Turian Frigate Firaxa, Conducting Retrieval Operations, 20 Minutes After Combat

The twelve soldiers and six engineers were all wearing vacuum suits as the strange gunship was dragged into the Firaxa's hanger bay by the frigate's shuttle. It was vaguely smooth but at the same time blocky, with what used to be two large engines at the rear, before the GARDIAN laser took them off, and multiple gas based manoeuvring thrusters installed along it's wings and what the commander assumed was it's cockpit or hold. It looked a lot more like an actual flying machine as opposed to the Turian shuttle which was currently setting down next two it, which Vakarian had always thought looked more like a ground vehicle without wheels.

He had had the gunship brought aboard his frigate so that he could be the first to interrogate the pirates. During the battle the two cruiser Captains and his flotilla's Captain had been killed, making him the ranking officer until reinforcements arrived in little over an hour and with the rank came the duty of sitting down with the enemy first.

The large hanger door slid shut and moments later a low hissing noise became audible as atmosphere was pumped in. Ten seconds after that, the Commander's helmet beeped, to inform him that he could now breathe without the suit. Vakarian kept his suit on but several of the others in the hanger pulled off their helmets, a ship's recycled air was better then a suit's recycled air.

Turning to the leader of the marines he said "Sergeant deploy your men, I want to crack this thing open and question the prisoners before the General arrives"

"Yes sir" he replied before turning too his men "two of you stack up under the engines, the rest form a circle around the craft. Sir, I'd like you and the engineers to hang back until we give the all clear"

As the commander and the engineers moved back towards the rear wall, the marines began to form their circle. As they did that though the sergeant stepped up onto the "wing" of the craft, nobody could really tell what he was doing inside his suit but it looked like he either rolled his shoulders or took a deep breath and then he simply knocked on the hatch before leaping to the side and ducking down with the two soldiers hiding by the engines.

All the Turians in the hanger stared at the hatch, this was the worst part of these sorts operations, chances were that one of them would probably be killed and as such they were all tense.

There was a loud clack and the marines raised their rifles. The hatch on the side of the gunship swung upwards and six beings stepped out, with their hands on their heads. Vakarian didn't know what to make of them, they appeared similar in build to the Asari but were much more bulky. Two of them wore what he assumed were some kind of vacuum suit, two, one of who he assumed was of another gender or subspecies to the others, where wearing ruffled full body uniforms and the final two wore some kind of body armour over black uniforms. This wasn't pirates, this was an entirely new species and his race had just killed a few hundred of their people. Although he wasn't to high on the military food chain, Vakarian hadn't gotten his frigate without a bit of political manoeuvring and he knew which screwups would die down and which would end up with crew in the proverbial airlock.

Still it explained why they didn't have any eezo based technology, this relay was probably their first encounter with Prothean civilisation.

"Sergeant" Vakarian ordered "Escort these beings to the brig" he didn't have the authority to even begin interrogating them now, hell it probably wasn't even legal to handle them like this, not that anyone would complain

As the sergeant grabbed the prisoners, Vakarian opened a radio link to his XO on the bridge "Lieutenant deploy a team to investigate the cruiser we engaged. Their mission is information retrieval, both the main computers and any personal data-pads they find"

"Yes sir, I'll see if the Novis has anyone available for the mission, their ground team is the secondary reserve force for the assault on the pirate's base, so they probably won't be needed" the XO replied

"Hmm, Tell their commander to get over their as soon as possible to retrieve that data. How's the ground assault going?"

"Captain Arranus reports that they've taken a few hundred prisioners, mostly what he assumes to be civilian construction crews, however there are still several military operatives still moving throughout the base and he's moving teams to take them out now"

Vakarian sighed "Alright, get the Novis moving and inform me when Arranus call the all clear. I'll be in my quarters" after the day he was having, Harren needed a lie down, not so much to rest as to just think.

Turian Dreadnaught Palveran, En Route To Battlezone, 20 Minutes Later

After receiving a report from the frigate, General Septimus had retreated to the briefing room, alone, to review the readings of the engagement and immediately begun moving the fleet into the relay, with the Palveran in the lead. Despite Commander Vakarian's recommendation he had not called up another fleet to aid in this operation, the forces at their disposal would be more then sufficient.

What troubled him were the ships that the frigates had faced, a complete lack of element zero, composite armour and a large load of nuclear weapons. Being a semi-restricted substance that was only found in a few locations around the galaxy, element zero was easily monitored and tracked by the council. If a pirate group was attempting to build a fleet of large warships that used no eezo, then they could potential strike at any number of relays, along with the ships that passed through them, with relative impunity and the fleets wouldn't be able to track them down and trap them in the manner they usually did, by simply tracking the shipments of eezo and finding the planets they ejected their drive cores on, they wouldn't have FTL of course but nobody said that pirates were smart. The Turian fleets would still hunt them down eventually of course but it would be a much longer process and many lives would probably be lost in the process, mostly on the enemy's side.

As he restarted the holodisplay once more an ensign entered the room and saluted "General, the Captain asked me to inform you that we will be arriving in a matter of minutes"

"Thank you Ensign, please inform the Captain that I will be heading for the bridge one I finish here"

"Yes sir" the Ensign saluted once more and left the briefing room.

Deactivating the projector, Septimus left the briefing room. As they were due to arrive just as the crew switched over to the beta cycle, as he proceeded to the bridge Septimus was forced to return several dozen salutes from new crewmembers who didn't yet know of his immense dislike of military protocol and the crew they were replacing were too tired to care, even in peacetime the Turians worked their soldiers hard. As he got closer to the bridge though, the new shift began to take over and the corridors quickly emptied.

"All crew, prepare for transition out of the relay" the Palveran's PA system blared

There was the slight jolt as the Palveran decelerated, then the Palveran's Captain contacted Spetimus over his suit radio "General, you'd better double time it up here to contact Commander Vakarian. He's just forwarded a report that you'll find interesting"

Battlestar Nova, On Patrol Near Serenity Anchorage, That Same Time

All in all it had been a routine patrol for Nova. The Valkyrie class battlestar had jumped out to Serenity from Scorpia and had been running drills and exercises ever since as the vessel sailed along on its four week patrol near the distant fleet base, which monitored mining activities in the nearby Freeman system and the shipping from the mines back to the colonies.

On day thirteen, right before an alert launch exercise, several contacts were picked up on DRADIS. Although the contacts displayed Fleet IFF codes, the small CAP that was on patrol at the time moved to intercept and discovered a small convoy of raptors and shuttles.

Commander Zorris, Nova's CO, immediately asked the ships what they were doing out here, far from regular shipping lanes, and if he could assist. When he received the reply that they were evacuees from a destroyed escortstar, he had immediately requested that they proceed to Serenity and their Commander land on Nova for a briefing. Even now, Nova's blue squadron was escorting the collection of raptors to Serenity, where a fleet intelligence officer was stationed and would be ready to debrief them in an official capacity.

And so Commander Zorris found himself sitting in his quarters on Nova, sharing a drink with Jacob Gram, and trying to work his head around the fact that not only had humanity made first contact with an alien race but that they were apparently at war with them, only humans could pull off something like that.

He had just poured another round when CIC rung his quarters, Commander Gram was who he said he was and Nova, with Gram aboard, were to return to Serenity to meet up with elements of BSG 17 and a fleet intelligence officer.

"Okay then Colonel, plot the course and get us underway. Hopefully we'll be back at the anchorage before the next watch begins" Zorris placed the phone back in it's cradle then turned back to Gram "So, their shields can be dropped" he asked the former escortstar CO

"Yeah and we only did it with our small guns, however there's every possibility that while our nukes didn't affect their shields they damaged whatever emits the field. Still, we were just an escortstar and we managed to seriously damage both the hostile's major warships. In a major fleet engagement, depending on numbers, I can easily see us coming out on top" Gram replied with a grin before he took another sip of his ambrosia.

"If that's their equivalent of a battlestar group, a Mercury would have probably have a good run at taking out every single on. Send the battlestar after the two capital ships and deploy viper squadrons with raptor support to bring down the escorts, if they use dorsal guns for their heavy ship to ship combat and the Merc can get side by side with their ships then it's game set and match to us" Zorris pointed out

The two commanders sat in silence for a moment, analysing their little assessment, the silence was broken though when Zorris asked "Hmm, you wonder if we had shields like that our armour would be as thin as theirs?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, the reason the Quorum keeps pushing for more escortstars as opposed to Valkyries is that their hull is cheaper to build, not as thick, they're smaller and there are less composites presents, if we had shields we wouldn't need as thick a hull for the same level of protection"

"Yeah, I guess you're right there, but still Guardian showed the usefulness of a thick hull and shields or no shields I see a lot of new battlestars on the horizon. If we gear up for a proper war, we'll probably get so many ships into service by the end it'll probably be easier just to refit the whole fleet. Shields and DEWs for everyone"

Zorris raised his glass "To what soldiers do best when the politicians take our funding"

Gram smiled and clinked his glass against his comrade's "To battlestars with shields and laser cannons" after he drained the glass he asked "What's our ETA to the anchorage"

"An hour at our current speed"

"Well then how about another round"

Zorris poured it and they continued talking. Within hours, the very core of the human race would be shaken.

Turian Dreadnaught Palveran, On Station Near Mass Relay, 20 Minutes Later

General Septimus looked like he was about to explode "These kinds of results are unacceptable Commander. Two cruisers suffer heavy damage that will put them in drydock for weeks, a frigate is destroyed by a ship without any kind of shield technology and another is destroyed by a self destruct"

Vakarian stood ramrod straight, this wasn't the first he'd been brought in front of a senior officer in this kind of mood. It was usually best to just go along with whatever they said until they got it out of their system, then give a reply that painted his actions in slightly less of a bad light, in his superior's eyes.

"And then, you tell me that you still haven't found any hard data on their military capabilities beyond the actions of on large vessel which gave an excellent account of itself in this race's first battle with us, I doubt our next engagement will be nearly as successful."

"Yes sir, however sir, our actions during the battle were based on the assumptions of the late Captain Terranus and in the case of the Novis, there was no way to have known about the self destruct sequence. In fact sir based upon sensor analysis it appears that the crew merely jury rigged their remaining nuclear weapons. However sir, if you look at slide eighteen, you'll see that we've discovered charts in the base, that point to this race only possessing twelve planets, all within the same four star solar system. With our current force we could easily overtake any kind of defences now that we know to use our superior main guns and with additional forces, mostly ground troops we can quickly overrun this race and integrate them into the galactic community, safely and with minimum hassle beyond the next few months"

The general stood there for a moment, composing, then replied in a much softer voice "Yes, you are quite correct. I apologise commander, my reaction was unbecoming of my rank. However your flotilla still needs a commander and although little good came of it your performance so far leads me to believe that you fit the flotilla commander's role perfectly. Once we are done here report to the Renix. The cruiser and the 3rd flotilla are now yours to command"

Vakarian snapped into a salute "Thankyou sir. However if I may ask sir what is our next course of action, I believe it would be unwise to let these Hoomens make the first move, they know we're here and they could possibly come against us with enough numbers to cripple our fleet long enough for them to bring in additional forces and finish us off"

"While going over the civilian computers, the intelligence section discovered several files from something akin to our codex" Spetimus replied "These were leftover files from the last time their former owners accessed the Hoomens equivalent of the extranet, using them we have identified one world in their home system which is apparently the home of their central military command and numerous refuelling and resupply stations and training centres for their military, although there are installations on other worlds this planet possesses the largest concentration. The plan is to assault this world in a series of quick strikes, then land troops and when the Hoomen's send their fleet to respond we strike their other worlds, mainly for reconnaissance but captain's will be authorised to attack targets of opportunity"

Vakarian saluted again "Thankyou sir, I'll go check on my vessels"

Septimus returned his salute "Don't let me down Captain"

Colonial News Broadcast, Streaming From Caprica, The Next Day

"Well Genna, what can you tell us about the situation on Picon" the network anchor asked

"Well, the Fleet has refused all requests for details so far, but so far what we've seen here is a massive sortie of fleet units, including Picon's ground based fighter squadrons and a general callup of the reserve forces has been issued, I was actually told by the wife of an escortstar's commander that BSG-18, which wasn't due to leave the Leonidas Shipyards for another month, has just called in all their crews for immediate combat sortie.

Rumours are flying around here, some people are saying that this is just a surprise drill, some have theorised that the Cylons have returned others have even gone as far to say that the fleet has made first contact with an alien race" the network's agent on Picon reported

"Thankyou Genna, ladies and gentlemen we're now going to cross to Dianna Seelix who is present at the Ministry of Defence for a government press release. Dianna"

The screen that had just shown Genna on Picon, switched over to the press room at the Ministry of Defence. Dianna wasn't visible as the camera was trained on the podium at the end of the room, however rather then the usual non-com who made these presentations was the Secretary of Defence himself. Rumoured to be a shy man, to date he had only ever issued a few brief statements and let Colonel Udina, the fleet's chief of public relations, handle long question sessions.

He adjusted the microphone on the podium and the chatter of the two dozen journalists died away.

"Humans of the Twelve colonies. I'm here today to relay both marvellous and dreadful news and I would ask if you would hold your questions until the end of this presentation"

On the screen behind the Secretary, a picture of the Object appeared.

"Two months ago, a battlestar on a routine patrol mission of the Armistice Line, discovered this object. Obviously it is not human in origin. Several leading scientist were immediately dispatched to study the Object, which several of them dubbed the Fork. One week ago, with authorisation from Admiral Nagala, a team boarded the object to discover more about it, in doing so they inadvertently activated it."

The picture changed to show the now clearly active object, meanwhile many of the reporters began muttering amongst themselves as to what this could mean, the more astute among them quickly drew the connection between this "alien" object and the recent fleet deployments.

"Three days ago, six alien vessels arrived at the object using a previously unknown form of faster then light travel and promptly attacked and destroyed the escortstar Guardian, Colonial Heavy 281 and the small base we had begun building on the moon the object orbited. The only survivors from the attack are a few dozen crewmen who made it off the Guardian before it was destroyed aboard the ship's refuelling shuttle and raptors"

There was a pause as the Secretary shuffled his speech "At twelve, eighteen pm yesterday, those survivors made contact with Battlestar Nova, which promptly returned the closest fleet base, Serenity Anchorage, to report on the situation. As of four am, President Adar signed an executive order allowing the military to mobilise its forces and to take all steps necessary to defend the colonies until the Quorum can convene and decide upon a unified political course of action. Now are there any questions"

At first no one moved, as far as the colonials had known was no life in the universe other then humans and, if you counted them, Cylons, they had been raised to believe that. But slowly one by one people began to raise there hands, oddly though it was deathly quiet most unlike the usual low roar that could by called the hallmark of conferences like this.

The Secretary pointed to a young man in the second row, who asked "Sir, Sam Traytis, Gemmenon Herald. Do we know why they attacked?"

"That is unknown at this time, however BSG 8 under Commander Vincerry is preparing to jump out to the object and investigate, if possible they will attempt to make a peaceful second contact. But if attacked the Commander has authorisation to respond with maximum force" The secretary replied, then pointed to Dianna.

"Mr Secretary, if BSG 8 is heading out to this object. Why is the fleet massing above Picon, or patrolling all of the colonies"

"Well Ms Seelix, shortly after we began scrambling our forces the escortstar Carrion, which was headed back to Caprica at the time, had several dozen contacts pass through it's DRADIS field at speeds far in excess of light speed. Based on the opinions of the Guardian's DRADIS operator, we have determined that this is the aliens headed towards Picon at a rapid pace. Admiral Nagala expects to engage them within the hour also…"

"But, if it was travelling at faster then light speeds how was this fleet detected on DRADIS, wouldn't it be able to outrun the signal" Seelix interrupted

"If the fleet was moving away from the point of origin yes. However they were moving towards Carrion, so while the vessel did pick up the alien fleet, by the time it showed up on screen's the alien fleet was long gone, happy" the Secretary replied with barely concealed anger at the interruption.

"Now if you don't mind I have to go but any remaining questions can be submitted to the fleet public relations office" The Secretary gathered his papers and left the podium to the screams of unanswered reporters. He really did hate this part of his job, public relations was the reason he had Udina.