Logan stepped through the door with his rifle at the ready and felt Amanda follow suit, both of them covering everything in the room within a second. There was a very long thin corridor, and at the far end of the room was a small figure laying slumped along the floor.

The deep thud shook the tower with enough force to shatter the remaining glass. One of the Wardancers on guard peering through the scope of the Kallum rifle said "Get Krg, it is time"
"Are you sure?" Frgr asked him as the two other able bodied warriors began securing Krg to the table with lengths of cable torn out of the walls. Another thud shook the earth and a plume of smoke and dust rose in the distance, "I'm sure".

As the Teranova gave the signal and rose from the planet the Crbrs rose out of subspace, brutally punching its way into the universe trailing fire. The moment it was fully inside the universe squadrons of triple winged fighters launched, firing upon the orbital defences as the Crbrs dove towards the planet, roaring into the atmosphere as the Terranova broke the clouds with dozens of anti air missiles in pursuit. And instant later more missiles emerged from the clouds as the first group found their target.
No explosion?
"Mass packets, ram them!" Subcommander Erf called over the roar of reentry. If too many mass packets hit the Terranova she'd be to heavy to manuver, or worse too heavy to escape. The Crbrs pitched violently as the collective impact of the mass packets struck like a gigantic hammer, "Armor?!" He called above the alarms, "Holding!"
"Take us back up, signal the clawships to move in, but remind them to only commandeer the defences, nothing else until the Terranova is gone."

"Garrus... I have heard of your decision, and I understand I over reacted... But think this over, I can recall my order.

"The sensor probe is in place sir."
The sealing showing many details and reports about the planet disappeared and zoomed out to a galactic view before zooming in again to the planet he had diverted the attention from.
"Engaged in a fight, this was supposed to be a covert mission, everything is going down the shitter. Estimated time to reach them?" Jeodan though and a counter appeared showing 0500. "Then we deal things planet side, arrange a shuttle."

Upon arriving on the planets surface Jeodan realized he was still in contact with the ship. Although he could feel the signal was delayed.

Jeodan immediately went out to search the local diplomat; Deathsquad was his last name, just like Jeodan's, although it was a subject on his agenda there were many pressing matters to attend.

You could not see it standing right in front of the building but the entire structure like all other diplomat houses were made in a honey-cone structure. Six words but half of them were repeated words in an ancient dialect, not much is known about the language except loose words that seemed to show up on gigantic stones on Curusant, the Cy'Tans lost homeworld. Even there the stones stood in the same shape but many thousands of miles apart. He just remembered this and cursed at himself for not asking the people that had saved him what it all meant. His mind only strayed once from what was said and that was the battle. All though but military slipped his mind like magic the very instant he saw Kallum ships. On top of that the presence of the female still always seemed to be near and far at the same time.

Upon entering the building he was immediately met by two Cybrs. "For attacking a soldier Wartefu is being taken to be penalized."
"I would like to point out article 62 subparagraph 3 that says diplomats are immune from all prosecution and that it falls onto the opposing government to lift the status before the person can be prosecuted."

"Subparagraph 5 says that this only implies for civilian installations."
"When everyone is something, no one is."
"Your point is unclear."
"Everyone is a soldier fighting for his people. And when everyone is, no one is as well. It loses all it's value."
"The person is classified as 'Military'."

It didn

"The reports are in, gentlemen. It is time." Garrus said on board the private shuttle, preparing to land on the surface of one of the moons of Nordok Prime. "We're outnumbered, outgunned but we've got something they don't. We've got friends and lots of them, I've sent messages to the Alliance. With any luck the Allaince will start backing us either directly, or indirectly. Lets get to it." He said as the shuttle landed, jolting them from the uneven ground.

All around him, Garrus saw Talus soldiers and citizens grabbing ammunition, grenades and equiptment as they headed off of the shuttle. Three other shuttles landed around them, dipositing soldiers of what Garrus called 'The Talus Republic'. He saw many familiar faces amongst the crowd, as they headed off in different directions, all heading up and over the ridge before them.

Garrus finaly reached the top of the ridge, his rifle slung at his side. He looked down at the valley, the system's star just coming over the horizon, filling it with bright light. The small outpost was just waking up, a few early risers were walking around, but most were still inside. He smiled, his timing could not have been more perfect.

As he smiled, he glanced to the east of the camp, and from the fringe of the forest there he saw shapes emerge. Gun fire erupted from the tree line, pulses of energy blasting apart the short walls of teh outpost. Watch towers turned into clouds of dust as rifles peppered them. A small rocket soared off of the ridge to his left, striking one of the three tanks in the motor pool. He smiled once again and ran down the ridge after the others.

Colonel Lee Waterfield was the deputy chief medical officer aboard the Unification. Whenever Doctor Bridgetown was off on assignment, it was Doctor Waterfield's job to take his place. It was always a stressful experience for Doctor Waterfield, and he was always left in awe when considering the ease with which Doctor Bridgetown managed all the chaos aboard the massive carrier.

Doctor Waterfield was monitoring Ward One of the primary sickbay. The ward, one of five in the primary sickbay and one of many across the ship, was enormous, well-equipped, and well-staffed. With two hundred intensive-care beds, twenty military-grade cellular reconstruction units, thirty advanced operating tables, and seven hundred fifty general-care beds, the ward could handle the entire spectrum of injuries. With an efficient, well-trained staff supplemented by top-of-the-line medical and robotic technology, the ward could process combat casualties and return them to battle stations in minutes if need be.

The wide sliding door to the ward slid open, revealing Doctor Bridgetown, the chief medical officer, and Doctor Grimnar, his favorite intern, wheeling a stretcher in. Doctor Waterfield immediately recognized the person on the stretcher as the figure that Doctor Bridgetown's strike operation was scheduled to retrieve: the boy Robert Grimnar.

"He's stable," Doctor Bridgetown told Doctor Waterfield as the two of them, along with Doctor Grimnar, transferred Robert from the stretcher to an intensive-care bed, "but something seems to be possessing him. I don't know how his life signs are going to play out, but I want to be prepared for the worst."

"Can't you neutralize the thing possessing him?" Doctor Waterfield asked.

"Amanda and I are trying," Doctor Bridgetown replied, beginning a routine life-signs scan, "but we have yet to establish a solid attack vector." He stopped suddenly. "Hey, that's interesting..."

"What is it?" Doctor Waterfield asked.

Before James could reply, the ship shook as another salvo of Kallum weapons fire slammed into the vessel. The lighting in the ward changed from bluish-white to yellow, indicating that the Unification's shields were down.

"Casualty reports coming in from the starboard hangar bays," a doctor announced.

"Go deal with the incoming wounded," Doctor Bridgetown told Doctor Waterfield. "I need to watch over Robert."

"Done and done, sir," Doctor Waterfield responded, moving to coordinate a small wave of stretchers that had just arrived at the ward's front door.

"Reports are just coming in, but we believe that a militant group has assaulted an Imperial outpost on Ios, the second moon of Nordok Prime." A Talus news broadcaster said as various news stations to spread the information interrupted programs. "Wait! WE have just gotten a more in-depth report... It appears that a group of our soldiers, under command of Garrus Valkarian, have stormed a military outpost on Ios and have taken control of the missile launch computers there. The purpose of this attack is unknown, but we are sure to find out. This is a few second clip we have received, from our satellite, of one of the base's cameras during the attack."

The broadcaster instantly got up and went to one of the consoles, as the rest of his viewers watched the clip begin.

It was sunny out, the camera was watching the tree line, a few soldiers were walking along and birds could be heard tweeting away. Then a series of pops could be heard, followed by much louder pops as pulse rifle energy rounds impacted. The trio of soldiers that could be seen, all fell immediately and screams could be heard from behind the camera. A line of Talus soldiers rushed out of the tree line, seeming to materialize out of the air. The camera went black and then switched to another, this was a side view of what happened and they could see a small explosion as the first camera was hit.

From this view they could see a larger line of advancing soldiers out of the tree line, exchanging heavy fire with a smaller group in the middle. Within three or four seconds, it went from two groups firing on each other rapidly, to a beaten line of advancing soldiers and a grouping of bodies. A rocket could be seen streaking in, exploding off of the screen, then a soldier walked up to the camera. He aimed and you could see his finger twitch and a flash of blue from his barrel, then it went black.

While that clip was airing, Garrus was standing in a camera room, looking through the monitors at the base, many barracks's held prisoners that had given up during the short struggle, which had lasted only four minutes after the initial attack. He shook his head, knowing this was only the first of many bloody struggles that would come in the years ahead. He turned and walked down the underground hallway to another room with larger monitors. These showed the planet of Nordok Prime, which held a population of nearly forty million Talus citizens, not to mention the tens of thousands of soldiers stationed here as a jump point against the Kallum.

"Record a message to be delivered to Admiral Septimus on Nordok Prime." Garrus ordered a soldier. "Its time to bring this out into the open... also... arm the missiles."

The Louis and Clark  was a small 60 man long range scouting vessel. It

"This is Admiral Valence, who is this?"

"This is Garrus Valkarian. Before you get all nasty, put me on a line with your boss. Immediately." Garrus said into the radio.

"Septimus isn't here, I'm his replacement." The man spoke with a thick Talus accent. "What the HELL are you doing?!"

"That

The exterior of the Unification was a flurry of railgun and laser fire. Thousands of alien boarding craft weaved their way through the field of fire, escorted by Kallum fighters and pursued by Alliance interceptor craft.

Specialist Jonathan Walsh was a fighter pilot stationed aboard the Unification, flying one of twelve thousand single-seater Tiger Mark Six fighters. Inside the cramped cockpit, he had access to sophisticated flight control computers and a holographic heads-up display meshed with an advanced control yoke that allowed him to maneuver the craft and dodge incoming weapons fire with ease. At a glance, he was able to ascertain the health of the craft's twin contra-terrene engines and advanced shield generator. With a single touch, he could switch the targeting systems between the onboard quad particle beam cannons, capable of rotating up to thirty degrees off the flight axis, and any of eight different external pylons capable of holding missiles, torpedoes, bombs, sensor packages, mines, doomsday devices, or anything else that the eggheads at Military Research could come up with.

He kept his gaze on a Kallum landing craft as it rocketed closer to the Unification's hull, the onboard computers rotating the onboard cannons to compensate. He pulled the trigger on his control yoke, releasing a salvo of particle-beam shots that landed squarely on the enemy craft's hull. Splashes of blue energy ricocheted off the Kallum craft, which seemed to be undamaged - not even scratches manifested themselves.

He pulled up sharply just in time to avoid a salvo of plasma shots from a Kallum fighter that was tailing him. He performed a barrel roll, then turned sharply back again for another attack run.

Another salvo of particle-beam shots had just as little effect. He quickly changed targeting modes, arming an anti-frigate missile, while keeping his gaze on the enemy landing craft.

As soon as he heard the sound which told him the missile was locked on to his target, he fired. The missile separated from its pylon with a small explosive charge, then streaked forward.

Seconds later, the missile exploded on the landing craft's hull, ripping a hole in its armor, as it deployed landing clamps and latched on to the Unification's hull like a parasite.

"They are attaching to the hull," a bridge officer reported.

"Acknowledged," Samantha replied. "All marines and combat drones to battle stations!" She took the time to remind herself that the intruders would have to burrow through half a kilometer of solid notum-reinforced metal - no easy task.

"Incoming contact," another officer called out. "It's the Salvation. They are hailing us."

Carl answered the hail. "About time, Julius."

On the other end, aboard the Salvation's main bridge, Julius nodded. "About time indeed. Give me a minute."

Seconds later, with the aid of the Aeon warship's fleet hyperdrive, Battlegroups Alpha and Charlie, along with its fighter and bomber escort, were instantaneously in orbit around Blacken. No trace of the Kallum or any other enemies remained.

"Things have become more complicated at home," Julius warned. "While you were away, the Talus Empire split off from the rest of the Alliance. We suspect Kallum subversion. Garrus Valkarian is organizing an Alliance-backed resistance group styling themselves the Talus Republic, and they've just launched a strike on the Talus planet Nordok. Additionally, we've lost contact with the border worlds of Redwall and Granite, both of which are on the opposite side from the Kallum border, but point directly to where the Kyrozch were last seen."

Carl nodded. "I'll come down to the surface to see what can be done about the Talus issue. James is tending to Robert Grimnar. I'm sure Logan and Fleet Command will be able to figure out what to do about the Kyrozch."

"Very well," Julius said. "Just try not to get yourself in too much trouble again. And don't use the Unification for travel into danger zones until its hyperdrive is fixed. You nearly fried mine - that thing's massive."

"Sorry about that," Carl responded. "I'll keep that in mind."

Jeodan and Ward sat in a large 6-tangular room next to eachother on a round desk. It was very sober as were most homes and buildings of the Cy'Tan, they like to use their heads to see their perfect home whitout needing it.
The desk was cluttered with reports of the humanoids and they were discussing strategies on how to deal with the various problems they faced when Ward pulled out one that was special to Jeodan.

"Is that one about Talus?" Jeodan asked.
"Yes it is, I wonder what it's doing with the alliance reports." Ward replied.
"Could youy pass it over?"
"It's not a priorety. There are other things to be discussed first."
"He is a personal friend."
"Fine." Ward said as he handed the piece of paper over to Jeodan.

Although it might come as a shock to people he would kill his own people Jeodan was not dazed. He knew Garrus would do anything to preserve his species, and go to far lengts to ensure they did. Jeodan got up and walked to the door when Ward grabbed hold of his arm.
"Where do you think you are going? There is still a lot to be done, we haven't even gotten to the Scion." Ward said confused.
"I've spread the message and everybody is free to go their on their own accord. A few sientist have already left with a few hundred other people. They should signal back if they find anything we could use. Tell the humans to jump my ship and the ships surrounding mine to Nordok Prime when I get back into space." Jeodan replied in a light harted voice.
"But..."

Jeodan janked his arm out of Wards hand and then went on his way. Within the fifteen minutes he had arrived near Nordok prime and waited.