Rebirth Chapter 2
By Illusive J
Turian Patrol Fleet around borders of Attican Traverse
Bridge of Flagship Iskothci
"Commander, it's nothing. I'm telling you, its another illegal Batarian colony or slave processing facility."
"What do the scans say then?"
"Again, nothing, no interference, nothing."
As the comms officer says this, several hundred ships exit FTL travel all at once right in front of the turian patrol cruiser.
"Commander, they're hailing us with… a text interface?"
"Bring it up on screen then!"
TRANSMISSION COMMENCE/
/ORGANICS. DESIGNATION "TURIAN". ACCEPTABLE DESIGNATION?/
/YES/
/WE ARE KNOWN AS GETH BY MOST SPECIES IN COUNCIL SPACE/
/WHY HAVE YOU RETURNED? YOUR KIND HAVE NOT VENTURED BEYOND THE VEIL IN OVER A HUNDRED YEARS?/
/AFTER DISCOVERY OF UNKNOWN ORGANIC RACE, DESIGNATION "HUMAN", WE HAVE DECIDED TO OPEN UP DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS WITH THE CITADEL COUNCIL AND THE CREATOR MIGRANT FLEET/
Commander Inomi was now shocked. The geth, of all things, were now leaving the veil and wanting to open up diplomatic relations with the Citadel? No, it was obviously a scheme to destroy organics. All AIs did that once they realized that organics were useless to them. The geth were here to start a war, not to act friendly.
"Weapons officer!"
"Yes Commander?"
"Open fire on the geth ships."
"Commander, they want peace. Why do you want to attack them?"
"Don't you dare second guess my orders!"
"Comms officer!" Barked Commander Inomi.
"Have you sent the message yet?"
"Yes Commander."
"Everyone, prepare to fire, then pull back to the Mass Relay."
The Turian Patrol vessel fired its starboard disruptor torpedo tubes at the nearest geth destroyer, then entered FTL and sped off to the nearest Mass Relay.
Systems Alliance High Command meeting, undisclosed location on Rannoch.
The meeting room had a small table with several chairs and a large vid screen in the front of the room. Scattered around the room were large intelligence nodes, lights winking softly and humming lightly from the sides of the nodes.
A human with the upper right corner of his head replaced with metal walked up to the podium behind the vid screen .
"I assume that you know why you are all here?"
Nods of agreement from the human members and no response from the intelligence nodes.
"We are preparing a fleet, drawing on ships from the defense fleet of Earth and the defense of Rannoch. The plan is to have a fleet of our ships try to capture the Council colonies in the Polyphemus system to prevent them from using it as a beachhead. Once the colonies are captured, we will try to open up diplomatic relations with the Council once more, and if they refuse, we will wage a war all the way to the Citadel itself."
One of the geth platforms sitting in the center of the chairs raised its hand.
"We question the wisdom behind pushing an aggressive attack on Council space if they refuse diplomatic relations. Why not just stay in our territory?"
"If anything we know about the turians is correct, they are an aggressive species with a very strong military. Now that they know about us, they will try to subjugate us, looking for another client race."
Another geth platform raised its hand.
"This platform wishes to relay the opinion that perhaps the Creator Migrant Fleet would enter this conflict if we began open hostilities. Perhaps it is wiser to remain in our space."
A human raised her hand.
"I believe it best to try to contact the species known as "Asari" in council space to arrange a peace treaty between the Alliance and the turians."
All of the geth raised their hands at once.
"We have reached consensus. It is most logical to counterattack in the neighboring Turian systems to prevent them from using it as a staging area. From there, we reinforce our borders and wait for them to make the next move."
"Agreed."
Turian garrisons and fleets across Council Space began training drills, calling up troops from reserves, and generally preparing for war. Salarian STG regiments noted this in their reports to the Council, believing the Turians are preparing for war on the other Council species.
Quarian Migrant Fleet
Admiralty Board Meeting
"Koris, this is an outrage!"
"We cannot possibly win, they could have a fleet twice the size of our military division, and if we are defeated, what is to stop them from utterly exterminating us this time? We cannot and will not win. Besides, they are not bound by the Citadel Conventions, they won't hesitate to unleash weapons of mass destruction on us!"
"Then what would you have us do then? Most of the fleet is screaming for blood right now!"
"Admirals, if I may make a suggestion?"
"Yes, yes what is it Raan?"
"I say, we wait a few years for everyone to calm down a little bit, then we open up diplomatic relations with the Alliance."
"You forget Raan, that the geth have attacked us one hundred percent of the time, why not this time?"
"You forget, Gerrel, that the Alliance has an organic species in it too. The humans."
"They have accepted the geth, they will destroy us too!"
"No, Gerrel, Raan is right. It is the only way" said Koris.
"War is the only way! We could retake our home world and cripple the geth in one surprise attack!"
"Gerrel, what makes you think that this has not been already thought of by the Alliance? They have probably already acknowledged the fact that we have open hostilities to the Geth. We don't know how big their fleet is or how many ground soldiers they have. They could have thousands of ships!"
"Records from our flight from the homeworld show that the geth had over 2 billion combat ready platforms by the time they rose up. The number could have doubled or even tripled by now. Its suicide to attack them."
"Fine. We wait for the population to calm down, then we negotiate a peace treaty between us and the Alliance. Who knows, they might be open to returning our lands back to us."
Secret meeting between Councillor Tevos and Councillor Nar'Kesh, undisclosed location
"Tevos, all incoming reports on the turians show that it appears the turians are preparing for war. The last time they mobilized like this was in the Krogan Rebellions. They are going to attack us."
"How can we be sure of this?"
"Intel taken from their military infrastructure shows that they are going to be sending assassins to deal with the leaders of the "enemy", as they called it. I suggest we both get personal guard, as well as the main leaders of our separate species who don't already have them. "
"But what about dealing with the problem?"
"I will order STG regiments to carry out assassination strikes on all of the major leaders of the Hierarchy, including Valern and the Imperator and Imperatrix. From there, we can order their standing armies to relinquish arms as we select new, more stable leaders for their race."
"I agree, but is this going a little bit too far?"
"They would see themselves as rulers of the galaxy and they might well succeed if we do not act."
"I see your point. Very well, act as you see fit, and I will order the huntresses to prepare for war as well."
"What do we do if it comes to open warfare?"
"It won't come to open warfare, their leaders will be dead before they even realize that they are under attack."