Turian General Desolas Arterius was not particularly thrilled. He was a good Turian, never questioned orders, never disobeyed command. However sending a General, a Dreadnought and its four dozen patrol cruiser escort all to look for a crashed research vessel was far too much in his not so humble opinion. As it was the convoy had spent weeks looking for any sign of the crashed ship or its cargo with little to no luck. Turian soldiers were the peacekeepers of the Galaxy, and never failed to complete their task. However like all sentient beings they could succumb to little issue, like boredom, given enough time.

Desolas was idly thinking of ways to improve the moral of his bored troops when the answer fell right into his lap. A dozen cruisers on patrol had spotted four vessels of unknown origin examining a mass relay. The Laws of the Citadel Counsel clearly state that if this was a first contact scenario that peaceful talks needed to be engaged. However Palaven High Command clearly stated that no one was to know anything about the mission. Desolas smiled in his seat, his mandibles twitching with excitement. After all wasn't it also against Citadel Law to activate a mass relay without permission?

According to the patrol there was three vessels the size of a Cruiser and three other ships roughly five-hundred meters long. According to scans the largest ship was also the one with the least amount of armor. "Tell the patrol to target and destroy the largest ship first" The general commanded, "see if we can't capture one of the other three."

Desolas watched on the holographic Combat Information Center as his dozen ships swooped in with a perfect diamond formation, focusing fire upon their target, to no effect. Instantly the quantum comm system of his dreadnought, Palaven's Might, started filling with chatter as the unidentified enemy returned fire with long range lasers. Seconds after impact several ships display reported massive damage to the forward hull. Some even marking external turrets destroyed.

"Report!" General Arterius barked, "Whats happening?" He demanded to know.

"Sir," His comm officer replied, "The enemy is firing upon us with some long range laser or plasma weapons. They keep cutting past our cruiser's shields and melting into the armor! Our Cruisers are reporting that our mass accelerator rounds aren't damaging their shields at all!"

Desolas was not pleased by the hint of fear he could perceive in the soldier's voice. That would not do, they were Turians! The backbone of the Citadel and no dirt stained primitive was going to embarrass him! "Use disruptor Torpedoes, focus fire on their command ship! I want to see it burn!"

"Sir, there is something wrong with one of the Cruisers!" General Arterius watched in disbelief as one of his cruisers turned from combat, and began a collision course with one of its sister ships, while firing upon the others in the patrol! The three enemy frigates had ceased firing upon the rogue ship entirely, instead joining it on its assault upon the patrol. The command crew of Palaven's might watched in horror as their ships collided destroying two and severely damaging the others.

If the general's anatomy was more like his adversaries he would have turned pale. What possible technology would allow the enemy to seize control of the ship, and have it fire upon its brethren? The knowledge that the largest enemy vessel was finally taking damage was no consolation for what he just observed. The enemy had shown that they could seize control of Turian Vessels with an unknown means. They have Shield bypassing Laser Technology. If this was just a taste of their technology than they needed to be subjugated by the Hierarchy as soon as possible. If the peace loving fools like the Asari or Salarian found out there would be no end to their interference.

"Sir! The Enemy Frigates have engaged some form of stealth technology! The patrol thinks they are fleeing!" The Comm officer's relief was apparent, but Desolas wasn't sure he could scold him.

"Get me a line to Palaven High Command, Now! We have a much bigger situation than before!" The readouts for the remaining patrol were not good. Of the remaining ten cruisers all had critical levels of damage, with all but one having the primary engines disabled. Three frigates crippled or killed a dozen cruisers four times their size. The Hierarchy would not be pleased.

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Captain David Anderson was preparing. His unit, XCOM Sword-01 was being dispatched to Shanxi along with 30 other Psi-Op units. Another First contact scenario had occurred, and just like one-hundred and fifty years before, they were hostile. Already dozens of people were proclaiming 'remember the Navarro!' and waving Earth flags or displaying XCOM's symbol proudly.

Already the Alliance Fleet was mobilizing for war. One-hundred thousand war machines were floating amongst the stars. the first and second fleets were being deployed to protect Shanxi against any possible threat, each Fleet over five thousand ships strong and led by Humanity's first flagship 'Gaia's Shield' was assigned to lead the defensive forces.

With the combined forces of Shanxi's own defensive fleet, The Archangel Satellites in orbit, and the reinforcements from Earth, command felt that the enemy landing a ground force would be impossible. Defending the ground was not Anderson's orders. XCOM and Alliance High Command wanted a specimen. Sword-01 intended to hand them a whole ship full of them.

Rather than wait for the enemy to approach, over a hundred XCOM Units were assigned to an MEC Stealth Scout Ship. The plan was to head for the Shanxi Relay, and trace the attackers back to either their host fleet or home world. The classic insertion method 'Acid Rammer' would be used, blasting a hole in their ships. After entering, each squadron would capture one of the hostiles and return to Shanxi. If possible they were to disable as many of the fleet if they could.

Getting captured was not an option, Humanity had learned from the Ethereal war that if captured they ran the risk of the enemy gaining their technology and secrets. That could not be allowed to happen. In the event that they fell to the enemy their armor and weapons were equipped to self-immolate with plasma. The self- destruction packs would apparently melt a hole into the enemy ships as well, so it was a win-win.

Again However, Anderson's orders were different. He was the Psi-Volunteer assigned to his team. His orders were to Control, Capture, or kill as many aliens as possible. The goal was to demoralize and decimate the enemy numbers. Anderson was to lead Sword-01 into the devil's nest and to be perfectly honest with himself he was excited. Anderson was the youngest Psi-Volunteer at twenty years old. Despite a perfect record and perfect marks in every combat simulation, this was the first mission where he would be in actual life or death combat.

The speakers in the room cut into his musing, "The Commander says we found our prey boys. Prepare for insertion in five."

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Kevin Knives was the chief researcher and overall head scientist for XCOM, it was his revolutionary designs that gave birth to the Prothean Titan Armor and the Link-less Relay system. Usually Kevin enjoyed his work, today however he was getting a third degree from the XCOM Commander, Jack Harper. "How did this happen Knives? We flush millions into your work, and at first contact with the Turians we lost the Navarro! If the ship hadn't been backing up its data with HQ every month we could have potentially lost years of data on the Relay System!"

Knives was understandably nervous. He had been bragging about the invincibility of his shield generators for years. "I've been reviewing the data from the Shanxi Relay survivors, Commander. The VI combat data has scans of what happened." the laboratory's holographic display began replaying the first moment between Turian and Humans. "As you can see Commander their original volley of mass accelerator rounds were completely useless against us, even their short range defensive lasers were ineffective against our frigates' shields."

Kevin made the holographic display focus in on the second salvo of shots, "These secondary shots that were fired had a different energy signature to them, and upon impact with the Navarro's shields that energy was dispersed and disrupted the shields by overloading them with the foreign energy. It was only the combined fire from so many large guns that damaged our armor afterwords. The Prothean's never used anything like this. My guess is that this ammo type was made to overload mass effect based barriers. Its only an unpleasant coincidence that it worked on our laser-kinetic barriers. I'm afraid to say sir that judging by the new data that unless we have the advantage of numbers that they could potentially beat us. If they use focus fire tactics like this or have ships with greater firepower using that disruptor ammo then we still might take some significant damage. "

The view screen that displayed the commander's concealed visage was featureless, but his displeasure was obvious to everyone who looked at his glowing blue eyes. "What can you tell me so far, I want some good news. Now."

Kevin nearly choked on his own spit, when the Commander was pissed, bad things happened. Really, really bad things. "Using the combat data I have determined several things. First off is that the Turian's seem to be entirely reliant on reverse engineered Protean tech. Their guns matched only a fraction of our civilian's mass accelerator guns and they seem to show no signs of using Hyperwave communication or psychic ability. The armor of their ships seems to be platinum with trace amounts of Iridium and Palladium. I wont be able to determine more without a significant sample to work on. I'm hoping that at some point we could get a cyber-warfare specialist into their systems, using previously collected data I'm hoping that the viruses we designed would be able to hit their systems and cause some sufficient damage before they are detected, much less disabled."

The Commander said nothing for several moments, adding to the scientist's unease. "You'll get your samples." the Commander finally informed. "Sword is en-route to capture and sabotage. I want you and your team to move to Shanxi and prepare for the prisoners. First blood has been drawn by the enemy, I want them to suffer for the Navarro. This is the second time that we have been attacked by an alien power, and this time the counsel wants to make sure its the last."

"Commander?" Dr. Knives questioned.

"The Counsel has approved Project Entropy. You will be given a sample of the Thin Men D.N.A. sequence. Your job is to make sure the delivery system is ready within a week at the most." Commander Harper ended the transmission to the relief of his subordinate.

The man took a moment to collect himself, lighting a cigarette. Several monitors were displaying various streams of data. Multiple replays of the relay battle from the viewpoint of all three frigates, the all the Turian related data extracted from what the XCOM Scouts could bring back from across the galaxy, even rough estimates from the XCOM scientists. The commander's cigarette was nearly finished as he reviewed the data, the unsettling blue eyes darting back and forth, reading, watching, learning.

His nerves sufficiently settled, he opened a link to the Alliance counsel. "Counselors, " the commander began elegantly, "We are about to enter into a new war with an extraterrestrial force. Unlike one-hundred and fifty years ago we met them before they could land on our worlds."

Commander Harper's eyes let the thought linger, judging the Counselors reactions, right where he wanted them, "This time I want to ensure these aliens and anyone that knows them will fear humanity. I want to activate Project Entropy. When we have the location of a Turian world we will deploy the weapon, hopefully draining them of the will to fight back."

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Turian High Command was Upset and Desolas couldn't blame them. This incident was a black eye upon the entire Turian Hierarchy. Counselor Sparatus was furious enough to message him from the Citadel itself, his exact words were, "You hunt them down, you blast them from orbit, and you take them over. If the technology they showed is not just lies and fabrications you made to excuse your disgraceful failure you will get us samples! I want this matter settled before the Salarians and their spirits damned STG interfere!"

Sparatus' fury was evident, Palaven command was more subtle. The Turian Seventh Fleet was being assigned to his command, an entire Cohort of nearly five-hundred ships, including four more Dreadnoughts. Alongside this substantial reinforcement also came the unwanted addendum to his orders. It was dressed nicely in political and military terms but to sum it up for the common people it would be 'Bring back the lost ship and end the new species or don't bother coming home.'

Within two solar cycles the Turian Seventh fleet would arrive. Deep space probes had already scanned the nearby habitable planets. There was only one planet that couldn't be scanned, the probes destroyed before they could enter the planet's orbit: a garden world that was unclaimed by the Citadel.

War was coming and General Arterius was certain of victory. That was when fate struck and the ship shuddered from a hull puncture followed the buzzing sounds from dozens of other ships ringing in, reporting the same.

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The Alliance Stealth fighter landed on the outer hull of the Turian Dreadnought, barely making a thud as it was locked in place with magnetic clamps. Sword-01 linked minds before exiting the ship. The Psi technique allowed them to share senses allowing the six man squad to cover each others blind spots and work in perfect synchronization in an instant. In the void of space, they moved unseen to what was assumed to be a hatch to the ship.

The Prothean Titan Armor was equipped with the gear to survive in space, however there was limited oxygen. Even with the best filters and recycling system they had six hours to complete the mission and return to the ship. Time was of the essence.

Sword-01's heavy weapons specialist slammed a charge of C-12, the explosive ripping apart the hull with a blaze of greenish hellfire and plasma. The hole erupted with the white gas of atmosphere accompanied by several Turians gasping for air. Across the Turian patrol group, the same thing happened. XCOM Sword teams flushing hundreds of Turians into the void without remorse.

Sword-01's entry point entered into a large hallway, now filled with scorch marks and damaged walls. "Move in!" Anderson commanded mentally, "Terror wave." Psionic panic was a common skill that even the least Psi-gifted could use, in the hands of XCOM elite, it was the ultimate shock and awe technique.

Sword Team reached out in various directions with their psionics. Detected Turian minds were flooded with unending primal terror. A fiend from the abyss had ripped into their ships and nothing could save them. Images of Palaven burning, their loved ones torn to nothing more than defiled shreds. Maggots and insects burrowed beneath their flesh, acid poured from their insides. Images of the most harrowing and traumatic things the Turian crew could think of flashed repeatedly inside their minds. As If to spite their centuries of military discipline and tradition the force of pure terror ripped away at all they held dear, their minds torn apart by the limitless horror their minds could generate. Many of the Turians drew their own guns upon themselves to escape from themselves. Those not fortunate tried in vain to tear the images from their heads with any means they could: Slamming their heads against the walls or floor, digging into their eyes to shred their brains, the least fortunate used their own hands to strangle themselves.

The process was used dozens of times by each squad member, aiming for at least one Turian out of every detectable group. Every cluster of Turians on board the ship watched as without a perceivable cause, a teammate or friend would seize up screaming in unnatural fear before trying to kill themselves. Some were saved by being restrained, but that only made it worse as they screamed louder and louder at every sensation on their skin, every desperate calming word, ever attempt to ease their fear. Eventually even the healthiest Turian heart gave out as they were scared to death. The goal of the terror wave wasn't to kill the enemy. It was to demoralize them, and it was very effective.

Several bulkheads were dropping down to block the rest of the ship from the Insertion hole. In response two plasma grenades were launched, blasting the infiltrators way further into the ship. Four of Sword-01, including Anderson moved on, The heavy and An Assault remaining to hold the door, and prep the goodbye present.

With every bulkhead, Sword would blast past leaving a hole of melted slag and more Turian dead. Apparently the poor bastards couldn't breath is space. 'oh well.' the team thought, barely disappointed. Several more decks and dozens of plasma bursts went by before they encountered a Turian Guard smart enough to equip space suits. Anderson reached out with his mind, ripping control from two of the avian creatures. The First Jumped at the humans, dropping his weapon. The Second pressed the detonation switch for his grenade belt. The combined blast took his companions and tore another ragged hole to the void of space.

The Surviving Turian was quickly escorted back to the Ship, rendered unconscious by several overzealous shots from a stun gun.

With the priority task complete, Sword-01 was to ensure the escape route and prisoner were secure. It was David Anderson's time to shine.

As soon as humanity gained the gift of psychic abilities they looked for ways to make it work better. Mind shielding, Psychic Amplification Armor, Gene modification, mechanical and cybernetic augmentation. All of it were fine methods of making a psychic more powerful. The Psi-Volunteers knew the best way. Fury. Pure unrestrained anger. The red haze of rage prevented a break in willpower, never gave you a chance to second guess. When a Psi-Volunteer was given a task to destroy, they would focus their considerable psionic abilities on themselves, a self made mind control. All they did with it was stroke the hatred, the rage, and then point themselves at a target. Until they wore themselves out they would rampage, crush, rip, tear, and generally kill the enemy in any way they could.

The Turian Dreadnought shuddered from a telekinetic field expanding, as Anderson began psyching himself using a replica Ethereal Comm Sphere.. With a mental feedback looping anger in his head, Captain Anderson's mind reached out. Turians died by the dozen as their forces turned on each other. Brothers in blood and brothers in arms alike drew their guns and fired upon each other or in self defense. Across the Turian flotilla the psychic assault was made worse by the Psi-Volunteer's wide spread mental commands. Turian Commanders orders were compromised and rendered into gibberish. Turian Engineers turned upon the ships they were to maintain, tearing into the engines, life support systems. The medical teams tore into their supplies, poisoning hundreds of credits worth of medication to appeal to the whispers in their head. Only the strongest willed Turians withstood the mental assault, and stood against the chaos trying in vein to stop the madness from consuming them all.

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Biological warfare was the last thing that Desolas Arterius would expect a race of primitives to use, but the signs were there. Whatever the delivery system was, it must have been inserted at the moment the hulls registered a puncture. Shortly afterwords the Turians screaming themselves to death must have been the initial infection, the infection must not have taken properly in them. The madness spreading must be the weapon in effect! The few soldiers not compromised must have an immunity!

"Get me a line to Palaven High Command! Now! The Hierarchy needs this new Intel!" It was only luck that prevented the infiltrating sword teams from striking into the command deck. It was bad luck that the General was about to provide his superiors with incorrect information.

General Quentius was not pleased to see his besmirched comrade, "General Arterius, you better have very good news to contact us so soon."

"We have reason to believe the primitives we discovered at the 314 relay have attacked us with biological weapons. At least eighty percent of the flotilla's crew have been compromised, a large number have committed self mutilation or suicide." to emphasize his point Arterius began streaming several video feeds from the flotilla's command ships, images of Turians firing at each other, and several clawing themselves open startled the normally unshakable Generals.

"By the Spirits..." gasped more than a few. "How many ships have been compromised?"

Arterius shook his head, "Unknown, most communication is down between the ships. I've already triggered a remote lock down, on all ships. I can't prove it but we believe there are infiltrators on-board Palaven's might and that they are sabotaging the quarantine. We need reinforcement, medical ships if possible. The Command deck is secure, but if there are infiltrators on board I'm not sure if the defenses will be enough."

"We will reinforce you with the Tenth and Eleventh fleets. Your orders remain unchanged. These newcomers are a threat, and need to be reined in as a client race of the Hierarchy. You are to capture their world of origin, no matter the cost." Over fifteen hundred ships were now assigned to take on the primitives including several dreadnaughts. These soil sucking primitives didn't have a chance.