Citadel – Council chambers
''Run through that one more time for me?'' Tevos, the asari councilor, asked.
'' we were pursuing the pirates as ordered when we backed them into a corner against an un-activated relay. We engaged them and after our first volley the relay activated bringing a small research ship through, a batarian opened fire on it and destroyed it. After a further wait a battlegroup slightly smaller than my fleet cam through and immediately opened fire on us. The batarians moved to assist us and we disabled their fleet save a dreadnaught and damaged destroyer, then IT came through'', IT was what they came to call the fleet that had outright destroyed their fleet in almost a single volley.
''Yes, you say they had D.E.W. Weapons?'' the salarian councilor asked – dantius.
''Yes ma'am, they were of different design and used no Eezo. We believe them to be of a different race.'' and ever the sarcastic one sparatus said '' what lead you to believe that, the different design, weaponry or the fact that a single species would never use two different tecnoligies?''
''Anyway, they came through and after our first volley they seemed to be communicate with the other dreadnaught before opening fire on us. The D.E.W. Tore through the ship ignoring shields and their strategies were highly organised. I would personally say the first group were like krogan, brash and impulsive while the second group were turian like, militaristic and exact. Everything they done maximised our losses and minimised theirs''.
Tevos interrupted before Sparatus could get any more irate ''Desolias, although running is not in the turian way – I feel you did the right thing'', with a quesioning look from the turians and a nod from the salarian she continued '' had you stayed, fought and lost we would never know of this D.E.W. Weilding enemy until it was too late, for now however – you are on leave until further noti-''
She was interrupted by a young C-sec turian bursting in, ''Councillors, unidentified ships in the cluster – they sent first contact and from what we know they want to speak with you!''
Dantius was the first to respond ''understood Officer Vakarian, can you personally bring them and a willing asari officer for a meld here?''
''Yes Councilor!''
Destiny Ascension
Matriarch Lidanya, captain of the flagship of the citadel fleet, watched as a moment that would decide the future of not only the citadel species 0but also these new 'orion's arm' species in a make or break moment, ''Comms. Send them the docking plan, sensors keep an eye on their output'' this was met with a string of ''aye aye'' before ''confirmed'' and then,
''Ma'am, detecting energy buildup across the spetrum!'' the Matriarch had no idea why this came as a surprise, this was a species that had the firepower to eliminate a turian patrol fleet.
''Open fire, we cannot allow that dreadnaught to fire on us!''
HMS Duke of Cambridge
Captain Hawthorne had been standing on the bridge when his comms. Officer had informed him a docking plan had been received, he ordered engineering to power up the engines but his sensors operator interrupted him mid-sentence ''Sir!massive energy build-up across the enemy fleet! Theyre going to open fire!'' Hawthorne was completely taken back by this, why would a species that seemed so open to diplomacy suddenlyhave a change of heart?
''Helmsman, get us out of here!''
''Where to sir?''
''anywhere in Human space!''
''Aye aye, plotting course''
Just as the fleet was about to make the jump the flagship opened fire, ripping the newly commissioned destroyer HMS Duncan to shreds. After sticking around just long enough to see that there was indeed no survivors, the fleet was gone.
Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, Military HQ
''This was an unprovoked attack on Her Majesties forces, we must retaliate!'' Brigadier General Montreal all but screamed at the command staff.
''We will respond but first we must assess the situation, Captain Hawthorne, what is your assessment of this situation?''
''Sirs and Ma'ams, the Mark I's and II's tore there dreadnaughts to shreds – I believe if we utilize them to the extremes then we will be able to successfully repel any attempted invasion of our sovereign territory, we are however left with two choices regarding this''.
''Which are?'' Prince Phillip, the Duke of Edinburgh and Lord High Admiral of the Navy asked,
''We can either play to this strength and build more destroyers and dreadnaughts with these weapons assuming the enemy gives us long enough to complete them, or we can go for the easier produced defensive destroyers and protect the dreadnaughts we have and slowly replace and add more dreadnaughts as time goes on'', another recommendation I would have for the army and Marines would be the implementation of the new Atlas mechs, mass produce them and if their ship board weapons are anything to go by then their infantry would have to outnumber an atlas at least 25 to 1 in order to bring it down. Pair them with a contingent of an infantry platoon at a time and perhaps 2 atlas' per new Challanger II tank and our ground forces will be supreme''.
Citadel Council chambers
'There was a large power build-up at the time which we believed to be them charging their main weapon and so we opened fire destroying one of their destroyers, when we went to investigate it self destructed and all we got was some pretty metals. Upon review we believe that the ship was actually powering up it's engine and we were just jumpy over the rumours of their spinal weapon'', that will be all Matriarch Lidanya. Tevos was normally the voice of reason though today one of her 'jumpy' matriarchs may have just started a war.
''we should attack now, before they have time to gather their forces'', as much as tevos hated to admit it she was inclined to agree sparatus though she would wait to see what dantius had to say first.
''No, I believe we need to find another point of entry into their space and use it to open diplomatic communications and if that goes wrong then we can use it for military strategical purpouses. With everyone agreed it was settled, STG would look for a backdoor into the unknown enemies space and see what they could find.
2 Years Later
Over the past 2 years the council had spent it's time looking for a dorr that never existed while HME's Royal Navy's stealth ship's had been dropping in and out of citadel space as they pleased, the AF, union and USA had all grown restless over the actions at relay 314 at were all building there militaries up – the royal navy had been to though they hid just how much the Navy and Army had grown over the past 2 years, Her Majesties Armed Forces were now the largest Human fighting force, almost as large as the Union and AF armed forces combined, and now numbered at:
NAVY:
Carriers: 30
Dreadnaughts: 60
Destroyers: 480 Destroyers
Frigates: 2,880
Fighters: 30,170
Seekers: 15
Personnel: 2,783,176
ARMY
Tanks: 100,000
Atlas: 300,000
IFV: 300,000
Assorted Vehicles: 651,000
Infantry Personnel: 7,589,542
Assorted Personnel: 3,542,567
Total Personnel: 13,934,109
Special Forces Personnel: [Sensored]
Having tripled in size over the last 2 years and numbering above the USA in all but manpower, though technologically superior and more efficient, HMAF are a truly awe inspiring force.
High Command had decided that they would go through the relay with 2 battlegroups and leave a further 5 Battlegroups within a minutes jump at any given time and the remainder of the fleet spread throughout the Empires space. The 2 'spear-head' battlegroups were to invade and secure the first citadel planet they come across before opening talks for negitiations, if they attempted to liberate the world reinforcements would be sent from one of the 5 battlegroups on standby while the others attacked the point of origin of the enemy fleet.
Now Rear-Admiral Hawthorne would be to lead the battlegroup aboard his flagship, the newly commissioned Prince of Wales V2 Class Dreadnaught, the HMS Duke Of Edinburgh, his job was simple, engage any targets deemed hostile and eliminate them 0 prisoners would be nice though, considering those Salarian Spec-Ops they captured were downright silent about anything other than species, name and rank – well bred military men, alien, things...
Destiny Class dreadnaught – the Pride of Thessia
Matriarch Archelia T'Veross was not a happy woman. After the horrible first contact with this new alien species she was deployed here, by relay 314, to patrol and make sure no attacks were coming. She may have been in command of a dreadnaught in the largest class in citadel space, but she doubted that an asari dreadnaught backed up by two turian dreadnaughts and there destroyer and frigate escort would be able to repel a full on invasion.
She was brought from her thoughts by a sensor operator alerting her to the relay activating, from the other side. The ships she had read about came through, but the reports done them no justice. All sharp edges but still flowing like a thessian painting, dark black finish but the singular thing that stood out the most – was the strange rectangular insignia; a white box with a red vertical/horizontal cross and a misture of red/white/blue in the top left quadrant which sat further from her on the ships bow and was followed by White marks in what she assumed was the species native toungue, she ordered her optical operator to snap pictures of each ship and upload them to the database – perhaps someone could make sense of it.
Then the behemoth came through. Though only slightly larger than the dreadnaughts, the presence of this ship made it look thrice as large – it could possibly be larger than the Destiny class ships. Though stunned for a moment, the good little turian soldiers followed their orders to fire on anything that came through. She was about to give the oredr to do the same but then the turian capital ship went up in flames from a shot fired outside of her vision. When the sensors operator finally pinpointed what it was, T'Veross didn't like what she saw; another, identical fleet to the one currently engaging her. After what felt like a few seconds but in reality was a few minutes, the turian fleet was left in tatters and then they were being hailed – she had comms put it up on the screen. She had been hoping to get a good look at these creatures but was only mildly surprised when a helmeted figure came into her view. After 7 minutes of talking in his native toungue, very alien though it still ran off the toungue in a way no other citadel race could what with their clicks and squaks etc, he began speaking in asari and directly said,
''We have hacked your database and compiled a translation software, power down all non-essential systems and be prepared to be boarded. Any ship that resists will be destroyed.
A/N:
Fairly short chapter though the next will be longer and will be the WAR part of this.