I don't own either Alien vs Predator or Mass Effect.

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Near Relay 314

The mass relay flared up. It should have been an exciting moment, but it wasn't. The two turian frigates had kept station on the relay for over a week, waiting and observing, careful not to approach too closely. They were not the only ones carrying out such a task. Two more frigates were currently in the outer reaches of the Utopia system, observing Eden Prime and the human fleet that was surrounding the planet. A third duo had perhaps the most important task of all, infiltrating the Shanxi system in order to observe its mass relay, a delicate task considering human sensitivities regarding Hierarchy fleet activity anywhere near that particular system.
Meanwhile, the bulk of General Corinthus' fleet was parked in an empty start system, carefully chosen for both its location and lack of significance so as to avoid a direct confrontation with the humans. It was an imperfect situation, but it was the best they could do.
Between the six strategically placed frigates the Hierarchy could keep an eye all human ship movements without placing a major fleet unit directly inside a strategically important system, while General Conrinthus could still be reasonably sure that he would receive a warning in time should the United Systems Military decide to take action. Meanwhile, keeping the bulk of his fleet out of any system that the humans would consider vital helped Corinthus to avoid provoking them. Not that they were unaware of it, of course. Several human frigates had been observed hanging around Corinthus' fleet, fighter patrols had swept through the outer orbits of both the Utopia and Shanxi systems and chased the turian frigates around for a while, and even the merchant vessels passing through Relay 314 made it a point to sent a brief greeting to the turians, just in case they were under any illusion that they had managed to remain hidden.

Initially, it had been exciting, but after a few days, the glamour wore off. The relay would flare up; a ship would either appear or disappear as the case might be; whoever had the watch would note it and could basically go back to sleep. They had determined that the volume of merchant traffic through the relay was high, exceptionally high even, but that was not much of a surprise. As far as was known, there was no direct relay connection between the human core worlds and their colonies in the Skyllian Verge. Instead, any ship that wanted to make the trip would have to go to Shanxi, then travel under its own FTL drive to Relay 314 in order to make the jump to the Verge. As a result, a sizeable fraction of the humans' total shipping passed through this part of space on a regular basis. This was well known to the Hierarchy' strategic planners who considered severing that connection to be one of the first strategic goals in any conflict with the Alliance of United Systems.
Of course, no one doubted that the humans were equally aware of their vulnerability but their treaty with the Citadel Council had prevented them from fortifying the Relay 314 system or maintaining a fleet presence in the nearby systems. The attack on Eden Prime had changed all that, provoking the humans into sending their fleet into the Utopia System, which in turn had led to the Hierarchy's response. It constituted a massive escalation that pleased no one, least of all the aforementioned strategic planners, who were seeing the exact same moves that would have occurred at the start of an actual conflict. But, as nerve-wracking as the current situation might be for the people at the top, nothing could alleviate the boredom of the turian crews who had spent a week counting merchant ships. Therefore, it was hardly surprising that their reactions had slowed down a bit. Not by much, of course. After all, these were still a turian warship and turians would never be accused of sloppiness. Still, instead of sounding an alert as soon as the relay spun up, the officer of the watch waited for whatever vessel was about to make the transit to appear.

And it did, with the brilliant flash of light that characterized all such transits. The officer on duty tapped his display enter the data into the daily log, then froze.

"Check those numbers!"

All thoughts of boredom were lost as the bridge crew reset their instruments and waited for the next sensor-sweep to finish.

Turians did not grow pale when taking fright. Neither did their eyes widen in surprise or narrow in anger. Still, it would have been easy for even the most ignorant of observers to read the shock in their body language.

"Size of vessel confirmed."

The officer looked at the data again, not even trying to hide his horror. The ship on the scanners was monstrous, at least four times the length of any turian dreadnought., significantly longer even than the Destiny Ascension, though the internal volume might be more similar due to the difference in shape. There had been reports of large human vessels, some even larger than this, but those had been cargo vessels, slow and ponderous, relying on the humans' unique tachyon shunt drives for FTL travel, which had been dismissed as far too slow to be practical for military use. This vessel had used a mass relay and whatever it was, it was no merchant ship.

"Sir, incoming message."

"Put- put it on speaker."

It took only a second, then the message came through.

"This is USM Kilimanjaro to Hierarchy patrol. Please respond. I repeat, this is USM Kilimanjaro to Hierarchy patrol. Please respond."

-0-0-0-

USM Normandy

Just when you figure your life isn't going to become any more fucked up. Shepard sighed. Lawson. The short meeting had upset her more than she cared to acknowledge. As much as she prefered to forget about the whole thing, she couldn't stop the memories from coming back.

"So, Ms. eh Lawson. What can I do for you?"

The other woman smiled. "Actually, Lieutenant, it's more about what I can do for you. My boss has sent me to deliver a warning to you. He is very concerned about the upcoming mission."

"Your boss?"

"My boss is... Well, let us just say that he sits at the centre of military intelligence."

"Really?"

"Yes. He is very gifted at unravelling the threads of a plot and seeing the heart of the matter. So much so, that people have started to call him 'The Illusive man'"." She smiled again. "T.I.M. for short."

"T.I.M.?" Shepard snorted. "So, you're saying that there are some, who call him... Tim?"

Lawson's smile disappeared. "It's not a joking matter, Lieutenant. And neither is the upcoming attack. You understand that this is more than a simple rescue operation."

"Obviously."

"Unfortunately, it appears to us that some people cannot quite make up their minds what it is supposed to be. There is much talking of 'sending a message to the aliens'. We don't disagree with that, you understand. But the problem is that there seem to be many different thoughts on what the message is supposed to be. Though a glorious victory is in and of itself a message, I suppose. "

"A glorious victory," Shepard repeated.

"Yes. That's what they call it," Lawson said sourly. "Talk about selling the hide before you've shot the bear! In any case, not sure exactly what it is that makes certain victories glorious, but, then again, I've got the suspicion that there are more people that are confused on this particular subject. Unfortunately, they seem to have made some dubious choices based on this 'glorious victory' concept. In particular, your commanding officer."

"Major Kyle."

"Yes." She fell silent as if she was waiting for Shepard to continue the conversation. Then she shook her head. "You refuse to comment on your superiors. Fair enough. We'll come back to that in a moment. First: the strategic goals of this attack are to A) Put an end to the slave-trading through Torfan, B) Liberate as many slaves as possible, and C) prove to the galaxy at large that we can do this and nobody can stop us. Would you agree on these points?"

"I would add: Not necessarily in that order," Shepard nodded. "But yes, those seem to be the main goals."

"Then let's continue. Have you truly considered these goals? Even if we lay waste to Torfan, there is nothing to stop somebody else from rebuilding. Not unless we occupy the system permanently, which we will not and cannot do. And even if we manage to make enough of an impression and do enough damage that people will decide against rebuilding Torfan, what's to stop them from setting up shop elsewhere? Torfan is a convenience for the slave trade, not a necessity. Liberating the slaves is a noble goal, of course, but is it worth it? How many slaves are there? How many can we realistically hope to recover? From a humanitarian point of view it may be worthwhile, but from a practical point of view? We cannot hope to free every enslaved human or even a majority of them. Not without invading the Hegemony directly as well as launching a crusade across the Terminus systems. Things which, once again, we cannot and will not do. So, what's left? Flexing our muscles and showing off our toys? We can do that by holding a parade. Showing the galaxy that we can get away with it? We risk a war with the Citadel Council and the Hierarchy, just to prove a point? And what point, Lieutenant? Effectively, we'll be proving the point that we can get away with proving a point. Do you really think anyone will be impressed?"

Shepard remained silent.

"So that is the first major concern we have with this operation. The second is operational. It cannot have escaped your notice that the briefing was a bit low on details, especially as to what would happen once the colony was breached."

"True. But then again, it is tough to plan when we have no clear understanding as to who and what we'll find and what they'll be doing."

Now it was Lawson's turn to snort. "Oh, we know more than you think, Lieutenant. But what we know is inconvenient, so some people are doing their very level best to ignore it. The defence force of Torfan is made up of three components: A loose group of mercenaries recruited from all over the Terminus, several units of batarians -Hegemony Special Intervention Troops, even though they pretend otherwise-, and finally, an elite unit of Bloodpack mercs, mostly Krogan and Vorcha, that serve as the governor's personal bodyguard. Tell me, Lieutenant, what will they do when you storm the colony?"

Shepard shrugged. "It depends. The mercs might surrender, if they think they don't have a chance to win and if they think we'll let them live. Not the batarians. If they are really from the Special Intervention Unit, they'll have to fight. They cannot afford to be captured alive and they'd probably be executed by their own people if they were. Even for the mercs, it's a long shot. Too much chance of us executing them as pirates. They could try to use the slaves as bargaining chips; let them go in exchange for a ticket out of there."

"A ticket on what, Lieutenant? By that time we'll have secured all ships. In fact, we'll probably have destroyed most of them. Besides, how could they trust us? They'd have to keep the slaves hostage on board of those ships to protect themselves, something we would never allow. So?"

"So they'll fight."

"Yes. They'll fight. You and the rest of the unit will have to fight your way through tunnel after tunnel against an entrenched enemy with nothing to lose. Lieutenant, I can only say that I'm relieved I will not be joining you in that battle. And that brings me to the last problem: Major Kyle. A glorious victory requires a glorious leader. So, the powers that be were very careful in their selection. Now, Major Kyle's superiors seem very impressed with him and his resume makes great reading. He has had all his tickets punched. A fast-track officer if ever there was one. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if he becomes Skymarshall one day. The perfect man to lead troops into glorious victory. When the battle is won he'll look great for the cameras and anyone looking into his record will marvel at how spotless it is. It will also look great on Major Kyle's record, something that will greatly please his sponsors. But I wonder, who will be winning that victory? I cannot help but notice that for all the ticket punching and spotlessness of Major Kyle's record, there seems to be one thing that he's rather light on, combat experience."

Even after all these years, Shepard remembered that moment, the bubble of resentment that had already been there welling up inside her.

"Officers like Major Kyle don't need combat experience, Ms Lawson. In fact, they are better off without it. Actual combat might spoil the spotlessness of their records."

"Quite so, Lieutenant. Quite so. So, tell me," Lawson leaned forward, her eyes boring into Shepard's. "What will happen, when the defenders refuse to follow our playbook? When they refuse to surrender? When Major Kyle has to fight his way through Torfan room after room and tunnel after tunnel? What will happen?"

"He'll fold," Shepard said. "He'll freeze, or he'll run. Doesn't matter. One way or another, he'll screw it up."

"That's what we fear, Lieutenant. And when that happens, when the ground-offensive screeches to a halt with the slaves still in their pens and the batarians still in control, what then? The fleet cannot stay in Torfan forever. Our fighter squadrons cannot hold the connecting relays forever. Sooner or later, the Hegemony will notice what's happening, as will the Hierarchy, and the Council. And then the Hegemony will run screaming to the Council, who will run screaming to the Hierarchy, who will have no choice but to order their fleet to re-open the relay connections by force. And then what? Will we fight the turians and hope that they will not escalate beyond that first exchange? Or will we cut and run, with our tails between our legs? What point will we prove then?"

She leaned back again.

"You see our concerns."

Shepard nodded. "If the purpose of the operation is to prove a point, we must succeed. And we can only succeed if we act quickly, decisively. You think Major Kyle cannot do that. So, you want someone else to stand by and be ready to take over, if- no, not if, when he screws up."

"Yes."

"You do realize that by then I might be dead already?"

Lawson shrugged. "That possibility exists, of course. But so far you've proven yourself to be hard to kill. We've studied your record, extensively. In its own way, it's just as interesting as Kyle's. You have similar family connections, for example, though yours seem less eager to exert themselves on your behalf."

"Assignments and promotions must be earned, they should not be used as birthday gifts."

"True. Even so, there are a few additional problems, aren't there? In fact, your first commanding officer expressed some doubts about you after a raid on a smuggler base. Something about a lack of prisoners."

Shepard kept her voice even. "They resisted."

"Of course. In any case, that's the sort of mark one expects on the record of an experienced officer; the sort of mark that Major Kyle lacks. And while others may consider it a problem, we actually count it as a point in your favour. That's why we made sure you'd be in this position, just like Major Kyle's high-ranking friends made sure of his assignment."

"Thanks!" Shepard laughed harshly. "I'm flattered. But what do you think a platoon leader can do if the battalion-commander fails. It's not as though I'm next in the chain of command."

"But you are the most senior, and most experienced, of the platoon leaders. You'll be chosen to lead the attack. And so you can make sure that the attack doesn't falter, that you remain in action, no matter what happens. You will be supported. All three company commanders are solid, experienced officers, but they will not simply ignore Kyle's orders without good reason."

"And you think I will?"

"As I said, Lieutenant, we've studied your record," Lawon said. "We believe that you will choose to do your duty. No matter what orders you receive."

"Right," Shepard said. "But that's not all isn't it, Ms Lawson? There is something else you want; something about the nature of the point we're trying to prove; something you think I'll be able to do for you."

Lawson smiled. "Oh, that? Yes, of course. You may want to ask yourself, Lieutenant, what would make it all worthwhile. What could make such an impression that closing down Torfan would put an end to the slave raids?" She stood up. "Think about it, Lieutenant. Think hard. This battle is going to be fought, no matter what you or I, or anyone says; and it's going to cost a lot of lives. Would it not be better if at least it served a purpose?"

"Yeah. It served a purpose, alright." Shepard shook her head. What was done was done. In all honesty, she could not even say that Lawson and whoever she had behind her had been wrong. The Torfan raid had been a sound, if perhaps overly ambitious, concept, messed up by people that were blinded by visions of martial grandeur. Someone had had to fix the impending mess before it blew up in humanity's collective face. And things had worked out the way they had wanted them to, she had personally seen to that. Well, perhaps I gave them more than they bargained for; but, hey, nobody can say I'm not willing to go the extra mile! Oh no, above and beyond the call of duty, that's me.

And now they were back, poking their noses into another mission. It did explain why the request for new equipment had gone through so quickly. If someone high up in intelligence was pulling strings a lot of red tape could be cut. The question was, what were they going to ask for in return?

-0-0-0-

"Hello, handsome. Where have you been all my life?" Ashley Williams cooed as she gently ran her hand over the exoskeleton. The latest in infantry combat technology, straight out of Weyland-Yutani's military research division. No more extended harnesses, no more counterweights. This baby would fit like a glove over her new armour. It carried its own power source, its own shield generator, and most importantly, its own strength enhancers that allowed a normal human to carry an M56 smart gun, or any equivalent weapon, as though it was an assault rifle. There were downsides to it, of course, like there were to any piece of technology. Like anything with a power source it could potentially be hacked or disrupted, and, if the power failed, it would leave the user weighted down, nearly immobilized. That was why it had been developed as an add-on, rather than an integral piece of the armour. You could detach it and walk away. Not that Ashley planned to walk away from it anytime soon. So much firepower, so many possibilities.

"Chief Williams?"

Seriously, cannot a girl have a little moment around here? Wait... The voice had sounded almost human. Almost, but- She turned around. Great. Now what?

"I- I was told to talk to you. About armour. Commander Shepard said I would need it if I have to join her on a planet."

"Right." Ashley sighed. To be fair, the Commander had mentioned the need to fit their asari guest with some protective gear, and as the senior -and only- NCO among the marines that fell within her responsibilities; never mind that playing dress-up with an asari was right next to dentist visits on her list of least favourite things. She quickly looked around the hangar in the hope that someone, anyone else more suited to the job was available. Unfortunately, it didn't look good. None of the other marines was around and the only people in the hangar other than a couple of nvay personnel doing routine maintenance were the turian, who seemed to be doing tests on his helmet vizor, and the krogan who was doing whatever it was that he did when he was hanging out in the hangar bay. Alright, let's get this over with.

"Yes, right." She looked the asari over. At least the alien had had the common sense to wear her environment suit and not the borrowed human clothes she normally wore, so she could get to work right away. "We cannot put you in human armour. The helmet wouldn't fit, and we cannot match your helmet to human armour. The seals are incompatible. So, we'll have to improvise."
She opened one of the newly arrived crates and searched for a moment. There. "We just received these."

Ashley looked up to find the asari staring at her in confusion.

"I don't-"

"Detachable combat harness." She held the object up so the alien could get a closer look. "Basically, it's a series of straps and buckles that you wear over your suit. They serve as attachment points for armour plates. There's even a helmet cover that goes with it. Can be used to add protection to existing armour, or to turn a normal environmental suit into body armour. All we need to do is adjust it to fit you and start adding plates. " Ashley shook her head. "And I trust you know what you need in that regard. It's not like I have any idea what kind of armour works for an asari biotic-"

"Heavy power armour," a deep voice rumbled behind Ashley, making her jump. How a full-sized krogan battlemaster in heavy armour was able to sneak up on people was a mystery she had yet to solve, but somehow Urdnot Wrex managed it.

"What?"

"Of course!" The turian had walked over from the MAKO and nodded his head solemnly. "Heavy power armour is the ONLY good armour for asari biotics. Everybody knows that."

"Oh, for..." The asari was rolling her eyes in disturbingly human fashion. "It's an old joke. 'The best armour for an asari biotic is heavy power armour. You stick it on an elcor and put him in front of the asari.' That one dates back all the way to the Rachni Wars."

"The way I heard it," Vakarian mused. "You put the asari on the elcor's back."

Ashley snorted, she could not help herself. "Well, the other way round wouldn't be very practical." She ignored the laughter, or species-dependent equivalent, that followed and went back to her task. And now I'm joking around with xenos. "Here. You've pretty much got human dimensions, so we just need to adjust the length of the straps."

Getting the asari into the harness proved easier than she had expected. Despite the similarity to a human form, the asari's body proved more flexible, even in the environmental suit and once the straps were in place, it was just a matter of moving the buckles until they had a tight fit. "Here we go. I'll mark the length of each strap, so we know the correct length for future reference. next, the armour."

"Ehm, what about these?" The asari was inspecting the harness, focussing on the various pouches and clips attached to the belt.

"Those? Just the usual belt attachments. This stuff goes over your normal suit and you don't want to have to take it off to get to your equipment. So, we got a holder for a tablet, guess you won't need that. Flashlight," She pulled the item out of the box. "You can also clip that to your shoulder if you want to keep your hands free, but I wouldn't advice it. Once the enemy figures out that's how you carry it, they know exactly where to shoot you. No weapons, they come with their own holsters. Just this." She tossed the final item to the asari, who caught it gingerly.

"I'm so sorry, but what is it."

"This? Tool knife." T'Soni didn't look as though that clarified much. "Here." Ashley reached out and took it back and folded it open. "Pair of plyers, basically the central tool of every design and double as a wire-cutter. Knife -locks in place-, saw, a bit-holder -bits are in a separate set in the same pouch-, measuring stick engraved on the side, even a couple of can-openers, though that's a bit old-fashioned these days."

"But-" It seemed like it was still not quite clear. "Why would you need this? This is what an omnitool is for."

Now it was Ashley's turn to look confused.

"A what? Why would we bother with that? You need a computer, some element zero, and a whole bunch of incredibly expensive equipment just to mimic what we can build-out of a piece of steel for a fraction of the price. It's not tied to your computer, or your communicator, so if one fails the other is still useful, plus it doesn't need a power source, which is always good. Sure, you may need a tool that's not on your particular knife, but let's be honest, how many of you people can actually program their omnitools to form something new? Maybe that quarian chick can do it, they're supposed to be good at it. But from everything I've heard most of you just go to the nearest computer terminal and download whatever upgrade you need and if it doesn't exist yet, you go to a store to have it made. How is that different from me going online and buying a new knife? Either way, it's not going to happen if you're stuck in the middle of nowhere."

She shook her head and turned back to the armour crate to dig up the plates, leaving a century-old alien to stare in wonder at a tool that any pre-spaceflight boy scout would have recognized instantly.

-0-0-0-

HNV Stalwart Defense, flagship of the Hierarchy expeditionary force

Three dreadnoughts, one of the new carriers, twenty cruisers, and eight frigates formed an impressive sight as they orbited the local gas giant. In fact, they were currently the largest concentration of Hierarchy firepower outside of Citadel Space. The number had been carefully chosen. Not so much that they would provoke the humans into doing anything rash, but enough to remind them that no matter how strong they thought themselves to be, the Hierarchy was always stronger.
At least, that had been the idea. And initially, it had worked. Opposing hem were two small human fleets, each concentrated around a pair of carriers. Together these could have become a serious threat, but the humans were not in a position to combine them. One fleet had been stationed at Shanxi to protect the colony as well as the relay that formed the gateway into the United Systems. The other was currently in the Utopia system, dealing with the ongoing crisis on Eden Prime and protecting the colony from further attack.
The humans could not combine their fleets without uncovering one of these systems and if they wanted to confront the turians, they'd have to leave them both open to attack while the frigates that general Corinthus had dispatched throughout these star systems ensured that he would be informed the moment the humans moved. Protecting both systems while making an offensive move at the same time would have required them to double their forces, a serious escalation, as well as a considerable strain on their operational budget, and the humans had refrained from doing so. Until now.

General Corinthus looked around the room where most of his senior officers had gathered. Normally, he would have used a conference call, but not this time. For this, he wanted them to be on his flagship in person.

"Has the sensor data been confirmed?"

"Yes, sir, and the results match. These are the same class of ship, both at Shanxi and at Relay 314."

"More than four kilometres long; carries a fighter compliment, but it's not a dedicated carrier. Instead, they have two mass accelerators that probably extend for at least two-thirds of the hull-length, heavy secondary batteries along the flanks, and are absolutely bristling with GARDIAN emplacements. Not to mention carrying more armour than three normal dreadnoughts combined. They weren't shy about showing off every detail either; no attempt to even try to interfere with our sensors. They wanted us to see all of it."

"Yes, sir," The commanding officer of HNV Razor Claw said. The frigate has just completed the journey from Shanxi in what had to be record time and arrived just in time to meet one of its counterparts as they arrived from Relay 314, bringing a near-identical message. "They were practically broadcasting the specifications of the ship that we saw. They identified themselves as the USM Kilimanjaro and USM Olympus Mons. We're trying to trace those names but-"

"But those are completely irrelevant except to a xeno-psychologist." General Corinthus studied the data again. "I suppose congratulations are in order! We've found the answer to a twenty-five-year-old question: why do humans not build dreadnoughts? Answer: dreadnoughts are too small and weak for their taste. But how did they do it? Where did they find the element zero supplies to build ships like this?"

There was a moment of silence.

"Well? Anyone?"

"I- I don't think they did, sir," One of the officers said. "If you look at the energy readings, you'll see that the drive core is much smaller than expected. About the size you'd expect on a normal dreadnought or carrier. I've run the numbers. It would be enough to allow the ship to use a mass relay, but not enough to provide an effective FTL drive. If they tried, they'd have to discharge their drive cores so often it becomes impossible to use them. They'd end up stuck in the void between star systems."

"But that makes no sense," Another officer objected. "Even with the smaller core, a ship like this is a considerable investment. There is no way they would spend that much on ships that are completely restricted to the relays; especially in their situation, with their core worlds separated from their Verge colonies by the Shanxi-Relay 314 gap. The strategic limitations-"

"Aren't as big as you think," Corinthus sighed. "Not for them. They have an alternative, remember?" He looked around and saw the comprehension in their eyes.

"Their tachyon shunt drive," someone breathed.

"Exactly. It gives them FTL travel without element zero. Somehow they must have put together a hybrid. Something that allows them to use the relays without having to invest in a full-sized eezo core. FTL travel outside the relay network will be slow in such a ship, very slow, but it can still reach the surrounding systems if necessary. But I don't think they will need to do that very often. Remember, the ship at Relay 314 came out of that relay, so it was already in the Verge. Chances are it was built there. If I were in their position, I'd certainly construct a shipyard in the Verge to support my fleet. As for the strategic limitations," Corinthus shook his head. "That depends on what they intend to use them for. Don't think of these ships as dreadnoughts; that's not what they are. These are mobile fortresses. They're intended to block relay connections. All they need to do is place one on top of a relay and it shuts down all traffic. That mitigates the strategic problem of their dismal FTL speed. Under most circumstances, they won't need to visit nearby systems. They can wait for their enemy to come to them because sooner or later the enemy will have to reopen the relay. And except for the Destiny Ascension, there is no ship in the galaxy that can engage these ships one-on-one. So, what can the enemy do? What can we do?"

"Concentrate a fleet," someone said. "That's the only option. Three or four dreadnoughts with carrier support should be able to overmatch one of these ships and they cannot have built all that many of them. Even with a small eezo core, the cost in money and resources has to be considerable. That's a huge investment in a platform that lacks tactical flexibility."

"True, but it will still take a small fleet to engage just one of these ships successfully. And it has to be done with dreadnoughts. I doubt our cruisers would be able to break through its armour even if the humans don't fight back. Meanwhile, their own fleet is free to do whatever it wants." Corinthus looked around. "Our position here was strong because we forced them to maintain fleets around both Shanxi and Eden Prime while also keeping ships in the Verge to stop us from passing through Relay 314, whereas we could move freely because we don't have any local real-estate to defend. But now they've secured two out of three mass relays in this region as well as their colony at Shanxi. That buys them complete operational freedom for their carrier groups. We can no longer threaten Shanxi because we lack the firepower to take that ship if it's supported by the planet's fighter squadrons. We could try to attack the one at Relay 314, but even if we'd win, we'd take catastrophic losses, so that's not realistic either. Meanwhile, they can send their carriers from Shanxi to join up with the ones at Eden Prime and use the combined force to go after us. At that point we'll have no choice but to fall back toward Citadel Space, leaving them with complete control over the buffer zone. Solutions?"

"We'll need reinforcements."

"Really? And how many reinforcements do we ask for?" Corinthus' voice was harsh. "It would have to be enough that we can successfully engage one of these ships. So, let's say we need a minimum of at least four or five dreadnoughts with two carriers for fighter support. Plus the additional screening units. Remember, we don't just need to destroy the ship, we'd have to do it without taking crippling losses. So, effectively we'd need to increase our strength by at least fifty per cent. A serious escalation, but one that they can match if they want to. The logical step for them would be to put a destroyer squadron next to each of these new ships, perhaps supported by one of their auxiliary carriers and concentrate their two large carrier groups at Eden Prime. So, then we'd need even more ships. I suspect we'd need at least six dreadnoughts and three carriers to maintain credibility. Are we willing to go that far? Is the Council? Especially when the humans are not actively threatening anyone. They've not attacked our ships, or even ordered us out of those star systems.
Of course, that's still assuming they don't bring in any more of these ships. If they do, and they're willing to wait a couple of months, they can put one of them on Relay 288 cut us off from Citadel Space. Such a ship might already be on its way."

"And no way for us to intercept it, or even know about it until they reach the relay," One of the officers nodded. "If they use a tachyon shunt, they don't need to discharge their drive cores, so they can pick whatever route they want without passing through any other system. They could be anywhere."

"Exactly. If they intend to escalate we won't know until it's too late and we're trapped. So, first things first. I will report this immediately to the Council. We'll use the FTL buoys to send the signal. I will also contact Hierarchy command and request immediate reinforcements. As for our own security, all frigates will return to their duty stations and keep the humans under constant observation. Finally, I want two frigates to return to Relay 288 and take up a position there. If the humans try to cut us off, we need to know about it. Meanwhile, we will start running every possible simulation based on what we know about these ships. If we're forced to engage them, I want to be as prepared as possible."

He looked around the room. "Make no mistake about it, this galaxy is changing, even as we speak. And it will only take one bad decision to turn that change into a nightmare. Let's make sure that we're not the ones making that bad decision.

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A/N: Good old D&D humour. What's the best armour for a mage? Full plate! Slap it on a fighter and have him stand in front of the mage. (Yes, I'm a geek.) I always liked the scene in ME3 where Joker tells the joke about the salarian and the krogan that go to a rachni planet. He says it's the only joke that both species tell, but there have to be more. These people have interacted for thousands of years. There has to be this enormous volume of shared culture that humans have never heard of. And it helps to break the ice a bit considering Ashley's discomfort around aliens.

To quote Sun Tzu: "The enemy has no choice but to engage me, for I threaten those positions he must keep safe."
The mass relays completely dominate the strategic situation. They turn space into an endless series of chokepoints. So, you always know in advance where the battles are going to take place. You could build armed space stations next to each relay, but they would be too vulnerable. They cannot dodge, so the enemy could just toss asteroids at them from a distance. I considered mobile fortresses that have no form of FTL travel, so they would be restricted to one star system but dismissed the idea. Being mobile, they'd qualify as dreadnoughts under the treaty of Farixen so you'd end up with a bunch of very limited, purely defensive dreadnoughts.
This ship is a compromise. Not as flexible as the Destiny Ascension, but with sufficient tactical and strategic options to make it worth building while cheap enough that you can build more than one of them, which, to be honest, makes the Destiny Ascension a bit of a white elephant.

I recently posted an update to my parallel story: Intelligence reports to show what the current turian thinking on naval strategy was. Guess they miscalculated. A little.