A/N: After a long Hiatus, caused by the many difficulties at school, I decided it was finally time to pick up the pace and continue this story.
Chapter 4: Liberation
Avatar System, 2257
The Admiral stood at the bridge of the Dreadnought, looking over to the space towards the massive gas giant which Pandora orbited… and Pandora itself, beautiful and with life similar to that of Earth. His mind started to wander around the implications of his species expanding through the stars as they were. Wondering if, in the end, it was the right choice for Humanity to get out of the Solar System.
"We have a visual, Admiral." The man's thought process was interrupted by a feminine Raloi voice.
"Good, then put it on screen." Admiral Kastanie Drescher said, then the image took shape within the holographic screen. It was a large one-kilometre-long vessel, a Dreadnought if one was to judge by its main gun. The behemoth was accompanied by several ships which seemed like Cruisers, Frigates and Fighters.
"No carriers?" Kastanie asked.
"None. They seem to have limited themselves to large weaponry. Their number of fighters doesn't seem to be nearly as high as ours." This was an interesting difference between the combat doctrines of both the invaders which called themselves 'Batarians' and the Systems Alliance. "They are hailing us sir. Do we respond? The Pandorans gave us a translation software for the Alien language, so it may be a good time to test it."
"They are invading sovereign Human space, enslaving our people and expect us to enter dialog as easily?... Eh, let's humour them." Kastanie answered, and soon enough the image of the beautiful and lush Planet which was Pandora, orbited by the Batarian fleet, was replaced by the image of a gross-looking creature. It was humanoid, yes, but four eyed and with a disgusting grey-toned skin. It also had remarkably sharp teeth, probably a product of evolution as a predatory species.
"You have infringed Batarian Space, Human." Actually, this was Systems Alliance Space. These aliens sure had a nerve. "Deactivate your drive cores and surrender to be processed as Prisoners of War." The Batarian said, a toothy smirk and a slightly arrogant tone was heard from his voice. This just gave him a cold laugh from Kastanie.
"Ha! That's a good one! People, cut the comms. I'm getting a lot of bullshit from this channel." The Admiral ordered. "We have already discussed the battle plan. Just execute it." He sat down on his chair.
Sword of Kar'Shan, Batarian Dreadnought
"The enemy is two Dreadnought-sized vessels, though one of them possesses no main weapon. It is a distinct class from their Dreadnought analogue, the other one." The Batarian tech expert said, after the communications were cut.
"Why would they waste such a large amount of resources on that?" Fleet-Master Ferish Dhag'garr asked.
"Unsure… Wait. They are deploying fighters from the large ship! Their weapons are heating up!"
"Evasive manoeuvres!" The Fleet-Master shouted. "A one-kilometre long support vessel? That's interesting..." Ferish thought to himself. Perhaps, the Hegemony could have something to learn from these beasts after all.
Earth, North American Administrative Unit
"Hey Tony! Did you hear?" A short, brown-skinned guy asked his taller friend who was holding hands with some girl. The environment in particular was the recess during some high school, ages around 16 to 17.
"Er… What? They made a new tower in Parnack or something?" Tony asked. His friend had always been a little bit infatuated with building projects, and other related fields.
"No! Nothing like that!... You really haven't heard? We are at war." The friend said, activating his omnitool towards a news feed. "The government has told us just today. Apparently this race has attacked Pandora." He then showed the image of a Batarian, Tony's eyes widened, he let go of the girl's hand and quickly got his omnitool to try and contact a number. The call did not go through, he then frowned.
"You okay?" The girl asked.
"He's got family there." Tony's friend stated.
"What he said." Tony answered, then stood up and with a relatively quick pace. His older sister and her husband had gone there as colonists, which didn't bode well. As he took his omnitool, he read the horrid news… Slavery, slaughter of civilians, the mobilisation of the entire Alliance Forces.
He sat down lonely on some corner, remembering the times his sister had told him about wanting to live an 'Exciting life at the frontier colonies'... So stupid, he had warned her several times. He looked at a video feed, in there stood Ahmed Gonzales who was also known as the Chairman of the Alliance, giving a conference.
Pandora's Orbit, Avatar System
In the vastness of space, the two opposing fleets stood. On one side were the Batarians, invaders and makers of slaves. On the other was Humanity and her allies, the supposed defenders of freedom and target of the Invasion.
A few seconds passed, it all lay breathlessly still… Then the first shot was sent, followed by hundreds more. A spectacle of lights formed as the main canons fired, the lethally beautiful show which was a space fight. As both fleets moved to intercept and destroy each other, one couldn't help but look at the sight of this wondrous annihilation. Both militaries engaged in a sort of brutal dance, in which hundreds of little pieces of debris flew and hundreds of marines lost their lives in the matter of minutes… Yet the void remained as silent as it ever was. Why would it ever care about a couple specks of stardust fighting over some rock?
The Batarian Fleet possessed great power on its own, and it held a strong line from where the main weapons and batteries shot their volleys. But it was, undoubtedly, being slowly pushed back by the relentless assault incurred by the Admiral Kastanie Drescher's Second Fleet. The human fleet, even though clearly following a formation, was a much more flexible. The one Dreadnought in the fleet, accelerating each of its 20 kg slugs at about 1.3% the speed of light, was supported by the additional firepower of the cruisers, the mobility of the frigates and the swarms of fighters deployed from the Carrier. In a way, the fighters coming out of the Carrier were reminiscent to thousands of angered bees coming out of their hive.
Blinding lights, scorching fire, deafening sounds where they could be heard and a deathly silence in the empty void which hit like hard rock to those souls unfortunate enough to reach its grasp. Panic. A sense of organized chaos, a maddening feeling similar to when one stands at a room full of clocks all ticking at different times… The slow but steady way in which the Batarians lost space turned into a full retreat. It all happened so quickly... Then the madness all stopped.
Losses didn't reserve themselves to only ships or money, but also many more lives. But the battle on the void was hardly fought, and valiantly won. In a matter of minutes after the spectacle of death, the ships deployed many of their Marines into the Batarian-occupied human colony. They weren't brought over through shuttles, but thrown violently from space en masse, thanks to the Orbital Insertion Pods.
Arcturus Station, Alliance Space
"Ladies and Gentlemen. Fellow Alliance citizens; Human, Raloi and Yahg…" The Chairman started, as the room was silent. "For many years, humanity thought they were alone in the universe… Then my species found the Prothean ruins. We thought other intelligent life was long gone, but shortly after we found Raloi and Yahg in the cradle of their homeworlds, then they joined our ranks as brothers and sisters. For almost two centuries of space travel, we thought we were the only space-faring civilization left in the galaxy... It turns out, once again, that we were wrong."
The whole crowd, understandably, gasped as they saw the images of Batarian soldiers slaughtering civilians.
"These people, if we could call them that, these... Monsters call themselves the Batarians and have an interstellar government known to itself as the 'Batarian Hegemony'. They, as a group of people, still practice atrocities such as slavery, mass rape and genocide." Tension was felt in the air, as the images of the occupied zones of Pandora were shown.
"We are taking immediate action to protect our worlds and our people. Every fleet is now on standby, and the Second Fleet has already been sent to liberate the Avatar System." He said. "With the power given to me by the constitution, I request that war is declared by the Systems Alliance, against the Batarian Hegemony. For their crimes against our people to be paid, and for the future of our children to be safeguarded, we must now go on the offensive."
Codex Updated: Human Contributions to Galactic Warfare
Orbital Insertion
Direct Orbital Insertion is a revolutionary concept of warfare brought over by the humans to the galaxy. It came into place during the Frontier War (2143-2157) as a daring (and desperate) tactic employed by the UNSA Military to retake worlds held by rebel forces. At first, such tactic proved to have a high mortality rate and was deemed as too costly. But war and the constant improvement of Orbital Insertion Pods made it an effective tactic to launch soldiers directly from the ships, into the target planet.
Currently, it is standard for all branches of the Systems Alliance Military to receive training on the use of Orbital Insertion Pods during warfare.
Thermal Clips
Before the Human-Batarian War, the usual way all Eezo-based weapons operated was through the use of many modulated bursts to prevent overheating. While virtually unlimited ammunition was an advantage, the use of slow bursts proved to be cumbersome when fighting. To this, Humans ideated a response. Thermal Clips.
Rather than using the usual heating system of the old weapons, Humans designed a cheap and disposable heat sink to replace it. With none of the slow cooling issues, and a greater liberty of putting rounds down range on a quicker manner, thermal clips were of great aid when fighting against Batarian ground forces during the early and middle stages of the conflict.
Carriers
For Citadel Races, the first thing that came to one's mind when building the largest ship possible was adding to it the longest cannon that could be afforded, hence the creation of a dreadnought. Human focus on mobility, flexibility and the liberal use of fighters has changed this. Rather than adding a massive cannon running across the entire ship, humanity opted to instead use its space to carry both fighter squadrons and supplies. This, effectively turning the vessels into giant support ships and movable base of operation for hundreds of fighters.
Carriers, even though as large as a Dreadnought, conveniently circumvent the Treaty of Farixen set in Citadel Space (which establishes a ratio of 1:3:5 for Associate Species, Council Races and Turians in that order). As such, it has gotten many nervous. With some politicians calling for the Treaty of Farixen to be renewed, in order to include carriers within the parameters. Such a move, though, has not been able to pull through.