/ New Alexandria - Reach - Epsilon Eridani \\
/ 4-4-2558 - Military Calendar \\
/ 2:47 am - Local Time \\
Director Jack Harper was a meticulous man both by nature and by trade. Information tended to be a fickle thing and the need to be well informed while still remaining accurate was a difficult line to walk, it was a trait that he had even in his younger years while his brother went off gallivanting in the Navy, it had paid off of course him being an Admiral now. Before ONI and now HMI, he'd been successful in doing just that, working under the former Admiral Osman in gathering intel on the insurrection before the war and during. Of course it was purely coincidental that the leak that brought down ONI had been linked to him had coincidently elevated him to the director of its replacement. The office of Human Military Intelligence had been able to walk a fine line with a respectful degree of success since its inception in 2553 AD, there had of course been a few failures but those mistakes had either been swept under the rug or fixed before they became a significant problem. This had typically led to many sleepless nights, leading and firmly establishing the race's Intelligence network took a lot of work, which was why at nearly 3 in the morning he wasn't either bothered in the slightest or tired as he rode the elevator up to High Admiral Hood's office with a datapad in hand, the glass roof opened above him and the elevator stopped level with the floor and he stepped off not a moment later.
Evidently it had been a late night for the Admiral as well, the desk which had been clear in the meeting a couple days ago was now covered in stacks of both datapads and outdated sheets paper. The man himself was standing at the window overlooking the New Alexandria skyline, a small glass of brown liquid in his hand that he took intermediate sips from. "How bad is it?"
Jack kept his face blank as he folded his arms behind his back, "Depends on your outlook, but it's rough." He answered simply, looking at the glass with a slight degree of curiosity. Know every superior's habits; he knew it was rare to see the Admiral drinking.
Hood snorted and turned around to face the man as he returned to his desk, putting his own glass down he walked up to a flat wall which retracted a small compartment filled with different liquors. He grabbed a glass and placed a single cub of ice inside before filling it with the same brown liquid that filled his own and placed it on the table in front of Harper. "Fill me in." He commanded.
"As you know yesterday the Prowler 'Solace In Silence' captained by Howard Niko, tailed a Covenant fleet comprised of 23 vessels to a system containing a mass relay. After continued monitoring, the fleet somehow activated the mass relay and passed through it. We currently are unsure how."
Hood nodded along.
"A few hours ago we received another communiqué, apparently the Covenant found another space faring race behind the relay."
Hood's face went blank, "I see. Analysis?"
Harpers pressed his lips into a thin line, "Yes well, the new race had a fleet numbering 29 vessels guarding a small colony and were rather swiftly engaged by the Covenant. They were for a lack of a better word slaughtered, only managing to destroy 4 of the smaller Covenant vessels and disabling a fifth larger one."
"So little?" Hood questioned with confusion, even before the archives were found, Human ships were able to score more kills then that in similar engagements.
"Their largest ship was just over 500m." Harper stated blankly.
"Why, are they a new to space-faring?"
"From from what the 'Solace In Silence' was able to scan, the ships were comprised entirely of eezo. This race relies entirely on Mass Effect. Or rather races."
"Plural?" Hood questioned, a frown now heavily present.
"Plural." He confirmed. "Before the fleet's and consequently the colony's destruction, the Prowlers AI managed to hack into their systems, apparently even the early AI generations could have easily managed."
"What did it find?"
"A codex we believe."
"Believe?"
"The amount of information stored in that packet was substantial, it couldn't really have been anything else. It's handy because everything seems to be in one place, tricky because there's so much information it's taking a long time to translate everything however there was this." He pressed a few buttons and a number of holograms appeared above the desk, each depicting an alien race. "Admiral Hood, say hello to the Citadel Races." Harper announced gesturing to the array of holograms.
"When you said plural I was expecting 3 maybe 4 new races. Harper, that's 11." Hood calmly said, looking critically at the different aliens.
"Believe me, we weren't expecting it either but here's the run down." The holograms shifted into a tiered pattern with three at the top, five in the middle and three at the bottom. The three at the top grew until what he assumed to be their real life size.
All three were bipedal with two arms and two eyes. The one on the far left was clearly over 6ft, probably 7ft, and had a boney, metallic sort of carapace that surrounded their body. They had long arms and legs, two talon like fingers on both hands with an opposable thumb each. The head was birdlike which ended in a fringe atop their head.
The middle was shorter about 5ft, but a long spindly body and head with two protruding horns and large eyes, and hands which had two fingers and a thumb much like the first race.
The final was eerily similar to Humans, 5-6ft, two legs and two arms with hands with 4 fingers and a thumb. Two eyes, nose and lips arranged in an almost identical fashion to themselves. The only difference being that instead of hair on top of their head it appeared to have tentacle like crests.
"These three make up the 'Council Races', the leading trio of the Citadel Council." Harper presented, "In order we have the Turians, the Salarians and the Asari. The Turians were the ones encountered by the Covenant and seem to be the military arm of the Council. The Salarians appear to have a short lifespan but are highly intelligent and are able to analyse data faster to an alarming degree. The Asari are in our opinion the most dangerous, monogendered and capable of procreating with any species, their entire race is biotically capable and they live centuries, apparently known to live over 1000 years." Harper spoke.
Hood simply stared.
The three holograms minimised to be replaced by the middle five, these ones were much more diverse. "These are the Associate races, races that have an embassy and are part of the alliance but have no real say in the going on's. In order we have the Elcor, Hanar, Batarians, Volus and the Drell." He explained, "Each has their own part to play, the Drell appear to be a sort of client race to the Hanar however." He continued before those images also shrunk down to be replaced by the final three.
The first was big and mean looking, like it was able to simply punch a brute into nothingness which wasn't reassuring in the slightest. The second was another humanoid looking with backward knees and appeared to be in some sort of suit. The final looked as though a monster from the 20th century came to life.
"The final three are the Krogan, the Quarians and the Vorcha. These three don't have Council Associate status and seem to be outcasts of some sort from what we can glean." Harper began for the final time. "The Krogan are few in number, apparently they tried to rebel at some point and were wining until the Turians came into the playing field. They used a Salarian created virus to slowly kill off Krogan by making them infertile."
"Like we did with the Grunts?"
"Eerily so yes."
"And the others?"
"The Quarians are now a nomadic race confined to ships after their AI rebelled and kicked them off their own planets. When they went to the Council for aid, their embassy was shut down and they were kicked off the Citadel."
"Their AI rebelled, why? And why did this Council not help." Hood questioned.
"To the former, we're not sure. Either it doesn't say in the codex or we haven't gotten that far yet. As for the latter, it seems that AI are outlawed in Council space." Harper informed.
Hood blinked and scratched his chin but made no comment. "The Vorcha."
"The Vorcha as far as we can tell are primitives to the lowest level, no central government to speak of or even higher intelligence. The only reason they are note-worthy in any fashion is that they're trained by Krogan mercenaries as expendable muscle." Harper finished and the three shrunk back down with the others. He reached for the glass before him to refresh his throat after all that talking. Swirling it around in the glass he took a small sniff, "Is this Harvest Brandy?" He questioned, surprised. Even more so after he took a sip, "I thought there were only a few hundred bottles left?"
Hood nodded and took a sip of his own drink, "There are." He admitted. "You kept mentioning a 'Citadel'."
Harper nodded and put his glass back down to press some buttons on his datapad. The holograms changed into a single space station, shaped as a ring with 5 arms. "The Citadel, 44km long, 12km wide. This is the seat of the Citadel Council, first discovered by the Asari while we were still fighting with sticks." He gestured.
Hood nodded again. "Co-ordinates?"
"Afraid not, best we've got is that it's somewhere in the Serpent Nebula. Apparently the only way to access it is through a Relay. We're also still trying to get concrete borders mapped out however. From what we can tell now we are worryingly close to both the Batarian and Turian controlled space." Harper said.
"Haven sector?" Hood guessed.
Harper nodded, "Haven Sector."
Hood sighed heavily and finished his drink. "If they attack through there we'll be finished, it's practically undefended. We've been pulling troops and ships from there for a while." He muttered and Harper nodded in agreement.
Harper finished his own drink, "Would you like my own opinion?"
Hood nodded.
"Adopt a wait and see approach, if this Citadel Council and the Covenant go to war it means a whole lot less guns aimed at us."
"And if they ally against us?"
"Then we arm every man, woman and child in Human space. It's already seen as an impossible mission to fight the Covenant single handily, it will spell doom if more join them. We already know the Covenant won't accept a surrender, so we'll have to make sure to take as many down with us as we can." Harper spoke grimly, finally breaking the mask of indifference he had held all meeting.
Silence reined in the office for a few minutes as both men digested what had been spoken. "How long will it take to get a full tactical portfolio to be distributed to all senior ranking officers?" Hood asked at last.
"A few more hours? We're using the algorithm we use to decode and translate the Covenant battle-net, however as I said there is simply too much information to go through in a short amount of time."
"I want a priority on high value targets like this Citadel, if we can pull the rug out from underneath the Council before they strike we might be able to dissuade them from joining the Covenant. Take out their leaders and they will have no one to lead them." Hood ordered and Harper nodded and made a note on his datapad.
"You'll be the first to receive it." Harper promised "I'll reassign some Prowlers too. We have the end location for the Relay at Shanxi, we'll take a look see what's on the other side." He added before turning to leave the office, leaving Hood alone after a few moments.
"Constance." The AI dutifully appeared. "Contact Admiral Cole and Drescher, tell them the situations changed, they have 25 standard hours to complete their fleets and begin the counter-attack."
The AI nodded, "Anything else sir?"
"Yes, tell Admiral Whitcomb to move up production on Project: UNASSALIABLE, he has my full authority to pull resources from other areas just not to overdo it." The AI nodded again and disappeared.
The Admiral looked quietly at his desk tapping his empty glass in deep thought before turning to refill his glass. If looked to be another sleepless night for him.
If it came to war he knew what had to be done, as did everyone in Human space. Aliens were out to get them, and the only people you could trust were you're only brothers and sisters in arms. If they attacked they would surely lose, but by the time the last Human world fell, and the last solider died screaming at his aggressors, their enemies would be an endangered species. Forever they would speak in hushed tones when someone spoke of the Human war machine, forever parents would tell children stories of the Humans to get them to behave. If need be their legacy would be blood, because that would be all the galaxy would know.
/ Cipritine - Palaven - Trebia \\
/ 21-11-2156 - Galactic Standard \\
/ 12:48 PM - Local Time \\
The offices of the Turian Primarch are a middle ground between the other two Council Races. Spartan compared to the ornate and elaborate rooms from the Asari Republics, and more finely decorated compared to the actual Spartan rooms of the Salarian Union Daltrasses', who tended to only have a desk, chair and terminal in their office. The current Primach, Septer Rececius, wasn't bothered in the slightest. What he was bothered about was why one of their colonies went dark for no reason, for the near 50 Turian years he'd been in office something on this scale had never happened.
There were many hypothesis' as to why, Batarian slavers, just slavers in general, a rebellion in the colony. But those were ruled out due to the size of the fleet that Macedyn held, it would be simply too improbable for those events to make the colony simply go quiet with no word getting out. So the most plausible cause running through the sensible minds of the Hierarchy was that something must have come through the relay. It wasn't a very pleasing image whatever outcome.
Currently the Turian Primarch was doing errant work while he not so patiently waited for the scout fleet to arrive and send back word. Even as he did so a much larger fleet was being gathered and receiving supplies in currently likely case that it was needed.
The Salarian STG probably already knew what had happened, they would probably tell the Salarian Councillor who'd then tell the Asari and the Turian Councillors and he'd then get an earful for not telling them soon. He'd then say it was a Turian problem, so Turians would fix it. Their Councillor would agree, the Salarians wouldn't and the Asari would try and mediate as they got in an argument. He was actually expecting their call any minute now while he waited for the scout's report to come in.
The doors to his office opened allowing a Turian in plain armour to entire where he saluted at the Primarch. "Primarch, the scouts reported it." He was young, probably in his first year or two of the military.
"And?" Reciucius' retort was short and to the point, no use wasting words.
Rather than replying, the young Turian held up his omni-tool and pressed a few buttons, a few moments later and an image was displayed above his arm. It showed a planetoid they could have once been a pale yellow desert world, but was now alight with flame. Large continents were alight, or in some cases entirely black, the small bodies of water were still in the process of boiling away. "Macedyn?" Reciucius asked, simply for confirmation.
"It's completely destroyed, and as far as we can tell there are zero survivors but they're still searching."
"Do we know what caused it?"
"Although we have no dedicated survey ship in the fleet. Preliminary scans however have determined that it's some sort of highly concentrated plasma. The same plasma seems to be what caused the destruction of the fleet, with some kind of energy weapon." The Turian rattled off.
"An energy weapon, plasma? Was there any type of Eezo detected."
"Other than that from ours, and the Macedyn fleet, nothing more than simply residue from the Relay."
"Was there any debris, bodies?"
"All debris in space has apparently been removed other than pieces that could be passed off as simple junk. As for bodies, we'll have to wait until they prepare an expedition groundside."
Reciucius, frowned and scratched his mandibles. "Thank you, that'll be all." He dismissed the Turian, who saluted and left. A moment later his terminal beeped as the information was uploaded.
He sat quietly reading through the detailed report when his terminal beeped again, this time signalling a call. He pressed a button and stood at his desk as the room dimmed and a hologram appeared about the surface. "Councillor Sparatus." He greeted the newly instated Turian Councillor.
"Primarch." Sparatus greeted in return.
"I must admit, I was expecting the full Council." Reciucius commented.
"Well they certainly wanted to get involved but I managed to convince them it a purely Turian matter until otherwise." Sparatus informed.
"Undoubtedly they will still poke around" He said.
"I'm expecting it but there is nothing I can do about it so early in my tenure." Sparatus admitted. "What's the situation, the STG gave a report but I don't trust Councillor Amori to withhold information."
Reciucius pressed a few buttons and sent the data pack to the Councillors personal terminal. "Yesterday an unknown fleet comprised of an unknown number of ships entered the Camtis System and engaged the colony of Macedyn and destroyed it before they could get a signal out." He began, "We sent a scout fleet to investigate when a Turian reported that he couldn't contact his family on the colony and it was revealed that no outbound signals had been detected for nearly six hours, they arrived just under an hour ago."
Sparatus frowned and nodded him to continue.
"What they found was simply destruction, with so far no survivors."
"Who did it?"
"Exactly who we don't know, but whoever attacked had either too little Eezo to accurately detect after time, or none at all."
"A race with no Eezo at all." Sparatus murmured. "And yet they used the Relay?"
"The inbound one, the outbound wasn't touched." Reciucius replied.
"A race independent of Mass Effect..." Sparatus theorized.
"Unfortunately that was my first thought as well. We have little to information though to be sure." Reciucius agreed.
Sparatus hummed, the flanging sound making it almost pleasant. "Science and survey ships?"
"Already inbound."
"Get them to scan for any anomalies, anything might get us closer to finding out who did this." Sparatus ordered and Reciucius nodded.
"Anything else Councillor?" Recicuius inquired.
"No that's all for now, I however expect frequent updates from now on. I don't want to hear anything else from the STG unless I already know about it." Sparatus said and the Turian Primarch nodded in understanding. The hologram disappeared and light returned to the room.
Reciucius sat back down and tapped a talon on the desk before opening his terminal and getting to work.
The Turians had been the galaxies protectors for a thousand years, their military the envy of the Citadel. Whoever these mysterious invaders were, the Turian Hierarchy would show them the might of their legions. Even to their dying breath.
/ Oribt - New Rome - Stellar \\
/ Cycle 147 - 9th Age of Reclamation \\
/ Unit 14.6 - Covenant Battle Calendar \\
Fleet Master Thel 'Vadamee considered himself to be a reasonable Sangheili, he followed the Covenant without hesitation and listened to any wisdom the Holy Hierarchs may pass on, they were of course the wisest and most devout of their Holy Covenant.
He had participated in and continued to fight in the Crusade against the Humans, their heretical filth is a blight against the galaxy and the Holy Forerunners. Yet he had begun to doubt the divine truths of the Prophets and begun to respect the Humans for more than they were before. Worthy opponents.
He had proudly led the Covenants warriors against the Humans, destroying their fleets and glassing their colonies with glee. At first it was a slaughter, fleets and colonies were simply swept aside, but then the Humans dug their heels in, adapted, began fighting dirty.
He had thankfully never experienced the Human's guerrilla tactics as they called it, but he had heard. The slaughter as hundreds of Human ships surrounded their fleets, scouts disappearing into asteroid belts and the whole field lighting up in a huge nuclear explosion. Planets emitting fake signals, entire parsecs of nuclear mines. Many Sangheili had died falling for these traps, and yet they could not hate them.
Of course they certainly angry, and many were openly detestable about it, which was understandable. Colonies were lost to these 'NOVA's, but it was nothing they hadn't done. As a species, the Sangheili were militaristic to the core. Millennia of being the staunch defenders of the faith held led to this, so they saw this from a warrior's perspective. This was war, and there was no honour in war. The Humans were using every trick to their advantage and it worked, the Covenant advance was delayed.
And then this...'Stalingrad' line was created. He personally didn't know what this 'Stalingrad' was, but rumour was it was a battle in ancient Human times. It must have been a truly ferocious battle to have a galactic line of fortified planets modelled and name after it.
Fleet after fleet smashed against it, holes were made but never for long. Until now that was. He himself had led an attack to pave the way for fleets to move deeper into Human space. Billions of Sangheili had died for this Covenant, and how did the Holy Prophets reward them? By giving more power to the Jiralhanae, the 'Brutes' as the Humans called them. It was an accurate nickname, they were Brutes. They were not the refined warriors of the Sangheili, they lacked respect and honour.
He growled, he loathed them; they were a vile and beastly species with no place as high in the pecking order as they were. Even the neutered Unggoy were of more use than them, being the stocky labourers that they were.
His views weren't simply his own either. Many Sangheili shared his thoughts, from the lowest minor to the highest Fleet Master, but they kept quiet. Being as high up as he was, he knew the struggle. The war wasn't meant to continue on for this long, supply chains were stretched, fleets were few and soldiers were falling. Never before had a single race challenged the Covenant as the Humans did, not since the ancient war between his own species and the San'Shyuum, the war which created the Covenant itself.
And if the tales were true then the struggle was about to get harder, another space faring race had been discovered, and if the files stolen were correct there were many more to come. These Turians relied heavily on the Element Zero, the mysterious 'Mass Effect'. Few deposits were found in Covenant space, they had long since surpassed the need to use it. What little use it saw was for trinkets and toys for younglings.
Alone a war would be swift and decisive, what the Crusade against the Humans was meant to be. But if they were to join forces against the Covenant, then trouble could be on the horizon. And those damnable beasts had provoked them, slaughtered a Turian colony without being provoked themselves simply because they were bored. Sure they may sing tales of the Turians defiling Holy artefacts, after all that is what the construct must be to sustain such fire, it even responded to the Holy song. But the Sangheili weren't ignorant of their lies. They may have tricked the Prophets but the Sangheili won't be so easily deceived.
That was the resolve of the Sangheili, they were the guardians of the Covenant, they were the soldiers of the Holy Scriptures, not the Brutes. The Covenant will survive, even if they have to carry it to greatness alone.
/ Drem - Meridian - Azuro \\
/ 4-4-2558 - Military Calendar \\
/ 6:21 pm - Local Time \\
Zaheed Massani was a rather vulgar person even in his youth, growing up in one of the more lawless parts to the outer colonies, assured that when you always needed a weapon on hand, even if it was just your mouth. The Covenant didn't help matters either, taking his parents at Harvest, one in the army and one in the Navy, it was practically a guaranteed death so early. The moment he could, he joined the fight, became a marine and starting kicking alien ass. His superiors even admitted that the ODST were becoming interested in him.
He cursed as an assortment of plasma slashed against his cover, but he was calm and composed. When the firing stopped he shifted slightly and leant out his cover to fire his own rounds, his trusty MA6 Assault Rifle Jessie spitting magnetically accelerated rounds down the avenue towards the advancing Covenant forces, he smirked slightly as the thunder from other weapons joined him and at least a couple dozen aliens were cut down. While the big guns in orbit got access to new plasma weaponry, it was still too advanced to use on a small arms scale, Mass Effect weaponry didn't possess the stopping to pierce through shields, so they compromised. MAC on a small arms scale was terrifying, metal slugs capable of ripping a brute in half were no joke.
He cursed as the plasma returned and the light blue of his shield lit up as it blocked shots aimed at him, and he wasted no time in returning to cover. A glance at his HUD showed he was almost out of ammo, so with a series of blinks his mag slid out and he smoothly slapped another in. Making sure the connection between his suit and the MA6 was still clear so it didn't run out of power mid fight. That would be bad.
He cursed again as the army soldier next to him received a beam through his skull, hitting the floor with a wet spalt, his shields and armour doing nothing to keep the concentrated energy out. Jackal snipers had infested the high arcologies for days now. Their burnt out ruins providing excellent view onto the fortified avenues where most of the fighting was done.
The movement of rubble to his left alerted him but a glance at his tracker showed a friendly IFF approaching. A few moments later, another Marine clutching an M405 DMR instead entered the building staying low and close to the walls until he reached the low wall Zaheed took cover behind, not even glancing at the dead body at his feet. Not many did now days. "Gunnery Sergeant." He greeted with a tired nod, his ICS covered in a mix of dust, mud and blood that almost completely hid the green tint underneath. He suspected his didn't look much different.
"Sergeant Major." He returned with his own nod, salutes were for ceremonies. "What's the word from up top?" He questioned, shifting once more to lay down fire as the Covenant's plasma weapons cycled to let off heat. This time joined by his associate, both returning in time as the fire got too hot, both literally and metaphorically.
"Shit's going down Massani." He began, "We just lost 3 arcologies on the west side and Covenant forces and pushing straight down the middle. It's only down to the recent reinforcements their holding at all." He spoke.
Zaheed rose an eyebrow underneath his helmet, "That bad Allman?" He questioned grimly.
"Worse." Allman replied, similarly grim. "Their throwing everything and the kitchen sink at them right now. Command expects them to start pushing this way soon."
"Shit" He cursed. "We got much to combat that?"
"We're being sent stuff to reinforce us but it might get here too late. Everyone is so low on rounds we've back to looting the dead. The Wolverines are low on batteries for their anti-air lasers, we've got little in the way of anti-tank never mind if they have shields or not we probably don't have enough to take out 2 groups of ghosts." He sighed and took off his helmet briefly to rub his eyes. He black cropped hair matted to his head and his green eyes red and tired. "The Panthers and the last Scorpions had to back further off up the avenue because the Hunters are getting bolder and the last Cobra we had entrenched just ran out of power cells."
"Shit." Zaheed cursed again.
"Shit doesn't even being to describe the situation kid." Allman muttered with a head shake. "Good news is that the word of God came through, the counter-attack will soon be in motion, we have to hold out 2 months give or take."
"What's the plan then?"
"Same as always, hold. We can't push, we have little room to manoeuvre and we're sure as hell not retreating." He spoke with a grin Massani could practically see underneath his helmet.
"Oorah!" Zaheed grunted with his own hidden grin. "Let's show these damn aliens what war is really like!" He yelled pouring down fire. His voice and actions followed by millions more.
Yes they will hold, and no alien race will ever tell them otherwise. Humans were the Apex predators in this galaxy, and it was time that the Covenant began learning that.
(End)
So here is the 2nd official chapter too my new story and I hoped you enjoyed the different perspectives, each will have their role to play, some perhaps more than others. Sorry for the long update though, nearly at the end of my exams now, but I'm also lazy so there that.
Anyway stay tuned for the next chapter.
-Red