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STARSHIPS DON'T GO INDOORS!
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As I dive into the mysteries of the past, the sins and horror of ancient people surround me.
And just as I thought myself awake, an old nightmare came back to haunt us all.
-from ship archives
April 26, 2191
There was no way this would remain smooth sailing the entire time, Arrowhead thought to herself. Just no way. Even the geth situation, despite how peaceful it had been, had involved surprises and urgency requiring adaptation. And that was the best and only peaceful first contact scenario humanity ever experienced! So yeah, after two systems finding ominous ruins, getting a scare, but not actually running into anything that was actually stressful? She knew something was going to happen. She didn't know what but she knew the other shoe was gonna drop in either the next system or near it. Or the brass would contact her and tell her the Bydo Remnant is on the move or maybe that the geth decided it wants to fight. But there was no way this would remain a simple archeological dig with some notes on defensive measures, colonization options, and other such notes being reported.
After all, there's a reason they're here with Faust. He's a perfectly functional pre-Bydo Wars AI and frankly amazingly good at his job. She's not here with the others just to help him look at rocks and tomb worlds.
The moment Joker cleared the mass relay, Arrowhead found herself careening into space, a bit confused and finding that by god she have no mouth and she must hurl. It took a fraction of a second to realize that she was spinning out of control because instead of a gentle regular release, Joker had just done a combat release, effectively ejecting suddenly every fighter that had been piggybacking him during the jump.
Given she was in a potential combat zone, floundering meant she'd die soon. It also made her spacesickness even worse. Yes, a sudden stop would suck but she needed one. So she identified the trajectory of her rotation and immediately fired her retro rockets. Massive, blue flames emerged from her five primary thrusters and vary corrective ones as finally got herself to stop spinning like a top.
A lot of things registered very quickly. There is a structure nearby and it's not a mass relay. Her fellow squadron members are all scattered. She's detecting signals and she don't know what they are. Oh and she's being painted by what is either active radar or a targeting system.
When the other shoe drops, it drops hard. That's just how the universe swings (at humanity's face).
First, is the squadron whole? Is everybody alive? "Check in, status!" she networked, abridging the data ping.
To her relief, it seems the sudden shock of a combat jump didn't cause any of the rookies to panic. Everybody sent a simple data upload instead of ranting and panicking over a communication channel. Excellent. Also, everybody is alright and getting their bearings. Good. Nobody got shot at just yet either.
She didn't question why Joker immediately ejected the squadron instead of gently releasing it upon arrival. She may not like the guy but giving him credit where credit is due, you don't get a pilot license in a cereal box. Humanity may have lowered its standards to depressing levels when it came to recruitment but not when it came to training. Everybody was still expected to complete a full simulator campaign and the passing grade was still ninety percents. Unless Joker had been talking out his exhaust, and frankly she doubted he was a blowhard like Leo-2, he had a good reason to react the way he did.
Also, the fact that she was being painted by a signal was more than a good enough reason to be ejected this fast. First, before anything else...
Arrowhead immediately called her Force Device. The signal was sent and immediately, the control rods fed the data to the purified bydogen core. As it passed by, she immediately reached out with her Bit Connector systems and snatched it before swinging it around her and holding right in front of her cockpit. Despite her large canopy, she didn't make use of her optics during combat due to the sheer distance meaning that its position did not hinder her ability to sense things.
As she swung the Force Device into position, pointing it in direction of the signals hitting her in case a projectile was right behind it, she also connected to her Bit Devices. The large golden spheres, kept whole and stable by a half spherical container, took position to her sides. She was now armed and ready.
Alright, now what's the situation? All ships deployed, Force Devices and Bit Devices are either attached or incoming. Wave motion cannons and Force Laser lens systems engaged, all missile pods armed and ready. However Faust is still moving assets through the relay and Joker does not have his Force Device just yet.
"Leo, Sunday, cover Joker. Artillery Flight, scatter and keep system warmed-up."
Then she realized something. What if they jumped into a friendly system by mistake? What if Joker simply had a mechanical malfunction? What if those are just civilians painting them and this was just normal traffic? Without missing a beat, she continued transmitting to the squadron. "Do not fire until targets have been confirmed, I repeat, do not fire. Eye Flight, I want those signals painting us identified. Are those civies or X-rays?"
Of course, she had sensors too. Just because she wasn't a scout ship didn't mean she was blind. First thing first was the installation. It was too small to be a defensive platform. According to data shared with the geth, element zero was the primary basis for technology on the wider galactic scene so it was likely they would follow design lines seen along the style of the geth. So that thing was likely too small to be a defense platform and was too big to be an armed satellite. Then there was the fact that it was, obviously, not firing or trying to get a lock on them.
That left the actual source of the lock as coming from deeper within the system but still near enough. And focusing her sensors, she couldn't help but let out a sigh of relief. The ship ahead was very big and most importantly, was turning around. No energy signatures matching something that could be identified as weapon systems. Seems to be coming to a stop instead of going for an intercept course.
In fact, now that she's actually pausing and actually thinking instead of just panicking...
"Squadron, stand down. Keep Force Devices attached but power down weapons. Fodder Flight, scatter. Non-threatening formations but keep an eye out. Sweet Luna, coordinate with Faust and translate coms."
There was this brief moment while the translator came online. Which reminded her. How did the geth manage to get so complete translation suites without leaving their space? If aliens had the equivalent of the internet, she guessed it was likely. But surely whatever AIs the aliens had would easily identify an alien AI sifting through their networks? As much as she told herself not to look a gift horse in the mouth, it still worried her.
Ah! Sweet Luna is giving an update!
... okay, that's better than she expected. Apparently, they've just scared a bunch of what appears to be civilian ships. That's the good news. The bad news is that there's a shit ton of signals coming from deeper in the system, indicating it's inhabited and they responded accordingly with a bunch of strange unidentified heavily armed ships materializing at their front door and arming weapons.
Which means that she need to do something or this will turn into an actual battle with what is likely a first contact scenario.
But she can still salvage it.
"Sweet Luna, translator status."
"Online. Channel open." She said, turning herself into a satellite for Arrowhead to contact the locals.
"This is R-9A Arrowhead, representing the Earth Hegemony. Apologies for the scare." No need to talk in clipped sentences. Play it cool, play it cool... "We're new around those parts. We'll relocate and stop causing a civilian traffic jam as soon as possible. Just tell us coordinates where we can reposition."
At least, she hoped those were civilian ships nearby. Geez! It was starting to dawn upon her just how much awkwardness Faust prevented humanity by doing most of the work beforehand. At least they have a translator program... though she wonder how accurate it is.
"The Batarian Hegemony has no jurisdiction over this system. We demand you remove yourselves from the system immediately."
Wait what. Batarian Hegemony? What the hell? Did the translator just glitch?
"There might have been an issue with the translation. I represent the Earth Hegemony, not the Batarian Hegemony. This is a first contact scenario."
"Yet you have perfect translation of a language you never used before. If you do not comply, you will be ejected."
Oh. Ooooh. That... makes sense. And mean they goofed.
Then the sheer absurdity of all that insanity happening so fast just slammed into her all of a sudden, the stress hormones from her biological brain finally finishing touring through her life support system. This is the first time she heard this guy, if that is a guy, if that is even an organic intelligence and not an AI or who god knows what, and she's fucking arguing with him as if he was some incompetent space control tower jockey with a stick longer than her entire length crammed up his ass. This guy was almost certainly an alien, the first organic alien to speak to humanity in generations and what is this historical event coming off as?
Apparently, it involve name confusion, being told she have no jurisdiction over the area, and then being demanded to leave. It was equally alien and incomprehensible as it was stupidly mundane. Not to mention incredibly stupid. Her mind was reeling, she admitted.
Seriously. Can she perform just one mission and have everything go smoothly without complications? Just one mission. That's all she ask for. Just one.
"Look, this is clearly a misunderstanding. There's..." Quick quick gotta be somewhere they can orbit as to look non-threatening and honest without jamming the system if it got civies without sacrificing their ability to defend themselves. Do those aliens even got civies? Is that a concept they understand? Fucking hell... "Look, there's that gas giant nearby. We're just going to orbit around it while we iron this out, okay?"
How does she even know if the translation even works? Oh god, for all she knows she could be broadcasting insults! Or porn!... what would aliens consider to be porn? Wait wait, no. Why would what she says be considered porn? Great going, Arrowhead. Hysteria is totally helping.
"We did not ask that you relocate, we asked that you remove yourselves from the system. Illium is not under the Hegemony's jurisdiction and are violating the sovereignty of our colonies."
To say that this was going poorly was an understatement. She pinged the squadron to follow her as to take position away from the mass relay. Surely the aliens would realize that their designs didn't match anything they had likely seen before? Unless they had? Oh hell. She hoped the Solar Liberation League hadn't managed to use Dimension 26 to displace some of their agents in distant parts of the galaxy! What if those nutcases were around and they were that Batarian Hegemony thing?
... but if so, the entire galaxy would be full of bydo. She's not getting any readings. So guess not. That's good, at least? God she hope they don't get shot at. Or not without getting more info about the aliens. Was Illium their colony here, the name of the system, or the name of their nation? Or was it what they called their species or the galaxy? So many unknowns...
At least, the argument gave the squadron and Faust the time to arrive and true to what she declared, she moved all of her assets out of the way of the mass relay. Seriously, what's the-
She shivered.
She didn't do so physically. At least, she hoped she didn't. But she felt something. And true enough, her systems indeed revealed to her two things. One was her normal sensors witnessing the mass relay being used, which wasn't a big deal. But that wasn't what caused her to react this way. Her sensors revealed micro-ripples in the fabric of time and space. Given her sensors were not designed to be anywhere near Sweet Luna's or Unchained Silence's, it meant that what caused those ripples was nearby.
She did not need Sweet Luna's help to identify what happened next.
A very large fighter, about as large as Joker, and definitely not a human design at that, emerged from FTL. It was a long, thin, almost dagger-like design, with relatively large, thin wings, like an atmospheric-designed ship. In a way, it reminded her a bit of Joker but more angular and without a proper R-series cockpit. It also had large burns, like somebody had raked its armor with beam weaponry, with at least one of the wings sporting holes that were clearly not meant to be a natural part of the design.
But the massive fighter was not the thing that actually caught her attention. It was the other ships that came with it.
They were small fighters, smaller than the large R-series ships they piloted, with a distinctive orange paintjob and a somewhat round shape. Thick side pods, pointing backward could be seen attached to the main body with grey, thick wings. There was no cockpit extending from the main body, a round, blue optic only lightly stretching out from the main body.
No one in the squadron had encountered those ships before but every single member of the squadron knew who and what they were. In order to be accepted as licensed pilots, all of them had to fight them in simulations, in both hypothetical scenarios and in recreations of the missions from over a century ago. There was no cockpit because the boondoggle did not need one, the pilots being sapient plants fused with the machinery inside.
Immediately, a lot of things happened. Turrets on the large alien ship that had jumped through the mass relay opened fire. The projectiles were oddly dull, almost indistinguishable from the black vacuum of space, before exploding short of the targets. But then, she realized the projectiles had become massive clouds of still very fast and very deadly shrapnel, like shotgun blasts. For a fraction of a second, she was confused before she realized why one would build such a weapon. That was a canister-style kinetic weapon! Such technologies had to be abandoned due to the bydo's ability to just flat out ignore that kind of damage but the boondoggle were conventional, physical targets so they definitely would be affected.
In fact, she figured that this might be a quite potent anti-fighter weapon. Human fighters would simply deal with it the same way they do with most anti-fighter weaponry, using Bit Devices as portable cover to absorb the hits but the boondoggle did not have Bit Devices, did they? Surely they wouldn't just charge through a flak screen made of exploding shrapnel shells?
Many in the squadron had often thought that the simulations were unrealistic. Bydo fighter formations often flew straight into gunfire without a care because of the low individual awareness of smaller bydo war-forms and the fact that the higher bydo intelligences did not care whatsoever. Bydo Revos were literally made of junk because they were essentially expected to soak up fire and thus, were designed to be disposable. But the boondoggle weren't biologically like the bydo. So why did they just fly their own fighter formations through gunfire without a care either? According to theories, and the one conversation the hero of the Boondoggle War had with their ambassador, the boondoggle's contempt for life extended to a complete lack of empathy for their fellows as well as a generally stunted sense of self-preservation. Many pilots however simply theorized the simulations weren't accurate.
Well, turn out the boondoggle really did fight that way. Even as the canister-style shots from the alien ship tore through multiple ships with each shot, the boondoggle just flew their fighters straight through unheeding of the casualties they endured. The alien ship had a surprising amount of those cannons for being such a small thing and clearly knew how to use them but there was only so much it could do when it was so hopelessly outnumbered.
Worse, as seconds passed, space rippled and more boondoggle fighters arrived in the system, right behind the alien ship. And with so many of them swarming around it, it was now obvious where that damage on the ship came from. Even as she continued to watch, one of the boondoggle ships, that one a more conventional-looking, teal interceptor, flew right past the flak screen of the alien ship. The teal ship's massive cannon-shaped missile ramps released large bursts of flame as a pair of rockets went straight for the dagger-like ship. Three turrets targeted it and fired but the interceptor outran all the shots and the resulting shrapnel.
The missiles however stopped just short of striking the strange alien ship, a blue barrier appearing all of a sudden and stopping the missiles and their explosions. Energy shields? Maybe those are element zero-based? Back home, eggheads theorized that element zero might be used to create a form of barrier, offering protection against kinetic impacts. Would not stop lasers but just knowing that a good missile hit wouldn't potentially destroy you sounded amazing.
As another boondoggle fighter, this one a conventional orange one, got past the flak screen and released a flurry of red plasma pulses that slammed straight into the armor without making the energy shield appear, she guessed it confirmed those shields to be element zero-based.
That huge alien ship was clearly really well-armed but you didn't even need to take a look at its blackened, swiss cheese-tastic armor to know that it was being overwhelmed. And given the boondoggle fleet that was continuing to enlarge all around it, reinforcements arriving nearly every second, it was clear that it would not make it. As if on cue, Arrowhead felt a signal being transmitted from the alien ship. It was in an alien language so she had to wait a second for the translator to do its work but it appeared to be some kind of distress call.
Should they intervene? Part of her wanted to sit still and just let things proceed on their own. Who knew if that alien ship was even of the same kind as the aliens in this system. What if it was from a rival nation or from that Batarian Hegemony thing? But then, why would somebody jump like this in an unknown system under such circumstances? Well, other than her squadron? Yeah yeah, first contact, she knows. Still! The point was, this thing is in distress. Those were boondoggle. She saw plenty of evidence that the boondoggle hated everybody equally.
It's likely that alien ship will turn upon her, if she helps...
But the boondoggle are the fucking boondoggle. They must be stopped. Enemy of my enemy is not a factor here. The murder plants are little better than the bydo and must be destroyed. The ruins they saw clearly shown that their murderous ways are not limited to humanity. Not like the boondoggle ever made a secret of that anyway.
"Squadron, unknown X-ray ship designated as neutral. Arm missiles and prepare for a long-range cover salvo!" she networked with the others. Yeah, she's going to intervene.
"We're going to save that alien ship? With all due respect, no guarantee the larger X-ray won't fire at us. Also, if we wait for the battle to end, the enemies will be weakened." She should have expected somebody to say something along those lines eventually. She could understand why Sunday Strike said that. To be honest, she thought it herself. But in this case? It's the right thing to do.
"Follow your orders, soldier." She said, without irritation, calmly. She understood, she really did. But it's the right thing to do, so they'll do it. Thankfully, Sunday Strike did not question her orders despite the obvious frustration filtering through the network.
"Fodder Flight, arm missiles and prepare to fire on the boondoggle formation at point Y 11 Z 21 relative X-ray Neutral. Fire on my mark." Even as she gave the order, she swung around and faced the targets.
The boondoggle fighter formations were quickly becoming a fighter swarm as every second, a dozen or more of the bloody things appeared. Bad luck on the alien ship's part? No. Else, it wouldn't already be damaged. It was likely pursued by the boondoggle. Which meant there was an unknown number of hostiles trailing behind it. Who knew how large the enemy group would turn out to be, once all of them have jumped? Capital ships might be appearing soon. Thankfully, Arrowhead felt her fear being tempered by the knowledge that she got a full squadron by her side, and one with many modern ships in it.
After all, she is a R-9A Arrowhead and every ship in the squadron is a R-series ship. With a good pilot as its brains, a R-series ship can go up against entire fleets and come out victorious. It is up to her leadership and the skills of her squadron.
A brief instant and her systems indicated she got a missile lock on many of the plants' ships. Then came the chorus of announcements by each member of the squadron that they were getting missile locks. Joker reported one too but she ordered him to hang back with Artillery Flight and not take point. Yeah, she don't care for his sudden surge of irritation and frustration flowing through the network. They can't afford to have their ride damaged or destroyed. Who knows what fancy new and deadly advancements the boondoggle made since the last war?
"Mark." She broadcasted. Immediately, Arrowhead felt her parts move as two missiles were ejected from the missile ramps on her side pods and replacements were loaded as fast as her mechanisms could manage. All around her, every R-series ship released pairs of missiles as well. All except for Stayer, in the back. He, however, released only a single missile, much bigger than the others and with different identification paint on it.
The missile salvo was not an especially large one ; eleven missiles only. To be fair, given the large amount of enemies, she knew that even if everything hit, it wouldn't really do that much to the fighter swarm. But that was not the reason she ordered that salvo launched.
The boondoggles may not have much of a sense of self-preservation but they were not suicidal, stupid, or blind so they did notice the salvo that came straight for them. Orange fighters immediately broke off their attack on the alien ship to intercept the incoming missiles, unleashing a hail of red pulses. Given the sheer speed of missiles, most of those attempts at intercepting the rockets just plain missed. However, there were so very many enemies and only so many missiles. One orange fighter landed a perfect shot, causing the missile to prematurely detonate, creating a large explosion several thousands kilometers away from anything. And as the missiles closed, it became easier to hit them and one by one, they begun to be destroyed.
But that was also why missile salvos were always mixed. Each of the missiles launched by Fodder Flight were anti-fighter missiles. Swift, with good tracking, but also not that destructive. They could pulverize a fighter or blow a sizeable hole in the hull of smaller capital ships but you certainly weren't going to impress a warship or a full fighter formation with one. But they were distractions, a cover for the real attack.
By the time the last of the anti-fighter missiles was destroyed, it was too late for the boondoggle formation above the alien ship. The Balmung missile launched by Stayer was inbound and even if they blew it up, it wouldn't save them. A fact that reflected when one of the orange fighters directed its main cannon at it and shot it, causing a premature detonation.
Missiles were the first weapon used by humanity that had been able to hurt the bydo in real live combat. Most kinetic and energy weapons went through bydo war-forms without harming them due to the properties of bydogen but when a missile misfired and exploded prematurely, the shockwaves of its detonation tore apart the bydo fighter instead of simply plowing through harmlessly. Following that, missiles, which had become largely obsolete and relegated to side weapons in the wake of the development of modern energy weapons, rebecame primary weapons. Without that discovery, the outmatched human military likely wouldn't have been able to buy enough time for Arrowhead to be created. But even then, the issue was that missiles did little damage compared to wave motion cannons and Force Lasers, especially given they could only rely on the shockwaves of their explosions, the shrapnel and heat of the explosions not being sufficient to damage the bydo.
The desire to build a modern missile, one better adapted to destroying fighter swarms and capable of damaging and destroying modern warships, led to the development of the Balmung. A creative design, inspired from the surprisingly destructive results of high-power space-time scan waves.
As the Balmung missile went off, it unleashed a pulse that fractured space-time not unlike Sweet Luna's fully-charged sensor. Most importantly, unlike nuclear weaponry, this pulse did not need air to spread, causing a sphere several kilometers-wide of spider web-like glowing green cracks to erupt violently. Dozens of boondoggle ships were effectively atomized, disappearing in bright yellow flashes as they were reduced to cosmic rays.
While the detonation had only taken a small part of the boondoggle fighter swarm, it had meaningfully hurt them and finally caused the plants to notice the strange fighters before them.
And for a fraction of a moment, Arrowhead swore that the boondoggle cringed and snarled at her. She knew it was impossible ; boondoggle ships don't have moving parts and aren't made of flexible materials. Also, no bydofication to cheat here. In fact, given they were plants, the boondoggle most likely just plain didn't have a concept of body language at all. Yet, even though footage would likely said it wasn't the case, she swore the boondoggle paused and snarled as they recognized their old enemies.
The reaction was instant. The boondoggle immediately lost interest in the alien ship and directed their wrath at the humans.
"Oh god. What have I done..." Arrowhead thought to herself, as she noticed the giant, angry alien fleet going straight for her. Then, she immediately squashed that fear down. She faced bad odds like these literally almost a hundred times by now and as scary as the boondoggle are, they're not the bydo. She didn't survive the horrors of the Bydo Wars to be beaten by a lawn weed.
"Leo, Sunday Strike, detach Force Devices! Flak screens, now! Leo, ready Psy Bits. Charon, identify and counter-intercept X-ray interceptors. Last Gigs, cover for Neutral. Sweet Luna, Unchained Silence, detach Force Devices and run interference."
The orders were given and immediately, Arrowhead went to work.
A surge of power went through her Bit Connector system on her back as she let go of her Force Device and then immediately slammed into its back with her tractor beam as hard as she could. Immediately, the pink spherical combat satellite was sent flying. The VIs inside the control rods immediately detected the Force Device being detached and willed the sphere of purified bydogen to stop a few thousands kilometers away from the host.
As she said this, it was joined by the Force Devices of both Leo and Sunday Strike. Given Leo was psychic, his Force Device stopped on a dime, not needing to rely on the VIs inside the control rods to react.
The signal was then sent by all three fighters to the Force Devices.
Immediately, energy surged from the core of all three Force Devices, causing energy waves to be fired in a machine gun-like manner. Twelve streams of those projectiles were fired from a single Force Device, eight at sharp almost ninety degrees angles, the others at softer, nearly forty degrees angles. Each of the Force Devices begun firing those same streams, all using similar spread shot patterns.
This was one of the strengths of Force Devices ; R-series fighters could create their own flak screens, as effective as any warship's. When the boondoggle fighters attempted to close the distance and launch missiles, they found that the small fighters had put up a screen of machine gun-like, interlocking streams of energy bullets just as thick as any capital ship's batteries.
Of course, the Force Device wasn't Arrowhead's only weapons.
As the boondoggle fighter found itself bogged down and forced to maneuver to avoid the streams of projectiles, this forced them into conveniently predictable trajectories. Arrowhead quickly focused and then, her wave motion cannons unleashed a hail of energy waves pulses. The orange fighter that attempted to go around her Force Device's spread shot found itself dodging straight into her gunfire. Though fired at a low setting, the wave motion energy pulses still had power easily on-par with railguns and instantly pierced through its armor. She stitched it nicely, drawing a diagonal line. One of the wave pulses slammed straight into the optic, kept going, ignited its fuel tank, and caused the fighter to disintegrate.
Near her, Leo and Sunday Strike likewise maneuvered, doing the same.
Of course, no flak screen could last forever, especially when hundreds of targets were going their way. Thankfully, it wouldn't need to. Some of the deadly teal interceptors managed to get past the flak screen, heading straight for their old foes. Thankfully, that was why she told Charon to stay in reserve.
Charon, eager to get kills of his own, immediately leaped on the opportunity. Blue flames flared from his thrusters as he eagerly flew forth to challenge the enemy interceptors and stop them from attacking his wingmates. He painted one of the approaching teal interceptors and immediately launched missiles. The moment the missiles were launched, the interceptors countered with missiles of their own... but did not change trajectories to fly past him.
"Hey! I know this game!" Charon went, activating his afterburners and speeding up.
The black R-series ship and boondoggle interceptors were flying straight at one another. It was clear to Charon what they were planning to do.
Charon ignored the missiles or the alarms about missile locks. He kept speeding up. The enemy fighters weren't slowing down either. "Come on... come on..."
Then, the missiles slammed straight into Charon's Force Device. A direct collision. And the interceptors immediately released missiles and attempted to go around the target at the last second.
Except that you never, ever play chicken with a R-series ship. On the older OF series ships from the old Boondoggle War over a century ago, that trick might have worked since their Bit Device satellites, while extremely heavily armored, weren't indestructible. But Force Devices were practically indestructible. A R-series could ram through a concrete wall several meters thick and just plow through it given their Force Device absorbed the shock. Arrowhead had sometimes destroyed capital ships simply by ramming them Force Device-first.
Thus not only did the two missiles fail to destroy the Force Device but so did the point blank salvo. Worse yet, having expected the R-series ship to try and avoid them at the last second, they were not prepared for Charon continuing to speed up.
The Force Device clipped through the top half of one of the plants' interceptors, the bydogen shell tearing off its stabilizers and its top aileron. Most importantly, it opened the ship to vacuum and caused explosive decompression as its fuel tank and many of its life support systems were now open to space. The ship was not spectacularly blown up but with no way to maneuver and it leaking vital oxygen and water all over space, it was as good as dead.
The upper interceptor was affected even worse. It didn't dodge in time and the Force Device essentially rammed into it directly. The impact essentially split the fighter in two, causing the cockpit, wings, and back of the ship to break apart and go flying in different directions.
The boondoggle had clearly not expected this and this caused the interceptor wings that had prepared to clear past the flak screens to pause and try to change formation, adapting to the situation. This caused the otherwise incredibly fast and hard to hit ships to put themselves into vulnerable positions. Leo immediately took advantage of it.
Humans with psychic powers were a rare thing and one might wonder why those were prized among the military when Bit Connectors allowed any pilot to grab stuff with their minds, more or less. The answer to that was the Psy Bits. Most Bit Devices used VI assistance to remain synchronized with the host ship. This meant that there was slight lag in their actions as signals were broadcasted from the host, had to be processed by the VIs inside, and then translated into movement. By contrast, Leo's psychic powers were greatly amplified by his Bit Connectors, allowing him to eliminate the middle man and simply directly control them as if they were part of his body.
That finer control reflected in Leo's ability to unleash his next attack.
As the wings of interceptors paused briefly, it was all the window Leo needed. The two cannon-like Bit Devices suddenly begun to spin like sawblades, revealing the reason why they had long, seemingly cosmetic spikes to them. Then, Leo gripped them with his mind and willed them to move. Being one with his ship, he was able to perfectly multi-task, operating his Force Device, snipe at orange fighters, and direct his Psy Bits at the same time.
The Psy Bits flew like missiles and then, curved around the Force Devices and through the flak screen, straight toward the enemy formations. The interceptors attempted to jet away but the Psy Bits simply changed direction and homed into them. One interceptor found itself with a Psy Bit just tearing straight through it without stopping, not even pausing as it emerged covered in debris, before curving almost ninety degrees to slam into the nearest one. It would have taken the interceptors merely four seconds to scatter and prevent the homing Psy Bits from destroying their squadron. They did not have that time.
Within two seconds and a half, the interceptor squadron was torn apart.
While this happened, Last Gigs had flew away from the carnage, networking with the alien ship... only to find that there was no communication channel he could link into. For a moment, he pondered how that was possible. It wasn't even as if he was locked out of its network or the technology was incompatible, it was as if the alien ship didn't have the capability to network like that at all. There were clearly signals coming from it but they seemed to be only old-school communication.
Yeah, capital ships can't be piloted by cyber connectors. There is a limit to how much you can stretch a human's biology and mind over a body but still, that thing was about the size of Joker! Why wouldn't it have such systems?
No. Wonder things later, do things now. Let's hope the translator can emulate spoken words.
"This is Last Gigs, Blue Light squadron. Set IFF as friendly. We will give assistance."
"This is the Indefatigable. I'd ask for details but that can wait until this battle's over." It was clearly an alien voice, spoken too. Slow communication, just great. Well, he'll have to make do. Still, it was encouraging that it wanting to talk when this is over instead of declaring he'd be next. Still should be careful, though.
Last Gigs would have smirked if he could. "Affirmative. Watch out for friendly fire."
The temporal ripples have stopped coming now. He briefly paused and considered the boondoggle fleet. Behind the boondoggle fighter swarm was a carrier and a series of gunships. Outside of the carrier, none of the enemies was bigger than two kilometers in length. Seems pretty easy. Of course, the issue was saving the alien ship. It was badly damaged and he didn't have the time to be methodical. He wasn't sure that ship would survive long enough for him to charge up his wave motion cannon and blow away that fleet. Not with that fighter swarm on top and those gunships coming.
He wasn't worried about the carrier. They must have destroyed most of its fighters by now. The gunships were likely not dangerous... if you were in a fighter. But that alien ship was a big target and it had taken plenty of hits by now.
It would have been nice to have one of the modern, super destructive Force Devices with him for this but they were Force Devices with a high Bydo Coeficient. Creating low bydofication variants of these will likely take some time so he will have to make do with a more standard Force Laser load out for now. Thankfully, being a next-gen fighter akin to the R-99, the Last Gigs was compatible and capable of emulating functions otherwise limited to specific technologies and pilots.
In this case, that meant he had advanced OF series Bit Devices and a Force Device capable of emulating the advanced anti-fighter weaponry of an OF-5.
Immediately, he set out to ease the burden off the alien ship and get the enemy fighters to divide their attention. He activated his wave motion cannons' Force Laser mode, blue colored lens being slid into position. Then, he unleashed laser rays which penetrated his Force Device. He made extra sure he was not oriented toward either his squadron, the alien ship, or in the direction of the alien colony and its ships in the distance. The reason for this became obvious when the Force Laser was unleashed.
A gigantic blue-colored shockwave was shot from the Force Device. It expanded dramatically, soon forming what appeared to be a kilometer-wide solid wall of blue energy that expanded the further it flew. It would take thousands of kilometers before the thousands of half-circular waves would spread enough for the wall to have gaps in it. Of course, given how close Last Gigs was to the fighting, this effectively caused every single fighter vaguely in front of him to disappear, instantly clearing out a fifth of the fighters harassing the Indefatigable.
Of course, while it was a flashy weapon, it could only fire once every few seconds and the pulses, while big and intimidating, were anti-fighter Force Lasers. After plowing through many fighters, the pulses expended enough energy and dispersed enough that they were no longer deadly. By the time they reached the gunships, their heavy, thick armor found their paint ruined but registered no further damage.
But it did the job of getting the boondoggle to switch attention toward Last Gigs. Especially given that the fighting seemed to pause for a second, as if it had shocked everybody.
Then the fighting resumed as the cannons of the Indefatigable resumed their fire. Last Gigs couldn't help but be impressed, he admitted. What those cannons lacked in flashy complex physics, they made up with the sheer damage they did to fighter formations. As a fighter, installing such a weapon wouldn't be practical for him, due to having to store physical ammunition but for a moment, he pondered if giving those to Joker might be worth it. Humanity did know how to make railguns after all. But that's for later. For now, he got fighters to kill and gunships to keep off of his new friend's back.
Oh and he shouldn't forget to keep a Bit Device angled toward his new friend. Given what those canister shots are doing to the boondoggle, he has no desire to see what they'd do to him.
Meanwhile, Arrowhead found herself a bit nervous. She registered that Last Gigs had made contact with the alien ship, Indefatigable apparently, and was relieving it. However, he and Sweet Luna both confirmed the presence of gunships. While they were slow and only a bit bigger than fighters, gunships were awful news. Those were dedicated anti-fighter and anti-ship platforms, capable of firing absurd amounts of missiles, lasers, or both. They also sacrificed mobility and agility to pack extremely thick armor. Also, that carrier in the back, she hated it thank you very much.
Yeah, this was a very small enemy fleet but it didn't change that this was too easy. No capital ships, not even a thousands enemy fighters to deal with, and she had a full squadron by her side. Oh and they had the advantage of surprise technologically. The orange fighters and interceptors were concentrating their fire on the Force Devices and it was only a matter of time before they realized shooting the things was a waste of time and tried to brute force their way past the flak screens.
Thankfully, Stayer had another missile lock and Concertmaster and Grace Note were reporting that they were nearly done charging their wave motion cannons. She considered whether to target the fighter swarm or the gunships in the distance. The fighter swarm meant less shit flying around and firing missiles and lasers... but boondoggle gunships are nasty stuff. If they're left alive long enough, the amount of lasers and missiles they can fire is pretty impressive. And that's just what humanity remember from the old war.
No. The fighter swarm is under control. She want those gunships removed. Also, that carrier, in case it didn't launch all its fighters.
Stayer thus launched another Balmung missile, as Fodder Flight and Artillery Flight also fired their own. The salvo was much larger and with good reason ; the boondoggle wouldn't make the same mistake twice. Thankfully, Stayer had fired only one missile and stood so far away from the main fighting specifically as to focus his attention on directing his missile.
As the boondoggle weaved and dodged through the flak screen, they directed their hail of plasma pulses straight for the incoming missiles. But the Balmung remained right behind the Force Device, trajectory-wise, making trying to shoot it down awkward and hiding it from many of the enemies. Missiles came from the enemy fighters to add to the chaos, causing a storm of explosions and shrapnel as to intercept and destroy all missiles. But again, Stayer knew what he was doing. The Balmung missile was at the back of the missile formation, with at least three others flying just near enough to cover it but not enough to catch it in an explosion should they be destroyed. This greatly hindered attempts at shooting it down. And right as it reached the Force Device, the missile curved its trajectory and then heading straight for the enemy formation, staying close to the wave pulses shot by the Force Devices.
By the time the Balmung was in range, the boondoggle had wasted their countermeasures against the first wave of missiles, leaving them with the powerful missile inbound. Again.
Worse yet for the boondoggle, the constant fire from the Force Devices and Arrowhead and Sunday Striker's sniping allowed the missile to reach its optimal position, at which point it initiated right in the middle of the fighter swarm.
Scores of interceptors and orange fighters ceased to exist as one. With all of the casualties inflicted, there wasn't many fighters still trying to reach the R-series ships. The few who got through only succeeded to get past the flak screen to be shot down by the opposing fighters. They did manage to get a shot in here and there... but Arrowhead and her wingmates were not easy targets and kept their Bit Devices rotating, using them as shields and deflecting any shots they couldn't avoid.
It was obvious by now that the boondoggle were losing that fight. However, the gunships and the carrier had gotten in range by now and Arrowhead knew that if they allowed them to fire, it could easily cause the tables to be turned on them. She did not intend to give them that chance.
"Stayer, Grace Note, target gunships. Concertmaster, target the capital ship."
It was then that the artillery ships fired.
All wave motion cannons were technically artillery, having the power and range that compared or even exceeded the power of a capital ship. But hitting something at long range was always an issue. Even with beam weapons traveling at, or near the speed of light, precision became an issue. Thus, new versions of the wave motion cannon were designed. Versions that, instead of a large fireball-like projectile, fired a single, coherent beam. Easier to aim over long distances and can be sustained.
It required much larger cannons, to the point that a large part of the ship was just the cannon, with many of its systems being designed specifically around it, but the results couldn't be denied. Though it did result in fighters that were less flexible than your average R-series ship. Still, those artillery ships produced results.
Grace Note was an older generation artillery ship, with a smaller cannon, and even then then the beam fired was almost as wide and large as him. Designed to be able to punch holes through the armor of large battleships, all of the boondoggle fighters in the trajectory of the beam just ceased to exist. Most importantly, unlike Arrowhead and the others, Grace Note could do it with good precision from over a hundred thousands kilometers away.
Concertmaster was even more impressive. Being a modern artillery ship, his wave motion cannon taking up most of his frame, the beam was actually larger than he was and cleared past the fighter swarm, past the Indefatigable, past the gunships, and struck with precision the carrier way at the back of the enemy formation. The giant beam, as destructive as a pre-Bydo Wars dreadnought's main gun battery, vaporized the armor on the outside, blowing a gigantic hole, over ten meters wide, into its side. But like the Grace Note, it could sustain such a beam for several seconds straight. This allowed them the beam to keep going, slicing straight through multiple decks, igniting munitions store within, opening entire decks to the vacuum, and then actually blowing a hole at least a meter wide into the armor on the other side of the six kilometers-long capital ship.
Meanwhile, Grace Note had struck one of the gunships. Though the beam was smaller and could only be sustained for two seconds or so, the destructive potential of the beam still couldn't be denied. It was actually a testament to how tough boondoggle armor was that while the gunship was completely destroyed, its armor held for almost a full second.
Of course, this fight was going too well. Yes, this was a small boondoggle fleet but still, this had been going too well. So Arrowhead really should have seen it coming when she networked herself with Sweet Luna as to get her to scan the boondoggle capital ship for a reactor, munitions store, or control systems they could strike and instead, she found herself with the frisbee ship immediately sending information to her before she even asked.
"Closing in to give neutral X-ray support!"
Oh god no. Not again! "Hold your position! Sweet Luna, hold your position god damn it!"
And of course Stayer just broke formation. Because of course he would. "Wait! Sweet Luna! I'll protect you!"
"Damn it, Stayer! Hold position! You're an artillery ship, not a heavy fighter!"
It was in vain. He already fired his afterburners as to keep up with his crazy lover. Because everybody knows that the best place for a minimally armed and highly fragile AWAC ship and a slow, big, juicy target like an artillery ship was at the front of the formation, right in the thick of it.
"Wha... what the hell... what the hell is Sweet Luna doing?!" Sunday Strike stuttered, actually losing her professionalism for a moment.
"Hmmm... yeah, got nothing here. Legit didn't think the best scout in the EAAF was a freakin' idiot."
"Not now, Joker!" Arrowhead almost flailed her cannons at him but managed to keep her cool. "Leo, Sunday Strike, stay back and cover Concertmaster and Grace Note. Charon, once you are done with the last interceptors, move out and strike the gunships. I'm going and pull those two FUCKING IDIOTS out of the fire!"
As if on cue, noticing a target that was no longer hiding behind the flak screen, not to mention flying straight into the middle of their formation, the boondoggle immediately moved to actually target Sweet Luna. Yelling a war cry over an open channel, she thrown her Force Device at one of the nearby orange fighters, crunching it while she rotated and begun firing low power shots all over the place. Of course, Arrowhead yipped and then spun to the side suddenly, one of the pulses nearly hitting her left aileron. Because nearly being hit by friendly fire and getting spacesick in the middle of a battle was exactly what she needed.
Despite the universe spinning all around her, Arrowhead still kept track of the position she needed to get to and then righted herself before jetting straight toward the position. She flew straight into her Force Device in the process, grabbing it and attaching it as she flew straight into the remaining enemies.
Meanwhile, Sweet Luna was utterly oblivious to the unfortunate fact that R-series ships were not quite as agile as their OF ancestors which meant that, now that she was close enough to the boondoggle fighters, their superior agility allowed them to easily flank her. She simply spun her Bit Devices like crazy around her, deflecting the shots as if she wasn't in trouble. She likely didn't even notice that she was in one piece because Stayer was unloading large amounts of missiles and blowing everything up all over the place.
Arrowhead accelerated as fast as she could but by the time she was actually getting into the enemy formation as well, she found that Sweet Luna and Stayer had, somehow, already fought their way out and was heading straight for the Indefatigable. Which meant she was now the lone, very tempting target for the remaining boondoggle's aggression.
"Well... shit." She muttered to herself.
So of course that means a giant swarm of missile lock alarms, followed by an actual swarm of missiles and plasma pulses all going straight for her.
To the left. To the right. Shifting up. Rotate to the left! No, the right! Bit Devices angled to the side! Catch the missile with the Force Device! Release counter-measures! No! The other counter-measures! Shit!
She activated the Force Laser, blue len mode. Target rich environment need to get less target rich! A large spread shot of long, thin blue beams emerged from the Force Device, not unlike the one fired when it was detached. The difference was that the rate of fire was short, the lasers were very long beams, and they were bouncy... not that there was anything to reflect off of, in deep space. Still, it got some of the boondoggle to actually back off. Oh and she need to not get hit by friendly fire. Because she's in front of the Force Devices and thus, the flak screen. Because obviously she'd be.
Meanwhile, Last Gigs had been helping clearing the fighters around the alien ship quite nicely. Its canister shot cannons sure did a nice job. Between the two of them, they had been able to minimize damage. One of the gunships did try to take a pot shot at the Indefatigable but he put himself in-between the alien ship and the missile. His Force Device quickly made short work of the explosive.
He admitted he didn't like those gunships closing in or that big carrier but given he can hold his ground for a bit, the artillery ships will likely take advantage of it and-
... then he heard Sweet Luna being Sweet Luna, followed by Stayer being Stayer, and he knew that their initial battle plan just got ruined.
"Hold on! I'm here to help!" Sweet Luna announced, finally clearing past the fighter swarm as if what she had done hadn't been incredibly dangerous.
"I'd tell you that Arrowhead ordered you to stay back but you're just gonna brush it off as usual, isn't it?"
If she detected the heavy deadpan he put into that transmission, she sure didn't seem to care or notice for the matter. Sometimes, he wonder if she's just plain sarcasm-blind. "You were all alone unsupported! Now, you got reinforcements!"
Yep. Arguing is completely useless as usual. Well, at least, might as well take advantage of her and Stayer having broken formation.
"Think you can take that carrier in the back? Also, I need those gunships taken out. I'll stay with Neutral and cover you."
"Sure thing! Got the missiles for it, Stayer?" The frisbee called to the artillery ship.
"Just tell me where the reactor on it and I'll remove it."
"Whoo! LET'S GO!!" Sweet Luna went, charging straight toward the carrier, not even caring that an unfortunate orange fighter was in her way, smashing into it with her Force Device as she flew forward, Stayer in tow.
And of course, if Sweet Luna had broken formation, it meant...
Yep. Here comes Arrowhead, barely avoiding a barrage of plasma pulse, knocking aside an interceptor's missile with her left Bit Device.
"Just missed them, I'm afraid." So yeah, broke the bad news on her.
"Fucking hell..." Yeah, he agree. "Anyway, everything's good? Need reinforcements?"
"That Indefatigable thing is packing some serious firepower. Those kinetic canister-like batteries are shredding the X-rays real good. Just needed some assistance to relieve the pressure and allow its PD to do its thing."
"Any other weapons?" She asked, getting a missile lock on one of the orange fighters and then blowing it up, not ceasing to fight even as they networked and spoke through direct data sharing.
"They had something called GARDIAN arrays but that got disabled. They have a mass accelerator main weapon that could probably take out the gunships and that carrier but they're maneuvering out of its targeting range all the time and the fighters stop it from trying to orient itself to take a shot."
"So by the time it can help with the big ships, we'll be done here. I swear I can see inside the thing with all the holes its hull got. Need to eject?"
"Negative. They're using mass effect fields, likely element zero tech, to keep their atmosphere in and keep fighting. If we can fight off the boondoggle, they're home free."
Arrowhead briefly considered her options. On one hand, the boondoggle were nearly out of fighters. Sunday Strike and Leo were nearly done as was Last Gigs. On the other hand, the fight had resulted in severe damage to the alien ship. Element zero tech or not, there's only so much bulkheads can do when your hull no longer exist. There was also the fact that the more holes in a ship, the easier it is to hit something important.
Arrowhead frowned internally. Yes, Sweet Luna was a stupid Leeroy Jenkins, she was also one of the best pilots in the EAAF ever. She didn't survive all the way to this point solely because she got rescued. Yeah, that was a factor but it wasn't the only one. So she'll trust her with this. The alien ship need to live.
"The Indefatigable's weapon batteries are on its sides, correct?"
"Those that still work, outside of the mass accelerator, yeah." Last Gigs confirmed.
"I take the top, you take the bottom. Neutral takes the sides. We switch to relieve as needed."
She then left Last Gigs and adjusted her trajectory and speed to match the Indefatigable's maneuvers. Now that she was closer and thinking, she couldn't help but notice how sluggish its reaction times seemed to be. Weird. Shouldn't a ship this size be possible to pilot using a cyber connector interface? Why would it react slowly?
No, wonder about alien engineering and tactics later, kill murder weeds now. As she took position, she considered the remaining enemy fighters. A squadron of interceptors, two squadrons and a half of orange fighters. That makes about sixty X-rays. Easy.
Not wanting to accidentally damage the Indefatigable, she switched her Force Laser mode on and put on red lens. She felt her Bit Devices surging with power as she felt her anti-ship weaponry come online. Yes, her helix Force Lasers were designed to kill big ships but she was confident she could kill all those fighters with them. It was just a matter of keeping them where she want them.
Meanwhile, Sweet Luna had finished her maneuvers. She spun gracefully, on purpose, almost like dancing as she finished recalling her Camera Force back to her. She casually commanded it to release a large Force Laser on the way, pulverizing the last of the gunships' escorts in the process. Stayer would have smiled ear to ear if he had been able (kind of difficult, given the lack of mouth or ears). She was gorgeous, always. And he could feel as she metaphorically winked at him, finishing up. "Stayer?"
"What, love?" Ooooh! He could feel her amusement in that transmission!
"I think that looks important." She said, transmitting the results of her scans to Stayer.
If he could have, Stayer would have smiled confidently. With its armor compromised, Sweet Luna had been able to scan the carrier's internals and figure out where all its vitals part.
"Could you, please, show me some fireworks? Just for me? You know I love it so much..." she asked, gently.
"Of course." The bigger R-series ship said, before flying closer. "Anything for you..."
Then, Stayer unleashed a full salvo. As a bomber-style artillery ship, a full salvo from him was an awe-inspiring thing. It was the reason why he was so much larger than normal R-series ships after all. All that space was dedicated to his large reserve of missiles.
Their escorts defeated by Sweet Luna, the gunships tried to evade the incoming swarm of rockets. But despite not being much larger than fighters, all of their armor and weaponry came at a price and they found themselves unable to evade the incredibly swift projectiles. Meanwhile, its armor compromised, the carrier was left vulnerable as a Balmung missile flew straight through the gigantic hole left by Concertmaster before curving and slamming straight into a specific point deep inside the ship, as to cause the resulting detonation to strike both the reactor and the munitions store, ensuring a chain reaction would take place.
Stayer closed the distance and slid his cockpit over the smaller scout ship's frame as they watched the metaphorical fireworks all around them. Yes, she was prone to giving his fleshy heart attacks but there were none others quite like her.
Everywhere through the battlefield, the scenario was being repeated. Leo unleashed his Psy Bits, followed by the artillery ships unleashing their charged shots, brightly colored beams flaring through space as the last formations of boondoggle fighters found themselves chewed up. Realizing they had lost the fight and sensing the deaths of the capital ships, the remaining fighters finally decided to eschew any kind of practical sense of self-preservation to charge blindly, hoping to get at least one kill before going down.
The flak screen set up by Leo and Sunday Strike, already lessened by Arrowhead leaving, seemed like it would not hold the orange ships and interceptors back... but then, a series of gigantic lightning bolts came from the depth of space and struck each of the remaining fighters, melting them in less than a second.
"Hey, nice shot, Charon!" Leo stated as he recalled both his Force Device and his Psy Bits.
"What about the squadron leader?" Sunday Strike asked.
In the distance, the alien ship cornered the last orange fighter, Last Gigs using his Force Lasers to force it to maneuver straight into the trajectory of a canister shot. On the other side, Arrowhead finally got a missile lock off the last interceptor and released one last pair of missiles. The interceptor accelerated and pulled a tight turn, luring the two missiles into colliding with one another without hitting it... only for its maneuver to put it straight in the sights of Arrowhead. She immediately fired. Two large beams, one red and the other blue, curved in a helix pattern straight toward the interceptor. Being designed to slice straight through capital ship armor, the interceptor essentially wasn't so much destroyed as it fell into pieces.
Arrowhead was out of targets. "All ships check in."
"Last Gigs reporting in. No X-rays detected."
"Leo reporting in. Sunday Strike, Charon, Concertmaster, and Grace Note report all green. No X-rays detected."
"Sweet Luna reporting in. Stayer report all green. No X-rays detected."
"Joker reporting in. Sure glad you left some for me. No X-rays detected." Arrowhead decided not to comment on that. He'll get over it. Eventually. She hope.
"Arrowhead to Indefatigable. Are you receiving?"
"We are. Thanks for the rescue. That's some serious firepower you're packing in those small things."
"There's quite the story to tell. But first, I think we should get your ship repaired. I think-"
It was then that Sweet Luna reported through the network a series of FTL jumps. Element zero FTL, not trans-dimensional. And then Arrowhead found her own sensors detecting an entire fleet of ships not unlike the Indefatigable. Being this close, she could actually tell that they actually were similar, though they weren't black and full of holes. Some were a bit bigger, one being almost a kilometer-long but all of them were small as a whole. Of course, after witnessing what the Indefatigable could do, she admitted she didn't quite want to see what they could do to R-series ships.
"This is the Blue Suns security fleet Errant Protector. Stand down, power down all weapon systems, and prepare to be boarded. You are under arrest for violating the sovereign authority of the Illium colony's territory. If you do not comply, you will be fired upon."
Oh hell. Arrowhead tried to think of something quick. There was no way they'd accept that. Even if there was a chance of clearing things up, she knew this would likely end up with their ships confiscated and their Force Devices in some lab. She don't care if those are low corruption, safe variants. The idea of some alien scientist studying bydogen weapons or even worse, getting curious and trying to see what happens if they remove the control rods? No way. There's got to be a way to avoid-
"This is the Indefatigable. We have a Spectre aboard. We repeat, we have a Spectre. Stand by for transmission." ... what?
"I'm Garrus Vakarian. I am on an urgent mission on orders of the Council. Those ships are under my protection. You will not detain them. You will not board them. If you try to go around me, I will make you regret it. If you try to make me disappear, the Spectre corps will find you and make you regret it."
The alien fleet seemed to pause for a long time. "Illium is an independent colony and is not under the authority of the Council. Your Spectre status means nothing here."
"You are Blue Suns, correct? You may not be under the authority of the Council but you are a turian PMC and I am a turian Spectre. I wonder what the Primarch would say if I were to tell him that the Turian Hierarchy was embarrassed after some Blue Suns with a chip on their shoulders caused a first contact disaster. Or did you not notice the obviously alien designs and technology on display? Maybe your sensors, or heads, need calibration?"
There was another pause, several seconds-long. She was starting to guess that Last Gigs's theory that those ships were crewed the old fashioned way and didn't make use of cyber connector technology was starting to sound likely. No idea why they wouldn't be. All of those ships were frankly tiny. Only few of them looked like it would be remotely challenging to wire them up for a cyber connector interface. Weird, very weird indeed.
"Fine. But if this goes badly, it will be on your head, Spectre."
And... the alien fleet, Blue Suns she guess, went away. So! Spectre. Council. Blue Suns. Illium. Seems there is a lot of catching up to do. Crazy how she was almost screwed by politics only to be saved by politics. But then, it's fucking politics. She bet it's going to make her explode.
... and at that moment, Arrowhead pondered if she really had finally lost it. That was the only logical explanation as to why she'd rather be fighting murder plants than deal with politics, right? Surely it can't be that bad?
The last thing Garrus had expected was to have to investigate Saren in any capacity. Like Nihlus, his mentor, he looked up to him. Yes, Saren wasn't exactly popular for his methods but he got results. And wasn't that what mattered the most, getting results?
To say he admired him was an understatement. Saren just seemed to move and act as if red tape didn't exist. How did he do it? Frankly, he didn't know.
So of course, when it was noticed that Saren had not reported back in an abnormally long time, he was among those who volunteered to check on him. It was unlikely he would be dead. Apart from the fact that it was Saren you were talking about, somebody would have claimed credit for it. Given how many enemies among the criminals he had accumulated over the years, it would be known if somebody had gotten him.
Which meant he had decided to go dark without telling the Council.
Oh, officially he was just late reporting in. But the salarian councilor suspected that it couldn't be simply that and Garrus agreed.
And that's what led him outside of Council Space, in the Terminus Systems.
Some quarian ship, the Honorata, claimed to have found critical information on Saren's whereabouts and what he might have been doing. Why they wished to meet him in the middle of nowhere, in a system largely abandoned by all nations and devoid of life, was anybody's guess. It actually creeped him out a bit. Last time he had spoken with his contact, they had sounded oddly frightened. What mess could Saren had gotten himself involved in? But then, maybe they had just saw him undercover and wrongly assumed he had gone rogue?
The moment they arrived, he knew something was wrong. He couldn't tell why but there was something that just immediately drove him to order the captain to turn on the stealth systems and power down all but the bare essentials. A hour later, after it was confirmed there were no sensor signals detected anywhere, the ship deactivated its stealth system and they resumed their journey to the rendezvous point.
And well...
He guess they did find the Honorata at the rendezvous point, as agreed.
... half of it, anyway.
Had it been pirates? Garrus had waited patiently for the crew to do their jobs. Only for them to state that what's left of the Honorata bore signs of warping due to intense heat. The lack of floating corpses and the presence of a flash fried arm and other such body parts indicated that somebody had used energy weapons to then kill every member of the crew individually while they floated helplessly in space.
Energy weapons. The only ones who used them were the kikai and the boondoggle. And the kikai never attacked ships in space.
What had happened there? He had to find out. Against his better judgement, Garrus boarded a shuttle and tried to land inside the shipwreck. Hopefully, enough of its computer systems would be left in it to determine what had happened. It was just eerie, approaching it. Killing everything with extreme prejudice was indeed what the boondoggle usually did but there was a level of overkill there that disturbed him, even knowing what those sociopathic plants could do. They had not merely destroyed the ship, dooming everybody aboard, they had actually gone out of their way to individually shoot every crew member.
Why would they do this? The boondoggle usually simply left the crew members of ships they destroyed to die or captured them. At most, they will destroy or capture escape pods if they can but they don't go out of their way to blast to bits every single corpse floating in space like this.
With no way to properly dock to the destroyed vessel, Garrus was forced to jump from the shuttle, hoping that he'd land inside the shipwreck. A risky maneuver but then, he was a Spectre. He would have remained at C-Sec and fought red tape his entire life if he wasn't willing to take risks. Beside, what information could be so important that the boondoggle would go out of their way to destroy everything like this?
Landing upon the wreck and ensuring his suit would keep him anchoring to the floor as he explored it, he made his way toward the front of it. There was just something disturbing about how completely destroyed the ship was while remaining somewhat recognizable.
Moving to what had once been the command center of the ship or maybe its cockpit, he was greeted by blasted machinery and fried circuitry. The damage was obviously catastrophic and there was nothing to salvage.
Wait. That's a bit morbid... but there's a corpse over there that was impaled by beams. He approached it and checked its arm. Ah! The omni-tool is still intact! Well, that quarian sure doesn't need it anymore and maybe, just maybe, with it he might find out something.
A jump back, a flight back, and he was back in his ship. Before long, the work to see if any data was left in it was done. And well, what do you knows! It seems there is some data.
It seems that someone had begun recording on it up until the ship was destroyed.
Locking the door behind him and ensuring no one was watching, Garrus sat down, pondering what might possibly have happened.
"What could have driven the weeds to go out of their ways to butcher all of you like this?" he pondered to himself, even as the recording started.
... and he didn't even need to watch all of it to know it was trouble.
The Honarata had apparently been the vessel used for the Pilgrimage of Tali'Zorah nar Rayya, the daughter of one of the quarian's Admirals. For a moment, he admitted he was a bit surprised. Why would an Admiral's daughter be assigned to a small, anonymous ship like this one? But then he kicked himself for forgetting why. Quarians were appreciated, quarian Pilgrims weren't. Having an Admiral's daughter be associated with the kind of scandals that Pilgrims often are accused of would likely embarrass her family in both quarian society and the galactic community.
But then, they found out something. Something terrible. Something about Saren, the boondoggle, and something called the Reapers.
They sent that info to many ships, as to bring it back to the Migrant Fleet, the Citadel, and even Omega but the boondoggle had happened to appear in every system the ships were, leading to their destruction. When they learnt this, they unloaded Tali on the Citadel, hoping she'd be able to hide there and find a way to transmit the data while they'd arranged a meeting with a Spectre in an empty system. Surely the boondoggle wouldn't choose to attack a system that is completely empty, surely.
But somehow, they shown up anyway. And well, it was unfortunately quite obvious what happened next.
The recording cut off as the poor sod prayed the computer systems, and thus the data in them, would survive the destruction of the ship.
Well, unfortunately for everyone, it did not. And that means his last lead was now that Tali girl.
Still, Garrus couldn't help but wonder. What was that data? How did they obtain it? What does Saren have to do with the boondoggle? And what are the Reapers? Likely some kind of new and amazing doomsday weapon the boondoggle cooked up. As if they didn't have enough of those already. All of this stunk. And if the pattern stated by the crew of the Honorata was correct, then that Tali girl is in danger.
But then, as his ship approached the mass relay to jump back into Citadel Space, they were unpleasantly surprised by a boondoggle fleet jumping into the system. Right in front of them.
The frigate Indefatigable was a state-of-the-art vessel, a marvel of turian engineering but it was also a single frigate. They could not hope to defeat a boondoggle fleet. But if they could just make it to the mass relay, they just might have been able to make it.
The first minute of combat alone was costly. Surrounded by hostiles on all sides, there was not much that even their advanced ship could do to mitigate the damage. The only reason they were not immediately destroyed was that the boondoggle hadn't brought one of their six kilometers or longer warships, their only capital ships being small artillery platforms and a single carrier. Even then, the frigate did not have the armor to endure the beating that ensued as hundreds of fighters closed in.
The Indefatigable had been equipped with new, experimental canister shot cannons, a weapon that the turians hoped would make the difference against boondoggle fighter swarms. That its blasts also had a much longer operational range than GARDIAN arrays making them effective even against element zero ships was another nice bonus. Well, it seemed that the claims of its designers would be tested in the most direct way possible.
The amount of fire brought to bear by both the canister cannons and the GARDIAN arrays was incredibly impressive and it almost made the boondoggle fleet pause. Almost. But not quite unfortunately. The kinetic barriers immediately begun to register hits from missiles and the hull's outer armor begun to peel away as boondoggle energy beams and pulses begun to rake its length.
The entire ship shook and Garrus would have lied if he said he wouldn't have found his confidence faltering for a moment. Especially when the hits just kept coming and caused the GARDIAN arrays to fall silent. Partly because they had overheated, partly because energy weapon impacts had just warped part of the circuitry that allowed them to fire. But the crew was well-trained and somehow managed to keep a cool head long enough to get the Indefatigable to the mass relay.
They were saved!
... and then, the moment they left FTL, arriving in the next system, the ship immediately shook. For a moment, it just didn't seem real.
Boondoggle never pursue across systems. Ever. They attack a single system, killing everything they can in it but once they attack a system, that fleet will stay in it until it's done or destroyed. It will attack anybody trying to escape, yes, but if anybody actually escape they will shift their attention back to the system. If you could make it to a mass relay, you were saved.
Well, it seemed that for the first time in recorded history, the boondoggle had decided to make an exception just for him.
It wasn't even a coincidence, him jumping into a system under attack. According to sensors, it was the same fighters they'd been fighting to get to the mass relay. In fact, as more boondoggles jumped in, it was even the same capital ships as earlier. It was the exact same fleet.
Was there any way they might make it?
They had just jumped into the Tasale system. Illium was an established colony, well-known to be well-protected. If they held out long enough, a security fleet might make it and give assistance. But that was given they survived long enough and that it was close enough.
Was one close enough?
... unfortunately, not the case.
Wait! There was something?
There seemed to be a series of dreadnoughts, near a nearby gas giant. But somehow, it had no element zero signature. The only element zero signature came from a single frigate surrounded by fighter-sized ships.
Dreadnoughts but no element zero signature? How is that possible? Are those boondoggle or kikai? He requested a visual image. And then he blinked at the result.
The dreadnoughts were gigantic, ugly, boxy things that reminded him of an unholy mix between an old pre-space era warship and a krogan warship. But even as he looked over the data, he realized those couldn't be krogan dreadnoughts. They were too large, even for dreadnoughts. Then there was the total lack of element zero signature. For all the damage the Indefatigable had suffered, its sensors still worked and any ship on the scale of a dreadnought had an element zero core that just couldn't be hidden.
Then there was the smaller ships. Their designs were absurd.
First, every single one of them looked different in both small and big ways. They had no obvious wings. They had an excessive number of thrusters. They had ridiculous, oversized pods on their sides and top. Then there were the cockpits. Who would design an oversized oval cockpit with a canopy so long it essentially took up a fifth of the ship's length? If you were going to have canopies this big, you may as well put a sign on it saying "Shoot me, I'm a weak point!" Then what were those gigantic glowing spheres hovering around them. Those pink ones were so big there was no way anybody piloting those might see anything in front of them! Oh and who designed a fighter that had a fat, pear-like shape?
Those things had to be civilian ships. Though he had never seen anybody design anything that looked remotely like this.
In short, not only was there no security fleet nearby but the boondoggle would likely slaughter civilians right after they're done with him. Well, ain't that a glorious way for the brief Spectre career of Garrus Vakarian to end!
... wait, what?
Then what he thought were civilian ships unleashed a missile salvo. Civilians don't have missiles.
Then the scanner designed to detect the ripples caused by boondoggle FTL jumps went utterly berserk. Whatever those missiles had been, one of them had just triggered some kind of phenomena that just caused space to light up like a lightbulb and caused space-time ripples stronger than the FTL jump of any kikai or boondoggle ship to date. Then, much to his shock, part of the boondoggle broke off their attack.
"Don't get distracted! Keep firing!" The captain called.
Meanwhile, Garrus couldn't help but admire the bravery of those fighters. It was frankly foolish given how outnumbered they were but he did admire it. There was just no way that those stranger fighters would be able to stand up to a fighter swarm. Only the krogans had ever found success in challenging the boondoggle with fighters of their own and that was largely due to their ability to keep up in numbers. Unless those dreadnoughts and that frigate joined the fray, there was just no way that tiny squadron could stand up to the boondoggle.
But then, the strange fighters deployed those weird pink spheres and... wait what? According to the visual image built by the scanners, those have no visible guns! So why is there gunfire coming out of them? In fact, enough gunfire to create a flak screen? Wait, those bullets are being extremely bright. Mass accelerator rounds don't glow like this and GARDIAN array beams aren't blatantly visible like that. Those look like projectiles akin to what the boondoggle use.
Garrus admitted he had difficulty believing what he was seeing. There were barely a dozen of those fighters, if that. And somehow, they were unleashing firepower on-par with big ships. Even more insane was the level of fire that the boondoggle was pouring into them. Fighters were small, fragile things. It was well-known that they did not have the endurance to survive any kind of hit. Their armor was too thin and most of them were too small for decent ship-grade kinetic barrier emitters. But somehow, the boondoggle were pouring fire in and the unknown fighters were just taking it. Well, their strange satellites were taking it. Even when some projectiles went through, they just rotated their satellites and used them to block shots.
How were those satellites kept in place perfectly around them? No element zero detected in them either...
Whatever those satellites were, they were made of incredibly tough stuff. One of the fighters, the black one, just rammed boondoggle ships. Didn't even try to dodge. Just plowed straight through and smashed them and their missiles to pieces, as if it was nothing. Even the asari's Silaris armor can't allow a ship to just ram enemy missiles and ships without damage like this.
That technology, he had the sudden impression this may actually be something new. Something unheard of. He strongly doubted Illium was the source of those strange fighters.
Another black fighter then approached and something weird happened. Some kind of transmission came from it but it wasn't anything conventional. It was like an extranet connection, requesting for data to be uploaded or downloaded. In fact, the VI automatically shut down data access, claiming that the ship was the potential target of a cyber attack. For a moment, Garrus became worried it might mean the strange fighters were actually hostile but then, it actually opened a proper transmission channel.
Garrus listened as the captain and the fighter's pilot spoke. There was something odd about that conversation. Every time the captain finished saying something, the fighter's pilot replied instantly, almost like as if by reflex. Were the fighters VI-controlled?
No, those tactics were too complex and the wording used by the pilot was too natural...
The more the fight went on, the more it became obvious that those fighters were complete unknowns. Nobody, not even the salarians, had managed to create energy weapons that matched the boondoggle's, much less did crazy things like what he witnessed those weapons do. The total lack of element zero signatures only made it obvious that he was dealing with unknowns.
All of this seemed to point out a first contact scenario. But how did they already have a translation for his language? He did not know.
Still, he was glad those things were on his side. Especially after he saw them, with just one giant beam, blow a hole through a boondoggle carrier in a single hit. What kind of technology did they use to achieve that level of destruction with a weapon mounted on a fighter? And if that is what their fighters look like... what did their capital ships look like?
Then... okay, that was unexpected. "Am I seeing what I'm seeing?" he asked the captain.
The captain actually paused for a moment, blinking very rapidly, before actually nodding. "Some of the unknown fighters just broke formation. It's charging straight through the boondoggle formation."
"What are they doing?" The captain had no answer to Garrus's question.
They could only watch as the thing just charged in just about the most reckless way possible. It was clear that the only reason it wasn't being destroyed was a mix of insane luck, other ships following to save it, and the boondoggle likely being just as surprised as its allies. He had seen vorcha with more discipline than this!
The situation just kept getting more surreal. The crazy duo kept going, went past the Indefatigable, and then the big ship just blew up everything with missiles. Then it... wait, that can't be right. Did the pilots mess up? That was the only logical explanation for why the two ships collided like this. Who would willing to pilot fighters and then settle one's cockpit on the other's back like this? It made no sense. It wasn't tactically sound. It wasn't sane!
Garrus briefly pondered if he was dreaming or something. This was just too in-
Then the local security fleet got there. And instantly, he got a headache. For some reason, he knew it was going to be stupid before that guy even opened his mouth. He recognized the colors from the visual readings ; those were Blue Suns, a turian PMC. And unfortunately, even outside of Citadel space, Garrus had learnt that his people's love for choking, needless, stupid regulations applied everywhere they went.
...
Is that idiot blind? Did he seriously just threaten to shoot what is clearly a first contact scenario? Did he not notice the strange, black-colored frigate that shoot experimental ammunition? Garrus just witnessed an unknown fighter recklessly charge enemy lines and somehow that Blue Suns idiot just proven himself to be even more baffling than the new aliens!
Wait. Wait what.
Is this really happening? Garrus suddenly pictured himself physically choking the idiot. How does Saren always manage to work his way around people like that? Is the guy seriously arguing with a Spectre? Because it seems he is. Does he seriously think that getting an earful from the Council is the worst that could happen if he screw this up?
What is it with rent-a-cops and having egos the size of a large moon?
As the transmission ended, he couldn't help but facepalm. "I thought I was done with red tape when I became a Spectre..." he mumbled to himself.
"Did you say something, sir?"
"Nevermind that. Are our propulsion systems and emergency life support systems going to hold? There's a fair bit of distance between here and Illium." And the fact that he could see outer space through the holes in the hull was making him nervous.
"Engineering teams are moving to plug the holes as we speak. We will be fine."
Thank the spirits. One issue done with, a thousand more to deal with.
They still needed to get to the Citadel, to find that Tali girl and ensure whatever info is secured. Given what he saw on the Honorata, Saren is likely in great danger. But then, he wasn't a fool either. It was best to first repair the Indefatigable before continuing. In the meantime... well, maybe he could learn more about those strange unknown ships.
Codex entry: Boondoggle orange fighter
Boondoggle psychology and biology is among the most alien of all known sapients within the galaxy and this reflect in many ways, both technologically and in terms of doctrine. Unlike the military forces of most known races, boondoggle rely heavily upon small attack crafts, fighters, in order to win space battles. Many boondoggle warships are platforms designed to deliver those attack crafts to battlefields, with even many direct combat battleships having the capability to field such crafts as support.
The most common of those attack crafts are known as orange fighters due to their color. Though lacking element zero drives, those small machines are extremely agile and can outrun all but the fastest of modern starships. The orange fighters' weapon system is as ingenious as it is unique. The energy released by the cannons of orange fighters, located upon their side pods, is somehow capable of surging across the surface of their hull before being released in any direction. This allow orange fighters to shoot at targets regardless of the angle. The weapon is deceptively powerful, as it ignore kinetic barriers, is very difficult to intercept with conventional flak screens, and deal disproportionate damage for a weapon mounted on such a small craft, each individual shot generating heat and erroding armor on a level equivalent to a frigate-level primary mass accelerator.
Orange fighters are minimalistic craft. They lack any visible cockpit component, the craft's life support and control systems, as well as its pilot, being encased directly in the core of the craft. What appears to be a cockpit is actually an optic sensor len. Though lightly armored, lacking kinetic barriers like all other boondoggle starships, and lacking missiles or other such guided weaponry, their minimalistic design and the boondoggle pilots' nature allow them to be as agile and swift as any attack craft created with equivalent element zero-powered inertia dampener systems. All of those properties, combined with sheer numbers, have made the orange fighter the most iconic, and feared, machine in the boondoggle military.
Any civilization that is to survive through the space age need to develop a counter to the orange fighter. Most modern militaries have focused upon advanced GARDIAN array weapon systems, which are mounted upon large fleets of frigates. The krogan, due to their ability to deploy in extremely large numbers when a war mandate has been approved, have developed their own small attack crafts with financial backing from the
