*Smirks evilly*

Half of you got the ones you did wrong. It's so nice pulling one out from under people.

*Shakes head* Anyway, here's the answers.

Shadow.

Didn't see that one coming, did ya?

I believe everyone got this one, those who did it anyway.

Nothing.

A pillow.

While not a nightcap, it was an excellent guess all the same.

A question...

Easy one this one.

:)

Rain.

Well done!

Skeletons.

I guess you could've had spirits and ghosts. But this one should still get a groan of annoyance that you didn't get it.

Feel proud if you got any, or all, right. I most defiantly wouldn't have without backup and a extra tab open. But that's just cheating anyway.

Hasn't stopped me before!

:-D

Next round, before we begin once more?

The dirtier I am, the whiter I get. Leave a mark on me when you stand, I'll leave a mark on you when you sit. What am I?

I'm the beginning of time and part of the past, present and future. I'm part of history, but not of here and now. In a moment you'll find me, if you know what I am. What am I?

What begins, but has no end, yet ends all that begins?

The more places I be, the less you see. What am I?

Nakedfury; The vote stated all three, I, personally, would've preferred only one commander. Ah, well.

gabe. .1997; Grey's? Wait, do you mean the 'UFO' reference I put in?

As for the disadvantage/advantage queries. I have my own reference and editions from cannon to make it more balanced. Hopefully.

AyeJimmy123; Human blood isn't, no. Asari blood is though, and it is an Asari ship. Please research before claiming something is wrong, or right, about a story.
Just so you know, Krogan blood is yellow.

Sorry for the near year wait, I've knuckled down on this chapter.

Upside, you get to 'see' what Ajax looks like! Well, a little bit.

:-)

Crusader Gautama was beginning to worry.

Understandable, from an outsiders perspective. She had no way of knowing if they could contact the Coalition, or the Illuminate. She was stranded in a universe unlike her own in every way imaginable, with no-one preaching the Way and longstanding peace between species. Her psychic connection with her ACU once again informed her of the attempted link between one of her CZAR's and a collection of motley spaceships that could be pirates... most likely pirates. No one else would be so bold as to enter Geth space.

But what had her most worried was the fluctuations in the Paragon generators. Something was happening to the quantum energies that had dropped the three commanders onto this planet, somehow it was degrading the quantum gateway. If the degradation continued steadily, the resource generators would deactivate within the next ten minutes. They would be crippled if the experimental generators lost power. They would become useless, leaving them with nothing as everything they had was being drained by the Command Hub's construction and probable maintenance as the gateway would degrade the integrity of the structure once activated. At the rate they were building across the planet, they would run out of mass and energy within another six minutes after the deactivation of the resource generators. Thus leaving them with a steep resource demand that would keep them from building units at anything even remotely resembling a reasonable speed. Less critically, but still important was the fact that their experimental stealth generators would deactivate, leaving them visible from orbit.

This would continue until the Command Hub was constructed, which calculated to be another several hours after the resource generators fail, whereupon all resources could be used for maintenance, if there were enough left.

She couldn't allow that.

With nary a blink, Gautama disconnected all resource outputs and storage, apart from the experimental resource generators, from the other two commanders. Then, she tasked her engineers with building more generators and fabricators for her own use. Next, she tasked another group of engineers to build a specially modified Darkenoid, one better suited for space combat instead of bombardment.

One of the other ACU's was hailing her, a errant thought revealed that it was Ajax.

Gautama sent a psychic pulse through her ACU, signaling it to make the connection. After a second, Ajax's face was portrayed in-front of her. The grainy texture irritated her eyes slightly, the background noise on the UEF commanders side covering the potential alerts she could be receiving as her thoughts skimmed across her mind, further distracting her from making proper headway into her troubles.

Ajax's blond hair was closely cropped, barely a centimeter off his scalp. His face was set into a slight, curious, frown, showcasing his assumption based suspicion of her actions. His eyebrows were pinched together in irritation, probably from the withdrawal of her resources from the construction of the Hub.

"Is there a problem?" He asked, eyes piercing through the slightly grainy screen. Although, he may possibly look like that in real life. Surely the UEF had better graphics then this second rate equipment. If so, Gautama wasn't going to look forwards to having to be in the same room as him, she'd get far too irritated at the man to stay sane for long enough.

She frowned slightly, noting the eyebrows pinching together on the other commanders face, before replying. "The Paragon generators are failing. There also happens to be a party of what are doubtlessly warmongering pirates looking to earn something from this planet staying just outside effective CZAR communications range." She frowned while Ajax's eyebrows rose, "Although they still persist in their attempts at connecting with the unit. How strange." Gautama stared at Ajax a moment longer, trying and failing to ignore the irritation building behind her eyes. "Is that all?" Really, how could his people even talk to each other without getting headaches every few seconds?

Ajax blinked, then replied, "Can't you move your CZAR's closer?"

Gautama shook her head slightly, as if she would forget trying to move them closer. "The further from a planet's gravity they go, the less effective they are. They weren't designed with space combat in mind. Not to mention that these ships may perceive it as potential hostile action... Like the Rachni and Alliance, paranoid imbeciles. Attacking a species over something that happened once." Her frown deepened, "I do not believe I want anything to do with them."

Ajax sighed in apparent aggravation, irritating Gautama further in his need to intervene with her work and beliefs. "It seems we will need to work with them anyway." Oh.

Gautama frowned impeccably, causing Ajax to squirm with a sheepish look. "We do not need their help." She made sure to stress the particular words for his simple minded brain. And the UEF called themselves the pinnacle of genetic engineering, at least the Cybrans were linked to their A.I's.

A warning flicked through her mind. The Mirage's had deactivated...

Well, the path of the Way was forever clouded until the traveler passed each individual hurdle and challenge. She would accept it and follow where it would lead her.

Jaal'Laador nar Wuron was gaping behind his face-plate at the sight the sensors were picking up from the surface.

"Keelah," He whispered, in complete awe in what he was seeing.

There, as if they had been there all along, signs of life sprawled across the planet sprang up on their sensors.

Energy readings spiraled into excessive amounts, far more than should be possible for the amount of buildings that was down there. Even if they were completely autonomous, they still should only need a fraction of the power his sensors were telling him. How they had been hidden was also a marvel of technology, as they could now see three city sized habitations on the former Quarian world. Maybe they were friendly and extending an open hand in trust?

But then, why were they not replying to their hails?

"What is it Jaal?" His captain, D'aros, asked from behind the monitor in front of the captains chair. Her eyes peered over the screen in front of her, glimmering as they were illuminated by the lighting overhead, eerily resembling those of a Quarian.

Jaal instinctively straightened his back and closed his jaw, hands shooting forwards to double check the sensor readings, manipulating them until he could get more accurate information.

"Signs of habitation on the planet, Captain. Sensors couldn't locate them beforehand. Three city sized habitations with abnormally high energy readings. Wait... no traces of refined Element Zero detected?" He trailed off, the last few words finally registering through the blur of stats and facts presented in front of him.

Jaal felt a chill go down his spine, causing his arms to shake almost unnoticeably. Who were these people? How could they gain access to a former Quarian, and now Geth, planet without Eezo?

Were they some new race with their homeworld just one system away? Why weren't they sighted before, if they were?

Could they have fought the Geth and won? No, that would take entire fleets to accomplish. Did the Geth simply leave the planet alone?

What wonders could this species uncover, if any of these questions bore fruit? What new technological marvels could they bring with them into the wider galaxy?

"No Eezo? Are you sure there isn't a mistake with our sensors?" Captain D'aros asked, confusion and a hint of intrigue and no small amount of wonder clear in her voice. Jaal could emphasize. With the potential wonders shown in front of them, who wouldn't feel excited? A new species... with no Eezo technology.

"Yes, ma'am. No Eezo usage." Jaal nodded subconsciously, his eyes checking the rest of the monitor in the hopes, of it being true or the wrong reading he couldn't say, of it being the wrong measurement, a malfunction or if the Eezo sensors were de-activated.

No malfunctions, correct measurements and the sensors were active and running.

Jaal gulped, grateful that the suit he was in wouldn't allow the others to hear him unless he wanted them to. Then again, that wasn't as reassuring as he thought it would be.

The Captain spoke up, her bemusement and excitement clear to all, along with a little fear. "How, by Athame, do they have constructs that large and the ability to travel between systems without Element Zero?"

Unfortunately, no one could perceive an answer for the Captain, least of all Jaal.

Then the dreadnoughts started spewing fighter sized craft. Jaal'Laandor reacted instinctively, thanks to his time on the Wuron, by shouting.

"Fighter craft, incoming!"

The bridge seemed to freeze as the people digested this, before exploding into activity. Their Human pilot, Ewart Bothell, reacted first, plotting courses in grim determination. The other Humans on the ship not far behind, doing their assigned tasks when combat situations arose. D'aros started calling out orders for targeting solutions, to scramble combat fighters and spaceship weapon ranges, panic settling onto her Quarian-esk features. A Batarian on the weapons panel, Fenine Pasporal, a remarkably civil Batarian compared to others of his race, was plotting the most effective targeting solutions available along with the targeting V.I. The only Turian, a female called Lavea Victoion, was coordinating with the battle-group's fighter squadrons, getting them prepared for interception.

A purple light started flashing in the bridge, and probably throughout the ship as well, while a warning klaxon began blaring softly yet still startlingly and abruptly in the background.

Then D'aros called, "Get us into range, pilot!" towards Bothel.

Ajax cursed under his breath while glaring the newly added 'solar map'.

He was surprised it had taken so little time to create the 3D projector with Arathorn and Bane working together. The Cyborg and A.I had drafted up a prototype within days of finding the spaceship scrap metal, left from some past battle, around the planet.

Currently, it was projecting a view from around the planet they were on, just barely catching the spacecraft that were closing in. While he couldn't tell for sure what they were doing, he could guess from the way things were going that another war was on the way.

His eyes narrowed. Gautama had just released a few interceptors before his eyes, escalating this whole fiasco to a new level.

Tapping the Illuminate emblem in his communications section, he readied himself to confront Gautama about the new situation.

She waited half a minute before accepting his call, while the other ships closed in a little more before stopping. Gautama's image appeared on-screen, irritation apparent on her visage once more, as well as a little anger.

Ajax wasted no time in speaking up, "Why did you release your fighters?"

He ignored the increased irritation shown in her frown and waited impatiently for her reply. "I was going to try and make a link through the fighters." A lie, Aeon fighters were made with the sole purpose to destroy anything that flew. They didn't have the necessary equipment or even the space for the equipment to spread the physic link, just like the UEF's own fighters... Although, now that he thought about it, the Cybran fighters probably could. You never really knew with Cybrans. Ajax let it pass, it was somewhat believable for now and wouldn't be questioned if these ships ended up telling any of this 'Council', not compared to everything else they had anyway. Before he could say anything, Gautama continued in a slightly, but only just, gleeful lilt, "They are targeting the CZAR's, I need to go now."

Ajax nodded, thinking about the slight lilt to her tone as she disconnected. Was it because she wanted a fight? Or was it that she was getting that irritated being in this new dimension, separated from the 'Way', or whatever their religion was called, or something else?

Gautama cast her eye over the projection of the space-map infront of her.

She eyed the pair of CZAR's. They were close to the natural satellite of the planet, and being circled by the half dozen Conservators she had unloaded from one of her CZARs. That was all she had up there at the moment. Once she was sure their placement was as non-threatening as she could perceivably make it from the Coalitions point of view, while also making it clear she was preparing to fight the battle-group that was now closing in. The battle-group consisted of an Asari cruiser as its flagship, an Alliance cruiser for backup, a pair of Asari frigates, three more Turian frigates, and a Salarian 'stealth' corvette skirting around the edges of the system, occasionally blinking off the map before reappearing somewhere else.

A tight smile had wormed its way onto her face after the call to the UEF commander, showing her pleasure at the chance to cleanse of the galaxy of pirate and slavers that preyed upon it.

The Way would allow nothing less.

Gautama diverted her attention towards the Darkenoid and second pair of CZAR's that she was producing, along with the sixty two interceptors and bombers already built and waiting for storage.

The pirate battle-group started launching fighters into space, whereupon they kept a close circle around their capital ships. Thirty nine fighters. Statistically more than should be expected from the motley collection of spaceships, likely their entire fighter force.

The sight of them releasing their fighters widened Gautama's smirk before she could control herself. There were no gunships and the people of this galaxy did not use dedicated bombers. How quaint.

The Illuminate would strike.

Let the galaxy be cleansed in burning fire.

Captain Elis D'aros was anxious, just as the rest of the crew was.

They may have... 'Jumped on the gun?' Was that the Human saying? With the 'unknowns'.

Their fighter craft were circling close to their mothership, the one slightly further away from the battle-group. Jaal'Laandor was uncomfortably staring at the screen, trying to ignore the slight tense atmosphere permeating the bridge. The 'unknowns' hadn't actually moved position, just released some fighter class craft from one of their dreadnoughts. They were the one's making targeting solutions and getting into effective combat range.

Elis noticed Jaal'Laandor tense visibly, even through the suit, before timidly calling out. "There's more fighter craft."

She tensed, along with most of the crew, apart from the two Salarians, Firsar Wilji and Naedart Tiss, who only paused and darted their eyes over to the Quarian with hitched breaths before returning to their stations.

Jaal'Laandor spoke up once more, "thirty eight space craft altogether, with two apparent varieties. First appears to be fighter craft, tear shaped with wings, flat, numbered at twenty two. Second is bulkier and slower... probably some kind of dedicated bomber craft, curved triangularly, and there are only sixteen."

Two dreadnoughts, thirty eight craft, and bombers.

This wasn't looking good.

"All smaller craft are from Unknown-2. They have been circling it in a protective pattern since they launched."

Elis glanced at the screen that was projected above the window of the helm. Indeed, the farther back dreadnought had a swarm of smaller symbols, which were indeed, circling the unknown construct.

Then they changed direction and began gliding towards the battle-group.

The second the pirates had gained target solutions on the CZAR's, their IFF flashed from neutral to hostile.

When they got within the operating zone, Gautama gave her CZAR's an attack-move order directing them past the pirate ships. They would lead a direct attack, while the bombers curved along with the interceptors around the side, giving the CZAR's a wide berth while still heading quickly towards their target.

The pirate fighters responded first, shooting towards the small cloud of Illuminate fighters and bombers on an intercepting course. This was followed, after a moment, by the spaceships lining up their weapons towards the CZAR's approaching them.

It was the Alliance cruiser that fired first, hurtling a Eezo powered, magnetically accelerated slug, towards the closer of the two CZAR's. It crossed the distance between the two almost too fast for the mental map that Gautama had arrayed in her minds eye.

It smashed against a CZAR as the fighters and interceptors started dogfighting, closer to the CZAR's than the pirates, but not by much as the fighter pilots were loathe to give up the protection of their allies GUARDIAN batteries.

The round gauged a shallow crater across the hull of the targeted CZAR, sending sparks, internal wiring and hull plating flying into the darkness of space. Although the actual damage wasn't as much as it should have been, if the armour was of lower quality then it was.

The pirate fighters were also the first to open fire, letting their mass altered rounds spray forth from their heavy mounted armaments. Three of the interceptors were critically hit before they had a chance to enter firing range, blowing up and becoming inert, while many more receiving glancing blows. The bombers hiding behind them received less damage despite their larger frames, only loosing one to an unlucky strafe. Then the interceptors returned fire. While they were clumsy and slow compared to the pirate fighters, they had the advantage of stronger armor and heavier weaponry. They cut through the swarm of fighters, cutting a number of them down before they could maneuver out of the way, and the fire ended. Yet, seconds later they were once again under fire from the pirate fighters. The nimble ships danced around their slower foes, peppering them with fire while their opponents fired off when they could. Plasma rounds soon joined the firefight, springing forwards to splash against the kinetic barriers of the fighters, draining them quickly while also melting small sections of the hull that were close enough to the plasma impacts to be effected by the flash-heating of the plasma's dissipation.

"Report!" Hollered Elis, noticing blips of fighters disappearing as they strayed into the enemy's lines of fire. These things were taking her people out in a mere thre or sometimes even two hits. While their ships weren't exactly maintained well, their kinetic barriers should have been able to take a few seconds of sustained fire in a normal dogfight. If they didn't fall back into the safety of their fleet's GUARDIAN banks, they would all be screwed.

Lavea Victoion called back, after a brief update from the fighter squadrons, "Fighter craft posses plasma-like weapons. They're slow, but chew through our fighters like paper when they land a hit. Bomber craft are ignoring the fighter squadrons and on intercept course with Talon frigates 1, 2 and 3."

"Have them divert additional power to GUARDIAN lasers." Ordered Elis, praying the decision would be favorable.

"Unknown-1 is releasing missiles."

Elis cursed under her breath, then sent a quick prayer to Atheme, "Time to impact?"

"2 Minuets until impact." A quick sigh of relief was let out before the deck-hand continued.

"Captain! Unknown-1 is re-orientating!"

"Talon frigates have engaged the bomber craft, plasma weaponry confirmed!"

One of the Turian frigates, with the majority of enemy craft focused on it, blew up. It's mass effect core was overwhelmed as its kinetic barriers overloaded, allowing the plasma bombs to impact the hull and tearing it apart in a mix of super-heated atoms and plasma. The ship splintered, sending metal and the ejected bodies of its crew members flying.

"I need all frigates targeting those bombers. Have the Midway and Miavona target designation Unknown-1, fire at will."

The Midway fired without pause, the Miavona following up with a shot to the underside of the dreadnought sized craft, which was still at a 40 degree angle and turning.

From the bridge, Captain D'aros had a perfect view of the rounds digging into the ship's hull, causing it to jump upwards before powering down. Her hopes were confirmed seconds later by Jaal'Laador's voice shouting, "Unknown-1 has been destroyed!" Sending a sense of relief though Elis. They weren't too difficult to fight, then. Apart from technology that was completely different from the rest of the galaxies. Once you hit them enough times they would go down, just like anything else.

"Unknown-2 is firing missiles!"

Elis was forced back into her role as Captain at the announcement, focusing back onto the battle at hand. Another Talon frigate was destroyed, but more than half the bombers were as well. Their fighters had drawn the enemy fighters into range of their GUARDIANs as well, which had turned the tide in their favor. There were less than five of the unknown fighters left while there were still nearly a dozen of theirs left, if just. Oddly enough, the wreckage of 'Unknown-1' was still spinning towards them.

It hadn't blown up yet. While obviously, ships didn't just blow up when they were destroyed in combat, the amount of energy their sensors said was used by the 'Unknowns' should have caused a rather large explosion by now. It didn't even look like it was in particularly bad shape, so they must have hit its power supply really hard with a lucky shot. With the readings they were getting off of the thing, that kind of damage had every right to providing a fantastic explosion.

So why hadn't it?

"Missile impact, thirty seconds! Guardian lasers active!"

The soft whine of energy passing through towards the anti-missile lasers was as reassuring as it was consistent. She watched as the nimbler Midway passed by to target the missiles headed for her larger sister ship.

"Missile barrage is not passing the Guardian lasers. Their missiles are sitting ducks compared to what the GUARDIANs were meant to go up against. They're not even trying to evade our fire."

Before Elis could respond, a flash of light lit up the bridge from just off the screen while a shockwave of debris impacted the Miavona's kinetic barriers.

Before she could demand what had happened, the panicked voice of Jaal'Laandor filtered through the current chaos of the bridge.

"The Midway has been vaporized! 'Unknown-2's' self-destruct area-of-effect was larger and more damaging then predicted!"

One of the Humans exclaimed in a slightly incredulous and panicked tone, "Kamikaze dreadnoughts!?"

As the bridge slowly came back under order, one of the remaining frigates, an Asari one, maneuvered in front of the screen just as a blue beam speared through the darkness towards them from the remaining dreadnought.

Mr Bothel, the pilot of the cruiser, proved his reflexes weren't over-exaggerated by activating their emergency thrusters and pushing the Miavona out the path of the energy beam that had been aimed at them. Even then, it would have been for naught if one of their frigates hadn't coincidentally moved into the path of the beam before it could hit them.

Elis felt sickened as she watched the small ship's barriers dissipate and its hull be brutally cut in half, the beam just barely missing her ship, the proximity of the beam setting off sparks at Jaal's station and shooting a terrified rush through the maiden's body that reminded her of her younger days. As the Miavona fell back to a safer distance, she ordered both her crew and the remaining Asari frigate to open fire on the center of the dreadnought where the beam was coming from. If that thing managed to get another shot off with that weapon, the results could be catastrophic.

The floor shuddered as a round was fired before the dreadnought could re-align itself, leaping the relatively small distance between the two vessels and crashing violently against the dreadnought, backed up by the frigate's own mass round from a slightly different angle.

They must have hit something important, as the dreadnought exploded where it was instead of continuing to move towards them like the other one did. A 'Kamikaze', was it?

Elis collapsed into her chair in relief, releasing a silent prayer of gratitude to the Goddess that she now wholeheartedly believed in. The fight was over, she was alive, and her crew were alive, but at a cost. Most forces their size could never dream on defeating a dreadnought. She was sure a military officer would happily trade four frigates and a cruiser for two confirmed dreadnought kills. Yet to her, this was disastrous. They had broken their backs for years to acquire such a force, and now they were left with the three ships that were decisively less combat oriented than what they had lost.

The cheers, although subdued by the losses of friends and life, was still filled with relief towards the end of the fighting. Tension gradually eased as the combat instincts were slowly cleansed from the body.

Then the situation came back into focus. There were still survivors out there. Some of the wreckage of their alliance cruiser even looked intact. They would need to save who they could before moving on to the next task. Still, thoughts buzzed in their minds as they worked. A new race. Technologically advanced, presumably. Definitely hostile now. Did they call for reinforcements? If so, it was only a matter of time until they arrived.

With that last sentence in mind, Elis turned to Bothel, "Get us out of here as soon as we've finished searching for survivors. We need to go back to the Omega Nebula before more of them arrive."

Half an hour later they were done. With their remaining ships retreating to the Mass Relay, Elis finally relaxed a little more. Still, she felt that she needed to ready enough for unexpected action. After all, a fleet could appear out of the mass relay in front of them at any moment.

They had barely piloted themselves out of the wreckage of the battle before Jaal'Laandor called out above the low murmuring of the bridge crew, "I got our long range sensors online again! Wait, I'm picking something up." Returning the atmosphere into the tenseness from before, and making Elis want to 'shoot the messenger'.

Not ten seconds later, he called out again, voice pitched into startled panic, "Three more dreadnoughts just left the planet's atmosphere, two apparent varieties. Two more of the old ones and another that's slightly larger with more weapon emplacements! Fighters and bombers are being launched on intercept course!"

Nearly 5,000 words, wanted to get all the fighting out the way but that would've delayed the chapter yet again.
Plus side, about half of the story's word count so far is added again in this chapter.

Anyway, hope the fighting was at least adequate, first time I've done a space battle. Corrections and criticism will be listened to/looked at and hopefully implemented.

A(nother?) thanks to justreidabook, I really needed the help on some things, and interactions. Don't forget the interactions.