Chapter 2: What in the heck?
Uril could only watch in confusion as the unknown vessel came to life and started moving quite rapidly on an intercept course with the shuttles.
"Admiral, we're detecting a massive energy build up from the unknown ship, requesting orders sir." Ruso asked.
"Pull back the shuttles, I don't want lives wasted because of some trigger-happy upstart race who thinks they know it all." Uril replied, but as soon as the words were out of his mouth, his annoyance turned to horror as the unknown opened fired, and with 5 successive shots destroyed 2 frigates, and damaged another.
"What in the heck just happened?!" Uril roared.
"I don't know sir, sensors indicate that whatever energy levels we were reading, are somehow apart of their weapons fire as it matches the same signature." An ensign replied.
"They want a fight, well the Hierarchy will give them one, all ships return fire. I want that ship turned into scrapmetal! And get those shuttles out of there." Uril ordered.
"Sir, the shuttles have been destroyed, the ship fired on them with its point defence grid."
Uril froze. Not only had the ship firepower on par with a dreadnought, but it also had a highly sophisticated defence grid that was making a mockery of his choice to be diplomatic.
"Sir, we're being targeted!" Ruso shouted.
Uril bowed his head. Knowing he didn't stand a chance he opened a fleet wide channel
"All ships, I don't care how you do it, all I care is that you turn that bastard of a ship into a heap of rubble. This is Admiral Uril, and I hereby transfer command to Admiral Tasies Gallanar. It has been an honour." He watched as the viewport lit up from the enemies weapon fire, yet all he could think of was his wife, how he would never get to hold her one more time, and how all those Turian soldiers, forever separated from their loved ones. He knew Asari could cope the best, but he knew better, the lost love would always leave a scar.
The Altakiril's Fistfinal words were "Embrace Eternity."
Captain Lehmon was surprised to say the least. Not only had he dispatched five enemy battlecruisers, and one battleship along with the boarding craft. However he had used the element of surprise and was now taking a lot of enemy fire. True the ZMP gave him an advantage, but he knew he was cutting it close!
"Status report!" Lehmon barked.
"Enemy ships are attempting to box us in sir, but are trying to keep out of our firing range at the same time, so it isn't really effective. Enemy vessels appear to have no shielding whatsoever, but their weapons fire is taking its toll due to numbers." Lieutenant Griffith replied.
"Hmmm you'd think that they would have invested more in defense rather than numbers. Pity. Bring us around, have a marine contingent beam over to the civilian ship, two of those shuttles made it on board so let's make them regret it." Lehmon ordered.
"Yes sir."
"Captain, the rest of the patrol has arrived" Arkavel said.
Lehmon grinned, now they were in for it. "Hail the Leshinik"
On screen appeared Captain Duras. One of the few who had combat experience against the Wraith, and his ship kept the battle scars to prove it, this was one Captain you wanted on your side in a battle.
"Lehmon, trying to follow in my footsteps I see." Duras jested.
"Well those battle scars just go so nicely on your ship, I thought I'd get a custom job as well." Chuckled Lehmon.
"Based on what I'm seeing, your rash action would have given you a lot more than a few scars Captain. Admiral Harridan may agree with you, but he is one of the few." Duras said.
"Sir with all due respect, they are attacking civilia."
"Lehmon you are an idiot! I agree on principal that these would appear to be civilians, but how could you be so stupid as to try and win a war single-handedly! You could have just moved in between the ships until we arrived, but no, you had to go gallivanting around blowing things up left, right and centre!" Duras roared, the fury clear in his eyes.
Lehmon froze, "But Admiral Harri.."
"Will be reported to Homeworld Command and the Oversight committee and will probably be replaced within a week. Now cover that civilian ship while we clean up your mess. Duras out."
Admiral Tasies Gallanar was having a bad day, to say the least. First he gets a code 5 just when he was about to take some well needed shore leave, and now his fleet was getting wiped out by a frigate!
"Captain, override the safeties, I want everything we have locked onto that ship and fired!" Gallanar ordered.
"Sir, sensors are going crazy, something is happening around the relay." An ensign shouted over the noise.
"Detail helps, what exactly is happening?"
"I'm not sure sir, but by all that I have available, space is tearing itself apart!" the ensign replied, who's voice was reaching a pitch that was quite rare to be heard. "3 more contacts have arrived, they came out of the tears!"
"What do you mean? That's not possible!" Gallanar stated, yet there they were, 3 more ships, identical to the one he was having trouble containing as it was. Gallanar knew when a battle was lost, but he still couldn't believe it.
"All ships, retreat! Make the jump to FTL, do everything in your power to ensure that what happened here reaches High Command. I know Turians do not retreat, but if we don't our brothers and sisters will be slaughtered before they know what is happening, but I promise you this, we will return, and we will crush this new enemy. You have your orders, move out!" Gallanar ordered. He watched as the ships turned and readied to make the jump to FTL when,
"Sir detecting an energy" was all the ensign managed to say, when Gallanar saw a nuclear detonation engulf a dreadnought and 2 cruisers.
"Get us into FTL NOW!" Gallanar roared. Gripping the CIC so hard he began to draw blood, Gallanar didn't breath until they were clear.
"Full speed to the Citadel, this is no longer a Hierarchy problem.
Kormia Caron was pleased with herself to say the least. Not only had this new species defended her ship, but they had wiped the floor with the Turians, the so-called military might of the Council. Even the Quarians could have handled the situation better, and they were nothing more than a bunch of thieves. Knowing her career and more importantly life, was hanging by a thread, she set about altering the codex on her omni-tool to her advantage and ordered the rest of the crew to do likewise, and made sure they stuck to her story. As she finished, she heard a knock on the door to the pod.
"Showtime" Kormia thought, "Thank you so much, those Citadel bastards didn't give us a chance to even surrender."
"Bastards huh?" a gruff voice said on the far side. "Hear that guys, she called her rescuers bastards."
Kormia froze. "But how?" I saw your ships blow up?" Kormia stuttered
"It's called a shuttle, and currently the only way off this heap of junk. Now we've pressurised the hanger, but it'll only last for a while, so you're going to open that pod, and come with us, quietly. Oh and I've got a breaching charge if you think of saying otherwise." The voice threatened.
Kormia considered her options, which weren't coming up great, considering she just blew her cover story, but before she could answer she heard gunfire coming from outside.
"What's going on?" her XO, a surprisingly polite Batarian asked.
"How should I know, I'm stuck in here too you idiot!" Kormia stated.
Everyone listened tentatively, but all they could hear was mumbling, and then the power went out in the pod, followed by a bright flash of light and then staring down the barrel of the galaxy's strangest looking rifle.
"What in Goddess' name just happened?" Kormia thought. She liked to think she had a basic concept of reality, but considering she seemed to have been teleported, that threw that notion out the window. After looking around, she gazed back at the alien standing in front of her. Or mech. She really couldn't decide since she couldn't see a face, only a visor. The "alien" kept pointing its rifle at her, then towards the bed.
"Ah" Kormia realized, "Seems no matter where the Asari go, it's always business" She slowly moved towards the bed, taking off her jacket as she did and slid onto the bed, turned around to the "soldier", and patted the bed next to her. The alien looked at her, its head cocked sideways, and then it just walked out of the room, leaving a very confused and slightly frustrated Kormia.
Captain Duras watched as salvage crews worked over the alien ships, hoping to find something of use, to give them a better understanding of what they were up against.
"What's the E.T.A of the Moskova?" Duras asked aloud.
"2 minutes sir, they decided on not using the relay and went for a direct jump instead." Replied Lieutenant Johnson answered.
"Hmmm, anything to report from the salvage teams or the 'civilians'?"
"No sir, except Corporal Jarkath mentioned something along the lines of 'space hooker.'"
Duras stifled a laugh, and returned to viewing the data the Liberty gathered from its brief engagement. Despite Lehmon's actions, he had gathered some valuable intel, summarized with the fact that the Tau'ri had the superior forces. The aliens had manoeuvrable ships, but the bigger they got, the slower they were able to turn, a problem the Tau'ri didn't have thanks to thousands of years of Asgard and Ancient development.
"Sir the Moskova has arrived and is hailing us"
"Open the channel." Duras took a deep breath, knowing that Lehmon would make it hell for him.
"Admiral Mstislav, good to see you sir" Duras stated.
"Likewise Duras. I must commend you on putting your feelings aside and carrying out orders, despite your vocal opposition to said orders, or has Captain Lehmon filed his report wrong?" Mstislav queried.
"I'll stand by the record sir, I do not feel Captain Lehmon chose the best course of action, despite having been given clearance to engage the unknown forces." Duras replied defiantely.
"Good, I can only keep you save from Admiral Harridan if you stay in line until Homeworld Command gets these reports. After that, well hopefully the situation will have calmed down a bit." Mstislav replied.
"Thank you sir. I've just been informed that one our 'passengers' has given us a device. It appears to contain information of some form, we've translators working on it, but we weren't exactly assigned a linguistic team." Duras stated.
"Transfer the data, we will send it back to command. They're going to have a field day with this." Mstislav said, "Have you any recommendations based on the engagement Captain?"
"Yes sir, I believe we should set up a blockade on this side of the relay. That should give us plenty of warning if any ships manage to get through, and we can use the other side as a staging ground for further operations."
"Always prioritizing the needs of others Duras. I'll add this to my report. Considering Lehmon suggested we send ships out looking for them, in other words stretch our forces to the breaking point, it'll provide more credibility to your report. Mstislav out."
Sighing, Duras leaned back into his command chair,
"This is going to take a while." He stated bluntly.
