The hub: it sat halfway between Andromeda and the Milky way, a massive station built around a structural ring. Each Ring housed a section of the station, which had been specifically built for the needs of one alien species over another. Each of these sections had attached housing food, docking bays, and contact locations with important tradesmen all held under strict atmospheric conditions. The only place where the sections were connected to join freely was at the center ring, and the council chamber: a large ball suspended at the center of the ring by way of specialized tunnels branching form each section, and leading into a massive meeting chamber.

Construction on the hub had begun almost as soon as the humans had joined the GA some five to six years earlier. While Rundi were the oldest space faring species, their planet was hardly the ideal location for interspecies meetings.

Then again, no planet was exactly perfect, that logic having led to the construction of the station, which was built to house a perfect environment for each and every visiting species.

Just outside the perimeter of the Hub, a massive set of glowing rings rotated slowly in place, on occasion the ring would glow bright white blue, and a ship would suddenly appear inside its outermost ring, only to come curving off into space and down to where it would dock at the hub.

This was another one of the great inventions being constructed around the galaxy: a stationary warp ring, which could be used in place of an on-ship warp drive. The only downside was that ships who used it could only move in preset patterns around known locations while ships with an onboard warp core could explore at their leisure.

However this was hardly the concern of small civilian transports or large shipping freighters, who generally tended to move only between known planetary locations. Either way, the sudden implementation of the warp rings was changing the galaxy rapidly, and now everything seemed closer than ever.

It was almost Ironic that this was all thanks to the Kree/burg collusion and their attempt to get rid of Commander, now admiral vir, by shooting him into an unknown warp tunnel which they had generated using a ring of their own ship probes. Ever since scientists had been reverse engineering the technology until this moment, when warp rings were first being implemented at all the major hubs.

From a window, on the far side of the ring, a young military intelligence analyst was standing nervously before a viewing window staring out at the rotating warp ring and watching quietly as small ships emerged from it's rings like polen. She held a sheaf of documents in one hand, and all around her important government and military officials were filtering into the tunnel behind her and up to the council chambers.

Her heart beat rapidly in her chest, and her stomach hurt as her intestines twisted themselves into complicated and painful knotts.

She was a simple threat analyst with the newly burgeoning Department of Intergalactic Security (DIS) and she had not expected to be brought in front of the Galactic Assembly today to speak on her work. Yes, she was head of the department's threat analysis team, but she hardly expected herself to be important enough to be called to do what she was doing.

She almost wondered if her boss had called her into speak to cover her own ass if something were to go wrong and the report wasn't satisfactory.

She hardly noticed the footsteps behind her or the shadow which had fallen over her face, so engrossed was she in her thoughts and nerves. It wasn't until a few minutes later when she turned her head and caught sight out of the corner of her eye.

She froze, almost dropping her papers into a heap on the floor, but managing to catch them last minute. A man stood next to her the glowing white blue of the warp ring lighting up the front of his face and sending light dancing down his cheekbones and through his messy blond hair.

She would have known his face anywhere, from the front of UNSC recruitment posters, the inside of history textbooks, magazines, newspapers, movie posters, and... in one case, a deck of playing cards where he had been the Jack.

Behind him a group of officers was huddled in a tight circle, broken only by his absence as it seemed he had left the conversation to gaze out at space as she was doing.

And unfortunately, he noticed her scrutiny.

She tried to look away, but it was hardly discrete and made it look like she had some sort of awkward neck spasm.

She blushed wishing she could hide behind a curtain of her hair, but the military bun she wore was unforgiving.

She looked at him out of the corner of her eye and caught him looking at her, her blush grew brighter.

"You know the last time I saw one of those, I was being launched halfway across the universe in a crumbling space ship."

His voice was pleasantly smooth and calm but friendly as if he was just about to break into peels of laughter. When she turned her head to look at him still feeling awkward, the expression he gave her was one of polite amusement.

"S-sorry for staring sir-"

He smiled, "I can hardly blame you. I am nothing if not amazingly interesting." The way he said it made it pretty clear he was only joking, and she broke out into a small smile of her own.

Her hands tightened around her sheaf of papers her mind brought back to an image she had stashed in her notes. He knew pretty damn well that that was true and not just a joke, "I think we both know you're not entirely joking.... If you don't mind me saying, sir."

He shrugged, "Sometimes I forget that my life tends to be a little more interesting than most people's." he held out a hand, "Adam Vir, but I guessed you already knew that." She took his hand, finding that his grip was strong and firm, but not too strong as to crush her hand.

"Lydia Deckler, sir."
He had turned his head to face her now, and she was a little more than surprised to find that he did, in fact, wear an eyepatch as all the rumors suggested. Some people said it was more of an aesthetic choice, while others said it had something to do with his – supposed mechanical eye– which tended to overwhelm the user after prolonged use, and of course there were the cynics who considered his use of an eyepatch the cry of attention from a man with so plungingly low self esteem he would do anything to make himself more interesting.

He didn't seem like the latter, but she couldn't be sure.

She wanted to ask but thought it might be rude.

The silence had gone on to long, and as she looked into his face, his one remaining eye, she felt a strange sensation, as if he already knew what she was thinking. His pupil seemed to open up, reflecting back at her the entire universe behind the station boundaries. She almost felt as if she would fall in, teetering on her heels.

There was a sudden thud against the window, and she turned and screamed.

Sheaves of paper dropped from her hands and went spilling out over the floor as the massive black eyes leered at her from the window before a curtain of billowing white ribbon.

The entier room had gone silent.

At the window the strange alien face broke into something approximating a grin.

"Conn!"

It was the Admiral's voice, and she turned wide eyed at him, heart pounding as he marched up to the window."

"Conn what the fuck was that!"

The face leered at him from outside, and now that her heart rate was going down, she recognized it as a starborn. She blinked in surprise, she had only ever seen pictures of them. Behind them, the entire room had turned to stare at them, and she blushed hard scrambling on all fours to pick up her papers.

Admiral Vir had gone quiet, and while he didn't talk, he gesticulated wildly with his hands as the starborn pouted and occasionally made rude gestures at him in response.

Incredible.

She knew starborn communicated telepathically, but as far as she knew Admiral vir was the only person who could communicate back to them. Eventually the starborn made one final rude gesture and floated away from the station and down out of sight.

Admiral vir turned from the window grimacing, and bent to help her with her papers, "I am so sorry about that, he's a bit of a problem child." He glanced up at her and, looking sheepish he said, "And all three are probably correct."

She looked up at him frowning with confusion, "Sorry, what?"

"All three, of their theories about why I wear an eyepatch."

It took her a moment to register what he was talking about, and when he did her eyes widened, "Can you read minds!"

He frowned, "No, but Conn can." he held up a hand, "Don't worry, he didn't mention anything else to me other than the eyepatch thing, and yes I like wearing it because I think it makes me look cool, I wear it because sometimes the mechanical eye becomes too much, and there is probably a modicum of truth about the self esteem thing, though I like to think i've mostly worked that one out." he stood and handed her back her papers, "I hope that answers your question."

She blushed again, and hated herself for it, "Sorry sir."

"I'm sorry for intruding on your thoughts."

"Amidral!" The two of them turned at the voice, and she shrunk back as she recognized Admiral Kelly,a and the fleet Commander as they stepped up, "Meeting starts in five minutes, we should be going."

He inclined his head and turned to her with a nod before disappearing up the tunnel with them.

She found herself suddenly very glad that the starborn hadn't showed up when she was thinking about the movie poster hanging on her wall.

With that thought now firmly and embarrassingly fixed in her head, she hurried forward across the floor and up the tunnel into the meeting chamber, which was mostly dark, but held large pod-like seats to contain each of the delegations. Some of the seats were covered by a protected, and enclosed glass bubble while the rest of the delegations allowed the bubbles to be open to the air.

The room was alive with the chatter of a hundred or more alien delegates speaking in alien tongues.

She saw Drev, and Vrul and Rundi and Celzex: those of whom were sitting WITH the human delegation mostly clustered around Admiral Vir as he spoke with them.

Thanks to Admiral Vir, threat analytics had shown that the Celzex: despite their planetary destruction capabilities, were of the least threat to the human civilizations due to their fierce loyalty to the friendship he had worked so hard to build with them.

Those same threat analytics showed that their weakest ally within the GA was actually the Bran.... For similar but opposite reasons.

The man had really only become good at alien diplomacy within the last three years, and their first encounter hadn't exactly gone according to plan.

She stepped across the polished black floor of the large, dark room, and took a nervous seat below the Rundi section , where the other speakers were sitting. If they were nervous, they didn't show it, most of them sitting straight backed and blank faced, while the alien speakers were hard to suss out when it came to their own facial expressions.

One of the speakers, a short blue Drev wearing pearly white armor, looked almost bored as she spun a spear idly around in one hand.

The Drev saint, she hadn't expected to see her at the meeting, though she supposed she should have considered she was also the weapons specialist on Admiral Vir's ship. Her promotion to sainthood had caused a real stur in the galactic community as it sent huge ripples through Drev cultural traditions, which in turn, sparked a change in their foreign policy.

There was also the question of how hierarchy was supposed to work on the Admiral's ship as he was technically a clan Sentinel but saints were generally positioned above Sentinels in clan hierarchy. Some worried the Drev would use this as a way to take over command of the human run UNSC Omen, though that didn't seem to have happened.

She was probably here to speak today about how Drev and interspecies relations would reflect the new doctrine.

She had a copy in her sheaf of papers.

As a threat analyst, it was her job to determine what changes in the galaxy were good for humans and which ones were bad. She imagined that this would be good for humanity and the other GA members as a whole as the new doctrine was a little more lax on the Drev themselves.

She sat in her seat nervously as the meeting began with the Rundi chairwoman greeting them all and welcoming them to the meeting. A few words were said about the new meeting hall, and a couple of new faces were introduced to the assembly. Some general business was conducted, and then it was time for the speakers.

There were a few trade and economic reports from the Tesraki, and a very long winded speech from some foreign policy maker on space waste disposal off of ship, which had half of the gallery asleep in the first five minutes, a gallery that picked up as soon as the Drev saint stepped onto the floor, and gave a short but impassioned speech about the changes she expected to make on behalf of drev relations everywhere.

It was then her turn, and she felt her knees shaking slightly as she got to her feet and made it to the front of the room.

"Assembly members please welcome the human Director of threat analysis within the department of intergalactic security of the UNSC."

She cleared her throat awkwardly, setting her pages down on the small presentation table as she began.

"Ladies, Gentlemen and esteemed others of the Galactic Assembly, I have been asked today to compile and present our gathered intelligence on what my departments agree to be the greatest threats facing the interests of the GA at this time." She began working on economic threats, social threats, and a couple of mentions of small militia groups and anarchists popping up around GA territory. They were just passing comments as it seemed there was more infighting going on than there was cooperation between the groups.

She discussed a few general topics about policies she thought needed more shoring up, before getting to one of her latest points.

"In the past months we have been compiling and analysing all the information Admiral Vir brought home with him in regards to the alien civilization nicknamed the Omnidroid. As of yet we have only determined that their civilization contains multiple sentient alien life forms capable of space travel, and have formed some sort of economy not dissimilar to our own. With Explorations of the technology described by Admiral vir, we have no reason to believe that they have power output or technological capabilities higher than our own. We still have no idea where their location is, and find it likely that they are at some distance from us. Still we known they have weapons capabilities, and are likely to communicate on levels, as of yet, unknown to us. However without further analysis, our work has been sparse, and based only on conjecture."

The room shifted a little as she supplied sketched images of the aliens based on the descriptions the Admiral was able to give. Her heart had slowed a little in this time, but began to speed up again as she came to the real point of her presentation.

"But I have really been asked here today to give you all a threat assessment about what my department has labeled as Supernal Threats" there was a shift in the crowd, "These threats are categorized as being of unknown origin or power output. In all cases they are sentient, and in most cases their motivations are completely unknown. We have ranked these threats on a sliding scale of power to hostility." She motioned to the board, "Our first Supernal threat comes in the form of the starborn hive queens." She flipped through a few images, "These images were captured by footage taken from Admiral Vir's space suit over a year and a half ago."

There was a muttering around the room as the image showed a large white, humanoid figure towering high into the overhead of the camera.

"Based on mathematical analysis of these images, we are willing to base the size of the creature at almost ten stories tall, a size only possible by way of little to no gravitational input. She is seen as having high hostility but relatively low power. This does not by any means mean she is not dangerous In fact she is capable of, somehow, telepathically crushing the life out of species she deems as "silent" or those species who are able to keep secrets. There is only one starborn known not to be hostile, and he has no further information to give. It is advised that she is approached with extreme caution."

She flipped through a few more pictures of the massive celestial shape before flicking on to another image.

This one had no scale for reference and showed a massive curling shape glowing white blue against the blackness of space, "Our second Supernal Threat is the Leviathan, his and her power levels are relatively unknown though they are capable of creating self contained warp tunnels. For a living creature to generate the kind of power it would take to fold the universe is.... unfathomable . We have no idea what other kind of powers this creature has, but we have judged the power output of this creature to be high while their hostility level is marked as relatively low. According to his own report, Admiral Vir says that the creature saved him from Omnidroid airspace and warped them both back to the Burg homeworld on the tail end of the war. Again the ability to warp itself and another object with it would require vast amounts of energy though, as of now, we have no real idea where it is coming from. Based on the pictures we have seen, it is difficult to determine the dimensions of the creature, though experts estimate the leviathan to be nearly a mile long from nose to tail and wingtip to wingtip, while his mate is nearly one twentieth of that size."

She took another deep breath and glanced quickly up att the human delegation box where Admiral Vir was sitting, "The last, and most recent threat is shrouded in the greatest unknowns. The UNSC has opened these classified documents to the rest of the GA as a gesture of good will, and concern for what this may mean. This last threat is a creature known only as Deus and has been mentioned slowly come into mention on multiple occasions by multiple sources. Generally his name is the only thing that is mentioned , and mostly only in context with humans. Strangely enough the other Supernal threats have been involved with nearly all mentions of his name mentioned at one point by an infected starborn, and a second time by the Leviathan, who also communicates telepathically . The power levels of Deus is unknown, though it seems he has both telepathic and telekinetic abilities. He has once been known to use some sort of astral projections, and he can.... Inhabit the bodies of humans."

There was a murmuring around the council chamber.

"This is the one and only image we were able to capture of Deus."

She flipped on the holo projection and the room grew to sudden dull roar.

In the image, Admiral Vir stood on cold hard metal surrounded by a nimbus of glowering white light. He had both arms held out, and his eyes glowed blue white, all around him stone was being turned into ash.

"This image was taken on the tail end of one of our operations at an unknown alien archeological site where inscriptions were found carved into the metal. Admiral Vir and a few other marines report the ability to read the unknown inscription, while others were unable. The inscription read "And with knowledge they did pass away andl pillars of stone were left by them and light came before them and the host surrounded them until they were brought up and none were left save pillars of stone, Woah be unto those who find this stone and read." She paused as the room grew silent, "Literary analysis of the stones before they were destroyed determined that their closest linguistic relative..... Were human writing found in northern africa and southern parts of the middle east. A few scholars have noted a couple of lexical similarities to Hebrew, and Greek, both ancient human languages used in the writing and development of religious documents, though that relationship is only of passing interest."

There was quiet around the room.

"Admiral Vir reports no memory from this incident, though it is remarkable to point out that while Deus was in charge, he was able to survive a full fifteen minutes on the face of a hostile planet with high concentration of CO2 and other deadly chemicals in the atmosphere. The radiation alone should have killed him in under five, and the chemicals should have burned his lungs in under ten. Even so he came out with only minor injuries and a week of anti radiation therapy after Deus left and he spent an additional half a minute exposed on the planet's surface."

She looked around at the delegation, "As of now, we know neither the power levels or the hostility of Deus. It seems that, as of now he is relatively neutral, but has been meddling in our galactic affairs. Any reports of his name or sightings of him should be immediately reported to the DIS."

She stepped back as the crowd began to murmur and overhead the image of Deus stared down at him his borrowed hands outstretched, and glowing with power."

She glanced upward at the box where Admiral Vir stood, and shivered slightly, remembering the look in his eyes earlier when they had met.

She knew it was just her imagination, but the thought was still strange and all too unnerving.

She had no doubt that Deus was their biggest current threat.