Logan walked down the hallway of the brig of Mercy. She radiated a kind of mellow anger after the conflict with the aliens. The Inexorable escaped but the others had either been boarded or wiped out. Boarded ships were under deconstruction on the surface of Shanxi under command of General Abbot, veteran of the US Army and commander of Shanxi's American colonial forces.
The brig was dark and cold, with cells of adamantium bars near impenetrable. Guards stood watch at all of the cells on both sides, keeping an eye on eachother's wellbeing as well as the prisoners.
Logan neared the first cell holding aliens and stood before it as the group of silent, avian aliens stared at him.
For a time, they simply stared at one another. The heat from Logan's glare was something that could be felt by the aliens but they refused to retreat from the human captain and returned the glare with half-hearted glares of their own.
Logan merely stood. Stared. Then he sighed and shook his head "This wasn't how we wanted it, you know." Logan's face fell into a sorrowful frown "We hoped, for once, we could meet someone who didn't want to attack us. Maybe, just maybe, we could have a peaceful resolution." The sorrow in his voice was evident and the guards felt his pain.
The turians couldn't understand him, but they understood his tone. It was, after all, an emotion they shared. One of the turians becomes brave and steps forward causing Logan's head to snap upward at the movement.
The turian raises his hands placatingly, taking a slower step forward.
Logan stays where he stands, brows knitting together and glare returning on the one turian in particular. If looks could kill, he'd of been ash.
"We didn't want this, you know." The turians language is strange, but somehow Logan understands the emotion of it. "That's why we defected. Anything's better than living a lie. Whatever you do, at least know that we tried."
Logan looked the alien in the eyes who returned the look and somehow, they got it. Logan tensed his jaw and turned to one of the guards "Get a translator working now. I want to communicate with these lot." The guard nodded.
"Sir, yes, sir. Do you want me to go to RND and tell them to double-time it, sir?"
"Yes, now." The soldier saluted then hauled assholes and elbows to the RND department and left the rest to their post.
Logan turned back to the turians and kept their stare for a time. "You're to stay with us. Others will be sent down to Shanxi. When the translator is ready, you're going to tell us everything. Do you understand that?" Logan used his hands to mimic what he said.
A finger pointed at the turians then was used with the rest of the hand to mimic a talking mouth then Logan pointed to himself. He did it again, but before pointing at himself he made a motion like creating an orb from the top down. Everything.
The head turian nodded, he seemed to get it.
Logan nodded and walked away. He knew something was coming soon.
The turian sat down on the cold floor and sighed, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands. "What did he say?" asked one of the others, still shocked at their surprisingly kind treatment compared to what they could expect from others.
"Everything." the turian understood that part well enough "We're going to tell him everything. I think they're working on translators." The Turian stared at the floor, seeing one of the guards staring at them from outside the cell "I think it's in our best interest to do so, something tells me they can get it from us in other ways if they want it."
One of the turians sent a surprisingly scared look at the guard. When the guard saw it, he chuckled darkly. He knew exactly what that look was. He mimiced a talking mouth with his hand, then cut the air diagonal to signal 'Or' and then dragged his thumb across his throat.
Talk or die.
"I think you're right." the turian stared at the guard for a while more, who went back to his rigid stance but they could almost feel the dark joy radiating from him.
He enjoyed the torment. It seemed that he promised more if the turians didn't cooperate.
"Patch me in to General Abbot." Logan ordered on screen in his personal quarters to the comm. operator on Shanxi's surface, receiving a nod and soon came the mechanical face of General Abbot. The mechanoid grinned at the Captain.
"What's this about, Logan? Need some decompression?" Logan snorted at the General and shook his head. Abbot's face soon fell and he leaned into the screen "I know what this is about. I know about the fight. You're alive so I assume all's well."
"Not as well as you think, Abbot." Logan sighed "One of them escaped. If they're anything like us, they're going to be coming for us soon. We have prisoners, we're working on translator technology."
"What was their strength like?"
"Decent, but couldn't do much against the adamantium plating. But this I think was a scout group, not a battle group. I think they're gonna come here with all they've got." Logan felt exasperated at the attack they recently suffered. From a first contact, no less.
"We'll get ready and I'll let the other generals on land here know," That meant other nations' generals. While terrans weren't obligated to help one another, it did go a long way. "I know they won't be happy, but they'll be ready."
"What'll you do?"
"I'll get the militia ready. We don't know exactly what the enemy will be like, but they'll mobilize and we'll make sure we're as ready as we can be." Indeed, the clacking of keys meant that Abbot was already in the process of disseminating the order amongst his men "I'll make sure that our ground forces hurt 'em bad. But Logan, there's a big fucking problem down here." Abbot's mechanical, glowing irises dimmed in anger and Logan found himself in a deep frown.
"Oh God, what now?" The first contact fuck up, now whatever was happening on Shanxi.
"Vampires have swarmed and made nests out of abandoned caverns, mines, and towns in Chinese and our own townships, Logan. Their numbers, their persistence, means there's a Queen somewhere here on Shanxi. There's also the fact that we need to bolster our borders between this realm and The Others' own. If they land, Logan, we'll be dealing with a war on three fronts: Vampires, Others, and Aliens." Abbot disabled the mechanisms of his face so no emotion would show, but his eyes said it all.
Logan held his face in his hands, sighing.
"Fuck's sake! What more? Just lay it all on me."
"Well, I stubbed my toe earlier." Abbot jokes, grinning at the exasperated Captain whose glare could melt adamantium hull.
"I fucking hate you sometimes." Logan chuckles through his glare, the general laughing.
"We'll get married after this don't you worry, then you'll put up with me forever!" Logan lets out a full belly laugh at that,wiping a tear from his eye. His fury was mitigated, but not forgotten, and he smiled at the Mechanoid
"You'd love that I'm sure."
"Lemme love you, fucker!" Abbot chuckles and shakes his head "Get some sleep, kid. Work on whatever it is ya work on and I'll get Shanxi prepared. Got a right dicking for the aliens if and when they come back."
"Thanks Abbot." Logan smiles at the Mechanoid who waves his hand dismissively with a 'Bah' noise. "Talk to you later, old man." Abbot nodded as the connection was cut.
After telling his crew to continue on and wake him if there was an emergency, Logan got some well needed sleep.
When the connection was cut, Abbot stood from his chair and exited the massive quikset Ziggurat that was his base of operations. The base was smothered in weapons and men, sapient machines and inhabited by spirits and shielded by wards. It acted as a military base, a factory, a shelter for civilians, and long-term storage shelter for provisions among other things.
The large, steel-constructed diesel vehicles rumbled and roared as they went about their duties ferrying supplies to-and-fro from inside and outside the base. Furniculars carried crates to their respective levels on the ziggurat and soldiers were doing their duties dressed in olive drab uniforms.
When they caught sight of their general, everyone stopped what they were doing and saluted.
"At ease! Go about your businesss. I need runners. Fastest men, front and center!" A number of men bolted their way to their general's presence and stood at attention for his scrutiny.
"You men are going to be carrying important messages. We're going to be under attack possibly within the week. Find the leaders of the Militia and inform them of this fact. Dig in, prepare emplacements, and get their armor ready because we're gonna need them ready!"
One of the runners saluted with a "Sir!" and ran off, speedy as he could.
"Find a radio and warn the nearby foreign countries of the news, we need them ready as well!" Another runner dispatched.
"General battle readiness is to be escalated. We're at war soon, gentlemen, no fucking around! Go, tell everyone!" Soon the message was spreading like napalm in a dry-as-bone field and the base was buzzing like an angered hive of bees and soon the message was loud and clear:
WAR.
While word was being sent back to Earth that war was to be had, it would take time for the Alliance ships to arrive at their destination. While the courier ships were gone the Turians came back in force with their predatory ships firing as soon as they blinked into system.
The shots hurt the non-dreadnought ships the most, but even they were taking the hits with a snort and fired back causing gouts of plasma to erupt from the massive coilguns the Terran ships sported. Each shot hurt the Turian ships a considerable amount more, but they were tough and soldiered on through the fire. Their rate of fire was considerably higher than the human ships and it showed.
For every volley the humans laid out for the turians, the aliens returned twice. In the Terran ships were men in power armor of industrial make with increased hydraulic power hefting massive, multi-ton shells into the capital guns. The foreman of the loaders roared "Come on! Come on, men! Send 'em down!" Each shell loaded was then sent into the barrel by a large hydraulic mechanism that was soon rewarded with a crack like a roll of thunder in ones head and the mechanism slid back awaiting another shell only to be closed mere seconds later.
"Come on!" The foreman hollered, the men answered with roars of their own as thunder cracks met their efforts and the ships roared in their minds as well: "We can do it!" feminine, matronly voices rung out inside their skulls making them redouble their efforts.
Their ships were talking to them and damn it, they'd make sure they met the call!
In one of the new ships that had dragged itself from the surface, her belly was full of craft just itching to get in on the fight. Their pilots loaded themselves into the craft and felt them almost hug their forms to the seats as the hatches closed and hissed pressurizing against the void soon to come.
"Hog 1 this is Hog 2, shall we dance?" One of the pilots joked to the leader of the fighter wing causing him to smile when the order came: Fight!
The craft blazed out of their mothership and formed into a flying V as Hog 1 answered "Let's do it Hogs! Gore 'em!" The pilots, and indeed the craft, answered with low and high bellows as they blazed toward the Turian lines. While they flew, streaks of purple light blazed past them.
Hog 1, Isaac, smiled. "Let's nail 'em girl," Isaac patted his craft (Screamer) and felt her in his head.
Whenever you're ready
Turian craft raced towards them, too late noticing the projectiles coming at them. Many missiles blew up taking the craft with them while others blazed on toward the enemy ships.
When the turian craft blew up they took their dessicated pilots with them sending sputtering debris toward Shanxi's surface to burn up in atmosphere or land as barely salvagable husks.
Isaac could feel Screamer in his head when he wore his neurohelmet, could feel where her 'eyes' were pointed, and found himself grinning with joy when she was focused intently on the enemy.
"Nail 'em Hogs!" Isaac sent a missile forward as did the rest of the Hogs. With the rest of the missiles sent by the Terrans not all of them could be intercepted. But the one that counted made it and like a virus it spread its payload into the Turian computers with an avalanche of digital snow and a special audio byte.
"What the HELL is THAT?" demanded one of the Turian captains as music suddenly roared through the intercomm fleet wide, distressing communications and annoying the skin out of the Turians' ear canals.
"I don't know! It came with that missile the aliens sent after us!"
"Turn it off!"
"I can't!"
Ride of the Valkyries, like the bugle repitoire, had become famous amongst the airforce, army, and both arms of the Alliance Navy; the former mostly popular with American crews but still.
"Let's hope they enjoy the last music they'll be hearin'!" Hollered Hog 3 over the comm. to Isaac's amusement. His craft, Screamer, seemed amused by the fellow pilot's antics as well. 'Let's show these aliens how it's done, girl.' Isaac thought, softly palming the dash of his craft and felt a warm feeling return after the contact.
The Turian and Human lines met, Hogs quickly tearing into the Turian fighters, the alien craft looking like flying talons with the pilot in the forefront while the Human craft have the pilot seated farther back, more in cover. The face of Screamer and the other craft, like screaming demons, turned on their sides to avoid impacting the Turian craft (some of which were spinning out of control from the machine gun fire; blue blood splattered over the glass after blue entrails were forcibly vented out into the vacuum) and Isaac, with a quick course correction and small thrust of the engine, managed to bank in space as the Hogs followed suit and now pursued the Turian craft like hounds for blood or a boar for truffles.
Mercy was at the forefront again, huge gun turrets tearing into the airless void with eruptions of plasma as her guns let loose on the Turian fleet. There were many of the predatory ships, colored bright red and white; blazing bright in the blackness of space, while the ships like the USS Mercy, HMS Paladin, and USS Yellowjacket were colored a light blue-grey; the standard color since the second world war. Yellowjacket, however, had a yellow and black checkerboard shape over her nose, her Polybolos was currently hidden inside her hull and the hull was closed over it in a seamless compartment making the Dreadnaught seem to not have the giant man cannon.
Mercy's crew were hard at work as androids and gynoids processed all the information blisteringly quick and passed it along to the proper places, pneumatic tubes containing canisters of paper work hissing about the ship as her cannons continued to roar on the port and starboard sides, top and bottom. The mass driver slugs from the Turian ships either glanced off Mercy's hull or those that did hit didn't do much against the Adamantium that made up the shell of Mercy's armor.
The Turian ships, though weaker, were overwhelming the Human fleet. Smaller ships breaking off from the distracting fleet to head for Shanxi below. Despite their attempts, the Human fleet couldn't divert their attention from the enemy fleet as more ships jumped in and funneled to the planet below.
Mercy was none to happy and the crew could feel it as she forced her machinery and guns to fire faster and pump more power into their operations, as much as they could handle safely, and the crew raced to keep up with her.
While the Turians raced for the surface they were under attack. AAA batteries opened fire on the turian craft sending some spiraling to the ground to uncertain fates while others managed to survive. Some still were struck in such a way that few survived the inital strike let alone subsequent strikes and finally planetfall sending fires miles high into the sky.
Abbot grinned. Othe generals were aware of the aliens and had made preparations.
The American militia was ready and they'd make certain that any alien that landed on Shanxi would regret their decision.
Abbot himself had prepared as well.
Most cities were home to miles upon miles of newly formed trenchwork and the Ziggurat itself was a true fortress against attack.
'Cry havok and let slip the dogs of war', thought Abbot. 'Let's give 'em a good hammering.'