*CRASH*

Pervax grunted inside his pod. Escape pods where never supposed to keep them alive when landing, but he always felt like these things were gonna turn him into jelly. He roughly unclasped his harness and turned to address the rest of his squad.

"Alright boys, sound off."

A series of "Clear" and "Ready" calls responded.

"We're in hostile territory here. We have no idea why those aliens are bombing this world or if they're going to do the same to us. We're gonna link up with the biggest cluster of Hierarchy troops in the near area. Then we're going to hunker down for however long it takes for a relief force to show up, send those aliens up there back to their spirits, and get us out of here. I want helmets and barriers on at all times. Do I make myself clear?"

"Sir, yes sir!"

With that, Pervax opened the door and moved his squad out. The ecape pod had landed in a clearing. Mostly surrounding them was a large group of tall structures. At a glance, they reminded Pervax of the trees on Palaven, though these were bright green. To the left was a wide river, extending out of his sight. Within a second, the squad of ten had already fanned out, two snipers in the back doing overwatch for the rest of the group while Pervax accessed his Omni-tool. He scanned for Hierarchy signals, before pointing the squad forward. With that, they began moving forward.

One of the privates, a younger one named Termis, spoke up. "This seems like a nice planet. Why would a bunch of pirates want to bomb this place?"

Velcen, an older soldier responded. "I've fought Terminus trash for most of my career. I know them better than my own mother. If there's one reason for they always have for bombing planets, it's to bring their inhabitants into submission."

"You think there's already colonists here?" Termis exclaimed.

"For all we know, this could be a homeworld" came Velcen's response.

"Quit with the theory crafting, none of us know the real answer to why these pirates came here. That's for the eggheads up in command to figure out. Our only job is to survive." With that, Pervax shut any further conversation down.

The squad continued to silently move forward, to where Pervax detected the home signal. Suddenly, the sound of a large vehicle crashing through multiple trees. Not needing an order, the entire group quickly sunk to the ground, holding their collective breaths. If they were already caught out by enemy armor, it would not end well.

Suddenly, the vehicle crashed through the nearest copse of trees. Upon seeing it, the squad let out a sigh of relief. It was a Tyrus, one of the main IFV vehicles of the Hierarchy's armies. Pervax stood up and waved over the IFV. It rolled to a stop next to the group and opened it's hatch. They didn't need any further instruction and quickly clambered into the vehicle.

Pervax came up behind the driver. "I didn't know we had armor here."

"Came down with some of the dropships" the driver responded. "We got orders from higher up to pick up any squads that were in the area. We were actually just driving over to your impact site." He wheeled the Tyrus around as he talked, heading back to HQ.

"We made a forward operating base with some of the dropships. It's ramshackle, but it's all we've got."

The Tyrus crashed through the terrain, passing over trees, rivers, and other greenery. In brief flashes between the wave of green, Pervax could see structures in the distance. Termis spoke up again.

"Buildings. And large ones. Someone's living here alright."

Soon enough, they came upon a large clearing. In the center was a group of Augury dropships, the venerable craft forming a rough ring. In the middle was a Peraxus command vehicle, presumably where the formation was sent from. To the left was a formation of vehicles, mostly Tyruses and other small craft, though with a smattering of medium armor. Unfortunately, under the assumption they wouldn't meet heavy resistance of a colonization run, they didn't pack heavy vehicles such as tanks. And surrounding them all were groups of Turians, digging trenches, planting metal fortifications, setting heavy turrets, doing everything to to turn this into a legitimate base. The Tyrus he was in passed a small gap in the defenses and came to a stop, letting his squad out. Pervax was surprised to see a Cabal was here, the biotic soldiers standing to the back of the base, near the Auguries.

Termis raised his voice. "What now, sir?"

Pervax immediately responded "You go to exterior and help them set up. I'm going to see who's running this operation."

Just as he said those words, another Tyrus rolled in, though this one had seen better days. It had numerous dents in its hull, several of which were smoking. One of its tires was popped. And the front window had a large hole in it. The moment it rolled to a stop, the driver screamed "They know where we are and they're hunting us!"

The entire cluster of troops went silent, until Pervax yelled out "Double time, NOW!" And then the base went back into motion, twice as frantic as before.

Well, I'm back with another chapter.

The next chapter is going to feature some fighting, so I think it's best if I get this fic's internal powerscaling out of the way now. Now, ET:QW had the GDF and Strogg be roughly equal to each other. Human weapons were comparable to Strogg weapons and vice versa. However, the rest of the Quake franchise tells a different story, one where Strogg weapons are always depicted as being better than their human counterparts, even against the more advanced Terran Coalition of Man. For example, the hyperblaster in QW is treated as being equal to a Human machine gun, while other games have it as plasma gun equivilant.

Therefore, I'm ruling that Strogg gear is by and large better than their human counterparts. Their guns kill in one or two hits, their armor defends better, and their vehicles can take and dish out way more punishment. They're not unbeatable, but it takes a lot more effort for the Humans to kill the Strogg than the other way around.

The Turians are much more comparable. That's the advantage of ME weaponry and kinetic barriers. A bullet at hypersonic velocities deals much more damage than a standard bullet (yes, ME guns can fire large bullets, the "grain of sand" sized projectiles are just really widespread fanon.) Of course, they also have the least resources out of any faction on Earth currently, along with no heavy armor such as tanks or artillery, so something like a Cyclops is a major threat.

The Tyrus is an in universe vehicle, but there's incredibly little lore about it, so I'm headcanoning it as fast assault IFV, essentially a Turian Mako-equivalant, though with less speed in exchange for more armor. The Augury and Peraxus were both completely made up by me.

Now for comment responses.

JammyONE on FFN: Shame we're not going to see a non-mass effect humanity.

I don't see many ME crossovers that feature the Systems Alliance, though I guess it would be annoying never having them if you do like them.

evolution-500 on FFN: Interesting premise. I'm curious, will the Quarians get involved with this? Given the hazard that the Strogg represent, one would think they would team up with humanity, wouldn't they?

The Quarians don't know about the Strogg. No one knows about the Strogg aside from a small colonization fleet. And it'll take time for their existence to leak to the rest of the known galaxy. And would the Quarians even want to get involved with a Turian war? Basically, don't expect the Quarians to show up for a long while.