AN: This was done faster than I expected…I think my excitement and your support managed to get me going again on this. So keep the reviews coming! Speaking of reviews, let's take a look at what you've been asking. iZuikaku, because Arpeggio bores me, and I do not own a copy of Nier…If I decide to slug through Arpeggio or get Nier I might add content from that; but it's unlikely, sorry. edboy4926, the Legionaries already can stomp a Primaris one on one, remember they are enhanced to the point that they make Spartans and regular Space Marines look like a failed science experiment. Cawl might show up at some point, but I'm not too sure what I'd do with him if I do bring him in yet. Raizen Lord of Twilight, at the moment it's just a cameo/theory…I may expand on it, I may not. Chad0615, yep that he is. Now enjoy the chapter people.

Speech

Thoughts

Radio/machine speech/scene change

The Relay 314 Incident:

Unclaimed System holding relay 314: The spark for change

The small system in which relay 314 lay was unremarkable in every sense of the word, it held five worlds, of which only one was even remotely inhabitable without going to extreme measures to colonize it; albeit it was the smallest of all the planets. The small asteroid belt near the third planet had already been strip mined of all valuable resources centuries ago.

There were no archeological finds of significance in the system. And as it housed an inactivate relay the Turian Navy kept a close eye on the system, so pirates and other criminals avoided setting up shop in the system.

The relay at the opposite end of the system from 314 suddenly flashed a blinding blue, signifying a ship was exiting the relay. When the light died down a badly damaged Quarian research vessel, the Alarei, limped into the system. The ship's hull had several large gaping holes in it, which the kinetic shields were just barely preventing from leaking atmosphere.

Bridge of the Alarei:

Captain Rael'Zorah stared blankly out the main viewing window of the bridge, darkly musing on the events of the past six hours. The Alarei had been sent, along with two escorting frigates, had been dispatched to observe a stellar phenomenon affecting a star out in the Skyllian traverse; Rael had protested the orders, he knew that it was uncomfortably close to Batarian controlled space, and that the four eyed slavers always were on the lookout for Quarians to add to the slave trade.

Unfortunately all his protests had managed to get was a pair of frigates assigned as escorts. Escorts who willingly stayed behind to slow the Batarian pirate group they encountered, though there was little hope of them escaping, let alone surviving, as the pirates were led by a refurbished Turian Talon class heavy dreadnought. Before the research ship had managed to jump system it had taken a few hits from the smaller pirate vessels, little more than corvettes with oversized guns, which had punched through the shielding and put those gaping holes in its hull.

Miraculously, the reactor and engines had not been hit by the pirates, and they had managed to escape. Though that was small comfort, the frigates and their crews were either destroyed, or more likely, captured by the Batarian pirates. Despite not "officially" being slavers, it was an open secret that the pirates would sell any captives they managed to secure on the various slave markets; including the infamous Camalaian ones...A slave sent to the markets on Camala are considered effectively dead by most races.

Shaking his head to stop himself from dwelling on the fate of the escort ships' crews, he glanced at the report in on his omni-tool. The Alarei was a cruiser sized vessel, but carried a larger crew due to the research the ship had to do, of the one thousand crew members (when in the flotilla the number was much less, as crew members could head to a life ship to rest in between shifts), one hundred had died when the Batarian shots penetrated the armor of the vessel. If the vessel ever returned to the flotilla it would spend weeks being repaired, and he would resign because of his failure.

Before he could brood on the losses his crew suffered, crew members he had known for years, a cry of alarm from the scanner operator caught his attention. "SIR! The relay we just came through is going hot again, at least a dozen vessels are coming through…It's most likely the Batarians!"

Captain Zorah swore, "Keelah, that's all we need right now…We can't go back to the relay and make another jump, they'll catch us before we can jump. We can't hide out on any of these planets, the Batarians will find us…We need to go through Relay 314."

It was a credit to his crew that no one protested his choice, they were all professionals and they knew what would happen if the Batarians caught them. As such the activation codes for the relay, something that was only ever used when a significant military presence was present, were readied and transmitted in less than a minute. As the dormant relay powered up, the pursuing Batarians arrived. There were two dozen ships in the group, including a brand new Vengeance class pocket Dreadnought.

But the Batarians were too late; they arrived just in time to see their crippled prey jump through the activated relay. Hesitating for just a few seconds, the Batarians swiftly followed their quarry into the relay.

Shanxi System: The Minotaur CDF Destroyer

Captain Onrys Sheppard, formerly of Ulthwe's fleet, looked over the report his aid, a human by the name of Gabriel Rodriguez, had handed him a few minutes ago while drinking some green tea. While not what he was used to in Eldar communities, it would do in a pinch. The Minotaur was a last generation Lancer Class, not the most powerful Imperial vessel, but far superior to the old vessels before the founding of the Imperium, it was even faster and more maneuverable than the old Eldar ships.

As well as the Minotaur, Onrys had been given command over two frigates as escorts. It was a small group compared to what the Eldar had commanded back when he was a commander in his Craftworld's Navy; but it was more powerful. The report was nothing out of the ordinary, the ships under his command and their crew was ready for anything.

After reading through the report, he reached down and pulled out a locket, opening it he smiled briefly as he looked at the picture inside. It was of a beautiful red headed human woman holding a blonde baby boy who had Eldar ears. If someone had told him he would fall in love with a human five years ago, he would have laughed in their faces and called them insane; but Hannah Sheppard was no ordinary Human, there was something special about here that made him curious when they first met…curiosity led to attraction, attraction led to love, and love led to marriage and a child two years ago.

He was dragged out of his reminiscing when warning claxons rang out. Stuffing the locket back down his uniform, he spoke in a commanding voice: "Status report?"

A small green holographic image appeared on one of the arms of his chair, it was of an ancient human goddess in battle armor; her name was Athena, the smart AI assigned to his battlegroup: "The relay just went live; the sensors are detecting twenty five ships coming through. None of the ships are larger than a destroyer, though strangely one of them seems to be in front by a minute."

The Eldar nodded: "It could be a vanguard or something else completely…Alert all hands and issue call to battle stations. If these new comers prove hostile I want us ready."

Athena's avatar winked out as she carried out the captain's orders. As the crew went about their jobs of getting the ship ready for combat, Onrys wished for half a second he had more Eldar and they could use their psychic abilities to control the ship directly; before quashing the thought immediately, while they were not the crew he had served with for centuries in Ulthwe, the crew was disciplined, well trained, and very effective…in time they would be as good as his old crew.

Then the relay flashed blue and a badly damaged corvette exited the relay. It was strangely shaped, it looked a little like an old Human thermometer, except the circular "head" was disproportionately large compared to the "stem" behind it…the jagged holes were easy to notice…The strange ship made a beeline for them, broadcasting signals on all channels. Before he could order the battle group's AI to translate the signals, the relay flashed again, and a hodge podge of various different designs and sizes appeared.

The new comers seemed to be coming to grips with what they were seeing for a minute; but then they changed to an attack formation and started bearing down on the first arrival, firing what appeared to be weak spinal guns. This clarified the situation immediately for the defenders of Shanxi Prime, and each of the three ships picked a target…And fired.

Bridge of the Alarei: three minutes ago

Rael'Zorah knew the Batarians were hot on his heels, but there was little he could do about that besides try and out run them. It was very unlikely that he would succeed in that. As such while the ship was in transit, he asked his crew for options they were willing to follow if they couldn't run any further.

The answer was unanimous. If there were aliens on the other side they would try to show they were not hostile, and to get help with repairs and temporary protection…If there weren't, then they would wait until the Batarians got in close, and then detonate the oversized mass effect reactor, taking as many of their pursuers down as possible.

When the ship emerged from the relay network, they were upraised to see THREE heavy dreadnought size ships guarding a garden world.

His crew though was good, and after getting over their momentary shock, they started transmitting on all channels that they were friendly and needed aid; all the while speeding towards the planet. Thankfully either the defenders understood the messages they were transmitting, or they were hesitating because they were unsure of the Alarei's intentions.

The ship had made it a third of the way to the planet, while redlining their engine and power plant, when the Batarians arrived. Rael was hopeful that the sight of three heavy dreadnoughts would be enough to make the Batarians back off; unfortunately it seemed they were more aggressive and less intelligent than the Quarian thought, as within a few seconds they had entered an attack formation and came bearing down on the wounded vessel…firing their cannons once they were within range.

Then to the shock of the quarians the defenders of the planet opened fire on the Batarians. The first three shots vaporized their targets, an old surplus Turian cruiser and a pair of Batarian produced destroyers…but the shots also cut through four corvettes on the way to their targets.

Two seconds later the next volley tore into the pursuing Batarians; destroying the last of the corvettes (three), three destroyers (one of which was in a direct line behind the other), and the last cruiser. By this point the remaining pirates were starting to flee; but another round tore into the retreating pirates, destroying the Vengeance class, three destroyers out of the four remaining, and the light carrier (which had been modified to transport slaves).

The last destroyer jumped before it could be destroyed… The incident had lasted less than thirty seconds after the defenders opened fire, and had been a massacre. Fear and apprehension gripped Captain Rael at this fact, it would have been all too easy for these unknown to destroy them, he briefly considered fleeing back to the relay; but then a message came from the largest ship around the planet. It wasn't a verbal communication, but a pictorial one. It relayed instructions for them to follow one of the smaller ships to a shipyard where there ship would be repaired and diplomats could meet them.

Hesitating for only a second, they complied. After all, it was likely if they didn't they would be annihilated, and none of them were willing to go through that now that they had hope of living through the day.

Next time: 314: The long arm of the law

Codex: Talon Class Heavy Dreadnought

The Talon is an older Heavy Dreadnought class, in fact it was the first "Heavy Dreadnought" class to ever be built. It was designed under the impression that bigger capital ships would be needed in the future. At the time of its construction, a century after the Krogan Rebellions and a year after the Turians were granted their seat on the council, it was the most powerful ship class to ever be built.

Its main cannon produced twice the kinetic power of its nearest competitor, and it had several broadside guns that produced as much as the main gun of a frigate; beyond that it had a pair of early GUARDIAN laser point defense batteries.

The armor of this class was higher than most other dreadnoughts of the time; and the shielding was much higher than its nearest rival.

However the sheer amount of weapons and the shielding was a massive drain on the power output, and the internals needed for all of the weapons and shielding also meant that the ship was much slower than virtually any vessel.

When it was replaced by the Guardian Heavy Dreadnought nine hundred ninety four years later, many of them were sold off to planetary defense forces. In recent years the Talon class has become a popular ship amongst the more wealthy pirates, some of whom merely use it as a status symbol…but most have modernized the ship in every way possible; making it a threat to even cruiser squadrons, though it is no match for a modern dreadnought…let alone a heavy dreadnought.

Codex: Vengeance Class Fast Dreadnought

The Vengeance Class is a uniquely batarian idea among the Citadel and Terminus races. It is a 1.3 km long vessel, fitting in the middle of the dreadnought range. Its main gun is extremely dangerous, able to inflict heavy damage to even modern heavy dreadnoughts. Its engines are more powerful than almost any engine fitted to a warship, allowing it to outrun anything that could be a threat to it. However its defenses are rather lacking, even destroyer weight ships can penetrate its armor with their main gun.

Officially Batarian State Arms developed this ship class to give the Batarian fleet an edge against the larger navies of the races that enjoyed the trust of the council. Unofficially, everyone knows that more often than not these warships will wind up in the hands of more "valuable" pirate bands.

Codex: Lancer Class Destroyer

At a length of two km, the Lancer class was the last of the old "UNSC" style ships to enter production before the new "Imperials" entered production. It is well armed, recent technological advances allow the main cannon to put out as much fire power as an old battlecruiser; it also has secondary energy (able to switch between laser and plasma) turret batteries, and point defense laser batteries. The armor plating is made of gundanium at 500 mm thick, making it a tough tin can; however, while its shielding is strong, it's not designed with dark matter weapons in mind, so something laced with dark matter can seriously interfere with its defenses. It's a relatively fast ship, able to hit a tenth of the speed of light full out in combat.

Codex: Speed of the Imperial Fleet

There has been a noticeable decrease in speed of the Imperial warship over the decade from the decommissioning of most of the UNSC vessels. The reason for this is that hitting that speed in combat seems to do strange things to the ships of the Empire. One example is when a Ohio Class rigged up to test this effect turned inside out while going full speed. As such until a work around is discovered Imperial ship designers have limited the combat speed of warships in development.

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