As before, so it comes again. Death. Violence. War. How will another face the trials ahead?
The Vanduul War- Mass EffectXStar Citizen Commissioned Fic
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Chapter 01
WyrmofFrost
One whose Muse delights in being coy
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AN: Decided to post this here now that its gotten to a length I feel comfortable with.
Mass Effect: The Vanduul War - Chapter 01
Commissioned by Mackenzie Buckle
Disclaimer: Mass Effect and related franchises along with Star Citizen and associated franchises are the property of their respective owners, I claim nothing that is not my own.
"How about now. Is it working?" asked the rather annoying tech. They weren't being rude intentionally, they just were utterly incapable of social skills. She rather suspected that was why they were still a basic tech despite being over double her age. Still they were supposed to know their job, they had stayed there after all. At least that is what one Lieutenant Cassia Pupius Luncinus told herself again and again. He could stay there and she could get to work on her position, once he actually did the job of course.
"No" she replied to his question.
"How about now?", she flicked through the display. Nothing had changed.
She tapped the holo again, no luck. "Hmm, no".
"Now?" he asked.
She looked at the inflow of data, "We moved the gauge at least" she ground out. She barely stopped her mandibles from twitching, she counted down the cycles until she could get a relaxant. Just one. Even if it was the weak ration one she could use it. Or she could ask the engine crew for some of their stash, she could go without dessert for a globe of something right now.
"Hmm, don't think its an issue on this end then. The pipelines for our frigates are just fine too. Diagnostics are clean. The comm relays aren't having problems. What we see is what we have" he remarked, just something about the words irked her.
Cassia rasped her mandibles in frustration. "I am the one certified for astrometrics, this shouldn't be possible. Nebula clouds don't spontaneously form. Not in those time frames if the past data isn't false" she retorted, trying to not lose her discipline. Discipline. She had spent more then an hour digging through archives and she would not be denied this to her face by someone not even a superior!
"Don't know, maybe if everything is true then someone put that cloud together or something" the tech replied blandly.
Cassia barely stopped herself from hissing. "That is the most asinine thing I have ever heard. One doesn't just form a random nebula cloud out of nowhere, there is no point to it".
"I don't know, sounds like chaff to me" was the blithe rebuttal.
"Chaff doesn't work in space, not like that" Cassia rasped back, angered at the random junk the tech was trying to feed her.
Before she could add something more she noticed someone stepping towards them. The tech noticed the look too and they both straightened at the unmistakable appearance of the captain. Cybernetic implants studded one side of their body, wounds from previous campaigns. She knew the message that they presented about the Captain, valued enough to continue the job but not enough to get a promotion. "It can Petty Officer, Technician if you have no further actions then you are dismissed".
"Sir" "Sir"
Cassia waited for a moment as the Captain turned her attention to her. "At ease Petty Officer" she started with before coming to a rest looking over the same holograph that she had been frustrated with.
"If both of your competences are not in question then the simplest answer is outside action. Some new pirate trick perhaps, I have seen obscuring clouds like that used before to sandblast large freighters. Mostly to provide deniability amongst "privateers", the Terminus systems are a festering boil. New tricks and long old ones tend to leak under your plates at unpleasant moments. Regardless we are required to investigate". Cassia agreed with the Captain's course.
"Sir!" she declared with a salute. The rest of the bridge also redoubled themselves, a clear course of action giving them something to refuel themselves from the drudgery of deadend service on the border.
The Captain continued. "Make sure to package all our current and past readings and send it down the pipeline, we will be heading out to see for ourselves what is going on" with that said she turned to the comms station. "Get the PA out, we are raising alert levels". With that the lighting shifted, just enough to catch everyone's attention alongside the chimes echoing through the ship if their omnitools didn't catch everyone already.
Cassia turned to her station and quickly worked as she had been ordered, the spirit touched logs quickly thrown Comms way. "Beehh, dammed machines" she grumbled to let loose the last of her ill feelings. They would only get in the way of her duty.
Already on her display she watched the icons of the other two ships of their small flotilla array around the bannership. Their ships were not storied ones, without the honor to be given an individual name that would be placed in the halls of fame. But the crews did call them names simply for ease of use in the flotilla. Cassia herself served as one of the sensor operators aboard the bannership, her duties including being responsible for handling the ship's own sensors or relaying information screened by her senior operator.
"Sensors confirm the fleet's disposition" the Captain called out from his traditional elevated post, from the ancient days of chariots on the plains of Palaven to now.
Those days didn't include sound redirection equipment, AR holos, and VI to ensure clear communication without facing the commander. "Sir, Contos and Spetum have moved to position as indicated prior. Distance is four stellar units until we reach the final jump off point"
"Good, pilot proceed on course. Comms, record this message to send across the fleet. Start. Soldiers, our duty as members of the Border Auxilia is once more before us. Unknown anomalous activity has been detected at Relay 512. Possible hostile action. Prepare for anything. Keep to your leaders, keep to your training, for the Hierarchy and the Citadel".
Cassia kept an eye on the sensor readout before it piped to the bridge's main holodisplay, nothing so far that wasn't ruled by the sensor VI as irrelevant. Trained as she was, it was the duty of one of her fellows to do raw data interpretation to see if they could find a single Sand Blossom amongst the shifting sands. This gave her a moment beyond the habitual announcement of phase line arrivals.
Their flotilla wasn't a permanent formation, it didn't have a unit banner. It was also understrength to just add another claw to the problem. But they would do their duty. There wasn't a formal tenseness, but rather action. Turian training, harsh discipline and knowing your limits. Which meant when the first sign of trouble came it was responded to swiftly.
"Sir relay is three light seconds out. Visuals on the unknown stellar phenomena. Unknown dust formation, spectroscopy detects natural materials" Cassia's superior reported, eyes flittering over the three different sensor feeds to provide different triangulations.
"Natural composition, do we know if it is artificially arranged?" the Captain asked.
"It does not appear to be natural sir, stellar dust this far from a proper gravity field would have diffused. There isn't enough for self-cohesion, this was shifted and relatively recently as the previous patrol did not report this in their logs. No data we were provided indicates any nearby astral formation that would contain enough of the materials to form in any appreciable timeframe" she reported her previous conclusion.
"Have you-" the captain's next question was interrupted by the lead Sensor operator.
"Sir! Artificial metallics reported in the field" that report immediately had the bridge and the fleet itself react.
"Assume reverse spearhead formation, defensive weapons fire discretion authorized. Pre charge secondary capacitors" the Captain ordered to the weapons officer. Her sensor feed increased in density as first passives and then active arrays fed data to the different stations. She immediately saw what was going on, discrete signatures detected emerging from the relay's sensor shadow. All on intercept courses with their flotilla.
"We have confirmed distant sensor contact with unknown vessels around the relay" her senior declared. "Three signatures, labeled Aurek, Berek, Chrek" was tacked on, the main holodisplay rotating to display the scene for everyone to see.
"Comms, any contact. Sensors any emissions at all?" the Captain barked out.
"None" "None, wait. Unknown emissions. Type unidentifiable" she barked out.
"Comms, send out a contact demand. Sensors keep an eye on them. Tactical plot out a distant intercept course, I want enough space to react. Wingmaster tell the fighters to prep for fast launch" were the next packet of orders.
"Continued intercept course from unknown signatures. Visual confirmation in estimated 3 minutes" her senior reported. Her own work though had shifted to the previous signatures. The ones concealed amongst the cloud bank. Her interrogation of the VIs weren't enough for them to assign discrete signatures, but they kept detecting something similar to the craft burning towards them. Elsewhere the others kept reacting to the still silent interlopers, nothing they tried seemed to garner a reply in any form then what seemed to her experience to be targeting emissions.
Frustrated Cassia sent a com ping and a collapsed view of her work to her senior. A message read ping was the only reply as they kept tapping away at their terminal.
"All ships prep all weapons, fire release only in case of hostile fire. Do not fire first" their Captain ordered. On her screen Cassia watched as the trio of ships continued sharing their targeting information, solutions prepped for a strike.
Tense seconds passed before it came. Unknown craft emerged from the cloud that hung near the relay. A pincer attack. "Additional signatures emerging from stellar cloud 60 degrees from initial unknown formation Designating initial contact group as Blue 1, designating second group as Blue 2" her senior reported. A tenseness spread amongst the bridge crew, long trained instinct causing many to limber up slightly. Eyes twitched to those near them. They were ready, to leap, to strike as one.
A ping to her own monocle knocked her mind back a step. "Calm, ready. Observe, then strike" was the terse string of words. She jerked a look at her senior who minutely tilted their head. Cassia cursed herself for the lapse and pushed to refocus herself. As she watched Group Blue 2 resolved itself to be a set of four signatures. Oddly, no mass effect signatures. Yet their drives were propelling them to speeds they were familiar with. She tensed as the one cohesive signatures dissolved into a diffuse cloud. Multiple additional signatures appearing, the VI frantically creating and recreating icons for them.
"Fighter launch detected, enemy force thirty plus and counting!" was the call out made.
A flash of tension went through Cassia's mind, that many fighters could mean a great deal of ordnance. It could be nothing or it could be dangerous, still no mass effect signatures detected but there was obviously some sort of technical capacity to accelerate at speeds only element zero could have done before.
She watched as the different signatures grew closer to the extreme range of their guns. The shorter distance meant they could more accurately detect the size and weight of these strange craft. Blue 1, cruiser analogue elements. Blue 2, corvettes. Then the newly tagged Blue 3 as the swarm of fighters racing ahead.
"Keep our fighters close in and supported by GARDIAN fire, draw the frigates forward as a screen. Our objective is to withdraw, not score kills" the Captain declared. She fluttered her mandibles in distress, to run was never a good feeling. But it made tactical sense. They were heavily outmassed by an unknown foe with unknown capabilities. Even converted freighters could deal some damage in such numbers.
"Wingmaster, prep some of our shuttles for silent running autopilot, we need to try to get word back to command. Relevant departments prepare the packages with everything we have".
"Pilot, can we outrun them?" the Captain asked.
"No sir, not at the current demonstrated accelerations" they reported grimly. The entire room tensed. Sacrifice, a light burden for the Hierarchy. They would not be forgotten, that was a
"Then we stand and fight. Exhaust all efforts to relay the information back. Tactical plot a gravity slingshot course, we will be obvious about our efforts"
"Shuttles prepping for launch, reserve fighters will be dispatched as couriers" the Wingmaster reported.
"Finish all final preparations. We will either make it through or sell ourselves dearly" they intoned.
A part of Cassia still ran through everything she could but found nothing. Her training did not see all the possible aspects that could be involved, training that none of those around her spoke up either. Nothing, there was nothing then that could be done. They couldn't do a full reverse burn, the demonstrated acceleration meant they would not be able to outrun the foe from a cold start. So that left fighting as the Captain had decided. She settled, ready to fight. To fight for life and for her comrades.
"Keep forward aspects. Do not engage until they are in medium range" her mind supplied the range. When their main guns time on target was three seconds. Proper military VIs could dodge that but it meant that they couldn't conduct simple maneuvers for that to happen. Accurate suppressive fire to use a ground pounder term.
Seconds ticked as they hurried to their remaining duties. Silence ensconced each of them, she wondered if they too struggled with their thoughts. Cassia's thoughts turned to her lineage's Tally of Honors. Her name would be added to that roll one way or the other soon enough.
The enemy fighters streaked in first, too small for proper capital fire to hit. The broadsides of the frigates turned and began firing, not expecting to hit but to attempt to narrow their avenues of approach. She watched as they attempted to line up lines for their GARDIAN arrays. Their own fighters also streaked over to engage, she watched as first one and then another Blue-3 signature disappeared from her feed. But so too did their own fighters. She tried to uncover more information about them. Whatever they used, it wasn't conventional kinetics. Not as her feed registered thermal flashes that weren't consistent with deflected rounds.
Then she started hissing as elements of Blue-3 suddenly vanished from her feed. Precious seconds passed until she required them, amongst their shuttles and fighters. IFF tags vanished one by one. "Sir, detached forces have been destroyed. Short range FTL by heavy weight fighters, they are vectoring for for our position again" her superior let out. A faint warble could be heard, shock at that sort of capability she suspected.
"We have failed one duty, we will not fail another. All ships, prepare to disable reactor safeties and scuttling measures. Our enemies have shown no sign of negotiating, we will not show them any either". Cassia felt a dull throb in her chest, but she forcibly straightened her body. She would not fall on anything but her own two feet. Duty, Duty. The Hierarchy and Duty.
"Enemy ships are 3 seconds from entering medium range" she intoned.
"Fire when ready, engage lighter elements first" the Captain simply stated.
The guns blazed their reply, she tracked their progress and smiled at the hits. But the sensors did not report the sort of damage that striking unshielded hulls would have. "Shots on target, hits ineffective" she reported.
"Do not let up" they barked back. She tracked more hits as the guns fired as fast as they could cycle their charge. Finally she spotted whatever form of shielding they used start showing signs of trouble. Their hulls showing debris be thrown out even as other shots were countered.
"Partial bleedthrough of enemy shielding" she reported before sparing a glance back to the fighter brawl. The combined forward screen had inflected some damage, but readouts reported that their own capabilities had been degraded too. IFF rescue beacons and blaring damage reports from the frigates as the enemy had evidently degraded their GARDIAN arrays.
The Captain could see the same thing she could. "Order the Contos and Spetum forward, exploit the damage the Falx has caused".
She watched as those ships pushed forward, some of the enemy fighters following along as the ships made to follow their final orders. She watched as suddenly alerts were brought to the fore by the sensor VIs. Her blood pumped as she realized what they reported.
"Enemy capital fire, directed energy weapons. Spetum is damaged but still fighting" her superior reported as Cassia scrutinized the different readouts. Additional readouts reported what seemed like larger variants of the enemy fighter weapons alongside the unexpected energy strike. Then additional lances of energy were reported from the other craft. The larger cruisers had added their own fire. These were much more devastating than the smaller corvettes.
"Spetum is, combat ineffective. Hull breaches on all decks and levels. Command delegated down the chain. Engineer's second is, they report their thrusters are still functional. Spirits" the Comms operator gasped out, Cassia's screen held a full view of what was happening. As the safeties were obviously thrown off and the ship lurched for one last acceleration. An expanding spray of mishappen debris was what was left of a Hierarchy frigate, the different pieces tracked on her screen.
"Shift targets, hammer one of the cruisers with everything we have. Redline our reactors, spare nothing" the Captain called out.
The lights and their displays flickered for a moment as systems compensated. Slug after slug left the cruiser to strike at its chosen target. Their redoubled fire seemed to work as the Contos lunged forward, its gun blazing as its secondary batteries unloaded on a passing corvette in the wild spin it threw itself into as it attempted to avoid any additional energy strikes. She watched as first one and then another strike seemingly only clipped the spiraling frigate. "Target damaged!" she called out as debris was registered spiraling into space.
"Sir, Contos is reporting heavy damage. They, they report they are ready to follow the example of their sister" the Comms reported. Cassia numbly kept going. Watched unceasingly as the IFF status went from active to disabled. Then vanished completely as her screen reset from the sudden detonation.
"Enemy losses are one corvette and one cruiser" she let out. Her eyes seeing that a drifting hulk had also appeared near the former location of the enemy cruiser.
"One for each of us. Not equal enough" they replied.
Her eyes caught a sudden surge of movement. "Sir the remaining section of corvettes is making an attack run on our position!" she yelled out.
"Focus fire on one of them, pilot. Plot a course for the other. Redline our engines once it draws close". More seconds passed as their previously unengaged ship was made the target of every single remaining enemy ship.
"Enemy heavy fighters are nearing our position!" she called out.
"Cut thrust and roll the ship,engage with all secondary weapons" the Captain ordered. The mass effect fields meant they did not feel the maneuver but she did track as enemy fighters disappeared from her display. Then she flinched as her senior yelled out.
"Enemy cruisers vectoring for our flank!" he yelled out before suddenly the ship lurched. The mass effect field must have flickered as she felt her body start to move before her suit's magnets reasserted themselves.
"Status report!" the Captain yelled out, the litany of replies alongside the overlay appearing on the main display told a story of woe.
"Main engines disabled, all we have are auxiliaries" the Pilot reported as a final cap.
"Status of the enemy" was the barked out reply.
Cassia flicked her eyes back and relayed what she saw. "One additional corvette hulked. The other is, enemy fighters making attack runs topside!" she yelled out. Her mind caught up and saw that first pack of heavyweight fighters plunge for their position. More damage alerts sprang up and she heard an engineering officer yell out.
"GARDIAN capability degraded!". Her voice quickly joined them. "Ordnance launch detected. More heavy fig- no subcorvettes on our flank!" she yelled out at the suddenly appearing icons.
"Brace for impact!" she heard and her suit quickly locked itself fully into place. But the sudden explosions did not happen, reverberations could be felt throughout the ship but they weren't exploding ordnance.
"Those aren't torpedoes" the Captain stated simply before turning to bark out. "What is happening on my ship!".
"Boarders! We have hostile boarders. Marines are responding and crews are mobilizing!" someone reported.
"They want us. They will not have it. They should have realized our resolve already. Let us not keep our comrades waiting" the Captain's talons quickly tapped at their terminal. Cassia felt a hand on her shoulder as her senior proffered a shotgun, others also giving out the contents of the bridge's arms locker.
She tentatively gripped the weapon before ingrained instincts had her properly shouldering the armament. Her senior gave a nod. No words were spoken that weren't needed. Duty, honor, resolve. They, they were merely following their resolve. Her hand briefly reached for her omnitool. She looked at the screen image, her graduation picture. Her family standing proud amongst the crowd before the lines of graduates. Then her talon reached out for a long disused program. Tech fields flickered to life and she got into position. The Hierarchy wouldn't forget them. Her family would not forget her.
Tense reports continued to sound out from the engineers at their stations. The Marine commander relaying their progress and the details of the enemy boarders until they fell silent with a final weapon retort. Then sounds could be heard at the bridge's door. She spared a look back at the Captain behind her. She noted the almost complete progress circle on their display. She turned back to the door as it started to deform. Loud clangs from something striking it before suddenly some sort of weapons fire started striking it.
"Fire on my mark" someone ordered. Her hands flexed on her weapon, the crosshair of her monocle centered over the door. It continued to deform before finally breaking. "Fire!" was the order given. She felt the recoil push at her shoulder, then she felt her body falling back. An odd metal object was in her, her mind mutely reported.
Her suddenly heavy eyes caught sight of more gunfire, streaks of some strange fire flashing over her. Yelling came to her ears as scuffling of some sort reverberated. Then an explosion rang out oddly mutely. She spotted a strange figure step up to her, their odd hand reaching out towards the thing in her chest. Her hand, she could still move her hand. She demanded one last effort of her tired body. A pistol clacked into position just as the being started recoiling back. She fired. She smiled as blood splashed her face. She always did score high on her pistol quals. Her eyes dimmed. Her world shook and the sight of fire was the last thing she saw.
Mass Effect: The Vanduul War - Chapter 01
Commissioned by Mackenzie Buckle
Disclaimer: Mass Effect and related franchises along with Star Citizen and associated franchises are the property of their respective owners, I claim nothing that is not my own.
"How about now. Is it working?" asked the rather annoying tech. They weren't being rude intentionally, they just were utterly incapable of social skills. She rather suspected that was why they were still a basic tech despite being over double her age. Still they were supposed to know their job, they had stayed there after all. At least that is what one Lieutenant Cassia Pupius Luncinus told herself again and again. He could stay there and she could get to work on her position, once he actually did the job of course.
"No" she replied to his question.
"How about now?", she flicked through the display. Nothing had changed.
She tapped the holo again, no luck. "Hmm, no".
"Now?" he asked.
She looked at the inflow of data, "We moved the gauge at least" she ground out. She barely stopped her mandibles from twitching, she counted down the cycles until she could get a relaxant. Just one. Even if it was the weak ration one she could use it. Or she could ask the engine crew for some of their stash, she could go without dessert for a globe of something right now.
"Hmm, don't think its an issue on this end then. The pipelines for our frigates are just fine too. Diagnostics are clean. The comm relays aren't having problems. What we see is what we have" he remarked, just something about the words irked her.
Cassia rasped her mandibles in frustration. "I am the one certified for astrometrics, this shouldn't be possible. Nebula clouds don't spontaneously form. Not in those time frames if the past data isn't false" she retorted, trying to not lose her discipline. Discipline. She had spent more then an hour digging through archives and she would not be denied this to her face by someone not even a superior!
"Don't know, maybe if everything is true then someone put that cloud together or something" the tech replied blandly.
Cassia barely stopped herself from hissing. "That is the most asinine thing I have ever heard. One doesn't just form a random nebula cloud out of nowhere, there is no point to it".
"I don't know, sounds like chaff to me" was the blithe rebuttal.
"Chaff doesn't work in space, not like that" Cassia rasped back, angered at the random junk the tech was trying to feed her.
Before she could add something more she noticed someone stepping towards them. The tech noticed the look too and they both straightened at the unmistakable appearance of the captain. Cybernetic implants studded one side of their body, wounds from previous campaigns. She knew the message that they presented about the Captain, valued enough to continue the job but not enough to get a promotion. "It can Petty Officer, Technician if you have no further actions then you are dismissed".
"Sir" "Sir"
Cassia waited for a moment as the Captain turned her attention to her. "At ease Petty Officer" she started with before coming to a rest looking over the same holograph that she had been frustrated with.
"If both of your competences are not in question then the simplest answer is outside action. Some new pirate trick perhaps, I have seen obscuring clouds like that used before to sandblast large freighters. Mostly to provide deniability amongst "privateers", the Terminus systems are a festering boil. New tricks and long old ones tend to leak under your plates at unpleasant moments. Regardless we are required to investigate". Cassia agreed with the Captain's course.
"Sir!" she declared with a salute. The rest of the bridge also redoubled themselves, a clear course of action giving them something to refuel themselves from the drudgery of deadend service on the border.
The Captain continued. "Make sure to package all our current and past readings and send it down the pipeline, we will be heading out to see for ourselves what is going on" with that said she turned to the comms station. "Get the PA out, we are raising alert levels". With that the lighting shifted, just enough to catch everyone's attention alongside the chimes echoing through the ship if their omnitools didn't catch everyone already.
Cassia turned to her station and quickly worked as she had been ordered, the spirit touched logs quickly thrown Comms way. "Beehh, dammed machines" she grumbled to let loose the last of her ill feelings. They would only get in the way of her duty.
Already on her display she watched the icons of the other two ships of their small flotilla array around the bannership. Their ships were not storied ones, without the honor to be given an individual name that would be placed in the halls of fame. But the crews did call them names simply for ease of use in the flotilla. Cassia herself served as one of the sensor operators aboard the bannership, her duties including being responsible for handling the ship's own sensors or relaying information screened by her senior operator.
"Sensors confirm the fleet's disposition" the Captain called out from his traditional elevated post, from the ancient days of chariots on the plains of Palaven to now.
Those days didn't include sound redirection equipment, AR holos, and VI to ensure clear communication without facing the commander. "Sir, Contos and Spetum have moved to position as indicated prior. Distance is four stellar units until we reach the final jump off point"
"Good, pilot proceed on course. Comms, record this message to send across the fleet. Start. Soldiers, our duty as members of the Border Auxilia is once more before us. Unknown anomalous activity has been detected at Relay 512. Possible hostile action. Prepare for anything. Keep to your leaders, keep to your training, for the Hierarchy and the Citadel".
Cassia kept an eye on the sensor readout before it piped to the bridge's main holodisplay, nothing so far that wasn't ruled by the sensor VI as irrelevant. Trained as she was, it was the duty of one of her fellows to do raw data interpretation to see if they could find a single Sand Blossom amongst the shifting sands. This gave her a moment beyond the habitual announcement of phase line arrivals.
Their flotilla wasn't a permanent formation, it didn't have a unit banner. It was also understrength to just add another claw to the problem. But they would do their duty. There wasn't a formal tenseness, but rather action. Turian training, harsh discipline and knowing your limits. Which meant when the first sign of trouble came it was responded to swiftly.
"Sir relay is three light seconds out. Visuals on the unknown stellar phenomena. Unknown dust formation, spectroscopy detects natural materials" Cassia's superior reported, eyes flittering over the three different sensor feeds to provide different triangulations.
"Natural composition, do we know if it is artificially arranged?" the Captain asked.
"It does not appear to be natural sir, stellar dust this far from a proper gravity field would have diffused. There isn't enough for self-cohesion, this was shifted and relatively recently as the previous patrol did not report this in their logs. No data we were provided indicates any nearby astral formation that would contain enough of the materials to form in any appreciable timeframe" she reported her previous conclusion.
"Have you-" the captain's next question was interrupted by the lead Sensor operator.
"Sir! Artificial metallics reported in the field" that report immediately had the bridge and the fleet itself react.
"Assume reverse spearhead formation, defensive weapons fire discretion authorized. Pre charge secondary capacitors" the Captain ordered to the weapons officer. Her sensor feed increased in density as first passives and then active arrays fed data to the different stations. She immediately saw what was going on, discrete signatures detected emerging from the relay's sensor shadow. All on intercept courses with their flotilla.
"We have confirmed distant sensor contact with unknown vessels around the relay" her senior declared. "Three signatures, labeled Aurek, Berek, Chrek" was tacked on, the main holodisplay rotating to display the scene for everyone to see.
"Comms, any contact. Sensors any emissions at all?" the Captain barked out.
"None" "None, wait. Unknown emissions. Type unidentifiable" she barked out.
"Comms, send out a contact demand. Sensors keep an eye on them. Tactical plot out a distant intercept course, I want enough space to react. Wingmaster tell the fighters to prep for fast launch" were the next packet of orders.
"Continued intercept course from unknown signatures. Visual confirmation in estimated 3 minutes" her senior reported. Her own work though had shifted to the previous signatures. The ones concealed amongst the cloud bank. Her interrogation of the VIs weren't enough for them to assign discrete signatures, but they kept detecting something similar to the craft burning towards them. Elsewhere the others kept reacting to the still silent interlopers, nothing they tried seemed to garner a reply in any form then what seemed to her experience to be targeting emissions.
Frustrated Cassia sent a com ping and a collapsed view of her work to her senior. A message read ping was the only reply as they kept tapping away at their terminal.
"All ships prep all weapons, fire release only in case of hostile fire. Do not fire first" their Captain ordered. On her screen Cassia watched as the trio of ships continued sharing their targeting information, solutions prepped for a strike.
Tense seconds passed before it came. Unknown craft emerged from the cloud that hung near the relay. A pincer attack. "Additional signatures emerging from stellar cloud 60 degrees from initial unknown formation Designating initial contact group as Blue 1, designating second group as Blue 2" her senior reported. A tenseness spread amongst the bridge crew, long trained instinct causing many to limber up slightly. Eyes twitched to those near them. They were ready, to leap, to strike as one.
A ping to her own monocle knocked her mind back a step. "Calm, ready. Observe, then strike" was the terse string of words. She jerked a look at her senior who minutely tilted their head. Cassia cursed herself for the lapse and pushed to refocus herself. As she watched Group Blue 2 resolved itself to be a set of four signatures. Oddly, no mass effect signatures. Yet their drives were propelling them to speeds they were familiar with. She tensed as the one cohesive signatures dissolved into a diffuse cloud. Multiple additional signatures appearing, the VI frantically creating and recreating icons for them.
"Fighter launch detected, enemy force thirty plus and counting!" was the call out made.
A flash of tension went through Cassia's mind, that many fighters could mean a great deal of ordnance. It could be nothing or it could be dangerous, still no mass effect signatures detected but there was obviously some sort of technical capacity to accelerate at speeds only element zero could have done before.
She watched as the different signatures grew closer to the extreme range of their guns. The shorter distance meant they could more accurately detect the size and weight of these strange craft. Blue 1, cruiser analogue elements. Blue 2, corvettes. Then the newly tagged Blue 3 as the swarm of fighters racing ahead.
"Keep our fighters close in and supported by GARDIAN fire, draw the frigates forward as a screen. Our objective is to withdraw, not score kills" the Captain declared. She fluttered her mandibles in distress, to run was never a good feeling. But it made tactical sense. They were heavily outmassed by an unknown foe with unknown capabilities. Even converted freighters could deal some damage in such numbers.
"Wingmaster, prep some of our shuttles for silent running autopilot, we need to try to get word back to command. Relevant departments prepare the packages with everything we have".
"Pilot, can we outrun them?" the Captain asked.
"No sir, not at the current demonstrated accelerations" they reported grimly. The entire room tensed. Sacrifice, a light burden for the Hierarchy. They would not be forgotten, that was a
"Then we stand and fight. Exhaust all efforts to relay the information back. Tactical plot a gravity slingshot course, we will be obvious about our efforts"
"Shuttles prepping for launch, reserve fighters will be dispatched as couriers" the Wingmaster reported.
"Finish all final preparations. We will either make it through or sell ourselves dearly" they intoned.
A part of Cassia still ran through everything she could but found nothing. Her training did not see all the possible aspects that could be involved, training that none of those around her spoke up either. Nothing, there was nothing then that could be done. They couldn't do a full reverse burn, the demonstrated acceleration meant they would not be able to outrun the foe from a cold start. So that left fighting as the Captain had decided. She settled, ready to fight. To fight for life and for her comrades.
"Keep forward aspects. Do not engage until they are in medium range" her mind supplied the range. When their main guns time on target was three seconds. Proper military VIs could dodge that but it meant that they couldn't conduct simple maneuvers for that to happen. Accurate suppressive fire to use a ground pounder term.
Seconds ticked as they hurried to their remaining duties. Silence ensconced each of them, she wondered if they too struggled with their thoughts. Cassia's thoughts turned to her lineage's Tally of Honors. Her name would be added to that roll one way or the other soon enough.
The enemy fighters streaked in first, too small for proper capital fire to hit. The broadsides of the frigates turned and began firing, not expecting to hit but to attempt to narrow their avenues of approach. She watched as they attempted to line up lines for their GARDIAN arrays. Their own fighters also streaked over to engage, she watched as first one and then another Blue-3 signature disappeared from her feed. But so too did their own fighters. She tried to uncover more information about them. Whatever they used, it wasn't conventional kinetics. Not as her feed registered thermal flashes that weren't consistent with deflected rounds.
Then she started hissing as elements of Blue-3 suddenly vanished from her feed. Precious seconds passed until she required them, amongst their shuttles and fighters. IFF tags vanished one by one. "Sir, detached forces have been destroyed. Short range FTL by heavy weight fighters, they are vectoring for for our position again" her superior let out. A faint warble could be heard, shock at that sort of capability she suspected.
"We have failed one duty, we will not fail another. All ships, prepare to disable reactor safeties and scuttling measures. Our enemies have shown no sign of negotiating, we will not show them any either". Cassia felt a dull throb in her chest, but she forcibly straightened her body. She would not fall on anything but her own two feet. Duty, Duty. The Hierarchy and Duty.
"Enemy ships are 3 seconds from entering medium range" she intoned.
"Fire when ready, engage lighter elements first" the Captain simply stated.
The guns blazed their reply, she tracked their progress and smiled at the hits. But the sensors did not report the sort of damage that striking unshielded hulls would have. "Shots on target, hits ineffective" she reported.
"Do not let up" they barked back. She tracked more hits as the guns fired as fast as they could cycle their charge. Finally she spotted whatever form of shielding they used start showing signs of trouble. Their hulls showing debris be thrown out even as other shots were countered.
"Partial bleedthrough of enemy shielding" she reported before sparing a glance back to the fighter brawl. The combined forward screen had inflected some damage, but readouts reported that their own capabilities had been degraded too. IFF rescue beacons and blaring damage reports from the frigates as the enemy had evidently degraded their GARDIAN arrays.
The Captain could see the same thing she could. "Order the Contos and Spetum forward, exploit the damage the Falx has caused".
She watched as those ships pushed forward, some of the enemy fighters following along as the ships made to follow their final orders. She watched as suddenly alerts were brought to the fore by the sensor VIs. Her blood pumped as she realized what they reported.
"Enemy capital fire, directed energy weapons. Spetum is damaged but still fighting" her superior reported as Cassia scrutinized the different readouts. Additional readouts reported what seemed like larger variants of the enemy fighter weapons alongside the unexpected energy strike. Then additional lances of energy were reported from the other craft. The larger cruisers had added their own fire. These were much more devastating than the smaller corvettes.
"Spetum is, combat ineffective. Hull breaches on all decks and levels. Command delegated down the chain. Engineer's second is, they report their thrusters are still functional. Spirits" the Comms operator gasped out, Cassia's screen held a full view of what was happening. As the safeties were obviously thrown off and the ship lurched for one last acceleration. An expanding spray of mishappen debris was what was left of a Hierarchy frigate, the different pieces tracked on her screen.
"Shift targets, hammer one of the cruisers with everything we have. Redline our reactors, spare nothing" the Captain called out.
The lights and their displays flickered for a moment as systems compensated. Slug after slug left the cruiser to strike at its chosen target. Their redoubled fire seemed to work as the Contos lunged forward, its gun blazing as its secondary batteries unloaded on a passing corvette in the wild spin it threw itself into as it attempted to avoid any additional energy strikes. She watched as first one and then another strike seemingly only clipped the spiraling frigate. "Target damaged!" she called out as debris was registered spiraling into space.
"Sir, Contos is reporting heavy damage. They, they report they are ready to follow the example of their sister" the Comms reported. Cassia numbly kept going. Watched unceasingly as the IFF status went from active to disabled. Then vanished completely as her screen reset from the sudden detonation.
"Enemy losses are one corvette and one cruiser" she let out. Her eyes seeing that a drifting hulk had also appeared near the former location of the enemy cruiser.
"One for each of us. Not equal enough" they replied.
Her eyes caught a sudden surge of movement. "Sir the remaining section of corvettes is making an attack run on our position!" she yelled out.
"Focus fire on one of them, pilot. Plot a course for the other. Redline our engines once it draws close". More seconds passed as their previously unengaged ship was made the target of every single remaining enemy ship.
"Enemy heavy fighters are nearing our position!" she called out.
"Cut thrust and roll the ship,engage with all secondary weapons" the Captain ordered. The mass effect fields meant they did not feel the maneuver but she did track as enemy fighters disappeared from her display. Then she flinched as her senior yelled out.
"Enemy cruisers vectoring for our flank!" he yelled out before suddenly the ship lurched. The mass effect field must have flickered as she felt her body start to move before her suit's magnets reasserted themselves.
"Status report!" the Captain yelled out, the litany of replies alongside the overlay appearing on the main display told a story of woe.
"Main engines disabled, all we have are auxiliaries" the Pilot reported as a final cap.
"Status of the enemy" was the barked out reply.
Cassia flicked her eyes back and relayed what she saw. "One additional corvette hulked. The other is, enemy fighters making attack runs topside!" she yelled out. Her mind caught up and saw that first pack of heavyweight fighters plunge for their position. More damage alerts sprang up and she heard an engineering officer yell out.
"GARDIAN capability degraded!". Her voice quickly joined them. "Ordnance launch detected. More heavy fig- no subcorvettes on our flank!" she yelled out at the suddenly appearing icons.
"Brace for impact!" she heard and her suit quickly locked itself fully into place. But the sudden explosions did not happen, reverberations could be felt throughout the ship but they weren't exploding ordnance.
"Those aren't torpedoes" the Captain stated simply before turning to bark out. "What is happening on my ship!".
"Boarders! We have hostile boarders. Marines are responding and crews are mobilizing!" someone reported.
"They want us. They will not have it. They should have realized our resolve already. Let us not keep our comrades waiting" the Captain's talons quickly tapped at their terminal. Cassia felt a hand on her shoulder as her senior proffered a shotgun, others also giving out the contents of the bridge's arms locker.
She tentatively gripped the weapon before ingrained instincts had her properly shouldering the armament. Her senior gave a nod. No words were spoken that weren't needed. Duty, honor, resolve. They, they were merely following their resolve. Her hand briefly reached for her omnitool. She looked at the screen image, her graduation picture. Her family standing proud amongst the crowd before the lines of graduates. Then her talon reached out for a long disused program. Tech fields flickered to life and she got into position. The Hierarchy wouldn't forget them. Her family would not forget her.
Tense reports continued to sound out from the engineers at their stations. The Marine commander relaying their progress and the details of the enemy boarders until they fell silent with a final weapon retort. Then sounds could be heard at the bridge's door. She spared a look back at the Captain behind her. She noted the almost complete progress circle on their display. She turned back to the door as it started to deform. Loud clangs from something striking it before suddenly some sort of weapons fire started striking it.
"Fire on my mark" someone ordered. Her hands flexed on her weapon, the crosshair of her monocle centered over the door. It continued to deform before finally breaking. "Fire!" was the order given. She felt the recoil push at her shoulder, then she felt her body falling back. An odd metal object was in her, her mind mutely reported.
Her suddenly heavy eyes caught sight of more gunfire, streaks of some strange fire flashing over her. Yelling came to her ears as scuffling of some sort reverberated. Then an explosion rang out oddly mutely. She spotted a strange figure step up to her, their odd hand reaching out towards the thing in her chest. Her hand, she could still move her hand. She demanded one last effort of her tired body. A pistol clacked into position just as the being started recoiling back. She fired. She smiled as blood splashed her face. She always did score high on her pistol quals. Her eyes dimmed. Her world shook and the sight of fire was the last thing she saw.
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Chapter 02
WyrmofFrost
One whose Muse delights in being coy
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/His/Him
Mass Effect: The Vanduul War - Chapter 02
Disclaimer: Mass Effect and related franchises along with Star Citizen and associated franchises are the property of their respective owners, I claim nothing that is not my own.
Commodore Herius Carius Tullius looked around the globe as his forces advanced. A short squadron of cruisers backed by a strengthened flotilla of frigates. The bare minimum of force that could be mustered to investigate the loss of the previous flotilla. While they may have been the more dated designs of the Hierarchy, they were still military grade vessels. No petty pirate could have taken them out without a survivor managing to retreat. Which meant he was dealing with either the personal fleet of some petty Terminus tyrant or perhaps one of the major merc gangs. Naval Intelligence didn't report the sort of movements that would have one of the known culprits around so this was something else. Perhaps a new race or some petty colonial empire. Regardless he would make do with what he had.
They had only the most basic information to go off of, the missing flotilla having gone to investigate anomalous activity near an inactive relay and then all contact was lost. So he deployed his force fully in combat formation, pairs of vessels maintaining close order for mutual support with a heavy screen deployed as outriders. If his forces had only been fully staffed, but this was a previously quiet sector.
Turning his gaze he looked at the files he had studied intensely. He knew who had been given command of the missing flotilla, knew their type. A clinical type of charisma that appealed to certain aspects of turian psychology. The type that institutionally was never allowed to join cross species initiatives no matter their competence. Brilliant assault troops and lower level command, the types never to give up without a fight.
Tullius glared at the screen as the outer screen of frigates continued without detecting any enemy presence. The aforementioned missing flotilla had reported some anomalous stellar phenomena, something that had obviously expanded from the last shared metrics. Why would an enemy need to do that, how would they do that? Such measures were generally the provenance of the massive mass relays, and even then they typically kept relatively constrained corridors clear. This was something else. Whatever it was certainly could keep one from detecting exact enemy positions but it was a strategic liability, it was only the sheer scale of the effect that kept it from being worse than useless. He certainly didn't have the ordnance to blast the entire obscured body of space.
Tullius glared at his screen as he piped the sensor terminal directly to his own. More worrying was that he was not finding a trace of the missing patrol. Empty, too empty. No distress beacons or IFF shards. Perhaps if he had one of the STG ships around then they would be able to pick up trace background broadcasts, but he didn't have one of those damned spies and their augur ships. There was probably at least one informant on his fleet but he didn't have the connections to get anything helpful, and the price wouldn't be worth it at his rank.
"Check again, there isn't even a hint of battle?" he barked at Sensors, vaguely hoping for something that he wasn't seeing. The dossiers of the patrol personnel told him one thing for sure. They would have died fighting, something should have remained.
"No sir" was the simple reply back.
"Not even engine traces?" his forces had taken the least distance route, which was likely different but should have still overlapped some of the likely path of their patrol according to the astrometrics.
"No sir, it is. Clean", answered the operator handling that directly. Tullius didn't like this. Turian ships didn't use baffled engines nor did they have those sort of stealth measures to remove the trace discharge of their drives. The sort of tech to remove existing traces wasn't something he understood was possible at all. He worried for a moment that he had stumbled into some sort of coverup, but if that was the case it wasn't his side. STG tended to be more subtle.
"We have detected nothing outside of the anomalous cloud?" he pressed again.
"No artificial signals or readings in system so far" was the annoying answer.
"Then leave a com buoy and take us in. Have the fighters probe the stellar cloud, press the frigates forward to overwatch" he ordered, watching as the various subcommanders put his words to action.
Long minutes passed as the search proceeded, several flights of fighters pushing into the obscuring properties of the anomaly. "Sir contacts! Contacts!" his comms officer relayed. "Scout force is engaged and falling back".
"Get me an estimate!" he barked out. His eyes searched, but nothing so far that seemed as if it had been what took out the patrol. If this was a weakened force then why were they engaging? Sensors as obscured as his own? No, assuming competence then they had more. Much more.
"Enemy corvettes and fighters engaging, scout force is unable to disengage. Sir frigates are requesting orders". Tullius wrestled for a second on a decision, but he knew his creed. It would be a tactical blunder, but he wasn't abandoning his men.
"I order them to press in to extract our comrades. Prepare a cruiser firing line. Launch all reserves and reinforce the perimeter" he barked as he watched the various stations switch to high gear, his orders filtering down as needed to put words into action.
Switching his terminal display the Commodore watched as signatures winked out or appeared. The icons of his ships moving in, the simulated lines of main gun fire crashing against the enemy corvettes. The state of them only visible when one ship slowed down or started drifting under inertia. Their charge ended in a turn to broadside as the more numerous gun batteries also opened up as did the GARDIAN arrays. Signatures vanished and he watched with some relief as the attack gave enough breathing room for the fighters to disengage.
For a moment he felt glad as the ragged remnants of his scouting fighters managed to fall back. But his fears emerged as the previous corvette signatures were joined by cruisers. The menaces appearing suddenly on sensors from the cloud.
He watched as one frigate suddenly signalled that its main engine array was hit before it suddenly flipped and began putting as much ordnance down range as it could. Its defiance was short lived as it was hulked shortly afterward and he scowled as signatures detached and blended with the frigate. It suddenly winking out before a cloud of debris started being tracked told him what had happened. Dozens of lives gone in mere minutes. Foul, foul, foul. It was only the cloud of shattered enemy hulks that said they had died well.
Tullius took several breaths as he worked through his feelings and then let them go. "Tactical, what is the analysis of our enemy" he ordered as a natural lull took over the battlefield. More enemy forces started to marshal at the edge of the cloud as his forces consolidated themselves. Each had taken the measure of the other, but he knew the enemy could have more. Did they think he could have reinforcements too?
The voice sounding out had him return to the present. "Unknown weaponry and equipment, estimated peer level at minimum. Heavy fighter presence with, effective, designs and aggressive tactics. Weaponry is unknown form of plasma, and some sort of beam weapon as a main battery on the corvettes and cruisers. Analytics isn't sure if it is directed energy or a plasma beam of some sort" Tullius clacked his mandibles at that, that was a level of academics he didn't need right now. A matter for later. His fleet didn't have the measures to be able to mitigate the threat either way. Both sides had heavy weapons and not much protection from them.
"No element zero?" he asked almost perfunctorily. The nod was all he needed. Their sensor capabilities would stay degraded then. Precision fire would be almost impossible at anything more than point blank range. He was at a severe disadvantage with blood already spilled.
"Enemy casualties?" he asked.
"Possibly some crippled corvettes, enough for a flotilla, additionally moderate fighter kills" was the answer. Not good, but considering circumstances it was acceptable. He spied their own tally, a frigate and a significant fraction of their total fighter contingent. Not good. And worrying as he considered what he knew of their lost flotilla. A cruiser wouldn't have gone down cleanly against this foe.
"Prepare to conduct fighting withdrawal, stagger our forces. Withdraw all fighters, we won't have time for them to be docked". Fighters were good for short range and dense patrols, they weren't able to be docked under high maneuver thrust. His eyes continued to observe the screen, he waited for the first sign of an enemy response; it was not long in.
"Contact! Dreadnought, multiple enemy dreadnought types spotted!" was the cry that sent a spike of cold ice through his body. A rising flame of hate though also started to rise, he clung to it deeply to keep moving.
"What!" he roared out, an angry talon bringing up the readout in question.
"Multiple superheavy dreadnought weight vessels detected" was repeated and he scowled at exactly how they were positioned. Charging straight down the flank of his position as cruiser detachments pushed down the center and the remaining flank. The speeds, he juggled each incoming formation and their inbound speeds. They might be able to escape if they sacrificed something. He could not run, his anger and the speed of the cruisers making that not an option. This would be a fight better suited to Asari doctrine, no Salarian. Salarian doctrine emphasized evasion more than kinetic barriers.
"Prep for flip to burn, we need to maintain distance. Before then I want shots sent down the least distance paths" he ordered. A token measure, but it would give them something to do. That would keep the fighting trim intact for longer. But as he already knew, he didn't have the initiative in this fight.
"Fighter launch! The VIs are having trouble. A hundred contacts and rising rapidly!". A veritable swarm of fighters launched itself ahead of everything followed by sub corvettes. More munitions then? No element zero meant he didn't know if they would peter out or be utterly devastating to his forces.
Sacrifices. That word came to mind again. "Belay previous orders. Order a frigate detachment to burn for the relay. All remaining forces, prepare to stand and fight". His mind turned over thoughts in a sharp clarity. Concentrate fire to kill or spread out damage? Did the enemy have repair capability or did it have reserves? Unknowns. So many unknowns. He judged the relative agility on display. Speed wouldn't be a fight they could count on. Weaponry, they could seemingly do damage but so could they. Armor? They hadn't killed but they had broken through. Fighters, he didn't think they would win that fight now. Bad overall.
"Prepare to concentrate fire, target enemy fast elements first. Net fire, disable and move on" he ordered, all they could do they would do. There was no dissent, the hierarchy trained basic tactics in its NCO class. None could see a way that would allow them all to escape. Not without desperate maneuvers and the bottleneck of the relay meant it would be pointless. Better death in battle than a slow descent into madness in the system's dark corners.
"If anyone wishes to attempt to withdraw with messages then you may do so" he let out. Over the next few minutes he watched as some shuttles departed. That was it. Part of the crew, part of the ship, part of the fleet. A line binding them all. It was a small mercy they didn't have a banner to lose. His name would go down in utter infamy if that was the case, him and the rest of the fleet.
"Enemy cruiser squadrons are advancing!" was the starter signal. He watched as firing solutions were crunched. The first shots were not meant to hit, merely to corral. The returning blow came, beams of energy that glanced off their ships. A brief look at an exterior camera showed lines of molten metal as the kinetic barriers had only a perfunctory effect on the attacks. But they had what they needed as the salvos of cruiser grade main guns slammed into their counterparts.
"Die" Tullius let out, heart beating as the eyes of his ships detected the tumbling forms of their targets.
"Enemy fighter screen pressing forward" came a call. Turning his attention he grimly noted that their own meager force was outnumbered more then ten to one against foes that could not be considered lesser. Especially as he watched what must be munition carrying subcorvettes press close behind their lighter kin while the heavy corvettes nimbly sidesteped any errant shots from his cruisers. A riot of knives and they had few ways to beat it back.
He made up his mind. A desperate measure, but it may buy them time. "All forces needle formation, frigates behind. Stab through from right to left, all broadsides are free to fire as they bear." he would know shortly how adverse to collateral damage their foe was. This was a desperation move, but there was no going back, was there? Not without the intervention of the Spirits' themselves.
Watching his forces start to organize he heard a loud alert go off. "Sir! Enemy fighters have appeared within range!". Jerking his head to the relevant section of the battle globe he let out a his of breath.
"I said weapons free! Someone verify what we have and how they got there!" he growled out as the fighters of his force already started to react and the Arrays let out their flashes of deadly light.
Tullius stood stock still, watching each blip vanish on screen. There was nothing he could do, no grand secret of command to change the outcome now. Only trust in the gunners and the commanders to be able to destroy the enemy.
"Tracked down the moment of reveal. Either unknown stealth tech sir, or . . ." Tullius turned to the hesitating tech.
"Talk to me Sensors" he ordered.
"Unknown radiation signatures. In system jumps of some sort is the best I can guess" was the answer. Tullius growled, this was just one more piece of information that tried to crush him. Implications he did not have the time to consider and that he couldn't get to others that could.
"FTL?" he asked tensely.
"Unknown but unlikely sir. Whatever they used brought them to our position in a sprint without a proper slow down burn" was the short answer he got.
"Irrelevant for now" he dismissed only to be interrupted. "Sir, that was a two pronged assault. One of them was from the direction of our other forces". Tullius' hands attempted to crush the railing around him, sturdy Turian construction the only thing keeping that from happening.
"Forward. To retreat is death. Forward is death. Take as many down with you as you can! That is my final order!" he barked out, an ingrained action having broadcasted his words to the entire fleet. No one countered his orders. He stood as a spectator as his fleet followed his commands. The few fighters they had were hastily launched, many still damaged but knowing that it was this or die stranded on the ships. He refused to look away as ships sent out the rage of their crews, as they absorbed the blows of their enemies. As ship tokens flickered and faded before his eyes. Soon enough his own ship was thrust into the enemy and he felt the faint thrum of the guns firing through his feet.
Ships died from their death charge, their own and the enemy. Some ruptured catastrophically, whether deliberately or from battle damage. Others were briefly tracked drifting on their momentum, spinning hulks of metal that still managed to prove a danger to the enemy. Their charge close enough he could watch from the exterior cameras as an enemy fighter, dashed itself on the wreckage. He eyed the first sight of the enemy as more than an arbitrary assigned token on the holodisplay.
It was strange, a bladed thing like the profile of a flying beast in a dive. Not that that one in particular stayed intact, but its flightmates certainly wheeled around as one surviving fighter attempted to engage. It died, ripped apart by the strange plasma weaponry he saw at last for himself. Vengeance was shortly dispensed as a dull flash of light reduced one of them to melted fragments. The survivors scattered and the battle whipped away from that tabula.
His mind mused idly as his ship vibrated from battle damage. He could do nothing as he was reduced from a proud Commodore of the Turian Hierarchy to a mere passenger. The captain of his ship resolutely directing the crew as they attempted to lash out like a cornered varren against their foe. He felt a grim joy in him as he watched a battered enemy superdreadnought be rammed by one of their cruisers, the speed enough to solidly embed the craft into the enemy ship before something in it shuddered and he watched the mass effect core destabilize. They sped by the violently expanding ball of debris.
Soon enough though whatever luck they had in avoiding direct hits ended. A beam of some sort lashed against the hull before the camera feed cut off. Instead he got to feel the effect of that strike bodily. It was not the sharp reverberations of mass accelerator fire, this was thermal shock rather than kinetic shock. Still devastating as his uniform deployed its emergency seals. The world spun as the bridge evidently decompressed, a gaping gash opened in the ship such that no bulkhead could seal it. Buried as deep as he had been in the CiC he found himself somewhat confused at suddenly being elsewhere. His eyes caught the drive flares in the void, his own dwindling ones and the flock of enemy ones. He mused about the coloring for a second as his eyes caught the countdown of the air in his suit displayed on his omnitool. He did not ever imagine that this would be his end. The rage had long vanished from his veins, replaced by a calm certainty here at the end. Perhaps there was still a spirit that had mercy on him.
He reached one hand down to the pistol at his side, he had had it ever since he graduated boot camp. An old pistol that hadn't been new even then. A few flicks of his fingers and he moved all the battle information he had to his omnitool's drive. He couldn't record any message, but he spared a moment to type something out. It wasn't his best work, but he spent long seconds suspended in the void of space as he wrote out what he could on the holo of his omnitool. Satisfied opened up the tech armor function on his omnitool. Tinkering what he wanted he set it off as he ejected the drive. The entire omnigel stock was emptied as a thin bubble wrapped around him. A push and the emergency air supply he had was taken from his suit and into that temporary space. He had seconds left as the bubble of micro thin omnigel started to fray. It was enough as he swallowed the drive. He spared a second to wonder if anyone would find his body before bringing up that old gun. He knew no more.
Disclaimer: Mass Effect and related franchises along with Star Citizen and associated franchises are the property of their respective owners, I claim nothing that is not my own.
Commodore Herius Carius Tullius looked around the globe as his forces advanced. A short squadron of cruisers backed by a strengthened flotilla of frigates. The bare minimum of force that could be mustered to investigate the loss of the previous flotilla. While they may have been the more dated designs of the Hierarchy, they were still military grade vessels. No petty pirate could have taken them out without a survivor managing to retreat. Which meant he was dealing with either the personal fleet of some petty Terminus tyrant or perhaps one of the major merc gangs. Naval Intelligence didn't report the sort of movements that would have one of the known culprits around so this was something else. Perhaps a new race or some petty colonial empire. Regardless he would make do with what he had.
They had only the most basic information to go off of, the missing flotilla having gone to investigate anomalous activity near an inactive relay and then all contact was lost. So he deployed his force fully in combat formation, pairs of vessels maintaining close order for mutual support with a heavy screen deployed as outriders. If his forces had only been fully staffed, but this was a previously quiet sector.
Turning his gaze he looked at the files he had studied intensely. He knew who had been given command of the missing flotilla, knew their type. A clinical type of charisma that appealed to certain aspects of turian psychology. The type that institutionally was never allowed to join cross species initiatives no matter their competence. Brilliant assault troops and lower level command, the types never to give up without a fight.
Tullius glared at the screen as the outer screen of frigates continued without detecting any enemy presence. The aforementioned missing flotilla had reported some anomalous stellar phenomena, something that had obviously expanded from the last shared metrics. Why would an enemy need to do that, how would they do that? Such measures were generally the provenance of the massive mass relays, and even then they typically kept relatively constrained corridors clear. This was something else. Whatever it was certainly could keep one from detecting exact enemy positions but it was a strategic liability, it was only the sheer scale of the effect that kept it from being worse than useless. He certainly didn't have the ordnance to blast the entire obscured body of space.
Tullius glared at his screen as he piped the sensor terminal directly to his own. More worrying was that he was not finding a trace of the missing patrol. Empty, too empty. No distress beacons or IFF shards. Perhaps if he had one of the STG ships around then they would be able to pick up trace background broadcasts, but he didn't have one of those damned spies and their augur ships. There was probably at least one informant on his fleet but he didn't have the connections to get anything helpful, and the price wouldn't be worth it at his rank.
"Check again, there isn't even a hint of battle?" he barked at Sensors, vaguely hoping for something that he wasn't seeing. The dossiers of the patrol personnel told him one thing for sure. They would have died fighting, something should have remained.
"No sir" was the simple reply back.
"Not even engine traces?" his forces had taken the least distance route, which was likely different but should have still overlapped some of the likely path of their patrol according to the astrometrics.
"No sir, it is. Clean", answered the operator handling that directly. Tullius didn't like this. Turian ships didn't use baffled engines nor did they have those sort of stealth measures to remove the trace discharge of their drives. The sort of tech to remove existing traces wasn't something he understood was possible at all. He worried for a moment that he had stumbled into some sort of coverup, but if that was the case it wasn't his side. STG tended to be more subtle.
"We have detected nothing outside of the anomalous cloud?" he pressed again.
"No artificial signals or readings in system so far" was the annoying answer.
"Then leave a com buoy and take us in. Have the fighters probe the stellar cloud, press the frigates forward to overwatch" he ordered, watching as the various subcommanders put his words to action.
Long minutes passed as the search proceeded, several flights of fighters pushing into the obscuring properties of the anomaly. "Sir contacts! Contacts!" his comms officer relayed. "Scout force is engaged and falling back".
"Get me an estimate!" he barked out. His eyes searched, but nothing so far that seemed as if it had been what took out the patrol. If this was a weakened force then why were they engaging? Sensors as obscured as his own? No, assuming competence then they had more. Much more.
"Enemy corvettes and fighters engaging, scout force is unable to disengage. Sir frigates are requesting orders". Tullius wrestled for a second on a decision, but he knew his creed. It would be a tactical blunder, but he wasn't abandoning his men.
"I order them to press in to extract our comrades. Prepare a cruiser firing line. Launch all reserves and reinforce the perimeter" he barked as he watched the various stations switch to high gear, his orders filtering down as needed to put words into action.
Switching his terminal display the Commodore watched as signatures winked out or appeared. The icons of his ships moving in, the simulated lines of main gun fire crashing against the enemy corvettes. The state of them only visible when one ship slowed down or started drifting under inertia. Their charge ended in a turn to broadside as the more numerous gun batteries also opened up as did the GARDIAN arrays. Signatures vanished and he watched with some relief as the attack gave enough breathing room for the fighters to disengage.
For a moment he felt glad as the ragged remnants of his scouting fighters managed to fall back. But his fears emerged as the previous corvette signatures were joined by cruisers. The menaces appearing suddenly on sensors from the cloud.
He watched as one frigate suddenly signalled that its main engine array was hit before it suddenly flipped and began putting as much ordnance down range as it could. Its defiance was short lived as it was hulked shortly afterward and he scowled as signatures detached and blended with the frigate. It suddenly winking out before a cloud of debris started being tracked told him what had happened. Dozens of lives gone in mere minutes. Foul, foul, foul. It was only the cloud of shattered enemy hulks that said they had died well.
Tullius took several breaths as he worked through his feelings and then let them go. "Tactical, what is the analysis of our enemy" he ordered as a natural lull took over the battlefield. More enemy forces started to marshal at the edge of the cloud as his forces consolidated themselves. Each had taken the measure of the other, but he knew the enemy could have more. Did they think he could have reinforcements too?
The voice sounding out had him return to the present. "Unknown weaponry and equipment, estimated peer level at minimum. Heavy fighter presence with, effective, designs and aggressive tactics. Weaponry is unknown form of plasma, and some sort of beam weapon as a main battery on the corvettes and cruisers. Analytics isn't sure if it is directed energy or a plasma beam of some sort" Tullius clacked his mandibles at that, that was a level of academics he didn't need right now. A matter for later. His fleet didn't have the measures to be able to mitigate the threat either way. Both sides had heavy weapons and not much protection from them.
"No element zero?" he asked almost perfunctorily. The nod was all he needed. Their sensor capabilities would stay degraded then. Precision fire would be almost impossible at anything more than point blank range. He was at a severe disadvantage with blood already spilled.
"Enemy casualties?" he asked.
"Possibly some crippled corvettes, enough for a flotilla, additionally moderate fighter kills" was the answer. Not good, but considering circumstances it was acceptable. He spied their own tally, a frigate and a significant fraction of their total fighter contingent. Not good. And worrying as he considered what he knew of their lost flotilla. A cruiser wouldn't have gone down cleanly against this foe.
"Prepare to conduct fighting withdrawal, stagger our forces. Withdraw all fighters, we won't have time for them to be docked". Fighters were good for short range and dense patrols, they weren't able to be docked under high maneuver thrust. His eyes continued to observe the screen, he waited for the first sign of an enemy response; it was not long in.
"Contact! Dreadnought, multiple enemy dreadnought types spotted!" was the cry that sent a spike of cold ice through his body. A rising flame of hate though also started to rise, he clung to it deeply to keep moving.
"What!" he roared out, an angry talon bringing up the readout in question.
"Multiple superheavy dreadnought weight vessels detected" was repeated and he scowled at exactly how they were positioned. Charging straight down the flank of his position as cruiser detachments pushed down the center and the remaining flank. The speeds, he juggled each incoming formation and their inbound speeds. They might be able to escape if they sacrificed something. He could not run, his anger and the speed of the cruisers making that not an option. This would be a fight better suited to Asari doctrine, no Salarian. Salarian doctrine emphasized evasion more than kinetic barriers.
"Prep for flip to burn, we need to maintain distance. Before then I want shots sent down the least distance paths" he ordered. A token measure, but it would give them something to do. That would keep the fighting trim intact for longer. But as he already knew, he didn't have the initiative in this fight.
"Fighter launch! The VIs are having trouble. A hundred contacts and rising rapidly!". A veritable swarm of fighters launched itself ahead of everything followed by sub corvettes. More munitions then? No element zero meant he didn't know if they would peter out or be utterly devastating to his forces.
Sacrifices. That word came to mind again. "Belay previous orders. Order a frigate detachment to burn for the relay. All remaining forces, prepare to stand and fight". His mind turned over thoughts in a sharp clarity. Concentrate fire to kill or spread out damage? Did the enemy have repair capability or did it have reserves? Unknowns. So many unknowns. He judged the relative agility on display. Speed wouldn't be a fight they could count on. Weaponry, they could seemingly do damage but so could they. Armor? They hadn't killed but they had broken through. Fighters, he didn't think they would win that fight now. Bad overall.
"Prepare to concentrate fire, target enemy fast elements first. Net fire, disable and move on" he ordered, all they could do they would do. There was no dissent, the hierarchy trained basic tactics in its NCO class. None could see a way that would allow them all to escape. Not without desperate maneuvers and the bottleneck of the relay meant it would be pointless. Better death in battle than a slow descent into madness in the system's dark corners.
"If anyone wishes to attempt to withdraw with messages then you may do so" he let out. Over the next few minutes he watched as some shuttles departed. That was it. Part of the crew, part of the ship, part of the fleet. A line binding them all. It was a small mercy they didn't have a banner to lose. His name would go down in utter infamy if that was the case, him and the rest of the fleet.
"Enemy cruiser squadrons are advancing!" was the starter signal. He watched as firing solutions were crunched. The first shots were not meant to hit, merely to corral. The returning blow came, beams of energy that glanced off their ships. A brief look at an exterior camera showed lines of molten metal as the kinetic barriers had only a perfunctory effect on the attacks. But they had what they needed as the salvos of cruiser grade main guns slammed into their counterparts.
"Die" Tullius let out, heart beating as the eyes of his ships detected the tumbling forms of their targets.
"Enemy fighter screen pressing forward" came a call. Turning his attention he grimly noted that their own meager force was outnumbered more then ten to one against foes that could not be considered lesser. Especially as he watched what must be munition carrying subcorvettes press close behind their lighter kin while the heavy corvettes nimbly sidesteped any errant shots from his cruisers. A riot of knives and they had few ways to beat it back.
He made up his mind. A desperate measure, but it may buy them time. "All forces needle formation, frigates behind. Stab through from right to left, all broadsides are free to fire as they bear." he would know shortly how adverse to collateral damage their foe was. This was a desperation move, but there was no going back, was there? Not without the intervention of the Spirits' themselves.
Watching his forces start to organize he heard a loud alert go off. "Sir! Enemy fighters have appeared within range!". Jerking his head to the relevant section of the battle globe he let out a his of breath.
"I said weapons free! Someone verify what we have and how they got there!" he growled out as the fighters of his force already started to react and the Arrays let out their flashes of deadly light.
Tullius stood stock still, watching each blip vanish on screen. There was nothing he could do, no grand secret of command to change the outcome now. Only trust in the gunners and the commanders to be able to destroy the enemy.
"Tracked down the moment of reveal. Either unknown stealth tech sir, or . . ." Tullius turned to the hesitating tech.
"Talk to me Sensors" he ordered.
"Unknown radiation signatures. In system jumps of some sort is the best I can guess" was the answer. Tullius growled, this was just one more piece of information that tried to crush him. Implications he did not have the time to consider and that he couldn't get to others that could.
"FTL?" he asked tensely.
"Unknown but unlikely sir. Whatever they used brought them to our position in a sprint without a proper slow down burn" was the short answer he got.
"Irrelevant for now" he dismissed only to be interrupted. "Sir, that was a two pronged assault. One of them was from the direction of our other forces". Tullius' hands attempted to crush the railing around him, sturdy Turian construction the only thing keeping that from happening.
"Forward. To retreat is death. Forward is death. Take as many down with you as you can! That is my final order!" he barked out, an ingrained action having broadcasted his words to the entire fleet. No one countered his orders. He stood as a spectator as his fleet followed his commands. The few fighters they had were hastily launched, many still damaged but knowing that it was this or die stranded on the ships. He refused to look away as ships sent out the rage of their crews, as they absorbed the blows of their enemies. As ship tokens flickered and faded before his eyes. Soon enough his own ship was thrust into the enemy and he felt the faint thrum of the guns firing through his feet.
Ships died from their death charge, their own and the enemy. Some ruptured catastrophically, whether deliberately or from battle damage. Others were briefly tracked drifting on their momentum, spinning hulks of metal that still managed to prove a danger to the enemy. Their charge close enough he could watch from the exterior cameras as an enemy fighter, dashed itself on the wreckage. He eyed the first sight of the enemy as more than an arbitrary assigned token on the holodisplay.
It was strange, a bladed thing like the profile of a flying beast in a dive. Not that that one in particular stayed intact, but its flightmates certainly wheeled around as one surviving fighter attempted to engage. It died, ripped apart by the strange plasma weaponry he saw at last for himself. Vengeance was shortly dispensed as a dull flash of light reduced one of them to melted fragments. The survivors scattered and the battle whipped away from that tabula.
His mind mused idly as his ship vibrated from battle damage. He could do nothing as he was reduced from a proud Commodore of the Turian Hierarchy to a mere passenger. The captain of his ship resolutely directing the crew as they attempted to lash out like a cornered varren against their foe. He felt a grim joy in him as he watched a battered enemy superdreadnought be rammed by one of their cruisers, the speed enough to solidly embed the craft into the enemy ship before something in it shuddered and he watched the mass effect core destabilize. They sped by the violently expanding ball of debris.
Soon enough though whatever luck they had in avoiding direct hits ended. A beam of some sort lashed against the hull before the camera feed cut off. Instead he got to feel the effect of that strike bodily. It was not the sharp reverberations of mass accelerator fire, this was thermal shock rather than kinetic shock. Still devastating as his uniform deployed its emergency seals. The world spun as the bridge evidently decompressed, a gaping gash opened in the ship such that no bulkhead could seal it. Buried as deep as he had been in the CiC he found himself somewhat confused at suddenly being elsewhere. His eyes caught the drive flares in the void, his own dwindling ones and the flock of enemy ones. He mused about the coloring for a second as his eyes caught the countdown of the air in his suit displayed on his omnitool. He did not ever imagine that this would be his end. The rage had long vanished from his veins, replaced by a calm certainty here at the end. Perhaps there was still a spirit that had mercy on him.
He reached one hand down to the pistol at his side, he had had it ever since he graduated boot camp. An old pistol that hadn't been new even then. A few flicks of his fingers and he moved all the battle information he had to his omnitool's drive. He couldn't record any message, but he spared a moment to type something out. It wasn't his best work, but he spent long seconds suspended in the void of space as he wrote out what he could on the holo of his omnitool. Satisfied opened up the tech armor function on his omnitool. Tinkering what he wanted he set it off as he ejected the drive. The entire omnigel stock was emptied as a thin bubble wrapped around him. A push and the emergency air supply he had was taken from his suit and into that temporary space. He had seconds left as the bubble of micro thin omnigel started to fray. It was enough as he swallowed the drive. He spared a second to wonder if anyone would find his body before bringing up that old gun. He knew no more.
Chapter 03
WyrmofFrost
One whose Muse delights in being coy
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/His/Him
Mass Effect: The Vanduul War - Chapter 03
Disclaimer: Mass Effect and related franchises along with Star Citizen and associated franchises are the property of their respective owners, I claim nothing that is not my own.
Primarch Sisenna Falerius Adauctus growled to himself in his room as his hands manipulated the hologlobe before him. Various datapoints populating the display as the VIs sort through the data. He would normally be waiting for dedicated analysts to be doing this first but things were simply moving too fast. The quiet sector being upgraded several alert levels as the loss of a considerable number of fleet assets with no explanation sent alarms ringing across Hierarchy command. The tally made up of multiple cruisers and flotillas of frigates had triggered an absolute mess. The bureaucrats suffered with the cascading chain of events as the 22nd Fleet was sent on its way.
He personally felt slighted because none of his first ring of informants told him this. He had it get it through one of his side channels.
Something in his head pulsed at that thought, a blood vessel trying in vain to cool his brain down. No one would be missing, that. Everyone that was a part of the Citadel and likely most of the Terminus paid attention when a pair of dreadnoughts and their attendant forces shifted. The suddenness would have already sent old instincts whirling if someone hadn't tried to hide it in such a manner. The young blood had forgotten who he was. He lamented for a moment before shrugging it back off, he could make use of it even if it wasn't preferred.
A sardonic part of him that remained since boot remarked that most anyone would quickly start ignoring most of the galaxy if all that heavy metal was about to fall onto HIS sector. He would have more than enough to fill his own rucksack and the rest of the squad without worrying about the unit over. But no, he needed to put in that little bit more. Which in this cse meant he needed to scramble to fill military depots from their previous quiet state to full military readiness. Reservists had to be mustered and that was the LEAST troubling part of things.
"At least one thing is going right" he grumbled aloud as he looked at the latest report on that subject.
You could take a Turian out of the army but you couldn't take the army out of them. Basic arms and armor were easy to get, but military spec kinetic barriers were not so easy. That didn't even begin to mention the needed spare stocks for naval vessels that had to be gathered from somewhere on short notice. He already knew that the Volus firm that was contracted to handle the sector's economy would be finding the little balls throwing themselves out of high rises as their profit margins cratered.
He made a note to himself to have one of his appropriate informants look there if he wanted the laugh for later. Eventually one more suited to active deployment would show up, or he could tap someone for an early contract. A thought to keep in mind if he wanted to cut it off in his usual style. Simply because the Hierarchy prided itself on its high military readiness didn't mean that a formerly peaceful sector could do so at the flash of some asari dancer's hips!
Sisenna shook his head at now needing to reorient his old network to take into account this, entire, series of events. He looked blearily again at the only things they had on the situation. First a small border Auxilia patrol goes dark. The QRF force immediately responds due to the likelihood of it not being some random accident. Then that too goes dark. It was a nowhere system, no significant features nor resources. Simply a cut off for that extent of relay as the required exploration permits were stuck in limbo.
His mind grumbled as he couldn't think up a way for a force from the the Terminus to arrive, it was the only practical place that a known factor could come from. While theoretically feasible, there wouldn't be any sort of supply chain for any attempting to take the system from their end. The stellar distances simply didn't let that work and the relay pair was under their guard.
He remembered an hour of fruitless results as he had double checked, both personally in the records and by sending a surprise second shift. No discrepancies from their end unless somehow they had corrupted the unit he had randomly chosen to kick out of their garrison and ship to the relay in question. He used a spirts' damn physical die to choose! His mind feverishly switched between different ideas. Hidden supply caches? Stealthed ships? Deep space transit ships? Which option? As his eyes roved around the globe before him he caught a shine in the corner of his vision.
Glaring at the hunk of foamed metal in question he pointedly turned away to the side and grabbed a mild relaxant drink, he poured the contents into his mouth and crushed the bubble before tossing it in the receptacle. Feeling less aggravated already he turned back to the hologlobe and just in time for it to begin beeping angrily. "What is the matter?" he growled more calmly than he would have five seconds earlier.
"Primarch! Emergency message from the Kotan system, unknown forces detected in-system. Presumed hostile, they request reinforcements. All contact has been lost afterward sir" came the voice on the other end, one of his comms staff he remembered. Then the contents of said message hit him.
A part of him scrambled to consider what could actually be sent. Then the other remembered the line was still open. "Inform the rest of the staff that all other messages related to the subject will be considered top priority to be sent to me, immediately. And someone get Captain Venator up here, post-haste! Dismissed until I call back". A wave of his hand and the link shut as he started hastily calling up the deployments of every force he knew of.
If only he had more aides, but no he was 'just' a small-time Primarch on the border. He didn't need more high ranking staff. Oh, well look at how things are going now. His damned Commodore was gone and presumed dead in the second battle of the blasted relay. 'And it had better have been a battle' his mind supplied. He did a minor favor and this happened.
The sound of the door to the room opening and closing caught his attention before his eyes captured the sight of an out of breath officer coming to attention before him. The suddenness had his hand twitching to a certain arms locker before he aborted it forcibly.
"At ease" he barked instinctively before they could fully straighten up. Disgraceful, but he wasn't going to bother about decorum now. The lashing for the lack of proper self-discipline, both the newcomers and his own, could come later. With that pleasant thought and now properly switching his mind to the present Sisenna waved his arm in a suitably attention drawing fashion.
"Our force deposition as it stands. Have we made any progress on getting an actual reserve ready and moving?" he demanded of the officer. He wasn't expecting much, but maybe he could be pleasantly surprised.
"No sir, not enough to have a force ready to move now. It, it would simply not be enough even if we managed to gather every single ship in our force". Sisenna cocked his head as he considered the younger man. Someone who wasn't stuttering and spouting random nonsense. A surprise. He would be sad if the man was completely buried under. "Hmm, how is that the case officer? That the Hierarchy does not have the forces to do something about this?".
"Sir, we have lost a total of fifteen percent of our forces in the sector. At minimum I would be comfortable with tripling the previous deployed forces and even then the force margin would be, not ideal considering previous performance" the young captain spouted out. Sisenna remembered their dossier, young for the role. Untested. But not wrong, standard doctrine was standard doctrine for a reason.
"Is that so, how is it that we can't divest the needed forces to respond to this attack?" he tossed at the young officer.
"Sir, that would be a dereliction of duty across the sector. It would be disproportionately lighter forces, forces using equipment devoted to Border Auxilia duty" the officer meant forces that would be inadequate at fighting a peer opponent.
"So, we do not have the forces or the parity needed for this assault on our worlds?" he asked.
The Captain gestured at the hologlobe. "Sir, permission?" he asked. A nod and the Captain started changing the display parameters. They soon zoomed into a view of the problem system in question.
"Sir, Kotan is at the end of this relay branch. It is in stellar terms, close to where the previous disappearances were. But not by relay, and that is our problem" he asserted.
"Hmm, are you suggesting the enemy was able to get there without the use of the relay?" he asked. He had had that thought before, it simply was against all conventional knowledge. Standard citadel military grade drives would not be able to commit such a travel, even specialist exploration ships couldn't do that trip in number.
"This is an enemy that has managed to conduct as near a perfect campaign of silence as we can see. No probe, no scouting force has managed to gather any information on them. Their presumed complete destruction of our forward forces and continued aggression speaks to a force with the strength and utter lack of inhibition to wage a conflict of aggression against us. Whether out of ignorance of what they face, a surety in their own methods, or with complete regard of what we can do" he growled, considering the point for a moment. Alarmist as some would take it as, it did provide a certain simplicity to the situation.
"Are you saying they are both strong yet needing to conduct information warfare on the level they have displayed?" he asked as a mild rejoinder, wanting to see where this went.
"Sir, we do not know what doctrine they have. They could operate something similar to Salarian doctrine or their standard methodology simply has a practical outcome similar to them. We have the effects on our own side to extrapolate from. As it stands our sector is utterly incapable of committing any resources or forces without an unacceptable loss in the near and medium term future" the Captain argued for firmly.
"Are you saying we should abandon the system without a fight officer?" he challenged, a hand raised to stop any immediate rejoinder. "To give up Hierarchy territory without resistance? Without even a single scrap of information about who is attacking us at all?" he pressed, adding a hint of threat to his posture as he did.
"With all due respect sir. Why are they attacking the Kotan system sir. It is not a developed colony world, it has no special resources or developed infrastructure. It is a backwater world with a decent climate but cut off from easy relay reinforcement that is not under our control. A target of opportunity to draw us out, or it has something they want. Either way, we have no realistic way of aggressively responding without making the situation worse as I stated earlier sir" Sisenna let out a deep harmonic, considering the determination of the officer before him.
If he was a Salarian or Asari that would be fully understandable, but Dextro amino worlds were harder to find. Dextro amino worlds and also compatible with Turian biology was a further hurdle. The Turian body didn't like adapting to other food sources in the galaxy, the artificial methods to do so were expensive at scale. To lose a world had more meaning to them. But, the officers record was with Coalition forces. Not much combat, but more diplomatic compared to his other officers. He might need to see if any other gaps were in this officer's worldview if he managed to survive the upcoming turmoil.
"If you feel that way as the last ranking officer. Then that will be the decision I will allow. But, what are you going to do if you will not attack? Ceding any initiative is, not well" he asked of the young one who had not stepped back once so far.
"Prepare the way. Redouble all our efforts to bring reinforcements to the sector as quickly and swiftly as possible. Deploy the full reserves of courier drones to find one glimpse of our enemy to bring back. Ensure that a route to swiftly counterattack our enemy is made possible. Harden the civil defenses of the sector and consolidate positions to shape any possible enemy move" came the answer.
"Oh, bold but can you do anything about the flaws in the things you suggest?" now here was where Sisenna wondered if the Captain would realize some of the flaws in his planning. Such as who was technically his boss. Most of those measures were not available to a mere captain, his old commodore could have if he wasn't likely dead in space. The Captain was lucky he was already going through with some of them while activating reserves.
"Sir, we can. Conduct a preliminary analysis, wartime conditions or at least as close to it may stress the logistical networks. It is best that these things should be managed first to set conditions before we can build upon the foundation". Sisenna held his body loose but otherwise not reacting. The limits had been reached apparently. A clever mind but not necessarily a smart one. Experience then, if they survive. Best not to be thrown out to die then, much as he hated it there was no winning militarily here. But he is a Primarch, they were supposed to be able to go beyond infantry dim reactions. What worked for going charging into gunfire did not work at the levels he lived in.
"I will be departing to handle various affairs amongst the sector. It will be your task to write up everything you have done so far. Then you will see to preparing a defensive line and forward operations as you describe, but do not begin until you get final approval to proceed. If our reinforcements arrive soon you will be the assigned liaison" he gave as a capstone. Succeed or fall. He would see which way the vagaries lead to. With a talon pushing this of course.
"Sir?" the Captain questioned. Sisenna decided to give him the information he had been holding.
"The 22nd Fleet will be deploying here. They have expedited their departure so they will arrive in mere days. Military command of the sector will default to them on arrival. You will make yourself useful by preparing for that transition". A final test of character. Relief, foiled ambition, or something else?
"If you have no further questions then you are dismissed". He got a salute, no reaction. He wondered for a moment if he had been staring too hard. Oh well.
A thought came to him. "After you are done with your initial duties find a, Sergeant Opiter. Tell him his expertise was required by me".
"Sir" was the confused acknowledgment. Sisenna turned back to his hologlobe once the door shut. Either the young officer would do it promptly and be corrected of his defects or be hunted down by an irate senior sergeant. Officer wrangling was quite the old baton to that one.
The old Primarch started up a series of commands in his command terminal. This was his retirement position, but he still kept in touch with his old colleagues and successors.
"Captain Sicarius" he started off with once the requested com was picked up. The otherwise long chain of secured relays short cut short by routing through a QEC, no live hologram but audio worked just fine.
"Old Sienna. What are you calling little me for. On this line as well" came the voice of his successor's successor.
"High command has seen fit to dispatch the 22nd fleet to this sector in response to recent events" he bluntly remarked.
"Oh my. Make a mess?" came the bland young voice.
"Not personally. A gung ho Commodore and now the sector's forces are gutted. There is no information on who did it beyond not the usual players. If someone has more information then that is going on at levels above me" he added. The Turian on the other hind audibly hummed into the connection.
"I'll claw at the bushes, see what falls out. But is there anything else you want?" they answered with.
"Can you round up an eye to check what is going on. Total black, one way package if needed" he asked.
"Boys and their toys like that don't come cheap" they answered.
"I'll make the arrangements. The Kotan system is under assault of some sort. All known relays were under guard and no traffic from our end. Unless this is some strangely arranged raid then I expect something far worse. Someone managed to get the 22nd here and I barely sent in the initial report when they chose to" he rejoinder.
"Interesting, I'll see what I can use everything for and get back to you. Waiving your take of things?" Sisenna answered in the affirmative.
Some level of information trade helped keep things moving. Secrets were valuable, it simply meant you had to make sure the value was at just the right level, not too cheap and not too expensive. Treason some would call it, but at the murky level of Hierarchy Intelligence it could be excused if it bought the needed results for the Hierarchy. Everyone who did not eat a bullet after the first month understood that if one wanted to survive against the Salarians and the Asari then one had to be, suitably dynamic in their problem solving.
Shaking himself out of his thoughts he decided to give his answer. "Yes".
"Hehehe no problems doing work with you old scales. Actually, could you get me a census list of Kotan. I might have the needed team on the cheap" Sisenna obligingly sent it over, he knew Sicarius and their foibles. Results would be coming one way or another.
"For the usual considerations, yes?" Sisenna asked rather perfunctoryly.
"I know how things go, you didn't kick me out of here didn't you? I know when something needs looking into just as you do. Besides, I think I have just the right candidate for this. Just be ready to react as needed. I have learned they have a knack for doing things you least expect. Now see ya later". The connection cut out and Sisenna made sure to physically pull the comm module out of the terminal's casing.
The old style was much easier for this sort of thing as a twitch of his omnitool had the piece of hardware dissolved into degenerate omnigel. The attempted trace they had both seen ending up diverted to the set up baffler. That done he logged the needed repairs for later as he shifted back to his other portfolio. A Primarch had much to do after all.
AN:
Glad to hear your interested, its been an interesting writing project and I hope you like what else I have of it.
Disclaimer: Mass Effect and related franchises along with Star Citizen and associated franchises are the property of their respective owners, I claim nothing that is not my own.
Primarch Sisenna Falerius Adauctus growled to himself in his room as his hands manipulated the hologlobe before him. Various datapoints populating the display as the VIs sort through the data. He would normally be waiting for dedicated analysts to be doing this first but things were simply moving too fast. The quiet sector being upgraded several alert levels as the loss of a considerable number of fleet assets with no explanation sent alarms ringing across Hierarchy command. The tally made up of multiple cruisers and flotillas of frigates had triggered an absolute mess. The bureaucrats suffered with the cascading chain of events as the 22nd Fleet was sent on its way.
He personally felt slighted because none of his first ring of informants told him this. He had it get it through one of his side channels.
Something in his head pulsed at that thought, a blood vessel trying in vain to cool his brain down. No one would be missing, that. Everyone that was a part of the Citadel and likely most of the Terminus paid attention when a pair of dreadnoughts and their attendant forces shifted. The suddenness would have already sent old instincts whirling if someone hadn't tried to hide it in such a manner. The young blood had forgotten who he was. He lamented for a moment before shrugging it back off, he could make use of it even if it wasn't preferred.
A sardonic part of him that remained since boot remarked that most anyone would quickly start ignoring most of the galaxy if all that heavy metal was about to fall onto HIS sector. He would have more than enough to fill his own rucksack and the rest of the squad without worrying about the unit over. But no, he needed to put in that little bit more. Which in this cse meant he needed to scramble to fill military depots from their previous quiet state to full military readiness. Reservists had to be mustered and that was the LEAST troubling part of things.
"At least one thing is going right" he grumbled aloud as he looked at the latest report on that subject.
You could take a Turian out of the army but you couldn't take the army out of them. Basic arms and armor were easy to get, but military spec kinetic barriers were not so easy. That didn't even begin to mention the needed spare stocks for naval vessels that had to be gathered from somewhere on short notice. He already knew that the Volus firm that was contracted to handle the sector's economy would be finding the little balls throwing themselves out of high rises as their profit margins cratered.
He made a note to himself to have one of his appropriate informants look there if he wanted the laugh for later. Eventually one more suited to active deployment would show up, or he could tap someone for an early contract. A thought to keep in mind if he wanted to cut it off in his usual style. Simply because the Hierarchy prided itself on its high military readiness didn't mean that a formerly peaceful sector could do so at the flash of some asari dancer's hips!
Sisenna shook his head at now needing to reorient his old network to take into account this, entire, series of events. He looked blearily again at the only things they had on the situation. First a small border Auxilia patrol goes dark. The QRF force immediately responds due to the likelihood of it not being some random accident. Then that too goes dark. It was a nowhere system, no significant features nor resources. Simply a cut off for that extent of relay as the required exploration permits were stuck in limbo.
His mind grumbled as he couldn't think up a way for a force from the the Terminus to arrive, it was the only practical place that a known factor could come from. While theoretically feasible, there wouldn't be any sort of supply chain for any attempting to take the system from their end. The stellar distances simply didn't let that work and the relay pair was under their guard.
He remembered an hour of fruitless results as he had double checked, both personally in the records and by sending a surprise second shift. No discrepancies from their end unless somehow they had corrupted the unit he had randomly chosen to kick out of their garrison and ship to the relay in question. He used a spirts' damn physical die to choose! His mind feverishly switched between different ideas. Hidden supply caches? Stealthed ships? Deep space transit ships? Which option? As his eyes roved around the globe before him he caught a shine in the corner of his vision.
Glaring at the hunk of foamed metal in question he pointedly turned away to the side and grabbed a mild relaxant drink, he poured the contents into his mouth and crushed the bubble before tossing it in the receptacle. Feeling less aggravated already he turned back to the hologlobe and just in time for it to begin beeping angrily. "What is the matter?" he growled more calmly than he would have five seconds earlier.
"Primarch! Emergency message from the Kotan system, unknown forces detected in-system. Presumed hostile, they request reinforcements. All contact has been lost afterward sir" came the voice on the other end, one of his comms staff he remembered. Then the contents of said message hit him.
A part of him scrambled to consider what could actually be sent. Then the other remembered the line was still open. "Inform the rest of the staff that all other messages related to the subject will be considered top priority to be sent to me, immediately. And someone get Captain Venator up here, post-haste! Dismissed until I call back". A wave of his hand and the link shut as he started hastily calling up the deployments of every force he knew of.
If only he had more aides, but no he was 'just' a small-time Primarch on the border. He didn't need more high ranking staff. Oh, well look at how things are going now. His damned Commodore was gone and presumed dead in the second battle of the blasted relay. 'And it had better have been a battle' his mind supplied. He did a minor favor and this happened.
The sound of the door to the room opening and closing caught his attention before his eyes captured the sight of an out of breath officer coming to attention before him. The suddenness had his hand twitching to a certain arms locker before he aborted it forcibly.
"At ease" he barked instinctively before they could fully straighten up. Disgraceful, but he wasn't going to bother about decorum now. The lashing for the lack of proper self-discipline, both the newcomers and his own, could come later. With that pleasant thought and now properly switching his mind to the present Sisenna waved his arm in a suitably attention drawing fashion.
"Our force deposition as it stands. Have we made any progress on getting an actual reserve ready and moving?" he demanded of the officer. He wasn't expecting much, but maybe he could be pleasantly surprised.
"No sir, not enough to have a force ready to move now. It, it would simply not be enough even if we managed to gather every single ship in our force". Sisenna cocked his head as he considered the younger man. Someone who wasn't stuttering and spouting random nonsense. A surprise. He would be sad if the man was completely buried under. "Hmm, how is that the case officer? That the Hierarchy does not have the forces to do something about this?".
"Sir, we have lost a total of fifteen percent of our forces in the sector. At minimum I would be comfortable with tripling the previous deployed forces and even then the force margin would be, not ideal considering previous performance" the young captain spouted out. Sisenna remembered their dossier, young for the role. Untested. But not wrong, standard doctrine was standard doctrine for a reason.
"Is that so, how is it that we can't divest the needed forces to respond to this attack?" he tossed at the young officer.
"Sir, that would be a dereliction of duty across the sector. It would be disproportionately lighter forces, forces using equipment devoted to Border Auxilia duty" the officer meant forces that would be inadequate at fighting a peer opponent.
"So, we do not have the forces or the parity needed for this assault on our worlds?" he asked.
The Captain gestured at the hologlobe. "Sir, permission?" he asked. A nod and the Captain started changing the display parameters. They soon zoomed into a view of the problem system in question.
"Sir, Kotan is at the end of this relay branch. It is in stellar terms, close to where the previous disappearances were. But not by relay, and that is our problem" he asserted.
"Hmm, are you suggesting the enemy was able to get there without the use of the relay?" he asked. He had had that thought before, it simply was against all conventional knowledge. Standard citadel military grade drives would not be able to commit such a travel, even specialist exploration ships couldn't do that trip in number.
"This is an enemy that has managed to conduct as near a perfect campaign of silence as we can see. No probe, no scouting force has managed to gather any information on them. Their presumed complete destruction of our forward forces and continued aggression speaks to a force with the strength and utter lack of inhibition to wage a conflict of aggression against us. Whether out of ignorance of what they face, a surety in their own methods, or with complete regard of what we can do" he growled, considering the point for a moment. Alarmist as some would take it as, it did provide a certain simplicity to the situation.
"Are you saying they are both strong yet needing to conduct information warfare on the level they have displayed?" he asked as a mild rejoinder, wanting to see where this went.
"Sir, we do not know what doctrine they have. They could operate something similar to Salarian doctrine or their standard methodology simply has a practical outcome similar to them. We have the effects on our own side to extrapolate from. As it stands our sector is utterly incapable of committing any resources or forces without an unacceptable loss in the near and medium term future" the Captain argued for firmly.
"Are you saying we should abandon the system without a fight officer?" he challenged, a hand raised to stop any immediate rejoinder. "To give up Hierarchy territory without resistance? Without even a single scrap of information about who is attacking us at all?" he pressed, adding a hint of threat to his posture as he did.
"With all due respect sir. Why are they attacking the Kotan system sir. It is not a developed colony world, it has no special resources or developed infrastructure. It is a backwater world with a decent climate but cut off from easy relay reinforcement that is not under our control. A target of opportunity to draw us out, or it has something they want. Either way, we have no realistic way of aggressively responding without making the situation worse as I stated earlier sir" Sisenna let out a deep harmonic, considering the determination of the officer before him.
If he was a Salarian or Asari that would be fully understandable, but Dextro amino worlds were harder to find. Dextro amino worlds and also compatible with Turian biology was a further hurdle. The Turian body didn't like adapting to other food sources in the galaxy, the artificial methods to do so were expensive at scale. To lose a world had more meaning to them. But, the officers record was with Coalition forces. Not much combat, but more diplomatic compared to his other officers. He might need to see if any other gaps were in this officer's worldview if he managed to survive the upcoming turmoil.
"If you feel that way as the last ranking officer. Then that will be the decision I will allow. But, what are you going to do if you will not attack? Ceding any initiative is, not well" he asked of the young one who had not stepped back once so far.
"Prepare the way. Redouble all our efforts to bring reinforcements to the sector as quickly and swiftly as possible. Deploy the full reserves of courier drones to find one glimpse of our enemy to bring back. Ensure that a route to swiftly counterattack our enemy is made possible. Harden the civil defenses of the sector and consolidate positions to shape any possible enemy move" came the answer.
"Oh, bold but can you do anything about the flaws in the things you suggest?" now here was where Sisenna wondered if the Captain would realize some of the flaws in his planning. Such as who was technically his boss. Most of those measures were not available to a mere captain, his old commodore could have if he wasn't likely dead in space. The Captain was lucky he was already going through with some of them while activating reserves.
"Sir, we can. Conduct a preliminary analysis, wartime conditions or at least as close to it may stress the logistical networks. It is best that these things should be managed first to set conditions before we can build upon the foundation". Sisenna held his body loose but otherwise not reacting. The limits had been reached apparently. A clever mind but not necessarily a smart one. Experience then, if they survive. Best not to be thrown out to die then, much as he hated it there was no winning militarily here. But he is a Primarch, they were supposed to be able to go beyond infantry dim reactions. What worked for going charging into gunfire did not work at the levels he lived in.
"I will be departing to handle various affairs amongst the sector. It will be your task to write up everything you have done so far. Then you will see to preparing a defensive line and forward operations as you describe, but do not begin until you get final approval to proceed. If our reinforcements arrive soon you will be the assigned liaison" he gave as a capstone. Succeed or fall. He would see which way the vagaries lead to. With a talon pushing this of course.
"Sir?" the Captain questioned. Sisenna decided to give him the information he had been holding.
"The 22nd Fleet will be deploying here. They have expedited their departure so they will arrive in mere days. Military command of the sector will default to them on arrival. You will make yourself useful by preparing for that transition". A final test of character. Relief, foiled ambition, or something else?
"If you have no further questions then you are dismissed". He got a salute, no reaction. He wondered for a moment if he had been staring too hard. Oh well.
A thought came to him. "After you are done with your initial duties find a, Sergeant Opiter. Tell him his expertise was required by me".
"Sir" was the confused acknowledgment. Sisenna turned back to his hologlobe once the door shut. Either the young officer would do it promptly and be corrected of his defects or be hunted down by an irate senior sergeant. Officer wrangling was quite the old baton to that one.
The old Primarch started up a series of commands in his command terminal. This was his retirement position, but he still kept in touch with his old colleagues and successors.
"Captain Sicarius" he started off with once the requested com was picked up. The otherwise long chain of secured relays short cut short by routing through a QEC, no live hologram but audio worked just fine.
"Old Sienna. What are you calling little me for. On this line as well" came the voice of his successor's successor.
"High command has seen fit to dispatch the 22nd fleet to this sector in response to recent events" he bluntly remarked.
"Oh my. Make a mess?" came the bland young voice.
"Not personally. A gung ho Commodore and now the sector's forces are gutted. There is no information on who did it beyond not the usual players. If someone has more information then that is going on at levels above me" he added. The Turian on the other hind audibly hummed into the connection.
"I'll claw at the bushes, see what falls out. But is there anything else you want?" they answered with.
"Can you round up an eye to check what is going on. Total black, one way package if needed" he asked.
"Boys and their toys like that don't come cheap" they answered.
"I'll make the arrangements. The Kotan system is under assault of some sort. All known relays were under guard and no traffic from our end. Unless this is some strangely arranged raid then I expect something far worse. Someone managed to get the 22nd here and I barely sent in the initial report when they chose to" he rejoinder.
"Interesting, I'll see what I can use everything for and get back to you. Waiving your take of things?" Sisenna answered in the affirmative.
Some level of information trade helped keep things moving. Secrets were valuable, it simply meant you had to make sure the value was at just the right level, not too cheap and not too expensive. Treason some would call it, but at the murky level of Hierarchy Intelligence it could be excused if it bought the needed results for the Hierarchy. Everyone who did not eat a bullet after the first month understood that if one wanted to survive against the Salarians and the Asari then one had to be, suitably dynamic in their problem solving.
Shaking himself out of his thoughts he decided to give his answer. "Yes".
"Hehehe no problems doing work with you old scales. Actually, could you get me a census list of Kotan. I might have the needed team on the cheap" Sisenna obligingly sent it over, he knew Sicarius and their foibles. Results would be coming one way or another.
"For the usual considerations, yes?" Sisenna asked rather perfunctoryly.
"I know how things go, you didn't kick me out of here didn't you? I know when something needs looking into just as you do. Besides, I think I have just the right candidate for this. Just be ready to react as needed. I have learned they have a knack for doing things you least expect. Now see ya later". The connection cut out and Sisenna made sure to physically pull the comm module out of the terminal's casing.
The old style was much easier for this sort of thing as a twitch of his omnitool had the piece of hardware dissolved into degenerate omnigel. The attempted trace they had both seen ending up diverted to the set up baffler. That done he logged the needed repairs for later as he shifted back to his other portfolio. A Primarch had much to do after all.
AN:
Glad to hear your interested, its been an interesting writing project and I hope you like what else I have of it.
Chapter 04
WyrmofFrost
One whose Muse delights in being coy
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/His/Him
Mass Effect: The Vanduul War - Chapter 04
Disclaimer: Mass Effect and related franchises along with Star Citizen and associated franchises are the property of their respective owners, I claim nothing that is not my own.
"Right final check. Once your onboard there is no going back" came the voice of the Field Commander. Gallus Arrius Verinus scoffed, with the mic off of course, at that.
The Commander, call me Novia, fancied herself as being the "fun" type. That was fine on garrison duties but not on this. Not with the stakes. Everyone that would leave should have already when Big Boss had asked. Asked. Not something the stubborn man usually did, he was old. Old and still far too like his drill days but reliable for it. The kind that kept the company going for decades without outright falling apart or becoming just another warlord group. Though in this case he seemed to have been talked into accepting the job by the company. Perhaps he wanted to do it himself anyway, everyone had roots in the sector. It was and is their home. Home. He forcibly loosened his hand.
Gallus adjusted his position in the tactical officer's seat of the shuttle, the next day could decide whether he would be joining the spirits or not. 'If so then let it be in vengeance for his family' he decided. They should have been safe on Kotan, it was deep in the sector interior. But apparently relays weren't how whoever it was moved. He wanted to believe they would be fine, but his intellectual side said that Kotan wasn't set up for anything like that.
He was knocked out of that thought by yet more com chatter. "Come on folks any takers? Could use some kick practice, guaranteed express trip to the station" they added. "Come on, not even one?" was the next wheedling attempt.
Gallus grunted, finally feeling it was getting a bit too much. "You ask that like we didn't already sign everything away" he remarked in a deadpan over the line. Privately.
A chortle came back, as well as a video connection on one of the displays. "Heh, had to be sure. Whoever this is has chewed through enough main line craft that people are ner-vous" they added the last with an almost bounce in their voice.
"Which is why we are going in" he added pedantically.
"Yep, they picked anything and everything to go with the first wave". Gallus pointedly did not twitch. While she as Unit Actual had portioned everything up, he was responsible for actually making sure they didn't kill each other in the meantime.
"Quite. Remember the plan" he settled for.
A rasp came over the line as they disregarded the situation yet again. "I hear ya, I hear ya. In and out. Come on third in command, we can do that sort of job easy".
"Right. Did you at least make sure to get all the supplies needed?"
"I made sure to get the good stuff. You can get so much boom for the credit outa what I got"
"We don't want to randomly blow up the planet, you did get the right modules, correct?" he growled out. They did not need a repeat of the crate incident. Just because it worked did not mean he wanted to shove pallets out the side of a shuttle again to kill a fighter. They almost died a hundred times over from that canyon run.
"Yeah, yeah. The thing will fly at what we want it to fly at" she returned.
"If its the good stuff you did remember to scrub everything beforehand?" they didn't need bad software to get them all killed. Everything else was shaping up to be hazardous enough.
The look shown on screen was enough of an answer.
"Just send the drones" he settled on. An acknowledgment and he soon had another screen set up and waiting.
Tense minutes passed into half an hour until finally an incoming vessel was reported from the relay's automated systems. The drone had returned seemingly intact and was already blaring all its data out. More minutes passed but no other drones returned.
"Connection established, data is entering the partition" one of the analysts now on the line reported.
"Well lets see what we can find" he hummed as everyone started tearing the recorded data apart.
"Oh hey we actually got some recordings" Novia remarked, the most straightforward of the data piped to their respective monitors.
The several minutes worth of footage showed that there was actually a guard force on the other side. Several fighters just from the visual.
"Interesting looking things. Doesn't look like there is much heavy tonnage on station" he remarked, the asymmetrical dark machines had a menacing look to them. Physical intimidation usually didn't factor into fighter designs but he was reminded of certain crustaceans or large flying lizards, nasty ones. They were also large enough that their own usually lighter tonnage fighters would not fare against unless something was badly off in their performance.
"They aren't bricks, that is for sure. Someone put work into those designs" Novia added her bit-credit.
"Sensor feeds report some sort of energy field, shielded fighters but no sign of element zero. Demonstrated acceleration implies inertial dampening of some sort" was the tech's report.
The sight of bright flashes from the fighters caught his attention just as the tech started cursing. "Non kinetic weaponry, I'm reading signatures closer to torch flares than anything I recognize".
"Did anyone ever make plasma weaponry?" he asked.
"I think the Quarians, but that was only ever ground equipment" Novia remarked, Gallus acknowledged that. She was the gun fanatic. He watched as parts of the footage dropped as other feeds were displayed to cover the loss.
Gallus knew that the drones were relatively armored, a mix of both durability and speed to protect themselves. Yet even the one shot heavy barriers and rocket boosts had most of the devices destroyed before the relay could sling something back.
Minutes passed in silence as they rewatched the footage again and again until Novia looked away for a moment. "Right, data has been sent. Looks like we are still getting the go ahead".
"This is going to be a tight, I don't like the force margins" he remarked. He was calculating their own fighters against what they had seen and not liking it. They would need to use up far too much ordnance to have much left if they couldn't get a chance to rearm.
"We leave this, we won't just get a black mark" Novia rejoined with.
Gallus ground his mandibles as he knew who would be doing the dieing. They would all still go, they had to, but that didn't mean that they could be forgotten. "Did we at least get guarantees?" he asked.
"Everything for the current job is in escrow. This should also activate the hazard clauses so it will be extra. Do it right and the Primarch promised to personally pay for benefits and pensions". Gallus nodded. Someone who knew the right things and wasn't a Volus puppet.
"Generous" he remarked aloud.
"Yes, the matter is very serious apparently" Novia added the likely butchered quote.
"Still doubt we'll get much repeat work" he didn't need to add that they wouldn't be in the right shape to do more work after this.
"Considering how big the payout is going to be, some low paying garrison work isn't too bad" Novia's remark had him blink for a moment.
"Confident huh. Not sure about the odds" he settled on.
"You lot can figure it out later, focus on getting there first" she lightly pushed back with.
He snorted at that. "Why don't I feel confident about this at all" he drawled.
"Hey your at least considering us to get to the planet. With that attitude we'll do just fine!" Gallus sighed. There was a reason why he had the job he did.
"The getting there part will depend on the Boss. I just want to handle the part we can actually do something about" he answered.
She did not add on to that, instead changing the subject. "The fighter boys all strapped in?" she asked.
"Yeah yeah" he remarked, an eye on the status indicator of his flight and then the squadron as a whole. Armed shuttles and surplus fighters launched from converted freighters alongside corvettes and even an outdated destroyer. Then again they were all outdated. It was easier to use fighters to launch disruptor torpedoes to take down shields and frigates could get you the same gun power on a more maneuverable and similarly protected frame.
A ping on the displays had him take a look. "Right, our escorts are here" he remarked aloud. The frigate hunting packs they were to work with had just signaled final readiness confirmations.
The com display shifted as his private channel was swapped for the unit wide one. Novia's face was projected to the entire group and their new friends as she gave her announcement.
"Righto our little fleet. No one stray into the designated lanes as we update them. I don't need you lot getting blasted by the cruisers. Or worse the dreadnoughts when they finally join the fun. Remember the job. It needs everyone alive to do it well. Remember your wingmates and don't forget to support each group. The various CAGs and other handlers should be listened to everyone, make sure to do so. Say your prayers because we are a go in five". That was his cue to start flitting around the channels.
The basics of their strategy and formations had already been out beforehand but if they had last minute changes then that needed to be squared away. Thankfully the 22nd was as good as its reputation had it and he didn't have any last minute attitude issues that would have been the case with an Asari fleet. Then again he could tolerate that considering they would have the more experienced crews on average. Mostly. His own side took some more badgering, a few reminders here and a barked rebuke there. Nothing serious but it still reminded him that the sort of lockstep the Hierarchy had was not something that could be done by smaller outfits. Not at every level and provide more positives than negatives.
The busy work helped him, his nerves absorbed by the last minute checks. The announcement he was waiting for chilled it down quickly. "Right Relay Crashing Time, on a budget to boot!" Novia declared as they accelerated towards the relay. The tendrils of the massive ball of element zero and its attendant machinery reached for them. Each ship caught and guided into the massless corridor.
The sensation was as jarring as ever as they were first accelerated and then accelerated to their destination. The familiar lurch as they reached their destination had his hands moving immediately to check their drift on the displays. Automated systems immediately had their small craft tossed out from their bays, the shove of the catapults like a miniature relay as they all took evasive moves as was drilled into them. Already his tactical feed was filled with representations of tracked weapon fire and maneuvering craft. The VIs quickly crunched out the figures that didn't have friendly IFF as their fighters moved against their opposites.
He watched his feed as mere seconds passed. Seconds that had ordnance spent like flowing water and indicators going from lit to flashing to empty. Casualties mounted as chaos reigned, it was the time for the soldier and not a commander. The shock of action.
He had to pause his thoughts for a second as his vision dimmed. He sucked in a breath again once the shuttle pilot leveled out after evidently having thrown them into a wild maneuver that almost overwhelmed the safe limit. His focus back on the screen told him the tides had shifted. They had the supporting fire of their carriers and escort ships. The enemy did not. "Third get to your job. I'll get the rest in" came the voice of the Commander, tense but still going forward.
As the immediate perimeter was set he started the grim task of amalgamating flights, a word here and there with flight leaders told him whose nerves were still good and who needed to be delegated downward. By that time the 22nd fleet arrived in grand fashion. Ships upon ships were spit out by the relay, discipline and training keeping the ships in some order as they were deposited from the massless corridor.
"Such a sight to see Third, are we good to go?" she asked.
"We are" he answered.
"Good, orders are in. We are taking up part of the outer vanguard. We have a few echelons of cruisers to be the eyes and ears for. We are going right in. Kotan or bust. Wake me up when the shift is up" she spoke with an uncommon seriousness before seeming to shut down at the end as the feed cut out.
Gallus sighed to himself as he considered his superior, she had done well enough on the day to day with her attempts at terrible humor. But now he would have relieved her of duty to get evaluated by someone more experienced with the mind. There was still some of what had gotten the Big Boss to make her second in command in the first place. Perhaps she would manage to patch herself together after her nap. He considered it a shame that it took what they had just gone through to remove some of the rust, perhaps a bit too well.
"Setting the advance. Lets get things done" he grumbled to himself as his input orders went out. Fights would be allowed to rotate in and out as needed. Casualty shock would need to be managed. With everyone starting the journey deeper into the system he would have the time to handle that.
Long hours passed as the management work took up Gallus' attention. But soon enough his own shift ended with him crawling into the tiny capsule bunk that was his quarters on the carrier. A hiss of an ampule and he settled back and let the mild sedative help him go to sleep.
The sound of his alarm jolted Gallus back to wakefulness. Checking his omnitool he laid back on the bench. Just the wake up call. Nothing more serious. A few more minutes passed before he got up and went through everything to make himself presentable again. A little ration pack down and he was back ensconced on the command shuttle. Back into his seat he opened a channel.
"Ready for the push?" he opened with, eyes flicking over the information of what had happened during his break. Soon, soon they would be at the planet. Kotan. Already he wasn't liking the looks from the telescope. Mere hours away showed a scene that had him needing to push through. Planets were big things, to see a ship show up on it meant something big. Specks of seeming dusty swirled around it. Small craft then being deployed, from a ship big enough to be noticeable.
"We might need the rest of the fleet first" Novia started with, face grim as she pushed what seemed to be analyst briefs to him.
Closer recon flights had apparently occurred. Skirmishing really. But they at least knew what the mysterious object was. "A superdreadnought" he let out grimly.
The black enemy craft was almost organic, divots and lines that did not show a conventional metallic form. Not even Asari shipbuilding with their curves and protruding fins looked like this. Two main prows jutted from a central body that had smaller curving tendrils jut forward around the main pair. Visible gun batteries could be seen, turreted ones. Despite not seeming to have the power of a citadel dreadnought's main gun, he didn't think anything would survive long under the full fire of that ship.
"Whoever it is is marshaling to fight us" Gallus focused on her words.
"Are we expecting a serious raid? Now?" he pressed.
"Looks like it, would be strange to have a serious fight in deep space but they might just want to wear us down" she returned.
"Callous" he remarked, such things reminded him of stories about the Krogan. An unsupported fighter attack was just asking to leave their pilots to die in the void, if they could even escape their fighters in the first place if they got damaged. Such things worked for the Rachni but even they often tried to recover spent craft after a battle if he recalled his halcyon days at the military academy.
"Even with how many the Company brought to this little scrimmage, we are barely outnumbering them" he shook his mandibles at that. The Company had for its tonnage a significant fraction of the entire 22nd fleet's fighter complement thanks to dedicated carriers. But a standard hierarchy force would have needed at least another fleet to supplement the 22nd to have parity with the enemy with how outclassed they saw their individual fighters were.
"This is going to be nasty" he considered, death by a thousand cuts considering that the plasma weapons had proven they could inflict damage through kinetic barriers.
"Just one capital ship" she pointed out.
"One ship that needs at least a full fleet to take out, possibly more" he retorted. They both could do the math. Where there was one ship there was likely at least one more. Whoever it was had already shown themselves to have the military power closer to the Batarians then any single terminus power ever reasonably got to. A third rate power, but not something to be ignored so easily
"Makes you think about why no one builds dreadnought scale carriers, Spirits you never even hear about cruiser scale carriers. Dedicated ones I mean, our conversions are some of the bigger ones on the market" she wondered aloud.
"Expense, and lack of effective weaponry. Even if we don't have heavy shielding on the carriers they still got through with their plasma pretty well. Disruptor torpedoes can do the damage of capital gun fire but you can't carry and deploy enough to make those attacks worthwhile while having both the range AND the endurance to fight beyond dreadnought range" he answered tactically, a considering murmur was the only answer.
"The 22nd are pushing forward their vanguard, they want to encircle that ship and then bring up the dreadnoughts. Also get some of the support ships planetside to see what can be one to help as the fight goes on" Gallus felt himself straighten at that. The answers, he might just be getting them shortly. But he had a battle to fight first.
"We'll do our part" he remarked instead.
"Its in the job description. Best get ready" he gave an acknowledgment and they both set to work planning out their part of the advance as information flowed on their counterpart's efforts. Soon enough it was time.
"A push here, a thrust there. Our part will be over soon" Novia remarked in a distinctly fatalistic fashion that had Gallus side eye the display. "We can but do our best" he let out in reply.
The true battle for Kotan started with several squadrons of cruisers advancing in a four digit claw formation. Able to concentrate fire and still maintain mutual GARDIAN support as they advanced. The enemy responded with a broad series of wave like formations of fighters, craft distanced to reduce the number of apertures that could fire on a single target. The data Gallus had showed them to be the asymmetrical claws they had seen before at the relay. However some were larger, two large appendages instead of just one. A correspondingly larger emission signature meant he was worried. Something made clear as the fighters enveloped the picket line of fighters and frigates protecting the cruiser formations.
"Those weren't disruptors" the analyst on his shuttle remarked tensely, the battle display reported cruisers falling out of line in a manner that showcased heavy damage to engines or catastrophic secondary explosions. It wasn't the damage that another capital ship would do, but it didn't need to batter through shields to do so.
"The first strike is over at least" he remarked perhaps a tad hopefully as both enemy forces regrouped at some mutual signal, likely prompted by the approaching dreadnoughts reaching enemy sensor range as the enemy's own superdreadnought also brought itself to bare.
His eyes tracked the screen that held their own force's disposition. More displays were completely blank then had been before. More lost to the throes of war. The ear he had kept to the command net said that none of the various CAGs had needed him to step in. Less work between the multiple hands working the problem. Grim. A flick of his gaze to Novia showed she too had taken the brief pause to handle any immediate problems.
Silence seems to hang in the void as each side pressed closer before it happened. Streaks appeared on the display from the pair of dreadnoughts as they concentrated fire on their larger foe. The enemy responded with a barrage of plasma and missiles. Missiles none of them had seen the like before as they accelerated through the void towards the turian forces. Ships desperately arrayed themselves to concentrate GARDIAN fire but the tide seemingly didn't diminish. Gallus soon realized why as rather then crashing into ships the signatures drifted in strafing strikes on the ships.
"Spirits they went through the shields. Judging by the holes, I don't think those spinal guns are going to fire again" Novia exclaimed, Gallus wasn't far behind as he realized the damage himself.
Looking at the readouts he felt a chill in his bones. "Spirits, there goes half our firepower". Of the two dreadnoughts, one was visibly drifting back as cruisers almost physically threw themselves into the line of fire of the enemy to cover the retreat. Something they paid the price for as plasma ordnance blasted multiple decks to the void of space, entire wings coming loose such was the destruction wrought on some of the capital ships.
"That ship is dieing, we can still do it" Novia remarked, half in prayer and half in rising bloodlust.
"You, your right" he returned, eyes seeing what she meant from the feeds their remaining fighters relayed.
The superdreadnought was falling, slowly as more ordnance continued to pour out of its form. But it wasn't as much as that initial volley. A cruiser of their own fell out of line here or there from battery fire or more enemy strafing runs by heavy fighters. But it was answered by a never ending storm of fire from their remaining dreadnought and the attendant cruiser formations. Each ship raging at the enemy, more and more of it's black bulk vented to the cruel cold of space as spinal gun fire had fully overwhelmed whatever shields the craft had.
The fighter battle slowly settled as both sides exhausted themselves, no respite possible in the clash as the numbers of each side plummeted on that front. Even as duels kept occurring, some frigates could be spared to advance and they did. Harrying varren packs at the flank of the enemy, more enemy turrets sought them out but the frigate packs conducted attack runs like oversized fighters against the enemy. Guns blazed their fury until something broke. The black mass of the enemy superdreadnought vanished in a series of catastrophic explosions.
"They hit something important" Novia remarked almost casually as their respective displays tracked the expanding ball of debris.
Gallus realized he needed to breathe. Air in, and out. "We won" he managed. He realized his heart had been hammering the entire time, his entire body tense as he had watched. But they had done it, Kotan's orbits no longer held the enemy.
"Not quite yet, but that part is on others. Ours is done" Novia remarked, her voice seemingly drained. Gallus remembered that even with both of them having at least one rest, Novia would now be awake longer then he had been.
"Go, take a moment to step back. Check with Big Boss if you have to. I'll handle the clean up" a moment passed as neither said anything else, eyes gazing at their respective cameras like they could stare each other directly. Thankfully Novia pulled back first.
"Fine Gallus, I'll get that sorted" she rebutted before the display cut out. Gallus sighed, not particularly graceful but it hopefully would work. He made a note to get someone to check if she actually would rest soon, for now he needed something to do that would keep him busy. He wasn't a groundpounder, he couldn't do anything on that front. But now with things not so mysterious, he worried. What had happened on the planet?
He took a moment to say a prayer, to beg a benediction from the spirits, from anything. For his family, for everyone who had had someone there. For all those lost trying to reach them. Another beat and he turned back to the terminal. Duty, he still had his duty.
Disclaimer: Mass Effect and related franchises along with Star Citizen and associated franchises are the property of their respective owners, I claim nothing that is not my own.
"Right final check. Once your onboard there is no going back" came the voice of the Field Commander. Gallus Arrius Verinus scoffed, with the mic off of course, at that.
The Commander, call me Novia, fancied herself as being the "fun" type. That was fine on garrison duties but not on this. Not with the stakes. Everyone that would leave should have already when Big Boss had asked. Asked. Not something the stubborn man usually did, he was old. Old and still far too like his drill days but reliable for it. The kind that kept the company going for decades without outright falling apart or becoming just another warlord group. Though in this case he seemed to have been talked into accepting the job by the company. Perhaps he wanted to do it himself anyway, everyone had roots in the sector. It was and is their home. Home. He forcibly loosened his hand.
Gallus adjusted his position in the tactical officer's seat of the shuttle, the next day could decide whether he would be joining the spirits or not. 'If so then let it be in vengeance for his family' he decided. They should have been safe on Kotan, it was deep in the sector interior. But apparently relays weren't how whoever it was moved. He wanted to believe they would be fine, but his intellectual side said that Kotan wasn't set up for anything like that.
He was knocked out of that thought by yet more com chatter. "Come on folks any takers? Could use some kick practice, guaranteed express trip to the station" they added. "Come on, not even one?" was the next wheedling attempt.
Gallus grunted, finally feeling it was getting a bit too much. "You ask that like we didn't already sign everything away" he remarked in a deadpan over the line. Privately.
A chortle came back, as well as a video connection on one of the displays. "Heh, had to be sure. Whoever this is has chewed through enough main line craft that people are ner-vous" they added the last with an almost bounce in their voice.
"Which is why we are going in" he added pedantically.
"Yep, they picked anything and everything to go with the first wave". Gallus pointedly did not twitch. While she as Unit Actual had portioned everything up, he was responsible for actually making sure they didn't kill each other in the meantime.
"Quite. Remember the plan" he settled for.
A rasp came over the line as they disregarded the situation yet again. "I hear ya, I hear ya. In and out. Come on third in command, we can do that sort of job easy".
"Right. Did you at least make sure to get all the supplies needed?"
"I made sure to get the good stuff. You can get so much boom for the credit outa what I got"
"We don't want to randomly blow up the planet, you did get the right modules, correct?" he growled out. They did not need a repeat of the crate incident. Just because it worked did not mean he wanted to shove pallets out the side of a shuttle again to kill a fighter. They almost died a hundred times over from that canyon run.
"Yeah, yeah. The thing will fly at what we want it to fly at" she returned.
"If its the good stuff you did remember to scrub everything beforehand?" they didn't need bad software to get them all killed. Everything else was shaping up to be hazardous enough.
The look shown on screen was enough of an answer.
"Just send the drones" he settled on. An acknowledgment and he soon had another screen set up and waiting.
Tense minutes passed into half an hour until finally an incoming vessel was reported from the relay's automated systems. The drone had returned seemingly intact and was already blaring all its data out. More minutes passed but no other drones returned.
"Connection established, data is entering the partition" one of the analysts now on the line reported.
"Well lets see what we can find" he hummed as everyone started tearing the recorded data apart.
"Oh hey we actually got some recordings" Novia remarked, the most straightforward of the data piped to their respective monitors.
The several minutes worth of footage showed that there was actually a guard force on the other side. Several fighters just from the visual.
"Interesting looking things. Doesn't look like there is much heavy tonnage on station" he remarked, the asymmetrical dark machines had a menacing look to them. Physical intimidation usually didn't factor into fighter designs but he was reminded of certain crustaceans or large flying lizards, nasty ones. They were also large enough that their own usually lighter tonnage fighters would not fare against unless something was badly off in their performance.
"They aren't bricks, that is for sure. Someone put work into those designs" Novia added her bit-credit.
"Sensor feeds report some sort of energy field, shielded fighters but no sign of element zero. Demonstrated acceleration implies inertial dampening of some sort" was the tech's report.
The sight of bright flashes from the fighters caught his attention just as the tech started cursing. "Non kinetic weaponry, I'm reading signatures closer to torch flares than anything I recognize".
"Did anyone ever make plasma weaponry?" he asked.
"I think the Quarians, but that was only ever ground equipment" Novia remarked, Gallus acknowledged that. She was the gun fanatic. He watched as parts of the footage dropped as other feeds were displayed to cover the loss.
Gallus knew that the drones were relatively armored, a mix of both durability and speed to protect themselves. Yet even the one shot heavy barriers and rocket boosts had most of the devices destroyed before the relay could sling something back.
Minutes passed in silence as they rewatched the footage again and again until Novia looked away for a moment. "Right, data has been sent. Looks like we are still getting the go ahead".
"This is going to be a tight, I don't like the force margins" he remarked. He was calculating their own fighters against what they had seen and not liking it. They would need to use up far too much ordnance to have much left if they couldn't get a chance to rearm.
"We leave this, we won't just get a black mark" Novia rejoined with.
Gallus ground his mandibles as he knew who would be doing the dieing. They would all still go, they had to, but that didn't mean that they could be forgotten. "Did we at least get guarantees?" he asked.
"Everything for the current job is in escrow. This should also activate the hazard clauses so it will be extra. Do it right and the Primarch promised to personally pay for benefits and pensions". Gallus nodded. Someone who knew the right things and wasn't a Volus puppet.
"Generous" he remarked aloud.
"Yes, the matter is very serious apparently" Novia added the likely butchered quote.
"Still doubt we'll get much repeat work" he didn't need to add that they wouldn't be in the right shape to do more work after this.
"Considering how big the payout is going to be, some low paying garrison work isn't too bad" Novia's remark had him blink for a moment.
"Confident huh. Not sure about the odds" he settled on.
"You lot can figure it out later, focus on getting there first" she lightly pushed back with.
He snorted at that. "Why don't I feel confident about this at all" he drawled.
"Hey your at least considering us to get to the planet. With that attitude we'll do just fine!" Gallus sighed. There was a reason why he had the job he did.
"The getting there part will depend on the Boss. I just want to handle the part we can actually do something about" he answered.
She did not add on to that, instead changing the subject. "The fighter boys all strapped in?" she asked.
"Yeah yeah" he remarked, an eye on the status indicator of his flight and then the squadron as a whole. Armed shuttles and surplus fighters launched from converted freighters alongside corvettes and even an outdated destroyer. Then again they were all outdated. It was easier to use fighters to launch disruptor torpedoes to take down shields and frigates could get you the same gun power on a more maneuverable and similarly protected frame.
A ping on the displays had him take a look. "Right, our escorts are here" he remarked aloud. The frigate hunting packs they were to work with had just signaled final readiness confirmations.
The com display shifted as his private channel was swapped for the unit wide one. Novia's face was projected to the entire group and their new friends as she gave her announcement.
"Righto our little fleet. No one stray into the designated lanes as we update them. I don't need you lot getting blasted by the cruisers. Or worse the dreadnoughts when they finally join the fun. Remember the job. It needs everyone alive to do it well. Remember your wingmates and don't forget to support each group. The various CAGs and other handlers should be listened to everyone, make sure to do so. Say your prayers because we are a go in five". That was his cue to start flitting around the channels.
The basics of their strategy and formations had already been out beforehand but if they had last minute changes then that needed to be squared away. Thankfully the 22nd was as good as its reputation had it and he didn't have any last minute attitude issues that would have been the case with an Asari fleet. Then again he could tolerate that considering they would have the more experienced crews on average. Mostly. His own side took some more badgering, a few reminders here and a barked rebuke there. Nothing serious but it still reminded him that the sort of lockstep the Hierarchy had was not something that could be done by smaller outfits. Not at every level and provide more positives than negatives.
The busy work helped him, his nerves absorbed by the last minute checks. The announcement he was waiting for chilled it down quickly. "Right Relay Crashing Time, on a budget to boot!" Novia declared as they accelerated towards the relay. The tendrils of the massive ball of element zero and its attendant machinery reached for them. Each ship caught and guided into the massless corridor.
The sensation was as jarring as ever as they were first accelerated and then accelerated to their destination. The familiar lurch as they reached their destination had his hands moving immediately to check their drift on the displays. Automated systems immediately had their small craft tossed out from their bays, the shove of the catapults like a miniature relay as they all took evasive moves as was drilled into them. Already his tactical feed was filled with representations of tracked weapon fire and maneuvering craft. The VIs quickly crunched out the figures that didn't have friendly IFF as their fighters moved against their opposites.
He watched his feed as mere seconds passed. Seconds that had ordnance spent like flowing water and indicators going from lit to flashing to empty. Casualties mounted as chaos reigned, it was the time for the soldier and not a commander. The shock of action.
He had to pause his thoughts for a second as his vision dimmed. He sucked in a breath again once the shuttle pilot leveled out after evidently having thrown them into a wild maneuver that almost overwhelmed the safe limit. His focus back on the screen told him the tides had shifted. They had the supporting fire of their carriers and escort ships. The enemy did not. "Third get to your job. I'll get the rest in" came the voice of the Commander, tense but still going forward.
As the immediate perimeter was set he started the grim task of amalgamating flights, a word here and there with flight leaders told him whose nerves were still good and who needed to be delegated downward. By that time the 22nd fleet arrived in grand fashion. Ships upon ships were spit out by the relay, discipline and training keeping the ships in some order as they were deposited from the massless corridor.
"Such a sight to see Third, are we good to go?" she asked.
"We are" he answered.
"Good, orders are in. We are taking up part of the outer vanguard. We have a few echelons of cruisers to be the eyes and ears for. We are going right in. Kotan or bust. Wake me up when the shift is up" she spoke with an uncommon seriousness before seeming to shut down at the end as the feed cut out.
Gallus sighed to himself as he considered his superior, she had done well enough on the day to day with her attempts at terrible humor. But now he would have relieved her of duty to get evaluated by someone more experienced with the mind. There was still some of what had gotten the Big Boss to make her second in command in the first place. Perhaps she would manage to patch herself together after her nap. He considered it a shame that it took what they had just gone through to remove some of the rust, perhaps a bit too well.
"Setting the advance. Lets get things done" he grumbled to himself as his input orders went out. Fights would be allowed to rotate in and out as needed. Casualty shock would need to be managed. With everyone starting the journey deeper into the system he would have the time to handle that.
Long hours passed as the management work took up Gallus' attention. But soon enough his own shift ended with him crawling into the tiny capsule bunk that was his quarters on the carrier. A hiss of an ampule and he settled back and let the mild sedative help him go to sleep.
The sound of his alarm jolted Gallus back to wakefulness. Checking his omnitool he laid back on the bench. Just the wake up call. Nothing more serious. A few more minutes passed before he got up and went through everything to make himself presentable again. A little ration pack down and he was back ensconced on the command shuttle. Back into his seat he opened a channel.
"Ready for the push?" he opened with, eyes flicking over the information of what had happened during his break. Soon, soon they would be at the planet. Kotan. Already he wasn't liking the looks from the telescope. Mere hours away showed a scene that had him needing to push through. Planets were big things, to see a ship show up on it meant something big. Specks of seeming dusty swirled around it. Small craft then being deployed, from a ship big enough to be noticeable.
"We might need the rest of the fleet first" Novia started with, face grim as she pushed what seemed to be analyst briefs to him.
Closer recon flights had apparently occurred. Skirmishing really. But they at least knew what the mysterious object was. "A superdreadnought" he let out grimly.
The black enemy craft was almost organic, divots and lines that did not show a conventional metallic form. Not even Asari shipbuilding with their curves and protruding fins looked like this. Two main prows jutted from a central body that had smaller curving tendrils jut forward around the main pair. Visible gun batteries could be seen, turreted ones. Despite not seeming to have the power of a citadel dreadnought's main gun, he didn't think anything would survive long under the full fire of that ship.
"Whoever it is is marshaling to fight us" Gallus focused on her words.
"Are we expecting a serious raid? Now?" he pressed.
"Looks like it, would be strange to have a serious fight in deep space but they might just want to wear us down" she returned.
"Callous" he remarked, such things reminded him of stories about the Krogan. An unsupported fighter attack was just asking to leave their pilots to die in the void, if they could even escape their fighters in the first place if they got damaged. Such things worked for the Rachni but even they often tried to recover spent craft after a battle if he recalled his halcyon days at the military academy.
"Even with how many the Company brought to this little scrimmage, we are barely outnumbering them" he shook his mandibles at that. The Company had for its tonnage a significant fraction of the entire 22nd fleet's fighter complement thanks to dedicated carriers. But a standard hierarchy force would have needed at least another fleet to supplement the 22nd to have parity with the enemy with how outclassed they saw their individual fighters were.
"This is going to be nasty" he considered, death by a thousand cuts considering that the plasma weapons had proven they could inflict damage through kinetic barriers.
"Just one capital ship" she pointed out.
"One ship that needs at least a full fleet to take out, possibly more" he retorted. They both could do the math. Where there was one ship there was likely at least one more. Whoever it was had already shown themselves to have the military power closer to the Batarians then any single terminus power ever reasonably got to. A third rate power, but not something to be ignored so easily
"Makes you think about why no one builds dreadnought scale carriers, Spirits you never even hear about cruiser scale carriers. Dedicated ones I mean, our conversions are some of the bigger ones on the market" she wondered aloud.
"Expense, and lack of effective weaponry. Even if we don't have heavy shielding on the carriers they still got through with their plasma pretty well. Disruptor torpedoes can do the damage of capital gun fire but you can't carry and deploy enough to make those attacks worthwhile while having both the range AND the endurance to fight beyond dreadnought range" he answered tactically, a considering murmur was the only answer.
"The 22nd are pushing forward their vanguard, they want to encircle that ship and then bring up the dreadnoughts. Also get some of the support ships planetside to see what can be one to help as the fight goes on" Gallus felt himself straighten at that. The answers, he might just be getting them shortly. But he had a battle to fight first.
"We'll do our part" he remarked instead.
"Its in the job description. Best get ready" he gave an acknowledgment and they both set to work planning out their part of the advance as information flowed on their counterpart's efforts. Soon enough it was time.
"A push here, a thrust there. Our part will be over soon" Novia remarked in a distinctly fatalistic fashion that had Gallus side eye the display. "We can but do our best" he let out in reply.
The true battle for Kotan started with several squadrons of cruisers advancing in a four digit claw formation. Able to concentrate fire and still maintain mutual GARDIAN support as they advanced. The enemy responded with a broad series of wave like formations of fighters, craft distanced to reduce the number of apertures that could fire on a single target. The data Gallus had showed them to be the asymmetrical claws they had seen before at the relay. However some were larger, two large appendages instead of just one. A correspondingly larger emission signature meant he was worried. Something made clear as the fighters enveloped the picket line of fighters and frigates protecting the cruiser formations.
"Those weren't disruptors" the analyst on his shuttle remarked tensely, the battle display reported cruisers falling out of line in a manner that showcased heavy damage to engines or catastrophic secondary explosions. It wasn't the damage that another capital ship would do, but it didn't need to batter through shields to do so.
"The first strike is over at least" he remarked perhaps a tad hopefully as both enemy forces regrouped at some mutual signal, likely prompted by the approaching dreadnoughts reaching enemy sensor range as the enemy's own superdreadnought also brought itself to bare.
His eyes tracked the screen that held their own force's disposition. More displays were completely blank then had been before. More lost to the throes of war. The ear he had kept to the command net said that none of the various CAGs had needed him to step in. Less work between the multiple hands working the problem. Grim. A flick of his gaze to Novia showed she too had taken the brief pause to handle any immediate problems.
Silence seems to hang in the void as each side pressed closer before it happened. Streaks appeared on the display from the pair of dreadnoughts as they concentrated fire on their larger foe. The enemy responded with a barrage of plasma and missiles. Missiles none of them had seen the like before as they accelerated through the void towards the turian forces. Ships desperately arrayed themselves to concentrate GARDIAN fire but the tide seemingly didn't diminish. Gallus soon realized why as rather then crashing into ships the signatures drifted in strafing strikes on the ships.
"Spirits they went through the shields. Judging by the holes, I don't think those spinal guns are going to fire again" Novia exclaimed, Gallus wasn't far behind as he realized the damage himself.
Looking at the readouts he felt a chill in his bones. "Spirits, there goes half our firepower". Of the two dreadnoughts, one was visibly drifting back as cruisers almost physically threw themselves into the line of fire of the enemy to cover the retreat. Something they paid the price for as plasma ordnance blasted multiple decks to the void of space, entire wings coming loose such was the destruction wrought on some of the capital ships.
"That ship is dieing, we can still do it" Novia remarked, half in prayer and half in rising bloodlust.
"You, your right" he returned, eyes seeing what she meant from the feeds their remaining fighters relayed.
The superdreadnought was falling, slowly as more ordnance continued to pour out of its form. But it wasn't as much as that initial volley. A cruiser of their own fell out of line here or there from battery fire or more enemy strafing runs by heavy fighters. But it was answered by a never ending storm of fire from their remaining dreadnought and the attendant cruiser formations. Each ship raging at the enemy, more and more of it's black bulk vented to the cruel cold of space as spinal gun fire had fully overwhelmed whatever shields the craft had.
The fighter battle slowly settled as both sides exhausted themselves, no respite possible in the clash as the numbers of each side plummeted on that front. Even as duels kept occurring, some frigates could be spared to advance and they did. Harrying varren packs at the flank of the enemy, more enemy turrets sought them out but the frigate packs conducted attack runs like oversized fighters against the enemy. Guns blazed their fury until something broke. The black mass of the enemy superdreadnought vanished in a series of catastrophic explosions.
"They hit something important" Novia remarked almost casually as their respective displays tracked the expanding ball of debris.
Gallus realized he needed to breathe. Air in, and out. "We won" he managed. He realized his heart had been hammering the entire time, his entire body tense as he had watched. But they had done it, Kotan's orbits no longer held the enemy.
"Not quite yet, but that part is on others. Ours is done" Novia remarked, her voice seemingly drained. Gallus remembered that even with both of them having at least one rest, Novia would now be awake longer then he had been.
"Go, take a moment to step back. Check with Big Boss if you have to. I'll handle the clean up" a moment passed as neither said anything else, eyes gazing at their respective cameras like they could stare each other directly. Thankfully Novia pulled back first.
"Fine Gallus, I'll get that sorted" she rebutted before the display cut out. Gallus sighed, not particularly graceful but it hopefully would work. He made a note to get someone to check if she actually would rest soon, for now he needed something to do that would keep him busy. He wasn't a groundpounder, he couldn't do anything on that front. But now with things not so mysterious, he worried. What had happened on the planet?
He took a moment to say a prayer, to beg a benediction from the spirits, from anything. For his family, for everyone who had had someone there. For all those lost trying to reach them. Another beat and he turned back to the terminal. Duty, he still had his duty.
Chapter 05
New
WyrmofFrost
One whose Muse delights in being coy
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/His/Him
Mass Effect: The Vanduul War - Chapter 05
Disclaimer: Mass Effect and related franchises along with Star Citizen and associated franchises are the property of their respective owners, I claim nothing that is not my own.
Arria Canisia, once a veteran commando and in current times an active Council Spectre stood silent. Waiting. A matter that would have been more uncomfortable if she wasn't one of the few to be issued a QEC. The rare and strategic to say the least; device was installed in her personal ship. It is a rather "non-standard" vessel that she got from the Quarians. That entire mess was not something she liked thinking about, but at least some of the fallout helped her out to this day. Such as her very nice ride, she really needed to thank whoever installed the massage chair even if she had to debug it first.
Said bosses were still wasting some of her time as they read and mulled over her report during the scheduled meeting. The Salarian was probably already done with a first run and doing a more indepth trawl, the Turian meanwhile seemed to be like an ornery varren and biting their way through a piece at a time. Tevos, Tevos had just skimmed the damn thing and was doing something else if she could judge from long experience. Her constant tapping at her terminal might make some think she was looking up points, but she wasn't. The distortion of hologram telemetry for security or not, she could guess some things through them.
Sighing to herself Arria dialed down the massage, she would need to actually be sharp for this. As much as she hated this entire report thing. She could be doing other more productive things, its not like the Council actually paid her much.
Her thoughts were confirmed by the first words that came out of Tevos' mouth. "Thank you Spectre. In your opinion what would be the, how to say, most immediate action that you yourself can take. While informative, the reports are, limited in scope". That translated to wanting to get the things handed to her now rather than spend the brain power herself on this petty thing.
For an Asari politician she could be a blunt instrument, easy enough to see if you looked. Arria wondered if that was the point, a more politically intelligent character would have been driven from the post already. That sort of mentality encouraged behaviors that tended to have one take one too many steps on the ladder they scurried up and end up falling down the other way. A certain grasping lack of restraint once they got to the tip top. Tevos just stopped at the top and kicked downward in a very mechanical fashion. Yes she had had one too many centuries of having to clean up after her.
"We have a new found race of unknown provenance, unknown ways, and unknown technological methods. Kotan is, strip mined to say the least. While we interrupted it before it could seemingly be completed, the tentatively named Locusts have managed to remove all biomatter and processed materials for certain swaths of the planet. Mostly once inhabited regions which have been scraped to the bedrock or lower" she reported matter of factually.
"That is, do we know for what purpose?" Tevos added.
"Captured materials have proven to be, a complex subject of study. The processed material that the "Harvesters" store seem to have some resemblance as a sort of bonding material for the Locusts. By this I mean that they use the substance as a sort of all uses material. It is seemingly both a universal conductor and also able to be used as a computing substrate. Methods are, unknown as to how that is done and through what means".
"That is, a fascinating example of material sciences. We have nothing like it, is it truly so universally applied?" the Salarian Councilor asked, a keen note in interest in their voice.
"That is what the preliminary analysis seems to be. While there do seem to be conventional systems and power lines, they seem to be dedicated solely to specific high throughput or high stress systems. It may also be a precursor material but that is even more rank speculation then what we already have" she answered.
The Turian Councillor seemed to examine something again before they spoke up. "I have the reports on how much material was taken, but what is actually there? Specifically the enemy ship, it is the single largest source of Locust materials is it not?".
"The enemy Superdreadnought seemed to be a carrier with enough firepower to match a dreadnought alongside significant storage capacity. The ship was taken out of action when a fuel line ignited and spread to several munition storage bunkers that had been compromised by earlier battle damage. This rendered perhaps a third of the ship to scrap while a further total of a quarter of the entire ship suffered various scuttling charges. Thankfully a catastrophic main reactor meltdown was stopped by boarding parties if at high cost. Perhaps of the original ship, 15% is in reasonable condition to be examined with another 20% hulked and structurally unsound but still extant".
"Less than half of a superdreadnought scale ship. That is, a considerable amount" Tevos remarked, a slight frown to their face as they considered something.
"Any notable additional discoveries at this stage?" the Salarian asked, eyes tracking over something on their omnitool.
Arria shook away any thoughts about what the two might or might not be sending to each other.
"We have something from what might have been an auxiliary engineering space or someone's personal workshop. Some apparently tentative attempts by the Locusts at integrating captured material if the surviving ident codes are to be believed. On another note this matter also confirms the fate of the missing sector fleets. Some of the materials from them were found amongst the personal belongings of several Locust bodies collected during the clean up process". The Turian nodded grimly at that. It was one of the if not the most notable loss of life and equipment from the relative peace the Citadel has enjoyed for centuries.
Arria knew a pivot to larger scale conflict was inevitable, but the mess that would shake out would keep her and other Specters busy for quite some time. Tevos stepped back into the conversation.
"Then do we know if it was solely this force that destroyed our forces?" she asked.
"Indeed it was not Councilors, performance reviews seem to indicate that this was an attempted opportunistic raid as the force present would not have been enough to single handedly defeat the earlier forces without being driven out of action for repairs at the minimum when we consider the timespan. Additionally while there were significant allotments for provisions and material, there are likely additional support assets out there at a minimum". The Councilors seemed to share a look at each other before the Turian pushed themselves forward again.
"What are some of the highlights of the AARs?" they asked.
"No native use of mass effect derived technology, a comprehensive use of directed energy weapons from infantry to capital ship scale, and a predilection for boarding actions and offensive small craft operation. Something that involved what some described as "exhibiting Rachni methodology" in some instances" she reported.
"That is going to be unpleasant" the Salarian remarked, a certain amount of understatement in their tone. The Rachni were the Rachni, a menace that haunted dreams. The Krogan didn't help matters either.
"Can we even censor such a thing?" the Turian questioned aloud.
"Not practically" Tevos answered, none of them were seemingly surprised by that. Even as the stress clearly came through the hologram, that they hadn't been the ones to unleash this new threat would not be known by the public. Because the public didn't believe objective fact as much as any politician would ever offer it.
The Salarian made a sort of gesture as they spoke up. "Have we managed to learn more about the attackers themselves, these Locusts?".
Arria accepted the topic change. "They so far appear to have a bodyplan similar to a Turian if more bulky with some traits that are more associated with Krogan. Namely their propensity for physical combat, physical strength, and ability to survive vacuum unassisted if for an unknown duration. Searching their remains as noted before seems to indicate some propensity for trophy taking with various odd objects or possibly fetishes along with some sort of cultural significance in every body recovered having some sort of knife on them".
The Salarian Councilor popped their head up from their omnitool for a second. "Will need to uncover if this is some sort of species wide cultural aspect or confined to a lower level, military unit? Warband, ship? Hmm, how much endurance did the ship have?".
"Locust personnel accommodations seem to be sparse, even for military bunkage. Significant amounts of troops and personnel were present for both space and planetside operations. However there appears to have been enough capacity for significant long term operations if they were fully supplied, whether that was the case we do not know at this time" she answered.
"Hmm, any additional standouts for the post battle analysis?" the Turian popped that question next.
"There is the matter of, prisoners. Initially a total of 20 prisoners out of an estimated thousand plus crew size were taken, currently ten survive. Losses were taken from a mix of post battle wound complications and deliberate self harm" Arria found that entire situation, far too turian.
Thankfully, say what you will of them, each of the Councilors were ruthless enough to not be dissuaded by what she was about to say. "There are prisoners, but the Hierarchy forces on hand are not confident in them surviving the immediate next few days and I concur. They have neither the ability to care for them nor any efficient way to prevent the rash of suicidal actions they, the prisoners, have already taken without causing further harm and loss of life on both sides. I cannot blame them for insisting on summary execution as the needed action to take" she reported.
Each of the councilors nodded, familiar with the notion already from the occasional flare up of Turian Separatists. The modern Turian mindset did not preclude taking prisoners because it did not expect prisoners to ever behave when being taken without a conscious decision to surrender. Resistance was expected of any population, honestly only young Asari maidens could be theoretically considered to surrender in good grace which said things Arria had to think about rather bitterly before. Still in Turian doctrine, individuals typically wouldn't be taken prisoner.
"You are suggesting, enhanced, methods?" the Salarian asked, the tone matter of fact.
"If no further resources can be allocated in time. The entire matter requires, special dispensation. This would be a political question as this is a group that has engaged in unannounced aggression. They have not acted in a manner that would allow for a code of conduct to be established, but that is only one interpretation. An effort to act otherwise should at least be offered before any irrevocable actions are undertaken" she stated simply, as simply as twisty politico talk could be. The only language they accepted in their minds.
"You do understand that such a manner, would require greater consensus for a more conventional political solution" the Salarian remarked. Their voice was neutral by Salarian standards. Considering what she knew of the current councilor's background, they were likely thinking of even more extreme things that could be done.
"That is a matter of policy, I know my limits". A Spectre she may be, but dictating foreign policy was not one of them. Not for the Hierarchy and not for the Council itself.
"Unless there is a dispensation by the member nation which this has all taken place in. No official Citadel forces were engaged in hostilities, this is a fact finding mission Specter Canisia is on after all" the Turian remarked.
"Are you considering this a matter of purely the Hierarchy?" Tevos asked mildly.
"Internally that would indeed be the case, practically though. The greater part of Citadel space is in astronomical terms quite close, considering that no additional mass relays have been found. I think it safe to say that we will need to, manage, the situation in the coming days" the Turian replied.
"True, there are Citadel flagged fleets that could be moved. However such a maneuver will have repercussions" the Salarian remarked the obvious, both of the other councilors acknowledged the point.
"Preparations will be, obvious. Do we want to delay a response until we can shape the situation or prepare a more decisive move?" the Turian put out to his fellows.
"If we, do not extend the Citadel's proclamation to prisoners. We may be able to learn enough to make a decision now rather then later" the Salarian remarked aloud.
"I would need to negotiate with the Monasteries if you intend for, those, assets. Not that more conventional attempts would be any less deplorable" Tevos replied, not out of personal distaste but not wanting to spend political capital to push the matter through.
"We can decide that later. Let us clean up the report now". Arria had to restrain a nod at the Turian Councilor's words. She had a hot bath with her name on it.
The Salarian spoke up first. "Spectre Canisia, you mentioned that the local Sector Primarch still retained the services of some Mercenaries?".
"Yes sir, they are local in composition with many members having ties to Kotan and the general sector itself" she answered.
"Hmm, not likely to speak to others. Will need to see what other entanglements they have. Are general communications still down or have they been restored?" the Salarian asked, not because they didn't know but for the benefit of the others. STG will STG.
Arria answered the question curtly. "No Councilors. The necessary relay net buoys have not been moved through yet. Couriers however have already been dispatched with some of the latest compiled reports and samples".
"Then we cannot afford to be too passive if we don't want to waste time" Tevos concluded.
She made some sort of gesture that was supposed to be filled with wisdom or something Matriarchy. "Spectre Canisia, what is the disposition of the remaining recovered material. Can it be moved to more secure sites?".
The answer was one she already had on hand. "That depends on how much more onsite sorting is allowed. Recovered smallcraft remains can be taken onboard any vessel alongside some amount of bodies and other personal equipment. A tug of sufficient scale could be gathered to move the main hulk but otherwise the forces onsite would need to do some destructive disassembly to move the remaining material through the relay".
"Thoughts?" Tevos questioned to the others.
"Considerations, too many considerations. If we are treating their attitude as similar to Turian cultural norms, that would endanger the movers but at the same time we need to account for speed and how fast word could spread. There are far too many parties that would take advantage of this to cause chaos" the Salarian mused.
The Turian made a gesture with their hands that meant impatience. "We do not need to waste effort on those right here and now. Spectre, ensure those materials reach their destination. Details will be forwarded when they have been set" Arria acknowledged the point.
That matter seemingly tabled for later, the Salarian Councilor spoke up. "Any thoughts on anything that would impact an expedition to the last known relay?".
"Nothing that is not a military focused matter" she answered, she may be a matron but she was not going to claim to have studied high command level decisions. She shot things, she talked things over, she stabbed a few more things. That was what she did.
"The transfer should be rather perfunctory, your next set of orders are to canvas the border regions. Get into contact with the Migrant Fleet. They passed through the area relatively recently and have been sparser than normal. Perhaps they know something. Limited resources will be allocated as incentives if needed" the Salarian added.
Arria kept back a grimace, she would need to make sure to get that checked on both ends. No need to sour personal relations with the Quarians if the STG or someone else played games with whatever was on offer. Honestly, the isolationists were a bad target for conventional games of intrigue. Too good with their hands and too far from conventional communications to be worth most measures in the spy toolbox.
"Understood Councilors. May I take my leave?". A second of silence passed at her question.
The Salarian raised their hand. "Do as you need to Spectre, the situation is far too likely to evolve in unexpected ways. Expect additional redeployment of your fellows when the opportunity provides for it. This has the chance to be an era defining moment, let us not leave behind a poor legacy" they finished ominously. Because of course they had to.
Arrina finally let out the sigh she had been holding in the entire time. Another breath in, and then out. She laid back on the massage chair as a gesture had it go back to full operation. "Why did I take this job again? Oh right, because who says no?" she grumbled out, kicking back her feet and setting the recline down low.
Another tap and the ship VI popped on. "Play my soothing playlist and then set an alarm for an hour". The comforting sounds of Turian Neo-Neo Synth started playing. Sometimes she wished life was that simple as the sounds of explosions and gun shots rang out and the vocals started going strong.
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Arria Canisia, once a veteran commando and in current times an active Council Spectre stood silent. Waiting. A matter that would have been more uncomfortable if she wasn't one of the few to be issued a QEC. The rare and strategic to say the least; device was installed in her personal ship. It is a rather "non-standard" vessel that she got from the Quarians. That entire mess was not something she liked thinking about, but at least some of the fallout helped her out to this day. Such as her very nice ride, she really needed to thank whoever installed the massage chair even if she had to debug it first.
Said bosses were still wasting some of her time as they read and mulled over her report during the scheduled meeting. The Salarian was probably already done with a first run and doing a more indepth trawl, the Turian meanwhile seemed to be like an ornery varren and biting their way through a piece at a time. Tevos, Tevos had just skimmed the damn thing and was doing something else if she could judge from long experience. Her constant tapping at her terminal might make some think she was looking up points, but she wasn't. The distortion of hologram telemetry for security or not, she could guess some things through them.
Sighing to herself Arria dialed down the massage, she would need to actually be sharp for this. As much as she hated this entire report thing. She could be doing other more productive things, its not like the Council actually paid her much.
Her thoughts were confirmed by the first words that came out of Tevos' mouth. "Thank you Spectre. In your opinion what would be the, how to say, most immediate action that you yourself can take. While informative, the reports are, limited in scope". That translated to wanting to get the things handed to her now rather than spend the brain power herself on this petty thing.
For an Asari politician she could be a blunt instrument, easy enough to see if you looked. Arria wondered if that was the point, a more politically intelligent character would have been driven from the post already. That sort of mentality encouraged behaviors that tended to have one take one too many steps on the ladder they scurried up and end up falling down the other way. A certain grasping lack of restraint once they got to the tip top. Tevos just stopped at the top and kicked downward in a very mechanical fashion. Yes she had had one too many centuries of having to clean up after her.
"We have a new found race of unknown provenance, unknown ways, and unknown technological methods. Kotan is, strip mined to say the least. While we interrupted it before it could seemingly be completed, the tentatively named Locusts have managed to remove all biomatter and processed materials for certain swaths of the planet. Mostly once inhabited regions which have been scraped to the bedrock or lower" she reported matter of factually.
"That is, do we know for what purpose?" Tevos added.
"Captured materials have proven to be, a complex subject of study. The processed material that the "Harvesters" store seem to have some resemblance as a sort of bonding material for the Locusts. By this I mean that they use the substance as a sort of all uses material. It is seemingly both a universal conductor and also able to be used as a computing substrate. Methods are, unknown as to how that is done and through what means".
"That is, a fascinating example of material sciences. We have nothing like it, is it truly so universally applied?" the Salarian Councilor asked, a keen note in interest in their voice.
"That is what the preliminary analysis seems to be. While there do seem to be conventional systems and power lines, they seem to be dedicated solely to specific high throughput or high stress systems. It may also be a precursor material but that is even more rank speculation then what we already have" she answered.
The Turian Councillor seemed to examine something again before they spoke up. "I have the reports on how much material was taken, but what is actually there? Specifically the enemy ship, it is the single largest source of Locust materials is it not?".
"The enemy Superdreadnought seemed to be a carrier with enough firepower to match a dreadnought alongside significant storage capacity. The ship was taken out of action when a fuel line ignited and spread to several munition storage bunkers that had been compromised by earlier battle damage. This rendered perhaps a third of the ship to scrap while a further total of a quarter of the entire ship suffered various scuttling charges. Thankfully a catastrophic main reactor meltdown was stopped by boarding parties if at high cost. Perhaps of the original ship, 15% is in reasonable condition to be examined with another 20% hulked and structurally unsound but still extant".
"Less than half of a superdreadnought scale ship. That is, a considerable amount" Tevos remarked, a slight frown to their face as they considered something.
"Any notable additional discoveries at this stage?" the Salarian asked, eyes tracking over something on their omnitool.
Arria shook away any thoughts about what the two might or might not be sending to each other.
"We have something from what might have been an auxiliary engineering space or someone's personal workshop. Some apparently tentative attempts by the Locusts at integrating captured material if the surviving ident codes are to be believed. On another note this matter also confirms the fate of the missing sector fleets. Some of the materials from them were found amongst the personal belongings of several Locust bodies collected during the clean up process". The Turian nodded grimly at that. It was one of the if not the most notable loss of life and equipment from the relative peace the Citadel has enjoyed for centuries.
Arria knew a pivot to larger scale conflict was inevitable, but the mess that would shake out would keep her and other Specters busy for quite some time. Tevos stepped back into the conversation.
"Then do we know if it was solely this force that destroyed our forces?" she asked.
"Indeed it was not Councilors, performance reviews seem to indicate that this was an attempted opportunistic raid as the force present would not have been enough to single handedly defeat the earlier forces without being driven out of action for repairs at the minimum when we consider the timespan. Additionally while there were significant allotments for provisions and material, there are likely additional support assets out there at a minimum". The Councilors seemed to share a look at each other before the Turian pushed themselves forward again.
"What are some of the highlights of the AARs?" they asked.
"No native use of mass effect derived technology, a comprehensive use of directed energy weapons from infantry to capital ship scale, and a predilection for boarding actions and offensive small craft operation. Something that involved what some described as "exhibiting Rachni methodology" in some instances" she reported.
"That is going to be unpleasant" the Salarian remarked, a certain amount of understatement in their tone. The Rachni were the Rachni, a menace that haunted dreams. The Krogan didn't help matters either.
"Can we even censor such a thing?" the Turian questioned aloud.
"Not practically" Tevos answered, none of them were seemingly surprised by that. Even as the stress clearly came through the hologram, that they hadn't been the ones to unleash this new threat would not be known by the public. Because the public didn't believe objective fact as much as any politician would ever offer it.
The Salarian made a sort of gesture as they spoke up. "Have we managed to learn more about the attackers themselves, these Locusts?".
Arria accepted the topic change. "They so far appear to have a bodyplan similar to a Turian if more bulky with some traits that are more associated with Krogan. Namely their propensity for physical combat, physical strength, and ability to survive vacuum unassisted if for an unknown duration. Searching their remains as noted before seems to indicate some propensity for trophy taking with various odd objects or possibly fetishes along with some sort of cultural significance in every body recovered having some sort of knife on them".
The Salarian Councilor popped their head up from their omnitool for a second. "Will need to uncover if this is some sort of species wide cultural aspect or confined to a lower level, military unit? Warband, ship? Hmm, how much endurance did the ship have?".
"Locust personnel accommodations seem to be sparse, even for military bunkage. Significant amounts of troops and personnel were present for both space and planetside operations. However there appears to have been enough capacity for significant long term operations if they were fully supplied, whether that was the case we do not know at this time" she answered.
"Hmm, any additional standouts for the post battle analysis?" the Turian popped that question next.
"There is the matter of, prisoners. Initially a total of 20 prisoners out of an estimated thousand plus crew size were taken, currently ten survive. Losses were taken from a mix of post battle wound complications and deliberate self harm" Arria found that entire situation, far too turian.
Thankfully, say what you will of them, each of the Councilors were ruthless enough to not be dissuaded by what she was about to say. "There are prisoners, but the Hierarchy forces on hand are not confident in them surviving the immediate next few days and I concur. They have neither the ability to care for them nor any efficient way to prevent the rash of suicidal actions they, the prisoners, have already taken without causing further harm and loss of life on both sides. I cannot blame them for insisting on summary execution as the needed action to take" she reported.
Each of the councilors nodded, familiar with the notion already from the occasional flare up of Turian Separatists. The modern Turian mindset did not preclude taking prisoners because it did not expect prisoners to ever behave when being taken without a conscious decision to surrender. Resistance was expected of any population, honestly only young Asari maidens could be theoretically considered to surrender in good grace which said things Arria had to think about rather bitterly before. Still in Turian doctrine, individuals typically wouldn't be taken prisoner.
"You are suggesting, enhanced, methods?" the Salarian asked, the tone matter of fact.
"If no further resources can be allocated in time. The entire matter requires, special dispensation. This would be a political question as this is a group that has engaged in unannounced aggression. They have not acted in a manner that would allow for a code of conduct to be established, but that is only one interpretation. An effort to act otherwise should at least be offered before any irrevocable actions are undertaken" she stated simply, as simply as twisty politico talk could be. The only language they accepted in their minds.
"You do understand that such a manner, would require greater consensus for a more conventional political solution" the Salarian remarked. Their voice was neutral by Salarian standards. Considering what she knew of the current councilor's background, they were likely thinking of even more extreme things that could be done.
"That is a matter of policy, I know my limits". A Spectre she may be, but dictating foreign policy was not one of them. Not for the Hierarchy and not for the Council itself.
"Unless there is a dispensation by the member nation which this has all taken place in. No official Citadel forces were engaged in hostilities, this is a fact finding mission Specter Canisia is on after all" the Turian remarked.
"Are you considering this a matter of purely the Hierarchy?" Tevos asked mildly.
"Internally that would indeed be the case, practically though. The greater part of Citadel space is in astronomical terms quite close, considering that no additional mass relays have been found. I think it safe to say that we will need to, manage, the situation in the coming days" the Turian replied.
"True, there are Citadel flagged fleets that could be moved. However such a maneuver will have repercussions" the Salarian remarked the obvious, both of the other councilors acknowledged the point.
"Preparations will be, obvious. Do we want to delay a response until we can shape the situation or prepare a more decisive move?" the Turian put out to his fellows.
"If we, do not extend the Citadel's proclamation to prisoners. We may be able to learn enough to make a decision now rather then later" the Salarian remarked aloud.
"I would need to negotiate with the Monasteries if you intend for, those, assets. Not that more conventional attempts would be any less deplorable" Tevos replied, not out of personal distaste but not wanting to spend political capital to push the matter through.
"We can decide that later. Let us clean up the report now". Arria had to restrain a nod at the Turian Councilor's words. She had a hot bath with her name on it.
The Salarian spoke up first. "Spectre Canisia, you mentioned that the local Sector Primarch still retained the services of some Mercenaries?".
"Yes sir, they are local in composition with many members having ties to Kotan and the general sector itself" she answered.
"Hmm, not likely to speak to others. Will need to see what other entanglements they have. Are general communications still down or have they been restored?" the Salarian asked, not because they didn't know but for the benefit of the others. STG will STG.
Arria answered the question curtly. "No Councilors. The necessary relay net buoys have not been moved through yet. Couriers however have already been dispatched with some of the latest compiled reports and samples".
"Then we cannot afford to be too passive if we don't want to waste time" Tevos concluded.
She made some sort of gesture that was supposed to be filled with wisdom or something Matriarchy. "Spectre Canisia, what is the disposition of the remaining recovered material. Can it be moved to more secure sites?".
The answer was one she already had on hand. "That depends on how much more onsite sorting is allowed. Recovered smallcraft remains can be taken onboard any vessel alongside some amount of bodies and other personal equipment. A tug of sufficient scale could be gathered to move the main hulk but otherwise the forces onsite would need to do some destructive disassembly to move the remaining material through the relay".
"Thoughts?" Tevos questioned to the others.
"Considerations, too many considerations. If we are treating their attitude as similar to Turian cultural norms, that would endanger the movers but at the same time we need to account for speed and how fast word could spread. There are far too many parties that would take advantage of this to cause chaos" the Salarian mused.
The Turian made a gesture with their hands that meant impatience. "We do not need to waste effort on those right here and now. Spectre, ensure those materials reach their destination. Details will be forwarded when they have been set" Arria acknowledged the point.
That matter seemingly tabled for later, the Salarian Councilor spoke up. "Any thoughts on anything that would impact an expedition to the last known relay?".
"Nothing that is not a military focused matter" she answered, she may be a matron but she was not going to claim to have studied high command level decisions. She shot things, she talked things over, she stabbed a few more things. That was what she did.
"The transfer should be rather perfunctory, your next set of orders are to canvas the border regions. Get into contact with the Migrant Fleet. They passed through the area relatively recently and have been sparser than normal. Perhaps they know something. Limited resources will be allocated as incentives if needed" the Salarian added.
Arria kept back a grimace, she would need to make sure to get that checked on both ends. No need to sour personal relations with the Quarians if the STG or someone else played games with whatever was on offer. Honestly, the isolationists were a bad target for conventional games of intrigue. Too good with their hands and too far from conventional communications to be worth most measures in the spy toolbox.
"Understood Councilors. May I take my leave?". A second of silence passed at her question.
The Salarian raised their hand. "Do as you need to Spectre, the situation is far too likely to evolve in unexpected ways. Expect additional redeployment of your fellows when the opportunity provides for it. This has the chance to be an era defining moment, let us not leave behind a poor legacy" they finished ominously. Because of course they had to.
Arrina finally let out the sigh she had been holding in the entire time. Another breath in, and then out. She laid back on the massage chair as a gesture had it go back to full operation. "Why did I take this job again? Oh right, because who says no?" she grumbled out, kicking back her feet and setting the recline down low.
Another tap and the ship VI popped on. "Play my soothing playlist and then set an alarm for an hour". The comforting sounds of Turian Neo-Neo Synth started playing. Sometimes she wished life was that simple as the sounds of explosions and gun shots rang out and the vocals started going strong.