuing.
"In fact, a good number of the individuals watching the match come in all manners of shapes and sizes, a good number of Krogan visiting here today are actually learning the game alongside the actual match in an open section of the field beside the pitch…."
That's when a flanging male turian spoke up. "Not surprising really, Krogan excel in physical sports and have been trying to find something other than combat sports to keep themselves and their young entertained." A ring of a whistle was heard in the background.
"That's the re-start, both teams are vying for domination of the ball, we're down to the last minutes of the match. If England can dominate this scrum and break through Scotland's defences, they'll win the match…. England are giving all they have…. They've done it, England's scrum half clears the ball, Jameson with lightning reactions chips the ball to the far left field, Churchill blazes to the ball barely preventing Scotland's captain Wallace from intercepting the ball!"
The roar of cheering fans could be heard. "He's done it, Churchill breaks past the last of Scotland's defences and dives over the try line, it was a magnificent play, the referee's whistle is blown, the conversion is given!" There was a moment of pause followed by another whistle. "That's the game, England: 28 – Scotland: 21!" The commentator cheered as the end-game whistle was blown.
The crew on deck broke out in cheers, which gave some of the Turian visitors a bit of a shock, which gave some of the Turian crewmen serving aboard the Lion a bit of a chuckle at their families expense.
To Be Continued….
AN: Thanks once again to my discord server dwellers, for chipping into this whole process, I know it's been an absolute dog putting up with my insanity, but fear not for I'll need far more booze to start actually thinking about writing new content.
So expect drunk Liam to make his return, I'll probably have to plagiarise a title somewhere, maybe: Revenge of the Drunk Leroy or Drunk Leroy Rises or, or Leroy in the Drunk. (if you work out all three movies you get a virtual chocolate chip cookie)
Feel free to join Discord please use this link: QvKurmG3tU using the search feature. Everyone is welcome, the more batshit insane the better.
Signed.
Your Glorious Overlord, The God Emperor of Mankind His Divine Holiness the Manperor of Mankind, by grace of himself of the United Imperium of Man, and of all Sectors and Sub-Sectors therein, God Emperor, Head of the Ecclesiarchy, Defender of the One True Faith and Avatar of the Machine God and the one true God of the Warp.