RESULTS:
- [X] - "Apollo, this is Galactica-Actual, clear the perimeter and return home, we're firing into you!" [3 points]
- [X] - "Initiate all firing solutions against central ship! And fire a nuke at it!" [2 points]
- [X] - "Evasive maneuvers, go into a controlled spin!" [2 points]
- [X] - "Begin jump to the Civilian Fleet!" [ 2 points]
Henceforth, for maximum chaos, I will allow players to vote up to four times. HOWEVER! If you vote for two separate things, the points of those votes will be split in half (1/2), and if you vote for four different decisions, your efforts will be split into 1/4ths. So that the math is easier, voting for 3 things simply decreases the value by half, rather than 1/3ds.
"General."
"Report, Ensign."
Ten minutes earlier. Aboard the Turian Frigate Valiant Fist.
"Sensors just confirmed that we have primitive heat signatures on the long range," the young Turian spoke on the left hand side of the General, as Desolas sat in a central, upper chair in the CIC. "They seem to be... Around seventy two. Varying sizes. Varying heat sinks. Biggest one is almost the size of the Destiny Ascension in length."
"Hmmm. Pull it up. Have the other Commanders array in a pincer formation." Desolas brought a holographic, live video of the fleet through their long range cameras. Indeed, just as they appeared, the ships were coming into disarray. The largest ship in question was certainly brutish, reminding him of an ancient aquatic submarine, rather than a refined frigate of Space.
"Do try to get a hail on these primitives. Let us take this slowly. Most of these ships look to be civilian. Or maybe this is a colonial expedition." After a few minutes of waiting, the Ensign lifted his head up and nodded up to the General. "You are tuned in and open to speak, sir. It seems they picked us up."
"Civilized enough to understand citadel frequencies. Let us... Wait." He smirks, staring at the holographic wavelength of the frequency. After a pause, it did not move, at all. White noise static could be heard. Desolas gritted his teeth and then calmly curled his arms behind his back and spoke, whilst standing from his chair, loud enough for the voice receiver to transmit only his voice from the bridge.
"Unknown ships! This is the Turian Hegemony, serving the glorious Citadel Council and its united species of this fair and righteous Galaxy! We demand you slither away from Relay Designation 314 and surrender your fleet to our authority for immediate subjugation under Citadel law!"
Smirking, Desolas then waited, speaking low to the others under him. "They have frequencies, let us see if they have a translator."
He did not have to wait, however, as a voice came back. "Lypámai," an uncertain, greybacked voice said, clealry confused. "den katalavaíno. Ágnostos stólos, dilóste tin epicheírisí sas kai tous stóchous sas. Aftós eínai o dioikitís William Adama tou Stólou tou--..." Desolas growled, cutting him off.
"Cease your drivel! Is your species so primitive as to not understand me!? Unknown ships! This is the Turian Hegemony, serving the glorious Citadel Council and its united species of this fair and righteous Galaxy! We demand you slither away from Relay Designation 314 and surrender your fleet to our authority for immediate subjugation under Citadel law!" Desolas by now was roaring at the interface before him, with most officers around him ducking their heads under the onslaught of their General's words, the Marines between them shifting uncomfortably.
After a moment, the Ensign spoke up, cautiously, of course, as Desolas continued to berate the primitive race on the other line. "They, uh... Well, it seems like they sent a written example of their text. And a voice recording of what that thing said. Sir." He pulled up his omnitool, sending the informaiton to Desolas, who squinted at it, growling. "Have a VI shift through this and come up with a translator, dammit..."
The General then paced about, watching the Unknown fleet as his own inched closer, glaring through the windows of the CIC at it. The Ensign spoke up. "Sir! Those... The sides of the Dreadnought just opened. Erm-- it seems like fighters are shuffling out."
"Tell our own to continue in their movement. Increase our speed slightly. Get closer to these uppity primitives... How is the VI coming along?"
"Around ninety percent ready. And-- Spirits...!" Desolas saw it. The Ensign didn't need to say anything.
Desolas froze, blinking. Before his eyes, literally every other ship esxcept the Dreadnought was gone. Blinking away in flashes of ionizing radiation. Everyone on the bridge seemed to see this, staring at their HUDs and up at the main HUD in disbelief.
Growling, Desolas turned to his Ensign. "Report!"
"Zero! I-- Zero, null radiation or power up from the Relay! I'm picking up ionized radiation from where the rest of the vessles were but I-- there's nothing, sir! They just disappeared!"
"Ho in the name of the Spirits do dozens of ships just -disappear-!? Full speed ahead! I want the translator now- not later! Send message! Primitive fleet! Power down! This is the Citadel Authority! And make it repeat until we get a Spirits-damned answer." Desolas angrily sat down in his command chair as he watched his fleet array and get faster whilst approaching the lone, final ship.
"Sir, the so-called 'Colonial' Dreadnought is warming up. It's not anything we've seen before. It's radiation. But not Mass Effect." As the Ensign spoke, the primitive voice returned. Automatically translated through to Desolas via the VI.
"Citadel Authority. You know we speak now. We no know no what you want. No shut down, you [UNKNOWN] attack. Speak why." Desolas grit his teeth and snarled.
"These primitives, seriously think...?"
"Holy spirits! We have nukes! Nukes, sir! Thermonuclear ICBMs, silos, tons of them! Two just warmed up!"
"Scattered array of fighters! Prepare for attack." The General roared out, whilst running up to the window to stare daggers at the lone Dreadnought they were approaching. "What is the primitive's name?"
"The translator says it calls itself Commander Adama."
Desolas marched back to his chair, closer to the communications HUD. He spoke, then, directly. "Commander Adama, I order you to stand down by the Authority of the Citadel. You are breaking our galactic laws."
"What law did break? What is Citadel Authority? Why go around my fleet?"
"Proud little fucking savage..." Desolas grunted out. He then turned to the Ensign. "Power main gun."
"S-sir...?"
"Power. Main. Gun."
The Ensign and Desolas shared a look, before the Ensign nods. "Powering. Ready in ten seconds." Desolas turned back to the HUD, as the so-called Adama asked if he was still there. He then breathed in hard, and then spoke closely, almost intimately, into it.
"Desolas Arterius."
"Name...?"
"Yes."
"I Commander William Adama. What is objective for fleet?"
"... Authority." He leaned back, turned to the Ensign, and spoke with finality. "Cut communications. Direct firing solution on Dreadnought. Fire when ready."
"Y-yes sir... Calculating. Done. Firing in three..."
Then, the blue streak of an unstoppable, kinetic shot of Mass Effect energies burst from the front of the Valiant Fist directly towards the enemy Dreadnought. Desolas smirked as its hull buckled under the effect and its fighters scattered. His own fighters began to fight theirs, though within a minute, Desolas' brow creased. "How are we...?"
"Two more fighters lost, sir! We're down twenty three!"
"From our maximum of one hundred and fifty!?" Desolas roared out in anger. "Power up the main gun again! Tell the other ships to open their broadsides in firing solutions on the fighters- we're going to force these primitives to stop with -force-!"
As Desolas waited with alarms ringing around him, he watched their fighters do battle, both through cameras on his own and through the ship's main HUD. The General grit his teeth together and growled, his mandibles chittering. "These maneuvers are beyond anything..." He muttered to himself before the Ensign spoke up.
"Main gun ready! But- Enemy Dreadnought is making--...!"
"Fire the gun, damn you! Fire! Make these primitives feel Turian might!" The ship rattled as the main gun fired again, but as the streak of blue and ionizing white slithered across the field, it crashed through the various fighter sin the middle of it- inadvertadly some of Desolas' own. Gritting his teeth in the uncomfortable silence of bated breaths, Desolas only now understood he should have listened to his Ensign. The Dreadnought, in finesse he had never seen before, literally spun and then dipped downwards in the shadow of the Milky Way's darkness, before pulling back up- as if crouching udner the attack, and letting the kinetic streak hit the Relay behind it. People across the bridge gasped as the Relay glowed and fritzed out, quite evidently hurt by the attack, but not completely.
"Spirits..."
"Collateral damage is normal in war!"
"Sir, excuse me, but what war--...!?" The Ensign asked, standing up, before Desolas leaned down and took him by the crook of his navy shirt. "Power the gun again! And aim better next time!" He threw the boy back into his seat and marched up to the window, staring the Dreadnought down. Another petty officer spoke up from behind.
"We're getting an emergency message from the Guardian Envoy, they're--!"
"-- Lieutenant Carus' squadron is almost completely torn apart! They're asking for orders to re--!"
"-- Enemy fighters breaking off! Enemy fighters breaking off! I repeat--...!"
"--...nukes are powered and are--...!"
Then, Desolas heard what he wanted. It was as if the seas had parted for him. No more fighters between him and this primitive upstart. He heard his Ensign's words. "Main gun ready, but sir...!"
"FIRE!"
In anger, the Ensign pressed the button hard, and the ship rattled again. However, it did not rattle from the Mass effect beam that would be shot and would miss the Battlestar by a grazing touch, but by the two nukes hitting its underbelly, as the General had ignored every other single battle report from the other ships that were in an angle to see the incoming missiles shot from the Battlestar Galactica whilst they were in a spin- concealing their launch.
As the valiant Fist burned and was slowly abandoned, Turian fighters retreated to their ships, and just as the other Turian Frigates hoped to turn on the Galactica, William Adama growled out a quiet, yet commanding, "Jump.", and they were nowhere to be seen.
