The ship appeared in orbit of Coruscant without warning. It was instantly detected and targeted by orbital defenses and patrol vessels alike, it was swiftly dealt with. There was no panic on Coruscant. Not by the general population, the military, or even the Jedi. There was however one man who was concerned. Supreme Chancellor Sheev Palpatine had crafted everything in the war, every piece moving perfectly according to his grand design. Minor bumps in the road were swiftly overcome, and strategies were adopted. This however was an unknown variable.

The media was spinning it as a new form of Separatist vessel, probing Coruscant's defenses and reaction times as a precursor to invasion. Palpatine knew better or believed he did. This vessel wasn't separatist. Not unless His apprentice was planning to overthrow and replace him. Such a thing was unlikely but not impossible. Since the start of the war he had pushed his Apprentice further and further to the Dark Side, and power afterall did corrupt. Though as the wreckage from the ship came crashing down to the surface off the planet, the worry soon disappeared out of his mind as days turned into weeks. It continued to nag at the back of his brain, but more pressing matters gained his attention.

---

In an area of existence between existence itself, beings of unworldly power and knowledge met together in a place that never existed. It defied existence and completed it all at the same time, and the figure wearing the white sweater approached one in a far more intricate state of dress.

"I need your help."

"Oh?" The figure turned to face him. "You have come to me for help? That's interesting."

"You're the only one who will listen to be about this-"

"I wonder why, is it because I am a little crazy?"

"I've already spoken to who I need to speak to, I just need someone to do the transportation."

"Ahhh, there in lies the rub. The rules."

"Just because the others approve, doesn't mean they'll let me do whatever I want."

---

The Jedi Temple was one of the most historically significant structures in the Galaxy, a beacon of hope and justice. Today a level of unease seemed to permeate the very walls of the structure. The Jedi walked the halls going about their day-to-day lives with a shadow they just couldn't shake, no matter how hard they tried. Security ran system diagnostics, Jedi meditated on it.

A lone figure ascended the steps of the Jedi Temple. Past the protestors, approaching the Clones guarding the temple. They raised their hands to stop her, however, she continued. One of them made an effort to grab her, and with lightning efficiency and speed she broke both his wrists before kicking his shin sending him to the ground.

By this point, the rest of the squad was in motion. Stun shots rained out against her, which were quickly replaced with fully powered blaster bolts. Burn marks appeared all over her body, causing her to pause. The shots stopped as she looked down observing the marks. A silver shimmer passed over her body, as she seemingly healed herself and fixed her clothes. Looking up she screamed, and all throughout the Jedi Temple replicators burst forth.

The Force nor blasters seemed to be effective against them and while Lightsabers could destroy them they seemed to come in endless wave after wave. Throughout this chaos Sixth worked her way deeper, and deeper into the temple. For the first time in the history of the Republic, the Jedi began evacuating their temple. Their home, until she rested herself in the command and control center. Tying her into the Republic Battlenet.

---

Weeks passed. Codes changed. A ceasefire between the Republic and the Separatist Alliance was orchestrated, largely in part by Supreme Chancellor Palpatine. All evacuation of Coruscant was halted after a single replicator was found aboard a cruiser. A single replicator that very quickly took over the entire vessel. Since then nobody has left the surface, a fleet of Venators bombards the surface around the Jedi Temple almost constantly trying to prevent the Replicator Advance while the best minds throughout the galaxy try to come up with a solution.

So when a being with power to even convince the most skeptical of Jedi, a Senator or Clone Trooper showed up and offered a team to help restore the Galaxy the Republic, reluctantly, agreed, but did they have what it took? To stop the Replicators on Coruscant once and for all?

Well, that's where the story begins, and don't tell Daniel, but I've included a special twist of my own.

The glare of hyperspace hummed overhead outside the window of the bridge, as the clatter of keys echoed quietly, the beeps of monitors and idle chatter of battledroids at their stations filling the silence. Looming over it all, General Grievous, Supreme Commander of the Droid Armies of the Confederacy of Independent Systems, glared silently at the stars outside the viewport, as if he could burn the destination to ash with pure disdain.

To his right, lounging in an officer's seat, the fingers of a blindfolded young woman, clad in black, danced across keyboards and touchscreen monitors. 1's and 0's flew across her obscured vision; though she didn't seem to acknowledge them, as a holographic screen projected to her left flickered through menus and protocols. Darth Sinnali, she was called, and her proficiency in her task was guided by more than mere skill. The deft dexterity. The blind surety. Every movement was guided by the Force to aid the Sith in doing what needed doing within the relatively slim timeframe they had.

After a long while, a deep sigh of relief escaped Sinnali, as she gave a groaning stretch, arcing her arms over her head and slumping back in her seat was a smile.

"Are you finished sabotaging my army yet?" Grievous husked, a glower in his slitted, golden eyes.

Glancing over her shoulder up at him -even though the blindfold seemingly made the act pointless, Sinnali grinned widely. "Oh, relax. You know perfectly well that I'm doing nothing of the sort." Her fingers skimmed across her screen, eliciting a beep from the general's station, and Grievous snorted, before accepting the prompt to open the data packet and pore over what his co-commander had done.

After several minutes, Grievous's claws rapped out a pattern on his armrests. A growl of reluctant approval escaped his throat, and he had to suppress of wheezing cough at the irritation it elicited. "I see..."

Sinnali rolled her eyes... not that any could see that, but the slight rotating tilt of her head indicated as much. "As far as I'm aware, we should be safe now-" Grievous scoffed. "-from friendly fire."

What exactly she had been writing was alternative targeting and enemy profiling programming for the Malevolence and its droid army. Among many things that were of distinct -and reasonable- concern to this local universe's Admiral Yularen, the droids' preprogrammed enemy profiles were one. If they were meant to ally themselves with the Republic for this venture, then the last thing they needed was for their droids to gun down Clones, Jedi... or anyone else for that matter without explicit instructions to. To describe it as a "diplomatic incident" would be too light a term in the current crisis, and battledroids were not exactly known for being the brightest tools in the shed. If all else failed, fall back on programming, so she meant to nip this in the bud.

To that effect, she had designed a secondary enemy profile packet, one that would be uploaded to both the Malevolence and the droids aboard it through their main command hub aboard the flagship. And furthermore, she had needed to go to the trouble of altering the security clearance of the droid army on every level to ensure that none of the local Separatists potentially dug into places they weren't welcome. So, in the end, there had been introduced several new layers of clearance. She and Grievous obviously sat at the top, followed by the Republic, then their fellow universe hoppers, then any other Separatists. And she'd needed to make sure that all levels of that clearance, save for the very top, required she and Grievous's personal approval to exploit. While the droids had generally been set to a default behavior of "nonhostile" outside the Malevolence, any intruders to the warship without visitor clearance would be dealt with as normal, and they would deserve it wholly.

The main goal, in the end, was simply to ensure that when they dropped out of hyperspace, the Malevolence and its droid crew didn't automatically lock onto all the Republic vessels around them with their weapon systems with hostile intent. Rather, they were given explicit instructions to the contrary. The weapons were not to be warmed without either Grievous or Sinnali's personal orders, and all power that would normally be allocated to them was to be redirected to strengthening the deflector shields in case anyone on the Republic's end got trigger happy.

And, of course, all these new security protocols were essentially being contained as their own program. Sinnali hadn't laid a finger on the original programming, merely copied it and adjusted the duplicate. All these changes were wholly temporary and easily reversed or overridden at a moment's notice with either of the co-commanders' clearance.

"So?" Sinnali asked, throwing one arm over the headrest of her seat. "Does it all check out?"

Closing his eyes, Grievous gave a low hiss of a sigh. "Do it."

Grinning, Sinnali navigated the menu's deftly, and with a few more damning key presses, the deed was done.

The Malevolence was now officially ready to fight alongside the Republic without an "incident".

"Five minutes until arrival, Sir," a battledroid announced from the navigation station.

Grievous nodded and silently returned to glaring at the stars, practically counting down every damning second in his head.

"So," the silence was broken again. "Excited to fight alongside the Jedi for once?" Sinnali received the molten fury in his gaze with a chuckle and shit-eating grin, raising her hands defensively. "Alright, alright, baby steps. I get you. All in good time."

Not wanting to give the Sith the satisfaction of seeing him lose to his temper again, Grievous manfully suppressed the slew of Kaleesh expletives that wanted to escape him, only for his fury to bubble harder at the fact that Sinnali could probably hear them anyway from gleaning off his surface thoughts. A growl of frustration rumbled up his throat, only to cause the cyborg to abruptly erupt into a fit of wheezing coughs. Thankfully, Sinnali remained silent henceforth and didn't make light of his moment of weakness, apparently appreciating that she was pressing the edge of his patience at this time of mounting stress.

The sign that arrival was immediately imminent was Sinnali straightening up in her seat. Grievous stiffened to attention as well, as the blur of stars before them began to slow, before suddenly snapping into a familiar vision.

Far below, the colossal city-planet of Coruscant sprawled in all its impersonal, industrial glory.

Sinnali had to admit though, that more striking than the planet she had seen hundreds of times before or the threat she knew was lurking upon it, what really sent a chill of wariness down even her spine was the Republic fleet of unprecedented size currently looming around the planet. If that sort of collective firepower was ever turned their way with any level of real coordination, she doubted even the improved Malevolence would make it out unscathed, even if it was in full retreat from the word "go". For all its firepower, the Malevolence was still designed as a solo ambush predator; engaging in pitched no-holds-barred slugfests with all comers was not in their interests.

Even now, she could see the ongoing bombardment of the Jedi Temple and its vicinity, and a sentimental part of her couldn't help but greatly lament the loss of so much knowledge. Her hunger to learn and improve in the Force was far from limited to the Dark Side, after all, and even if it was perhaps a distant fantasy, some part of her had always hoped to have the chance to consult the Jedi Archives again, to luxuriate in partaking of their holocrons...

But sentimentality was for later.

"Showtime," she whispered. Exchanging a nod with Grievous, Sinnali carefully double and triple checked the integrity of their deflector shields and that not a single drop of power was presently flowing to their weaponry, as the Malevolence hailed the ship they were told Yularen would be aboard, the Resolute, the (in)famous flagship of Jedi General Anakin Skywalker's fleet in the Grand Republic.

"This is the CIS Malevolence II, arriving to aid the Republic in the Galaxy's time of need."

A yellow two-tailed fox was wide awake as he pulled Blue Typhoon into view. Everyone else was sleeping, trying to rest up for whatever lay ahead. The crew knew the reason they were ripped from their own universe, and pulled into a foreign one. What they didn't know, was how long the fight was going to last.

"I hope that the part about us returning to where we were before is true. I have a difficult time believing that there isn't some catch to all of this." The fox said to himself, sighing as he took one hand off the control panel to rub his head.

The spaceship started to hit the new planet's atmosphere, rocking the ship as Miles Prower, also known as Tails, brought the ship towards the ground next to the blockade. There was a crashing, grinding sound, as the Blue Typhoon made contact with the unfamiliar soil. The fox got mild whiplash, and he could not help but think that he accidentally woke the others up.

"That could have gone smoother." Tails spoke again, this time scolding himself for the rather uncomfortable landing.

As the ship arrived in orbit around Coruscant, the Rangers looked out of the front viewscreen. "It's... Kinda beautiful..." Mele stated.

"Even if it is getting bombed into the ground." Kai replied, sighing. "What are we even going to do? If that god-guy-"

"His name is Daniel." Raekar butted in.

"If DANIEL is able to pull all of us out of our time-lines and dump us here, i don't see why he can't just poof these technobugs out of existance. And don't give me that whole "ThE oThErS wOnT lEt Me!" crap. I've had enough of Gods not stepping up when they need to. Say what you like about Mom, but at least she damn well got off her ass and helped when the universe needed her to." He grunted back.

"Gods are always fickle creatures" Michelle replied. "Only the dark gods are willing to do what is needed unconditionally in order to further their dark cause. Very few gods of order and light seem willing to do what is needed unconditionally."

"Speaking from personal experience?" Jay asked with a friendly smile. She simply stared emotionlessly back at him, as she tended to do.

"I am fortunate to be servant to the Mystic Mother." She replied.

"Well, i'm just glad that we will have some military back up for once." Asami smiled. "Like, actual soldiers. The Hengemen are just..." She stared at an inactive Hengeman in the corner. "I'm just glad that we get actual soldiers to back us up this time." Jack stared at her.

"Hey, we're soldiers. Badass-kickers, ready to fight." He held out his fist to Philip, who stared at it for a second, before he bumped it with his fist. "Still sad Captain Carter wouldn't give us a go with those F-302's."

"Hey, i think she's just scared of the Wizardactyl running rings around those things." Kai laughed. They saw the other ships arriving. "Well, it looks like we have a party." He walked over to Jack and bowed to him. "So, Red, what's the plan?" Jack looked out of the window.

"Follow the Blue Typhoon in." he replied. The Astro Megatimeship followed the Blue Typhoon in landing far more gently. The Rangers made their way outside and looked up at the constant rain of orbital fire crashing through the sky.

Wulff didn't question the mismatch of ships that entered the system, or orbit over Coruscant. Traffic had been light, with only a few key personnel moving in and out of the system. All other traffic had been barred. Ensuring that the fleet understood that these vessels weren't here for anything nefarious. Wullf at first thought he was having some form of episode when this 'Daniel' first appeared to him, but after this so-called 'ascended being' had met with Supreme Chancellor Palpatine and members of the Jedi Council he was told that the offer for aide was in-fact genuine.

Still seeing these very alien ships appear was odd, some of them headed down to the planet landing just outside of the containment zone, whereas others chose to remain in orbit. He turned to his second in command, a clone called Neo. "Inform the representatives that our guests are here." Looking out at the hangar bay he watched as two T-6 shuttles took off and left, one down towards the planet and one towards the ship amassing in orbit.

---

The Hammond dropped out of hyperspace and immediately tucked into formation with the Malevolence. The sheer size off the vessel still threw Sam off balance. The only ship she had ever seen that rivaled it was the Super-Hive in orbit above Earth, and not even Atlantis could stop it, the only way to destroy it was a nuke down its throat. The technology on some levels was less than that of the Hammond, but still. She was adamant she did not want a single Replicator to board that ship, if they took it and upgraded it then it would be damn near unstoppable. Not only that but it came from an alternate version of this universe they were now in. Did that mean vessels of this size were common here? If so they couldn't let the Replicators get off the planet. They'd be unstoppable.

"Major Marks."

"Ma'am?"

"Open a channel to the fleet."

"Channel Open."

"This is Colonel Carter, we're trying to mask our ships signature by keeping in close formation with the Malevolence, running scans now to try and see what we're dealing with." Standing up out of the 'command chair' that was placed in the middle of the bridge she walked over to a nearby console, scanning the planet was incredible. The whole planet was one large superstructure, it was a Replicator's dream-world, the raw materials on this world alone would likely make an infestation just as large as they had faced in the Milky-Way before they activated the Dakara weapon.

Jennifer Hailey came up behind her, Sam still saw her as the young-faced-head-strong Cadet she had met years ago but she had really come into her own in the fight against Queen Death and proven herself a distinguished officer. "The containment zone from their orbital bombardment seems to be working. We're not detecting any replicators outside of that sphere."

"As far as we know." Sam hit a combination of keys, probing the Asgard sensors to delve deeper, clawing to get all the information they could. "Interference with all the life support and power systems is creating a lot of interference, we're struggling to scan below level 1313."

Hailey nodded. "Maybe we can get one of the ships that have moved in closer to get a more accurate surface scan?"

"I've already got Colonel Mitchell putting together a team to go down to the planet with handheld scanners, we'll beam them down once we're closer, Kevin put in a request to the Blue Typhoon and Astro-Mega-" What an odd name for a ship, but they might be thinking the same about her ships name. "-to allow us to beam people down to the surface with them. We need to get more accurate readings so we can make a plan."

Currently the plan was to determine whether or not these Replicators were immune to the ARW technology developed by General O'Neill and the Asgard. If they weren't then they could slap something together pretty quickly to deactivate them. If they were, then it would take a little more trial and error.

Avenger command center

"That was one of the smoothest travels to date." The commander noted, the Avenger having jumped universes without so much as spilling her coffee.

"I said it before, and I'll say it again - If anyone else wants to take the helm, knock yourselves out." Central said back, as it was usually him flying the ship and rattling everyone's bones.

"We have arrived at the specified coordinates. Good news is that apparently, our engines do indeed work in space and the ship is in fact airtight." Shen chimed in from her station.

"Stand down from general quarters, pont the scanners at the planet and get Colonel Carter on the horn." The commander ordered, straight to business. Daniel brought quite the number of ships to help, which made the commander think this mission might not be as easy at it might seem.

"Ma'am, incoming communication from the Hammond." The communications officer noted, and the commander ordered the message on loudspeaker. "Patch me through. Colonel Carter, the Avenger is in GSO and scanning the infected area. I request your brief presence on the Avenger, along with whatever crew can link our sensors together." The Commander asked.

As soon as the crew of the Hammond beamed over, red lights flashed over the bridge, the automated voice calling out intruder alert. "Stand down!" The central officer called out, "Well this is familiar..."

"True. Initiate Echelon protocol." The commander ordered.

Senior command transfer initiated.

The Commander got up, and for the first time Sam would see the woman - Lean, tall woman with anthracite hair, and a set of scars on the right side of her face. "Colonel Carter, Commander Catherine Black. I am transferring strategic command of XCOM yo the Hammond for the duration of this mission. You know this enemy, this is your rodeo. We'll be here to keep you on your horse." She said, offering a handshake.

Sitting back and taking a breath, Tails finally got off the pilot seat. He started to go check on his fellow crew members, but something made him pause. There was an interference of some sort, and Tails returned his attention to the windshield. Looking out, he saw another ship.

"I guess that we aren't the only ones who decided to land." Tails observed, before the sound of footsteps snapped Tails back to what he was going to do prior to getting distracted. Tails turned his head to see Sonic, who had a look of annoyance on his face.

"Come on, Tails. You can land better than that." Sonic said, yawning as he approached the fox.

"Remind me to have you drive next time." Tails grumbled in response, much to Sonic's lack of amusement.

The two decided to drop the conversation there, as Sonic knew that he was defeated in this case. He was smart, but intelligence wasn't nessecarily his thing. Speed was, and Sonic knew it.

---

Almost immediately after the Malevolence's hail, the other ships in their impromptu interdimensional fleet began filtering in out of hyperspace as well, and Sinnali blinked in surprise at several of them diving straight towards the planet and past the Republic blockade without pause. Her smile dipped, as she opened a new channel to hail the rest of the world travelers, especially the Blue Typhoon and Astro Megatimeship.

"Malevolence to Blue Typhoon and Astro Megatimeship, what are you doing?" She felt her wording was incredibly diplomatic compared to the Kaleesh cursing Grievous was doing internally from his seat, his eyes currently shut to block out the sight of Coruscant. "Please withdraw for now. There's no guarantee the Replicators are completely contained from your landing zone."

Coruscant was far too deep for that, and everything she'd heard about this mechanical plague suggested the entire Republic Capital was a giant glorified buffet. The Replicators could hide just about anywhere, and Sinnali was more than a little concerned that they had already tunneled down and outward far enough to escape the Republic's bombardment cordon.

"We should formulate a strategy before diving in." Honestly, had these people been at the same briefing she was? What part of "nanomachines" and "planetary quarantine" wasn't a massive red flag not to set a single toe on the surface? Well, she supposed she shouldn't have expected much better. Both the Mobians and the "Rangers" were the most clearly mentally youthful and "naive" of those Daniel had recruited, and neither were apparently very aware of even basic space travel etiquette. Even if they weren't getting blasted out of the sky -a mercy precious few others would have received- for their trespass, they still should have gotten clearance to land from the Republic first.

---

Sighing, Sinnali pinched the bridge of her nose, before refocusing her attention on something more productive. She nodded at the Hammond's strategy. Hiding their signature in the shadow of the Malevolence was perfectly reasonable. Though she wasn't sure how fine the Replicators' detection capacity was, the very fact that the Hammond considered this a viable strategy opened up some potentially interesting options.

She chuckled grimly at the results of the Hammond's scans. "Indeed, Coruscant is its own worst enemy." In more than one sense honestly. "I do not think it is inaccurate to say that -from what we have been told of these 'Replicators'- there is not a single worse location they could have landed in all the Galaxy. 'Worse', of course, in the sense of it being to their advantage." Rapping her fingers on her console, she hummed in thought. "If they have any tunneling capacity or strategic sense, I have no doubt that the Replicators have already escaped the cordon. The only question is how deep they have gotten." She chuckled again and shook her head. "Of course, I would be delighted to be wrong, but I do think we should proceed with the assumption of the worst-case scenario until proven otherwise." She snapped her fingers. "Oh, and if you wouldn't mind terribly, the Malevolence would be very interested in having that sensor data for the Replicators. Our logs don't yet have any experience detecting them specifically, and it would be best to get a headstart on that."

"Vessel inbound," a battledroid announced.

"Hmmm?" Sinnali perked up, eying the monitors, as a T-6 shuttle flew closer to the ships still in orbit, while a second headed for those that had chosen to land. "A T-6, eh?" She glanced over her shoulder to eye Grievous's tense posture.

"Jedi..." growled the cyborg in clear equal recognition, clawed fingers twitching.

Pursing her lips, Sinnali considered where to direct them. Did the T-6 mean to come aboard one of their vessels? She wasn't entirely sure if she wanted to push Grievous's buttons harder yet by playing host, but it would probably be a decent gesture of good will... Meeting Grievous's gaze, Sinnali allowed the moment to stretch, expression blank in response to habitual homicidal rage the General was prone to if a Jedi so much as breathed the same atmosphere.

"Got to rip that bandage off sometime," she said. She couldn't presently think of a better way to prove their altruism than to have Jedi enter and leave their ship unharmed. As long as the cyborg could contain himself...

A low tinny snarl escaped Grievous's throat, as his hands clenched into fists, claws scraping on his armrests. He snapped to his feet. His glare bored into Sinnali's mask with the kind of fury that sometimes made Sinnali truly question if those golden, slitted eyes of his were natural or a result of the Dark Side flowing through him in the only capacity he might have in the Force. Finally, the moment ended, as Grievous spun on his heel, stalking towards the lift with his Kaleesh cloak billowing behind him.

As the door hissed open, he paused, sending a final glare over his shoulder.

"Do as you like with the Jedi slime."

And then he was gone, and Sinnali was releasing the breath she'd been holding. She sighed, idly tracking the General's retreating figure, as he stalked towards the general area of his personal quarters. The message was clear. If she wanted to play with the Jedi, leave him out of it... unless they were killing them. She supposed that was fair enough. That they were even allowed on his ship unaccosted at all must have felt like it was an invasion of Grievous's safe space. But this was still a win for her; she could hardly keep pushing his boundaries unless she successfully moved the line to begin with, after all.

"Republic vessel," Sinnali hailed the Jedi shuttle, "this is the Malevolence, ready to recieve you at docking bay J." She passed the shuttle directions to the docking bay built into the side of the bridge tower. It was the closest place to the actual bridge that she could direct them, given the titanic size of the ship and also was where Grievous usually parked his starfighter for the quickest route to escape if he needed to abandon ship. Since Sinnali was hardly interested in hosting a grand tour -never mind their present time constraints and Grievous only getting more annoyed the more places the Jedi "sullied", she would make sure any travel was done with as little "sight-seeing" as possible. For security reasons, if nothing else.

Standing from her own seat, Sinnali rolled her shoulders, plastered on a familiar, amiable smile and headed for the lift herself, heading down to the bridge docking bay to recieve her guests.

---

A large blue circle appears above Coruscant, a little close to the Malevolence for comfort. From the swirling mass erupts another incredibly large vessel, purple, dotted with blue lights throughout, a large hangar being seen in the middle of the vessel. The ship slowly trundles away from that circle, disappearing behind the tail-end of the vessel. She measures in at over five thousand meters, beating out the now second largest ship in this makeshift fleet.

One Sangheili turns up from his console. "Shipmaster! We're picking up a variety of new vessels! None of them are Covenant!" Remas turns over to the officer, giving an idle sweeping wave with his hand "Keep an eye on them, and keep our weapons warm." Remas' gravity chair swivels over to Vikti, hovering closer ever so slightly. "Blademaster, how do you think they will respond if they hear of our conquests? That Demon issued no comforts to me, in that... Meeting." Vikti shifts in place, looking to Remas. "With disdain, if not outright violence."

"A tenuous alliance, no?" He quips back to the Blademaster. "I wonder who will break first. Let us keep silence for now, and see what they do first." Another Sangheili pops his head up. "Shipmaster! All systems are reporting green! All crew are combat ready!" Remas smiles, if an Elite could smile. "Good, I want you all to observe the neighboring vessels. I want an overview of the entire fleet structure, this is not a time to relax."

With that, the ship looms silently in the blackness of space...

As the Rangers assembled on the ground, Raekar sent back an acknowledgement to the Hammond. She then responded to the Malevolence's questioning of their actions. "My Rangers work better on the ground, as does my ship. And we made sure to choose an LZ from the approved list of sites." before pressing the intercomm "Rangers, get some readings from down there, the George Hammond wants to teleport some of their men down, but want some readings of the area before they do. Secure the area and get some readings. And if you can get me some samples of those Replicator things to study, that'd be great. We may need to develop some new weapons to fight them.

"Acknowledged." Jack responded. Looking around the landing site, they seem to have landed in an industrial area. He waved a finger around in the air to silently indicate to the others to spread out. The 7 Rangers did so, using their wrist communicators to scan the area. Frankly, they didn't understand a number of the exotic particles being used in the powering of this great City Planet. Anthracite, Tibana and Hypermatter being foreign concepts to them. Despite the large buildings surrounding them, as far as they could tell, they were relatively alone in this landing site. No energies like the ones Daniel had warned them about. The Rangers quickly sent their readings back to Raekar who forwarded them to the ships in Orbit.

"I... HUNGER... FOR BATTLE..." The voice came through the intercom.

"Trypticon, i appreciate your wish for battle, but we don't want to tip our hand until we need to." Raekar responded to the ship. "These things are powerful and numerous. They thrive on information. We need to deprive them of as much as possible."

"I... WILL... WAIT..." It grunted in acknowledgement. Raekar shook her head. She then pressed to hail the George Hammond again.

"We're sending you all the info we can get from down here. Just tell us what you need doing and my Rangers will get it done."

As the intercom on the Blue Typhoon played the message from Malevolence, both Sonic and Tails looked up. The fox was about to reply, letting Malevolence know that they were about to head back into space, but Sonic spoke first.

"You talking about the nonsense about nanomachines" and "planetary quarantines?" Sonic asked, remembering the lecture about those two things before being sent on this mission. The blue hedgehog chuckled, before speaking again.

"Nanomachines can't catch the fastest thing alive. I'd like to see them try." Sonic said, receiving an annoyed look from Tails.

"I believe that we should still get out of here, despite what you say. A common cold could catch you, Sonic." Tails said, looking at his watch as another message came in.

"Looks like Hammond is sending some of their members down." Tails said, looking at the message he received.

"Do you still want us to head back into space now?" Sonic asked, speaking to the Malevolence.

"This is Tails, operator of Blue Typhoon to Hammond. Which of your crew are you sending down?" Tails said over the intercom, ignoring Sonic's words.

Just because Colonel Carter wasn't currently aboard, that didn't mean that everything on the ship came to a resounding halt. While Lt.Col Franklin managed things on the bridge, between avoiding another impressively large ship, scanning the planet, arranging the away team, and monitoring comms. He agreed with the assessment of the Malevolence crew that landing on the surface was foolish but that was up to other parties to convince them that their ships being there was likely a bad idea.

While things were just starting to get settled another ship dropped out of FTL travel. "Marks?"

He turned to the all-knowledgeable Major who in all likelihood was the most experienced member of the bridge crew in the entire airforce. "I'm sorry sir, it doesn't match any of the scans given to us by Doctor Jackson."

"Is it native?"

Marks hit several more keys on his console. "Best I can tell, no sir. Like the rest of our vessels its emitting some form of radiation that the natives vessels aren't."

"Get Colonel Carter over here, we have a situation she's going to have to deal with."



It all happened so fast for Sam aboard the Avenger. In the CIC a computer voice spoke, initiating the transfer of command and then the commander spoke basically folding in under the existing command of the Hammond. Sam didn't have a chance to feel flustered or embarrassed, the military mind in her kicked in. It made some kind of sense given the threat that they streamline the command and control structure as much as physically possible.

She shook Catherine Blacks hand. "Thankyou-" Her earpiece chimed in from Franklin telling her that her presence was required back on the Hammond. "-I'm afraid I'm being called back." She indicated to the younger blonde woman she had brought with her. "This is Major Hailey. She'll help adjust your comms and scanners, and do any other work you require."

She tapped her ready. "Ready to beam." With that Colonel Carter disappeared in a flash of light.



Sam walked over to her console as soon as she was back aboard the bridge. There were two ships that drew her attention. One was some form of native shuttle headed towards the Malevolence whereas the other one IFF wasn't quite registering on their sensors as of yet, a cursory scan and she agreed with Kevin's assessment that this ship was like them, and it wasn't from this universe.

"Meyers, open a local channel to the Malevolence and ask them if they want any additional company with our local hosts. Put an offer out to the other ships of the fleet that we can beam them aboard the Malevolence on their request if they require. Then open a channel to the new vessel."

Pat Meyers relayed the message to the Malevolence and the other ships of the fleet, then nodded towards Sam to let her know that she was live to the unidentified vessel.

"Unidentified vessel, this is Colonel Carter of the USS. George Hammond. Our scans indicate you're not native to this universe however, we weren't expecting you. Do you require any assistance?" She signaled to close the channel and then continued to pour over the scan data of the new ship, it was fascinating. There were certain technological similarities between their own and Asgard designs but it was totally alien. She could pour over this for hours, but there were bigger fish to fry.



There were two flashes of lights on the surface as Colonel Cameron Mitchell, and Vala Mal Doran appeared on the surface of the planet. Dressed in their black BDUs and holding P90s. Mitchell immediately tapped his earpiece. "Hammond this is Mitchell, we're down on the planet. We'll stay in touch."

Explosions continued to fall as the 'quarantine' area was maintained by the ships in orbit. "Oh just think of the treasures this place holds."

"We're here on a mission."

"I know I know, but how often do we get to explore another universe?"

"I can think off several mission reports."

"Yes but none of them were us, and besides some payment for saving the universe. is it too much to ask?"

"Just run the scans." Vala rolled her eyes and pulled out a tablet and scanner. She blew her bubble in Mitchell's direction ensuring that it would pop as defiantly as possible. He completely ignored her, and with one hand holding his P90 at rest he raised his other to wave at the colourful groups of people who had come from alternate universes like they had.

"Hey fellas, how's it going? Seen anything exciting yet?"

---

As she rode the lift down to docking bay J, Sinnali listened to the responses from the Blue Typhoon and Astro Megatimeship that rang from her holocommunicator, which was currently acting as a link to the Malevolence's own comm systems. Though her smile widened just that little bit more, there was only a sharp danger behind it, a sign of her unvarnished displeasure, as she resisted the urge to respond or protest, keeping her end of the communication muted. It wasn't like she was their commander or anything, after all. In the end, she could only make strong suggestions, so if they didn't want to follow her advice, then...

"Their funeral," she huffed, and based on the flare of Grievous's own distant emotions from where he was clearly still monitoring all the ongoing communications of the Malevolence, she could gather he had similar sentiments. "Whatever." She discarded that matter for now. You couldn't weep for the stupid, or else you'd be crying all day. If the Replicators compromised them, then she hoped they wouldn't be too surprised when she gunned them down like any other threat. If they wanted to risk becoming part of the problem, the consequences were on their own heads.

She hummed in acknowledgement and gave several rote pacifying orders in response to the announcement of the arrival of the Covenant delegation, the Fires of Antiquity. She had to admit, being the one in the smaller flagship for the first time since being assigned to the Malevolence was an interesting feeling for her, one she wasn't sure she appreciated... and one she was definitely sure Grievous didn't appreciate. She knew the Kaleesh was engaging in no small amount of dick measuring with the titanic starship carrier, and he was none too pleased with the ways the Malevolence was wanting.

Not that this was a competition, given they were ostensibly on the same side, Sinnali had tried to comfort him, but it was a concern to have superior firepower in the hands of an ally of dubious intent. Her read on the Covenant's leadership in the initial meeting in the "World Between Worlds" had indicated that they might be possessed of what some would call "orange and blue" morality, which was a rather dangerous thing, no matter whose side they were on.

Is this how the Republic feels about the Malevolence? she couldn't help but wonder with a sort of dry amusement.

She shook her head from those thoughts and frowned at something more concerning.

A new mystery vessel had arrived, one they hadn't yet profiled from the meeting in the World Between Worlds. Sinnali frowned deeper and considered turning the lift back around. If something untoward happened, it would be better for her to be on the bridge, even if that left the Jedi with only droids for an escort. She could ask Grievous to head back to the bridge, but if there was any possibility of diplomacy with the unknown, he wasn't exactly her first pick to manage it.

A channel opened from the Hammond briefly stole her attention to the voice of Meyers, as she forced her tone to sound far more cheerful than her expression. "Of course, Captain. Please inform the Colonel that the Malevolence will be glad to host any fleet envoys that wish to come aboard... provided there's warning, of course," she chuckled. She honestly didn't know if the Malevolence had any defense against this "beaming" technology, but she doubted it. Giving permission was, all things considered, a formality at best. And thankfully, everything she'd seen from the Hammond's crew thus far suggested that as long as they were allies, it was a formality they would adhere to. "We'll send you appropriate boarding coordinates for reception."

Addressing the navigation station of the Malevolence, Sinnali snapped off, "Send the USS G. Hammond spatial coordinates for Docking Bay J."

"Roger roger," intoned a small chorus of droids in response.

Shaking her head, Sinnali turned her attention back to the mystery ship, forcing her bubbling emotions to settle, as she probed their area with the Force. She listened with half an ear to the comm waves being sent to the mystery vessel, as the returns from the Force came back... militant? Yes, she got a similar sense from the collective minds aboard this ship to the Avenger and Hammond. Military-minded and not necessarily hostile, but certainly confused and wary.

Idly, she flagged down the still panicking droids from warming up the Malevolence's arsenal and locking onto the mystery ship, sighing in some measure of relief. "Strengthen the deflector shields and open a channel to the unknown vessel."

"Roger roger."

"This is General Sinnali of the CIS Malevolence II, contacting unknown vessel. Your arrival was unscheduled. Please declare your origination and intent." She paused, hoping that didn't come across as overly confrontational. Just about anyone local should know Coruscant was presently off-limits. But she'd never seen a ship quite of this one's like before, of what was now being projected holographically from her holocommunicator, and all things considered, even though the Malevolence was far from equipped to detect dimensional anomalies the way the Hammond was (outside hyperdrive usage), Sinnali's intuition pointed this to being another universally displaced crew.

The Force all but nodding rapidly in the corner of her attention confirmed it.

Shaking her head, she sighed and directed the droids to intercept and eavesdrop upon the other communications directed towards the unknown vessel, as the lift doors opened into docking bay J. She had a delegation to welcome right now, and the Malevolence was as turtled up as it could really hope to be. So, for now, she would step back from the diplomatic overtures and let the other crews handle that.

---

"Shipmaster! New vessel, foreign, it's not one we've seen before! We're observing evasive maneuver patterns!"

Remas looks over. "Put it on-screen." With the Stargazer on the main holographic display, the Sangheili's mandibles click. "Is it always natural for humans to put their bridges in such obvious positions? Helm, move us away from the Malevolence. Issue a warning to the new vessel to steer clear of our ship, at least, until we confirm they're... Friendly." Remas' voice is met with a mixture of "ayes."

To anyone able to pick up gravity disturbances, they'd be able to pick up large scale gravitic distortions coming from the Assault Carrier, as it slides sideways away from the Malevolence, shields coming alive. For it's size, the Fires of Antiquity moves with surprising speed and grace.

As for the Stargazer, it'd pick up a transmission from the Covenant battlenet, not a live one, but a message. If they read it...

>TO UNK VESSEL
>SHIPMASTER'S ORDERS: MAINTAIN DISTANCE FROM THE ASSAULT CARRIER "FIRES OF ANTIQUITY"
>SHIPMASTER'S ORDERS: PROVIDE IDENTIFICATION AT ONCE
>IDENTIFICATION AND COMMUNICATION PATTERNS ATTACHED

Most interesting, it looks like this vessel can do on-screen face to face video communication alongside various other forms of holographic communication! "Shipmaster, we are clear of the Malevolence! It appears they're using that vessel for a meeting, evidenced by the shuttle approaching." Remas looks over, for a moment considering if dealing with everyone else is truly worth dealing with.

"Blademaster, what do you suggest?" Vikti turns his head up slightly, looking to Remas. "If we want to gain further information on our... Allies, we should head over there as well. It is of my opinion that they are the only ones capable of posing a competent threat to us, we should observe them." A huff from the Shipmaster. "Send a request to the Malevolence, inform them that we desire to meet their leadership." Vikti nods. "Yes, Shipmaster." And with that, he's off to a nearby console.

>TO MALEVOLENCE II
>REQUESTING TRANSFER OF DELEGATION FOR BATTLE PLANNING
>PLANNED CREW: SHIPMASTER REMAS 'DALAMEE, BLADEMASTER VIKTI 'LAURMAI
>TRANSFER VECTOR: PHANTOM TROOP TRANSPORT
>AWAITING RESPONSE

As Rangers finished their scans and sent them to the Hammond, they gathered next to the ship and looked up at the Blue Typhoon. "They landed, i wonder why they didn't deploy yet?" Jack asked.

"HEY YOU GUYS!!!" Jay screamed, jumping up and down and waving up to the long, spindly ship with the palm trees. At that point, Mitchell and Vala beamed in, appearing with a clunk and a flash of light. Asami saluted to them.

"Colonel, Agent. It's good to see you again." She stood to attention. "Is it just the two of you?" She asked.

"In any case, i'm glad you two are here." Jack said. "You have actually fought these creatures before, you know their strengths, their weaknesses and their tactics, so i'll delegate command of the Rangers to you for this mission." The 7 of them gathered around. "We have directed energy weapons and melee, as well as some colossal assault vehicles at your disposal."

"Yeah and my Wizardactyl is still gonna run rings around your F-302's." Kai grinned.

"I am curious how well Magic tends to work on these creatures?" Michelle asked Vala.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Meanwhile, aboard the ship itself, Raekar was being kept abreast of the new arrivals in orbit. "Reinforcements, good." She sighed.

"I... SENSE..." The voice came over the speakers. "SOMETHING... SOMETHING FAMILIAR IS COMING..."

"Friends of yours?" Raekar asked.

"I... DONT HAVE... ANY FRIENDS..." It responded.

"Awww, don't be like that, i'm your friend." Raekar smiled, leaning over the console and running a finger over it as if stroking it. "And what about Full-Tilt and Wipe-Out?"

"I... DO NOT... ENJOY THIS... FEELING..." Trypticon could feel something in his Spark. A presence was about to make itself known and it threatened to unbalance him.

At the lack of response from Malevolence, Tails sighed, rubbing his head. He was about to speak again when he heard someone yell outside the Blue Typhoon. The yell snapped Tails out of his thoughts, and the yellow two-tailed fox headed towards the ship's control panel.

"Sonic, go get the others. It's time we deploy. But at the first sign of trouble, we meet back here. Got it?" Tails said, getting ready to deploy the crew.

"You got it. By the way, since when do you take the charge? I thought that I was the leader here." Sonic said, not really giving Tails time to reply as he sped off.

Tails shook his head, before opening the doors to the Blue Typhoon. He grabbed a few of the rings Sonic used as power source before heading outside and greeting the others.

"I imagine that we all know each other, but just a reminder. I'm Miles Prower, but everyone calls me Tails. You'll have a hard time guessing why. Anyway, the blue hedgehog, known as Sonic, is in the process of getting the others." Tails greeted, holding out his hand and putting the rings for Sonic in a pouch with his other hand.

GM STUFF:



The T-6 shuttle docked with the massive vessel, twisting into its docking formation. The hatch hissed and clicked, and through it stepped the tall, long-haired Jedi. He was flanked by two Clone Troopers whose black pauldrons matched the armor he too wore over his sand-colored robes. He walked calmly passed the battle droids, indicating for the two clones to remain behind at the airlock. He didn't take pause at the dark presence of the ships master, he had already been advised as too the ships commander, he did however flinch as a burst of light revealed a man in a black outfit.

The man bowed his head to all parties present, before speaking. "Greetings, I am Teal'c and have been sent from the Hammond to be part of this discussion."

The Jedi returned the bow, trying to spread his attention evenly throughout the group. "My name is Qui-Gon Jinn, it is my pleasure to meet you all. I have been sent on behalf of the Jedi Council and the Galactic Republic to greet you all and let you know what has happened on Coruscant since the Replicators arrived, my former master will meet your people on the surface."

---

OUTSIDE QUARANTINE ZONE // CORUSCANT

Dooku walked down the ramp of the Jedi shuttle on the surface of Coruscant, the bombardment continued unabated and unhindered by the presence of new ships on the surface. In the distance, the usual chaos of local air traffic was almost non-existent as while many people couldn't evacuate they had moved as far away from the threat as possible. Some had ventured deeper underground, whereas others to the opposite side of the planet.

Behind him walked a bald woman in similar robes, a lightsaber hilt on both sides of her waist. Dooku bowed his head ever so slightly at the various beings gathered, they were all... surprisingly colorful barr two. "Greetings. I am Master Dooku of the Jedi Order. I have been sent here by the Jedi Council to get you acquainted with the events that have... transpired"

Location: In geosynchronous orbit over Coruscant.

From umbra to umbra did Thoth travel, in a manner of speaking anyway. As the lightless void of the interspace it and Daniel had first conversed in gradually faded away, only to be replaced with the ecumenopolis that was Coruscant and the rest of the Corusca sector, the ancient bio-synthetic machine let its sensors fall over its environs like a web, scanning everything it could as it slid into orbit alongside the rest of the ships the ascended entity had collected-- the Avenger specifically. Confined, for now at least, to one section of the planet below it found the Replicators, skittering to and fro like Rachni as they consumed anything they could get their gluttonous little claws on. Immediately it decided that something needed to be done, as the quarantining bombardment would only remain effective for so long. Based on the planet's nested structure, it was probable that the Replicators would inevitably make their way down to the lower levels so that they could bypass the fleet's bombardment entirely. From there it was only a matter of time until they managed to get off-world, be that by stowing away on some kind of civilian vessel that had been left behind or something of their own construction.

So, sending out a friendly IFF signal to the surrounding armada to avoid any misunderstandings or wasteful engagements, Thoth engaged its primary drive and made its way down to the planet's surface post-haste. Static discharge flared along its hull as it breached the atmosphere (a result of its mass effect field being activated), making for quite the ominous sight as it came to rest in the air a few kilometers away from the exclusion zone being maintained by the ships in orbit. Letting loose a deafening bellow, it powered up its magnetohydrodynamic cannon, adding its emerald beam to the hail of ordinance currently raining down from on high. Its goal? To create a more effective semi-permanent barrier of molten slag. Nothing the Replicators couldn't eat through of course, but something that would inconvenience them just the tiniest bit further.

---

A transmission from the Covenant delegation was quickly processed and responded to in a rapid-fire murmur of orders to the droids, as Sinnali stepped out of the lift.

>TO FIRES OF ANTIQUITY
>RESPONDING TO REQUEST: TRANSFER OF DELEGATION FOR BATTLE PLANNING
>DELEGATION MEMBERSHIP: APPROVED
>TRANSFER VECTOR: APPROVED
>DOCKING LOCATION ATTACHED
>AWAITING ARRIVAL

Sinnali nodded at the alert of the arrival of another friendly IFF, the Thoth, and finally turned her attention from her holocommunicator to properly greet her guests aboard the Malevolence. Tucking the device into a belt sleeve, she quickened her pace to make up for lost time, approaching the Republic and Hammond delegations. Her black cloak trailed behind her lightly, a lightsaber hilt swaying on each hip.

Habitually, her presence was both closed and contradictingly open, the eddies of her open curiosity swirling in the Force, as she raised a brow behind her blindfold at the black armor the Jedi and Clone Troopers were sporting. Special forces? Local preferences? Perhaps. This was another universe, after all.

But what almost brought her up short -even though it really shouldn't have, in hindsight- was the sight of a dead man walking among them. Fascination overtook trepidation alongside a concoction of glee, as she made a show of eyeing the Jedi up and down with a brief tilt of her head, wetting her lips. If he was alive... from what she knew of how that had happened... Well, it wasn't like she kept tabs on every Jedi there was, but when someone was involved in the death of a fellow Apprentice? That deserved attention. It was a shame he hadn't lived to tell the tale. Well, hers didn't, but this one had, which meant... something was very different in this galaxy far far away.

"Master Qui-Gon Jinn," she grinned widely in genuine amiability. "The pleasure is all mine," she returned his greetings, sketching a bow of her own. "It's not every day Jedi and Sith can unite under a common banner, and I, for one, am quite elated at the novelty." She hummed cheerily at the Jedi's luminous presence, her ever-present tendrils in the Force resisting the urge to poke at him or his mind. It had been... a long time since she'd last met this Jedi, and the hunger to find out how much this local version differed to her own was not small.

Addressing the group of delegates as a whole in turn, she said, "I am Darth Sinnali, Commander of the Malevolence. Though, in practice, 'General Sinnali' is my rank and most practical address." For the benefit of the non-Jedi, she added, "'Darth' is something of a... 'religious title' is the best comparison. Feel free not to acknowledge it at your leisure. But I digress..." She bowed again. "I speak on behalf of the Sith Order and my galaxy's Confederation of Independent Systems to aid in whatever way we can to snuff the Replicator threat before it can spread across the rest of this galaxy and the wider multiverse."

"Speaking of which," she returned her attention to Master Jinn and nodded. "We have heard much of these 'Replicators' in a broad sense, been lectured on their threat, but as you say, we have yet to hear how this all began and how it has devolved to this point."