It took the Turians another week to determine their enemy's base, during which time they succeeded in constructing the basic framework of the supply space station, though what the scout returned was not what they expected. While they had expected either an early colony or homeworld of a species relatively new to spaceflight, they instead saw thirty-six ships cruiser size or larger with two that looked like the old Quarian shape.
"Spirits," breathed Sparatus when he saw the report, "Coms, contact command and patch this through. We'll need at least two more dreadnaughts for everything to be even."
The delay ended up costing the Turians another week to mobilize the other ships and their support craft, and then another week passed as the other Councilors discovered something was up and analyzed the situation before allowing the Turians to proceed with their plans.
All through this time the human probes continued their search for the rally point.
\n
"Okay, who wants to play cards or something? There's enough nervous energy going on that I'm gonna be driven to molt what feathers I have, and I really don't want to know what that feels like!" Udina asked giving voice to what many people on the ship were thinking, "Hell, I'd even be willing to play that Mao game of yours."
Shepard chuckled, "I know you actually like that game, but since you insist on hating it I guess you could watch the sensors while the rest of us played a few rounds."
Shepard barely managed to pull out his card deck when alarms sounded and Margaret said, "Multiple contacts just detected on a ballistic course from the sun… command's been alerted."
"Sir, we're receiving positioning orders and command is instructing us to tackle one of the dreadnaughts for as long as we can," Udina relayed from his terminal.
"Understood, helm, make it so," with that Shepard leaned back and muttered to himself, "Cry havoc! And let slip the dogs of war. But once they are unleashed how will we control them?"
"Great, now I'm not sure if I should get onto you for copying a character over a century old, needlessly quoting Shakespeare, or being depressing," Margaret said on their private channel.
"I second that," muttered Udina.
With that the bridge lapsed into silence as the fleet moved to face the enemy and mark targets.
\n
"Sir, the enemy fleet has moved to face us and are signalling for us to stand down."
Sparatus frowned, "Inform them that due to their unprovoked hostile actions against our personnel attempting to inform them of Council law we are here to bring the aggressors to justice. If they surrender them, we will be willing to cease hostilities and open diplomatic negotiations."
"Message sent," after a few minutes the com operator frowned at his screen, "Sir they're telling us to go back to our council and, that's not even possible."
Sparatus growled in annoyance, "Instruct the fleet to jump to the planets pole, they shall learn that it is not prosperous to attack someone for upholding the law."
With that order all ships jumped to geosynchronous orbit of the planet and, from the local perspective, appeared in two places at once.
\n
"Enemy fleet just appeared over the southern pole. Sun interfered with our sensors so we couldn't detect the jump," reported Gadsden, one of the sensor operators.
Shepard sprang into action, "Coms, relay this to the fleet. Helm, bring us about. Weapons, gun status?"
"Operational and locked on target."
Shepard nodded, "Good. Sensors finish converting the scanners yesterday." Shepard received the affirmative and muttered, "Margaret, make sure command knows about solar radiation masking the signatures."
"Command's ordering all ships to move to the outer perimeter and engage the enemy," Udina grimaced, "and a private message to us saying that we're to keep the dreadnaught tackled until we have to engage the Samson procedure."
Shepard frowned, "Understood, I want everything ready for that eventuality."
"Ready to tackle on your command," said Gadsden.
Shepard had a feral grin, "As soon as we get in range fire. Keep that ship tackled, full spectrum and see if you can't overload their sensors. Margaret, disable the safeties on the reactors and funnel the energy into the sensors, keep them from going critical though."
Suddenly the ship shuddered as it joined the fleet in firing and battle was joined.
\n
Sparatus frowned at his console, two of the enemy dreadnaughts were not firing at either the rate or strength of the other three, yet at least one seemed to have a way to disable one of his ships, "Target down the carriers, we can't afford their payload to get here. After that focus down that front dreadnaught. And I want a team to find out whatever they did to our dreadnaught."
He did not bother to see that his orders were obeyed before turning his attention back to the battle displays. The battle appeared to be one between Turian discipline and experience and this species' unorthodox designs. Their main guns were inefficient, only able to fire once every eight seconds, so they added more to all but two of their ships, and of those two one was staying back like a normal dreadnaught while the other was practically leading their cruisers while doing something to disable a dreadnaught. Add in the fact that they were making heavy use of drones (not manned fighters but unmanned drones!) and how some of their ships seemed to just deflect the shots coming at them, and this situation was shaping up to possibly be a watershed moment for the Council.
Sparatus shook his head, there was time for those thoughts later right now he had a battle to win. He smiled it looked like Turian discipline would win the day, that dreadnaught was further breaking ranks and charging. There! The latest shot had broken through its barriers and it was venting atmosphere. Escape pods were launched so a reactor breach was imminent, the shot must have done more damage than expected. Then all of a sudden it vanished and sensors were indicating a massive explosion on their port side.
He immediately jumped into action, "Someone tell me what the hell just happened!"
\n
A few minutes prior. HCS Phoenix
The ship shook as another shield generator failed under the onslaught.
"Command's ordering all ships to fall back over the cannons," Udina reported while studiously ignoring the flickering lights.
Shepard shook his head, "Too late for us. When the shields fail I want everyone to the escape pods. Margaret, get ready to transfer to your mobile unit. Udina, inform command that this tactic needs either better shielding or larger guns to survive because they've been pounding us since the fight started and we aren't rated for this abuse."
Another impact shook the ship and Gadsden hit her console, "They just took out our main sensor array and their ship is already broadcasting."
Shepard frowned, "That's it then, all personal to their assigned pods. Margaret, I want those things landing behind the perimeter."
With that the bridge was abandoned save for Shepard, Udina, and Gadsden, who was pointedly ignoring Shepard's stare.
"Sir, with all due respect, we both know AI are shit at finding patterns in sensor data to the level needed for our jump," was her answer to the unspoken command, "There, coordinates are locked in for the drive.
Shepard just grunted from where he had taken over the helm, extensive cross-training was the norm not the exception, and activated the FTL drive to the programmed coordinates. The three people left on the bridge then ran to the last life pod to escape what would follow.
As the pod fled the ship a screen showed just what was happening. Mass effect based drive cores for some reason were incapable of allowing collisions at superluminal speeds, however they could be used to place a ship within meters of another object. This technicality led to the creation of the Samson Procedure for dying ships because, while not as devastating as if one was superluminal, the tons of metal required for a seven hundred meter ship would overwhelm even the best kinetic barriers. This mixed with the overloading of all reactors would utterly destroy the ship and disable the target at minimum with the final attack.
The Turians discovered this lesson when one of their dreadnaughts suddenly went up in a blinding flash of light that left only warped metal where before were two of the ships that dwarfed all others present.
The unintended side effects of this were twofold. First, the Turians were stunned into inactivity which allowed the Human forces to pull back behind their perimeter. Second, while there is no air in space to cause a shockwave, the movement of the ship during impact threw the life pod off course and they landed in farmland around one hundred miles from the defensive trench lines.
The hapless farmer then had the unfortunate job of pulling their unconscious forms from the large furrow they dug in his field.
Meanwhile the Human fleet used the distraction caused by the fusion reactor loosing containment and vaporizing two ships to pull back from the stunned Turian fleet.
\n
When Sparatus, and most of the fleet, recovered from the sudden destruction of one of their dreadnaughts and the cause was determined he began snapping instructions, "All ships are to make disabling engines a priority and deploy fighters to prevent them from doing another short range jump. Once that's done reform ranks and pursue the enemy.
The fleet did as instructed and began to steadily advance.
Suddenly one of the sensor operators called out, "I'm picking up a massive energy surge on the continent. Anti-orbital canon just fired."
Before anyone could react the Dauntless' shields flared briefly before collapsing and the slug tore a hole in the ship.
"Sir, the Dauntless is reporting severe damage and their spinal mount is shot. Captain says the round barely missed the drive core," reported a com operator.
Sparatus growled, this enemy kept pulling out one trick after another, "Pull the fleet back towards the pole and prepare ground forces to deploy. And someone find out why we didn't detect that canon until it was punching a hole in our ships."
\n
Meanwhile on the ground General Williams grinned as he watched the tactical display, "Welcome to hell you metal heads, in this lesson you'll be discovering what we learned from a history of constant warfare." He then turned his attention to his staff, "Get messages out and make sure the artillery has enough shells, take the needed estimate and make sure we have double that ready to be moved at any point in time. And somebody get out there to recover those life pods, I don't want any of our people experiencing the enemy's hospitality."
"Sir, message just came in from central: they've decided on Warplan Blitz, you have full local command," said one of the orderlies.
Williams grin somehow turned more feral, "Excellent, relay my complements to the team that designed the krakens they just made our strategy viable." While his staff scurried to fill his orders he looked out the window at the assembled artillery chuckled softly to himself, "I'm reminded of an old quote, 'Cannon, noun. An instrument employed in the rectification of national boundaries.' It seems appropriate, now let's get to rectifying these invaders."
\n
At the very same instant across the galaxy Councilor Maxilinus frowned at the latest report from the front as he entered his office only to freeze when someone coughed. He jerked his head up to see Councilors Tevos and Jaexo standing in front of his desk.
Tevos' eyes narrowed as she interrupted his attempt to speak, "Would you care to explain why you've suddenly moved a battle group of five dreadnaughts into what is supposed to be a secure region of space?"
Maxilinus groaned, it was looking like a long day.
Planetary defense tactics: While intelligence indicates that most other races are willing to disperse throughout the countryside and wait for reinforcement in the case of losing orbital control, human commanders deemed this an unacceptable option. This resulted in the current strategy of heavy defensive lines centered around population centers and anti-orbital cannons with support given for guerrilla operations behind enemy lines. Those who have seen the details have been noted commenting that it looked like an attempt at giving the enemy a recreation of WWI mixed with experience from guerrilla campaigns from the last two centuries, only with modern weaponry up to tactical nuclear weapons if the situation is deemed critical.
Kraken anti-orbital cannon: A modern marvel of terrestrial engineering and a monument to the lengths humanity will go to defend its territory, the kraken is a two mile long railgun imbedded in the planets crust that fires a one ton slug (either ferrotungsten or depleted uranium depending on resource availability) at speeds capable of breaking a (human) dreadnaughts shields after two hits at full power (barring deflection via shaped shielding). This is made possible by the introduction of mass effect fields along the barrel length to reduce the projectile's mass significantly. This has a side effect of causing a significant shockwave around the firing site, therefore shielding is required to prevent damage to the surrounding area. The weapons power is provided by capacitor banks charged by two dedicated fusion generators (one per mile segment), and is capable of charging and firing once every five minutes. However the stresses involved at firing at this rate quickly damage components requiring replacements, hence the fire rate is limited to once per eight minutes (due to continued risk of damage the average rate is once every ten minutes), therefore the cannons are normally deployed in an array so as to also make up for their limited firing arcs (only capable of firing within an arc from sixty to one hundred twenty degrees).
GP-46 rifle: The result of significant effort to combine mass effect technology with the best advantages of standard infantry rifles, the GP-46, standing for general purpose model forty-six, combines the precision of weapons such as the M14 with the famed durability of the Kalashnikov. As could be expected the early versions were dismal failures riddled with design flaws that either jammed easily or failed to maintain precision, had heat issues, and were still plagued with the problem of having ammo. During the past two decades these issues have been hammered out resulting in a weapon that, while it falls short of the Kalashnikov's indestructability, is capable of going through conditions that would have left a purely mass effect based rifle inoperable while maintaining acceptable precision, though there is a notable difference between a pristine rifle and one in those conditions.
-Ammunition: 7.62 NATO, velocity boosted using magnetic coils and mass effect fields, has secondary mass effect based barrel below and slightly to the right of the main barrel
-Ammo capacity: thirty (30) round magazine, if out of ammo has a built in block that functions the same as those found in purely mass effect based rifles
-Heat management: has three heatsinks that rotate out and air-cool, empty magazines can also function as an emergency heatsink when mass accelerator barrel is in use.
Samson Maneuver: Named after the mythical Samson who pulled the temple down with him, the Samson Maneuver is the final act of defiance of a human ship and only used when there is either no hope of survival or a pitched battle is underway. The ship will jettison life pods before doing a in system jump to lightspeed to just off the intended target, once the jump finishes it will proceed to ram the targeted ship while disabling the containment fields around the fusion reactors resulting in both vessels destruction.
A/N: had a bit of a writing delay here, it's surprisingly difficult to either get hold of people for a physics discussion when they're at a beach party, though not as hard as writing space battles, they're surprisingly dull despite how frantic they can be given that it's basically giant guns strapped to tin cans silently firing at each other. or maybe i should just stick to the small scale engagements, big stuff gets... impersonal
and in regards to the "\n"s, i needed something to keep things from getting too jumbled and the full lines are used for major things so i just used that since it's the newline command in java (hence the closest thing to a blank space filler i could find) and shorter than doing -break-
oh and thought processes on two things:
one: Turian response size is the level it is since they're thinking the surveyors and cruisers are dreadnaughts
two: Kraken weapon strength: most dreadnaughts shields are probably to scale of known spinal guns (ie. the Destiny Ascension) and wouldn't waste the energy trying to stop something that didn't exist such as a two mile long railgun. It should also be noted that due to the speeds involved the slug would likely be molten as it impacted in a similar fashion to a thranix cannon (actually just realized this...), however as noted these things would devastate the surrounding area without shielding (as is they tend to be placed on the outskirts of urban areas instead of in the middle so nothing gets destroyed)
edit: an error slipped by and my inner nerd fell asleep and allowed a mistake that has been fixed