"I hate space travel." Richard Dawson was awoken from his daydreaming by his friend's random comment. "What the hell are you talking about Blake?" His friend stared at him for a second as if he hadn't expected a reply. "Nothing, it's just not natural, don't you think it's kinda dumb that we are flying around in space?" Richard really sometimes wondered whether his friend was all there. "Blake just shut up." "I'm serious Dawson I-" "Blake I'm serious too, shut up. For shit's sake of all the shit we've seen SRPA do you think space flight would be the least of your concerns. Focus man you always start acting weird once we are about to go on a mission." Blake almost looked genuinely hurt by his friend's accusations "Well what else do you want me to do?" "Um, I don't know how about check all your damn gear so you don't get yourself killed?" Blake retorted, "Man you know nothing ever happens on these things. We haven't seen any aliens since the Chimera like fifty damn years ago!" Richard got up from his bunk and opened his black ops armor pod "Yeah all the more reason that this time we might. Besides it's better than being stuck at base doing drills all day. Now hurry up and get in your armor so we aren't scrambling at the last second."

Blake shook his head at his childhood friend but didn't reply before following his example. He had to admit however that Richard was right about one thing, SPRA really knew how to make some badass gear. He had grown up in the 1960's back when the Earth was still shit after the Chimera . Now some fifty years and a lot of new toys later he would love to see those ugly bastards faces when they Humanity now. He supposed he would have to settle for whatever random alien bastards they found out here. After all SPRA may be many things but they aren't dumb. They will probably eventually find someone else using the mass relays. "Oh that's another dumb idea, using mass relays. That's just like shouting out in a forest telling whoever is out there to come eat your ass." Richard looked back at his friend, "...You know, you may be right about that one." However before Blake could claim victory their headsets squawked, " Blake, Richard get your asses to the assembly bay we are going to be exiting FTL in a couple minutes."

"Shit see what you do Blake! Hurry up we are going to be late again." Blake stared dumbly at Richard wondering what he did wrong before he snapped out of it and began suiting up. The duo dashed out of their bunk room and ran down the pristine corridors of the warship. They were relieved when they saw several of their fellow soldiers doing them same. "See Rich, we at the only screw up's on this boat." "The sergeants not going to care when he screws us all back at base, hurry up!" Another black armored soldier ran up next to the two "Oi! You two arseholes better pick your damn feet up! No way I'm going to get screwed back at base 'cause you two are a bunch of maries who can't do shit right!" "Eh! Screw you Sheldon, you British bastard!" Sheldon laughed it off "What is that all you got? Oh well so much for American ingenuity aye? Well I'm off you two are moving like o' bunch of prancing nannies!" The two shared a look, although their faces were both fully armored and not visible both knew what the other thought. "Sheldon's a real dick man." Blake now panting laughed before agreeing, "Yeah but he is funny as shit, hurry we are almost there."

The two entered the cavernous assembly room. Something humanity had kept from the chimera besides their technology was the sleek but dark aesthetics of chimeran architecture. Add to that the fact that chimeran metal itself was naturally dark and it was hard to distinguish from human tech and chimeran. As Blake and Richard fell into line with the rest of the platoon, the lieutenant stepped into the assembly room. The Sergeant First Class quickly called the platoon to attention. The lieutenant quickly put the platoon at ease before starting the briefing. "Men, as you know we are heading to a new relay to scout for possible activation. This is standard protocol we will let the egg heads do their jobs and we hopefully won't have any problems. Am I clear?" A chorus of affirmatives echoed through the chamber in response. "Good assume assigned boarding action stations and we will be out of before chow time."

"Man what a waste of time, we could have been told that trough the uplinks." Blake complained feeling robbed of his precious time. The two now had to walk all the way on the other side of the three hundred meter ship and take up positions with their squad at a boarding craft. As soon as they arrived the ship's captain announced that the small task forces was leaving FTL. "Hey maybe we will get lucky and something interesting happens." Blake said somewhat enthusiastically. "I doubt it." Richard deadpanned, "Yeah your probably right, but damn I wanna kill some damn aliens already." Sheldon replied, "You and me both, that's why I signed up for this shit. SRPA hyped up all the damn talk about mass relays like we were on the verge of fighting some damn war and I fell for that shit." Before more bitching could occur however the ship's intercom began transmitting, "Now hear this, now hear this all hands to battle stations, unknown contacts have been spotted this is not a drill." As navy personnel began running to and fro all Richard said was, "Well Blake looks like you got your action!" Blake beamed before Agreeing, "Hell ya!"

Sorry about the length, the next chapters will be longer and have more content. I just wanted you all to be familiar with the setting and character. Next chapters are goin to have more POV's from the Citadel races on how they deal with the situation.