Chapter 3
Desolas Arterius was not in a good mood. His flagship's port wing was completely destroyed, he was forced to wait for troops to commence a landing on the planet of these primitives (as that was the only thing they could be, using nuclear weapons and not having any eezo on their ships) as his force only had enough marines for protection against the extremely unlikely occurrence of boarders, and now he was going to miss his brother's post-promotion party as well as the ceremony itself. He was in a really bad mood indeed.
I was woken from my short nap by Greg telling me that we had an update from the Admiral. "She wants the survey units to tag as many of their ships with infiltration units as possible. I am already coordinating with the other Survey AIs to establish a pattern." I wasn't very surprised, given that this was a completely new enemy we were facing. Infiltration units were 50 by 2 centimeter probes, made of a small communications unit and very specialized nano-bots. They were launched at very low speed toward an enemy ship, and when they hit the nano-bots would slowly burrow into the enemy hull, find computer systems, and attach to them. The result being that our hacker AIs would have a fool proof way into the enemy systems. Slowly, the three survey fighters close enough to do any good changed course so that they would pass within a few thousand kilometers of the enemy fleet. As it happens, I was way too far away to get there before the admiral arrived (without completely blowing my cover that is), so I just focused on making sure that the enemy fleet didn't notice anything.
30 minutes later, the enemy cruiser, three of their mixed size ships, and 10 of their frigates were tagged, just waiting to be hacked.
The Turian fleet had been in the system for just over five and a half hours, and reinforcements were still another seven hours away. Desolas had his crews stand down from battle stations, given that these primitives had no more ships to use, and there was obviously no colonies given that they didn't have element zero.
Desolas was just about to go to his quarters himself, when his sensor officer spoke up. "Sir, I'm picking up a number of anomalies, it looks- Sir, I'm picking up 37 unidentified ships, same general design as the ones we just destroyed. I'm reading four dreadnoughts, three oversized dreadnoughts, though one is bigger than the rest, 10 oversized cruisers, and 20 frigates. Their launching fighters, I can't tell how many at the moment." Desolas immediately started shouting orders, "Get all crews to battle stations, launch fighters and prepare for combat. Do you have a fighter count yet?" he asked, turning back to his sensor officer. "Yes sir, there seems to be an advanced flight of 72 fighters, while the main body has 180. The thing is, I'm reading massive acceleration from all of their ships, the advanced fighters will be here in two minutes, the main body of fighters and most of the warships a minute after that, and the massive ships five minutes after them." Desolas had to think fast. He had no clue how a race without eezo could accelerate anywhere near that fast. Hell, even with eezo there was no way any council race could do that. He was just about to order the fleet to move back, to get some more time, when suddenly the entire ship heaved backwards.
"Report!" He yelled out to his bridge crew, who were thankfully unharmed aside from some bruises. "The advanced fighters launched some sort of missiles, but they accelerated ridiculously fast! They hit the forward frigates and fighters, it was almost like they were kinetic missiles. We were hit from the shockwave when one of the frigates eezo core collapsed. From what my sensors show- By the spirits, those fighters launched more missiles, same readings as the first group of ships we destroyed! Recommend we retreat sir, there is no way we can kill that many missiles before they get to us!" And he was right. Desolas watched speechless as over 70 missiles bore down on his fleet of now 15 ships after some of the frigates were destroyed. He knew there was no time to jump to FTL, not at the pace those missiles were going. Just as the missiles were about to hit however, they veered away, and detonated in megatons upon megatons of nuclear fury, but not harming a single ship.
"Sir, incoming message from the enemy fleet, I think. It just appeared in my inbox," said the communications officer. "Play it on speaker." Desolas ordered still somewhat shocked at what happened. "To all Turian ships, this is Rear Admiral Kastanie Drescher. You know we can easily destroy your entire fleet, in fact I would love to do nothing more. However, high command wants prisoners and tech intact, so I will offer this only once. Surrender now, shut down all systems on your ships except for life support, and prepare to accept a boarding party. If you don't comply by the time my ships arrive, then you will be destroyed." After the message ended, Desolas opened a channel to all of his ships and fighters. "All ships, this is General Arterius. I am calling the surrender, fighters return to their ships, all non-essential systems are to be shut down immediately. Marines are to place all weapons into the armory, and captains are to prepare to welcome a boarding party." Desolas turned to his bridge crew, "I'm going down to the number one air lock. Direct their boarders there." And he walked off the bridge.
15 Minutes Earlier
"Alright people here's the plan. We will enter the Shanxi system in just under 15 minutes. When we do, the carriers will launch all fighters, with 6 squadrons in the advanced group. They will launch their strike packages, targeting enemy frigates and fighters. Afterwards, they will launch one missile a piece, no need for them to know they can launch up to four at a time. These missiles will veer off at the last second, and scare these aliens into surrendering. I know everyone wants to just kill them all, but high command wants prisoners and technology. While this is happening, the AIs will be going through their data, prioritizing language and species data first so we can deliver demands. The second group will be the main body of fighters and all combat ships. They will either be accepting the enemy's surrender or killing then if they don't accept. The carriers will come in afterwards just in case. Any questions?" There were none, just as Admiral Drescher had thought. She had made the plan as simple and fool proof as possible, not wanting to screw up because of some ridiculously complex plan that took way to much brain power to execute.
Just under 15 minutes later, the Battle Group El Dorado entered into the system. "Okay people you know the plan. You don't need me looking over your shoulder." 'Chester, how are the hackers doing?' she asked her AI. 'Very well indeed. Most of the ships were hit with infiltrators, and they have no real defense against hacking at our level. As it happens we already have all the data needed to deliver demands, it wasn't even the protected stuff. Amateurs.' A couple minutes later, the demand had been sent, and the aliens (who she now knew were called Turians) had surrendered. "Call up the lead survey fighter, if you would." After a few seconds, the channel was open. "Admiral, you do know pickup is tomorrow right?" David Anderson said with a slight grin. "Yes, well, it seems there was a problem so I decided to come early. Go ahead and bring your squadron back, I have that a system survey will be the least of our worries in the near future." A few minutes later, and the 610th Fighter Squadron was once again aboard its home carrier.
Codex:
Mk-4 AI Infiltration Unit: These small probes are used so that AIs can be able to hack into enemy ships. With a miniature QCC unit, they can't be jammed, and the hardline connection they form with enemy computer systems can only be destroyed by physically cutting the connection (a hard thing to do when it literally is inside the ships plating).
Squadron Numbering System: Squadrons are numbered based on three things. The first number is their battle group (for instance the 610th is in the 6th battle group, and the 1410th is in the 14th battle group). The second number is what carrier in the battle group (the 610th is on the primary carrier, the 620th is on one of the assault carriers, and the 630th is on the other assault carrier). The final number is the squadron number, with 1 being the first squadron up to 0 being the 10th squadron.
AN: For those wondering, my schedule for uploading from here on out is going to be a chapter every Monday and then another every Thursday or Friday (depending on how fast I write the chapters).
AN2: Again, please rate and review.
Reviews:
cellester: That is the way I designed them. You have to remember, when using nuclear weapons regularly, there isn't much that can stop them. As such I went to the extremes.