Last Days of the Reaper War, on approach to mass relay to Sol System

They were running late. Usually, delays could be tolerated, but not this time. This time, it was different. A shitstorm of unprecedented scale was going down in the Sol System, the birthplace of humanity, and they were late. Nearly all that remained of the navies of each species in the Milky Way galaxy were gathered at Earth, fighting the bulk of the Reaper invasion fleet. Every ship in the Alliance was expected to be there, the Specialised Scout Cruiser Capua was no exception.

Dawn of the Reaper War

The brutal Reaper attack on Earth caught everyone off guard. The Capua, being stationed at Jump Zero was badly damaged in a skirmish with Reaper vanguard near the station, and required a full retrofit session in port to be serviceable again. Frankly, it was a miracle she survived the encounter in the first place. The Reapers had steamed through Jump Zero and its defences, intent on taking Earth ASAP. They didn't really bother finishing off a ship that was dead in the water. Its crew would likely die anyway if life support was compromised, or failing that, the Reapers would eventually do a full sweep of the system anyway.

But, thankfully for the Capua, the utter failure of its systems was due to an immense power surge following an impact that had de-stabilised the eezo core. A few minutes later, the core stabilised again, and the helm managed to guide the broken ship to the Charon relay and jump. Despite the massive hull breaches and crippled weapons, the Capua crawled along without interruption until it met a mineral survey ship in the largely uncharted system it jumped to. The ship was evidently out of touch with current events, having spent too long shooting probes at barren rocks looking for palladium and whatnot. But seeing a chomped up Alliance ship was a clear indicator that something was wrong, and they immediately went in search of help once the surviving crew of the Capua was recovered.

As the Reaper invasion of human territory was just beginning, the Alliance still had chance to recover the Capua without being spotted by Reaper forces. The recovery ships immediately took it to an auxiliary shipyard for refit on Hackett's orders, Arcturus being destroyed. The former XO of the ship, Lieutenant Commander Constanza, was bumped up to Captain and given command of the rebuilt Capua, the previous CO of the ship having perished in the skirmish along with half the crew. Hackett was confident in the young officer's abilities, saying something about young men and women being the future of the human race, and that more responsibility would rest on their shoulders than ever before. Constanza certainly felt the pressure. The current circumstances, his command, his new mission, the new faces onboard the ship, and the tragic fate of the people the new crew were replacing was enough to make him give up. But no, he would not allow himself. The Reapers could go fuck themselves. Constanza would carry out his mission and ensure the survival of his species. Giving up on life before that was accomplished would only help the invaders.

The SSV Capua was much different when Constanza laid eyes on it. So different, infact, that a new designation was created especially for it. The Cruiser SSV Capua Specialised Scout-1, or SSV Capua SS-1, was being given the unique mission of going on a long-term voyage into uncharted space with minimal relay cover in search of a new garden world for humanity to flee to. The idea was to create a human Ilos of sorts, somewhere they could hide in secret from the Reapers and persevere. For this to be achieved, the Capua was given the best prototype tech the Alliance could get its hands on. Unfortunately, this did not include a stealth system or a Thanix Cannon. Or a war room for that matter. The ship wasn't being turned into the cruiser variant of the SSV Normandy. Space was extremely limited on the ship now. The spinal mass accelerator, standard on any ship, was replaced with a compact version which fired a slightly different type of projectile, allowing for more storage space. The ship's missile/torpedo banks were replaced with prototype ion cannons, which took a while to heat up between shots, but usually crippled the shields of opposing vessels, allowing the main gun to breach the hull. Apart from occasional servicing, the ion cannons could keep going by themselves as long as the drive core provided power. They required no ammunition, which greatly conserved space. Indeed, many non-essential areas were converted into storage spaces, including the gap between the ship's armor plating and the actual hull itself. A large portion of the hangar bay was converted into a manufacturing plant, which could churn out all the necessary components to keep the ship and its crew going for decades.

The Triton fighter compliment was replaced with only 6 new prototype fighters. They were much larger and boasted many more systems than the Tritons. For one, the new fighter carried a significantly larger eezo core, allowing it to achieve FTL, similar to Kodiak shuttles, as well as increasing general power availability for all systems. The shape and electronics suite of the craft allowed it to evade all but the most meticulous detection systems. Likewise, the electronics suite encompassed the most advanced cyberwarfare VIs and sensors the Alliance could slap on. As for the weapons system, it was definitely putting the Tritons in the dust. Whereas Tritons had basic chain guns, anti-fighter missiles and anti-shield torpedoes, the prototypes had a chain gun based on geth pulse weaponry, able to churn out many more rounds per minute than the standard guns. The anti-fighter missiles were miniaturised into small warheads that would release a cloud of high-explosive pellets when optimum detonation proximity was reached. The pellets would overload the shields with sheer numbers and then shred the enemy craft to pieces. Due to the diminutive size of the new missiles, a much larger supply could be carried. The anti-shield torpedoes were replaced with the deadly Javelin torpedoes, which differed from conventional torpedoes due to the fact that they contained a dark energy payload. When two were detonated in sync, the Javelins would produce mini-singularities, similar to biotic singularities, which would generally warp the shield and rend armor and possible the hull underneath to tatters. This was most certainly a significant change from regular torpedoes, which worked by increasing the mass, leading to a severe drain of the shield as it repelled a huge mass. Unfortunately, the torpedoes were large and quite vulnerable to fire from pursuing craft. For this reason, each prototype carried only one pair of torpedoes, tucked safely away inside a protective shell of armor in the belly of the craft. When the time came, the torpedoes would exit a launch tube just underneath the nose. Finally, unlike the Triton, the prototype came with several air to ground missile systems. The idea behind the concept was that the craft could fulfil the role of interceptor, scout, anti-ship fighter and planetary support vessel, all at the same time.

The ship's M-35 Mako APCs were replaced by the Adaptive Combat Planetary Vehicle (ACPV), another prototype. The ACPV's low lying appearance somewhat resembled the legendary DeLorean vehicle of the 20th century, but of course, the ACPV was nothing like its ancient counterpart in terms of everything else. The prototype was wide and quite heavily armored in the front. Above the spot of the passenger seat, there was a heavy mg, based on the N7 Typhoon. The gunner could either let the computer operate it automatically, or take manual control through the computer itself, or of course, in case the eezo core was deactivated, the gunner could always pop the hatch and use the mg literally by hand. However, the two most distinguishing features of the ACPV was its ability to switch between hover and wheel mode, and to swap out its rear troop carrying compartment for a variety of different modules. These included such things as an AA flak cannon, an AT mass accelerator, light artillery, or indeed a field hospital. The hover/wheel modes were actually quite necessary as the ACPV wouldn't be able to keep stable enough during hover for effective artillery barrages, etc. Also, wheeled mode consumed less reactor power, so more of it could be used to increase shield strength.

The Kodiak shuttles on the ship remained largely unaltered, only receiving minor weapon upgrades and a new paint job.

The new paint was fully black coat with a white stripe, as opposed to standard Alliance blue/white combinations. It was actually applied to everything, including uniforms and the ship itself. The idea was to make the ship look more like an independent contractor than an Alliance vessel. Admiral Hackett didn't want anyone, especially the Reapers and their agents, to notice an Alliance vessel snooping around uncharted space. It would draw unwanted attention to the efforts of finding a hiding place from the Reapers. However, in theory, the independent contractor look would hopefully help make the onlooker think that a merc/pirate vessel was simply out on a raid trying to acquire helpless refugees' belongings. Indeed, the need for secrecy was so great, that Admiral Hackett would purge every single Alliance database of the existence of the ship and everyone on board. Communication would be kept to a minimum, with only critical updates being transmitted via the secure QEC.

That left one more thing. Constanza and the rest of the crew were extremely uncomfortable with it – an AI. The thing was housed in a body rather than in a server like Normandy's EDI. The body was actually a salvaged Geth whose original software was completely purged and replaced with Alliance code. The body was given several upgrades, including a larger storage capacity to be able to cope with the sophisticated Alliance creation as opposed to a handful of Geth programs. However, the AI was never actually finished. The team of scientists working on it had run across an unexpected complication and had no time to figure it out. The Reapers were spreading out of the Sol system and the entire shipyard was being evacuated, the ships and personnel departing to safer systems. So the AI was simply left sitting in a storage compartment on the SSV Capua as it departed for its mission. The scientists said the AI would actually activate properly, but that its behaviour would be unpredictable. Constanza decided not to bother with the risk unless its presence was absolutely necessary.

Unfortunately, as the months dragged by, the crew of the Capua had no luck achieving their objective. Each day looped in and out in a completely predictable fashion. The ship would come into a system, do a scan and maybe launch probes onto anything of interest. The most promising planet they found was a chunk of ice, the rest were barren rocks or simply gas planets. Even the moons yielded nothing worthy of note. Admiral Hackett looked more disappointed with every passing report Captain Constanza sent him, and it was obvious the war wasn't going well for anyone. The iron-willed Admiral looked progressively more tired and deflated, although he did his best to hide it. Finally, Hackett informed Constanza of the upcoming battle for Earth, where Commander Shepard would hopefully get the opportunity to deploy the Crucible weapon.

The crew was happy to find out they would be attending. The bleak nature of their mission had driven nearly everyone to their coping limit, and a chance for action was something they were eager to take, even if the odds weren't stacked in their favour. Many had already given up on hope for the survival of humanity, and going down fighting and possibly killing some Reapers was, in their opinion, the best thing they could do right now. Constanza wasn't sure exactly what he felt. On one hand, he was fed up with the pointless assignment, and on the other, he didn't want to experience the same thing again. If he survived the destruction of his ship a second time, he knew he'd lose his mind for good.

The timing of the battle put the Capua on a very tight schedule, especially if they were going to stop to pick up a squad of Cerberus defectors along the way, along with their shuttle and two escort fighters. Constanza didn't have a clue how he'd make space for extra vehicles on the hangar deck, never mind how everyone would react to the Cerberus troops, even if they were defectors. Most Alliance soldiers had a serious dislike towards their Cerberus counterparts, for obvious reasons. Time and time again, Cerberus soiled the image of humanity and killed many innocent humans and aliens alike trying to promote their interests. To make things worse, they were puppets of the Reapers now, and the crew was expected to work with them. Of course, everyone realised the defectors defected for that very purpose – to oppose the Reapers, but that didn't make thing any easier.

Picking them up caused a significant delay for the Capua, even longer than predicted. The better part of the hangar bay was completely rearranged to make room for the Cerberus craft. Constanza was desperately hoping they wouldn't jump into a graveyard, littered with allied wrecks.

Approaching the relay to Charon

"Finally! Captain, we'll be at the relay in 7 minutes!"

That was the helmsman, Flight Lieutenant Shane Atkins.

"Understood, you heard Mr. Atkins gunnery! Prep the ion cannons and check that the mass accelerator is good to go, we're going in weapons hot."

"Aye aye Captain, readying weapons systems!"

"CAG, get your birds ready to go, you'll be deploying as soon as we're clear of the relay and any initial hazards. Make sure the Cerby pilots know what they're doing."

A reply echoed back in Captain Constanza's earpiece.

"Birds are prepp'd an' ready, Cap'n. An' Cerby seems t' know what they're doin' sir. I'll go give 'em a clout 'pon the ear to jog the ol' memory in case anyone's forgott'n."

Constanza shook his head. The Commander of the Air Group (CAG), 1st Lieutenant Donald Barksdale was an odd fellow, reminded him more of his grandfather than anyone else, sitting around smoking his pipe and telling stories. His underlings called him Donald Duck, though never to his face. The man had a serious dislike of ducks.

"XO, get your marines ready. Load up the shuttles and get ready for a bumpy ride. Relay the same orders to the Cerberus commander, she's giving a speech to her troops or something."

"Affirmative."

Constanza's XO was an N7, Lieutenant Commander Omar O'Neill. They had a mutual dislike of each other. Constanza was a pilot prior to being given a position on the bridge, which immediately made him a bus driver in the eyes of the marine, despite the fact he almost exclusively flew fighter/bombers. This, in turn, made Constanza perceive his XO as an arrogant prick who yet had to prove himself as a Commander. Seeing as all records of personnel onboard the Capua were deleted, Constanza never really got the chance to review O'Neill's file. He was placed under Constanza's command more or less in the final days of the Capua's time in port. But thankfully, the XO never voiced his dislikes around the crew. He'd carry out his orders, nothing more, nothing less.

Everyone was fidgeting in their seats from anticipation as they were coming within relay range. Constanza felt it himself too, and thought he should say something to the crew.

"Alright everyone," he made sure to patch it through on all speakers, "I'm not gonna give any long winded speech like Admiral Hackett probably did to the fleet. Just wanted to say good luck and good hunting. I expect to find each and every one of you reporting for drinks at whatever bar we find once we kick the Reapers off our planet!"

The bridge staff cheered, as well as mostly everyone else on the ship. But then a look of worry overcame the pilot, Flight Lt. Atkins.

"Something the matter Lt.? You look like you've seen a ghost, and we haven't even started fighting the Reaper scum yet."

"Uh… not really sure how to describe it sir, but the relay is giving off strange readings. They don't match anything we've ever recorded about the relays."

"Can we still use it to reach Charon?"

"Well the anomalies are increasing the longer we wait sir, just look how the rings are picking up speed," he brought up a scan for the Captain to see, who was hovering over his chair at this point, "If we're gonna do this, we'd better do it, like, right now sir."

"Uh alright Atkins, engage the protocols and take us through," he turned around to address the other bridge staff, "I want a full report once we clear the Charon relay, understood? Serviceman, I want you to contact Operations Chief Gibbs in engineering and tell him to do the same. Battlestations everyone!"

The staff nodded their affirmatives and the Serviceman began calling the Chief on his omni-tool. Constanza sighed and positioned himself on the command stand above the tactical display. He looked at the readout to see that the approach to the relay was fully calculated and the jump had been initiated.

Something went very very wrong however, as the tendril of dark energy that usually engulfed passing ships and catapulted them safely to the destination, turned into a violent current that shook the ship like a rattle. Nobody had the slightest chance to register what was happening before they all passed out.

Gas Giant, Unknown System

The SSV Capua SS-1 emerged in the atmosphere of a gas giant, and the VI immediately took over the helm to bring it into a stable orbit. It was quite close cut, because if the ship descended only a little bit deeper, the pressure would be enough to cripple the vessel. A certain Major Leland "Apollo" Adama watched from the cockpit of his Viper fighter as in front of him the Viper of his friend, and possibly more, Captain Kara "Starbuck" Thrace, seemingly exploded, and was instantly replaced by a black ship with a white stripe running across it. The monstrosity, almost the same size as the Battlestar Galactica, rapidly accelerated into orbit. He thought Kara'd finally lost it, chasing after Cylon ghosts, seemingly on a death wish – and then something even crazier happened.

He barely noticed his father, Admiral William Adama, screaming in his earpiece to report the situation. The only one thought was going through his head at that moment. Whatever was on that ship had better be worth Starbuck's sacrifice.

Sol System, Earth Orbit

Nobody noticed the tiny Viper MKII appearing seemingly out of nowhere in orbit of Earth. Death was all around, whatever ships were left in the allied fleet were scattered haphazardly, with wreckage everywhere. The Reapers too, had taken many losses. However, one by one they seemingly stopped moving with any sort of purpose. A continuous beam of light was streaming from the centre of the unfolded Citadel, lancing into the distance towards Charon. Kara Thrace however, paid all the happenings no mind. She was transfixed by the sight of the blue/green planet below her. There were several red splotches here and there on the continents, but at that moment she couldn't comprehend what they were, or perhaps didn't want to. The planet had frozen her in place, and she was completely oblivious to everything other than the fact that she'd arrived, finally. She reached Earth. Nobody noticed her presence, except one. One that was infinitely her greater, and perhaps infinitely more desperate.

A/N: I hope you've liked this introduction to "Whispers of the Fallen." Been a while since I'd written anything, though I do plan on starting up with AIE soon hopefully, for those of you who may have that story followed. The next chapter of WotF is being written up right now, and should be up in 1-2 days. It'll certainly be more action filled than this mostly descriptive prologue.

Please rate and review, constructive critisism and other ideas are appreciated!

I do not own BSG or ME.