Garrus drummed his long, slender fingers on the chair's arm. It was leaned nearly 45 degrees backwards, as he casually smoked a cigar. It was a habit he had grown into quite heavily, over the few years since he had stumbled onto Blacken. He blew a lazy ring of smoke towards teh ceiling, then tilted the cahir forward to its normal position and glanced down at his desk. He had begun writing a letter to Carl Reddington, before he found his cigar, and decidded he might as well finish it.

"Carl,

Its been a while, my friend. Undoubtedly, the UEF is keeping close tabs on whats going on out here, so you probably already know that Gerudo was over run. And that Kallum military units have begun reinforcing the Imperial Navy. And if you didn't, well, now you do. Anyway, there is a real point to me writing you; I'm taking stock.

I know a lot has happened over the last year or so, between the Talus and Humanity. Between the embassy battle, Morna's 'execution' and the ensuing clusterfuck of political shenanigans, I'd say the Talus are largely to blame for our current situation. I know I don't need to explain it to you, hell you were _there_ for it all. I guess I'm just looking for a sense of closure. Or at least recognition that mistakes were made, and now its time to own up and pay for them.

But I do have a small request, which by all rights you should decline mercilessly, to ask of you: I need to speak with Robert Grimnar. He's the missing piece in this whole puzzle. I hope. And I need to do so without it becoming common knowledge that a meeting took place. Obviously, he can't come here. Thankfully, the Republic Navy has the necessary assets to allow me to travel to and from Blacken completely incognito, and the Republic Army can make sure that suspicious eyes are looking elsewhere, just to be safe. What I need is to be able to stay in-system or planet side, for a few days maximum, without attracting attention.

I know this letter is rather helter skelter, but such is the way of my mind these days. I do hope that we can come to fruition on one of the two things I've asked of you here, if not both.

Give my regards to Alexandra and her flawless cooking,

/s/
Garrus Valkarian

"Dad, what the hell happened?" James asked Administrator Julius Bridgetown as the two of them stepped out of a teleportation booth.

"I don't know, I haven't been down here yet," Julius replied. "I heard from Colonel Waterfield that they were picking up anomalous energy readings, and then a great big something appeared near Robert..."

The interior of the Unification in the sector they were in was composed of wide, spacious, well-lit corridors large enough to permit small vehicles to transit. As James and Julius approached the entrance to the main sickbay, they saw medical staff fleeing in the opposite direction, panicked looks on their faces. The two men exchanged significant looks; whatever awaited them on the other side of the active energy inhibitor field now encasing the sickbay region was most likely fairly unpleasant.

After another minute, they arrived in front of the main entrance. James approached it, his staff at the ready, and braced himself as the door slid open.

A mass of light-consuming something surged forth from the door, melting through the inhibitor field like a hot poker through butter, as James glowed brightly and turned into a mass of pure light that sought to envelop the blackness. But the blackness was too devious; it slithered out of the way as the light aggressively spread wings, trying to contain the dark force that was manifest.

The blackness suddenly collapsed in on itself, the void within itself intensifying; it was trying to absorb James whole, but James was too strong, the light flashed brightly in defiance as lightning assaulted the darkness from all sides, but the darkness was clever, flowing away from the lightning and behind the light - how could there be a "behind" something that had no form!? - and now the darkness was on the offensive, trapping the light from everywhere, sealing it in like an amoeba consuming its prey -

spikes of light tore through the darkness and the light that was James burst through the black cocoon like an avenging hailstorm of daggers, and the servant of the Star-gods, finally wounded, seemed to retreat -

James took advantage of the celestial servant's momentary hesitation and plowed at its dark form, claws like an eagle's talons slashing furiously, pressing the attack without delay, then plunged headfirst in a final calculated attack.

The darkness shattered with a scream as the celestial servant dissipated, life-energy spent, and was gone.

The light coalesced into James's familiar human form; he looked very disoriented, dizzy, and exhausted. Before Julius could do anything though, a voice called, "James!"

James staggered around just in time to see Doctor Amanda Grimnar hurry to his side, a worried expression on her face, before he blacked out.

Cruising speed on the UES Nebula was incredible. Colonel Taylor Williams, the captain of this fast-attack ship, felt like a kid again, taking the ship for a lazy loop around the Blacken Prime spacedock. The crew had recently been cycled; the fine men and women with whom he'd served for the last two years had now been reassigned to other ships in the Fleet, and he knew that their talents would not be wasted. On the flip side, he now had to trust an entirely different bunch of people. At least he got to keep the ship.

"Sir, we're picking up anomalous readings from orbit around Blacken V," the new science officer informed him.

"Can you give me details?" Colonel Williams prompted.

"An unidentified spacecraft has just appeared in system. It looks like a freighter or construction ship of some sort. Hold on... it appears to be deploying something into planetary orbit."

"Sir, Fleet Command has ordered us to investigate," the communications officer informed him.

Colonel Williams nodded. "Take us into hyperspace. Drop us near those readings."

The crewman at the helm nodded and keyed in some commands; the ship lurched forward into a bluish-colored window and hurled forward through hyperspace, the planets and asteroids becoming white streaks of light as the ship flew past.

The ship shook suddenly as a hyperspace ripple slammed full-force into the starboard side of the fast-attack craft; a moment later, the ship tore out of hyperspace, spinning wildly.

"What the hell just happened?" Colonel Williams demanded.

"Something's inhibiting hyperspace in this region," the science officer informed him. "Sir, look - we have visual contact."

Colonel Williams looked at the viewscreen, which was projecting a highly magnified image of something not entirely alien, but not entirely familiar either - and, in any case, impressively large. "Holy... what is that thing?"

"He'll be fine," Colonel Waterfield, deputy chief medical officer of the UES Unification, informed Julius. "Doctor Grimnar's attending to him right now."

"Attending," Julius said, half-amused. "Interesting choice of words."

Colonel Waterfield gave Julius a half-knowing smile, then resumed his normal too-sober expression. "He should be able to return to duty soon. Is there anything else I can help you with?"

Julius shook his head. "Not at the moment. I think I should return to the colony. Many matters await me there. I trust James is in good hands?"

Colonel Waterfield nodded. "Of course. And we have General Reddington. Nothing can go wrong with that guy around."

The good Colonel had no way of knowing, of course, that the General would be paying him an unexpected visit very soon...

Somebody's been playing Mass Effect..

"This... can't be happening..." Garrus turned around. He had only heard that statement uttered a few times, and usually, he found, he wished that what ever was happening, wasn't.

"Lieutenant Keshav, would you care to elaborate on that?" Garrus said dryly.

"Sir... we have an inbound Kallum Cruiser. And its hailing us, on standard frequencies." Garrus stopped. The Kallum didn't hail any one.

"Well this ought to be interesting. Bring the fleet to battle stations. Alert the rest of the system, just to be safe. Start running full system scans too, alert ground posts to watch for anything on their end. If something cloaked slips past us, they're gonna have to be ready. Also, order all ships with cloaking to engage systems and move to surround the Kallum ship, well within firing range." The Bridge became a buzz of activity. "Also, use the rear cameras to make sure the courier has safely detached from us before kicking up the engines. I'll take the hail on my personal pad now." Garrus continued and tapped a series of commands. A circle appeared around the command chair, on the ground; a crack. The section of bulkhead then began to move downward, until Garrus's head was well below where the floor used to be. Then a metal blast door slid out from the ground and sealed Garrus in.

He sighed and tapped in a few preliminary commands, bringing up the fake background to make it look to his 'visitor' that he was on a Talisian Command Bridge. He did enjoy the new Captain's Bunker. Designed in the event that the Command Bridge would sustain a direct hit, or other catastrophic event, the Commanding or Executive Officer could survive, and have complete control over the Command Bridge's functions, thus maintaining the ship's ability to operate.

"Patching you through, Sir."

"Thank you, Commander Tavis. I'll be back up shortly."

"I'll be sure to hide the booze quickly, then." The ship's executive officer joked. Garrus half smiled, clicked a mandible and ended the communication, cleared his throat and tapped the 'accept' key on his interface. The familiar features of a Kallum appeared before him.

"What are you doing in my system?" Garrus demanded.

"Where are your manners? You should always greet a guest. I am Shadow, pleased to meet you." The Kallum said softly.

"Thats not your real name. But I'm Garrus Valkarian. Now... why are you here?"

"No. It is not. You are far wiser than expected, Garrus Valkarian. I have been sent here as a messenger, an act of good faith from my fellow... businessmen, who have shown interest in the plight of the Talisian Republic."

"And what might these business men want you to bring to the Talisian Republic." Garrus said, as he glanced over to see that two stealth ships were in firing ranges, with weapons ready, of the Kallum ship. Garrus relaxed slightly. "Of course, that is if you're allowed to speak to me about it."

"I am, in fact, allowed only to speak to you about it. We, my fellow businessmen and I, have a proposition for you..."

"Dropping out of hyperspace, Admiral."

As the blue streaks of hyperspace faded away, Logan quickly took stock of the situation. He had fifty ships of mixed composition: twenty fast-attack ships, fifteen cruisers of various configurations, ten battleships and light carriers, four heavy carriers, and the Unification.

The tactical display was reading an opposing task force of twenty cruiser-sized ships, one construction ship, and about forty ships of frigate class or smaller.

"Incoming hail from the lead ship, Admiral."

Logan nodded. "On screen."

The viewscreen now showed a human, a severe-looking man about forty years of age, clearly a veteran of whatever conflicts plagued his world. Logan stood up as the Caldari commander spoke.

"Wing Commander Kouyonen Etsanen of Home Guard." The Caldari commander spoke directly, without ceremony. "State your intentions."

"Fleet Admiral Logan Grimnar, Unified Terran Fleet," Logan responded in kind. "You're treading on our space, so I might ask the same of you."

Commander Etsanen smiled mirthlessly. "Your space? That's unfortunate. Kaalakiota Corporation has judged that it is, in fact, Caldari space now. You will disengage or face the consequences."

Logan raised an eyebrow. "Can't we talk it over?"

"We considered that option," Commander Etsanen replied coolly. "We decided that direct action was the only answer. For the last time," and here he regarded Logan with a pointed look, "you will disengage or face the consequences."

Logan narrowed his eyes. "Negative, Commander. You are the one who is trespassing, and it is you who will face consequences today." Logan motioned to one of his officers, who cut the link.

"Target the lead ship," Logan ordered. "Fleet, fire on my mark."

All around them, the Unification's weapon systems hummed to life.

"You know why you are all here," He said, taking a long swig from his cigarette, it was looking to be a long night. "those bastards open a rift between galaxies and a mountain of their problems are relieved, another goddamn war they can fight."
Twelve men sat on his left and twelve on his right, most agreed with him but a few were still hesitant, just a bit more and we can end this debatable once and for all, he thought.
"Near infinite energy but at a not so scalable level, we have might be better bigger but we /need/ that technology, we could quadrouple output right here right now if we had it, other stations would follow suit." He took another long huff and then put the bud out under his feet. "They wont give it to us so just grab it from them, because we can."

"The ship's not going to survive this onslaught without a miracle," Julius said quietly, as the distant thuds of Caldari railgun fire reverberated almost serenely through the ship.

"Your son's the miracle worker," Colonel Waterfield replied. "Is it a coincidence he's out of commission right now?"

"Who knows?" Julius remarked sadly. "All I know is that he's in no position to do anything, and our other miracle worker is barely alive." He nodded to the bed where Carl lay, unconscious, bearing no visible traces of the assassination attempt that had occurred less than an hour previously.

Screams echoed through the medical ward as the first combat casualties were wheeled in. Julius turned to look at one of them. He was supposed to have been battle-hardened by his time on the Aeon frontlines, but the robot warfare he was used to was sterile, not at all like the trenches, and he had to look away when he saw an unfortunate crewman from the engineering wing with an arm half-severed.

Colonel Waterfield sighed. "Here we go. Devotion to duty, right?"

He disappeared among the wave of blood-stained bodies that were now being rushed in to the main medical ward, casualties of the terror that was the Caldari railguns.

"Their shots are beginning to go wide."

General Samantha Clarke nodded approvingly. "The multispectral burst is working. How are those hyperdrives?"

Someone shook his head. "Negative, General. Something's still offering too much resistance. I can't get a lock on Blacken."

"Keep working on it," Samantha ordered. "Damage report!"

"Multiple armor punctures reported in the engineering section. We're taking casualties, General." Underneath the dutiful urgency Samantha thought she heard a trace of fear. They were all beginning to realize that the Unification was not invincible after all.

"Recall all fighters," Samantha ordered. "Increase electronic warfare amplitude. Additional power to the hyperdrive."

Tense moments passed as what was left of the fighter swarm filed neatly back into the Unification's many hangar bays. Lights flickered as the railgun pounding, now diminished in frequency, rocked the ship. A new force was causing the ship to shake now: the engineers were overloading the hyperdrive, a measure for true emergencies only. They would be able to get back to Blacken, but the spaceframe would sustain very heavy damage, endangering all those on board and requiring several weeks' worth of repair in the best of circumstances.

In the current state of things, Samantha was beginning to realize that the Unification would probably never fly again.

"I'm having trouble holding a target lock."

"Roger that, Golf. Alpha, remote sensor boost Golf please."

"On it."

"Negative, Fleet. I've lost lock... They're warping."

The Caldari fleet could only watch as the monstrous flagship, spewing plasma from several hull breaches like blood from open wounds, hurled at full speed toward the single temperate planet in the system.

From his pod, Wing Commander Etsanen made the call for the next move.

"Pursue. Raze the planet if need be. Their insolence and insubordination justify their destruction."

Garrus watched as the Kallum vessel winked out of existence as it jumped into hyperspace, heading back to its home. He tapped a button and the chair lifted, the ceiling opened, and soon he was back among his Command Crew. They all stared at him; a Kallum vessel had just entered the system, well within range of Talisian weaponry, and then left. All the while communicating with Garrus, who had not even done as much as ordered weapons locks to be brought on them. He sat up straighter, took a thin metallic case from his tunic's breast pocket and withdrew a single cigar. He pressed the end of the cigar onto a ring of his; something a friend had given him a long time ago, which then flash heated the cigar, causing the end to burn and smolder. He took a long, slow drag from the cigar before looking up to face his crew.

"As you know, the Kallum are splintered; we saw to that a few years ago. And, as you also know, the dozens of factions are constantly allying, fighting and sabotaging each other. There is one Kallum faction, near UEF space, that has decided that all Kallum factions wish to reunify the empire, under their ruler and no treaty or agreement will ever top that goal. So, in order to achieve that goal, they cannot use the aid of other factions, who will only stab them in the back, in order to take control. They want outside support, in exchange for the promise and insurance that any who support their rebuilding of the Kallum Empire will never again have to fight it." Garrus paused to take a few drags on the cigar, as his crew shifted nervously, a few uneasy officers absentmindedly rubbing their mandibles.

"So," Garrus continued, "I have signed a pact of economic, diplomatic, and militaristic aid with the Viranu Corporation, a wealthy and powerful, albeit small, Kallum faction. The treaty breaks down to this: We have the training, weaponry, and technology that they lack in order to bring about a military victory over their enemies, and we lack the merchant marine, consumer market and materials they control. So we're exchanging them. They will give us access to their trade routes, and are donating several dozen merchant freighters, as well as generous start-out aid packages of supplies, materials and currency. All they ask, in exchange, is that we bring this war with the Empire to a close. After that, we begin mainstream combat with Kallum forces." That last part brought a lot of smiles. The Talus had an inbred hate for the Kallum, a product of centuries of bloody and devastating war. Not to mention the fact that most Kallum vessels and weapons were old; they never spent much time on modernizing since they could just overrun an enemy with their sheer numbers. But now things were different, and the Kallum were scrambling to close the technological gap between their own weapons, and everyone else's.

"They also told us that they are ready and willing to move other Talus clans here." The whole room went deadly silent; until now, it was believed that clans in other parts of the Galaxy were either too far away to be reached, or had been chased down and destroyed like Garrus's. None of them believed it was possible that any could have survived. "They say that there is only one clan that kept its independence, and now lives within the Corporation's territory, and that many clans were captured and bred as slaves for the Empire. The Viranu Corporation has been purchasing these slaves for decades, as many as they can find, and giving them freedom and placing them within the clans already freed by them. They estimate that anywhere from thirty to fifty billion Talus currently live within the Corporation's territory." Garrus swallowed hard before continuing to speak to the blank, shocked faces before him.

"They promise to continue to purchase any and all slaves they find, but believe that they now own well over 90% of the Talisian Slave Trade in what used to be the Kallum Empire. Any Talus outside the Empire's sphere of influence are currently beyond the Corporation's reach."

"When do they arrive?" Someone asked quietly.

"Most of the ships are already on their way. They told me to expect the first to arrive within an hour." Just as the words hit the ears of his crew, a monitor blared behind them. A ship the size of six conventional freighters, a Viranu Industrial-Class Cargo Ship, slid into space, plasma flaring in its wake. Then another appeared beside it. And another beside that one. And another. Soon there were dozens of them, with hundreds of Kallum escort ships and thousands of smaller transports and supply ships.

"Well, ladies and gentlemen," The communications officer said as he read a message from the Kallum command ship, "We'd best get a whole lot of citizenship tests, cause from what they're saying... the first five billion Talus just arrived."

"How did you...?" Colonel Waterfield asked, climbing out from under a pile of rubble.

The main medical ward looked utterly chaotic; tools and supplies were scattered all over the floor, mixed with scraps of metal that had dislodged from the walls. Patients in varying states of distress, from those with moderate bleeding to those clearly beyond help, were being attended to by medics doing the best they could, but the efforts of the medical staff were being hampered by the obvious environmental factors: poor emergency lighting, disorganized supplies, and of course the terrible mess on the floor.

Slowly getting up from the ground, Julius replied, "I don't know either. They call me a miracle worker, but I most definltely did not order the Salvation to do so much as make me a cup of tea, much less perform an evac jump on a burning hulk that was once a fighter carrier. It's times like these when I start to think starships have minds of their own..."

"Well, they do," James commented, staggering in from where he had been held. "But sometimes they need a bit of... encouragement."

Julius raised an eyebrow at his son's remarks. "You did that?"

James shrugged. "Well, yeah."

Julius turned back to Colonel Waterfield, smiling. "Well, there you go. Not my fault this time."

James nodded. "Can I make a suggestion?"

"Yes?"

"Let's go and kick those stupid Caldari out of our system."

"With what?" Julius asked, though he already knew the answer.

"The Aeon fleet, of course, Salvation included."

"You're crazy," Julius said flatly.

"It'll take some pressure off the guys on the ground," James noted. "And besides, if the Caldari take Blacken, the Salvation won't be long for the world anyway."

"You can't just throw ships at a problem and expect it to go away," Julius pointed out. "So what if we do commit the Aeon fleet? That's what, ten ships? Against two hundred ships that clearly outmatch the UEF and Blacken fleets combined, even with the alien Kyrozch technology we've been exploiting?"

"Yes, but what you're forgetting," James countered, "is that we have the home advantage."

"A lot of help that's going to be," Julius replied with a hint of sarcasm, "seeing that space is mostly homogenous if you think about it."

"I'm talking about the fact that we have cloaking technology," James pointed out, "that allows us to fire while cloaked. I've had a look at some of the Caldari ships while I was asleep. They do not. Furthermore, they have absolutely no counters to such a technology, as their targeting systems are hard-wired to require a targeting lock."

Julius was inscrutable for a second, and then he smiled. "That's my boy. All right, then. Can you take the Falconer?"

James nodded. "I'll still need to be here to help the survivors, but I have my own special way of talking to starships."

"You never cease to amaze me, you know."

The situation could not be more grim, General Michael Camore reflected. Admiral Baines was dead, General Reddington was incapacitated, and with the apparent disappearance of the UES Unification, Admiral Grimnar was unaccounted for. And here he was, stuck on the ground with an incessant orbital bombardment due to begin anytime soon. He hadn't bargained for this, had he?

"Get the soldiers to the city outskirts in case the Caldari scum decide to try and land," he had ordered several minutes previously. "Draw power away from any non-essential structures and pour it into the city shields."

General Camore hoped to God that the shields would hold, because if they fell, then Blacken Prime was lost. The General knew exactly what it took to bulldoze Spacedock into a twisted heap of metal, and the Caldari had accomplished that without difficulty. The shields, of course, were rated to withstand a much higher damage output, but the Caldari had already shown that they were on an altogether different level when it came to that.

He just hoped there was some sort of a solution, because things were not looking good...

Carl was awake again, finally, under the protection of the Blacken defense shields, with a room to himself and time to contemplate Garrus's letter. He read it carefully. He needed to speak with Robert Grimnar.

In the back of his head, Carl knew the Unification was intact. He gradually felt around in his mind, looking for the connection to his ocular implant.

It was gone.

Carl was stunned. How did that happen? Did the medical staff...? No, it wasn't anything the medical staff had done. Carl knew now that the bullet that had almost claimed his life had been carrying a "killcode", a package of nanite-delivered software that rendered all of his neural implants inoperable.

It would take days, perhaps weeks, to find a solution. Carl was no stranger to killcodes, but he knew instinctively that the assassin would have been meticulous in his preparation, and purging his now-useless onboard computer system would not be an easy task.

Using an external military-grade hardened computer console in his room, he carefully scanned the implants in his body and quickly powered them off, on the off chance the killcode had taken over his implants for nefarious purposes. No one but trained medical staff could turn them back on now, but Carl was willing to pay that price. He was not going to leak any more intelligence about what Garrus wanted.

What had he been trying to do again? He remembered again: open a secure channel to the Unification. With the computer console in his room, he did so.

General Clarke answered. "Yes, General Reddington?" The voice was slightly distorted, and Carl could see over the video feed that the ship had taken major damage.

"Patch me through to Admiral Grimnar, please."

"Acknowledged." General Clarke's face faded, to be replaced by Logan's, which adopted a look of visible relief. "Carl! You're back with us."

"Barely," Carl replied with a hint of displeasure. "Damn assassin... Is your son safe?"

Logan glanced at another console, pressed a few buttons, turned back and nodded. "He's fine. Sickbay's a mess, though."

"Garrus needs to talk to him."

Logan nodded. "I figured it'd be something like that. Everyone wants to talk to him these days... Well, Garrus will have to find us then. We're holding in orbit around Blacken IV. I hope the damn Caldari don't figure out we're here..."

Carl nodded. "We'll give them hell down here."

Logan smiled. "Glad to hear it."

Garrus, my friend,

Times are uneasy here, and I'm sorry I haven't had the time to address your letter until now. Things have gone to hell in a handbasket here. We've somehow managed to attract the attention of yet another group of angry aliens, except they're human from another universe, they call themselves the Caldari State, and they're blasting the hell out of us and pretty much everything we own.

You'll be happy to know Robert is safe, and I can arrange a visit for you, if you can get into Blacken without being detected. I've sent one of my best special operations teams, headed by Colonel Matthias Bloodmoon, to assist you. I know he'll have a few ideas.

Once you're in system, you'll make your way to Blacken IV, where the UES Unification... or what's left of it, anyway... is holding orbit. Robert is safe on board. Should the situation change, Robert will be moved planetside - if he is, the Unification's staff will let you know, so don't worry about it.

I wish I could be there, but I'm needed planetside here. If the Caldari start landing it'll be my responsibility, yet again, to defend our home turf. I just hope it's not like that dream I had where the Kallum blotted out the sky with their landing craft - that would be unfortunate as hell.

Take care,

Carl

Holding in geostationary orbit, far removed from the close orbit of the Spacedock wreckage and the invading fleet, a single Caldari ship lay cloaked.

The ship had short, stubby wings extending outward and a pair of long vertical fins extending upward - relative to the pilot, of course, as direction was mostly meaningless in space.

Not that the ship's single pilot minded. He was locked up in a fluid-filled capsule kept in a special shipboard compartment. Through his system of complex neural interfaces, he had the ability to control the ship's inner workings at the speed of thought.

"Did you get my scan report?" the pilot asked, over a secure communications channel to Wing Commander Etsanen.

"Affirmative, Buzzard," the Caldari commander responded. "One main city on planet, three defensive outposts, all shielded."

"Absolutely correct."

"Very good. Please initiate scans on the rest of the system."

"Scans proceeding."

The pilot turned his attention away from the secure scout channel to his ship's onboard scanners. His ship's scanning system was very good on its own; unfortunately, it did not possess adequate power to cover the entire system. He would have to launch scan probes, and for that, he would have to decloak.

He pulsed his ship's onboard directional scanner and verified no wartargets in range, then decloaked.

Eight scan probes shot out of a modified torpedo launcher, one by one, and flew away out of sight. He ordered each one to warp to a different point in the system so that he could quadrangulate the positions of any other ships in the system.

Too focused on the scanning procedure, he never saw the bolt of energy that tore his ship apart, vaporizing his pod with it.

"Commander, Buzzard's down."

"I thought we had cleared local space? Give me a link to his medical clone station."

"Done, sir."

"Buzzard, what happened?"

"I don't know... an energy beam of some sort caught me out of nowhere."

"Out of nowhere?"

"Affirmative, Commander. There was no obvious source."

"Understood, Buzzard. EWAR squads, flood jamming. Dreadnoughts, initiate bombardment, your primary is the main city."

General Michael Camore looked skyward as the missiles began to descend. "So, they've opened fire," he said to himself. He contacted Starport Command.

"Yes. General?"

"You are clear to open fire," General Camore ordered. "Give 'em everything we've got."

Soldiers ran to reinforced pillboxes and hastily-erected barricades carrying Gauss rifles, crew-served anti-tank railguns, and crates of ammunition and other supplies. Alongside them, hundreds of Titan-pattern heavy assault bots and Percival-pattern armored siegebots marched to precalculated reinforcement positions, while heavy anti-aircraft installations rose out of the calcicrete platforms under which they had been concealed.

In the center of all of the flurry of activity was General Carl A. Reddington, two-time winner of the UEF Medal of Honor, sitting serenely in the command chair of his old, familiar Armored Command Unit. Controlling it by hand was so inefficient, but he did what he had to do; there had not been time to try to rebuild his implants.

He looked out at the field above him. It was as he expected; the Caldari were not confident that they could breach the defenses with any single dropship, but could not risk having them all in one location. They were therefore descending on the city from four perpendicular directions.

As one angular-looking dropship slid into range, the anti-aircraft batteries opened fire. The combined firepower tore away one of the dropship's engine blocks, and Carl watched as the aircraft spun out of control and toward the ground.

The other dropships, seeing this, quickly stopped in midair, just out of range, and started to hover downwards toward the ground.

They were met with a barrage of artillery that saturated their intended landing zone, denying them its usage, and causing six more dropships to crash from the concussive force of the artillery impacts.

The dropships then moved well out of reach of the artillery, and landed with their cargo of troops and vehicles and equipment. Carl could see tanks, heavy artillery, and mechanized infantry being rolled out by the hundreds.

But Carl had a trump card: the Mavor located at a concealed site thirty kilometers away, protected by bombardment shields rivalling that of Blacken Prime and a garrison to match.

The Caldari troops were not so confident under the constant barrage of antimatter artillery from a site they could not touch. They tried to fall back to cover, but the Mavor's range was too great. They had no choice but to load the troops back onto the dropships, under fire, and escape to orbit.

Blacken had fought the Caldari invaders to a stalemate, but the Caldari still controlled the orbit. Carl understood very well that Blacken Prime was now, officially, in a state of siege, and that they had only hours to act before the Caldari brought in reinforcements and cracked the bombardment shield.

"Get me a line to President Riley," Carl ordered.

He tried desperately to ignore the fact that, somewhere in the back of his head, unknown voices were whispering things to him.