HNS Spirit of Duty, Suen, 2945 PSC (Palaven Standard Calendar)

"Hostile dreadnought is firing!" a flanging Turian voice shouted out. True to his words, a flash on the far side of the battlefield appeared, and in an instant, a Turian frigate not far from the Spirit of Duty was utterly pulverized

"Helmsman! Get us out of its gun sight, NOW!" another Turian commanded. The helmsman complied and brought the ship away from the dreadnought's sight, and behind the carcass of an ancient ship "Status report!"

"Shields are at 67 percent, Proxy Lasers are recharging. Main gun is still overheated." A Turian said, reading through his screen.

The Turian captain may have seemed calm at the moment, but inside, his mind was racing everywhere. The fleet he and his ship was assigned to was decimated. One of the Turian Dreadnoughts, Righteous Fury was crippled, with its main gun disabled, and out of the 87 ships they started with, only 26 remained.

"Bring us to the side, we need to avoid further confrontation. Arterius is calling for a regroup" the captain ordered

The helmsman uttered his agreement and drove the ship away from the thick of the battle. As the Cruiser began its flight, a group of enemy frigates began pursuit of his ship.

"Spirits damned Krogan!"

The captain called for evasive maneuvers, and immediately could feel the ship violently turn to the right, avoiding several shots from the frigate pack that was in pursuit.

"Sir, announcement from Admiral Arterius, patching it through" the communications officer said

"This is Admiral Arterius making a fleet wide announcement" A voice came through the ship's intercom "All ships are to make a tactical withdrawal from the battlefield. All ships are to regroup at these coordinates, and then we'll head to the Mass Relay together." At that command, the Turian captain ordered the helmsman to lose the pursuers, then regroup with the rest of the fleet

Weaving through the ancient debris field, the Spirit of Duty began to gain distance from the frigate pack.

'One of the perks of having faster ships' the captain thought to himself.

As the cruiser finally got away from its pursuers, the captain ordered for the helmsman to head towards the coordinates where they would regroup with the fleet. It took a few minutes for them to reach it.

"This is Captain Sparatus of the HNS Spirit of Duty, reporting in." he said through the communicator.

"Glad you could reach us in time Sparatus." Admiral Arterius said "That's all surviving forces accounted for, begin FTL jump to the relay. We'll take it out of the cluster, do several FTL jumps to confuse any possible pursuers, then we will head back to Palaven." There was a short pause, lasting several seconds, the Admiral then spoke again "Don't lose hope now. We may have lost this battle, but the war is far from over"

-000-

Cipritine ,Palaven, Trebia System, Several days later

Primarch Fedorian was not a very happy Turian at the moment, the Hierarchy just lost a lot of good soldiers, some of which he had served with. Sighing, Fedorian stood up and walked over to the window. He was afraid to admit it, but the Hierarchy, and by extent the Turians, were losing the war. They weren't as advanced as the Asari, as covert as the Salarians, and neither did they regenerate as fast as the Krogan. The only real advantage they had, was the disciplined Turian spirit, which helped them stay calm, and bring about superior strategies which can, and have, turned the tides of battle.

'It's still not enough' He thought to himself. Despite everything that the Hierarchy is doing, they're merely delaying the Council.

Returning to his desk, Fedorian looked over several operations that required his approval. While he had dismissed most of them, as he could not allocate enough resources without hindering the war effort, he had saved some that had caught his attention. One of the stealth patrols had discovered that a contingent from the Batarian fleet was being mobilized, out of Torfan, towards the Exodus Cluster.

'But there's nothing there, we've already went through the system' Fedorian thought to himself 'unless…'

Immediately, Fedorian brought up reports from the older scout reports, looking up where the relay in the cluster leads. He found out that there had been energy readings, consistent with nuclear energy from one of the neighboring systems.

'The only ones who use nuclear energy at that scale are the Krogan, and that's only when they're blowing stuff up. According to the report, the energy is consistent with a nuclear reactor. A large one at that'

Fedorian read the reports further. The scouts were ordered to get out of the system and regroup above Taetrus, with the rest of the 5th Fleet. Apparently first contact with the Council, and the war that it brought along caused all deep space scouting to be called off.

'A new race is inhabiting that system, unfortunate that we made contact with the council first. If the Batarians sent a fleet towards their general direction, and not us, that should mean that this new race is big enough a threat to the Batarians, that they had to pull resources from hitting us to take care of them.' Fedorian reasoned. 'If we can get this new race to support us, we could get some additional support. But considering this is a young race, it's unlikely this would change anything.'

He opened his computer and authorized the 23rd scout flotilla to be dispatched to get to the system before the Batarian contingent. Hopefully this new species would prove to be friendly

'Maybe this is that break we've been waiting for'

-000-

SSV Black Typhoon, Over Eden Prime, 2192AD

Eden Prime was a quite a large colony for its kind, only being colonized twenty six years ago, it has already grown to have over half a billion citizens living in it. Captain Steven Hackett looked over the planet from the observation window on the ship's bridge. The Black Typhoon and her battlegroup was being stationed in the Utopia system after Alliance intelligence discovered that a sizeable group of Batarian ships is making their way towards Alliance space. Unwilling to risk the colony, especially after the Batarians had overrun Shanxi a year ago. First contact with the Batarians had realized the fears that was held by many humans, hostile aliens, and right at their doorsteps. Because of that fateful day six years ago, humanity is now at war in a stellar scale. Funny how it took the threat of slavery and the destruction of all they held dear to finally push humanity to unify themselves.

Looking away from the window and walked over to the tactical map. At the moment, there was only 19 ships protecting the colony, while the 9th fleet would come and reinforce them soon. A small garrison for sure. But with the Batarians running lightning raids on the border colonies, 29 may as well have been a blessing.

"Sir! Energy spike coming from the Relay, somethings coming through!" the ship's sensor officer, Pressley, reported

"Is it the 9th fleet?"

"No sir, the 9th fleet isn't scheduled for arrival until the next two days"

Understanding what this really meant, he called for a communication line to the rest of the ships in the system. When the communications officer confirmed that he was connected, he began to speak

"To all ships, this Captain Hackett, the Relay is becoming active. We're not exactly sure what's coming out of it, but if it tries to kill us, we'll be damn sure to return the favor" Hackett looked to the tactical map, there was still a dozen or so seconds before the contacts came out of the Relay. "I want all ships to prime weapons and position yourselves to be aiming directly at the Relay. Be ready to shoot at anything that moves, but do not fire unless I say so"

As the countdown reached zero, fourty seven ships exited the Relay. Just as Hackett was give the order to fire, Pressley shouted out

"Sir, sensors read that they aren't Batarian!"

Hackett's eyes widened "Are they alien?"

"Uh, yes sir. They don't match any known human designs"

"Another alien race out for our blood, or are they here to play nice? Send out first contact package! Those politicians back home should be glad to know that this thing's finally being used"

A few minutes passed after the package was sent. The aliens were holding in formation, not moving an inch after it was evident that Hackett and the rest of his ships wouldn't hesitate to fire. The Alliance was also holding their ground, the Gunnery Chief anxious, with her finger close to the trigger. Each Alliance ship was targeting a different ship, making sure that they could dish out as much damage to most of the enemy ships.

"Sir, incoming transmission from one of the alien ships. It's a data package, and a video"

A flanging voice was then heard over the intercom, speaking broken English.

"Is Lieutenant Commander Quentius Trevanian. Turian Hierarchy, Batarians come. Here to help"

-000-

A/N

Thank you for reading my fanfiction! I'm glad you decided to stop by and give this story a chance. So, there are some things to expect from this story going further. First: Updates will be irregular, my schedule is a mess and i'm still trying to work out proper schedules for everything. Second: this is the first fanfiction that i'm actually uploading. i did one on Fallout a while back but i couldn't finish it due to my laptop breaking, so bear with me if my writing style isn't very well, i'll try to improve. Third: some things may be changed from the actual ME canon to fit the story. For example, while Palaven in canon is directly connected to the Citadel via Mass Relay, in here, Palaven and the rest of the cluster it's in is located where the Argos Rho cluster (the place with Pinnacle Station) is located in canon. The Protheans and the Reapers will appear, but there will be more on that later. Anyways, thanks for reading, please put your thoughts and suggestions into a review and hopefully i can upload the next chapter pretty soon.