A/N: HA I'M BACK! I'M NOT DEAD!

So, in all honesty though, here's the new chapter. Hope you enjoy.

Also did some retconn to the previous chapter, particularly the ending (I just removed a few sentences). Please read the new version if there's anything that's confusing you.

Hype for TF2 Bread update, MGS5 and Civ: Beyond Earth

CelticReaper: No no no my friend, glassing a planet is too good for them. How does rendered uninhabitable until the heat death of the universe sound?

zomvee: Since school's done, I'll probably have more time to write, so chapters will probably start coming sooner. No guarantees though.

3025 C.E

Turian Home Defense Fleet

Turian Dreadnought Resolute

Palaven Intercept Orbit

Seneca was uneasy.

Even during the Krogan rebellions and the Unification Wars, Palaven, the heart and jewel of the Turian Hierarchy, had never been threatened directly. Always, the might of the Turian people, and the efficiency of their military machine had kept any invaders away from their homeworld.

Then the colonies had started to go dark.

Aephus had gone first. At first, it hadn't been to concerning; Aephus was a relatively new colony, consisting of mostly scattered industrial facilities, with rural villages and one major city. Communication blackouts were common with the communications grid constantly being revamped and updated. But when contact hadn't been established for several hours, a courier probe along with a single frigate had been dispatched. They found nothing.

Actually, nothing wasn't correct. They couldn't even get to Aephus. The relay leading to the colony had simply spat back an "Error 404: Destination Relay not found". Puzzled, the frigate had turned back.

Then another colony had gone dark. Then another. And another. Before finally, the core world of Digeris, hosting a population of more than a billion, had also gone quiet.

That was when the government finally considered the possibility of a military

attack by an unknown faction.

Digeris wasn't the last. 7 more core world, Bostra, Carthaan, Chatti, Rocam, Syglar, Thracia, and Parthia had also ceased contact; Thracia was only one relay jump away from Palaven. When the 79'th flotilla had attempted to mount an expedition to Thracia, they had also run into the same problem as the Aephus-bound frigate; the relay issued another 404 error, stating that the Thracia relay was either: a) offline; b)inoperable; c)destroyed; and d) did not exist, please try again. The same was true for all the other relays leading to the colonies.

That was concerning to say the least.

And so now, the Turian 6'th fleet was now stuck in an intercept orbit around Palaven, without any idea who they were up against. The most accepted theory amongst his men was that their unknown nemesis were actually the supposedly "new species" that Desolas had encountered beyond relay 314, but the government had been very quiet about that; they had only said that an unknown alien race was currently intruding into Turian space, with no mention whatsoever of Desolas's encounter. Even so, rumours that Desolas had spoke of "10 km long dreadnoughts", "unimaginable weapons of mass destruction", and "eldritch abominations" had begun to circulate ", before Desolas had been carted off to the Citadel.

"Captain?" an officer said from his stations. "We're tracking several unidentified objects, moving towards us at approximately 8 klicks per second, heading 059 mark 015, 8000 km to our right. Reading high plasma emissions; they're most likely missiles."

"How many?"

"At least 300. ETA 3 minutes."

Only 300 missiles against an entire fleet? Against one ship was another story, but against an entire fleet; that would be child's play.

"Order the fleet to prep GARDIAN batteries. Scan for enemy vessels. Prepare to intercept missiles."

"Missiles coming within visual range. Magnifying and enhancing."

On the Resolute's main video display, hundreds of bright blue trails could be seen streaking towards the 6'th fleet, growing larger by the second. Then suddenly, they disappeared.

"What the hell just happened!"

"We've lost the missile signatures!"

"By the spirits, what do you mean by that!"

"They've disappeared! One moment, the sensors were tracking them, the next, they've disappeared."

"That's preposterous! Missiles don't just disappear! You imbecile, explain!"

"Missiles have appeared inside our shields!" another officer screamed. "I repeat, missiles have appeared inside our…"

A loud series of resounding thuds resonated within the Resolute, sounding one after the other, yet there was no explosion no great fireball expanding across the corridors, ripping the Resolute into pieces. Seneca looked around in consternation. What was going on?

"Hull breaches detected on decks 5, 7, 13, 25, and and 38." someone reported from the operations station.

Cold fear began to spread throughout Seneca as he suddenly came to a horrifying realization. "Those weren't missiles...those were boarding pods."

"Switch to the nearest camera near a breach site." he ordered quickly. The vid-screen was now dominated by a video feed of a long corridor, a cylinder jutting out of the hull into the ship itself. Out of the pod, a swarm of mechanical drones came pouring out, tools mounted on their appendages cutting into the bulkheads and floors, snapping delicate circuitry and wiring, and stabbing tubules into connection ports. Marines rushed to respond, only to be cut down by the vicious mechanical swarm, their blood coating the corridor in a thick layer. The camera feed suddenly went dead, static filling the screen as the bridge was filled with the deafening cacophony of alarms.

"Multiple hacking attempts detected!" cried an operations officer. "I can't keep them out. We've lost shields, weapons systems, sensors, communications, engines, FTL, door control and RCS systems!." "Oh god, spirits protect us." he added, his voice tinged with despair.

"What is it!?" Seneca shouted out above the din.

"They're hacking into the Palaven Defense Grid through our data uplink. They've already gained control of the Orbital Defense Platforms."

"Shut them out!"

"I can't, I've lost complete control!"

"Multiple decompressions detected! All airlocks have been disengaged!"

"Look at Menae!"

Outside the window, Seneca could see one of the orbital defense platforms, the platforms that had always dutifully watched over the heart of Turian civilization, slowly and ponderously around its axis to point its massive mass accelerator cannon at the moon of Menae, and fire. Traveling at 10% the speed of light, the cannon's 50 kg slug accelerated towards the moon with a bright blue streak, before smashing into the surface. Even at this distance, Seneca could see the impact, shockwaves rippling across the moon. Other orbital defense stations followed suit, slugs devastating the surface of Menae. Spirits...Menae was the most heavily defended military base in the Hierarchy, and it was being obliterated by the Turian's own weapons.

"Life support has gone offline! Reactor core is at critical levels!"

Growling, Seneca ripped of his authorization key from the chain on his neck. He slammed it into a port and turned, manually tripping a circuit breaker, cutting the power to the Resolute's nuclear fusion reactor, effectively starving it and shutting it down. As the power went of, all the lights and computers systems onboard the bridge shut down as well, the crew floating upward for several seconds as the artificial gravity shut off, before the ship's backup RTG power generators came online, restoring key systems to bare functionality. The crew came falling back hard onto the deck, as gravity was restored, albeit at a far lower level than before.

"Seal the bridge doors!" he ordered. The bridge crew rapidly responded, pushing the thick airtight blast doors shut and sealing it mechanically, while others cracked open the emergency chemical CO2 scrubbers. Dim red emergency lighting illuminated the entire bridge, revealing a shocked and dishevelled crew. Looking outside, Seneca could see that he was one of the lucky ones; the other ships composing the 6'th fleet were in various states of destruction, with some exploding as their reactors overloaded, other leaking atmosphere and dead bodies through opened airlocks. Others showed no signs of damage, but Seneca knew that they were likely in the same position as he was; dead in space with no control or life support, their crews cut down by the mechanical drones. The entirety of the Palaven's defense had been utterly annihilated, without their enemy showing their face.

Suddenly, off in the distance, Seneca noticed something; a groups bubble-shapes moving across space, distorting the light and seemingly warping the very fabric of space. The bubbles suddenly collapsed, revealing hundreds upon hundreds, if not thousands, of ships snapping back into realspace.

Seneca was not a coward. A turian did not rise to the rank of a fleet commander without showing exceptional skill, bravery, courage, dedication, and loyalty. During his time serving at the front lines, Seneca had never felt real fear; nerves and apprehension yes, but never real fear. But now, he truly understood what it was like to be afraid.

Ships of leviathan proportions that were far bigger than should be possible. Uncountable swarms of fighters heading towards them. A fleet larger than any one the Citadel races had. And they were coming towards him, towards the battered and helpless remnants of the 6'th fleet, and the defensive Palaven behind them. This was what they were facing, a foe so powerful and so deadly that they may have as well been insects going up against gods. As one of the alien ships drew near them, he could make out a group of symbols emblazoned on the hull.

CSS Annihilator

Seneca, and the crew of the Resolute knew no more, as a dark energy beam sliced into the Turian dreadnought, ripping apart its very atoms.

3025 C.E

Coalition Task Force Omega

Palaven High Orbit

CSS Annihilator

Ulysses looked down at the shattered remains of the thrall races defenses. Pitiful. Absolutely pitiful.

He had not expected that the battle would be won that easily. The boarding and hacking attempts of the terror drones were meant to be more of a distraction, occupying the main fleet and the orbiting defense platforms while Coalition stealth ships would launch tactical strikes on important strikes. Nobody had expected that the Combine's cybersecurity would be so weak as to allow a electronic attack to utterly decimate their entire fleet. When the fleet had finally jumped, most of the defending fleet had been neutralized, and the hijacked defense platforms had taken out the major military bases on one of the nearby moons. And what utter fools the Combine were to link all their defensive structures with one operating system, without adaptable code and organic programming; it merely made it easier for the Coalition to turn their own assets against them.

All that fueled Ulysses's suspicions that they were at war against the wrong faction.

Every had simply been too easy. The Combine were masters of almost every field of science, from robotics, computers, physics, and engineering. They had conquered the Vortigaunt's home universe during the Time of Sorrow with ease, and had subjugated the Earth in 7 hours without even trying. But every the Coalition fleet had seen was laughable as though it belonged to a race that had barely developed interstellar travel. It simply didn't make sense.

But Ulysses's suspicions were merely that; suspicions. And unproven suspicions could not be taken into account when the entire fate of the Coalition Assembly hanged in the balance.

He turned towards his tactical officers. "Initiate Base Delta Zero."

Base Delta Zero. Once, early on during the Coalition's founding, it would have been regarded as horrific, a war crime of unimaginable scale. But then the relays and Prothean archives were discovered and everything changed; now, it was seen as little more as something necessary to preserve their civilization.

A Base Delta Zero was an orbital bombardment, but not with nuclear weapons, kinetic bombardment, or even directed energy bombardment. The damage from nuclear weaponry, once the most feared weapon in human history, was not permanent; long as it may seem, the radiation and fallout from nuclear detonations would eventually fade away, and life would flourish once more. Perhaps it would take hundreds or thousands of years, but life would survive and continue to thrive again.

Kinetic bombardment, while simply and effective, did not possess the capabilities of inflicting long term damage. Clouds of dust that would choke the sky could be kicked up, cities and civilization ruined, tectonic activity stimulated to unimaginable levels, widespread extinctions; all of those could happen. But still, even under the most intense periods of bombardment, the planet would recover, life would eventually return, and a new sentient species might emerge.

Directed energy weapons, while capable of turning the surface of a planet into glass, were large, unwieldy, and required long periods of time to fully glass a planet. But even then, only the topmost surface of the crust would be glassed, leaving life intact in deep caves, and ocean trenches. The planet would still be habitable, and maybe after millennia, the glass would erode away, allowing life to once again expand to the surface.

But a Base Delta Zero did not rely on any of those things. Instead, it relied on one of the most horrific weapons created in Coalition history, a weapon inspired by the ancient tactics of salting the earth, and scorched earth policies; the singularity cluster. Upon detonation, the thousands of microsingularities would be projected over a wide area, permanently embedding themselves in the fabric of spacetime. The singularities would tear apart anything within their range, disrupting the strong nuclear force that binded matter together, reducing civilizations into dust, dust into atoms, and atoms into nothing. Nothing would ever be able to set foot into the blast zone; the singularities would remain forever, lasting until the heat death of the universe, essentially reducing that region of space into a dead zone, an impassable and lethal area for the rest of eternity.

They had already done the same to 8 previous worlds. This one would be no different.

"Singularity clusters armed and ready." the tactical AI replied. "Telemetry scans acquired. Targets locked. Fleet reporting standby for teleportation sequence. Teleportation commencing in 3...2...1. Mark."

The green, silver, and blue colours of the planet below them were engulfed by thousands of black dots, great dust clouds swirling into the air as the singularities proceed to devour the planet. Water, soil, rock, flora and fauna; it made no difference, as all was consumed, reduced to absolute nothingness.

By the time 6 hours had passed, half of the planet had been thoroughly reduced to wasteland.

3025 C.E

Aephus

Turian Hierarchy Secure Command Base

"The xeno's have spent their time consolidating their forces and securing the surrounding area. They're biding their time before they make a final push."

"Why are they taking so long?"

"From what scattered intel units we have, it appears that they're attempting to restore the factories they've captured back to full capacity. Military analysts hypothesize that they're going to use the factories to produce more hardware for their final assault."

"That still doesn't explain they're taking so long. The factories were captured in near perfect condition."

"We don't know. Their technological base seems to be vastly different than ours; they may be trying to modify the facilities to suit them."

Victus sank back into his chair, regarding the table-top holo display with tired eyes. The various military commanders around him were also in various states of exhaustion; nobody in the room had rested in more than 2 days. It was physically evident; bloodshot eyes and lackluster skin could be seen.

"The good news is that it'll give us more time to prepare." he finally stated. "Mobilize whatever turians haven't already been, and set up a few more defenses. Give us more time to figure out a plan for us to survive." It was a hollow statement. Everybody knew that there was no way to win; the enemies technological advantage, war tactics, and the speed, ferocity, and adaptability of their offensive left the Victus in a hopeless situation. The only way to win a defensive action was either wage a bloody war of attrition and hope the attacker gave up, or hold out for reinforcements; right now, the enemy showed no sign of giving up, and they were cut off from reinforcements.

"Right then, what did we get from the interrogations?" he continued.

Corick Vyana, the officer in charge of military intelligence on Aephus stepped forward. "Thanks to Dr. Tsoni's interrogation of the prisoner's" she began, "we were able to obtain and understand the aliens' language. Apparently, it is called..angliish.", stumbling over the alien word. "Furthermore, Dr. Tsoni was able to establish a level of communication with one of the prisoners. One of them is called a human, the other, a vortigaunt."

"What happened to the synthetic we captured?"

"It was promptly destroyed." Corick replied. "Artificial intelligences are dangerous and must be disposed of at once. The geth are an excellent reminder of this." The other commanders nodded in agreement.

"As I was saying" she continued. "Dr. Tsoni revealed that when she made contact with the prisoner, excuse me, the human, the human apparently realized that we were not 'Combine', and promptly went into shock."

"What the hell are Combine?"

"We don't know. Dr. T'soni is currently conducting more interrogations with the human. We should have more answers soon."

Victus sighed. "She had better get those answers soon. And we don't have much time left.

3025 C.E

Aephus

Turian Hierarchy Secure Command Base

Interrogation Cell B9-K8

"You look like us."

That was the first thing that human had said to Liara when she had walked in. The human, still restrained and surrounded by arm guards behind a force field, regarded her with curiosity, remarkably relaxed for someone in its situation.

Using her newfound mastery over the english language, Liara asked: "I'm sorry, what did you say?"

"I said you look like us. Like humans. Same body shape, same stature, same everything. Well except for the blue skin and the tentacle things." the human replied.

It was true. The human did look incredibly similar to asari in appearance, with only the skin colour and the patch of fur on top of its head setting them apart.

"Let's start over." Liara began. "I'm Dr. Liara T'Soni, archeologist from the University of Thessia, a citizen of the Asari Republics, member state of the Citadel Council."

The human laughed bitterly. "Citadel. And here, I was thinking that you weren't part of the Combine after all."

"Yes, we've been wondering about that. Who are these Combine you speak about?"

"Come one. I'm surprised that after that mind rape, you don't already know everything about us."

"It wasn't rape." Liara said hotly. "It was a 2 way mental connection, a type of mental bond if you will. I already spoke about myself; who are you?"

The human stopped for a second, as if considering. "Corporal Adrian Laidlaw, 2'nd Company Mechanized Infantry, Coalition Planetary Army. Born on Cata Prime. How do you know english anyways?" he added.

"The neural connection that we formed?" Liara explained. "It allowed me to extract a copy of your linguistic capabilities, giving me the ability to comprehend and speak your language. It's a trait all asari are born with. Enough with this small talk though; why did you attack us?"

"We thought you were Combine remnants from the initial occupation. This entire invasion is a mistake."

"And what are these 'Combine'?"

Adrian exhaled deeply. "An extra-dimensional empire from another universe. They came here shortly after the Black Mesa incident, and conquered us during a war known as the 7 Hour War. We and the vorts managed to kick them off 20 years later though, but not after more than half of our population was killed or converted."

"I'm sorry, I don't think I understood you correctly. Did you say 'from another universe'?"

"Yeah." he confirmed. "You know, not of this universe, some completely different one separate from our universe?"

"Impossible!" she stated. "There are no such things as other universes!"

"What?" Adrian asked. "You never came up with multiverse theory? Parallel universes? This is all pretty basic physics and science within the Coalition."

Her mind boggling from the revelation, Liara promptly decided to ignore the human's statement and continue. Of course there were no such things as alternate universes! The brightest minds in Citadel space had said so many times, and their theories had been proven to be sound over thousands of years. "If you defeated them," she continued on." why did you think that we were them?"

"We discovered the relays and the archives."

"The mass relays?"

"Yes. The relays are Combine constructs."

Liara looked at Adrian in questionably."No, the relays were constructed by the Protheans, the precursor of galactic civilization."

It was Adrians turn to look surprised. "Bullshit." he exclaimed. "The Prothean archives on Mars had records specifically stating that Protheans found the relays, not build them!"

Now this was something new. Prothean archives with information that contradicted everything they knew about the Protheans? The archaeologist side of Liara itched to examine those archives..if Adrian wasn't lying about them.

"That's funny." she began cautiously."Because every single other archive discovered by the Citadel races revealed no such fact."

Adrian looked astounded. "There are more archives?" he whispered in a shocked tone.

She nodded. "All our technology is based of the Prothean archives. The archives lead told us about the mass relays, element zero and eventually, lead us to the Citadel."

"What is the Citadel exactly?" Adrian asked.

"A colossal space station, 40 km long, the biggest structure ever found." Liara said. "It's the center of galactic government and the economy, and is home to millions of sapient beings."

"We have a Citadel too." he told Liara. "Well, more than one. They're different from yours though. Our citadel's were massive, 3 km high towers teleported here by the Combine to serve as war factories, administrative centers, civilian processing centers, and industrial complexes."

Their conversation was interrupted by one of the guards. Tapping his earpiece, the guard listened for moment, before turning back to Liara. "Dr. T'soni, we have to go. You're to be moved a secure bunker immediately."

"What for?"

"Primarch Victus is expecting an assault at any moment. Enemy formations have already been detected. We have to move now."

"What about the prisoners?"

"They are to be left here. We can't afford to take them to another secure location. Dr. T'soni, please, we have to leave now."

That was the precise moment when the roof exploded and caved in.

A/N: Reviews! Please please review!