Chapter 2

Vanker, Relay 314 system, 2657GS (April/8/2329AD)

Looking at the tactical computer, Canus Albiraka debated what could have led to the unknowns opening fire on his ships and if he was somehow at fault. He didn't want to believe he had failed, and he was examining every second of footage from the buzzing as he could, as well as his personal reactions from the ship cameras. Groaning his discontent with the situation he soon decided there was nothing he could do but pick up the pieces at this time. It would be up to high command to determine his guilt in the long run.

He looked on as another life pod was towed towards his ship. They had set about recovering the life pods a half hour ago because they were the only link to this unknown race, but most had attempted to flee which meant it was taking a while to gather them all up as they constantly did their best to evade, and even fire at, his fighters and ships. He would make sure to note this, and send in his recommendations for the survivors to receive commendations, they deserved every bit. They were also the only proof left that showed he was not a bumbling fool and had lost two frigates to some damned pirates, he was awaiting to be informed that they had all been brought on board so they could limp back to base.

"Commander, all the unknowns' life pods have been brought on board sir." An ensign reported from below him in the control trench.

"Thank you. Helm set course for Outpost Phaest."

"Aye sir." After a brief set of calculations, the surviving ship, stuffed to the gills with rescued personnel and captured life pods and transports, went to FTL and traveled towards the nearest Relay, from there it would be three more relays before they reached the patrol outpost.

Palaven, Palace of Military Affairs, 2657GS (April/13/2329AD)

Admiral Septimus Oraka walked down the hallways of the Palace of Military Affairs, he was heading towards a meeting room in the sub basements, where a crisis was being discussed. He didn't know what it was exactly, but he had been informed of it through highly encrypted channels, and told it was of the utmost secrecy. He opened the door to the room and immediately realized that this may be even more serious than he previously imagined.

Standing in center of the room was a young Turian commander, standing on the central pedestal, sat around the room behind a table that followed the wall in a crescent, were some of the highest ranked Turians in all of Citadel space.

Primarch Fedorian sat directly in the center of the crescent with the Naval officials to his left and the Army officials to his right, including himself there were six officials, three army, three navy.

There was General Desolas Arterius, one of the most recognized and respected Turian field commanders in history, Field Marshal Brutus Tirius, overall commander of the Turian ground forces, second only to Primarch Fedorian, then there was General Turius Linthfus commander of the infamous Turian Blackwatch.

The three Naval officials were himself, in command of the Turian home fleet, Fleet Admiral Julrus Marthus overall commander of the Turian fleets, and an admiral whose name Oraka could never remember hearing, ever.

"Ah Oraka, good to see you old friend." Septimus saluted his 'old friend', Primarch Fedorian.

"Here as ordered sir, good to see you as well Primarch." Septimus replied, then headed for his seat, Septimus pulled up a chair in between Marthus and Fedorian and sat down.

"Please Commander Albiraka, could you start from the beginning for everyone here." The now named Turian nodded.

"Yes sir, we were patrolling relay 314 as ordered to ensure there was no pirate or slaver activity in the area." He paused for a second to gather himself, "When we entered the system we discovered an unknown ship next to relay 314, which was activated."

"What happened next?" Quizzed Desolas patiently.

"The ship, upon detecting my flotilla, started to make what I estimated was emergency speed towards the relay. Unsure of its class and designation at the time, I hailed it and we started to run through our database of ships it could possibly be. It was soon concluded the ship was of an unknown make, manufacture, and design, alongside numerous unknown system that made up the ship. I had already ordered my two frigates to move closer and try to get between the ship and the relay. After making a micro-FTL jump to within a few tens of thousands of kilometers, the unknown opened fire with a directed energy weapon, disabling the trailing frigate, killing several crewmen of the ship. I am glossing over a multitude of minutia included in my written report, that lead me to believe, too late, that it was preparing to fire. The ship proceeded to fire single red beam of light, a laser, at the Ignoble, The frigate was rendered inoperable in a single shot, hitting her amidship and killing the pilot and navigator. The shot proceeded to travel through the neck of the ship, and disabled it completely" The temperature of the room seemed to drop five degrees.

'Impossible,' thought Oraka, not even the Salarians have a directed energy weapon that powerful. There was silence as the Officers attempted to process this story. It was obvious from the looks passing from a few of the Naval personnel that they thought the officer before them, without this solid irrefutable proof, some may have thought the officer lying.

"Please commander, continue with your story," Fedorian stated, turning to the others, "I know this story seem incredible, but I have already seen some of the evidence he brought back. We rushed him here as soon as we learned of the seriousness of the situation."

Albiraka continued, "I know sirs it's hard to believe, but it is true. The Ignoble opened fire, after review it was caused by surprise, the return fire crippled the unknown ship, at which point life pods and shuttles craft were jettisoned. The unknown fired once more with all its laser weaponry, of which we have determined was 4 turrets, two on each flank. I ordered the other frigate to board the ship and retrieve a sample of the technology and to rescue the crew, but the unknowns rigged there ship to explode, resulting in the crippling of the other frigate."

"Convenient." The Admiral Oraka could not name muttered.

"Admiral." Fedorian scolded and denying Oraka his name, "I have had the unknowns moved to a facility to be interrogated, but we have had an unknown and dangerous race step into citadel space, we need to come up with a strategy to deal with them if they are as hostile as they appear before we have another Rachni or Krogan war."

Palaven, interrogation room, 2657GS (April/13/2329AD)

Jonathan Grant sat in a metal chair, wishing his hands weren't restrained to the table. Not because he wanted to escape or anything, though that would be a plus, the problem was he just had one of those beard that unless he attended to it every day it would grow uncontrollably. After five days without shaving, his cheeks and chin were itchy as all hell. Sighing he almost wished he had turned his escape pod back towards the ship before it blew, the key word being almost as he very much preferred to be alive.

So far the aliens, "raptors" as one of the other prisoners had nicknamed them, had treated him and the other prisoners well enough. They even provided them with food they could eat, though by the way raptors have handled it he had to guess they could not. Which in itself was an interesting fact, if they had food for species other than their own; it probably meant they had contact with at least one other alien race. Not to mention the fact they hadn't been tortured for information was a good sign… unless that was what was about to happen.

Sighing Jonathan considered the protocol on the situation, his best chance was just to give name, rank, ship, and serial number until someone back at the Federation realized something had gone wrong and sent help. But that could take months and he really doubted they would ever be able to send help. Sitting back in his chair, he considered maybe saying a thing or two just to keep his captors happy, and ultimately decided against it. They wouldn't understand him anyway and by the time help got here they may have learned the basics of their language. He closed his eyes to think and began to relax but then he heard the door open…

Palaven, interrogation room, 2657GS(April/13/2329AD)

Corporal Linthus Barius opened the door to the Interrogation room and again marveled at how Asari like the being was in front of him, except with a lack of head crests and breasts and a growth of fur on his head and face. He had already helped in the integration of several of the other aliens and most had been less than forthcoming, but some had at least tried to communicate.

He looked at the being carefully as he sat down across from him. He activated the translator device and looked at the alien, all they needed were a few more samples of the alien's languages then they could start translating. Normally it would have been relatively trivial to establish communications, but the level of classified this species had around it made it impossible at the time to get any outside contractors. Particularly Asari.

What made it even more frustrating was the alien's base coding for their computers was entirely foreign, not a hint of Prothean influenced architecture or designs. Everything had been made from scratch by these beings, which meant he had to take the excruciatingly long way of decrypting their coding language denying him another avenue of communication, making this a process that would take months to fully capture the nuances and vocabulary if he had to extract it from such a limited pool of uncooperative people.

To make it worse the aliens seemed to have a variety of languages, most were similar to one another they must have a main one but they had yet to identify which one it was, everyone he talked to had a different dialect or language entirely, one would speak one way with a long drawl, the next quickly and garbling their words as they did. When he observed them talking with each other they had uniformed their accents and languages to one, but his samples were limited, and once again not always the same language.

Collecting himself he began. He pointed to himself, and said, "Turian", he pointed to the alien, it looked at him and said something in its native language. Guessing from the length and the rehearsed nature, he could make a general guess, Name, rank, serial number.

How original. This process continued with the alien rehearsing his mantra a few times, only breaking it to make comments that he guessed was something like, "I can do this all day". Leaning back in his chair, Linthus waited for about 5 minutes before the translator beeped. At that point he gladly left the room and gave it to a waiting technician, who then disappeared into another room. With nothing to do, Linthus sat down and listened to music for half an hour before the tech came back. Handing him a stop gap translator the size of a ring box. Activating it, he walked back inside and resumed his previous position.

"Can you understand me now?" The alien's eyes widened slightly, and even Linthus could detect a hint of understanding, but the alien quickly resumed his previous bored look.

"I'll take that as a yes, now then shall we begin-"

"Now hold on here!" The alien interrupted, Linthus' device simply converted, 'stop at position', "How the hell did you figure out English from a few snide comments and name rank and serial number? For that matter how the hell did you learn how to speak it so fast? It's like the most complicated language we have." 'What the afterlife, English remarks and serial number name rank? How afterlife do you speak fast? English stupidly complicated' Beyond the broken sentence structure, Linthus hoped he was being translated properly.

Barius looked the alien over and replied slowly, "You weren't the only alien we have been talking to, one alien talked so much she may have told us her whole life story, another spoke at length of the mass effect relays and that he was going to be as well known as 'Cherenkov'. And another kept blaming an organization called the 'fleet' for about everything."

"Okay I see how you could have learned it but being able to speak it?" Gibberish was converted to not so gibberish, 'Understand how speak, but how speak?' Linthus rubbed a talon over his features, thinking he eventually came to the right conclusion.

Pulling out the ring box sized translator, Linthus pointed at it. "This." He said simply.

"Oh… well I'll tell you now I'm not going to tell you much of anything useful… hmm though telling you what we're called on the other hand is not useful except to stop the use of alien. We're called Terrans, that's our nation, species wise we go by Humans but most of us prefer Terrans, keeps it simple that way." Linthus listened closely, 'Tell you, not much. Will tell name so not foreign. We Terran, military/nation, people humans, want Terran, simple'.

Priamarch office, 2657GS (April/18/2329AD)

After several days of interrogation, four things had became apparent to Priamarch Fedorian, 1: The aliens, or Terrans as they preferred, had three major languages with a spattering of minor languages they had yet to decrypt. 2: The aliens were hard to break, all of them were trained to be resistant to interrogation.

One of the aliens had somehow gotten free and attacked his interrogator, he was now little more than quivering lump of meat with most of his bones broken, and in the process had actually managed to knock out his interrogator and hold off a couple MPs. But even in that state he still refused to give information and in fact started singing something rather fatalistic. The lyrics went something like, "it's a good day to die when you know the reasons why," but other than providing a possible snapshot of the culture he came from it was not useful beyond a biology lesson.

3: The aliens did not use element zero in their weapons, or anything they could find for that matter, while examining the escape pods they had captured, the engineers found suitcases built into them carrying some sort of carbine rifle and lots of ammunition for them. The weapons used projectiles that were launched by explosive chemical charges. If he didn't know better, he would think they had only recently came upon space, perhaps only in this century. But their laser weaponry, and the speed of their mother ship had spoken of experience in shipmaking.

4: He was extremely tired.

Thinking about how to deal with these aliens was weighing heavily on his mind, and they just didn't have enough information. To fix that he had dispatched Commander Albiraka and Admiral Varlikam to ascertain the motives behind these aliens, the Commander had been sent to the scout the other side of relay 314 and make peaceful contact if possible.

Vanker, Relay 314 system, 2657GS (April/22/2329AD)

Canus Albiraka felt the sudden deceleration as he was heading back to the Relay 314 system along with Admiral Varlikam's Fleet to scout out whatever maybe on the other end.

The Fleet was made up of whatever they could impress upon the spot at the patrol station, six frigates, four cruisers, and Albirus' dreadnought, THS Hierarchy's Fist. They were making all haste to the relay and the assumed unknowns territory, and possibly homeworld.

As he sat watching the ships moving in the space around his own, he couldn't help but contemplate what would await them beyond Relay 314, would this new race be as bad as the Krogan and Rachni, or would this all be a misunderstanding that would be swept under the galactic rug. He personally hoped that whatever lay in those uncharted regions of space would be less violent than they had appeared in their first meeting.

East Federation territory, Shanxi system, TFS FF-400 John D. Sloat, April/22/2329AD

Commodore Erica Chavez smiled as the message from high command transferred to her compad, the fact it had come in written form, and not a recorded message boded well. Opening the message on her pad she hoped that the extra week it had taken to get the message meant something good.

From the Office of Sky Marshal R. Lee Sanchez, Eastern Command

Dear Commodore Chavez

After reading your report on the alien artifact I was most intrigued. I brought it to the Sky Marshal in Chief's attention, who was even more interested than me for it seems he knows what it is. He told me that two similar objects had been found last year; one deep in bug territory, the other just inside the former Western Skinnie Hegemony. Of course they have been kept a secret, but since you have one in your hands you will figure it out soon enough that the device is able to transport ships great distances, at an instantaneous speed.

The Sky Marshal in chief has given me the authority to decide what we will do with this discovery, and though I feel some trepidation I think we must investigate where this device goes. I want to send the 5th fleet and most of the 9th army to Shanxi, but I am afraid the devices on the western front are already having an effect there.

I am however able to send about a dozen ships and another brigade, but most of my forces are being sent west to help in a major operation. You have the go ahead to proceed as you please with the device, but I would recommend waiting the three weeks for the reinforcement to arrive before you try anything substantial. Good luck commodore, and if you find yourself in a first contact situation, remember this; DON'T do what Sky Marshal Keats did, we don't need another hostile power like the Coven."

"Oh my god…" Erica Chavez dropped the pad on the desk and stood up in horror as she looked upon it. She was glad to see she was in the clear, well she was in the clear as long as the Ragnar came back unharmed and without making more enemies, but that's not what horrified her.

Reading between the lines and seeing what was really going on both scared and exhilarated her. They were at least pulling the 9th army and maybe the 10th army and the majority of the 5th fleet off this front to head west, not a big deal since the east was the only front they didn't have a war on, but no doubt they were also taking along the first or second army and the half of the 1st fleet, put that together with what was already in the west, and one realized half of all military power the federation currently had was moving against the bugs. And from how plainly the Sky Marshall said this it meant that whatever happened has already gone beyound the efforts any spy would have on it.

The way the sky marshal had mentioned the effect the device was having on that front told her a lot more on what was the plan was, they were going to hit Klendathu again, and most likely all the nearby planets. If the device was deep in bug territory it would allow them to sneak behind the bug's super colony ships that had recently slowed the taking of bug territory, and avoid the queens on planets in their way from warning Big K, preventing the bug military build that had doomed the first invasion.

She sat back down to catch her breath, if she was right and the invasion went well, they could win the war, sure they would still be bugs out there, but without their homeworld and the controlling force of the queens there, they would most likely dissolve into a civil war, at least… that was the leading theory.

A pain in her prosthetic left arm reminded her though that whatever happen, win or lose, there would be death and pain waiting for the soldiers that landed on that rock, if they decided to land on the rock that was. She clasped her hands in front of her about to pray for those soldiers when the A.I.s green line appeared on the nearby screen. "Captain you are required on the bridge."

Erica jumped up, "What's going on Sloat?"

"The Escort corvette Argonaut has reported a fleet of unknown vessels has appeared in system, she has issued-" Erica was up and already moving toward the door heading for the bridge, "-She has opened fire on the vessels"

"FUCK, FUCK, FUCK! Find out what the fucks going on and who she's shooting at!" Erica ordered, rushing for the bridge.

To be continued