Luna, Sol System

"What do you have?"

Major John Coats stared at his hand - a rather terrible one, if he was being honest - and let no part of his face show what his current predicament was. He was in deep; nearly five hundred credits. One good hand had led to another, which had led to raising the existing bets, which had led to ... this. Just a few chips left and the last of his pay from the previous month.

"Enough to wipe you off the face of this bloody moon," he lied coolly. "You gonna raise, or should I get your mummy for you?"

The white-haired Captain Lee Riley bared her teeth in a predatory fashion and tossed more plastic chips into the formidable pile at the middle of the table, and the squad around them groaned and snickered in equal measure. Coats knew that the Engineer tended to wear her emotions on her sleeve; it wasn't likely that she was bluffing. Or, at least, she hadn't ever bluffed this hard.

His lip twitched in an attempt at self-restraint. He failed.

"So, The Lioness has teeth ..." he said as he tossed in half of his remaining chips. leaning back into his chair and propping his legs up on the table as he did so. He could feel a bit of sweat start to accumulate at the end of his sweatshirt's sleeve. Perhaps it was just him, but it seemed that it was getting quite warm in the room...

Riley seemed to sense his consternation and pounced on it, honoring her well-earned nickname. "I'm calling your bullshit, Coats." Riley gathered all of her remaining chips and slid them towards the center of the table. "Let's see what you have."

"You got me, Riley," the Major sighed. Five hundred and seventy four credits, gone. He tossed the cards down on the table, face up. One pair - two tens, one of hearts, the other of clubs.

Riley's predatory smile widened as she flipped her cards to and fro between her fingers, stretching out the moment climatically. The rest of the squad started pounding the table in anticipation, a cacophony of voices rising over the natural hum of the base itself.

An abrupt tapping sound at the door interrupted the revelation of the Captain's first card. The Marines and Naval personnel in the room quieted down instantly. Coats groaned.

"Bloody fuckers. Can't take a bit of fun, can they?" he quipped, grimacing at the prospect of having to talk down the biotic trainers who were housed in the adjacent living unit. Since the SPECTRE candidacy trainees had arrived, there had been no less than five separate incidents of the L5s complaining of loud auditory disturbances. The first time had been amusing, the second tense, and the rest simply a series of infuriating jabs back and forth that had lasted for nearly half an hour each.

The Major cleared his throat as belligerently as he could, eliciting a hearty round of snickers, then opened the door.

"Hello, my wee la-" he started, before stopping immediately. Seeing who stood at the door, he snapped to attention. "Sir!"

Everyone behind him stood up as one, flowing into flawless salutes. At the door, before them all, was the base commander Rear Admiral Gavin Donner. The Admiral was a grizzled veteran of the First Contact War, nearing his seventieth birthday. As he had gotten older, he had grown more and more stiff, particularly in his attitude. And today was no exception.

"I suppose I should ask you fine soldiers what you all think you are entitled to," he rasped, casting a scarred pair of eyes over the motley group representing some of humanity's highest qualified soldiers. It was clear that the Admiral did not agree with that assessment.

"Our apologies, sir. We didn't realize you'd be coming by for an inspection," Riley said, still saluting. Coats suppressed a snort; hell, the Admiral was supposed to be planet-side, attending a series of interspecies briefings on paramilitary operations in the Terminus Frontier. Something big had to be brewing if Donner had come back so soon, and a typical look over was likely not the reason.

"If I was here for an inspection, you'd all be doing base laps in full kit. Rather fortunate for you." The Admiral surveyed the room with a hawkish eye before issuing his orders. "Ranking base personnel are to report to the briefing room. You have fifteen minutes."

The Admiral saluted, spun around, and strode stiffly down the white-lit hallway. The squad relaxed and started automatically for their equipment lockers.

"Another publicity shot?" Coats mused out loud as he began changing into his battle dress uniform. "Can't be, right?"

"Doubt it. Pretty sure they did a few for ANN last month." Riley grinned again as a thought occurred to her. "But don't forget my winnings. Pay up, losers."

Coats joined the squad in their grumbling.

The squad filed out of the designated barracks, uniting with their fellows from other areas of the military base. Riley scratched at her neckline furiously - anything besides the bodysuit she wore under her trademark orange-hued armor or the informal sweatshirts everyone wore off-duty caused her immeasurable problems. The hardened shoulder pads and collar were a terrible fit, only serving to exacerbate the scratching problem.

"You're making me itchy, Riley ..." muttered Coats, falling back to march in lockstep with the Captain.

"The price one pays to become richer than her underlings," she explained sarcastically. Her scratching intensified.

Coats rolled his eyes, and pointed up ahead at several engineers who were in deep discussions with one another. "Get this: they just told me that our Spectre feeder program is getting shut down."

"What?" she asked, surprised. "How the hell would they know? They just transferred in a few days ago. Anyways, we'd have heard something."

"You know where they transferred in from?"

Riley shook her head.

"New Istanbul, that colony in the -"

"Traverse," Lee finished, intrigued. "Last I heard the colony went dark nearly a month ago - Collectors, right?"

Coats nodded. "No one knows what the bloody hell's been going on out there."

"Well, they probably do ..." she said, rolling her eyes and pointing to the same engineers Coats had. "Why don't you run along and go back to your friends?"

"Ha fucking ha. They're not talking, and my powers of persuasion are limited." He scrunched up his face, pretending to think hard. "But maybe if you were to, you know, go over to them and show them your ti-"

Riley punched him in the ribs sharply, making him grunt as they rounded a corner and took a left into the base's main briefing room. It was a large circular room, perhaps fifty meters or so in diameter, largely bare except for a few work desks and holographic display of the Milky Way in the middle. The map was as close to a real-time map as one could get - if the FTL comm buoys experienced no hiccups that was - down to the day. The room was fairly full already, nearly two hundred personnel arranged in a semi-circle around the display. Rear Admiral Donner stood by the map with a strange woman with dark hair tied in a ponytail behind her head and clad in a greatcoat of equally dark fur. Her face was tanned and scarred, yet her complexion retained an artificially youthful quality. Her age was indeterminate - Riley couldn't figure out how old she was. She looked to be in her thirties, but her features - which spoke of chemical maintenance - could have indicated an age far higher.

Donner surveyed the room one last time, letting the last of the ranking officers enter the room, before beginning his briefing.

"There have been rumors, spread by several individuals in this very room, that all the current induction and training programs will be coming to an end." The Admiral's sharp eyes bored into the skulls of as many servicemen and women as he could before continuing. "Those rumors are true. All programs currently in progress are being brought to an end, effective immediately."

A ripple of surprise went through the crowd in response.

"As you are all undoubtedly aware, terrorist and mercenary attacks have increased on the galactic southern borders of Alliance space. We all know who's behind them - no matter how much they deny it. Our government has decided that the attacks must be defended against in full. To this end, Alliance brass is reappropriating all current personnel on the Luna bases towards the formation of a new super-heavy mechanized battalion. It will be a joint-command between myself and Colonel Destura of the Twenty-Fifth Expeditionary fleet," the Admiral said, gesturing at the end at the woman beside him.

Riley was bemused. She'd never heard of any Twenty-Fifth Expeditionary Fleet - there weren't such things as expeditionary fleets. Coats seemed to be just as confused. An officer towards the front spoke up to put voice to their questions.

"Sir, I don't think we're familiar with that military desig-" she started.

"I would be concerned if you were, Major. As it is, nothing that is said here will leave this room." Donner glanced at the Colonel besides him, making a gesture as if to allow her leeway to interject.

"I am not a ... qualified individual for the explanation of the events that brought my soldiers and I here," she said, her voice much harsher than anyone had expected with a terrible guttural quality to it, as if she were trying to force a translation out of a mouth not used to speaking English. "We arrived here a Terran month ago from a time not yours. I have been ordered to cooperate with you. We will embed with your military and help secure the outer colonies and end threats to the Heartland."

"Thank you, Colonel," Donner nodded. "Your new orders have been distributed to you. Missions will be commencing immediately. Those marked as part of First and Second Companies will remain here. The rest of you report to your barracks for further assignments. Dismissed."

Riley instinctively checked her omni-tool's notifications; a listing for her position came up - Second Company, Third Unit.

At least she would have an opportunity to get answers to the myriad questions bouncing around in her head at some point.

Close to thirty Alliance soldiers were left in the room after the rest had filed out. Admiral Donner gestured for the men and women to gather around the hologram, and he started zooming into a system on the lower trailing arm of the galaxy. The map came to a rest over a representation of a reddish world.

"This is the Batarian planet of Aratoht. The Alliance considered colonizing it at one point but the surface isn't very hospitable. It is of interest again because Navy Intelligence has discovered the existence of one of their deep cover operatives had their cover blown. The prison facility here is the current location of the operative. Command has tasked us with a retrieval mission, if possible," he said, pointing to a location on the northern pole of the planet. "Elements from First and Second companies will make planetfall for the recovery. The rest will remain on standby."

"Who's our mobile command, sir?" an officer asked.

"The SSV Ain Jalut will be waiting on standby in orbit around the Utopia Relay. Once we reach the Exodus Cluster we will rendezvous with it and commence the mission. Any other questions?"

"Sir, I couldn't help but notice that this system is pretty clearly in Batarian space ..." the same officer commented.

Colonel Destura sniffed at the implied inquiry. "We have in place communication countermeasures to isolate the mission system. It will not be a problem."

"Anything else?" Donner asked, rather rhetorically as he dared anyone to come up with another question. "Report to the armory to obtain your new gear. The transport shuttles leave in three hours."

The soldiers started leaving the room, speaking to one another in hushed tones. No doubt they had not expected this, after being informed that the very reason they had been on Luna was being done away with. Donner nodded to the Colonel as she too strode out of the room to return to her vessel. The Admiral waited until only he was left in the room, before turning back to the map, where a communications indicator flashed repeatedly. He tapped at the control console and opened the comm line.

"Rear Admiral. I assume everything is moving along?" asked the voice of Admiral Steven Hackett.

"The first units have been debriefed, Admiral. They're leaving at fifteen-thirty hours." Donner paused, contemplating whether to keep going with his current line of thought. "Sir, we both know the implications of this attack. Whether or not what your agent found anything notwithstanding, this is just a major diplomatic incident waiting to happen."

Hackett sighed. "I'd hoped to keep Alliance activities in the Viper system quiet, but a can of worms was opened up the moment Captain Jaye of the Twenty-Fifth started asking around. Now, the Parliament wants to send some sort of message to the Batarians. The intelligence at stake is just a convenient excuse."

"I can't fault them for that, sir," Donner replied as he shrugged. "But even I can predict what the Council's response would be. We're barely on it as it is, and it took the Citadel nearly being destroyed for us to get a seat. The other species would turn on us fully."

"I can't ignore what my agent found. This is bigger than interspecies diplomacy, Gavin. You know that. I know that. The bullshit the Council wants to feed to themselves and to others has to be dispelled at some point. This might be that point. If she's found something of extreme importance, then we need to get our hands on it and bring it to the Citadel."

Donner nodded, understanding but not necessarily agreeing. "Alright. Was there something else, sir?"

There was no communication for nearly half a minute. Donner was about to ask again when Hackett responded.

"Keep an eye on the elements from the Twenty-Fifth. They've got their own agenda, one that doesn't necessarily align with the interests of the Alliance. Don't do anything overt, of course, just keep me appraised of the missions as they unfold. Hackett out."

Donner chewed his lip, staring at the Galaxy map for some time longer. From what he'd seen of their ships - the ones that had arrived in the Sol system, at least - he wasn't relishing any sort of watchdog duty.

He'd have to cross that bridge if he got to it. He fervently hoped he never did.