"Wake up, wake up, you sons of the bitches we have stuff to do and things to kill!" Scarred batarian entered the room and started to kick all his henchmen that were lying on floor passed from too much booze.

"Five more minutes, mom!" Someone growled in the distance and soon after that had bottle flying in his direction before it hit its head.

"Wake up now or I would shovel your mom down your arse and pull the trigger there!"

"You ruin all the fun boss! I had such cute asari and you made her disappear!" Someone growled from other side.

"Listen up you fools! We have job to do and I don't want to miss it! We managed to procure citadel patrol schedule and all gangs are preparing for the biggest raid there ever will be. It's about time you moved those old muscles for good instead of drinking booze all day and causing fights here on Omega." Batarian boss addressed his minions.

"So what do we rob this time boss? Asari, salarian, … humans?" One mean looking batarian asked his boss.

"Krogan!" Batarian boss answered with evil grin and enjoyed how everyone in the room instantly become silent some even were gasping while others were so open mouthed that you could fit entire hanar inside them.

"Krogan?"

"Isn't that a bit extreme boss?"

"We couldn't even get near Tuchanca with how deep it is in council space and you want us to raid them. How much krogan had they paid you so that they could enjoy hunting us, boss?" Those and similar shouts were heard around while everyone were trying to find the reason why it was bad to invade krogran homewold.

"Yes, krogan! But those krogans are better looking and all asari are going mad about them." Batarian boss extended his omnitool and projected image of their new target.

"That's no krogan! It's those new guys, … ira-whatever stupid name they have."

"You are right. This is iratus and we are going to have so much fun on their world. They are the ultimate pacifist and don't even have neither standing army or navy. Krogan's ass they don't even have any weapons and their police force was only recently created mostly to separate angry asari when both blue bitches wanted same ass for themselves. It would be like walk in weapon store. Lots of goodies and all available for you to take." Wicked smiles appeared on everyone faces. It was long time since they had any fun and with terminus being extra mad no one wanted to try their luck and disappear like those unlucky sons of the bitches that dared to leave safety of Omega or any other major space stations and were never seen again and not even debris was found. So instead anyone that had half brain that weren't shoot out during some lucky or unlucky, all depends on how you would look at it, accident were holing up and drinking booze while waiting for the things to settle down and get back to normal craziness level in terminus systems and as always it would be, drunken bastards liked to fight each other and cause lots of damage before security forces apprehended or outright blasted them from space station. But now, … now the things were about to change. The gangs were mobilizing and preparing for the greatest hunt in entire age. Plans were being drafted and gun polished. New hunting grounds were calling them and no one wanted to miss its chance to something other than drinking all day or causing riots in Omega's bars and other watering holes. It was time to prove that they still got balls and that they still haven't melted from too frequent sitting and drinking booze all day.

"Here is the plan! There will be several groups and several separate designed targets with any opportunity target that may appear on the fly that we plan to hit. Most of the fun will be on Ilium and whatever shit hole humans name their planet… Elysium plus dozens smaller distraction type targets nearby to make sure guarding fleets will be busy chasing Vorchas in hell while major groups will be packing goods. We will be part of distraction team and hit Iratus homeworld, but since those fools don't have anything worth fighting, it will be like packing duty: grab azure and put it into cage. At worst you will have an azure throwing singularity or two at you. Nothing you can't deal with if you are not a pyak! There are some rumors that Iratus males can be as strong as krogans, but that in my opinion is just a propaganda to discourage anyone fighting them. Just shoot them in the leg if you see them charging at you, alive slaves with one leg are worth much more than dead ones with both."

o0o0o0o

"STG report. Top secret! I can hear hanar singing! 2000 azures dance to the sound. Party hard. Party hard!"

Operative Rentola read from his omnitool while walking corridors of Turian dreadnought "make your moma proud" leading to command center and was wondering if it was bug in his translation software or did turians actually named their ship such strange name. It was nice distraction to the things that will soon happen and while he was sure everything will be ok or as ok as it can be when facing such enemy, he didn't want to preoccupy his thoughts with it right now.

"Admiral Vicgus, it has begun!" Rentola addressed turian admiral when he entered command center and handled him his report.

"Well it's about time! I got tired of entertaining azures here!" Admiral Vicgus replied after taking report. He was running war games simulating possible terminus incursion into citadel space for entire week already with asari reporter crew to highlight how well trained and disciplined turians are. His battle fleet was consisting of six hundreds cruisers and frigates each and with three dreadnoughts that acted as command ships for three sub fleets. It was an odd fleet for sure with the number of frigates being same as cruisers. Normal fleets would have at at least three frigates for one cruiser with some races having up to dozen frigates for one cruiser since they were cheapest thing to build and maintain unless you were salarian then it could cost same as heavy cruiser or even dreadnought with how much of newest and most advanced technology was crammed inside them. Some even thought that each frigate was custom made for special unknown task, but salarian never confirmed any of such rumors.

"What?! Are you sure this report is correct?" Admiral Vicgus was a bit surprised after reading it and couldn't believe it.

"Afraid you can't handle it, Admiral?" Operative Rentola looked at turian admiral with smug face.

"No! Nothing like that! It's just… this will be the biggest peace time engagement that has ever happened and I can't start to think just how many brave turian wouldn't return back home. If terminus scums managed to gather two thousands cruisers I can only assume that there will also be five to ten frigates or support ships at minimum. It's not a raiding fleet, but entire invasion force that could threaten Ilium or anyone up to Thessa.

Coms get me sleepers tell them to wake up, then notify Hierarchy and any nearby patrol about this dangerous situation. Make call to Ilium or any nearby colony too. They need to prepare for the worst for it would happen. Set course to rendezvous point xray. Battle station!" Admiral Vicgus started to bark the orders and everything turned into organized chaos.

"Sir, a sleeper fleet reports waking and powering up. ETA 5 hours to meet up." Coms officer reported. Sleeper fleet was one huge fleet made entirely out of frigates that was drifting in interstellar space near the system where war games were being held while running cold with all systems turned down or at minimal settings to hide their presence from any unneeded eyes or ear. The crews of two thousand frigates were in deep sleep mode with only skeleton crew to watch over them. Some surviving turians would later tell that it was colder in their ships that in vochas ass or that krogan could freeze its quad so bad that it could fix its genophage problem.

"So what's today's scenario?" Asari reporter asked ships XO that graciously accepted order to be tour guide for reporter team before war games started not knowing that the situation has changed.

"Mam please return to your quarters we are responding to actual combat situation that is developing right now! I can't guarantee yours and your team's safety." Turian replied to asari standing before him with hovering camera drone nearby.

"Finally some real action! So when does the fireworks start? I mean the exploding consoles, fires, crew members wailing in pain because half of their face were burned if not outright dying; I mean the good stuff our viewers want to watch?" Asari was too much enjoying all this madness and ignored all pleas to leave command center and instead found nice place to stand so that she wouldn't be hindrance to ship's crew. If this wasn't just another combat drill, but actual combat situation it could be prime show material and her was down for it.

o0o0o0o

The pirates and raiders gathered into one huge fleet and started to pour into Citadel border system. Strength in units was always good strategy and it would require equal force to counter it. Any less and the defence response team not only will be crushed, but open the way for pirates to hit other targets deeper inside their space. At same time it took considerable amount of time to gather required amount of forces to actually challenge the pirates and drive them out and that was. That was always pirate strategy. The bigger their fleet was the more time they had on ground to pack the goods and get away from it. But gathering of forces comes both ways since both pirate raiders and citadel had their own spies and would notify if any huge fleet deployment would happen, but when the terminus was extra mad lately most of pirates were holed up in Omega that was extra crowded for decade already, but not today. Today all that huge fleet decided to move out making quite a show for everyone staying nearby. For the first time in long time Omega was empty when all its filth left to new provided hunting ground.

Illum didn't stand the chance when the combined pirate raider fleet entered Tasale system and flattened Illum defense force like a fly, then after short orbital bombardment to clear landing sites of any unneeded resistance hundreds of transports descended to claim their bounty. At same pirate raider fleet started to split up into smaller groups all moving to their designated targets.

Somewhere in Elysium suburbs sergeant Shepard was sleeping completely wasted after long night of partying and celebrating his shore leave.