Babylon 5, Mass Effect 1. prologue

**The Mass Effect Age**

**Prologue:**

In the year 2233, one year after the Dilgar War, a great discovery was found underneath the sands of Promethai Planum on Mars. An ancient alien observation post with a malfunctioning Mass Effect Core and a number of alien ships buried there, finally giving an answer to the regions Bermuda Triangle reputation, mostly unexplained magnetic shifts that screwed up navigation. It took IPX and the Earth Force Corp of Engineers almost a year to excavate and explore the ruins and another year to fully translate the data from the still working computers in the alien structure.

It was a former observation and biosciences station built by an ancient race called the Protheans, set up to receive and process data from Earth as the Protheans studied Cro-Magnon humans. The starships found in the ancient ruins and a large cache of Element Zero gave the Earth Alliance a massive boost in technological advancement, the first being the discovery of Mass Effect physics which allowed Earth to build faster and more powerful ships.

The main advantage that Earth Force gained was a proper working knowledge of how to manipulate Mass Effect fields, making it possible for Human ships and installations to have artificial gravity and it also negated the effect of inertia, though not entirely, yet.

Two years after the discovery, following the information found in the Prothean data cache, Earth Force found the Sol system Mass Relay inside of Charon, one of Pluto's moons. Earth Force wasted no time in securing the relic, setting up several Orion Battle stations in orbit of it and permanently stationed a small fleet there to guard it, both from threats from races that wanted to take it and whatever races that could possibly come through, soon after it came fully online, as if awakening from a deep sleep. Following descriptions found in the Prothean data cache Earth Force sent a probe through and followed its progress using a tachyon data-link. The scientists overseeing the probe's progress were astonished; it had travelled several hundred light years in almost the blink of an eye and entered a system that seemed perfect.

It was a Trinary star system which were all G-type stars, the same as Sol, with six gas giants the size of Jupiter or Saturn, two in orbit of each star, and had dozens of moons each, several were the size of Earth and half of them had almost identical atmospheres to the human homeworld. Almost immediately survey ships were sent through to make sure of the probe's data was accurate and it was. Humanity had found another avenue of exploration and soon new colonies were beginning to spring up in the recently named Arcturus system. For the next eight years the Earth Alliance continued to explore the Mass Relay Network, finding more star systems to colonize.

However their peaceful exploration would inevitably lead to a meeting that would definitely give them a good kick in their complacency, and as usual humanity stuck its nose into something that ultimately came back and bit them.

AN: This is a new story I've been toying around with for a while and I thought it might be fun to try my hand at it. The early chapters are mostly just for setting up the new universe and blend the two story lines together, so don't expect to see Shepard or any of the other Mass Effect and B5 characters around right away, and I wanted to see how Earth Force would fare against the Turians when they try to muscle in on Earth colonies.


	2. Chapter 1: First Contact

**The Mass Effect Age**

**Chapter 1: First Contact.**

In the year 2245, in an uncharted Blue Giant star system far beyond previously explored space a lone Mass Relay sat in the outer reaches of the system, quiet and inactive. Suddenly the circles surrounding its massive Mass Effect Core began spinning, faster and faster, and then a sudden static charge energized it. Another Mass Relay had been awakened.

With a blue blur a massive ship decelerated. It was five kilometres long; its forward section looked more like a large box with a circular rotating section just behind it with large wing-like solar panels behind it. In the middle was a long scaffold structure with various large components magnetized to it, and going aft were eight massive fusion ion drives which propelled the massive vessel forward.

The ship was the EAS Amundsen, one of several recently built Explorer class vessels that had been sent to explore the Mass Relay network. Almost immediately more Mass Relays were found in Known Space as everyone knew now what to look for, and soon almost every race in the League of Non-Aligned Worlds and the Narn and Centauri were connected by Mass Relays, resulting in both a technological revolution across most of Known Space as races began looking for more of them at a frantic pace, and increased conflict, most notably between the Narn and the Centauri, both trying to gain control of as many as they could, while for the League it meant an increase in trade between member species.

Captain Michelle Ross was in command of the Amundsen, a no nonsense officer who was a strict but a fair task mistress, and a fairly good looking one too. Her dark red hair and athletic build made her the poster girl for women in Earth Force, though she never liked all the attention. Women in the Force was pretty common now, and she had enough of the fan boys back home, so she volunteered to captain one of the Explorers, exploration being her main reason for joining up.

She turned to one of the many science officers onboard and asked, "Anything of notice in this system, lieutenant?"

"The asteroid belt looks promising, looks like large deposits of both Quantium 40 and Element Zero. It should be worth the expenditure of getting one of the mobile mining stations into this system," the young officer replied. A mining station was a mobile space station based on the Explorer class, but much larger and equipped with dedicated mining equipment and shuttles.

"Very good, send out the survey ships to take a closer scan of the system, confirm our reading up close," she told her xo who was looking over the long range scanners.

"We should also deploy sensor probes, get ourselves a better picture of the system," said the xo, an older and slightly portly man and a Dilgar veteran, who had been demoted for pissing off the wrong General, screwing his chances for captaining a ship of his own.

"Do it."

Minutes later three Icarus class scout ships launched from the gaping maw of the Amundsen's launch bay, heading for a closer look at the system's asteroid belt and probes were launched from the Amundsen's side-mounted probe launchers.

* * *

On the other side of the system six predatory birdlike ships came out of FTL and started doing long range scans of the system. It was a Turian patrol group doing a simple patrol of the outer borders of Citadel space, composed of one cruiser and five frigates. They quickly noticed that they were not alone in this system so they moved closer to investigate, and lo and behold they found what looked like to them a massive dreadnought sized vessel along with three small ships that obviously came from it.

The Captain, a young hot blooded Turian named Desolas Arterius felt his blood boil when he saw that the local Mass Relay had been activated, most likely by these damned fools and he would make them pay.

"Helm, move to intercept that ship, communications have frigates 78, 116 and 227 intercept the smaller ships, the last two will accompany us. Ready all weapons and prepare to engage the enemy," he ordered.

The three designated frigates quickly changed course to intercept the survey ships, while the cruiser and its two frigate escorts increased speed to just under FTL as to not overshoot their target.

* * *

The approaching Turian vessels were soon spotted by the Amundsen's long range scanners, which got everyone excited, but the captain was cautious.

"Activate Interceptors, Kinetic Barriers and the E-web; keep our main guns unpowered for now, no need to provoke the locals."

"Captain we're detecting Mass Effect fields on those ships, but they are definitely not Prothean in design," said one of many sensor operators. "They're scanning us."

"Return the favour Lieutenant; if they want to take a good look at us, they better expect to get the same kind of treatment in return."

"Captain I'm getting a mayday from the scout ships, they say their under attack by the smaller vessels, they've been fired upon," said a comm. officer in shock.

"What the hell are these people playing at? Transmit the First Contact package, ready all weapons, and have the scout ships return here on the double," the Captain quickly barked.

"Aye ma'am," said the same comm. officer and carried out her orders.

Immediately the three scout ships energised their Mass Effect cores and went to FTL, dropping back into normal space only a couple of kilometres away from the Amundsen and got back onboard, protected by heavy kinetic barriers and armour, just as thick as on a Nova class dreadnought.

The atmosphere on the bridge was thick with tension, so thick you could cut it with a knife and everyone was on a knife edge waiting for the aliens to respond to their First Contact package. It was ten minutes before they got a response, however it wasn't a response they had been hoping for.

"We've got multiple energy spikes."

"Oh hell no," the captain muttered quietly.

With a visible static energy discharge the cruiser opened fire with its main gun, followed shortly by the five frigates, sending 15 kilo ferrous slugs hurtling at 1.89 % of light speed. The Interceptors reacted instantly, sending out bright blue pulses of Mass Effect enhanced plasma bolts into their path, impacting the slugs and quickly reduced them to little more than slow moving slag.

"Helm hard about, make for the Mass Relay, Weps prep all particle beam batteries and return fire, full power," she commanded.

The massive form of the Amundsen quickly turned its massive bulk around, the Turians began firing their secondary weapons at them, namely their GARDIAN lasers and Disruptor torpedoes, launching huge waves of guided projectiles which were all stopped by the ship's Interceptors, and the E-web dispersed the laser beams, just causing a little heat to build up on the ship's armoured surface. The Amundsen retaliated with its particle beam cannons, hitting two of the Turian frigates and swiftly cut through their armour, the beams lost only about five percent of its effectiveness as they passed through the frigates kinetic barriers, clipping a wing off each frigate and they were left adrift and crippled as secondary explosions rippled along their sides, damaging them even further.

They tried to pursue, but the Amundsen's eight Mass Effect Cores and with eight fusion ion drives to provide thrust allowed for an impressive acceleration for a ship its size. They approached the Mass Relay and lined up for a Mass Relay launch, the expert helmsmen had done this several times before, but never under heavy fire and the aliens just weren't letting up with their Mass Accelerator bombardment, though none of them got close to hitting their quarry thanks to the Interceptors. Just before they went through the Relay the Amundsen fired one last parting shot with one of its aft particle beam cannons, carving an ugly looking scar along the side of the cruiser, it heavier armour held, though only just, and the Amundsen disappeared in one bright blue blur of acceleration, leaving the Turians very pissed off and hurt.

* * *

On the Turian cruiser the captain was furious at himself for losing his quarry, and he now had another reason to despise these people who just didn't know how to die.

"Send to High Command, 'Have engaged unknown enemy ships at unexplored Relay 314 and request reinforcements to go after them through the Relay."

"Yes sir," responded a comm. tech and sent the message.

* * *

The Amundsen quickly decelerated from its Mass Relay jump and set course for the local Earth Force military garrison at Shanxi, a relatively new colony with barely any defences and only a small garrison of Earth Force ships and ground troops, plus a large partially completed Orion class starbase.

Captain Ross ordered a Gold Channel to be opened to Earth Force Command back on Earth as soon as they arrived and had the call routed to her private quarters that doubled as her office. Within minutes the tachyon channel was open.

"Captain Ross? This is an unexpected pleasure," said General Leftcourt. "We weren't expecting to hear from you in over a month, what happened?"

"We were attacked, sir, just hours after we entered the system and began the survey, we sure as hell didn't provoke them, at least not intentionally..."

"Slow down Captain, who attacked you?"

"We don't know, sir, it was definitely not any of the races we've encountered in the past, completely unknown configuration, but sir there is one thing that sets these aliens apart from anyone we've encountered. They were using Mass Effect technology."

A look of shock came over the General's face at this revelation. "Is it possible that these people could be Protheans?"

"It's possible, but somehow I doubt it. The Protheans weren't that aggressive, and the design of those ships didn't match up even close to Prothean design or aesthetics. I'm sending our scans that we took of them before they attacked us and the after action reports on a sub-channel."

"Very good, Captain. Return to your people and give everyone a little shore leave, after a First Contact like that you deserve a little rest and relaxation."

The Captain smiled at the thought, she and her crew had been out on assignment exploring the Mass Relay network for almost six months now and everyone was starting to get a little antsy and needing a break from the monotony and a rest after the short battle would do both her and her crew wonders.

"Thank you sir, I'll see to it that every one of my men get some shore leave on the planet."

"Shanxi isn't it?" the General asked.

"Yes sir, one of our newest colonies on the Rim," she said.

"We'll get a fleet there as soon as possible, if those aliens come, Shanxi will be the first colony they find and if they are anything like the Dilgar I shudder to think what would happen to the colonists," said the General. He had been a captain during that war and had seen the devastation caused by Mass Driver and biological attacks which was a favourite tactic of the Dilgar. The Gold Channel closed.

* * *

On the other end of the Relay a fleet of ships were gathering, mostly composed of cruisers and frigates at its centre was a large two kilometre long Dreadnought, the Gwandana, command ship of Turian General Septimus Oraka. He was studying the patrol group's combat record and noticed that the aliens had sent a transmission before the patrol had engaged the ship. It was a simple language that the computers had no trouble deciphering, apparently on purpose, and on it was some basic information about the species that they had encountered. All it contained was their language codes and a little information about their species, that they called themselves Humans and that they came in peace.

General Septimus also noted that Captain Arterius hadn't even responded and had attacked almost immediately, all because they had activated a Relay without knowing that they were violating Citadel Council law. He had his personal VI send a message to Captain Arterius' ship, summoning him.

Half an hour later the young captain, who should really have not commanded a cruiser in the first place, stood before his General at attention.

"You sent for me, sir?"

"Captain, do you know what you have just done? You fired upon a vessel that belonged to a species that had no knowledge about Council laws and that was trying to communicate with you and you responded with opening fire on them. What they sent was a basic First Contact package that contained a simple message in a fabricated language called Interlac which contained the species language codes, the name of their species and that they came in peace. You, Captain, have just become responsible for starting a war with a species with technology that could potentially tip the balance of any war in their favour."

"Sir crippling a frigate isn't that difficult a task for a cruiser, and that ship was as powerful as a Dreadnought..."

"The point is captain you are responsible and there will be a reckoning. If it were up to me I would have sent a message to the Council and had them send an emissary to these humans to make peace with them, however the Hierarchy has seen your report and believe that this species is a threat to be conquered and made into a client race, and I have been ordered to carry out their subjugation," Septimus said wearily. He would follow his orders but he would not have young hot blooded captains like Arterius be part of his fleet.

"You however will not be joining us when we go after them. You will escort the two frigates that were crippled back to Macedyn where they will either be repaired or scrapped, depending upon how severe the damage is."

"I understand," said Captain Arterius. He was disappointed, but as any good Turian he obeyed the orders given to him by a superior officer.

"Dismissed Captain," the General said in contempt. "Oh just a word from the wise, don't expect to go any further than you have if this invasion goes badly, because the blame for starting it will fall squarely upon your shoulders."

The young captain could only nod in answer and trooped out of the general's office, while feeling like some great blade was swinging just above his head, waiting for its line to be cut, and depending upon where it was in its swing it could either land and embed itself in the ground beside him, or skewer him straight through the top of his skull.

The General sighed softly in annoyance, that young captain could have gone far, but because of one lapse in judgement he may have started a war that could see their race go up in flames, something that Septimus would try to prevent at all costs. A minute later his VI flashed into existence on his desk.

"General, the fleet has been fully assembled and is awaiting your orders," it said, waiting with that same patience that all VI possessed.

"Very well, I'll be at the CIC presently," he responded and walked out of his quarters and took a lift up to the CIC, wishing for the hundredth time that these damned things would go a little faster.

* * *

Hours after the Amundsen had arrived, the Mass Relay began to power up again, then in three waves of fifteen ships the Turian fleet decelerated with a blue blur, the Dreadnought coming with the last wave and quickly decelerated. They were quickly noticed by the satellites set up there by the Amundsen when it was discovered. At the colony the military garrison was quickly herding civilians into the shelters, almost three kilometres deep down in the bedrock while defences were prepared, though all they had in orbit were a few defence platforms and an incomplete Orion starbase.

On the bridge of the Amundsen Captain Ross was looking over the satellites scans of the alien fleet, and the one thing that came to her mind about these people was that they were predators, their ships were in the shape of some sort of bird of prey, though the two kilometre long dreadnought looked like an oversized gun with wings, though high resolution optical scans showed numerous weapons ports, probably for those blue glowing guided projectiles that had been fired upon her ship. She had cancelled her crew's shore leave as soon as they had been detected and now shuttles were heading up and down as fast as possible to get both her crew and at least some of the civilians out of the combat zone, notably the women and children.

"Time till they arrive?" she asked one of her officers.

"If they hold present course and speed a little over two hours, they're still searching the system."

"Ma'am we need to leave sooner rather than later, this ship was not meant for heavy combat you know," said her xo.

"We will stay and take on as many civilians as possible until the last possible..."

"Sir the enemy just went to FTL, plotting their course now," one of the sensor operators reported, frantically making the calculation. He wouldn't get the chance to finish them. "Enemy vessels just entered into a high orbit, planetary defence platforms coming online now and locking on."

In orbit several defence platforms reoriented quickly towards the incoming enemy. With no crew aboard to hinder such actions they could easily make such manoeuvres, pointing their huge particle beam cannons, and aimed their missile launchers.

* * *

Onboard his command ship General Septimus looked over the planets defences and noted that the same vessel that Arterius had encountered was here. It was certainly an ugly vessel to his eyes, but it was big and powerful, longer than his own ship with a powerful Mass Effect field surrounding it, its name displayed proudly along its side, the Amundsen. Approaching from the surface were a number of small shuttles, most likely transporting whatever people they could evacuate to the ship. There were also a number of smaller ships of all shapes and sizes, some quite boxy and obviously freighters

He then turned his attention to the planetary defence grid and was surprised at the small number of platforms there were and a single starbase in orbit, though it looked only partially completed and was still unpowered, but the platforms were all aiming towards his fleet, with two of them pointing directly in his direction.

"Communications begin broadcasting my voice on all known frequencies," the General ordered.

"You're on General!"

He took a moment to compose himself."This is General Septimus Oraka. This planet is hereby claimed as part of the Turian Hierarchy and all ships and ground forces are ordered to surrender and lay down arms." He made a quick gesture to the comm. officer and he stopped broadcasting. He hoped that these people would surrender, they were seriously outnumbered and outgunned, but he had a feeling that these people wouldn't give up so easily.

"Sir, a transmission from the planet," reported the same comm. officer.

"This is Commander Williams to Turian fleet, you have attacked one of our explorers and you are violating Earth Alliance space. The first could have been a simple misunderstanding, but an invasion of an Earth Alliance colony will be considered an act of war and we will respond accordingly. You have ten minutes to leave before we start shooting," the commander and Military Governor of Shanxi stated and cut transmission.

"If that is their wish," the General said quietly to himself in regret. He was an opponent of his government's rapid expansion and hostile takeover of other races, but he was a soldier of the Hierarchy and he could not disobey.

"Target their defence grid first and deploy fighters to intercept that big ship, I want it disabled not destroyed," he ordered.

From small bays dotted across the dreadnought's hull several Turian fighters were dropped one at a time from each bay, rocketing away and straight towards the Amundsen.

The General took a deep breath and gave the order. "Open fire."

As one frigates, cruisers and the dreadnought opened fire with their Mass Accelerator cannons, each one targeting a defence platform, making sure that when they fired they were at an angle away from the planet. Across the defence grid the platforms shone with blue energy as the fifteen to twenty kilo ferrous slugs impacted, shaking them and pushing them slightly out of position, though onboard systems easily corrected for it. Almost immediately they responded, with a swarm of missiles, ripple firing out of their launchers and headed on a perpendicular evasive course at the fleet. Their final targeting solutions plotted the missile suddenly accelerated to 90 % of light speed, aiming for mostly the cruisers and the dreadnought.

The missiles hit every heavy warship in the Turian fleet and a frigate, which was obliterated in two shots, the kinetic force of the impact proved simply too much for the ship's barriers. Several cruisers had their barriers severely weakened, and the Gwandana had been hit multiple times, but its barriers were holding.

"Return fire," the general roared, and with that the entire fleet opened up on the defence grid with a wave of Disruptor torpedoes. Looking like large drops of water they flew gracefully through space, only to be met by blue bolts of plasma from the platforms interceptors, removing them from the sky in droves. The fighters moved to engage the platforms, their predatory forms flying straight in, and it was their first and last mistake as they came in range of the PDPs interceptors, for soon after they torpedoes were removed from the sky they turned their attention towards the Turian fighters. They weaved and dodged like crazy, but with unerring accuracy they were all brought down and only a small number of them managed to launch their own torpedoes before they were shot down, destroying two platforms in the process.

* * *

Meanwhile the fighters sent to intercept the Amundsen and its convoy was about to get its own surprise. Hiding behind the Amundsen's massive bulk two squadrons of twelve Aurora class Starfuries roared to life, popping out of cover and rocketed towards the Turian fighters. In comparison to the Turian fighters the Aurora was simplistic and boxy while the Turians were more elegant and predatory.

The first to open fire were the Turians with pulse lasers at long range, hitting several starfuries, however their E-web underneath the Kinetic barriers dispersed the laser beams, causing negligible damage to them. The starfuries closed the distance and engaged with blue pulses from rapid fire plasma guns. Unlike the old Nova starfuries of the Dilgar war the Aurora had a small Mass Effect core that generated a small ME field around the pilot, protecting the pilot from the most extreme of High G manoeuvres.

The furies twisted and turned around their opponents, far faster than any opponent the Turians had ever faced and several of them met a very fiery end at the hands of those pilots, being gunned down more often than not when the furies got outside of their own weapons arcs. Not a single Turian was able to get close enough to the Amundsen to effectively launch their disruptor torpedoes, several jettisoned their torpedo racks just to gain that little extra bit of manoeuvrability and speed to survive. One fighter however got close enough to launch, but it wasn't the Amundsen he targeted. It was one of the civilian freighters carrying refugees they were launched at.

Lieutenant Darren 'Pit Stop' Alenko saw what the Turian bastard did and moved to intercept.

"Oh no you don't," he roared as he rocketed after the torpedoes, pushing his engines beyond the red line, the engines themselves began to also glow red with the heat of constant use, but they got the job done. He closed in on the six torpedoes and locked on, carefully lining up each torpedo in his sights, the computer making final adjustments to the guns so the plasma pulses converged on his targets and not hit the civilian freighter ahead. One by one he fired and again and again he hit until the sixth and last one. He was just about to fire when a laser from the Turian bastard that launched them hit, not doing any serious damage, but was enough to knock his aim off and force him on the defensive. He fired his directional thrusters, lifting his fighter up and out of his line of fire and at the same time spun around to face his opponent, surprising the other pilot, and fired a quick burst of five plasma bolts from each gun, shredded his opponent then got back on that last torpedo's trail, but it was too late. The torpedo hit the freighter, the Lucky Venture, right in the engineering section, passed straight through the civilian grade kinetic barriers and tore the rear section to pieces, leaving it nothing more than a mangled engineering section, and what remained started to drift off course, falling out of formation from the rest of the convoy.

"All ships and fighters prepare to jump to hyperspace, freighters Diamond and Emerald fire your tow cables at the Lucky Venture and tow it in, fighter squadrons continue to provide cover," the Amundsen ordered.

Alenko began to look over the battlefield from his point of view, watching the two freighters move into position to tow the Lucky Venture, not knowing how many had died aboard her, everyone in the engineering section was dead, but in the compartments up front a good portion of the crew and passengers might still be alive.

Darren took a quick look at the picture he had stuck right next to his screen, showing his recently pregnant wife. "I'll be home soon," he said softly as he quickly moved his fighter into formation with his squad-mates.

* * *

The Amundsen opened a jump point, a small point in space that became a star which blossomed into a yellow funnel, large enough for every transport to go through in one go, the Amundsen staying behind long enough to keep the jump point open, then went in herself while almost constantly firing her interceptors, keeping the Turian fighters at bay and the occasional shot from a particle beam cannon to discourage any frigate or cruiser that tried to follow. As soon as the last transport was through the Amundsen went as well, the spectacle watched closely by the Turians who couldn't believe their eyes.

"Can someone please tell me what the hell that was?" the general asked, though everyone in the CIC seemed to have been struck mute.

"Wake up everyone, we've still got a battle to win here," the general snapped and the crew instantly concentrated on the task at hand, knocking out the planet's defence grid. Every disruptor torpedo launcher reloaded and fired, launched in a huge wave in an attempt to overwhelm the defences. There were so many the interceptors could barely keep up, and a problem that had plagued interceptors from its earliest incarnation, overheating. Their effectiveness dropped slowly and one by one the platforms were destroyed, torn apart by massive space time distortions produced when hit.

"Orbital defence platforms have been cleared," reported the Gwandana's captain, the general took a moment.

"Good, begin planetary landings."

From the rear of the formation several Turian assault ships began to enter the atmosphere, their flat heat resistant bellies began to glow with heat friction and headed for the planet's spaceport and capital, confident in victory.

* * *

AN: Hope you folks like it. I am open to critique, but any stupid comments will be ignored.


	3. Chapter 2: Battle of Shanxi part1

**The Mass Effect Age**

**Chapter 2: Battle of Shanxi.**

In the Command Centre, buried under a nearby mountain, Commander Alexander Williams watched on the monitors as turian transports began to land at the local spaceport. He had a full Combined Arms Regiment on Shanxi, almost three thousand troops of armour and infantry, but only a limited amount of artillery. Commander Williams was a career soldier, but had also shown an aptitude for organization and administration, which was why he had been made governor of one of the Earth Alliance's newest colonies out on the new frontier and he could bring his whole family along with him, which he and most of his command staff had done as well.

He had managed to use the time available to him wisely to get all of the civilians that could get off world to safety before the turians had arrived, and the rest had ensconced themselves in underground bunkers, buried deep in the bedrock underneath the settlement, which were only completed four weeks previous, or in the underground military base. Now his focus was on bringing the fight to the enemy, and he had exactly the kind of equipment needed to make those transports think twice before landing.

"Send a message to the ground batteries. Target and destroy incoming enemy transports before they land," he ordered.

On the outskirts of the small capital city several large railguns began lifting themselves out of the ground and pointed skywards, fifteen in total. Targeting scanners locked on and local gunners made final corrections to their guns and let loose. They each fired a single thirty kilo tungsten ferrous slug straight for the transports, glowing red hot as both friction and the hot plasma that enveloped the slugs cut through the atmosphere at two thousand kilometres per second, hitting each transport with enough force to knock them off course, one was hit twice in quick succession by two different batteries, the gunners accidentally picked the same target, and destroyed the transport in midflight, making it fall out of the sky and crash in a nearby field and went up in a ball of flames.

The rest of the turian transports began to retreat back into orbit, in an attempt to get out of range of the ground based railguns, to the jubilation of the crew in the command centre and the soldiers listening to the regular reports over the military network.

The Commander however was unfazed by it. "That's enough people, that was just the first attempt, the next attempt will be coming soon, get ready for it," he reminded his people.

* * *

Onboard his command ship's CIC General Oraka studied the reports from the first landing attempt. One transport, carrying nearly three hundred soldiers, had been knocked out of the sky, and the rest were even now under fire from those guns, and another got destroyed.

"Send in the fighters to take out those guns, they must be destroyed," the general ordered.

* * *

As another turian transport got taken out several squadrons of fighters dived through the atmosphere. They entered from the other side of the planet, outside the firing arcs of the long range guns, and hopefully undetected. They dived for the ground and pulled up just seconds before the point of no return, hugging the ground at mach five, deafening and scaring all the wildlife in their path. They quickly moved in on their target and started to gain a little more altitude for weapons launch. The turians came in from multiple directions; one squadron for every gun battery, and each one had its own defence grid of laser batteries, primed and ready to fire the instant anything showed up.

As they began to approach their targets the fighters disruptor torpedo racks began opening up and final launch safeties were released. As one they each launched six torpedoes, their speed boosted by the fighter's relatively high speeds and continued to accelerate. Triple-A laser batteries opened up and scorched the sky in red high intensity laser fire, hitting several, but at each battery at least one got through, unleashing highly intense space/time distortions on the gun batteries which tore them to shreds, leaving almost nothing left but a crater in the ground. The transports began their descent again for the surface, heading straight for the local spaceport, where more surprises were waiting for them.

* * *

In the underground command centre things were looking grim.

"Sir, we just lost the main batteries," one of the many comm. techs reported.

"Survivors?" the commander asked.

"None reported yet."

"Where are those transports going?"

"Straight for the space port," a sensor tech reported.

"Are the combat engineers finished?"

"Yes sir, charges are set and are ready to set off on your command."

Commander Williams had ordered demolition charges to be set at the local spaceport when the turian fleet first arrived; his only requirement was that the charges would cause the maximum damage possible to an invading force.

"Have the demo teams detonate the moment the enemy lands their last transport."

* * *

On the outskirts of the city was the main spaceport of Shanxi, a sprawling thirty square kilometres complex of large hangars, terminals and a number of kilometre long runways capable of taking the largest of Earth's atmospheric capable transports, though today a number of alien transports were touching down. From the rooftop of a nearby high-rise apartment complex in the city proper a team of combat engineers were connecting the final pieces of wiring to the main control box for the detonators, connecting them all together for simultaneous detonation.

A spotter at a nearby sniper perch had a perfect view of the spaceport and was waiting for all of the enemy transports to land, waiting for that opportune moment to cause the most damage with a minimum of risk to manpower and equipment. As soon as the last transport landed he gave the word. "Spring the trap!"

With one click of the detonator a chain reaction started. A high voltage charge went through the hundreds of meters of transmission cord, ending in the detonators which unleashed their own chemical or electrical signals to the explosives, which exploded in spectacular fashion all along the runways, the terminal buildings and the fuel dumps filled with highly reactant engine fuel, sending huge amounts of shrapnel and fire straight for the surprised turians, immolating every last one that was within the blast radius and wrecked several of the transports, the two closest to the fuel dump got vaporized, taking almost four hundred troops with it along with most of the turian combat vehicles.

The spotter in the sniper perch could only smirk as the first wave of the enemy's invasion forces was decimated by the pre-prepared ambush the combat engineers had set up. To the turians credit the survivors quickly regrouped around the surviving transports and established a perimeter in record time. The spotter looked through his electronic binoculars and scanned the area, and was the first human to see a turian in the flesh. They all had helmets on, but their body-form was reminiscent of birds of prey. He was trying to identify the officers from the common soldiers, but it was very difficult, until some fool soldier saluted another in the open.

"Marking target, raptor with a dark blue helmet with four red tiger stripes on the shoulders, range 700, no crosswinds," the spotter said to his partner sniper.

"I see him," said the sniper as he calmly lined up a shot straight for the officer's head with his specialised ME enhanced Browning sniper rifle. Even though the phased plasma rifle was the standard infantryman's weapon these days, snipers were still using old fashioned slug throwers for long range sniper fire, though this sniper rifle was more of a miniaturized railgun, and though it fired a standard 7,62 mm rifle bullet the velocity the bullet was accelerated to was astonishing, almost three thousand metres per second, which meant that when it hit the turian officer it went cleanly through one side of his head and out the other, and hit another soldier beside him, though the bullet's speed had been significantly reduced enough for that soldier's shields to protect him from the impact.

There was pandemonium, and the soldier that had so stupidly saluted the officer could only stand and gape at what had just happened, which left him a perfect target for the sniper who saw that the guy that saluted the other also had tiger stripes, though only two were on this one. For the second time that day the sniper rifle barked and blasted clean through another turian's skull.

The spotter relayed the information to the other spotters dotted around the area, telling how to identify the officers from the common soldiers and uncertainty was now replaced with certainty as the thirty or so sniper teams opened up on the turian ranks, though they quickly removed themselves from the open to behind some impromptu cover, provided by several surviving turian IFVs, which were three metre long six wheeled predatory looking beasts with tough armour and shields. The IFVs had come from the surviving transports and were moving quickly to support the troops with their turreted weapons. Some sort of small bore cannon and four smaller turrets that spat out thousands of rounds per minute, which was currently peppering the sniper teams cover and forced them to keep their heads down.

The spotter took a chance and poked his head out from cover for a second and saw with wide eyes the mouth of the cannon aiming straight for him and his partner, then just as quickly had to duck as the suppressive fire took down the shields protecting his head.

"That thing's big gun is aiming right for us," he said.

"Then let's not overstay our welcome," the sniper responded, and as quick they could they gathered up their gear and made a run for it, just as the cannon opened fire on their cover, completely obliterating it.

* * *

A young turian major stood close by the ruins of one of the transports, quickly barking out orders and started to bring up the IFVs to the front and begin blasting those thrice cursed snipers out of their nests. This whole situation had turned from a simple invasion and occupation to a life or death struggle for survival from the moment their ships hit the atmosphere, quickly losing two of their transports to enemy ground fire, which had been dealt with by precision air strikes, though these humans had certainly turned the tables on them again. The colonel in charge of the ground assault had been blown up along with the transports closest to the fuel dump, there wasn't even anything left to qualify as a body among the mangled remains.

Major Jarlus Vakarian had absolutely no wish to die on this rock that wasn't even suitable for their species to colonize, sure it had a nice climate, but the lifeforms here weren't dextro-amino based, completely unsuitable for turian physiology. If they even tried anything that was edible for the natives here the best they could hope for that it would just go straight through them without providing any nourishment, at the worst a very powerful allergic reaction that could result in a most painful death.

"Major," an older non-com called, not bothering to salute in a combat zone, like that stupid lieutenant and captain who got their heads shot off before they could blink by human sniper fire. "We have removed the enemy snipers, but our scans show that there are possibly thousands of enemy troops in the city proper backed up by armour."

"Secure the area as best as possible for the second wave, we need to get more troops down here and take this colony before those refugees manage to get back to their homeworld and warn their people," said the major, knowing that in his position as soon as he learned that an unknown alien race had just take a turian colony he would have sent a fleet to liberate it.

"Yes sir," the turian sergeant responded respectfully then went about getting the troops properly set up.

* * *

In orbit General Oraka was reading a report that his aide had just brought to him. Another two transports destroyed and a good third of the first wave had been caught out in the open by a perfectly set trap. He would like to meet this Commander Williams, assuming he could be captured or if he survived this.

"Send down the second and third waves now, we need to get as many boots on the ground as possible and I want this planet completely taken by the end of the day."

"Sir, with respect, the enemy is heavily entrenched, and it would be extremely difficult to dig them out, like trying to chase a Vorcha out of a sewer pipe, taking this planet in a day will be next to impossible, why not simply bombard them from space, we do have orbital supremacy, and all of their ground-to-space weaponry has been taken out," the young aide questioned. He would obey his commander, but he was not afraid to voice his opinions and offer suggestions, which were the main reasons that General Oraka wanted him as his aid, and with a little seasoning he could become an excellent General someday, if they lived long enough to see it, but like all young people he still had much to learn.

"You see this world down below us," said the general. "It's a garden world and Citadel rules of war prohibit the use of orbital bombardment against such worlds, unless ordered so by the Citadel Council. We are also soldiers, not butchers, and I will personally kill any captain that violates the rules of war," he said sternly at the young aide.

The young turian, properly chastised, continued on and carried out his orders without delay, soon more transports were on their way down to the planet's surface, the troops inside ready for action, but knew that they had a long hard fight in for them once they reached the surface.

* * *

A couple of hours later the turians were on the move again, pushing into the small city to flush out the humans, but moved cautiously, the human snipers had been making sport of shooting as many turian soldiers as they could in the head, it seemed to the turians that the humans were toying them, for as soon as a sniper took a shot, they moved on before the turians could get a location on them. Already Major Vakarian had lost five of his men to those damned snipers and knew that those wouldn't be the last ones to die this day.

His two platoons of turian soldiers, backed up by a single IFV which he was riding in, had been searching the city for the enemy and to capture any civilians and put them into relocation camps, of course there were none to be seen, the major assumed they had been all been evacuated the moment the fleet had arrived in orbit, but these seemingly random sniper attacks were beginning to grate on his nerves.

Suddenly with a resounding crash something big came straight through a solid concrete wall. It was three and a half meters long and just over two meters in height, with an angled hull and turret that turned ominously in the Major's IFV's direction, and aimed its big cannon seemingly at him.

"Back us up, now," he ordered the driver and he didn't need to be told twice, putting the IFV into full reverse and into a side-street they had just been through, just before the thing fired, catching the very edge of the IFV's shields, and shorted them out.

"All units fall back," he ordered over the loud-speakers as the IFV turned and ran, only to run into another one of those tracked machines of war. It turned its cannon on them and fired, sending a tungsten ferrous shell straight through the turian IFVs hull and destroyed its engines, though the internal armour of the crew compartment saved the crew's lives from instant death.

Major Vakarian could only groan as he picked himself off from the ground, only to see that his Command IFV had been turned over on its side by the blast. Then the mechanical best moved on looking for another victim, its tracks rumbling along the ground, crunching up the debris from a previous kill.

"Anyone still alive?" he asked and got a round of groans from his men. "Get your gear and let's get out of this tin can, we've still got a job to do."

The Major's squad climbed out of their crippled IFV, taking a good hard look at their surroundings. Finding not a single sign of life they began moving slowly back towards their base of operations, cautiously as they had the feeling of unseen eyes staring down upon them, though they still couldn't see their opponents. With quick and sharp hand gestures the Major directed them in a staggered formation, he and his men constantly scanning their immediate surroundings as they went, and as time went by they got more and more paranoid, expecting an ambush at any time.

Suddenly the street they were in was alight with brief flashes of plasma flying through the air, striking down a pair of the Major's men in seconds, their shields failing to protect them from the deluge of plasma that had washed over them, killing them quickly. Everyone ducked for cover as soon as the first shots were fired and then the turians returned fire, their own weapons sending small pellets of metal at extreme speeds, forcing a number of human soldiers into cover, though one of them took a hit, his armour's shields protecting him from instant death.

"This is advanced scout squad twelve, requesting immediate air-support and extraction..." A human grenade exploded not too far from his cover, showering him with debris. "Sooner rather than later would be welcome," said Major Vakarian into his comm. unit.

"_Hang on, gunships are en route to you now,"_ said a comm. tech back at the forward command centre as he got back a reply from further up the chain of command. The humans pressed their attack; someone with a grenade launcher fired and blew apart two of his men's cover before they had a chance to vacate it, killing them both. The Major quickly spotted the grenade launcher, raised his Viper sniper rifle, lined up the scope and fired, sending a high velocity bullet the size of a grain of sand flying at near relativistic speed, straight through the unlucky soldiers head.

Seconds later the gunship arrived, a large preying mantis looking thing, armed with both chainguns and rocket launchers. The chin-mounted chainguns tore into the humans' positions, and rockets began blasting at anything that looked the least bit like a human, blasting huge craters in the ground and the surrounding buildings. As soon as the humans retreated a second and third gunship arrived, these two had a slightly larger belly and no rocket launchers, being configured as troop transports instead of full on gunships. Major Vakarian was very happy to leave the combat zone, and knew that young Garrus wouldn't have to grow up without a father.

* * *

In the underground command centre Commander Williams was looking over the reports coming in from the capital. The ground pounders had engaged the enemy mostly on the outskirts, pushed them back to their beachhead and their tanks had obliterated any of turian armour they had come across, the new Thor II tanks, an evolution of the original Thor from the Dilgar War, had dominated the battle, and the snipers had been busy, however the enemy was still pushing in, and the Regiment had taken some losses, even a Thor tank had been damaged and had to disengage.

The infantry was faring well, but they had lost a number of people to enemy gunship strikes, which had been the reason for that tank's quick withdrawal, the second wave of enemy troop landings had brought in a lot of enemy reinforcements, particularly in the gunship and armour departments.

"Communications, any word on those reinforcements yet?" Commander Williams asked one of his Comm. techs.

"Negative sir, not since before the turians destroyed the orbital satellites, all tachyon communications are down, only old style radio is still functional, and that is being jammed all the way to hell," the comm. tech said in frustration.

"Best possible estimate on when we could be receiving relief forces?"

"No more than two days, sir" said another tech. "That's how long it would take for the local garrison fleet to get here." An explosion sounded above their heads.

"What the hell?" exclaimed Commander Williams.

"Sir the enemy has begun shelling the mountain, they've found us," said a sensor tech.

"Do we have any idea of how large a force we're facing?"

"According to our recon drones there's at least two regiments worth of troops and armour plus several artillery pieces."

That was a significant force, and would probably overwhelm them within a matter of days, but they only needed to hold on for two days, then these alien bastards would be caught between the planet and the fleet, and the enemy ground forces could be ejected by the influx of troops that would no doubt be brought with the fleet.

* * *

On the other side of Earth Alliance space a reconnaissance mission to a previously unmet race, the Minbari, consisting of four ships, a pair of Nova class dreadnoughts and a pair of Hyperion class cruisers led by the Prometheus, a recently upgraded Hyperion that had seen action during the Dilgar war, commanded by Captain Michael Jankowski, a man considered by many in Earth Force to be a loose cannon and whose appointment had been made possible by his politically powerful father-in-law, much to the chagrin of Earth Force command. The Omega incident that had been the first official shots fired in anger by Earth Force during the Dilgar War had nearly destroyed his career, but his father-in-law, then Minister of State Harry Brogan, had managed to get him cleared of all charges. Since then everyone in Earth Force who had any integrity steered wide of him.

They were just a few minutes away from jumping to normal space when a Gold channel priority message came through. Captain Jankowski took the message in his quarters and as he read it he cursed every known form of deity for this message's bad timing on a mission that could have potentially made his career, but he had new orders and he had no choice but to follow them.

"Bridge, this is the Captain, the mission has been scrubbed, we have been ordered back to Earth Alliance space," he said, sensing that medal had just passed him by.

The expedition changed course and headed back to the Earth Alliance, never knowing that the return order had just saved tens of thousands of lives, and the universe seemed to shift, unnoticed by any of the younger races, but the repercussions of said shift was very much felt by one of the First Ones, sensing that now the future was no longer set, but fluid, yet the events of the past had not changed, which puzzled them to no end, for they believed that without that disastrous first contact the events of the past would not come to pass as they should, yet it stayed the same, which was very confusing.

An hour later two large blue angelfish-like ships, one larger than the other, exited hyperspace on the last jump before heading for the Rim of Known Space heading straight for the local jump gate. Onboard the larger of the two, deep within its bowels two Encounter Suited individuals, one in purple, the other in gold and green, felt the shock and confusion of the Great Consensus, the communal mind of their specie's.

"The Circle is in flux," said the purple one in its melodic, yet aggressive manner.

"Yet the past remains the same," said the other one. "The future has changed, and the outcome has hidden itself from us," it continued in its more peaceful manner.

"The Circle is contaminated, we must remove the contamination," stated purple.

"No, if we do we risk attracting the Ancient Machines, the time of their return approaches and the pebbles are not yet ready to create the avalanche that buries them. The Sacrifice would have been for nothing if we do so. The Citadel will no longer serve the Ancient Machines, and we have yet to find the Herald, it must be destroyed before it can gain control of it."

The two First Ones became silent as they stretched forth their minds into the Great Consensus, adding their voices to the song of their people, becoming a part of the whole. Consensus is soon reached and a new plan of action is created, the Vorlons accelerate their preparations for the coming Shadow War which they know is still coming, but the Ancient Machines and their thralls could soon be upon them and they needed to be ready.

* * *

In another part of the ship Satai Dukhat felt a shiver go down his spine, a human would say that it felt as if someone had walked over their grave, as he was walking into Delenn's quarters. She quickly noticed the brief look of shock Dukhat showed upon his face before he managed to recover.

"Master, are you alright?"

"I am fine Delenn, I just had the strangest feeling, it's almost as if I should be dead by now, yet I am not," he said in confusion, then his face straightened into a small smile. "I was just on my way to my quarters to get some sleep when I saw your light was on. Now that you are part of the Grey Council I can now tell you that there was a purpose in my selection, your heritage is prouder than you could possibly know."

"My heritage?" she said confused.

"You my dear are a child of Valen," he said smiling down at her.

"Was that why the Tri-luminary glowed?"

"Yes, the same thing happened to me when I was inducted into the Grey Council, I too am a child of Valen, that is why I wear the fur proudly upon my face," said Dukhat as he unconsciously stroked his beard.

Delenn took a few moments to properly order her thoughts. She just couldn't quite believe that she, who was simply Delenn of the family Mir, was a child of Valen, to possess some of his blood and soul.

"How do you know this?"

"It's in the Grey Council records on Minbar, me and your father were doing some research into one of our allies from the previous Shadow War, the Vorlons, when we stumbled across the records of Valen's children who eventually returned to Minbar, and they married and had more children and so on and so forth, until the recent generations. We are descendants of Valen Delenn and together with the rest of the Nine we shall lead our people into a brand new age, of that I am certain. Now go get some sleep, it is a long journey to Zha'ha'Dum," he said as he left her quarters, leaving Delenn with her own thoughts.

The two powerful Minbari War-cruisers continued on their journey unimpeded, the Grey Council not knowing what they would find at their destination, but knew full well that what they found there would influence each of their decisions for years to come. With a single command the jump gate activated, opening up a yellow vortex into the dark redness of jump-space.

* * *

AN: I know that I haven't updated any of my stories in a while, but real life has taken priority to writing, I do need to keep my job you know. Please drop a comment, your commentary is what makes me want to continue writing.


	4. Chapter 2: Battle of Shanxi part 2

**The Mass Effect Age**

**Chapter 2: Battle of Shanxi, part 2.**

In the dark redness of hyperspace four powerful warships were going at maximum acceleration. Captain Michael Jankowski, the commander of the Prometheus expedition, had just finished reading his new orders, and was now very surprised. When he ordered his ships to turn around on a new course he had yet to read the entire file, just that the mission was scrubbed and that he was to set course for the nearest Mass Relay and make for Shanxi at maximum speed. Now he understood why he was being sent to Shanxi. His new orders were to perform a reconnaissance-in-force of the system and then meet up with the main liberation fleet, something he was most able to do with two Novas and a pair of Hyperions, all upgraded to the newest specs.

They were now only minutes away from the jump gate that they had set up close to the Mass Relay. Earth Force still used hyperspace, however slowly but surely hyperspace was being mass effect FTL was being used more and more, it takes time to convert ships from pre-ME standards to current specs, and there had been a number of problems in integrating mass effect cores into their designs, the Hyperion class being a case in point. Karmatech, the builders of the Hyperion, just didn't have the same expertise when it came to Mass Effect physics as Rocketdyne had, evidenced by the fact that the original scientific expedition to Mars that discovered the ruins being funded by them.

Karmatech's first prototype Hyperion quite literally cooked its crew when its mass effect core overloaded, this had been before room-temperature super-conductors had been perfected, allowing for the static charge to be used to power secondary systems, however the Hyperion class was on the way out of the navy, only a few squadrons remained, the ships being replaced by the new Sabre class destroyers Rocketdyne had based off of the Nova, which surprisingly seemed more suited for the challenges of today's navy.

They exited through the jump gate and headed for the Mass Relay situated just five hundred kilometres away, lined up for launch and with a blue blur of acceleration one by one they transited through the Relay, decelerating just outside the system. Once they were through Captain Jankowski barked out, "Status report xo?"

"We have finished transiting through the Mass Relay, sir; we are now on full emissions control, running silent. Pegasus has just transited through," the second Hyperion. "The Hood and the Bismarck just came through sir, all under emissions control, laser data-links are up and running," reported Commander Grissom as the two dreadnoughts decelerated.

"Good, all ships are to make the jump to hyperspace and set a course for Shanxi, we'll jump out of hyperspace behind the planet's fifth moon," Captain Jankowski ordered. The Prometheus activated its jump engines and opened a yellow jump point into hyperspace, safely cocooned once again in a dark red sea with no stars.

The planet Shanxi had five moons, the three closest ones were most likely rogue asteroids that by some fluke had been caught in the planet's gravity well and achieved stable orbits, no bigger than Deimos or Phobos, but had been found to be loaded with valuable mineral deposits. The fourth and fifth moons however were a quarter and a half the size and mass of Earth's moon respectively, and provided much of the same sort of tidal forces that Earth had.

"We are on the dark side of Shanxi's fifth moon, no sign of detection sir," the xo Commander Alan Chaffin reported.

"Very well, deploy stealth probes, I want to get a good look at what's out there," the captain ordered.

From the Prometheus's missile launchers four needle-like probes were launched, covered in dark black stealth coating and packed with the most sensitive passive sensor array Earth Force R&D could fit in them. The Prometheus's launchers magnetically launched them out of the tubes, giving them more than enough momentum to accomplish their flight-plan, using the gravity of the local moon and an occasional thruster firing to stay on course. Silently they cruised through space, passing by the turian fleet as quietly as possible, and with a tachyon data-link back to their mothership it allowed Jankowski and his other ships to see the enemy in exquisite detail, the intelligence computers quickly built up a profile of the enemy warships.

"Kind of small aren't they?" one of the bridge's junior officers quietly commented.

"Maybe the aliens are little people," another junior officer said, barely able to keep the amusement out of his tone, Captain Jankowski couldn't help but agree with his officers, a Nova easily out massed one of their cruiser analogues by a factor of four, and that so-called dreadnought wasn't that much bigger than a Nova and only had one big gun and a small number of secondary railguns.

After seemingly hours of listening in on the enemy the time of the arrival of the 2nd Fleet was fast approaching, and now came the fun part of his mission.

"Helm, take us out of the shadows, it's time for us to give them a taste of what's coming to them, all engines ahead two thirds," he ordered.

As one all four human warships moved out from the dark side of the planet's moon, their engines glowed a bright blue as they cruised around the turian fleet. The enemy fleet had since grown from the initial forty five warships to almost a hundred, heavy reinforcements no doubt, though some of them seemed to be bulk cargo carriers and troop transports that were on their way down to the surface of Shanxi. The pair of Novas and Hyperions began a steady approach, navigating around the enemy fleet, but still closing, Captain Jankowski waiting for optimum firing range.

"One half light second to target range, sir," reported the xo.

"Just a little bit closer," the captain whispered to himself.

"They've locked on to us sir, energy spike..."

With the suddenness of a gunshot in a quiet forest the dreadnought and several escorting cruisers opened fire with their mass accelerators, sending high density twenty ton tungsten ferrous silver bullets at the Prometheus and its companion vessels, and crossed the distance in seconds, barely enough time for the interceptors to react to the threat, turning a few of the bullets into slow moving slag, but plenty still got through the withering fire of all four ships, the Novas caught the most attention with the shots fired from the Gwandana's guns hitting the leading Nova, the Bismarck, straight on the hammerhead, the kinetic force of a twenty kilo projectile hitting at a speed of 1,89% of light speed was enough to shift the vessel off course by several degrees. All four ships were hit, but none of them lost their shields, their multiple reactors feeding huge amounts of energy into them to compensate for the strain.

"I think we're close enough, Weps fire at will," barked the captain and the weapons officer followed his command.

Seconds after being hit all four ships returned fire, their plasma cannons belching out huge pulses of ME enhanced blue plasma bolts at the enemy, crossing the distance faster than any other previous plasma based weapon could, slamming into the cruisers with both extreme kinetic and plasmatic energy, each bolt equal to a five hundred kiloton nuke going off against their shields and hulls.

The cruisers moved to cover the flagship, but paid for it with their lives, the plasma bolts quickly neutralised their kinetic barriers, releasing the plasma contained by their magnetic bottles and spread out over their hulls, burned through their armoured skin and straight through to the inner hull, instantly flash frying any and all of the crew in those sections where the plasma burned through, one cruiser took a hit to one of its torpedo storage bays, causing the torpedoes to cook off, destroying the ship in a massive explosion of time/space distortions, leaving absolutely nothing left. The second volley finished off the surviving cruisers, the dreadnought retreated back towards its main fleet, while several squadrons of turian frigates were rapidly closing in at maximum burn, no doubt an attempt to avenge their fallen comrades.

"Gentlemen I think we've stirred up enough of a hornet's nest, all ships activate jump engines and let's get the hell out of here," Captain Jankowski ordered, this was what he signed on for, actual combat duty, not exploring new star-systems or making First Contact, but to be at the point of the spear that thrust into the heart of the enemy and he loved it. Captain Jankowski may not be a natural born explorer, but he was an excellent wartime officer, as his war record from the Dilgar war showed.

Within seconds all four ships jumped to hyperspace before they could be intercepted, leaving behind a mess of dead turian warships.

* * *

General Oraka was left almost speechless as he watched the enemy warships escape into more of those strange vortexes he had seen that huge vessel, the Amundsen, disappear into.

"Status report," he barked.

"We lost ten of our cruisers sir, and we have suffered moderate damage to our kinetic barriers and hull," one of his officers reported.

"What did they shoot us with?"

"Some kind of plasma based weapon encased in mass effect fields, sir if they have a fleet of those ships then any reinforcements we could get here before they arrive will not be enough," the officer said warningly.

"Why would just four ships attack us like that?" the General wondered. "If they had a fleet here why not attack us in force?"

* * *

In the dark red swirling of hyperspace a large number of blocky dark grey ships was holding position right on top of the hyperspace beacon, almost two hundred warships of various classes from Olympus class corvettes to Nova class dreadnoughts. In the centre of one of the Nova squadrons the flagship of the fleet, the Nova class Dreadnought Nemesis, was sitting pretty with the rest of its fleet. On its bridge a large Maori man sat in the captain's chair, Vice Admiral Joe Tennant, wearing the standard duty uniform jacket for an admiral, however over his trousers he wore a stylised skirt made from dry grass, its golden hue totally at odds with his normal uniform, a gift from the shaman of his village who told him that it would bring him good luck and fortune in battle, it was in fact the same skirt that he wore into battle during the Dilgar War.

"Status report Captain," the admiral ordered from his xo in his booming voice, Captain Simon Talbot, a long suffering associate of the admiral, being his xo during the Dilgar war, averted his eyes away from the admiral's colourful skirt.

"All ships report ready for action sir, just waiting for the Prometheus group to arrive from their reconnaissance-in-force," the captain reported. He wished for the umpteenth time that the admiral could at least forgo that damned skirt just this once.

Duty took over from irritation however as jump points formed not too far away from the fleet, disgorging four slightly scarred warships, but still fully operational.

"The Prometheus is hailing sir, Captain Jankowski on the line for you," reported Captain Talbot.

The admiral merely nodded and an image of Captain Jankowski appeared on one of the main monitors.

"Report," the admiral ordered shortly, he had never liked Jankowski all that much.

"We have completed our reconnaissance of the system; the enemy fleet has grown from forty five enemy warships to about a hundred, plus troop ships, looks like they're preparing for the final push on Shanxi."

"Did you manage to get in contact with the Shanxi military garrison?"

"Negative, they're jamming all radio frequencies, and their tachyon communications system must have been either disabled or destroyed during the initial fight. The enemy fleet is for the most part assembled in a low orbit with only a few small frigates patrolling the rest of the system, transmitting our enemy ship profile data now," finished Captain Jankowski.

"Very good captain, take your two cruisers and join the cruiser line, the Bismarck and the Hood will take position along with the dreadnought line," the admiral ordered, enjoying the pained expression on Jankowski's face as he saw his command divvied up.

"Aye sir," he responded respectfully, though his face showed the pride that he had to forcefully swallow just before he closed the channel.

"I so love deflating that smug bastard," the admiral mused to himself, enjoying the moment, his xo along with him. "Simon, open a channel to the fleet and the internal comm. system," the admiral ordered, his xo quickly passed along his order and seconds later silently signalled the admiral that he was on.

"To the brave men and women of the Earth Force 2nd expeditionary fleet, once again an alien force has begun a war with us, though this time we won't be coming to the aid of an ally, this time a race called the turians has attacked and occupied the colony of Shanxi. Our mission is to liberate the colony and take back what is ours. Hoist the colours and run out the guns for now we go to war," he said as a set of flags, bearing the ships emblem, the Jolly Roger, was unfurled on the bridge and every station onboard, as well as on every ship in the fleet, though the different ships flags bore the emblem of their ship.

As one several jump points opened into normal space, lighting up the entire area as if a new group of stars had decided to be born, becoming big blue funnels in normal space and all two hundred and fifty Earth Force warships came through, just five hundred kilometres away.

The admiral stood up from his command chair and took the opening stance for the Haka, the traditional Maori war-dance while the xo turned away from the admiral and started putting in a pair of earplugs, the rest of the bridge crew followed suit.

"Ka mate, Ka mate! Ko ra, ko ra!" The Admiral thundered out, the crew and the rest of the fleet joining in the ritual war chant, while the ships from Jankowski's group did not, the admiral performed the full Haka for all to see. "Whiti te ra, hiiii!" he finished with a long growling exultation, challenging the turians.

"I've been waiting to do that for a long time," the admiral said wistfully as he seated his tall bulky frame back into his seat.

"Yes sir," responded captain Talbot quietly just before he began barking out orders to the crew.

Outside you could see the two hundred and fifty ships begin final preparations to attack, Starfuries were launched, gun mounts tested their mechanisms, missiles and torpedoes were fuelled and loaded into their tubes. The 2nd Expeditionary Fleet was ready for a fight and no one would stand in its way.

* * *

"How many did you say?" General Oraka asked again.

"Just over two hundred and fifty warships, a third of them registering as cruiser class and above," said a troubled sensor operator who nearly had a heart attack when dozens of blue vortexes opened up just a few hundred kilometres away.

"Bring every ship and gun we have to bear on that fleet, prepare to engage the enemy," the general ordered.

In space the turian fleet moved as quickly as they could out of Shanxi's gravity well, though it was tough going as the general had placed his fleet in a position to support the ground invasion, and most of the troop transports were already on their way down to the surface.

"Sir, a transmission from the enemy fleet," said one of his bridge officers.

"Let's hear it."

"_This is Vice-Admiral Joe Tennant of Earth Force 2__nd__ Fleet, you are hereby ordered to stand down and surrender at once, if you do not surrender within the next sixty seconds we start killing your ships,"_ Admiral Tennant thundered over the loudspeakers.

It was one hell of an ultimatum, one that General Oraka was quite hesitant to accept, but his own fleet was outnumbered almost two to one, and he now had thousands of soldiers on the ground. The General quickly reassessed his options and began spitting out orders.

"Begin evacuating our troops and any prisoners we have taken, prepare for a fighting retreat," he said heavily, his crew not believing their ears.

"General what are you doing?" his aide asked.

"Saving our people," the General said shortly. "However, before we go I intend to show them that the Turian Hierarchy is not to be trifled with."

* * *

**Shanxi, two hours earlier...**

On the ground the battle for Shanxi was still going as hot as ever. The turians had pushed the Earth Force marines out of the city proper and had now secured a good third of the city, with small holdouts here or there of marines caught behind enemy lines. A third of the Earth Force garrison had been wiped out, but luckily there had been no civilian casualties, the turians had yet to discover the underground shelters.

One squad, consisting of four surviving marines of a squad that used to have twelve and led by a lieutenant, was currently making a steady retreat out of the city. It had not been a good day for Sergeant Major Darrel Walcott, who was only three more months away from retirement from the Corp. He had been looking forward to settling down here on this colony, before these alien bastards had decided to raise it to the ground. He and his squad had been fighting for almost two days nonstop with barely a breather here and there to rest and grab a bite to eat, before having to hurl themselves into the fire again.

He and his squad were running through a suburb on the outskirts of the city, an alien squad dogging them every step of the way. The squad's sniper, a young marine named Zaeed Massani, a private 1st class, grabbed a bit of cover ahead of the squad and levelled his rifle at the enemy, a customized Browning SR2241 with specialized heat sinks to help cool the weapon, one of the first sniper rifles to use mass accelerator technology derived from Prothean weapons found on Mars. He lines up a shot on an alien officer, a bastard in blue with two tiger stripes on his shoulders, and fires, sending an armour penetrating round downrange that goes straight through the officer's head and hit another alien soldier, blowing the soldiers arm off in the process. He fired several more times, keeping the enemy's heads down while the rest of squad got into cover properly.

"Nice shot, Massani," said the sergeant.

"Just doing my job, sir," replied Massani as he sighted another alien and let off another round before switching back to his assault rifle.

A big Norwegian man hefted his PPG minigun and opened up on the aliens, chipping away at the enemy's cover and caught three of the aliens in the open, putting them down and out of the fight. The fourth marine on the squad, a petite blonde, exchanged her PPG assault rifle for a small grenade launcher strapped to her harness.

"Fire in the hole," she called out as she started launching three high explosive grenades at the alien bastards, destroying their cover and scattered the survivors, leaving them open for the rest of the squad to gun them down.

In a fury of red plasma the squad poured it on until the last one of them was down.

"Whew, that was close," said the blond, Private 2nd class Synnøve Hansen.

"All in a day's work," said the big Norwegian, also Private 2nd class, Ståle Gunnarsen.

"Come on people, we've got to pick up the pace," said the sergeant.

They continued out of the suburbs and into the countryside, heading for the closest firebase they could reach. They fast marched across the hills as quickly as they could, though the going was tough, the ground had been scorched by both enemy artillery and their own. The entire area looked more like the surface of the moon than the green rolling plains that once dominated the landscape, another reason to hate the invading aliens.

They soon arrived at the firebase, a series of recently built bunkers and a battery of artillery guns covered in camouflage tarp, their crews working round the clock getting them prepped for another round of shelling. Sergeant Walcott asked for the firebases commander and was directed towards the comm. tent. Inside they found an older lieutenant commander having a very heated conversation with someone on the other line.

"But sir we need to pull back soon, the enemy has been pushing our troops so far back that I have units coming here almost every few minutes and the enemy is fast approaching my firebase," he said angrily just before the guns began firing again.

"Yes sir, I understand!" he said dejectedly as he put down his ear wig.

"Sergeant, I see you and what's left of your squad made it through, where is the rest of your platoon?"

"Dead sir, killed in a damned ambush by an enemy gunship inside the city, the enemy has been hunting us all day," the sergeant responded.

"Well, welcome to Firebase Echo, the last stop before HQ and command's last line of defence," he said as he seated himself at his small desk. "Get some rest and chow while you can, the enemy is only about an hour away from us, and the only thing that been keeping us safe are those big guns we have out there, we've been hammering the enemy's positions for two days straight, but we're the only firebase left, the other two had to retreat back behind us otherwise they would've gotten slaughtered."

The squad kept straight faces, but the pain of defeat could still be seen in their eyes.

"The good news is this will all soon be over, Command says that the fleet is only hours away," said the commander, much to everyone's relief. "Of course the navy is rarely on time," he said to the laughter of everyone else. "Dismissed," he said finally and let them leave to get some chow.

As soon as they got out young Massani couldn't help but ask, "Hey Sarge, you really believe the navy is coming soon?"

"They better, because otherwise we'll either be dead or in some POW camp and I don't care much for either option," said the sergeant as he sat himself down and fished out an instant heat MRE from his pack, using an included plastic fork to scoop up a delicious meat and potato dinner, though it was more like lunchtime, the other surviving members of the squad following suite.

"**Alert, incoming enemy fighters**," came over the loudspeakers.

"Take cover," was heard from the sergeant, everyone threw themselves down to the deck just as an anti-aircraft missile battery came alive and let off two high speed missiles off its rack, going first straight up then angled themselves straight on an attack trajectory, hitting both enemy aircraft head on, though that was only the appetizer. From the city in the west a small fleet of enemy gunships came flying in, flying low in an attempt to avoid detection for as long as possible.

On the perimeter several marines brought shoulder mounted general purpose Hammer missile launchers to bear, quickly launched them then got back into cover, missing out on seeing six enemy transport gunships go down in flames with the troops inside with them. However it did not deter them from attacking, several more gunships were arriving every second, and more than a few were configured more for combat rather than transporting troops. A few rose up higher into the air and launched a few rockets, blasting some fairly large craters into the ground and fox holes that littered the hill side, only to be taken down by the stationary missile batteries.

Sergeant Major Walcott and his squad quickly made their way to the closest fox hole and dug in along with another squad, who was manning a heavy machinegun.

"Nice of you to join us," the gunner said as he opened up on the enemy, firing short concentrated bursts of fire. "Get comfy and start shooting," said the squad leader as he brought up his sniper rifle to bear and fired a round, hitting an enemy soldier in the head.

"You're welcome," Massani growled as he lined up a shot himself and got another unlucky bastard in the head.

Soon the air between these two implacable enemies was filled with high velocity rounds and red hot plasma, killing soldiers on both sides; neither side was willing to give in to the other. This was the final push.

* * *

In the Command Centre the room was constantly shaking from the long range shelling of the mountain. They were lucky that the base was hidden under a very particularly hard and dense mountain of granite, making it a bitch to dig, but made the perfect command bunker. Commander Williams looked over the plot table and watched as the battle unfolded. He had lost nearly a third of his forces, mostly infantry, as well as a number of tanks that had been really valuable in the city, but enemy gunships had destroyed a number of them, and he could not deploy them without some form of counter against those gunships.

"What's the status of Firebase Echo?" he asked one of his aides.

"It's under heavy assault, sir, and without armoured support they are going to be overrun soon."

Commander Williams though over the situation for a second then he got an idea.

"That squadron of Banshees that we got when we first set up this colony, is the squadron still active?"

"Yes sir, it was only a week from retirement when those turians showed up, the pilots are just waiting for the word to sortie."

"I thought the pilots had already left?"

"I'm sorry sir, this memo we got from HQ says that the pilots were going to be picked up by their new carrier group since it was scheduled to arrive here in two weeks time along with the parts and engineers that were supposed to finish the Orion station."

"Damned lucky," the commander muttered under his breath. "Launch them immediately, use the east side launch tubes," he ordered.

* * *

A minute late six doors opened up on the east side of the mountain, facing away from the incoming turian artillery bombardment, and out came six sleek Banshee fighters, their engines burning all the way as they quickly climbed through the atmosphere. Thirty seconds later another six Banshees followed after them, all on a mission to cause the most destruction for the enemy. They quickly grabbed as much altitude as they could, flying well out of range of the turians anti-air ground fire, and to further obscure their approach they entered the thick cloud cover that had developed over the past day.

Guided in by spotter teams on the ground they quickly dove out of the cloud cover, pushing mach 2 as they dove in on their targets. They split up into pairs and went after the six turian artillery positions. As one they opened their weapons bays underneath their fuselages and dropped their weapons, high explosive two hundred pound freefall bombs, and all twelve detonated on impact with their targets, the Banshees pulled up steeply and gained some altitude before the turians could react then headed for the battlefield developing in the hills where Firebase Echo was.

With pinpoint accuracy the turian gunships were removed from the field by a spread of anti-fighter missiles launched from the Banshees, who then opened up with their centre mounted rapid fire pulse cannons, tearing through whatever gunships were left and shredded hundred of enemy soldiers.

From the ground the sight of those Banshees was quite beautiful to the eyes of Sergeant Major Walcott and his squad, and watching them slaughter the enemy in droves was immensely satisfying.

"Come on guys, we can't let those flyboys have all the credit," he said as he fired his assault rifle again, taking down more enemy soldiers, who died in burning agony as red hot plasma took out their shields and burned through their armour. Suddenly they all began turning back, heading right back the way they came.

"What the hell?" was on everyone's minds as the enemy began withdrawing from the battlefield back the way they came.

"Sarge, what the hell is going on?" Massani asked.

"I have no idea, but I'm glad that's over, for now," he said tiredly as he sat down on the ground in the foxhole and took a breather, something he hadn't been able to do for almost two days straight.

* * *

**In orbit of Shanxi; present time.**

In space the deadline that Admiral Tennant had given was over, but he wasn't the one to draw first blood. The Gwandana was the first to open fire, the long barrel of its mass accelerator rippling with contained and tightly controlled energy and shot out a twenty kilo slug at 2,5% of light speed, a pair of Olympus Corvettes opened fire with their interceptors, looking like small fast flying beads of water, they quickly hit the twenty kilo slug, slowing it down some, but it still kept coming, the heavy round almost ignoring the white hot plasma that impacted with it, losing some of its mass and speed, but it was still on course.

The Prometheus soon opened fire with its own interceptors as soon as the tactical computers calculated who was going to be hit, slowing it down further, but it was still coming at high speed, 1,9% of light speed, and hit with tremendous force, straining her shields to almost the breaking point.

"Sir that big ship of theirs just fired off a round," said Captain Talbot. "The Prometheus has been hit and is pulling back to recharge her shields."

"That wasn't very polite, now was it girl," said Admiral as he lovingly caressed the armrests of his command chair. "To all ships, accelerate to maximum combat speed and engage the enemy," he ordered.

As one the 2nd fleet surged forward, their engines glowing bright blue in the darkness of space. A group of six Hyperion cruisers, led by the Lexington, were the first ships in the fleet to open fire, lighting up space with blood red particle beam fire, catching twelve turian frigates centre mass, carving straight through their thin armour and cut straight through them from bow to stern, igniting their fuel tanks and rupturing their mass effect cores, causing brilliant, but brief explosions.

"Enemy targets destroyed, squadron took out all twelve enemy frigates," reported the xo of the Lexington, Commander John Sheridan.

"Good, stand by plasma cannons, bring us alongside one of their cruisers, prepare to broadside," Captain Sterns ordered.

The helmsman complied and the cruisers and their escorts moved as one, quickly finding a quartet of enemy cruisers attempting to line up their mass accelerators with the Lexington and its squadron. As one they unleashed plasmatic hell upon those four cruisers, knocked out their shields and blasted away at their hull, their thicker hides stood up to the plasma bombardment they were subjected to, but the sheer mass of fire just blasted through their armour and left all four cruisers crippled wrecks.

"Targets have been eliminated," Sheridan reported. "Sir enemy frigates coming in from behind us," he warned.

"Bring the squadron about," Captain Sterns ordered and took a quick look at the tactical screen. Suddenly several powerful vibrations shook the officers on the bridge.

"The enemy frigates have opened fire on us sir, mass accelerator rounds launched at close range, no time for our interceptors to stop them. Shields at 60%," Sheridan reported.

"Weps, remove them from my sky," Captain Sterns ordered as another mass accelerator round hit his ship, shaking the crew hard as the mass accelerator rounds hit the shields, weakening them even further. Flying past them six turian frigates continued firing their weapons, every weapon they could bring to bear was used from their own Mass Accelerators to even their GARDIAN laser batteries, though these were almost useless against the strong armoured hulls of the Earth Force warships, tracing only weak red hot lines across their armour. As the frigates passed the squadron by, one of them launched a quartet of torpedoes at the Lexington, hitting all along the length of the ship, crippling her shields.

Onboard everyone was nearly shaken out of their seats, straining their seat belts to the limit as the four torpedoes hit.

"Shields are down sir minimal damage to the outer armour, but we are still in the fight," said Commander Sheridan.

"Intercept those enemy frigates, remove them from my sky," Captain Sterns ordered, now visibly pissed off, but still in control.

The six frigates span around and gunned their engines, using their superior speed and manoeuvrability to evade a good portion of the squadrons plasma barrages, however as they closed in one of them took a direct hit on its starboard wing, destroying the engines mounted on it and sent it spinning into another frigate that was flying in formation with it, destroying both ships.

A particle beam from another human cruiser sliced through another frigate, bisecting it cleanly from bow to stern then exploded seconds later as its mass effect core detonated, leaving only three frigates left of the turian 'wolf pack.' The frigates continued towards their main target, the Lexington who's shields the lead frigate had crippled. The hearts on both sides were racing, to see which side got blown out of the sky first and neither side intended to be the one who got killed. The lead frigate and the Lexington both fired at the same time, the frigate launching another pair of disruptor torpedoes while the Lexington fired its main guns, sending a pair of high velocity ME enhanced pulses of plasma that punched through the frigate's remaining kinetic barriers and was destroyed, plasma burned straight through the ship without stopping. The other two frigates were dispatched of by the combined firepower of the rest of the squadron.

The fate of the Lexington, though better than the turians, was unfortunate as the last two disruptor torpedoes hit, hitting the engines and mid section, shredding them in a storm of time/space distortions, leaving the Lexington a crippled wreck herself.

Onboard things looked grim, as consoles gave out and lights went out all over the habitable areas of the ship, plunging the ship into darkness.

"Massive damage, sir," reported Commander Sheridan from his still functional console. "Engines and weapon systems are down, only manoeuvring thrusters are still functional, orders?"

No answer.

"Captain, orders?" Commander Sheridan turned his chair around to see that the chair of his commanding officer had been torn loose from the floor and had flown straight into one of the bulkheads, crushing the captain between the chair and the bulkhead.

Onboard the Gwandana General Oraka could only watch as the humans annihilated his fleet, some of his people's proudest warships were being cut down before his eyes, but he and his men still had a job to do. In the last five minutes after engaging the enemy he had lost nearly half the fleet, and only a small number of enemy kills, mostly just the smaller escorts and one or two of the heavier cruisers, though to his mind they should be classified as dreadnoughts.

"Sir, the evacuation of our troops is complete," the General's aide reported.

"Order all surviving warships to begin withdrawal back to the mass relay, have all ships still capable to energize their mass effect cores for a short FTL jump," the general ordered.

"Yes sir," his aide responded.

Quickly the turian fleet pulled away from combat, the cruisers and dreadnought firing their railgun turrets and disruptor torpedoes launching, an attempt to saturate the Earth Force 2nd Fleet's defences. One by one the turian ships disengaged and jumped to FTL straight for the Mass Relay, the bulk cargo and troop transports first, then the Gwandana, the surviving cruisers and finally the last surviving twelve ship frigate 'wolf pack.'

In a holding action the ships unable to follow fought even more ferociously, but like a mighty hammer the Earth Force 2nd fleet struck them down in a fury of plasma and particle beam fire, and scores of missiles, crippling and destroying the last few warships the turians have in the system.

* * *

**In the Capital of Shanxi**

In a large open square the devastation wreaked upon the city was nothing less than devastating, almost nobody was in sight, but soon enough people were coming up from the underground shelters, none could believe what they were seeing. They had lived in this paradise for almost ten years, most since the founding of the colony, and they couldn't believe the devastation wrought upon their home, they had believed that no one could challenge them, that the Earth Force could keep them safe, but now seeing the devastation in front of their eyes their idyllic world had shattered.

However they remembered that homes could be rebuilt, the city could be repaired, but the memory of what happened here would live forever in their memory.

* * *

AN: I want to thank my readers for their patience for this chapter.

This chapter is hereby dedicated to the people killed on the 22 July terrorist bombing in Oslo and shooting on Utøya, may they never be forgotten.


	5. Chapter 3: Preventative Measures

**The Mass Effect Age**

**Chapter 3: Preventative Measures**

**Earth Dome, Geneva Switzerland, Earth, **

**One week after the Battle of Shanxi.**

The calm and picturesque setting of Earth Dome, the seat of government for the entire Earth Alliance, and home to, practically, the most powerful human female in the galaxy, seemed in stark contrast to what had happened out on the Earth Alliance's borders in recent years, what with the Koulani and Ch'lonas, both slightly more advanced than the Earth Alliance, attempted to invade the outer colonies, only to be driven off by the Earth Force Navy. The Earth Alliance had tried to open diplomatic talks with them, but both races banded together to destroy the Earth Alliance.

During the last year of the Hauser administration Earth Force had been given the go ahead to destroy both star nations capabilities to make war. The massive juggernaut that was the Earth Force Navy managed to take down both races militaries in less than a year, mostly because of bitter infighting between the two supposed allies' commanding officers who had squared off against each other in the past.

President Levy had hoped that the war with those two species would at least tell the other races not to attack the Earth Alliance, that negotiation and trade were far better means of dealing with ones neighbours than all out war, but to her it seemed as if humanity had one big bull's eye painted on its proverbial forehead. The Narn had to learn that lesson when they tried to pressure the Earth Alliance to give them their recently discovered technologies by attempting to blockade Earth Space. However that plan went out the window when the League of Non-Aligned Worlds released a joint statement, that they would support the Earth Alliance and would attack the Narn Regime if they persisted in their attempt.

War had been happily avoided, and had been the first trial of President Levy's presidency, and now, in the first month of her second term in office the Earth Alliance had been attacked again, but this time it wasn't any of the usual suspects. In her office with her were the most powerful collection of men and women in the Alliance, her Vice President Karl Durban, former head of the EIA, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Admiral Charles Biek, Secretary of Defence Diane Schuler, Secretary of State Margaret Lenoir, the head of the Earth Intelligence Agency Victor Chapel and last, but not least Admiral Richard Fletcher, the head of Earth Force Naval Intelligence, along with their own aids.

"Alright gentlemen and ladies, what's the situation at Shanxi?" the President asked.

"We've secured the colony and driven away the enemy fleet," Admiral Biek responded. "We have already begun reconstruction of the main settlement, and considering the heavy fighting the local garrison managed to hold on with moderate losses until the 2nd Fleet could arrive."

"What of the enemy fleet, where are they?"

"One of our stealth ships managed to follow them back to their main base in this system, it's just a couple of light years away from the system where the Amundsen first encountered the turian patrol," said Admiral Fletcher.

"Margaret, what's the general mood of the Senate?" the president asked of the Secretary of State.

"They're up in arms about this, a clear majority want to launch a counter attack immediately and teach the Turians a lesson. A smaller, but no less vocal, minority want to open up a diplomatic dialog to prevent this situation from escalating into a full scale war."

"What do our analysts think; could we win a war with these turians?" she asked both the EIA and EFNI heads.

Chapel spoke first. "Our analysts have been working hard to decipher the turian computers on the ships that we captured more or less intact, but it's going to take a while." He sighed. "I don't really understand most of what my eggheads say most of the time, but suffice it to say it's going to be a while before we have completely deciphered their computers."

Admiral Fletcher continued. "We have extensively studied the turian warships, and in most respects our ships are superior, except for extreme long range engagements, which the turians seem to specialize in, take their dreadnought for instance." Admiral Fletcher appropriated a remote, controlling the large holo-projectors mounted in the chandelier of the office, and used it to project a hologram of the turian dreadnought Gwandana.

"The ship is basically an oversized flying gun with several smaller turrets and a laser point defence network. Their weapons of choice seem to be based upon mass accelerator weaponry, an area of weaponry we have a long history with, but have steadily phased out in favour of particle beam and plasma weaponry, though many of our own units still carry these weapons," said Admiral Fletcher.

"In a war I believe we would eventually be victorious, but the losses in man power and equipment may end up being too high in the long run, we just don't have the intelligence we need to accurately assess our new enemy. I would like to conduct reconnaissance flights of the system for a possible strike mission and destroy whatever fleet they have there while they're still licking their wounds."

"It would certainly be a crippling blow to both the enemy's morale and possibly their fleet in that region of space, and it could secure our borders against a future incursion," said the Secretary of Defence.

The president thought it over then grudgingly gave her consent. "Commence the reconnaissance flights, and set all forces at DEFCON 2. As soon as we attack that system we go to DEFCON 1, but before that I want the Diplomatic Corp to prepare a mission to that system to seek a diplomatic solution. If they fail I want the option of taking out their ability to make war upon us before they can attack us again."

With that order the wheels of chance were now spinning crazily, and they would continue to spin for as long as humanity exercised its will upon the galaxy, upsetting the balance of events fifty thousand years in the making.

* * *

**The Serpent Nebula, **

**Turian cruiser Mictal on approach to the Citadel**

The sight of the Citadel slowly appearing through the clouds of the nebula was an awe inspiring sight to anyone who sees it for the first time, but for General Oraka this was the third time he'd been to the Citadel, though the last two times were mostly pleasure, this time it was all business. The debacle at Shanxi had been noticed quickly by the Citadel Council, courtesy of a Salarian STG vessel that had shadowed General Oraka's fleet and observed the invasion and the humans counter attack. He himself felt he had nothing to fear from the Council, he had followed the rules of war and had only been following the commands of his superiors. He had already been reprimanded by the Turian Military and would probably not lead troops into battle for a while, at least until his skills were needed again, and these days they were always needed, particularly in the border regions to the Terminus Systems where numerous pirate bands operated out from.

The cruiser he was on was quickly given priority clearance to dock and soon enough he exited the Mictal and was heading towards the Presidium, and took a shortcut through Citadel-Security headquarters, where he quickly met an old friend of his.

"Detective Pallin, it's been a while hasn't it?" said the general pleasantly enough in greeting.

"Yes it has been a while, General, more than five years since your last visit to the Citadel, I hear you finally got your nose bloodied, some new race with an impressive fleet managed to rout your fleet from one of their colonies?"

"Yes, though you didn't hear that from me, and I have already been punished by the Hierarchy for my failure," said the general as they continued walking towards the Council chambers, taking a lift straight from C-Sec, and getting quite a view of the Presidium on the way up, and listening in on the day's news over the lift's loudspeakers.

"_Today's top breaking story, a fleet of turian warships, under the command of General Oraka, has been sighted returning to base with extensive damage and several vessels that were present when the fleet was launched are either almost crippled wrecks or are completely absent. A most worrying development for the turian navy, and we have no information on the possible new enemy of Citadel Space,"_ said an Asari news anchor.

General Oraka waited patiently for the lift to get to its destination. He always disliked the lifts on the Citadel, they were just so incredibly slow, and obviously programmed by the Asari, and no one had thought of changing the programming.

They soon arrived at the Citadel Tower Council Chamber, a vast cathedral-like room where delegates from the dozens of different species could see and participate in the Citadel Council, though today it is strangely devoid of many of the ambassadors from the other systems, only the three leading Council races counsellors' were on the podium. Asari Matriarch Tevos in the centre and head of the council, an older Salarian male Oraka did not recognize on the left and a slightly younger Turian which General Oraka recognized as one of his former students, Darsen Vilnus.

"General, you have been summoned here to explain the actions of the Turian military and to brief us on this potential new enemy that may be coming our way," said Matriarch Tevos.

"I will answer any questions the Citadel Council asks of me," General Oraka answered respectfully.

"For starters, how did this situation begin," the Salarian Councillor asked.

"It started with one of our patrols encountering one of their vessels exiting an uncharted Mass Relay," he said as he put in a data-disk in a slot close to him, and began playing a visual record of a vessel that had identified itself as the exploration ship EAS Amundsen. The Council were shocked at the sheer size of the vessel.

"The patrol's captain engaged the unknown, believing it to have violated Citadel law by activating a dormant Mass Relay without knowing where it led to. His attack was less than successful."

The images showed the vessels reaction to the attack, and the small survey vessels that were obviously prospecting the system for various resources had retreated to the much larger vessel and it took them in with ease, continuing to knock down the turian patrol's weapons fire, though it moved sluggishly, due to mainly the vessel's sheer mass, its acceleration was impressive as it retreated back to the Mass Relay and jumped.

"After seeing these images, as well as the damage it managed to inflict upon the patrol with an unknown form of particle beam weaponry the Turian Hierarchy decided that in light of the 'obvious' threat," the general sarcastically said, "this species was too dangerous and that they should be conquered and made into a client race, their technology made a part of our own, even though the transmission that the vessel first transmitted was a First Contact package in an easily translatable artificial language and they did not fire first."

"Are you saying that the captain of the turian patrol attacked unprovoked?" the Asari councillor asked with a hard edge and gave the Turian councilman a hard look, the Salarian councillor also showed his distaste for the turian captain's overreaction.

"In my opinion as a private citizen and a general of the turian military Captain Arterius' response to the human exploration vessel was out of proportion for a simple act of activating a dormant relay when they didn't even know that they were violating Citadel laws."

"Then why did the Turian Hierarchy decide to invade this specie's space, surely the firepower displayed by this explorer should have shown that this was a powerful race not to be provoked lightly?" the Salarian councillor asked in his peoples fast paced tone.

"It was believed that this vessel didn't represent this specie's true strength, that they only have a few of these vessels with heavy directed energy weapons in service, and a subsequent reconnaissance flight later through the Mass Relay revealed a world we believed to be a small colony, so the decision was made to take this colony and whatever databases and ships we could get and learn this specie's technological secrets. I was sent along with my own fleet to secure this colony and make it the first stepping stone into what would have been the first step in conquering this new race."

"The first battle was short, and we incurred some casualties, but landing operations went smoothly. To the defenders credit they held out for two days in a holding action on the ground, their civilians evacuated either with the convoy of cargo ships that left orbit as the battle in space began, or into deep underground bunkers which we decided to ignore for the moment."

"However two days after we'd arrived, a human fleet of nearly two hundred and fifty warships came from an unknown form of FTL neither I nor anyone in our region of space have ever encountered," the general said as he played another recording, this time showing a large group of blue vortexes that spewed great blocky and powerful looking vessels into normal space. They had none of the flowing lines or gracefulness of any of the Citadel races vessels, obviously built upon the theme, form follows function.

"The battle was short and brutal, with massive damage inflicted upon my fleet. I lost a lot of men and ships that day, forces that we will be hard pressed to replace and I believe that this," he gestured violently to the battle being shown, "is merely a taste of what could be coming to us."

"Thank you General Oraka, your service to the Turian Hierarchy is hereby noted and I thank you for bringing so many of our people out of that debacle as you could, I do not believe even our greatest generals from the Krogan Rebellions could have retreated so well and with so many ships saved from destruction," said the Turian councilman as he dismissed the older general who merely bowed to his former student turned politician, hearing the condescension in his tone and turned on his heel and marched out of the council chambers.

As he left the Asari and Salarian Councillors turned to their turian companion.

"What were your people thinking, attacking a far more advanced species with possibly superior firepower and numbers?" Matriarch Tevos asked pointedly.

"We believed that a race as powerful as the humans may turn their eye towards us and possibly do to us what we have done to them, it was a pre-emptive strike," the turian councillor answered without a single show of nerves, though his mandibles flexed with irritation at the questioning of the Turian Hierarchy's actions by the Asari and Salarian councillors. "You didn't object when we made the Volus and the other species under our protection client races."

"That was different. The Volus willingly became a client race of their own free will, as did several of the races you protect, the others were races that attacked you and that your people conquered, and today they are peaceful and productive members of the galactic community, but what your people did was arrogant and foolish. You attacked a race that you knew nothing about and now we may have to pay the price for your government's foolhardiness," said Matriarch Talos with venom strongly in her voice.

"You also did not consider informing us immediately of this new development and went straight to the military solution, rash and irresponsible behaviour on the part of both your patrol's commanding officer and the Turian Hierarchy's government and military," said the salarian councillor.

"We will send an emissary to the system you invaded, hopefully we'll be in time to prevent all out war with these people," Matriarch Tevos continued.

"May I suggest you send the emissary onboard one of the Asari Dreadnoughts along with a full military escort, just in case?" the turian councilman suggested.

"Under the circumstances that wouldn't be inappropriate."

"We are also continuing our preparations for a possible war in case your emissary fails; we do not want to be caught flatfooted now do we?"

"Who will we send though, definitely not a turian negotiator," said the salarian councilman who took another look at the basic info on humans, which included pictures of a few examples of their species that had been captured. "I believe an asari team should be sent, someone who is used to mediating between two warring factions."

"Matriarch Benezia is available, she is highly respected and would no doubt be most able to negotiate a possible ceasefire between your people and these humans, and you will accept any treaty that she manages to negotiate with them, or your race will be facing political and economic sanctions and possibly removal of your council seat," said Tevos to the shock and dismay of the turian council member.

"You cannot be serious Tevos, we've been on this council for the last thousand years, ever since we put down the Krogan Hordes, and you cannot remove us from our position!" he said firmly.

"Watch your tongue councillor, or your people will be in even more trouble," she said dangerously as she allowed her biotics to flare up in her anger, quickly reminding the turian councillor that she used to be an Asari Commando before going through the biological transition from matron to the matriarchal stage of her species long lifespan.

"I apologise Matriarch Tevos," he said as he quickly deflated, and they continued to discuss the possible threat this Earth Alliance could be to Citadel Space.

* * *

**Turian Hierarchy controlled space**

**Several light minutes away from turian colony Macedyn.**

Onboard the EAS Bayonet, a heavily stealthed EFNI version of the standard Sabre class destroyer, was loitering outside the supposed range of the turians long range sensors and on complete emissions blackout on minimal thrusters and following a ballistic course through the system, trying to make like a hole in space.

Captain Daniel Paulson kept a keen eye on the readouts on the bridge monitors as information streamed in on a supposedly undetectable tachyon data-link from four needle shaped stealth probes they had launched when they first jumped into this system, following a tachyon beacon that had been planted on one of the damaged enemy ships during the Reclaiming of Shanxi, as the battle was now called, and they were getting a truly detailed picture of this system that the locals called Macedyn.

On several monitors the sight of damaged and severely crippled ships filled the captain with a sense of satisfaction, knowing that the turians got hammered for their attempt to take one of their colonies, a mistake that they will continue to pay for unless they come to the negotiating table and according to the fleet scuttlebutt Earth Force wasn't afraid of forcing them to it at the point of a gun, though he was slightly worried about what was happening out there. The enemy fleet had been reinforced with several more ships and ten more of those so-called dreadnoughts had arrived along with a heavy cruiser and frigate escort each, and the planetary defence grid wasn't something to just write off either.

Just entering orbit another vessel appeared on a monitor, a much larger vessel and clearly not of turian design.

"Get a probe as close as possible to that ship, I want to see what we can learn about it," the captain ordered. One of the probes went in closer, its AI keeping it as out of sight as possible, staying in the shadows of the much larger vessels and proverbially tiptoeing its way in as it got a great view of the huge warship. It had a wide oval body which seemed to house a truly massive and long Mass Accelerator and four wings, poking out at the sides and the top and bottom, and the ship seemed to have a faint glow to it as its hull reflected the local star's radiance, but it was definitely not a turian vessel, the markings were completely different to turian script.

"Have we got any matches on that ship's silhouette in any of our databases?" the captain asked.

"Negative sir, alien vessel is currently completely unknown, there's not even anything close to matching that ship's silhouette, nor its escorts. It's definitely from an unknown species sir, perhaps an ally of the turians," said his xo, Commander Penelope Durante.

"She's certainly a big ship, almost twice as long as a Nova class dreadnought, a huge main spinal gun and hundreds of PDLs and missile launchers. That's a ship I'm not even sure a Nova could go up against alone," said Captain Paulson as he studied the in depth readouts from the probe's scans of the vessel.

The large ship and its escorts then decided to break orbit and head our into space, making sure to be well away from the planet before accelerating hard then vanishing in a quickly fading spacial distortion, the Bayonet's sensors and computers quickly

"Sir, that ship is heading straight towards the Mass Relay, at current speed it'll reach it in five hours twenty two minutes," one of the sensor operators reported.

"Send a flash message back to Shanxi, tell them that they are about to have company," the captain ordered.

The Bayonet moved to hide behind a large comet and its debris trail and sent the tachyon burst transmission, the turian sensors noticed it, but the turian VI classified the transmission as simply elevated galactic background radiation and filed it away. The Bayonet would stay in-system for a while until either the turians came to the negotiating table, or after the Earth Alliance invaded Macedyn.

* * *

AN: A little short, but I felt that this was a good place to end the chapter, hope my readers enjoy this latest instalment.


	6. Chapter 4: Negotiation and Conflict

**The Mass Effect Age**

**Chapter 4: Negotiation and Conflict**

**Asari dreadnought Victory Ascension **

**En route to Shanxi**

In orbit of Macedyn the massive asari dreadnought, the Victory Ascension, sat waiting for the final clearance to leave, and for the last of the ships supplies, along with her escort of two asari cruisers and four asari frigates. Their lines were smooth and clean in contrast to the turian fleet in orbit, which was angular while asari go for a more organic look to their ships.

A lone Asari Matriarch sat looking out at the view through the observation dome on the ceiling, looking out through the bow of the ship and took in the view of the turian fleet in orbit. Most of the ships were the remains of General Oraka's invasion force, many of his ground forces had to be left behind, and the proud general had never been able to set foot on Shanxi, and looking at the state that most of the fleet was in, even after over a week in dock for repairs, the damage inflicted upon the turians had been massive, many of which were barely salvageable.

Matriarch Benezia looked upon the fleet outside as a bad omen of what possibly could happen if her mission failed. The view of the defeated turian fleet, a sight she had not seen in centuries, did not fill her with confidence, though she would not show her fear even to her most trusted of followers. Soon enough the view above her head shifted as the Victory Ascension broke orbit along with its escort and turned towards the star filled darkness of open space and the view outside blue shifted as the ship accelerated to FTL speed, heading for the Mass Relay in the next system. The trip only took minutes, and soon all seven ships were in formation for a simultaneous Mass Relay jump.

"_All hands, brace for Mass Relay jump," _came the warning from the ship's captain, Matriarch Nalia, an old friend and lover of Benezia, whose memories she had of her still warmed her heart.

The universe around her seemed to stretch as the asari ships were accelerated to incalculable speeds then snapped back to reality in less than a blink of the eye, revealing a new vista of stars for her to study.

However seconds into enjoying the new scenery several dozen blue vortexes, fifty in total, opened up and disgorged a single heavy warship each. Benezia identified them as a human equivalent of a dreadnought along with several dozen fighters from each vortex, a stunning display of firepower that was extremely intimidating to her. Moments later Shiala, one of her most trusted confidants came onto the observation deck as large armoured shutters closed over the dome.

"Matriarch Benezia," Shiala greeted respectfully. "Matriarch Nalia requests your presence in the CIC."

"Then I shall not delay," Benezia responded and had Shiala show her the way. It took several minutes to traverse the distance from the observation deck to the CIC, the oval hallways glowing with reflected light from overhead light fixtures, giving them a serene and peaceful feel to them. They soon entered the CIC, which was in a state of near controlled chaos as every asari officer tried to assess the threat potential from these fifty human dreadnoughts, though both Matriarchs Nalia and Benezia didn't let any of their emotions show on their faces, a result of near a millennium of experience, but they could still see each others fear in their eyes.

"What do you make of this?" Nalia asked Benezia.

"A most interesting display of firepower obviously meant to intimidate us. Have they attempted communication?"

"Yes madam, however I thought it best that you make contact with them personally, you're the diplomat, I'm just a humble ship's captain," she said teasingly.

"Open a channel please," she requested, though coming from a Matriarch of Benezia's standing it might as well have been an order.

"Channel is open," a comm. tech reported, and an image formed over the holo-tank in the centre of the CIC.

"_This is Vice Admiral Joe Tennant, commanding officer of the Earth Force 2__nd__ Expeditionary Fleet. Identify yourselves and state your intentions, or you will be ejected from our space with lethal force,"_ said a large dark skinned human male rumbled, confidence seemed to pour from his very pores.

"I am Asari Matriarch Benezia, special envoy of the Citadel, I was sent here to negotiate a peaceful settlement between you and the Turian Hierarchy," she responded bluntly and succinctly.

"_Are you acting as their representative or as a neutral party?"_ the admiral asked.

"The turians have agreed to allow me to act as their representative in this matter and I have been given wide latitude for negotiating an armistice and a possible peace treaty."

The Admiral's eyes tighten slightly at the news, showing to Benezia's eyes that he didn't quite believe her, but his expression changed slightly after a few seconds into a thoughtful one.

"_We were also going to send a diplomatic envoy to the turian colony, our diplomat was going to pass through here to the colony, but I'm sure he would like to meet you, however he won't be here for another..."_ he looked over to a monitor out of the camera's field of view. _"48 hours, in the meantime you can consider yourselves guests of the Earth Alliance, but I warn you, any attempt to target any of our ships, the starbase or the colony and we will consider your ships hostile and respond accordingly, do we understand each other?"_ the admiral demanded.

"Yes, I believe we understand each other perfectly," replied Benezia, not in the least showing to be intimidated by this man or his fleet of ships.

"_Good, we will escort you in to a designated parking orbit."_

The comm. channel was cut from their end, the view replaced by the tactical display showing the Earth Force warships boxing in the Victory Ascension and her escorts.

"They seem quite serious, don't they?" quipped Matriarch Nalia.

"Yes, but so are we!" said Benezia. "If you don't mind I'll take my leave, I must prepare myself for this human diplomat," she said as she moved serenely out of the Victory Ascension's CIC to her quarters.

* * *

**Earth Force Starbase Shanxi Prime**

**Two days later**

For two days Benezia had waited for the human diplomat, most of her time was spent on studying the humans, mostly their culture, history and psychology. She had requested access to the human public information network from Admiral Tennant, the Galaxy Net the human version of the Extranet. She found humans to be a fascinating species, though they were a mass of contradictions, even more so than most of the species she was familiar with. She was also interested in the recent wars they had fought. They had managed to save something called the League of Non-Aligned Worlds from a race known as the Dilgar, had driven them back all the way to their homeworld and imprisoned them in their home system, which according to the history books she could find on the net was completely unexpected by the other races in the League. Recently they have been playing galactic peacekeepers and diplomats between the races in the LONAW, and had managed to somewhat maintain the peace between the Narn and the Centauri, though from the history of those two species a real peace between them would most likely take several generations to create.

As the two days passed the crew of the Victory Ascension was getting ever more nervous, and so was Matriarch Nalia, though she never showed it to her crew, but to another matriarch that could read her body language she might as well have been displaying a bright flashing sign across her face and body. Now she was sitting at the negotiating table with a human diplomat, an apparently older male specimen of the specie's, was showing slight hair loss and his hair was dark grey, but his eyes were clear and keen, borne of long experience with many alien races. The two political animals looked at each other for a moment, studying their opponent, neither side showing their intentions.

After a few tense seconds pleasantries were exchanged.

"Matriarch Benezia, I am David Sheridan, I welcome you in the spirit of peace and hope that between the two of us we can put an end to this firestorm before it goes out of control."

"Thank you Mister Sheridan, I am pleased that your government is open to diplomatic talks between our two civilizations."

Sheridan's eyes tightened slightly in confusion at her words. "Your race and the turians are part of the same civilization?"

"The turians have been a Citadel Council race for a millennium. They serve mainly as the muscle you might say of Citadel Space. We the asari however are seen more as the diplomats and the third and final species on the Council are the salarians, our intelligence and information gatherers."

Sheridan nodded his head in understanding then took a short look at his notes. "We both know how this conflict started, the attack upon the human exploration ship EAS Amundsen," the human diplomat stated, a fact that Benezia acknowledged with a simple nod of the head. "The questions we want answered right now is why did the turian patrol attack the Amundsen and why did the Turian Hierarchy escalate this by attacking Shanxi?"

"The answer to the first question relates to one of our highest laws that date back to just after the Rachni Wars. The law states that it is forbidden to open a newly discovered Mass Relay without knowing where it ends. The captain of the turian patrol unit was over zealous in the performance of his duty and the Council is bringing him in for an official hearing. The Hierarchy's decision to escalate this to a full scale military conflict was taken without the sanction of the Citadel Council and at the time they believed that you might pose a threat to Citadel Space, so they decided to launch a pre-emptive strike against you, without consulting the rest of us. They have a tendency to conquer less advanced races and incorporate them into their domain as client races."

Sheridan nodded at that as Benezia confirmed the intelligence the EFNI and the EIA had gathered from the wreckage of the turian fleet and the interrogations of captured turian soldiers.

"The fact remains that the turians attacked unprovoked an Earth Force exploration ship and one of our newest civilian colonies. The first could just be written off as a simple First Contact gone wrong and could possibly be rectified through diplomacy at a later date."

At these calm words Benezia's hope for a peaceful solution raised a couple of notches, but the realist within her told her to wait for the other proverbial shoe to drop.

"However this devastating attack upon one of our largely civilian colonies is nothing else but an act of war with hundreds of dead on both sides," said Sheridan slightly agitatedly, the mask of a career diplomat slipping slightly, only to revert back into is normal poker face a second later. "I don't have the exact numbers, but according to our latest figures our casualties are roughly over six hundred dead and more than two thousand injured. For the turian invasion force it could be as many as two thousand casualties. I am told that quite a few of their transports were shot down before they could land, and that number is just going to get higher when a full accounting of losses is done."

"I would like to extend my own and the Asari Republics condolences for the losses your people suffered, and rest assured the turians are going to pay heavy reparations for what they did to Shanxi," said Benezia.

"I thank you Matriarch," the human diplomat answered gracefully. "We have already made an accounting for the cost of damages that the turian forces inflicted upon the colony and the damage they did to the Earth Force 2nd Fleet. You will find that the price may be high, however no amount of compensation will ever make up for the fact that men and women died for this world, both in its defence and its reclaiming, and the families of those victims will never be able to see those people alive or whole again."

After that the two diplomats got into the specifics of what the price of the reparations the turians and the Citadel Council would have to pay to stop a potential conflict into spiralling into a war that could devastate a large portion of Citadel Space, one which Matriarch Benezia would fight tooth and nail to prevent in these negotiations, and once again, for the first time since she was a young and brash maiden, she wanted to personally envelop that foolish turian captain in a biotic field so strong it would crush him to the size of her fist.

* * *

**The Rim of Known Space**

**High orbit of Z'ha'dum**

The solar system that was home to the ancient, dark world of Z'ha'dum was a barren, silent place, seemingly devoid of any form of sentient life. Few space faring races ever even attempted to make the journey to Z'ha'dum, even those species who were technologically advanced enough to detect and bypass the powerful, ancient defence systems seeded throughout the sector by the Shadows. Across the galaxy species knew unconsciously that Z'ha'dum was a forbidden place, a haunt of darkness that would consume anyone who dared to land on the planet from which the system took its name.

Abruptly the systems long silence was disturbed as sixty-five thousand kilometres out from the word of Z'ha'dum space abruptly warped and distorted. Two glowing blue funnels of energy burst into existence with silent roars of power. Out of the rents ripped in the fabric of space came a small fleet of ships, the jump points folding closed behind them as if they had never been present at all.

Anyone who saw the fleet of ships would have thought them elegant and beautiful. Dozens of small tri-winged fighters constructed of a light blue polycrystalline material darted with effortless grace around two massive capital ships. Moving in closer formation with the two capital ships were small, sleek armed transports and gunships that looked more like aquatic animals than spaceships. All of them however were dwarfed by the two capital vessels, each was a massive ship over sixteen hundred metres long and over a kilometre tall. To Human eyes, the ships would have resembled angelfish crossed with some gigantic ribbed whale. Each was covered with projections that marked them as warships. Warships that were a combination of elegance and predatory fierceness, a combination that would strike fear and awe into almost anyone they encountered.

Propelled by their gravitic propulsion systems the two Minbari war cruisers glided towards Z'ha'dum with an effortless grace that would fill most species with undisguised envy as every movement of the cruisers and there escorts proclaimed the technological supremacy of the Minbari for all to see. Invisibly, silently the powerful and sophisticated sensors on the two cruisers reached out across space and began probing the area around Z'ha'dum, searching for any sign that the dark ones they had fought a thousand years ago were beginning to return her as had long ago been prophesised by the greatest of them to ever live.

Deep within the slightly larger of the two war cruisers, a vessel called the Valen'Tha, a mysterious, even to the Minbari, group of individuals wearing hooded dark grey robes stood in a darkened room. Each figure stood in the centre of a cone of blue light, the light cones being the only illumination in the entire chamber, which suited them as it reminded them constantly of their role, the role Valen himself had chosen for them a thousand years ago, the role to stand between the candle and the star, to be neither of the darkness nor of the light but to be of the middle, to be of the grey.

One figure in the circle however wore a different set of robes unlike his fellow members of the Grey Council he didn't wear the dark grey robes of their office. Instead he wore simple white and cream coloured robes. In one hand, he held a silver staff topped with a strange triangular device known to the Minbari as a triluminary, the staff and triluminary were the symbol of his office, of his position over all Minbari everywhere. His name was Dukhat, and he was known as the chosen one, the leader of the Grey Council and the supreme leader of all Minbari.

There was also a tenth figure in the chamber, standing outside the circle of the Grey Council in the brown and black robes of the Anla'Shok, or Rangers as they are known to most. None of the council members paid much attention to him, as a live holographic view of the outside universe was displayed around them, giving them the near feel of standing in open space, though the council and the Ranger was used to such displays, to someone not used to it, it could be rather unsettling.

One of the Grey Council Satais, a younger warrior caste member of the Wind Swords Clan, Satai Morann, lifted his grey hood, signifying his wish to speak.

"There appears to be nothing here," Satai Morann of the Warrior Caste said softly, removing his hood as protocol demanded so he could address the rest of the council. "This place appears dead, the Shadows are not here."

"This voyage is a waste of our time," Satai Coplann, also of the Warrior Caste, agreed removing his own hood. "The prophecy does not appear to be true, the Shadows are..."

"Be still, my younger fellow warriors," said the eldest warrior Satai, Bolinarr of the Fire Wings clan. "We should conduct a thorough scan of the planet first before we leave, it would be careless of us to just simply look at the planet and leave before we have all the facts."

"Well said Bolinarr, who said that there is no longer any wisdom within the warrior caste," said Satai Dukhat approvingly, the elder warrior bowed to the leader of the grey council.

"My duty is to serve, master, and to keep these youngsters from making rash decisions," said Bolinarr with a pointed look to his fellow warrior caste Satais.

"Alyt, begin scans of the planet below," Dukhat ordered the Valen'Tha's commanding officer.

"_It shall be done, master," _replied the Alyt.

* * *

As the minbari began scanning the planet something began to stir deep underground the planet's heavily bombarded surface. In a deep cavern a large number of oily black cocoons stood in neat rows by the hundreds. In the deepest part of the cavern a single cocoon attached to an organic computer system by fleshy wires became active. The cocoon began to bend and flex as the being inside was awoken by a steady series of pulses, sounding much like heavy heart beats as the creature inside began to awaken. From the inside it scratched and forced its way through the thick material of the cocoon and finally cut its way out, fully alert and curious as to why it was awakened.

The creature had the form of an insect with six legs that looked like a cross between a spider and a praying mantis, its small triangular head swung from side to side as it took in the readouts on the display in front of it, its fourteen small eyes glowed golden as it identified the species that had scanned their planet and had so rudely awakened it. The creature let out some curious screeches as it took in the new looks of their old adversaries warships that had beaten them back a thousand years ago.

Looking back at the rows of thousands of cocoons that filled the cavern, and thinking of the millions more in several other caverns deep below the surface of their homeworld it quickly made a decision. Once out of hibernation it could simply not just return immediately to that state, and the numerous power generators that powered the mechanisms that kept their people in stasis would soon be detected, it made the decision to call upon some old allies, quickly, before the minbari had a chance to destroy them, the great debate could not end like this, and the Shadows would not allow themselves to be weakened so again, not before their children were ready to face the Reapers.

Tapping quickly into the organic computers in the cavern with its own substantial telepathic ability it sent out a message over a high powered tachyon pulse that would easily be detected and understood by its allies. Then it began the awakening process, fleshy tendrils connected to the cocoons in the cavern and millions more in the others became active, awakening an entire ancient race from their thousand year slumber.

The Shadows were awakening, and their thralls would take care of the intruders.

* * *

"_Master, scans reveal a number of active power sources both beneath and on the planet's surface, and several life forms seem to be appearing, thousands, hundreds of thousands..."_ said the shocked alyt.

"Identify power source!"

"_Satai "Power source is of unknown type and origin," _the alyt's voice answered a second before musical alarms sounded throughout the ship._"Satai our sensors have detected ships coming towards us on an intercept course, unknown configuration."_

"Show us," Morann commanded.

The holographic display shimmered for a moment then changed to show the ships that were approaching the small Minbari task force. There were two capital ships; their hulls were made of an amber coloured material that gleamed slightly where it caught the light of the systems distant sun. Strangely, curved edges near the aft sections glowed with a shimmering blue light obviously the engines of the three ships. Each ship was huge nearly three kilometres long but didn't seem to mount obvious weapons turrets or beam projectors in the way the Minbari ships did.

Flying along in front of the three massive ships was a literal swarm of small fighter sized vessels. Almost dart-like in form the fighters had a strange blue crystal in their bows and were made of the same amber-coloured material as the bigger ships. All of them advanced upon the Minbari ships with confident arrogance and deadly purpose.

"_Satais, we're picking up a sharp energy build-up,"_ the alyt reported. _""Unknown ships are powering up their weapons, we are being targeted!"_

Morann frowned. "Are our stealth systems functioning?" he asked.

_"Perfectly Satai, the unknown ships sensors are just burning through as if our stealth fields don't exist."_

"Open gun ports and bring all weapons systems online," Dukhat instructed. "And prepare to transfer additional power to recharging the jump engines."

_"Yes Satai!"_

"Is that necessary, it is only a few ships," Morann asked. "We should be able to defeat them easily."

Dukhat scowled at the warrior's arrogant confidence. He started to open his mouth to remind the younger Minbari that it was only a fool who underestimated an enemy, but no words were heard as for at that moment there came a dull rumbling boom and the Valen'Tha rocked violently.

* * *

Silently the fleet of unknown fighters accompanied by the two capital vessels of their own moved towards the Minbari vessels that had dared to violate their master's domain. The Shadows were still away or asleep, they were vulnerable and reliant on them to protect them until the Time of Awakening.

The presence of the Minbari now was concerning as it meant the Minbari suspected that after a thousand years of silence the Shadows were returning, but fortunately it was only two war cruisers and a few support ships. To a soul the crews on the Drakh cruisers and raiders were confident that they would crush the Minbari infidels quickly, ensuring that the secret that there masters were preparing to return would stay just that a secret.

The first squadrons of raiders crossed an invisible line in space and immediately opened fire upon the Minbari. From the blue crystal in the nose of each raider erupted a brilliant, shimmering blue energy beam that sliced silently across space to smash into the Minbari cruisers despite the best efforts of the Minbari stealth technology to disrupt the Drakh sensors. Fired from extreme range the Raiders quantum particle beams did no harm to the cruisers, beyond shaking both vessels, the energy of the beams being effortlessly dispersed across the hull of the war cruisers by their gravitic defence fields.

Despite being startled by the accurate fire, and despite their stealth technology's best efforts, the Minbari reacted quickly. The screen of Niall-class fighters that had been buzzing around the cruisers broke formation and advanced upon the Drakh raiders, slender yellow-green fusion laser beams shooting forth from each of their triple gun arrays. Three raiders instantly crumpled and exploded in brilliant fireballs as they took multiple strikes. The other raiders ignored the loss and continued towards the Minbari, even as some of their number broke formation to engage the Minbari fighters.

As the fighters and some of the raiders began dog-fighting, yellow-green and blue beams flashing back and forth and occasionally resulting in a fighter or raider going up in a brilliant fireball, the remaining raiders fired upon the cruisers for the second time. Once again, the beams did no damage to the Minbari, the gravitic screens absorbing and dispersing most of the energy of the beams over a wider area to dissipate back out into space, this time however, some energy got through to strike the polycrystalline armour covering the cruisers metal skins. Instantly the armour soaked up the energy, dispersing it and like the gravitic defence field radiating it back out into space.

Instantly the cruisers secondary weapons arrays responded, unleashing a fury of fusion laser beams and bolts of coherent electromagnetic energy from electro-pulse arrays, even as additional Niall squadrons emerged from the noses of the war cruisers. Dozens of Drakh raiders vanished from existence being wiped from the sky with effortless ease by the powerful Minbari weapons. The remaining raiders veered off, trying to move out of the angle of fire of the capital ship guns, only to be pounced upon by the Niall's and gunships that tore into them with a vengeance.

For a moment, the battle swung against the Drakh as the raider assault was driven back, pushed away from the war cruisers by an intense wall of firepower. Then the slower Drakh cruisers came into firing range and instantly opened up. Wider and brighter quantum particle beams blasted forth from their main cannons while smaller pulse cannons began firing at the fighters and gunships, swatting several from the sky immediately.

The beams from the Drakh cruisers smashed into both Minbari ships with white-hot force, but in a testament to the engineering skills of the Minbari, the gravitic shielding blunted the weapon impacts, absorbing seventy percent of the beams energy. The remaining energy of the beams slammed into the polycrystalline armour and was immediately absorbed and dispersed though small carbon scoring appeared on the armour as a thin film of polycrystalline material burned away at the points of impact.

Both the Valen'Tha and her companion cruiser the _Ingata_ shuddered violently with the attacks, but immediately retaliated with the neutron beam cannons that were their main armament. Emerald green beams of raw power and with bores measured in metres smashed into the Drakh cruisers, ripping through their own gravitic defences to flay at the armoured hulls. Both Drakh ships visibly shook with the impacts even as plumes of molten metal erupted from their hulls as the neutron beams attacked the metal at the sub-molecular level, tearing atoms apart.

Startled and much more respectful now the Drakh cruisers changed tactics. Their pulse arrays ceased firing upon the Niall's, giving the pilots time to start re-establishing shattered formations and instead fired upon the war cruisers, simultaneously both cruisers fired their main quantum beams again, this time focusing all fire on the Ingata while sending energy pulse after energy pulse into the Valen'Tha.

The combined beams smashed into the Ingata, sending plumes of melting crystalline material into space as the powerful beams overwhelmed the polycrystalline materials deflection and absorption capabilities. Even as she rocked violently and visibly with the impact, the Ingata hit back, neutron beams smashing into a single Drakh cruiser tearing away huge chunks of armour but failing to penetrate to the hull underneath.

The Ingata struck again with her neutron beams and this time her secondary fusion lasers added their own formidable firepower to the assault, every beam firing upon the same cruiser. Drakh armour shattered and vaporised allowing the powerful Minbari weapons to cut into the hull beneath. Jets of molten material and escaping atmosphere shot out of the gashes ripped in the side of the ship. Though now heavily damaged the Drakh cruiser refused to give up and with its companion fired its main quantum beam cannon at the Ingata once again.

Crystalline armour shattered and vaporised allowing the beams and energy pulses to burn deep into the core of the Minbari warship. Secondary explosions erupted throughout the Ingata, burning and severely damaged the Sharlin-class cruiser began to tumble helplessly out of control. Sensing victory both Drakh cruisers fired upon the near helpless Ingataagain, twin beams of blue death burning right into the very heart of the vessel, the artificial quantum singularity that powered the ship, rupturing the containment field with devastating results.

In a titanic blast of energy and fire, the Ingata disintegrated as its singularity blinked out of existence, releasing all of its energy in a single cataclysmic burst of energy and hard radiation that tore the whole ship apart in an instant.

No sooner than the blast of the Ingata's violent death faded than another explosion shattered space as the Valen'Tha hit the already damaged alien warship with a full alpha strike from every weapon that it could bring to bear. Under the immense concentrated firepower of a Sharlin-class war cruiser the damaged ship had no chance, it broke in half midway down its length before exploding.

* * *

**Grey Council Chamber**

**Minbari War Cruiser Valen'Tha**

Dukhat and the members of the Grey Council stumbled as the shudder of another direct hit ran through the Valen'Tha's deck as the remaining alien cruiser slammed another searing beam into the side of the ship. Around them, the holographic display momentarily flickered as the energy of the blast shot through the ship causing brief disruptions in the energy distribution grid.

To a soul, they were enraged by the destruction of the Ingata, though it had answered the question that had brought them here. The Shadows weren't back yet, but they were returning exactly as Valen had foretold, the alien ships that were attacking them had to be allies of the Shadows. There was no other explanation for the immediate and deliberate attack on them and the ease with which their antagonists destroyed the Ingata.

Silently they watched in satisfaction as the Valen'Tha's more powerful weapons tore into the remaining cruiser, neutron beams and fusion lasers wounding it cruelly where they breached its armour.

* * *

Severely damaged by the Valen'Tha's assault the Drakh cruiser remained defiant, slamming another beam into the Sharlin-class ship's side, breaching armour and rupturing outer and inner hull plates in a forty-metre long gash in the ships starboard flank below the dorsal drive fin. The Valen'Tha shook violently as explosive decompression tore through the affected compartments and triggered a cascade of fires and secondary explosions in surrounding areas.

Though wounded, the Valen'Tha lashed out again with her main guns. Fierce green neutron beams tore into her enemy. The Drakh ship crumpled under the blows as the beams tore apart a number of key structural braces and power conduits. Secondary and tertiary explosions erupted and a ripple seeming to pass along its length opening breaches that allowed gas fed flames to lick at open space. Another neutron beam hit and the dying cruiser came apart, disintegrating in a massive explosion.

The last of the Drakh capital ships dealt with the Valen'Tha turned to assist the Niall fighters that were still bitterly engaged with the raiders. Secondary weapons arrays on the mighty Sharlin came alive, sending out short bursts from either fusion lasers or electro-pulse guns. Each shot striking and destroying an enemy fighter. In seconds it was all over with the last Drakh raider being sliced in half by a Niall fighter's fusion laser burst.

* * *

Silence reigned in the chamber of the Grey Council as they studied the dispersing debris clouds that were all that remained of their attackers, a number of Nail's and of course the Ingata.

"It appears we have our answer," Satai Delenn said, at last removing her hood exposing a face that was extremely youthful even by Minbari standards. Indeed, she was the youngest person ever to be chosen to serve as one of the nine, it was a testament to the abilities that she had, abilities that Dukhat himself had spotted and nurtured until she was ready to become one of the nine. "The prophecy is true, the Shadows will soon return."

"That is the only conclusion that can be drawn," Satai Coplann, admitted reluctantly, being Warrior Caste, he had never really believed in the Prophecy of Valen, until now that was. These aliens whoever they were had given them a formidable fight and had no doubt inflicted considerable damage to the Valen'Tha as well as destroying the Ingata, there was no doubt in his mind now that they were indeed allies of the Shadows. After a thousand years the dark ones were returning and as this battle had proven the Minbari, the chosen soldiers of the light, were not ready to oppose them.

"We shall return to Minbar," Dukhat said, though he had already known from the Vorlons that the allies of the Shadows were starting to gather here at Z'ha'dum it was still a surprise how powerful they were. "We have much preparation to make, including reinforcing the Anla'shok for the war ahead."

One by one, the nine bowed indicating their agreement and Dukhat raised his voice slightly to activate the internal communication system. "Alyt," he said. "Recall all Niall's and set course back to Minbar, maximum speed. We have found out what we needed to know."

"Yes Satai," the alyt answered.

In a dark corner of the council chamber the old Ranger Lenonn began to think of what allies they would need for the coming war.

* * *

AN: I would like to thank AJW for letting me use the some of his writing from one of his stories for this chapter. This author has been one of many in the fanfiction community that has been an inspiration for me.


	7. Chapter 5: A New Reality

**The Mass Effect Age**

**Chapter 5: A New Reality**

**In orbit of Shanxi**

**Victory Ascension, Matriarch Benezia's quarters.**

Within her quarters the almost 900 year old Asari Matriarch sat on her comfy meditative pillow as she meditated on the day's events, the negotiations had been long and tiring, an exercise in patience, particularly since the humans had made some rather tall demands, the largest being that they wanted the system where the Amundsen was attacked, as well as reparations for the damage done to Shanxi and the mobilisation of the Earth Force 2nd Fleet and the damages they took in the Reclaiming of Shanxi. The first round of negotiations had merely gotten them to cede their claim to the system, since she knew the Turian Hierarchy would not tolerate any permanent human presence so close to one of their larger colonies.

To get the humans to cede the system to Citadel Council control had taken much of the day, after she had secured the turian military personnel's release, who were captured when Oraka's fleet had been forced to leave them behind. She now had the duty to report her progress to the Citadel Council after a long day of careful negotiations. Whatever these humans were to the turians, to Benezia they had some very shrewd and cunning diplomats, which she couldn't help but admire slightly.

Soon enough her personal VI came to life on a nearby holo-pedestal, a small generic figure of a blue asari with red lines around the eyes and that travelled down the side of its face, over its bosom and down its legs.

"Matriarch Benezia, your priority channel to the Council is now open," it reported.

Benezia sat up and faced the primary holo-projectors, which quickly resolved to show the three Councillors in full regalia, though the turian Councillor looked a little worse for wear, no doubt a result of this near catastrophe.

"_Matriarch Benezia, it is good to see you again,"_ said Councillor Tevos warmly. _"What have you to report?"_

"Councillors, I have secured the release of all turian military personnel who were captured during the Reclaiming of Shanxi and I have managed to get the humans to agree to cede their claim to the star system where their ship, the Amundsen, was attacked by the turian patrol," she reported as she watched the councillors' reactions. The turian councilman was impassive while the Salarian and Asari were smiling slightly.

"_What do the humans want if it took you a whole day just to get our soldiers back?"_ the turian councilman asked.

"Originally they wanted the system the explorer ship was attacked, which I knew you would never grant since it is so close to one of the turians main colonies," said Benezia, seeing the nod of appreciation councillor Vilnus sent her. "However they want considerable monetary compensation for the damage caused by Oraka's attack, the mobilisation of the Earth Force 2nd Fleet and they want Captain Arterius put on trial for attacking the Amundsen unprovoked."

"_They want WHAT?" _yelled Councillor Vilnus in outrage._ "We could fund several deep space colonies for what the humans are asking for and they can forget about them trying Captain Arterius, a captain who was only doing his duty."_

"Councillors the humans won't budge on this, if they can't have the system that they sent a ship to survey then they at least want to be compensated for it, and the human diplomat said that the EA senate won't be satisfied with just the monetary compensation, they want the one responsible for starting this or they'll just take the system, fortify it and use it as a jump off point to attack several turian colonies, and I don't believe that I have to tell you, Councillor Vilnus, that a conflict with the Earth Alliance would be disastrous for both sides," said Benezia, trying to make the turian councillor see reason.

"_Please, Matriarch Benezia, no race could conceivably have so many heavy warships in a single fleet,"_ said Councillor Vilnus in contempt. _"This Earth Force 2__nd__ Fleet is nothing more than a merging of several fleets of their heaviest warships, though impressive for such a young race, they cannot possibly have many more."_

"You do not know the political and military situation in this sector of space," rebutted Benezia. "The Earth Alliance is surrounded by several advanced races, some are almost as militant as the krogan, and they have the forces necessary to protect their holdings and prosecute a war against any and all known and unknown threats. While I was waiting for their diplomat I studied their recent history, particularly their wars. The last major conflict they participated in thirteen of their years ago saw them victorious against a more advanced race and elevated them from a relatively unrecognised race to a regional superpower; I sent the files over just before I began the negotiations."

"_Which would make them supremely arrogant, I have studied those files quite extensively and their own analysis shows that it required almost a year for them to prepare for war with these Dilgar,"_ said Councillor Vilnus. _"I respect them for their military capabilities, but no race, not even our own, could field so many large and powerful warships, they would simply be too costly to maintain..."_

"You don't understand, the human military is almost equal to the turian military at least in terms of firepower, and their economy is over half the size and strength of the Asari Republics, they are able to launch and effectively prosecute a war against us, and cause extensive damage to us, before we bring them to heel," Benezia countered, though she didn't say that she believed that a war with the Earth Alliance would most likely end in a stalemate, with uncounted numbers of casualties for both sides.

"_I believe that in the interest of peace we should accept these terms for a peace treaty, I'm assuming that you managed to at least get them to agree to a ceasefire without having to agree to too many concessions?"_ Councillor Tevos asked.

"A ceasefire was the only thing I managed to get for free from them and they agreed to hand over their turian prisoner in exchange for any humans that were captured and taken with General Oraka's fleet."

"_We didn't take any human prisoners during the occupation, they either fought to the death or pulled back before we could capture them,"_ the turian councillor countered.

"They said that they detected several human life-signs on one of the surviving cruisers just before it transited through the Mass Relay, and they want their people back, just as much as you want your own soldiers returned," countered Benezia.

"_That is not possible!"_ stated Councillor Vilnus vehemently._ "There is no known ship-mounted scanner that is capable of detecting a life-form's life-signs through an enemy warship's hull! For all we know the humans may just be bluffing with us."_

The salarian councillor then spoke up. _"You are correct that there is no form of scanner technology known to any of us that can perform such a feat, but that doesn't mean that it is impossible. I agree with Matriarchs Tevos and Benezia, this peace treaty with the humans may prove in the long run to be our best option, and who knows, maybe these humans might earn an embassy in a couple of years time."_

Councillor Vilnus's left eye began quivering in rage as he barely reined in his temper, but he was boxed into a corner, with both the asari and salarian councillors supporting this peace treaty he knew that the Turian Hierarchy would have to accept this treaty, or face being both financially and politically ruined. _"Very well, we'll hand over Captain Arterius to human custody at Shanxi at the same time as we return our prisoners,"_ he said though he instantly regretted his little slip.

"So there were human prisoners," said Benezia, both in surprise and anger, surprise that the humans might not have been bluffing, and anger that the turians were not going to turn over the humans they had captured.

"_They were important sources of intelligence, both about them as a species and their technology. Should we not have as much information as possible about the Earth Alliance's military capabilities?"_

"I think General Oraka got a very good idea of the Earth Force's capabilities firsthand," said Benezia scathingly.

"_Since we are now all in agreement,"_ began councillor Tevos, who gave councillor Vilnus a very pointed glare his way, _"I believe we should let Benezia retire for now, tomorrow is going to be very busy for her, what with the transports coming to pick up the turian soldiers and her continued negotiations with the human diplomats, she will need her rest. God day Matriarch Benezia, and may your future negotiations with the humans bear considerable fruit,"_ said Councillor Tevos just before she cut the channel, and left behind only empty air and a static charge that lingered for a moment from the holographic emitters.

Her meeting with the council over Matriarch Benezia began to slip out of her daily wear and headed for the nearby en-suite bathroom to clean up for bed, taking a quick relaxing shower and applied an asari brand of cleansing ointment on her face before she clad herself in a night-gown. She soon after headed for the large comfortable bed and sank beneath its luxurious cover and began to sleep as soon as her head hit the incredibly soft yet firm pillows, granting her a night-long respite before she would throw herself back into the challenge of negotiating with the human diplomat David Sheridan.

* * *

**Minbari border**

**Valen'Tha returning from Z'ha'dum**

In his sanctum, buried deep within the hull of the modified Sharlin class war cruiser, Dukhat sat on his meditative pillow as he waited for his associates to arrive, waiting with him in the shadows were two vorlons, on in a brown and green encounter suit, the other in purple and blue.

"It has begun!" stated Dukhat.

With soft melodious tones one of the Vorlons chimed, "Yes!"

"How long do we have?"

"Not long, you will need allies, we are not ready," said the one in brown and green.

"You expect only the Younger Races to fight this war?" Dukhat asked mortified. "We may be advanced enough to give them a good fight, but we and the Younger Races are not ready. We have prepared, we have stockpiled thousands of warships, but most of them have been in mothballs for decades, some of them centuries even, and it would take time to update the fleet to modern standards."

Only silence was his answer from the two.

"The prophesy of Valen said that we would have to unite with the other half of our soul, who is this other half Valen spoke of?" Dukhat asked of them.

The two Vorlons chimed together and faced each other, but there was no translation of their musical language, a private debate was happening between them, though the one in the purple encounter suit seemed to be the most aggressive of the pair. Suddenly their musical speech stopped and the aggressive one, whose name was Kosh Ulkesh, moved back, deeper into the shadows, but the menace he seemed to radiate could be felt by everyone onboard, though only Dukhat knew the source of the rage, and if he was being honest with himself he would say that he was terrified.

The one who remained in the light turned back towards the almost terrified stiff Dukhat and chimed again at him. "The humans are the key. Learn!" The circular eye slit of the vorlon's encounter suit's head opened and glowed a warming green. Images passed before Dukhat's eyes, starting with images of The Great Fortress, images he recognized from the Grey Council's records, as well as of Valen, a Minbari not born of Minbari, as well as the first to sport a beard and moustache, much as Dukhat did in his honour. Then the image changed, Valen morphed into a human. "Sinclair, the beginning of the circle." Valen, who now Dukhat thought of as Sinclair wore now the uniform of Earth Force, the humans warrior caste, and the image of The Great Fortress changed, showing another station built upon the same basic architectural principles, but surrounded by what Dukhat assumed to be human ships, both military and civilian, and seemed to be much larger than the Great Fortress.

"What is happening?" Dukhat asked fearfully as he took in the images he saw, from what he had heard humanity had only been in space for roughly three hundred of their years, and only a hundred since they had discovered hyperspace.

"The humans are the beginning, middle, and end of the Circle, which has now been changed. The truth points to itself," said Kosh as he withdrew from Dukhat's mind, who stumbled slightly from the influx of new information and tried to process it.

Valen had been a human before he had been changed into a minbari, and the fortress was a human space station from the future, the revelation was almost enough to make him lose what he had just eaten for his evening meal and turned his insides cold at the thought of what this information could do to minbari society, it could completely unravel it and may even cause everything the Grey Council had worked to achieve for the last thousand cycles to be turned to dust.

He had to meditate, to centre himself, before his associates arrived, as a thousand thoughts flew around in his mind, he slowly but surely slowed them down and sorted them, a process which for most minbari took several hours, owing to the fact that minbari cannot easily separate the emotions from memory like other races could, but for Dukhat it took only a few minutes for him to properly centre himself. A unique quality that he had used to great effect in his almost fifty years of living and thirty years of serving his people, and once again the world made sense again and peace settled upon his mind, just as the chime for his door sounded.

"Enter," he said and the doors opened. Two people entered, a young female with a delicately carved head bone and wore the robes of the Grey, and an elder male with a goatee and moustache, and wore the brown and black robes of the Anla'Shok.

"Welcome to my sanctum Delenn and Lenonn, I can probably guess why the two of you are here. Our little trip to Z'ha'dum!" Dukhat mused as he smiled gently at the two, effectively covering his fear, though Lenonn still saw it in his eyes.

"Yes, we lost the Ingata, and we were nearly destroyed, should we not prepare a full scale counter attack, teach this race that we are not to be trifled with?" asked Delenn in a rather quiet tone of voice, though hate laced her tone, which surprised Dukhat and Lenonn, having known the young Satai for a number of years they had never seen this side of her, though Dukhat also felt righteous rage for the destruction of their escort and the crew aboard it, he forced himself to be pragmatic.

"Delenn, as we are now an attack upon the Shadows minions would only result in our destruction, and we need to return to Minbar and prepare for this new conflict. We also need to secure allies if we are to face the Shadows once again."

"I agree," said Lenonn, who had put a restraining hand upon Delenn's shoulder to calm her down. "We have suffered a loss, but we must act with cool heads and not throw ourselves at the enemy for nothing more than petty vengeance."

"To that end I believe you should meet one of our oldest friends and allies," said Dukhat as he gestured into the darkened section of his quarters, where the two vorlons had quickly hidden themselves away. Both Delenn's and Lenonn's eyes widened in surprise, "and had her jaw been able to Delenn's mouth would probably be on the floor," Dukhat mused to himself. The one he knew as Ulkesh still radiated a powerful sense of cold wrath, which made everyone onboard nervous, while the other seemed to radiate the opposite, a sense of warmth, peace and familiarity, much like a proud father would and served to counter balance the other's hostility.

"Are you Vorlons?" asked Delenn fearfully, not quite believing that here she stood in the presence of beings that were at least a million years older than her and would be as above her as she was above a single-celled organism.

"Yes," replied Kosh kindly.

"Yes," said Ulkesh harshly.

"They have come to us in secret to prepare us for the fight ahead. They say that we will not be enough to fight the coming darkness, they say we will need allies, in particular a race that we have not made First Contact with called humans. You remember when I first brought you before the Grey Council, when I used you to embarrass those fools on the council when we were debating whether or not to make contact with the humans. You expressed a great curiosity in them, and I assume you have been studying them?"

"Yes master, they are an interesting race, though a very confusing one," said Delenn.

"The vorlons say that the humans are the key to the next Shadow War, what would you say to that?"

"The vorlons may be correct," said Delenn, to the surprise of Lenonn and Dukhat. "Even though they have only been on the interstellar arena for almost a hundred cycles, of all the younger races I believe they are the most dangerous."

"What makes this young race so dangerous Delenn?" Lenonn asked.

"They are creators of communities, they've had a large number of wars upon their world, much as we did before Valen, and they seem to have stayed in practice with the number of worlds having tried to kick them down, and they were the ones to push back the Dilgar to their home system. However there is one thing that truly makes them dangerous. If you only hurt them they just come back even stronger. I believe that they have the capacity to walk among the stars like giants, only they don't recognize their own greatness, and they are the ones who introduced the younger races of this spiral arm to the ancient Mass Relay network, which they believe was built by an ancient race no one has ever seen or heard of before. The Protheans."

This was news to the Vorlons. While they had been checking up on humanity regularly once a century for the past thousand years, it was still a surprise to them. They turned towards each other and began speaking again in their musical language.

_"The humans must have found the Prothean outpost buried beneath the surface of their system's fourth planet, this could be an interesting development,"_ said Kosh to Ulkesh.

_"And it would explain why the instigator did not come and kill Dukhat as the circle dictated was to happen, we should have wiped out that outpost as soon as the Reapers left_," said a still enraged Ulkesh.

_"But it opens another door for us, one we must take advantage of..."_

As the Vorlons continued their own private talk Dukhat drew his attention back towards his two associates.

"Lenonn, I need you and the Rangers to begin collecting intelligence on these humans and the other younger races, we need to know if they could all be potential allies in the fight against the Shadows and the best way to make them our allies, and also investigate if they are under the influence of the Shadows, the Dilgar may have been one of their early recruits in this cycle," said Dukhat, as he thought about the possibilities.

"As soon as we arrive back at Minbar I will make the preparations, can I assume that we will be getting the money, resources and people we'll need from the Grey Council?"

"Yes, there is much to be done and not a lot of time to do it, and if I have to, figuratively of course, bash in the Warrior and Worker Castes collective heads to get it, I will," said Dukhat, knowing there would be loud voices of dissent from those two, with the Warrior Caste wanting control of the Rangers, and the Worker Caste would no doubt argue over the costs.

"Delenn, I need you to begin studying the records of the last Shadow War, bring in anyone from all three Castes that you believe can help you. I also know of a young warrior, Neroon of the Star Riders Clan, who should be able to help you in this matter."

Delenn was surprised at this, she had only recently heard of this young warrior who had managed to get up through the ranks, mostly on merit, though some believed him to be going too fast too quickly.

"Master, I do not question your wisdom, but why him?"

"Both you and him need to mature, and to learn, and from what I have learned from Coplann he could use some time away from regular duties, and in the thousand cycles since the Shadow War Valen's teachings in space combat have fallen to the wayside slightly, our people rely on our superior technology too much. If we are to fight the Shadows again they need to learn to fight a superior enemy, as Valen did."

"Very well Master," replied Delenn with a short bow of her head in acceptance. She did not like it, but she would do her duty, even if it meant having to interact with one of the Warrior Caste more than she liked.

"Now, I believe we have much to do tomorrow, so let's all get some sleep now, for tomorrow we arrive back at Minbar, and we will need all our strength to face the morning," said Dukhat, who was exhausted by what had happened earlier, and already their sleep cycle had been disrupted.

With deep bows of their heads both Lenonn and Delenn left his quarters. The two Vorlons also retreated to their own private quarters, which contained their native atmosphere, and Dukhat finally released his regal posture and slumped down onto a meditative pillow, before he reached underneath a small table and brought out a bottle of Minbari Necross Nectar, a potent form of intoxicant produced by the Worker Caste, and used by Dukhat after especially difficult Council meetings. He filled a small triangular glass with only half a centimetre of the potent Nectar, drank it down in one gulp and felt it pleasantly burn down his throat and its spicy aroma forcefully opened up his sinuses.

"Well my old friend, it looks like I'm going to need a lot more of you in the coming years," said Dukhat as he put the bottle away and headed for his sleeping platform, the effects of the Necross Nectar quickly caught up with him and soon enough he fell asleep.

* * *

**EA Space **

**Station Shanxi Prime**

Negotiations had continued apace for the last few days, mostly the settling of minutia between two great powers, but there were a few sticking points that both Matriarch Benezia and the human diplomat David Sheridan were still trying to agree upon, one such sticking point loomed over both of them and had produced some near violent outbursts from both sides.

"You must understand that every race that has been granted an Embassy on the Citadel have all signed the Treaty of Farixen, as well as the Citadel Conventions," stated Benezia.

"Yes, but you must understand that if we were to agree to all this it would weaken our defences around our holdings, which would leave us open and vulnerable to attack from just about every rogue interstellar empire in the Orion Arm. If you had studied our recent history you would see that we have had several border conflicts with a number of different species, including the Koulani and Ch'lonas, not to mention the Narn and the Drazi," Sheridan stated, much to the frustration of Matriarch Benezia.

"Sheridan, if your people don't sign the Citadel Conventions and the Treaty of Farixen you will not be allowed to open an embassy on the Citadel, meaning we won't be able to maintain a dialogue between our civilizations," she countered.

"And I can tell you right now that the Earth Alliance will not accept such restrictions upon our military," said Sheridan with a tone of finality, however before Benezia could offer further rebuttal he added, "It's really quite simple, no matter how you consider it, none of our ships qualify as 'dreadnoughts' as defined by the Treaty. Also, most of our ships carry fighters, hence they could all be described as 'carriers'."

Benezia felt like putting her head down onto the hard metal table in front of her and bang her head on it for all the good it would do her.

"Listen Matriarch, we are willing to keep a line of communication open between our two societies, but we do not want to be a part of the Citadel Alliance. From what I've read about the Citadel Conventions we would effectively be giving up our sovereignty, and we as an independent nation will not accept that," continued Sheridan with an air of finality. "However I believe I do have an alternative!"

Benezia mentally collected herself and prepared for another round. "I'm listening!"

"For a number of years now there has been a series of discussions between our race and a number of species in the Orion Arm, as well as in my people's senate, about the idea of a diplomatic space station located in neutral territory. It would be a place of commerce and diplomacy between a number of different species willing to sit down and work out their problems peacefully. The main reason it hasn't been done yet is because there hasn't been much support for the project, but in recent years the idea has been growing in popularity. If we could begin to hammer out an agreement to begin laying down the ground work for the building of a diplomatic space station."

Benezia was intrigued by the idea. It may be a way to open up a proper dialogue between the Orion Arm races and the Citadel Alliance, and with time the Asari would one day be able to unite all these races under one banner, into one great galactic community, like so many of her fellow asari believed every sentient race was in some way a part of.

"I believe that as part of the peace deal we can both share our resources and build such a station together, as a symbol of two recently warring civilization coming together to promote peace," she said simply. "I believe this would be a good time for us to take a short break. It is almost time for the POW exchange."

Sheridan nodded. "Very well." He looked down at his antique wristwatch and saw that it was only five minutes until the turian transports were to arrive. "Mind joining me in the observation lounge?"

She bowed in acceptance of the invitation and followed the human diplomat. They arrived at the rotunda observation deck only a minute before the turian troopships were to arrive. Matriarch Benezia noticed the arms of the local jump gate flash in sequence across its arms length, then opened up a blue vortex, a sign that something was coming through. It was a large bulk cargo ship of the Belt Alliance, the largest transport corporation in the Earth Alliance if she remembered correctly.

"I'm assuming that ship is here to deliver the supplies and equipment the colony needs to repair the damage done by the turians?"

"You'd be right," Sheridan said stiffly, just before three turian cruisers and six frigates dropped out of FTL, followed by a number of turian troop transports. One of the frigates set course directly for Shanxi Prime, while the rest took up a parking orbit. "And I guess those are the ships that are here for the turian POWs and the one approaching the station is the one that's carrying our people?"

"Yes, from what I was told by General Oraka they only captured a small number of humans, total number was thirty four, most of them injured and unable to flee. Mostly just common soldiers and a couple of low-level officers, lieutenants I believe. Luckily it seems that Oraka was able to save most of them from death, but a few still died since his fleet's medical personnel didn't have the medical knowledge necessary to save their lives," replied Benezia apologetically.

"Casualties of war. Still there was no reason for those men and women to die out here, all because some captain wanted to add another notch on his tally board," Sheridan said neutrally, then turned around and headed for the docking bay.

Benezia decided not to comment upon the diplomat's words and simply took in the view as the turian frigate docked.

* * *

AN: I know I've taken forever to write this up, but for a while my muse has been scatterbrained with half a dozen story ideas that I've been exploring.


End file.
