I live! Thanks to everyone for the reviews and for putting this story at over 300/300 follows/favorites. More at the end. I don't own mass effect.

April 6th, 2086
En-route to AEC-2085

"We're five minutes out from the target destination Captain."

Captain Nicholai Alexopoulos nodded at that information. Even as the viewscreen showed the shifting silver morass that was hyperspace, his crew was hard at work preparing the Harbinger for combat. Tactical was already plotting out weapon firing plans and navigation was working on evasive maneuvers given the spatial topography of the system they were entering.

Fortunately they would only be encountering at most three ships. A single EG upgraded turian frigate, which had been captured in the supply raid which had brought his ship to the fringe of explored space, and the two Eclipse frigates which had led that encounter. While the numbers didn't favor his crew, the fact that the two Eclipse frigates were fifty year old designs did.

The opening seconds of combat would be crucial here. If his crew could immobilize the captured frigate, then the Eclipse frigates would fall quickly enough. Otherwise, their superior optimal firing ranges and maneuverability would slowly chip away at his ship, even with the fighters at his disposal.

"Very well then. Janus, let the ground teams know that we'll be launching their shuttles as soon as feasible. All crew prepare for combat."

Space was warped for a moment as its very fabric was forced to readmit the cruiser into the universe.

Half a second passed before alarms went off aboard the ships standing watch over the planet below, a delay brought by the very laws the cruiser had just violated. The crews scrambled to their posts in an effort to ward off the trespassers, wasting precious seconds as they tried to ascertain just who had appeared.

Aboard the captured Dominance, alarms wailed as the majority of its thrusters and the main gun were disabled, rendering the ship useless in the coming fight. Its sensors, more powerful than those of its companions registered six objects launching themselves from the new foe, already moving to align itself toward the Spirit.

Both Eclipse frigates began maneuvering as the behemoth began to bore down on them, trying to stay out of the cone of space in front of it that would bring about their destruction. Even as they did so however, the fighters which had been launched flitted around them like gnats, pressing them towards the massive vessel's guns.

Even as the frigates began firing shots towards the intruder, it's shield bursting with light with each impact, they began to take fire from its secondary weapons systems. Armor was slagged away as powerful lasers began tearing holes in the two vessels, searching for critical systems to melt. Barrier strength dropped precipitously as the vessels came under fire from their foe's railguns.

And then the helmsman of the Spirit made a mistake, one she would not have made had she been of good mind. The Spirit strayed too far into the cone of fire from the Harbinger for just a moment, but that was the opportunity that the intruder's fire-teams had been waiting for. In an instant, the main gun launched it's 5kg slug at close to .5% the speed of light, tearing through the weakened vessel.

Explosions began tearing the Spirit apart as fuel and munitions began interacting with metal superheated by the impact. Moments later it broke in two, venting atmosphere and being rocked by detonations in both halves, lights dying in the forward half now separated from its power generators.

As if on cue, over a dozen missiles streaked out of the Harbinger. The vast majority focused themselves on the remaining Eclipse frigate, diving in towards the frantically maneuvering vessel. Point-defense immediately prioritized the missiles bearing down on the ship and began picking them off as best they could. And in doing so, ignored the two low-yield nuclear warheads hurtling towards the planet below.

The majority of the missiles had in fact been loaded with ECM, designed specifically to distract the remaining frigate's point-defense from the pair of nukes. And even as the nukes moved towards atmosphere, the cruiser launched a pair of shuttles which immediately accelerated on a crash course towards the base on the surface. Seconds after launch the two nuclear devices detonated, generating a massive EMP that served to disrupt whatever base defenses had been brought online.

"I hope that the modifications you made to my suit will actually work." Avictus said with a grimace, "I'd rather not be smeared across the landscape because a thruster misfired."

Chuckling, the other humans in the shuttle continued to go through weapon checks.

It was James that broke in over the comm, "You watched the entire process Avictus and personally helped integrate the thrusters into your suit. Besides, this is an easy drop. You're only falling about 500 meters."

Any possible retort was cut off as the shuttle pilot interrupted their 'discussion', "15 seconds to drop zone. Grab your gear and hope you don't land on your rear fellas'."

At that the shuttle doors opened and the members of the assault team moved to their positions alongside Avictus at the doors. Mercifully the nuclear EMP had managed to scramble whatever tracking systems the Eclipse base used, and so there wasn't any anti-air fire coming at them.

Finally the chime he had been expecting came as the shuttle bay lights turned green, and all eleven of its occupants tumbled out of the craft.

The shuttle had of course reduced its lateral velocity before dropping the half-squad out. But it was still roaring across the sky at 100 m/s, which meant that any failure on either his or his equipment's part would leave him a bloody wreck on the ground.

So he was perhaps a bit more cautious than was strictly necessary in making sure he landed safely. When he finally touched the ground, the half-squad he had attached himself to was already half-way to the walls of the base. Of course, given the sprinting advantage he held, he was able to make up the distance quickly enough that they were just applying the breaching charges when he caught up.

A couple of seconds passed as the team made sure the charge was in place and ready, and then with a relatively small blast a new entrance was made.

Corporal Rodriguez was on point and was first through the hole. He motioned for the others to follow him in, as time was important on an op like this. No one wanted the defenders to be able to get into a solid defensive position, and so Avictus and another soldier quickly followed the Corporal in. But fortunately it looked like they were breaking into a relatively unused storage room.

They had just gotten their bearings when something moved. But before a warning could be shouted, the thing leapt onto the wall and then straight at the corporal in a flash of grey and blue, tackling him to the ground while screaming gibberish.

Immediately Avictus and Rodriguez's squad mate opened fire on the thing with a quick burst of their guns, knocking it off the poor corporal. Alarmingly, in the mere seconds it had been thrashing on top of him, it had gouged his armor fairly well. Fortunately, the thing looked like it was now dead.

Avictus approached the monster even as Rodriguez was helped up and inspected and other members of the team entered the room.

His first thought was that it was a salarian, and the horns on the top of the head would confirm that. But everything else about it was just, wrong. It was covered in ribbons of blue lights and vaguely mechanical parts, and it had been deformed in some disturbing ways. Its hands had sharp metal claws instead of fingers, but it's transformation was apparently unfinished because it's right arm looked like it was being morphed into a blade. Its gut was almost nonexistent, with just the spine and some sort of reinforcements remaining, and you could see parts of what remained of its lungs.

The most disturbing thing though was the face. It looked like it was constantly screaming, which combined with the overall gaunt, desiccated appearance made it very disturbing. Avictus didn't want to imagine what it would be like to face a thousand of these things charging at him, and hoped he would never find out.

Sergeant Kuthrapali was already on the com with Traynor and the other half of the squad as Avictus left those thoughts behind him for the matter, "We've got a confirmed husk here Captain, and not a basic husk either. Looks like a salarian, but it's been modified into some sort of quick strike unit. Rodriguez was tackled by the thing and had his armor gouged up a bit, but we're throwing a patch on it "

"Roger that. Make sure it's down, but we'll want to recover it anyways. Husks probably can't indoctrinate, but the new scanners will be able to tell us if they can." Traynor paused for a moment, "Keep the pressure up. We need to clear this place as quickly as possible."

With that the squad formed up and began their sweep of the compound to earn their bloody pay. And just maybe stave off the apocalypse a little longer.

Three hours, five basic husks (two formerly salarian and the other three asari), and thirty pissed off Eclipse mercs later, the team had managed to clear the compound. And while there were plenty of injuries on their end, several serious, no one had died. Which was probably a plus given what they had dropped into. No one liked going into a situation blind, but sometimes it was necessary, and this was one of those times.

Traynor glanced around the lab that he and several of the more technically inclined troopers were in. Harbinger had sent down several medics and some backup when they had cleared the skies, and now everyone was grabbing as much data as they could, as quickly as they could.

And the reason for that, as he glanced through one of the thick and thankfully shielded windows, was the bulbous Reaper device just sitting there in the main courtyard. Twice the team had almost traipsed into it unawares during the multiple firefights that made up the battle, and both times they quickly realized their mistake and fell back. Which had worked just as well when the Eclipse troopers tried to capitalize on the withdrawal and charged after them.

Shaking his head, Traynor started tapping his foot as one of the engineers that had been sent down grabbed another Hahne-Kedar blaster that had been partially disassembled. It was fortunate really. The mercs could have put up a fiercer fight if they hadn't torn apart all of the gear they stole. But that begged the question of why they had done so.

"Captain. Engineer Matthews here has something you're gonna want to hear."

Traynor turned to look at the Corporal Rodriguez and one of the engineers that had arrived half an hour ago, "What's up Matthews?"

"Well we've managed to gather up most of the stolen gear, and based on what we've found, we have an idea of what they were doing here." Pausing, the engineer looked at the datapad in his hand , "Simply put, they were trying to figure out how our tech worked. We'll know more once we've really dug into the data, but it appears that's what they were after."

"Hell, they could have just asked. Why steal our tech when we've been slowly pushing it out?"

"I can't answer that sir. If they were working under Reaper influence though, it may be they were trying to figure out how to counter our weapons effectively. I know I wouldn't trust barriers against blasters."

"There's got to be more to it than that." Frowning Traynor glanced again at the artifact. "All right, grab what you can in the next twenty minutes, then get to the shuttles. I want us out of here so Harbinger can blow this place to kingdom come as soon as possible."

"Yes sir." Both men saluted as they started talking into their comm systems to the rest of the troops on the ground.

Traynor didn't like what this report was going to say. A lot of things didn't add up. Hopefully the techs would be able to get a better grasp what exactly these mercs were looking for in humanity's tech. Either way though, he and Avictus were going to have one hell of a report for the Council.

April 13th, 2087
Widow Nebula

"Your entire domestic and foreign policy has been based around a video game." Councilor Turvic stated simply.

And there it was. After five hours of explaining why the Council was reading Traynor's report aboard the Olympus and just why the Alliance had sent a cruiser half-way across the galaxy on no notice at all a week ago, there was the payoff. Seeing three of the leaders of the galaxy dumbfounded at the core of humanity's paranoia.

"To be fair," Publius countered, "There are a great number of details which have played out accurately. Those that haven't are related to actions humanity could take."

Admiral Davis just continued to mix his drink as he and General Arterius watched the Citadel's leaders come to grips with the misfortunes of the galaxy in his officer's lounge. And as he tasted the fruit of his efforts, Davis realized that Arterius was probably playing the same game of catch-up as well.

"This would explain the sheer amount of military build-up your species has undergone." Davis wondered if the turians had an adage similar to "pot calling the kettle black" as Turvic continued his analysis, " and if you are to be believed, galactic society is centered around the core of the Reaper's trap. So why hasn't it indoctrinated anybody?"

"Because that might alert somebody to the fact that it is a trap." Publius responded with a shrug. "All it would take is a single species capable of recognizing on a conscious level that their mental will was being broken down and the trap would be ruined. They'd blow the place to kingdom come and then the Reapers would have to go with plan B."

"It would appear then that we have the advantage. We know where they will have to attack, and if we provide adequate forces to counter their forces, we should be able to prevent them from re-entering the galaxy through the Citadel." Hallis paused for a second in thought before nodding and asking the next logical question. "You described their general tactics and theories as to why they are acting in such a manner, but you didn't mention the disposition of their forces."

"You're going to want a drink before you hear the answer to that question Councilor." was all the Admiral said as Publius grimaced.

"And why would that be?"

"Because according to our estimates, there's at least thirty thousand dreadnoughts, two kilometers in length as a primary force, backed up by who knows how many five hundred meter long destroyers. And that's assuming a single dreadnought per cycle, and period of fifty thousand years between cycles."

"Of course you can't forget the fact they fire streams of liquid metal at relativistic speeds. Or that they have eezo generators capable of landing a ship that size on a planet and provide barriers that laughed at prothean weaponry. And let's not forget the fact that the oldest have not only the sum knowledge of their constituent races, but also thousands of years of experience fighting organic races such as ourselves."

Davis smiled grimly as he held his drink up. "So. What sort of drink can I make you?"

That stunned the non-humans in the room into silence. Moments passed by as the assembled group considered the information they had at their disposal, trying to come up with some means of defeating the foe before them.

"You're afraid of them." It wasn't a loud statement from the turian general, but it did shake the rest of the group from their thoughts.

"General. Our species had just barely figured out how to escape gravity's embrace. We were struggling with innumerable issues on our world; climate change brought about via our own actions, social instability due to the effects of globalization and its impact on the poor and downtrodden, disease, famine, political and economic corruption."

Admiral Davis looked down into his glass. "And then we found out we hadn't always been alone. That someone had observed us. And that it was a story out of our own science-fiction."

"Suddenly we were confronted with the realization that we were going to be facing the apocalypse. It practically drove us mad. Most of our leaders had no idea what to do, others used it as an excuse to hoard more power. This led to the Alliance being formed, just so that we had some plan, but we still weren't sure what we would do. Flee, hide, or fight."

Sighing, Davis continued. "Ultimately we chose to fight. Not everyone was happy with that decision, or how we came to it, but it's what we chose."

"So of course we're afraid. We're terrified. But we can't just roll over and die. So here we are." He knew he hadn't been able to keep some of the shakiness out of his voice just then, and as he looked at his glass he could see fracture marks from where he'd gripped it a bit too strongly.

Councilor Meera spoke up after a few moments, and thankfully changed the subject. "You mentioned this Crucible project. I assume you managed to find the blueprints of it in both your beacon and the one on Thessia." That earned yet another glare from her colleagues, as it had the first time the subject came up, but she pointedly ignored it and pressed forward, "After 1500 years, surely you've made some progress in understanding how it works."

This was not going to be fun. Fortunately Publius seemed to be willing to fall on his sword for this explanation.

"Actually, we have not made much progress on the Crucible. We had planned to send the blueprints back with the Alteran Expedition, but somehow we managed to not do so. Looking back no one was actually put in charge of making sure it was done, so everyone assumed that it was done by someone else."

"We have made some progress since re-unification, but we are not experts on element-zero technology and we would rather find out how it works before we build it."

"You're referring to its effects I assume?" Councilor Haliss chimed in, apparently annoyed that someone could simply 'forget' to do something so important. "Destroy, Control and Synthesis, yes? Though the first two are rather clear-cut, I'm still unsure of what the third really is."

"I was referring both to the effects of the device and the execution. We know that dark energy would be involved in the execution, but that doesn't answer some pieces of the puzzle. As for Synthesis, the simplest explanation would be a massive, immediate change like the one humanity is doing to itself right now."

"You're familiar with the idea of trans-humanism, or whatever similar concept in your cultures?" Publius waited while the other councilors nodded in comprehension. "That is effectively what Synthesis does. How we haven't the slightest clue. Our best guess is widespread transmission of the same Reaper-tech nanites that generate husks combined with the successful augmentations of Commander Shepard's implants through a faster-than-light dark energy pulse. But that's just a guess." Publius closed his eyes as he contemplated his next words.

"In reality however, we are doing the same thing to ourselves." Opening his eyes, he gave a quick chuckle, "Or rather, that is what organic humans are doing right now. Nano-tech augmentation combined with selective genetic modifications. Humanity isn't the same as it was before we learned of the threat we face. No germ-line modifications, those are effectively banned except in the case of serious genetic illness, but they occur early enough for that not to matter."

Looking at Hallis once more, Publius gave a quick shrug of his shoulders. "As you can see we have ideas, but nothing concrete. We have started working on the Crucible however, and would welcome some input from your peoples."

"So what is our plan of action in the meantime." Turvic said quickly. Glancing around he gave what could be described as a snort of derision, "I'm certain the Hierarchy will provide support for this Crucible project, especially after viewing Avictus and Traynor's reports. But putting all our hopes into a super-weapon when we don't have the slightest clue how it works or what it will actually do is lunacy. I'll personally recommend that the Primarch begin expanding the fleet beyond what we were planning, including new weapons development and concept testing."

"I'd also recommend that both of your peoples do the same," he continued looking over at Meera and Haliss. "Yes, the Alliance and Hierarchy will continue to police Citadel space. But both of your economies are much stronger than either of ours. You will be able to bankroll a much larger expansion than either of us would."

Glaring at Meera, who returned his gaze equally well, "And given the advantages which you have over the rest of us Meera, I hope you'll be willing to share from now on."

"The STG will have to be informed about the types of Reaper devices that exist, or at least common traits that could lead to such devices being recognized." Hallis said as he began operating his omni-tool. "We'll also work to make sure that certain groups don't disrupt preparations for the Reaper invasion too significantly. Will also have to come up with contingencies to make sure the general public doesn't know what is occurring. And the STG would like to provide input into the Crucible as well."

"The asari will pull their weight in this effort as well." Meera said. Perhaps the first time that she had spoken positively during this particular meeting. "We won't reveal our beacon to the general public yet, but many of the matriarchs who are knowledgeable of its existence have a great deal of clout. Benezia, Aethyta, and Orona in particular will be useful allies. Aethyta if only because she has the stubbornness of the krogan in her and will be useful in getting our maidens to stop stripping for the second hundred years of their lives."

"We won't be able to change our society overnight, but we will provide a force that will stand against the Reapers once they show themselves." She concluded, biotics flaring slightly as if to further prove her point.

Publius gave a small smile, "The Alliance will bring the geth and quarians into this as well. They'll provide a certain degree of engineering expertise that we'll need if we're going to be successful. We'll also begin expanding the elements of our fleet, increasing the number of non-capital ships in particular. We have a lot of work ahead of us, but we may just make it through this if we act in concert. And manage to hide our hand from the Reapers."

And so Admiral Davis watched as the leaders of the galaxy began making preparations for the end of the galaxy.

May 20th, 2087
Illium

As Erisa looked at the Eclipse leadership that had assembled for the video conference, she couldn't help but be nervous. Not as nervous as when that human had been shouting at her maybe, but this was a close second. It wasn't just her career that was on the line here, her life was at stake as well.

Eclipse's leader Jona Sederis was the first to speak. "So Erisa, we've all read your reports about what happened when those two Spectres showed up at your door last month. Perhaps now you would like to explain why you felt it was necessary to turn over an Eclipse operation to them."

Gulping, the relatively young asari began, "Ma'am to be honest, the human freaked out. He was a Spectre candidate at the time, and after doing some digging, he's a drop-trooper. He drops into a battlefield from orbit in a tin can, and the artifact Larsa found managed to send him into a panic."

She paused for a moment to get her wits about her before continuing, "Then he got the Alliance to send a cruiser to support the mission to take them out, and there wasn't any argument about it. And we know what the results of that were, the base is gone. They leveled it from orbit. Whatever that artifact was, humanity clearly thought it was dangerous."

The salarian tech specialist in charge of research and development, Kalis whatever-the-rest-of-his-name-is, was the next to interrogate her. "And why do you think they reacted in such a manner? Could it have been a means of negating their technological edge that they want to keep under wraps? If so it would pay to find more of these artifacts."

"No. They were afraid of it. The human freaked out particularly when I mentioned that Avi was hearing voices." She tried not to think of the likely dead Avi at this point, she had always been the friendliest of the band in question. "Besides, they don't care if others get their hands on the technology it seems. There are already a a handful of tech dealers on Illium already, and I've heard about another dozen setting up shop shortly as well."

And now to get to the heart of the issue. "In my opinion, we should try to avoid these artifacts. They could be incredibly dangerous, in fact, I think that the one Larsa found may be the reason they went crazy and attacked that convoy. If they were hearing voices, that suggests that something was influencing them."

"As for any collateral damage to Eclipse, there hasn't been any sanctions laid on us. Or threats. In fact the Alliance did transfer funds to my account as payment. It may be valuable to us to provide the location of more of these artifacts to the Alliance, and maybe even the turians. Let them risk themselves, while we earn a good amount of pay."

"That will be for us to decide Erisa." Sederis snapped quickly. "But we will take your analysis under advisement." The other leaders nodded to themselves on the viewscreens. "For now you'll live. We'll send you details of your next assignment shortly. I expect you to perform better than you have in the past in order to prove your loyalty to our organization. Perhaps then we'll be able to trust you again."

With that Sederis cut the feed. And as the others followed suit shortly, Erisa collapsed into her chair again, wondering just what the galaxy would bring before her next.

Author's Note: So yeah. Bit of a delay in getting this chapter up. Let's just say that this chapter would. not. come. out. I knew what I wanted to do, but I'd sit down to type, get a few sentences out and just get stuck. I wanted more stuff to happen to be honest, mostly in the base assault scene, but at this point I just wanted to get this chapter done so I put that on the chopping block.

As for Avictus in this chapter, yes he's a badass. But he's nervous using equipment he hasn't trained with that has been slapped on in a situation he's never encountered before. He's got it under control, but he'd really rather not die just yet.

And General Arterius is probably not related to Saren. Thought about doing a little bit with that, but I just didn't want to think up a new name for a turian right now. For now, just assume he's part of the same general clan, but not directly related. This is the only time he'll show up, so he's just there because he commands the Citadel Defense Fleet.

And as to the Crucible. That sort of thing happens a lot. If you think about your life, you'll probably come up with a situation like that. That was a collective dope-slap moment for humanity, but they're working to make up for it.

Thanks to animefan29 for the idea about the Eclipse meeting. It hadn't occurred to me to throw something like that in. I think I caught Sederis pre-mental breakdown, but psychopaths by their nature are hard to write.

AMC, I have no idea what world you're talking about. PM me and I'll either confirm or deny what you're thinking (most likely deny, but I really want to know what you think.) It's not Ilos.

So now we're going to be moving to the historical chapters. Yes chapters, because I plan on breaking things up a little. We're going to see 4-5 events that are important in terms of humanity moving forward and getting ready for the Reapers, prior to first contact with the batarians. Then we'll jump forward in time a bit, and see Shepard in a couple of chapters (after the historical ones).

What I'd like from you guys is 1-3 ideas for events that might have occurred that I may or may not have thought up. Just put them in a review (I read them all, even if I don't respond) and if I like it, I'll throw it in. Now, some I may not do, I reserve that right. But I might overlook something important.

For now this is it. See you next time with Impact (that's a spoiler for you guys)