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(AN: If you see any Mistakes, do let me know, it will improve my writing.)
To the normal human, it was business as usual, living life by the paycheck, enjoying the moment, finding love, worrying about the chance of a drive failure on your commercial spaceship.
Normal things to think about in the middle of the 22nd century.
For the Systems Alliance High Command and the Nation leaders back on Earth, they were in full-blown panic.
When the news of hostile first contact and the appearance of a large armada of unknown yet disturbingly human-marked Black Fleet, then the utter destruction of the hostile aliens coming through the Relay in the span of mere hours.
Well, the closed-door meeting at the UN hall was extremely unproductive.
Leaders of Earth seemed to find accusing each other of the origins of the unknown Black Fleet far more important than, oh, I don't know, preparing for war against a confirmed hostile alien power that shot first rather than saying hello.
The System Alliance, on the other hand, was forced to take matters into its own hands, seeing how it held actual power to do something in this crisis.
"What are our options, people?" Chairman Henry Miles said, addressing the Navy, Army, and other branches of the Alliance.
"Limited, sir, due to us focusing heavily on exploration and the colonisation of new worlds, our Navy is stretched thin, we can only spare a dozen or so ships," Admiral Oscar Dane said, reading from a data pad in his hands, looking at the latest information of not just the situation developing at Shanxi but also in the wider human-held domain.
"Alright, first up, what void assets do we have available, and what's the status of the Army's level of readiness.
"A task force of 4 Cruisers, 9 Frigates, and some Corvettes are being briefed; they'll arrive at Shanxi in a couple of days to get the civilians off-world with the help of acquired civilian shuttles, in a few more weeks, we can assign more vessels to the region."
"If I may, why aren't we sending in our Dreadnoughts? Surely their firepower would prove useful," Head of Logistics Adam Ferson asked.
"We only have two available, and Fuji is still undergoing crew training; to send them in without the proper amount of ships to escort them would be foolish at a time like this." What was not said is that their Dreadnoughts in the eyes of the men and women here were far too valuable to be deployed, given that they only had three, and the Kilimanjaro line was still on the designer's table.
Plus, their Carriers were still under construction, but this crisis would likely see more resources being funneled into them to speed up their build rates.
"The Army can easily mobilize a few regiments and battalions, but we have no idea how well we'll fare against the enemy."
"We could hire a few mercenaries to test the waters."
"Seriously, you want to rely on mercenaries, they'll just take the money and leave before they do anything."
Various conversations went back and forth between the top members of the Alliance Command staff, while many plans were put into motion and contingencies were put into place, they were, however, avoiding one particular topic which the Chairman himself had to bring up at some point.
"Onto our last matter of the day, I want to know what Intel has on that 'Fleet'" his eyes pointed towards the Director of the Alliance Intelligence Services, he was one of the oldest in the room, with wrinkly skin and greying hair, yet still bearing signs of muscle that showed he was once a Field Agent in the past, for what he did to get where he is at today, that is all and very well classified.
"Fortunately, we do have something to show for it." Many around the room looked disbelieving but kept their silence, allowing the man to further speak on the matter.
"6 months ago, one of my Agents picked up an unusual person of interest, from what they've shown me, they first thought of them as a former Earth-bound Special Service Agent from one of the nation's, they couldn't find a single paper trail from them, they didn't have an ID to track, their face came up blank on every registry, it was like a ghost decided to stop hiding, but they quickly picked up more peculiarities." He then showed a small projector, turning it on, which displayed the face of Kali on the nearby wall, showing the different places they've been, walking on Earth, in a spaceport getting their ticket, and at Shanxi enjoying a cup of tea.
"Such as," the chairman said, inclining forward in his chair.
"The first thing they did was look up ways to travel to Shanxi, and once they moved, they only used physical currency to book their flight, my agent followed, and upon arriving on the world, they monitored them extensively." The projector then showed the different items Kali bought, a futuristic Jeep that was so out of place on a frontier world, them entering and exiting the Condor they had in the woods.
"Then, days before the opening of the Relay, they left the world and haven't been seen since, however, we believe they are connected to the fleet that destroyed the aliens that attacked the survey fleet, the connection is the symbol on their dropship and on all these vessels" the next projection showed them a dark gold square with a pronged bar on the bottom and various 3d blocks around it, the symbol in question vaguely gave the impression of a skull.
Those gathered began murmuring to themselves, taking in the images and words that the Director had shown them.
The Chairman had a contemplative look as he was gazing at all the imagery.
It was good that they had a face, and possibly lead to this mysterious force, and what a force it was, he'd seen the report, nearly hundreds of Cruisers with few supporting Frigates and led by two Dreadnoughts and a ship by all means can be considered a Super-Dreadnought given the size and firepower that was on display in those exceedingly short few moments.
The problem was that the fleet also showed they had an alternate form of FTL, and that meant tracking them was going to be a nightmare.
And the woman who seemed to be linked to it all would likely be even harder to find, just as well as the fleet.
The Chairman rubbed his temples before gazing back at the AIS Director.
"I trust you already have people on this case." The man just nodded his head without saying anything, which gave the Chairman more than he needed to know, and that was ok for now.
"If there is nothing else or any question, then this meeting is adjourned, we will meet again at the scheduled date or when another emergency is called, dismissed." And like that, all seated rose and orderly exited one of the many conference rooms aboard Arcturus Station.
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It would be half a month before another Turian force entered the Shanxi system through the Relay, and during that time, both the Alliance and Kali herself would be busy throughout it.
The Alliance had fully evacuated the colony, bar the essentials, Army elements that were brought in fortified the already existing infrastructure to the best they could, but it wasn't much, as the Alliance doctrine favoured high-speed low-drag kinds of fighting, hit and run attacks, and the use of drones.
The Navy was bolstered, but not by much, the defence fleet fielded 8 Cruisers and 21 Frigates with smaller support ships in the wings, a larger fighting fleet was still a month and a half away from being fully mobilized, and it would include all 3 of the Everests Dreadnoughts and 2 of the completed Einstein Carriers.
It could be said that the units deployed on and around Shanxi were nothing more than a roadblock for any attacking force or, worse, a slight inconvenience.
The time passing by also allowed the Alliance brass to essentially have near total power in everything in and around all of human space, as the governments of Earth continued to show how useless and out of touch they were when it came to the rest of humanity's domain amongst the stars.
With this new power came the ability to do more than what they were initially allowed to do, they expanded and guided resources into more of a wartime footing, exploration was practically halted, and various civilian companies and corporations were given missives and extra freedoms when it came to 'helping' the Alliance in not just military matters.
There was panic in the wider public once it became known what had happened within the Shanxi System, the Alliance didn't have the ability to perform a total information blackout, thus, the story broke on every News outlet that operated all across human space.
It was a terrifying thing to learn that aliens existed, especially when they had already killed their people.
Much to the Alliance's relief, they managed to keep the existence of the Black Fleet under wraps, including the aliens' first incursion attempt.
Now we move on to Kali's perspective.
Once she withdrew from Shanxi, she made sure to keep a few Prowlers around and stationed her combined fleet just a short jump away, several star systems over, as once the Turians came back, she would be ready to respond in kind.
After that, she began building her HQ within the center of human space, leagues away from the Relay Network.
Building space stations would always be easy work, but it was the ground complexes that really needed her attention the most, as on a small ocean world, which was yet to be named, outside of calling it HQ, she utilized her new ability to summon the Fatui of Snezhnaya.
She summoned up to a hundred of them, but only once she had acquired [Store] bought provisions and building materials.
More on the [Store] items later, as there was a lot to get into on that topic.
The first batch summoning was confusing for the Fatui, from their perspective, while they had all the knowledge about their home and their abilities, including things they were "taught" about, they also knew they shouldn't really be able to exist, thus they questioned their existence and were wary of giving their freedom to their mysterious summoner.
Many questions were thrown about, and most Kali was able to answer, while some left a bitter taste among everyone as she simply was unable to answer them.
But they were brought up to speed on this Galaxy they now found themselves in, along with the plans their summoner is intending to follow through on, as they've already taken the first step.
It didn't take long for the Fatui to agree to follow Kali in her quest to save the Galaxy from destruction, while they accepted her as their leader Kali knew it would be a while before they gave their undying loyalty to her, but once they did, the new members she would summon in the future would have their 'Seniors' help and assurance to follow her without too much questioning going around.
The Fatui then set about with helping Kali set up the main base upon the world of HQ, with the combined utility of the [Store] and the already summoned UNSC earth movers and the Fatui's Visions, the beginnings of a proper fortress city began to take shape.
It also helped that Fenja was bringing in the first of many local recruits into the fold as well even if they were skeptical of what was said and promised.
The sight of the various UNSC ships and otherworldly abilities of the Fatui helped speed up the acceptance process of these individuals.
After that, Kali was made aware of the progress Fenja was making with her human experiments with the use of her Tinker powers.
The small lab was already smelling of blood and heavy sterilization, on more than one occasion, Kali wondered if she had made the right decision to allow this sort of thing to happen, and every time she thought this, she would ask about the crimes the subjects committed when they were being injected and torn apart while Fenja was working.
And most of the time, the screams from those men and women strapped down on those dissection tables sounded like justice being served, for only the wicked should suffer in life, not the innocent lives they take.
Another thing for Kali to consider was the selection of personnel from both the locals and Fatui who would be screened to see if they would accept SCP-686/A, they would be allowed to know what would happen to them in the process, should they fully commit themselves and become Arbiters, they would be expected to be loyal in all actions and intentions within the Black Fleet for such power would elevate them to new heights.
Though Kali had yet to start bringing people into this little elite group thought experiment, as it was a tad too early to start such a thing, trust in her needed to be near unbreakable for her to start approaching such people.
As time passed, HQ was further expanded upon to accommodate more summoned Fatui members and the onboarding of the locals, Kali also purchased the last of the [Upgrade Options] within the System.
It wasn't until Fenja brought in some old and young scientists, convinced they would be able to work on revolutionary works of wonder, that Kali started diving further into the [Store] that she realized the gold mine it represented and how it would considerably bolster or even improve her current plans.
To begin with, while the [Store] held many mundane items, it also held startling items of power, many of which belonged to other fictional works.
Even though it would take time and a lot of industry, Kali was spoiled for choice on what she could introduce to her new Research and Development core, so instead she bought a bunch of items that cut her credit bank in half and brought these items to R&D to see what they wanted to work on first.
Items were divided per the universe they existed in, which is 3 so far, but that would increase once the Research Institute was expanded, like everything else on the ocean world of HQ,
From the Star Wars universe, items included a few blaster weapons, one of those medical tanks, and a blueprint for a hypermatter-annihilator reactor, good luck figuring that last one out.
Next was some Halo weapons and power cells, but what Kali really wanted them to figure out was the Promethean Light Rifle, however, she also knew they wouldn't be solving that for a long time if ever.
Finally, there were some exotic resources from Stellaris stacked into some neat piles, Kali wondered what insights they might gain from that lot.
On another note, she made sure to tell Fenja to recruit some biologists just so they could either help her to be her assistants in her Tinker work or they could work on some other bio project, food for thought.
Everything was on schedule back at HQ, and the next point of topic that Kali was going to have with Fenja was the companies that she managed to get in touch with to discuss some future partnership plans.
But such talks were going to be put on hold, as stated in the beginning, the Turians finally sent a second task force into the Shanxi system.
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