Okay, back to the station. Time for a briefing. "Take a few minutes, I need to get some things prepared" said Caellius. "I'll ping your omni-tool - and the others - when I'm ready."
"Sure." Nicholas wasn't entirely in the mood for talking, his mind was elsewhere, thinking of what was to come. Nevertheless, things to do. First of all, some water. Going by his desk to get his mug, he went and filled it with some water, he then drank almost the entire thing at once, then refilled it to take to his desk, he turned around to find Julie, one of the other few humans who had made it through their exchange program in one piece. He raised a hand in greeting.
"Hey! Haven't seen you for a while. Sorry, can't stay and talk long, bit occupied with this Code Blue stuff. Do you know what's going on?" Julie said, her fair-skinned face going through multiple different expressions in a matter of seconds. Must be part-salarian for how fast she talks.
Nicholas rubbed the back of his neck and stretched a little. "Not entirely, but there's a briefing happening shortly, so, fingers crossed?"
"Fingers crossed yeah! Anyway, I'll see you then!" Julie dashed off as Nicholas just nodded in acknowledgement. He drank a little more, topped up, and finally made it to his desk.
For a moment, Nicholas just sat there. A few seconds passed with him just staring off into space. A deep breath later, he sat up properly, and booted up his terminal. Not much he could be distracted by on his desk, he was never one for personalisation of his workspace. Well, apart from his mug. Gotta have a mug, right?
One quick dismissal of the Code Blue warning on his terminal later, and he was good to go. Got my service weapon already anyways.
Roughly 15 minutes later, his omni-tool pinged, and yep, it was Caellius.
C. Nartus: Code Blue briefing in conference room C, 5 minutes.
Enough time to save what he was working on, and a quick toilet break, such is life when drinking so much water. However, his omni-tool pinged again.
C. Nartus: Can you grab my thermos flask from my desk when you come through Nicholas? Thanks in advance.
Well, I'd better be quick then.
One quick toilet break later and he was back in his office, heading for where he saw Caellius at his desk earlier that day. Not like it was a big office, but it had been a busy day. Thankfully, each desk has a little nameplate in the same place, and hey, Nicholas got there on his first try. He assumed the large metal tube was the thermos flask, so he picked it up. He couldn't help having a little glance at what else was there while he had a moment. Not like I'll be late if I take a few seconds.
Nicholas wasn't sure what he would see, but he wasn't surprised to see a few medals, a photo frame of Caellius and another two turians, some datapads, and a couple little plants. Maybe I should get some stuff for mine after all.
Anyway, enough dilly-dallying, there was a briefing to get to! Wasn't his first time in conference room C so it was easy enough to find, Caellius was at the opposite end of the room at a terminal to his side and a screen to his back. He looked up when Nicholas entered, who raised the flask up a little. Caellius' mandibles spread slightly, and a quick "thanks" was exchanged as Nicholas handed it over to him. Surprisingly, the room wasn't too full, so Nicholas could choose where he wanted to sit. Somewhere near the edges, never been a fan of the middle seats. So far it was just him, Caellius, a couple salarians he recognised from the office, and an asari he didn't recognise.
A couple minutes later, which was probably just over the 5 minute mark, and several more people had arrived. Some more salarians, a couple turians, both Julie and Chris, and even a volus. Around a dozen people in total.
Caellius quickly looked over the small crowd, no doubt a quick headcount, then pressed a few keys on the terminal he was at. The lights dimmed ever so slightly, and the screen behind him lit up.
"Alright, that's everyone. We all know why we're here so I'll just get right into it…"
Far off in the distance, the probes from the Citadel Defence Fleet around the relays linking the Widow Nebula - and by extent the Citadel - to the rest of the galaxy had detected no Relay usage for over ten minutes from the Horsehead Nebula. Given that the Citadel is essentially the galactic hub for commerce, politics, and, well, everything, that was… strange. Not that the Horsehead Nebula route was the busiest route ever, but still.
A few more minutes passed, and the probes began to detect some incoming traffic from the other side of the relay. Back to business as normal.
A small dot on the sensors appeared, equivalent to a frigate. Then another, and another. A larger signature appeared. Maybe a cruiser. Then a massive one. A quick Identity-Friend-Foe scan from the probes came back with two results.
Geth.
Unknown.
Visual feeds were turned on from the probes, and the only view that could be pieced together was the start of a gargantuan ship of unknown make and unrecognisable design punching through the nebula. Only a couple of seconds were transmitted to the Fleet before-
/-CONNECTION TERMINATED-/
If you had told Nicholas when he woke up that this is how his day would have gone? He'd have laughed at you. From seeing Castis Vakarian, getting a new partner, a Spectre's ship breaking lockdown, a Code Blue being declared, and now? Now he was out on the Presidium alongside Caellius, Chris, an asari named Tarila, and two salarians named Irdall and Zelar. Oh, and they were armoured up. Lightly, but still. Also, weapons. More than just their service pistols.
Caellius had a standard turian issue Phaeston rifle, Irdall and Zelar had M-15 Vindicators, Chris and Nicholas had M-96 Mattocks, and Tarila had an M-4 Shuriken. Something to pair with their strengths, no doubt. Not that they had any weapons actually in their hands at the moment though.
Their task? Patrolling the presidium. Well, one part of it. The embassies, mainly. There was another squad across the lake near an emporium and one of the banks.
Every time Nicholas was out and about on the Presidium, he always expected to see the Widow Nebula when he looked up, along with the Defence Fleet. But no, just a fake sky. A nice sky, but still fake.
"Wonder what's going on up there." Chris muttered, mainly to himself.
"Nothing good." Came the reply from Caellius as he walked past the two humans to take point of the group. Ah yes, turians have better hearing than us.
"He was fine about this earlier, guy was as cool as anything" Nicholas said under his breath a few seconds later, hoping the general hustle and bustle of the Presidium would keep their conversation to the two of them.
"Not anymore it seems. I gotta say man I'm pretty nervous about this. I mean, look at us! We're meant to be out investigating stuff and filing reports, not out on patrol." Chris replied, the man's dark-skinned brow glistening in the bright light of the Presidium.
"I know, but needs must I suppose. Remember, special response teams are ready to go if stuff starts kicking off."
A deep breath. "Not much of a comfort in the moment."
"I know, but we'll be fine." Nicholas gave Chris a slight punch to the shoulder. Not that he would really be able to feel it with the armour, but it was the principle of the matter.
Chris just looked at Nicholas and gave a slight smirk and a nod.
Nicholas took a moment to look around the embassies, nothing seemed out of the ordinary except some confused glances from the citizens. Understandable, with the increased patrols in the area. Some elcor were on the ground floor, their deep monotonous voices carrying across the still air. A few volus environmental suits were hissing, and some humans in expensive looking clothes were sitting up on a balcony at the embassy lounge. In the distance though, piercing the sky as always, was the relay monument. Left here by the Protheans long ago, as architects of the Citadel, the Mass Relays, all of it. However, the relay didn't normally, well, act like a relay. As in, starting to glow and the rings in it were starting to move.
"Hey, guys, look at the monument." Nicholas said while pointing across the Presidium. "Does that look out of the ordinary to you?"
"...I've never seen it do that before." the asari of the group replied, one of the salarians also voiced his agreement. Caellius lifted his omni-tool and started speaking into it, no doubt to another squad leader closest to the monument to go check it out and clear people out of the area.
After a moment, Caellius powered off his omni-tool and turned to the group. "The squad over there will go and investigate and clear the area around it. We'll split up across this bridge to cover where they're leaving. A couple people on each side. Nicholas, Tarila and me will stay here. Irdall, Zelar, and Chris can cover the other side. You'll be back with us in no time."
A quick nod from everyone in the group and the plan was in motion.
Matriarch Lidanya - commanding officer of the ten-thousand asari strong Destiny Ascension - received some reports several seconds ago from some of the CDF forward scout vessels, which had in turn received reports from the various probes in the system. "Athame bless us." she muttered, before taking a deep breath. "Lieutenant, open fleet-wide comms."
"You're on, ma'am." her comms specialist replied.
"This is Matriarch Lidanya, commanding officer of the Destiny Ascension. All hands to battle stations! I repeat to all hands to battle stations! This is not a drill! There is a presumed hostile fleet approaching the Citadel!" The asari's commanding voice echoed across the bridge of the Destiny Ascension, and through every ship of the CDF. As she opened communication with the Council, she relayed to the various captains in the fleet about what fleet formation to use and what they were about to face.
Captain Lanus thought of himself as a steadfast turian captain, but he would readily admit he was rattled. From what the initial scans from the scout ships of the approaching fleet showed, there were at least three dozen frigates and a dozen cruisers, led by a dreadnought. That on its own was strange, but when the Identity-Friend-Foe readings showed the frigates were Geth in origin, and the dreadnought was Unknown? Well, that made things so much stranger.
Geth ships hadn't been since outside the Perseus Veil in 300 years. Not since driving the Quarians off their planets in uprising, and now they were attacking the Citadel? Surely not, right?
Picking up distorted movement in the nebula, Lanus ordered his men to target the largest distortion. After the target was acquired, as much as it could be anyway, he gave the order to fire. Multiple GARDIAN batteries and several mass accelerator cannons fired in sequence, alongside several other ships. A true example of the well oiled machine that was the turian military.
Off to the sides, he saw a couple of the Geth ships open fire, along with a couple other ones exploding, their grey hulls splitting apart and their drive cores imploding. However, he had no such luck.
The combined fire of his cruiser plus several others should have been enough to destroy most ships, at worst take down the kinetic barriers and do some hull damage.
This, thing, just seemed to absorb everything with barely a flicker of its kinetic barrier. A red barrier at that, and it almost seemed to arc like lightning across its hull. The jet-black ship didn't show any signs of damage, not even a scorch mark. It just kept going.
He ordered another volley as the ship fully emerged from the nebula. Lanus didn't quite believe it when the exact same thing happened. Red arcs of lightning lit up across the ship's surface, but it didn't slow down. If anything, it sped up.
"Weapons ineffective!"
"What is this thing?!"
"I don't know sir!"
"Lieutenant, get me the Ascension!"
"I'm trying!"
"It's coming straight for us!"
"EVASIVE MANOEUVRERS!
There was no way to escape. Captain Lanus knew his time was up, just like that. He closed his eyes and muttered "Spirits forgive us.". The CDF Aegis was rammed side on, with no way to escape the path of the gargantuan beast of a ship that was now fast approaching the Citadel. All 300 crew, killed in action.
There would be many more to follow.