Okay, admitted. This one took me a war to finish, and I rewrote it more times than I can count.

Also, pleased to see the interrest in the poll, and it's already pretty clear which way you guys are listing, with the majority being on one option. Won't tell which one though, but I already have plans for how things will progress in WoG - CwYwF (alot shorter than writing 'War of the Gods - Careful what you wish for')

Also, started playing EVE a week ago, about the day after chapter 61 was published. Alright, it was hard as hell in the start, but getting into a corp, an Alliance and battles and mining and a ton of other shit, I can only say that I love it! Plus, you can pay for it by playing it, paying with in-game money. How sweet is that?

Also, found that I love their designs for their ships. By the Gods the Corax is one eye-treasure!

Also, to repeat myself, I have managed to find a picture that, as insane as it sounds, actually has Anna'a superdreadnought on it, compared to other Alliance ships. The only difference is that the one on the image lacks the planned plasma-gun turret on top of the ship. Oh well, can't have it all. (it is the second biggest ship on the picture)

Since I cannot post the link here, just google "Systems Alliance Fleet, or Systems Alliance Ships, and find the one reading 'Systems Alliance Fleet'

Fire from the Skies

November 30th

SSV Normandy

17:18

For a war-ship, the Normandy was unusually silent. The crew, officers and ensigns both, was waiting for some sort of life-signs from Petrovsky's fleet. It wasn't exactly a secret as much as an unspoken piece of knowledge, that whatever they had just seen traverse the Relay towards the Theseus-system, had been out for blood, and far more advanced than anything even the Normandy packed.

Even the ship's pilot, Jeff Moreau, sat silent, eyes going over his displays as the ship sat equally still in space, hiding by masking all thermal emissions in the gravity of a belt of asteroids. Needless to say, the brittle-boned pilot was anxious. First of all, he could get jumped by those crab-thingies again, and not see them because he didn't dare have the Ladar active. Second, the only hiding-place he had been able to spot was a field of space rocks, each one capable of drifting into the Normandy with either insufficient force to activate the barriers, instead tearing the hull open, or with so much force that the barriers were activated and started a firework of blue and purple to keep the rocks from tearing said holes into said ships.

Jane Shepard and John'Shepard had not left the spots behind his seat. Both had been using their biotics to fight the sudden, and rather powerful tug that accompanied the loss of gravity. Now though, they were silent as well, simply looking on with grim expressions as they waited to hear from Petrovsky.

Beneath deck, in the cargo-bay, a now slowly recovering Garrus Vakarian was picking himself out of the dent he had made in the door when he was unceremoniously and forcefully introduced to a lack of gravity as well as an invisible smash of air that slammed him into the bulkhead, as well as through supply-crates and finally into the large door that acted as a gate between the hold and the void.

Rubbing his sore backside, Garrus looked at the door. Where it had used to be pristine and, while a bit dirty, good as new, now there was a Turian-shaped dent in it, complete with arms and legs spread out like what humans called a 'snow-angel'. He supposed that meant he had just produced a 'titanium-angel', even if it didn't make a whole lot of sense.

By all rights, it should not have been possible for him to even make a mark on the door, let alone a dent that looked like a Turian had dropped back-first into a plate filled with mud, then waited for it to dry and hang it up. Thát, or do the same in a pot of molten titanium. However, Garrus highly doubted he would have survived doing the last one.

"Ow..." He muttered, looking from the door, to his armor. He was still wearing the Phase-II HAVOC suit, and it had been bend in the shape of his neck where he had slammed his head back. By all accounts his neck should have been snapped, not the armor. Still, he wasn't going to complain. Looking back up from his otherwise intact suit, he looked back to the door, and then to the mess he had made by flying through the room.

"Yeah... thát just happened, didn't it?" He muttered, rolling his neck in the now much smaller space in the bowl of his armor. For some reason, he had a feeling that if he had been wearing his helmet, they would have needed some sort of cutting tool to free him.

One deck above him, Staff Sergeant James Vega had been trying to get some work done on his computer. However, not the crew quarters had been safe from the sudden vertigo the banking, gravity-less ship had produced either, and he had at first just been mildly panicked about being picked up from the chair. That all changed however, when he was hammered against the window overlooking the Tantalus drive-core. Had anyone been looking from the other side of the window, Adams maybe, they would have seen the Hispanic marine's face pressed against the glass in the most cartoonish manner possible.

As the force had slowly worn off, he had found himself sliding down the wall with his face dragging a stain of grease and water from his sweat down the glass, and on to the less visible wall. Since that point, he had just slumped against the wall, trying to figure out if what had just happened, had indeed just happened.

His brain told him 'no', as that had been something he hadn't even tried in his dreams. Well, he had tried flying in his dreams, but that had never ended up with him painting the inter-deck window on the Normandy with his cheek. He would have remembered it if that had been the case.

"Madre...Que demonios? He growled, trying to get his head to stop ringing. He had tried a similar feeling before, when a grenade had activated near him in training, taking the spot where he stood, and him as well, with it in a blast that had smashed him into a wall. Concussion grenades of course, but the effect and shockwave had been similar to a real grenade, flinging him off his feet and across the Martian soil. Hermetically sealed armor was sometimes quite the blessing.

Pulling himself up from the ground, a feat in itself while wearing heavy armor, he used the nailed-down table for support. Finally standing again, he let go of the table. What he saw, but didn't register, was that his fingers had made five deep marks in the surface. A feat also, considering that the table was made from aluminum and was five inches thick at the thinnest parts.

Yet another deck above him, Urdnot Wrex had been the only one not to be knocked out cold when they had all been slammed into various bulkheads and walls. He had watched as Williams had been forced from her safe-spot at the beam, flung across the room and into the fridge where she had impacted hard enough to dent the thing's door inwards, making damn sure it couldn't be opened again without pliers.

Tequila had been sent head-over-ass after Fisher, careening down the floor while slamming her hands against various objects in an attempt to remain apart from the quickly closing wall. Nevertheless, she had hit it a lot like Fisher had, except for the fact that she hadn't been hit by a pod, but instead by her own datapad. Somehow, the little piece of plastic had hit her just the right place, knocking her out cold as well as giving her a rift above the brow.

As Wrex had been the only one not to be knocked out, also due part to his biotics, he had been the only one to see the flare of energy that had suddenly sprung from the unusual male corporal when he had impacted on the wall.

It had been a weird sight, watching as the kid's body had shone green for a moment before finishing with a spark that forced him to cover his eyes in order not to go blind. Fisher had been unconscious, that much he knew, but exactly what and why he had suddenly become a lamp, Wrex didn't know. Still, since it wasn't his business, he didn't mention it, instead just getting to his feet while limping towards Williams. Being the one closest to him, he might as well help her back up first.

Thát thought made him stop for a moment, causing him to look at nothing in particular, at first, but then to the somewhat unconscious humans in the room. He looked back at Williams, considering what he had just thought.

To help someone up...

While it was a logical thing to do, it struck him as having been the first time in more than two-hundred years he had actively thought about, as well as wanted to help someone back on their feet as a simple show of friendliness.

Shoving the thoughts to the back of his mind before archiving them for later discarding or preservation, he lumbered the remaining distance to where Williams was starting to groan in pain, revealing her to be awake. At least, somewhat awake. With his three, thick and powerful fingers, the old Krogan reached down and grabbed her shoulder, pulling the woman to a stand before continuing to carry her to a still standing, nailed-down chair. Unceremoniously depositing her in it, he went to where Fisher and Tequila were lying, intermingled with a sleeping pod, torn from the wall.

Loose cables and wires were sputtering and sparking from the now vacant spot, hissing as if in anger over having been deprived of property. He ignored it in favor of hefting a gauntleted hand around Tequila's waist as the first one, then stopped as he was about to remove the pod from where it lay on top of Fisher.

Standing where he stood, with the female corporal dangling from under his right arm, he found that he had to shake her a bit for her hand to go free from the metal of the pod. Weird as it was, her fingers seemed to have ended up clutching the metal tightly enough to dig into the steel like claws into soft muscle. To say he battered an eyelid was an understatement. He batted it twice, trying to understand how a squishy human could have done that. He didn't count Fisher in as human though, not with that weird spirit in his head that could yell and spew fire.

Spirits, by definition, didn't live in people's heads. They were far too violent and big for that. At least, those he remembered from the stories his grandfather had told him did. Kalros, the mother of all Thresher Maws, was not just a Thresher Maw, but a spirit or some sort of divinity to Tuchanka. Wrex, which he regretted, had never paid much heed to the tales of his grandfather before said grandfather was killed in a feud. A good death, yes, but it had left Jarrod in charge of the majority of the clans. The latter had then tried killing his own son when said offspring had tried getting the Krogan back in shape.

He shook his great head, trying to make sense of the situation before he yanked Aquila's hand free of the metal.

Even if whatever spirits resided on that pile of rust he had been booted from, didn't help people, the Roku Spirit seemed to do so, making it an odd one. However, as most these days was something out of the ordinary and by definition 'odd', he didn't see much importance in it. Heaving the pod at the top, he ended up peeling the metal back like the peel of a mature fruit, feeling a buzzing sensation in his fingers in the process. The tingling of electricity went from his fingertips to his arm, and from there it ran like a shiver down his spine and back up, ending in forcing him to shake his head and hump in a spasm of movement.

He almost dropped the corporal in sheer surprise.

"Aha... so that's how it's gonna be..." He muttered, letting go of the sturdy, yet tin-foil crumbled piece of metal. Shaking his head, he blinked repeatedly, trying to make sure he wasn't actually unconscious and simply dreaming. At least that would have made more sense.

A low groan from beneath the pod caused him to turn his focus back to the corporal on the ground. Using his left arm, he threw the remainder of the pod to the side, scooping up Fisher with the other hand. Now, holding a corporal under each arm, he lumbered back to the table, situating the both of them on each their chair.

He then went back to the pod. Picking it up, he slammed it back onto the wall, giving it a kick that broke the glass, but at least it made sure the piece of human-made crap stayed where it was supposed to until he could blame someone else for the malfunctioning hardware. Nihlus could be a fine target, the stuck-up Spectre did deserve a lesson after all.

His sense of humor was cut off though, by the sound of pained groaning coming from the table. Walking with casual pace, while he tried sifting his memories for an answer to what he had done to the metal, he dumped himself down in his former seat, leaning forward over the table. Before he knew it, he was resting his head on the cold, pleasingly cool metal.

"Uuurgh... I'm going to kill that pilot." He muttered, not even having the strength or bother to raise his head from the table as he heard the elevator arrive at the messhall.

Using his right eye, he saw the Staff Sergeant who had lead the marine-contingent receiving him on Valhalla. Couldn't remember his name though, and frankly Wrex didn't care much. He tracked the human with his eye, following him as he walked, as though in a daze, across the room to the fridge. He took hold of the handle, pulling it. As Wrex had expected, the door was buckled and didn't...buckle.

However, and just as surprising to the Staff Sergeant it seemed, his next pull saw the door's handle torn straight off, the white-painted metal creaking and groaning as the brown-skinned human suddenly found himself with a door-handle in his hands, torn clean off from the rest of the fridge.

"Dios... something's not right here." The man mumbled, standing with the handle in his right hand for a few moments before he opted to simply stick his hand through the new hole. Pulling the hand back out, he retrieved some of the black powder-stuff Wrex knew as 'Coffee' although he failed to see why humans would drink it. Krogan, yes, but not humans. It made them crazy in the head sometimes, as well as seemingly make them think they didn't need sleep. Still-tracking the man with one eye, Wrex could easily estimate that what he needed was exactly that.

Turning his chair around, he got up from the table, leaving the less-than lively company behind as he lumbered up to the kitchen-area. The other man just stood with the powder, as if unsure how to process it. Wrex, not bothering with something that took time at the moment, simply took the jar from the human, emptied half its content in his open palm before handing it back to the human. He then, quite simply, scooped in the powder before opening the sink, washing down the powder with clean, cold water. He wasn't sure why he was doing it, but it seemed like what he needed.

Wiping his mouth clean of any remaining wet powder, he looked at the human, the latter still holding the jar in his hand, looking between Wrex, and the jar. Instead of following his example though, he just shrugged with tired eyes, placing the container back inside the fridge before trying to put the handle back on. It fell when he let go, so he picked it back up and tried again.

Again, he picked it up.

Again, it fell.

Finally, he picked the handle up, looked at it briefly before picking a pen from the table, writing some words 'needs fixing' on it. He then placed it inside the fridge, pressing the door as if trying to shut it before giving up. Now that Wrex looked closer, the left half of the man's face was a big, red mark. He was starting to gain some dark bruises on it, and he had a small injury on the jaw, probably from the trip they had all made through the air.

"The coffee sucks..." Wrex muttered, looking at the man. James, as he was called, looked right back with tired, almost non-caring eyes.

"...Yeah..." He muttered, then looked down at the fridge; "I broke the door..."

"Looks like it... why'd you do it?" Wrex asked, feeling as his senses were starting to reboot. It was strange, like being electrocuted but the only way he was aware of it was because he knew it was feeling like it, even while it didn't feel like being electrocuted in real life at all. His brain was like someone waking after having been asleep, trying to force the dreams away and have the real thoughts come out.

"Dunnow..." The human said, looking around the room with a tired pair of eyes; "They okay?" He asked, gesturing at Aquila, Fisher and Williams. All three were still in a stage between unconsciousness, asleep and being somewhat awake.

"Yeah... Hey, don't we have a doctor too?" Wrex asked, suddenly remembering the old human doctor. Chakwas was an odd one, not the least perturbed by his size, strength or ferocious appearance. It was almost as if she had the biggest quad on the entire ship, carrying no armor or weapons, and yet face down a Krogan Warlord that made several of the ship's regular marines soil themselves if he growled at them.

"Damn, should probably go check on her..." Vega mumbled, looking at the med-bay. Without saying anything else, he and Wrex left for the med-bay, leaving behind the ruined fridge with five finger-shaped dents in the area around the hole.

When they opened the door to the med-bay, neither expected to see Chakwas strolling about, taking out equipment while seemingly measuring things in her mind, speaking with herself. A cough from Wrex brought her eyes to the door.

"Oh, good to see you have some semblance of motoric functions left. Vega, can I ask you to check up on our marines at the table? I need to make sure nothing was broken in here when they turned off the gravity." She chirped, going about her business as usual. James gave Wrex a dumbfounded look before he headed back out. Wrex, on the other hand, was left standing with a clawed hand scratching his throat in annoyance over not understanding his surroundings.

"Yes Wrex, is there something I can help you with?" Chakwas asked, having noticed the Krogan's doubting look.

"How... are you just walking around? The other humans were all throws around like Pyjaks." He muttered, looking at her again to see if she had some sort of chains binding her to the floor.

"Hmm, well when you've been in the navy as long as I have, you learn to pick up the signs that you have to get a hold on something. I did that when the first tug came, so I activated the magnetic soles in my shoes... that's all there is to it." She said reassuringly, smiling like she often did when he was around. It confused him a great deal, as he didn't know why she was smiling in the first place. It was probably some human custom though.

"Right... shoes..." He muttered, looking at his hands instead of her. It was in particular the right one demanding his attention, as it had been that one he had used to peel the sleeping pod like the skin from a Vorcha; "Also... I think one of the pods broke... and the fridge."

"I'll make sure to have those fixed Wrex. You seem troubled, what's wrong?" She asked, smiling gently. For someone who had spent the last six-hundred years pointing guns at people, it was a strange thing to have people smiling, genuinely smiling at him.

He looked from his hands to her, then back to his hands, then back to her. He had half a mind telling her how he had torn the pod to tin-foil, but decided against it. She probably had some more important shit to take care of anyway; "Bah, it's nothing important, just an old Krogan finding his body still has surprises for him. Nothing to worry about." He mulled, pressing out a smile while nodding and turning to leave. Nodding, he had found, was not just a Turian, Asari or Quarian thing to do when you left someone. Actually, it seemed his own people was the only race not to do it.

Come to think of it, he was a little confused as to how she could be so calm.

Back out in the Mess Hall, the others were slowly starting to wake from their forced sleep. Williams was the first, having only suffered a mild concussion from hitting the fridge.

"Damn... what just happened?" She muttered, pushing herself away from the table while looking at the other two marines. Tequila was still out cold, and Thomas was, as odd as it was, snoring in his chair.

"You got knocked the hell out, that's what happened." The deep, rumbling voice of Wrex came from her left. She gave him a brief glance before rubbing her head, trying to stem the pain in her head. To say she had been given a headache was an understatement.

"I had guessed as much... but how? I remember... floating." She asked, looking at the rest of the room. Everything not nailed down had been sent the same way, away from the elevator and towards the narrow corridor with sleeping-pods. Her eyes went to the kitchen, a little disturbed over seeing how bottles, cans and containers had been swung against the walls and spilled their contents, as well as the bulge and hole in the fridge.

"Gravity disappeared, somehow. Then the ship went fast, and we were... you guys were all sent smashing against the walls. Hell, Fisher and Aquila were sent down along the pods." The old Krogan said, gesturing to the corridor where one of the pods looked like someone had hammered it with a bat, torn it off, then apart and then slammed it back in place.

"God, I'm going to kill Joker if he did that for a rush..." She swore, massaging her temples. Her hand came back with some blood on it, causing her to feel over her head for injuries. Wrex gave her a look while listening to the elevator arriving again.

"Yeah well, you sure as hell trashed the fridge. Could be it took revenge by giving you that small cut on your forehead." He joked, pointing out a cut going from her right eyebrow and to the temple. It was leaking a bit of blood, but nothing dangerous.

"I don't feel on top... crap, to get a concussion now of all times..." She muttered, reaching into a pocket of her armor, retrieving a stim. While Medigel would heal injuries to the body, she had to use a stim containing some painkillers, seeing how there were no sensors on her head to tell the suit to disperse them. Injecting the painkillers into her neck, Ashley discarded the stim into the trashcan, shaking her head to get rid of the foggy effects.

"Spirits... what was that?" They both turned, watching as Garrus wandered into the hall, behaving like a drunk in his gait. His fringe was scraped and bruised, and the back of his armor was strangely malformed around his neck. Almost like someone had slapped wet clay on it before leaving it to dry.

"Shit, Vakarian. You look like hell... more than you normally do I mean." Wrex chuckled, amused over seeing the usually so rigid and formal sharpshooter behaving like it was the morning after a round of drinking.

"Hah... of all the Krogans we could have on the ship, we had to pick the one who thinks he's funny..." Garrus muttered, regaining a bit of posture as he looked at the still knocked-out forms of Fisher and Aquila. He then looked back at the others; "I think something happened to my armor."

"No shitting... what?" Wrex said, eying the pressed-in neck-piece. It was almost unnatural, to see a Turian with armor that actually closed around its neck.

"Don't know. I woke up half-way imbedded in the cargo-bay door, the big one. My armor and everything was like it had been tailored to my body while I was out. Can't even move my head more than..." He said, demonstrating a tiny rocking movement; "...This."

"Great, more stuff to repair..." Ashley sighed, taking a look at Garrus's neck; "Still, hell of a thing. What's the armor made from, Titanium? Ceramics?"

"Both I think... plus P-steel, that new metal. I think that's a big part too." Garrus said.

"Fine, let's go have a look. Might as well get it done now." She said, shoving the Turian back down the hallway and into the lift.

...

"Transit complete in four, three, two and... we're through Admiral. Conducting scans and deploying probes." One of the techs called from the bridge.

Petrovsky nodded, then looked at Tanya;

"Check if we can reach them now." He said. They had tried contacting the Normandy after the battle, but had received no responses. Instead, now they were going into the Hoc-system with what remained of the sixth fleet.

While it had gone far better than he had dared hoping, they had lost four wolf packs, as well as four heavy cruisers, bringing estimated losses around seven thousand men and women lost. Far too many in his eyes, but far less than what Fisher had lost over Valhalla. She had also battled the Dreadnought. He held no illusions that he would have won if the dreadnought had followed the other ships through the relay. What he just didn't understand was why it hadn't.

"Admiral, we have the Normandy on the line. They've been running low so far, patching them through now" Someone called from the stations ahead. Nodding to whomever had called, he stood straight in front of the screen. On it, the image of the Normandy's bridge came into view, revealing both commanding officers to be standing tall, awaiting his words.

"Good to see you are still with us Shepards." He started. As weird as he found it, having the both of them named 'Shepard' was actually easier than had they had different last-names; "We took losses, of course, but we're still operational. Have you been able to locate the dreadnought yet?"

"No sir. We've been running passive scans, but otherwise the Normandy has been silent. We decided to make detection more difficult by shutting down all unnecessary power. That also included Ladar-scans, so we haven't been able to pick up anything." Jane Shepard said, rolling the words away with military precision and correctness.

"We'll just have to make do with what we have then. Normandy, I want you to rejoin the fleet. I know what I said earlier, but now we need all available guns in case we end up going toe-to-toe with the dreadnought. When we reach Virmire's orbit, hang back and wait for the fleet to carry out orbital bombardments. Then I want you to check out the site of the base, and verify whether or not we managed to wipe it out. Understood?" Both snapped to attention.

"Yes sir."

"Good. Petrovsky out." He said, killing the transmission. He then looked back over the bridge, then to his haptic displays, showing green across the boards of the remaining ships. Starting out with seventy ships, he was now down to fifty-eight, plus his own ship. Luckily, aside from the hacking of his VI, the Caucasus had sustained little to no damage in the battle.

"As soon as the Normandy is aligned, set us to full speed towards Virmire, scans on full power. I want as few surprises as possible. Gunnery, reload all weapons and take manual control over anti-fighter systems. We're without VI-support on this one. Engineering, get me as much power as you can to the engines without sacrificing shields." He ordered. Affirmatives and responses were sent back, and he stood straight at his chair again. Taking a pair of fingers to his forehead, he rubbed it, letting his stress be visible.

Sir, Normandy is aligning. Setting course for Virmire."

...

"How come... wait, what happened?" Wrex turned to look as Thomas Fisher woke up as well, rubbing his eyes. Damn, the kid had actually slept? Wrex had been sure he had just been out cold.

"Well, long version short, Joker somehow finally fucked up. Pyjak turned off the gravity without telling us, so we all got a trip through the room a meter above ground. Williams smashed the fridge and you tore down a sleeping-pod." Wrex said, slumping down in the chair across from Fisher. He had to sit sideways though, as his tail and arched hump made sitting normally in a human chair, something that just wasn't possible.

"Damn..." Fisher muttered, looking towards the sleeper pods. Wrex decided, against his better knowledge, that maybe it would be a smart thing to tell the kid how he had just flared off like a rocket... again.

"Also, when you hit that wall over there, you went full green, or whatever you call it. There was some sort of green flash from you when you were knocked out... I think, Hell that spiritual crap was never my thing." He stated, shrugging with as much casualness as he could get away with, considering he could still feel his fingers, arms and legs like they were electrified.

"How- I didn't hurt anyone, did I?" Fisher asked, a slightly panicked tone in his voice. Considering what he had done on Noveria, Wrex could understand the concern. Not that he really shared it, but he understood it.

"Nah, they're all good. Dunno about Kryik though, haven't seen him." And frankly, the Spectre wasn't highest on Wrex's list of worries right now.

"And Ash?" He asked, Wrex easily picking up the more than evident signs of concern at the absence of the Chief.

"She's good too, went down to help fix Vakarian's armor. The Turian bugger managed to bend it around his neck, don't ask me how... also, you're bleeding." He stated, leaning back in his half-seat. Something that was made increasingly difficult because the chair, having been made for humans, had a hard time keeping up with his near-ton of weight. The kid took a hand to his nose, feeling after. Wrex would normally have shaken his head or huffed with annoyance over the human's pathetic worry for that sort of wounds. If it could even be called a 'wound'.

"...ow." Fisher muttered, with a slightly pained expression on his face as he touched the broken tissue and bone. Humans, they were so squishy, Wrex had no idea how they had almost kicked the Turians' asses back in the day. Of course, the Salarians were made of rubber too, and they seemed to be doing fine.

"Got your first injury, and we haven't even fought yet." Wrex chuckled, shaking his head.

"Fuck off... wait, is Chakwas okay?" Thomas asked, turning his eyes towards the med-bay. Tapping his fingers on the table, Wrex was brought back by the sound of groaning from Aquila, seemingly close to waking up again.

"Yeah she's fine, batty old woman. Pacing around like nothing happened." He muttered, deliberately refraining from mentioning how the doctor seemed to have been issued magnetic footwear when they hadn't. Wrex looked on with slight amusement as Thomas, instead of heading off for the med-bay with his little wound, took a gentle grab on his nose and pulled. There was a wet crack, the sound of tendons and small shards of bone being pulled into place again. Thomas gritted his face in pain, probably fighting to keep down a yelp of anguish.

Wrex was a little surprised, when the kid just pulled in a new breath through his mouth, then exhaled through his nostrils. Maybe he would have to reevaluate the corporal, instead of just judging him from what his spirit could do.

"Who just... right, no gravity... great." Tequila moaned from the side, causing both men to look at the corporal.

"Slept well Aquila?" Wrex asked, barring his teeth in a grin.

"Slept worse... and better." She muttered, rolling her neck. A few cracking pops signaled her joints being somewhat more orderly than they had just been; "So... what's up?"

"You seem... oddly unaffected by being slammed through the room in zero G." Thomas said, massaging his temples. A few thin trails of blood were coming from his nose, despite his readjustment of it. It was dried though, so he didn't pay it any attention.

"Been through worse." She said, shrugging off the apparent lack of shock and pain. That was one thing the old Krogan had yet to understand about that woman. She seemed so... unalike to the rest of the crew. Even more so than the clones, and they weren't even fully the same species; "So, I think we should take a peek at the bridge."

...

Hoc System, Sentry Omega

SSV Caucasus

18:21

"Coming up on Virmire sir... LADAR show no signs of the dreadnought. Could it have landed?"

"Never... nothing that big can land on the surface." Another tech commented. Petrovsky shook his head;

"We cannot underestimate our enemy here. They possess technology we may not even fully grasp even if it was handed to us. Be prepared for battle. All stations, charge up guns, power up the shields. Set scans to full power." He ordered, shutting down any and all conversation with immediate effect.

He had lost too many men and women already for his crew to be lighthearted about this, and not even underestimation was allowed, seeing as it had been underestimation that almost cost the Turians the first contact war. Better to overestimate your enemy than to think him a weaker foe for his numbers alone.

"Yes sir." The techs called back. Petrovsky brought up the display in front of his chair, narrowing his eyes as the probe-scans and pictures of the planet came up. Virmire was a garden-world, one of surprisingly low value considering the amount of resources, water and solid land on its accessible surface. Mountains made from heavy granite teemed with ores of platinum and iron. The waters were, surprisingly, freshwater all over the planet. For reasons unknown, Virmire had never had a salty ocean like Earth, but instead the enormous lakes covering the planet had their own streams that supplied the planet with different climates. Much like Earth, Virmire had two Poles, a hot equator and large masses of land where the centers were arid and deserted of most life, instead opting to flourish at the waters and rivers cutting across the surface of the planet.

It was at one of these coastlines that the probes started highlighting an artificial mound, a circular structure that seemed to just lie on the surface of the planet, jutting only a few meters above the sand.

"Scans, get me details on that compound. It might be Saren's base of operations." Petrovsky said, studying the image. The Scans-crew, and by extension the probes, went down closer to the surface of the planet, opting for a high-resolution scanning instead of a global map. The results came back with the speed one might expect of twenty-second century technology: Rather slow.

Oleg tapped his fingers against the leans on his chair as he waited for the new image to download. When it did, he was not disappointed. The image showed him a one-hundred-diameter circular plate of armor, or at least a roof, that simply jutted up from the ground. It was in a dull grey color, and bore several long lines and marks often connected to the Geth culture and method of construction. There were a few out-cropping constructions, probably geth armories or the like, decorating the area around the base. Also along the coastline, he could see several odd gate-like obstructions blocking a land-approach for the place. Strange, but irrelevant, as Petrovsky had little mind as to put men on the ground. If he had his way, he would just nuke the place from orbit and be done with it.

Still, there was the issue of the Valhalla-class hostile ship he knew was lurking around somewhere. It would be bad to be caught by it in the middle of the bombardment, as turning around a dreadnought took time, and more than he wanted to admit. What he saw then, as he zoomed in on the image, caused him to flutter a small smile, or more precisely a wolfish grin.

A Geth Armature was walking around, clearly identified even from above with its iconic body-shape and angular legs, as well as the long neck that protruded from the base of its shoulder-like fastening.

"All ships, target is confirmed. Prepare to lock on coordinates and fire on my command." He said, nodding to gunnery to lock on to the circular construction with all the firepower he could bring to bear on it. Receiving a nod from gunnery, Oleg sat down in his chair, taking a few wingers on his lips in a thoughtful posture. He considered how much of an honor it would be, for him to be the one to level Saren and his operations completely, turning the traitor-turian into a crater.

"All ships ready to fire." The voice of Victor Tokev came in from the Cruisers.

"Wolf-packs ready to provide maximum firing power." the leader of the Bloodhounds, the now commanding pack came in. Mayo Stukov had never really liked being on ships in combat, Oleg remembered. So perhaps it was some cruel irony that he had been killed on one. His successor, one Alexander Nakorov, was a seasoned captain and worthy of command. Oleg didn't know him personally, but had read his dossier a few times. It was only because Mayo already had the post, plus the amount of needed paperwork it would require, that Petrovsky hadn't made the veteran the leader of the Wolf-packs instantly.

"All ships, commence bombardment." Petrovsky ordered, watching as his own stations activated the controls for the guns, commanding slugs of destructive powers to spew forth from the magnetic rails inside each barrel.

All across the fleet, even with the Normandy, rounds weighing between 15 to 25 kilograms were sent forth towards the designated target, all as one ushering in an apocalyptic amount of destruction and hellfire.

"Sir! Energy-spike detected from the base." Scans called out. Oleg looked at the images still visible before rounds would start raining down. A few geth, from what he could see, were running about, probably trying to evacuate or get to cover. Strange and futile really, as one couldn't "cover" from destruction sufficient to lay waste to the entirety of Eastern Russia. Still, he kept his eyes on them until the probes were called away to avoid disturbances from the incoming fire.

"Impact in three, two, one!" Gunnery called out. Oleg's eyes were glued to the display. He could follow the rounds as they penetrated Virmire's atmosphere, heading straight for the base.

And then they blew up.

The nuclear-like explosion filled the picture, its brightness too much, so that he had to look away while the kinetic energy caused storms of light to appear at the site of the impact. After the light, smoke was all he could see. Smoke and shrapnel from the no-doubt smoking crater that was Saren's base. And hopefully Saren too.

"Sir, energy-spike is still going!" Oleg's head went straight into the display, and almost through it, as the clearing smoke revealed a bright, purple barrier that covered the entire area in the shape of a half-sphere. Beneath the transparent shield, he could see the still intact base.

"So... they have a shield..." He muttered, a grim scowl coming to, and leaving his face for just the second it took to have existed. He then reopened communications with the rest of the fleet." All ships, fire all armaments. Rounds, shells, missiles and torpedoes, weapons free. Don't stop until I say so... Fire!"

The next barrage, as opposed to the initial one, didn't stop with one single volley. Instead, hundreds upon hundreds of mass accelerated slugs, all industrially crafted to have the structural integrity to withstand impact with enough kinetic force to render five square miles a complete waste, flew towards the same little designated piece of sand. Instead of hitting said sand, they all smashed against the purple barrier. Oleg wasn't surprised at all, considering how Saren probably had used the tech from the cuttlefish-like ships in his base's defenses. The next volley followed, and the next, before the fourth volley arrived at the same moment as an entire fleet's worth of missiles and rockets, torpedoes and assorted shells from the mounted turrets. Each projectile struck the barrier with sufficient force to warrant a hearing from the council on grounds of attempting to deface a garden-world.

Of course, that would require the Council to actually get off their lazy asses and get things done.

From what Petrovsky knew, the only thing they were doing to prepare, was having the police set up some barricades on the Citadel. He could have, and had, snorted in disbelief when he heard how the Council had been warned even earlier than the Alliance had been, and yet his race was far ahead on terms of mounting defenses and pre-emptive strikes on every single base of geth or suspected hideout Saren could have.

For now though, Petrovsky watched as projectiles kept on raining down death and fire upon the soon-to-be broken barrier. Not even the shields coating the vast frame of Arcturus Station would have been able to survive punishment of this kind. Petrovsky though, knew that the ships, Reapers if he had to use the mythic word, were far superior to what he knew existed in Alliance- and Council- Space. The barrages were kept up for the better part of a minute, with enough ammunition being poured at the target that he found it hard to believe he was even doing it. It seemed like the only word fitting his current actions would be 'overkill', but not even that could suffice, for sure.

That was why, when he finally gave the order to cease fire, and the smoke lifted from the base, that his eyes went wide, and his breath was caught in his throat.

"What the hell is this?!" He cursed, his normally calm and calculating voice marred into one of pure rage and disbelief. Even if there was a shield big enough to actively cover the entire area, there was no way it could have withstood a barrage thát withering.

"Sir, the scans reveal four centralized sources of power for the shield, scattered around the area. The biggest of them is straight beneath the structure. The others are in a triangle-pattern around the structure. All seem to be walled in and protected by anti-air and vehicle weapons." Someone from the bridge, a man with only one eye, called out.

"Details on the shield I meant. What the hell is it, can we circumvent it?" He asked. The last thing Petrovsky wanted was to put men on the ground on a planet that could practically be teeming with the same sort of horror he had seen on the vids from Valhalla.

"It's a kinetic barrier, that much is obvious. It seems to have some new properties though, it can block out both missiles and slower-than-sound ammunition." The same one-eyed man said. Petrovsky curled up his fists in anger, desperately searching for some way not to send men to that planet.

"Run an analysis on it. Can we take it down if we keep shooting?" He demanded. A few moments went by as the bridge abided by his wishes. He found himself scratching marks in the cushioning of his chair, gritting his teeth. Still, he did his best to maintain a collected outlook and appearance, if only for the sake of his crew.

"Not with our current amount of firepower sir. Estimate we would need approximately five-thousand kilotons delivered in one strike to take down the barrier. Sir, that's-" the man started, but Petrovsky cut him off.

"...more than what we have even if all ten of our dreadnoughts and all cruisers fired at once...Yod... " He cursed, now penetrating the material of his arm support, his nails scratching against the glued leather connecting the cushioning to his metal-chair.

"...yes sir." The man responded, unsure of what to say, it seemed. Had Oleg had any semblance of his sense of humor, he would have pondered aloud why he always got 'the fun missions'. True, Anna Fisher had gone to Valhalla before him going here, but the difference was that she had not only a dreadnought, but nearly a hundred cruisers to begin with, whereas he only had started out with ten. Of those ten, he now had six left.

"Do we have any drones or robotic armaments on the fleet we could-" He started, but cut himself off. The geth were the best hackers in the galaxy, only beneath these Reaper-ships it seemed. Therefore it would be gift-wrapping whatever material he had if he sent it against the geth, like sending grasshoppers against a malicious child; "Do we have any nuclear devices on the fleet?" He then asked.

His question drew more than one disbelieving stare. Not only the Council, but the Alliance as well still outlawed the use of nuclear weapons on Garden worlds, not to mention generally frowned upon their use in any situation. Didn't stop the nations of Earth, the United States in particular, from still producing more than a hundred nuclear warheads each year. Russia had long-since abandoned the use of the atomic bombs, instead switching to developing the Neutron bombs after having discovered the Martian Ruins. They had not always been the best to follow up on the most recent advancements, so it had been with preserving eventual alien technology in mind, that Russian manufacturers had decided to make the life-removing bombs instead. If you could remove the alien, but not the gun he had shot at you with, you had a new gun to examine.

Oh, how the Turians had loathed him for that one.

"No sir, we have no nuclear devices on the fleet. The Stalingrad was the only one equipped with nuclear warheads, and it went down in flames...more or less, until it blew apart." The tech responded with some shame and sorrow in his voice. Atomic radiation on a planet was bad, but in space it became something not even a dreadnought's shields could fully stop.

"Tell all ships to stand by... I want a full list of our planet-fall capabilities within an hour. Comms, radio the Normandy and have them check their own equipment... we're going down there after all." He said, the last part with audible regret. Had he been alone, he felt like he could have torn his chair from its sockets and hurled it across the bridge. The chair weighing easily his weight and more, that was something of an achievement to consider.

Somewhere close to twenty-nine minutes later, the report was delivered to the admiral, causing him to sigh, though not with as much dread as he had expected to.

Maybe, just maybe, he could make this work.

Codex Entry: Neutron bomb - First Contact War

As the First Contact War (FCW) ignited in 2157, the Turians were quick to set upon secluded and scattered fleets of human cruisers and frigates, somehow never encountering a dreadnought. This, from the Turians, led to the belief that humanity simply did not possess any ships of that size. They were, however, proven wrong when Admiral Kastanie Drescher arrived with the second fleet over Shanxi, evicting, routing and scattering the Turian fleet orbiting the human colony.

A week after the siege of Shanxi ended, the Turians seemed to have understood humanity's capabilities, and returned en force with a fleet large enough to wipe out that of Drescher's which was orbiting Shanxi still, vigilant in their purpose to defend humanity. The sixth Turian fleet, under the banner of General Adrian Victus of the Turian Strike Forces. Admiral Drescher commanded one-hundred and seven ships, including her own Dreadnought, the now-renovated SSV Everest (See: SSV Everest, Admiral Hackett, Admiral Drescher), where Victus arrived with four dreadnoughts and more than five-hundred ships.

Serving under Drescher was the young captain Oleg Petrovsky, commander of the SSV Sct. Petersburg, a Heavy Cruiser fresh from repairs on Shanxi. Where the rest of the fleet had bogged down and started flinging slugs at the Turian incomers, Petrovsky had one thing the rest of the fleet did not possess. It has been hinted that now-admiral Oleg Petrovsky was a man who did not always care much about the ethics of warfare, nor the rules of it. While it has not to this day been discovered how he had his ship fitted with it, it was discovered that Oleg Petrovsky had on his cruiser, a prototype Sasha-bomb. (See: Neutron bombs, naval battles). Taking his squadron of cruisers out from the left flank, Petrovsky sent the Sasha-bomb, a powerful missile with a Neutron-warhead, flying against the Turian fleet while his ships kept him free of fire. The moment the missile was launched, the squadron of cruisers were ordered back to their positions by an, according to herself, infuriated Admiral Drescher who saw Petrovsky as having broken formation only to fire a single missile.

When the Turian forces recognized the missile, it was shot by anti-fighter systems, only for the heat of the lasers to ignite the warhead, sending out an intense burst of radiation. Out of the initial five-hundred ships under Victus' command, more than two-hundred and five were not destroyed as much as rendered without living crew. Despite the Turians being from a radiated planet, the amount of radiation unleashed from Sasha was enough to immediately kill more than twenty-thousand Turian crewmen, as well as ensure that more than seventy-thousand Turians received fatal radiation-sickness and cancer, not including Victus whose dreadnought 'the Shield of Palavan' was outside the radius.

Despite this enormous loss in manpower, the Turian fleet held their ground and inflicted massive casualties upon the Alliance Fleet before being driven back through the Relay. Casualties or not, it had been proven that weapons from before the space-age had truly begun, were still a force to be reckoned with.

After this event, the war continued for a month, with few additional battles being fought as much as prepared for. The intervening of the Citadel Council ended the war before humanity was fully engaged in it, and the Turians still held more than six times the amount of ships the Systems Alliance possessed.

Post-FCW Oleg Petrovsky was promoted to colonel at the age of twenty-nine, being the youngest human officer of that rank since Colonel Jonathan Marshall, the colonel in charge of the 75th rangers and defender of Washington DC in the Russo-American War, also known as World War 3.

The Turian navy has since pressed twice for a trial pertaining Petrovsky's use of a weapon outlawed by the Citadel Council in Christian year 1998. No trials have been held, and Oleg Petrovsky retains respect within the Alliance on par with Admiral Stephen Hackett and Admiral Anna Fisher.