Author's Note

I did say I would update soon, didn't I? Maybe not 19 hours soon, but I had this chapter for a little bit. This chapter is rather short, just a simple build up. The climax of this battle, both in space and on the ground is a little later. Enjoy!

High Earth Orbit, Sol System

Earth was ready as it ever could be. 4 fleets had been recalled to earth, and the Forerunners deployed a good portion of the Solace defence fleet from Forerunner space. 12 battle groups, focused around 12 dreadnoughts waited silently around Earth. The number of ships reached 468 vessels. And they were all staring menacing at the exact location the Turians dropped out of FTL.

Turian Vessel: Indomitable

Admiral Varius Artilius, of the newly formed suppression fleet, did not like the look of things. Perhaps he had every single Dreadnought made by the Turians in his fleet. Maybe he had a full third more ships than the Humans. He even had weaponry designed specifically for the RIS. He did not, however, have an 18 kilometre long Dreadnought. He certainly did not have 12 of them.

"Sir! We have a transmission from the RIS!"

"On screen."

What appeared was not what he expected. It was a simple countdown timer, starting from 3.

3…

2…

1…

At this point, every single RIS vessel, and every single orbital defence platform, on or around earth fired.

High Orbit Around Earth, Sol System

The flashes lit the area around Earth like the Fourth of July. A big Fourth of July. In space.

While human cruiser and Dreadnought fire was impressive, one object stole the show. The Turians had mistaken it for a skyscraper on Luna. It wasn't. It was the planetary railgun, set up over a hundred years earlier. And it still worked.

With a resounding Boom, a Turian cruiser erupted into flames. The massive cannon reoriented itself, and fired again on a frigate formation. The round flew straight through 6 frigates. The Turians sent a frigate Wolfpack to destroy the railgun. 36 frigates went to confront the gun. 8 came back.

It was time the Turians returned fire. After seeing how well the detonation of eezo cores were against the "Peace Through Sacrifice", the Salarians quickly rushed a new type of missile through development. It had decommissioned drive cores in the warhead, designed to detonate upon impact, or its destruction.

The Turians launched the missiles in swarms, not completely trusting the new tech.

They proved to be immensely effective. Because shields had absolutely no effect on gravity, the warheads ripped meters of armour off of the Human warships, outright destroying several. They even managed to fatally damage a heavy cruiser.

Then, the Humans adapted, spacing out battlegroups to minimise the area of effect for the missile's detonation. This was exactly what the Turians wanted.

Exploiting the sudden gap in defences, hundreds of Turian troop transports deployed from their respective dreadnoughts and cruisers. While many transports did not make it through the human's stretched defensive line, almost 700 transports, carrying over 20 troops each, made it into Earth's atmosphere. They all deployed into the region of "London"