AN: Alright folks another chapter, war has come to Shanxi.

Guest1: Still a trash fic eh? I can't fix it if you tell me what the problem is.

F86: Thank you, also what the hell is FMA?

Another thing is that I am rectoning the UNSC prefix from UNSCDFS to UNSCN.

Also, one Earth second is two Citadel Seconds by using the formula to calculate a Base 10, a Citadel kilometer is 500-meters. That said, I am not the best at math so if my tactic for finding the length for Citadel Light Second distance is wrong, please tell me and explain how to fix it then I will.

Let's get this show rolling.


0435 Hours, February 9th, 2625 (Military Calendar)

Shanxi-Theta System, Shanxi III, Planet Shanxi

Hostile Command Post

Sierra G099, also known as Ash, knew he was in trouble when the blue-white bolt of fire ripped through his kinetic barriers like they weren't there and smashed into his chest plate with enough force to cause his feet to leave the ground amid a sickening cracking sound. To make matters worse, his shotgun flew out of his hands.

The chest plate for the standard issue Army Guardian Hardsuit that he wore was some four centimeters thick, composed of molecularly reinforced Titanium-A2, along with boron fibers, and scaled ceramics, it could absorb an insane amount of punishment.

This shot punched a deep dent into the plate at the point of impact and caused a spider web of cracks to propagate across it. Warnings flashed across Ash's HUD as he slammed into the ground hard, one of the warnings that flashed across his HUD indicated that he had a cracked rib, painful but not lethal. Hell something like that would barely slow him down, it was just an inconvenience for a Spartan.

The sound of running footsteps complicated matters slightly. Ash pulled himself up to his feet as four Turians surrounded him, their weapons leveled at his chest. "Surrender human, your outnumbered and surrounded."

Despite himself, Ash openly laughed before turning serious. "Surrender?" He asked as he pulled his Plasma Saber and Magnum off of their mag-clamps. "Haven't you heard? Spartans don't surrender." he ignited the plasma saber, a meter and a half of blade of crackling energy that was slightly curved with a rather thin triangular blade and a slightly curved tip, perfect for both hacking and stabbing, sprang to life. "And I am surrounded by dead men."

Then he blurred forth in an explosion of motion. The Turians were probably gaping at him. The magnum boomed three times in rapid succession at the heavy weapons specialist who had a grenade launcher, the first two rounds slammed into his kinetic barriers and caused them to fail spectacularly as the slugs exploded against his armor their mass reduced to the point that they couldn't penetrate, the third one however retained enough mass to punch through his helmet and thus caused his head to burst apart like a melon.

The leader was just staring at him in what had to be shock, the blade swung in a lethal arc, sliced through the kinetic barriers as if they weren't there and seperated the bird's head from it's shoulders. Another lunged at him, the primary melee weapon for the Turian Hierarchy activated and aiming for his chest.

The Spartan batted the strike aside with ease before burying his own blade into the Turian's gut and yanking upward and out. The poor bastard dropped to the ground shrieking in pain. Ash knew that after getting skewered by a plasma blade, the chances of well anyone, even for a Spartan getting back up were incredibly low just because of how much damage the blade did as it passed through it's target.

The last Turian was rapidly back-pedalling from the wholesale slaughter, spraying his Assault Rifle in a blind panic at him. The magnum boomed four times in rapid succession and the last Turian dropped to the ground, a hole the size of Ash's hand in it's torso.

Then he barked "Sniper! The fucker got Tersis!"

"I am on it two!" Mark replied.

Ash's well developed sixth sense suddenly shouted at him to move. He twisted to the left and not a moment too soon for a blue-white bolt of fire slashed through the space that his head had just occupied. Realizing just how bad of a spot he was in, the Spartan shifted his position, making sure to scoop up the fallen enemy grenade launcher. An instant later, something streaked past overhead and Mark's voice came on. "Got the bastard."

"Affirmative three."

Suddenly an enemy IFV roared around the corner and promptly opened fire. Ash swore vehemently over the comm and began to evade the IFV's relentless fire. "Big snag here boss!" The Spartan III said as he flashed his status light red.

"I see it two, give me a second." Fred replied.

"Make it quick!" Ash replied as he dove behind the dead hulk of an enemy tank. The vehicle's smoldering corpse began shaking violently as the IFV hammered it with shells. Suddenly there was a flash of green and an explosion. "Target destroyed, all units be advised, I am empty on heavy weapons ammunition."

"Copy that" Ash replied as he came under fire again from hostiles. He rolled to the left and leveled the grenade launcher, the weapon emitted a loud choom and hurled the explosive device into their midst. The explosion chunked two of the aliens and maimed four others with high velocity sharpnel.

The survivors took cover and opened fire with their assault rifles forcing the Spartan back into cover. He peeked out of his cover just enough to throw a grenade. The device landed at the feet of a fighting pair and exploded a half second later with the fury of a star, with both hostiles vanishing in the golden flash of plasma with shrapnel decking a third member of the fireteam. Judging by the screams, he was badly wounded but not dead.

Ash swung out, his pistol in his hands, the grenade launcher on his back, ready to put the final trooper on the ground. He sighted up the enemy in a flash and pulled the trigger four times in rapid succession.

The Spartan swore when the kinetic barriers of his remaining opponent flashed under the brutal impacts from the massive slugs and caused the wearer of the admittedly heavier looking armor to stumble backwards before recovering and leveling his weapon at Ash. The assault weapon that the bird held roared it's rage as Ash opened fire with his pistol.

In the time that it took Ash to empty the clip of his pistol while dodging enemy return fire to the best of his ability, the hostile managed to unload enough ammunition to cause his kinetic barriers to collapse and for rounds to tear at his armor. Warnings flashed across his HUD, indicating that his chest armor was on the verge of failure.

The spartan reloaded his magnum and opened fire again, this time with a lot more luck. Heavy 12.7x40mm SAPHE slugs effortlessly hammered through the kinetic barriers and started punching into the bastard's armor. The thick plating began shattering under the blows and the soldier staggered nearly falling, allowing for a pair of shots to crash into his neck and blow it apart.

Suddenly there was a pained shriek that sounded over the coms and then Kuril's voice came on. "Dammit, Diia is hit!" he barked as Diia's biomonitor let out a shrill alarm and started flashing red.

"Her biomonitor is going crazy, I've only seen vitals go crazy like that if some poor bastard gets slashed with an energy sword. Two, get your ass over to her and patch her up, figure out what is causing her bios to go crazy because it's sure as hell not a gunshot wound and then patch her up." Fred ordered.

Ash flashed his acknowledgement light in response before running across the battlefield a simple blur that only Spartans could track, managing to get to the downed soldier's position.

It was bad, her torso was shredded mess of liquid armor, ceramic-boron carbide-titanium plates, shattered exoskeleton, tissue, and blood. To him, it appeared that the wound was a normal gunshot wound, why then was her bio going crazy? A normal gunshot wound or even the multiple gunshot wounds from a solid burst shouldn't result in rapidly spiking body temperature, erratic breathing, spiking heart rate, and severe muscle spasms. At least not to this degree, something wasn't right here. That's when he got a closer look at the blood that was starting to leak out of the wound, it wasn't blue that he had long since recognized as normal for Turians, but it was starting to develop a more reddish color.

"Actual, something isn't right about this injury at all!" Ash stated as a burst slammed into his shields, dropping them by a quarter. He rolled towards cover and then dragged the Turian behind the cover that he chose.

"Shit, what do you mean?!" Fred demanded.

"I think she got hit with some sort of toxic round, whatever the hell was in those rounds it's causing Riia to develop Septicemia!" Ash snapped.

At that point, they got an interesting lesson in swearing from Kuril who ranted for about ninety seconds on how some soldier was using a chemical ammunition block, it used an extremely toxic compound that had been imbued into the metal, plus it was considered contraband in most Turian Legions and that for mainline troops it was considered grounds for a demotion or court martial. At least that's what Ash could figure out, that said it was obvious that the Grand General was in a lot of pain from an omni-blade slash that should've sliced through his head but it hadn't only through sheer luck. But he had been badly injured from the heat.

"That settles it then, this mission is a bust. Overlord come in!" Fred said over the comms.

"Overlord, here War- Dammit Nova I know that Thanos is coming under heavy fire from multiple companies of enemy tanks as well as artillery and air strikes! But these bastards are fighting hard despite the major breakthrough and heavy walker assault, have our artillery batteries commence counter-battery fire rather than suppressing enemy units and send in the Ravens! Warwolf Actual, go ahead." General Williams ordered.

"Sir, initiatie Emerald Contingency, we're pulling out. Six is KIA and both four and five are WIA, five needs immediate medical attention. She was hit by some sort of toxic round that's making her develop a severe case of blood poisoning." Fred said.

There was a long drawn out sigh, Emerald Contingency indicated that the mission to relieve the usper of the 6th Expeditionary Force had failed and that Warwolf Team needed immediate evac.

"Affirmative Warwolf Actual, Emerald Contingency confirmed. Air support inbound, ETA three minutes with evac arriving thirty seconds after that." Williams replied.

"Acknowledged." Fred replied.

Ash pulled out a medical kit, opened it and then grabbed a can of biofoam, it was excellent for temporally treating major injuries such as this. However, he wasn't sure if it would work on a Turian, something about their biology being different from humans involving amino-acids. In any other situation, it would've been damn inconvenient, but in this situation? It could result in a soldier dead.

"Four, please for the love of god tell me that biofoam will work on a Turian. Five is bleeding out and needs something to stop the bleeding." Ash asked over the comms.

"I took a look at the ingredients but I honestly don't know, I think it uses artificial stuff so it might not cause a reaction, but I don't know." Kuril said and Ash swore in response before turning to Diia.

"This is going to be cold." He said briskly before flicking away the pin that would allow for him to use the can. Then he placed the applicator firmly in the wound, which resulted in her wincing and then he pulled the trigger. The Cabal member gasped in pain as the self-sealing, space-filling coagulant, antibacterial, tissue-regenerative foam based polymer entered her torso.

Mark's status light flashed red as another round flew out of his rifle and decapitated another Turian. "Warwolf Actual, be advised. I got eyes on a tank." The sniper replied.

Ash swore in response, that was the last thing they needed right now.

"Type?!" Fred demanded.

"Looks like one of those hover models." Mark replied.

That was a slightly better than the tracked monsters that seemed to be rather common now. But regardless it was still a gigantic threat regardless thanks to it's great big Mass Accelerator Cannon that it mounted as well as the machine guns.

The strange oscillating humming of a Mass Effect Anti-Gravity drive precluded the arrival of the Turian MBT. It glided into view, it's form as sleek as a shark, the low squat dome of a turret swinging around as it swept into the clearing, the gun tube elevating.

"Mark, move!" Ash yelled over the radio.

"No shit! I am moving!" Mark replied as he obviously had seen the threat and was now getting down from the watchtower that he had commandeered.

With a booming roar, the tank's main gun discharged and the watchtower that Mark had taken over for his sniper nest had the actual platform blow apart into a shattered mess of composites. The Spartan-III sniper yelled as the ladder he was climbing down came apart and resulted in him falling several meters. Considering the fact that Mark was a Spartan, he was likely alright, just winded, mainly because well falling from a height like that would result in anyone being winded.

Ash brought out the grenade launcher and checked the ammunition and found that the power cell only had enough juice left in it for maybe a half dozen shots. He had to admit, the alien weapon while familiar in it's function, the idea of only having to carry around energy cells for a weapon because it flash manufactured ammunition from raw materials was...weird.

Still, he wished that this thing could fire HEAT, because that's what he needed right now. That line of thought ended, when he poked his up over the cover he was using and saw that the tank was swinging it's barrel around. Cursing, the Spartan scooped up the wounded Turian, slung her across his back, and then bolted across the courtyard that the command firebase had.

The tank fired and the cover that Ash and the grievously wounded Diia had been using was ripped to shreds by the high-explosive shell. Ash's kinetic barriers flickered as they absorbed shrapnel.

He dove behind cover and swung his grenade launcher off his back and opened fire, the heavy choom of the weapon resounding in his ears. The grenade exploded across the tank's armor and kinetic barriers flared into life.

More Turian soldiers were beginning to advance upon them. Feeling more confident now that a tank had arrived and that the Spartan Laser hadn't fired again. Despite that however, the sustained fire from Fred's plasma rifle and Kuril's Assault Rifle combined with well aimed shots from Mark forced them those soldiers to keep their heads down. Which allowed for Ash to pump more grenades into the hulking monster, but it's kinetic barriers stayed firm against the onslaught.

Kuril suddenly stopped firing and shifted to the next bit of cover as the tank's main gun fired again. Unlike Ash however, the Turian wasn't as lucky. The blast threw him forward like a toy thrown by an irate child, he tumbled for a half dozen meters before coming to a stop, groaning in pain over the coms.

"Man down! Man down!" Ash shouted over the coms.

"Sonuvabitch! Three get to four and get him to cover, two try and distract that tank!" Fred snarled, this mission was going FUBAR fast. The firebase was designed to make life hell for attackers and it was ironically working like a charm.

The two Spartan-IIIs choursed affirmatives in response. Ash in an attempt to distract the MBT, he snatched a grenade off his belt, primed it, and then promptly threw the lethal plasma-frag. The throw was perfect, it bounced off the ground at such an angle that it flew upwards and came to rest against this small lip that was just in front of the turret. The device exploded and doused the tank thoroughly in white hot plasma that began to eat away at the exterior cosmetic plating, some of the armor plate underneath, and the barrel of the main gun.

For what it was worth, the grenade did succeed in gaining the attention of the tank. The remote weapon system mounted on top of the turret swung towards him and opened fire, the heavy machine gun spraying rounds at him. Forcing the Spartan to duck unless he wanted to get riddled, which wouldn't be good for his health.

"Warwolf Actual, Hammer Actual. We're on station, ready to assist."

"Hammer Actual, I got a tank fifty meters from my position. I want it gone." Fred replied.

"Affirmative, coming in now. Target acquired, I have tone, Rifle, Rifle!" The pilot intoned in a calm voice.

Several long seconds passed before the missile dropped like Thor's hammer out of the sky. There was a tremendous gold-white flash, the ground quivered, and an explosion roared across the courtyard. Immediately afterward, the racket from the enemy heavy machine gun stopped.

Ash poked his head out of cover and saw that the tank had been utterly destroyed by the ANVIL missile that had smashed into it.

"Good hit, good hit, target destroyed!" Fred barked over the coms.

"No problem Warwolf Actual, we are engaging infantry in the open. Evac is five mikes behind us." Hammer Actual replied.

"Affirmative." Fred replied.

That's when a sustained burst of Assault Rifle fire smashed against Ash's kinetic barriers. The Spartan dropped back into cover and readied his grenade launcher. He leaped back out of cover and fired twice.

The last two HE-FRAG grenades sailed into the two largest clusters of troops that he could find within a half second of each other. The great thunderclaps of the ensuing detonations killed at least a half dozen hostile soldiers and wounded at least twice that. With that the Spartan dropped the empty grenade launcher and pulled his magnum.

Without warning, four streams of plasma suddenly ripped into the hostile soldiers. Screams rose up from the aliens as they were simply ripped apart by lethal energy bolts. Before thankfully the noise of the weapons discharging hit them, a seemingly constant crackling roar that tore at the ears and made your teeth rattle. After several long seconds the onslaught cut off and two incredibly massive jets roared overhead, their three individual engines aglow as they screamed by. Then they began maneuvering to sweep around for another pass.

One of jets deployed flares as a missile raced upwards like a bottle rocket, Ash noted that it was too small to be a SAM launched from a mobile SAM site, but it was about right for a MANPAD.

Something caught Ash's attention, more Turians in extremely heavy looking armor. "Juggernauts incoming!" The spartan said over the comms, marking the soldiers and then leveled his pistol before opening fire.

Acknowledgement lights winked in response and immediately, suppressing fire lanced out from the friendly positions and towards the hostiles. Who immediately went to cover and began returning fire. Bullets and plasma filled the air along with the roar of weaponry.

A circular device came flying at Ash as two enemies fell from headshots from Mark, he recognized what it was immediately. "GRENADE!" he shouted over the comms, already he calculated the trajectory of the device and inside his helm, he grimaced. The device was going to land right between him and Diia, it was something he could survive, although it wouldn't be pleasant.

But he doubted that Diia could survive a point-blank grenade detonation in the shape she was in. His eyes flicked over her vitals and a slight frown crossed his features, no she wouldn't survive the detonation of such a device. By now the grenade was a little over a quarter of the way to him, now moving in seemingly slow-motion.

So what were his options? He could try and catch it before throwing it back, which while vivable he had seen Turian grenades get detonated manually so if he caught it the damn thing could be detonated in his hand and he would likely loose it and a substantial part of his arm, thus he ruled that idea out. He could try shooting it out of the air, which while possible, was fairly difficult even for Spartans to pull off, unless they had a shotgun, plus although he had started with a shotgun he had no idea where the thing went, so that was out. Another idea he considered briefly was waiting for the thing to land and then pick it up and throw it back, which while it was doable it ran into the same issues as the first option.

The grenade was now a third of the way to him, he was running out of time.

He could backhand the grenade, hitting it as if it was a volleyball which could work, unless the grenade had adhesive properties or the fuse was impact, then he would be down a hand and likely part of his arm. An inconvenience sure, but then he would be a liability to the others due to his injury. Another option came to mind, he could set the element zero core in his armor to maximum weight and then attempt to crush the grenade with his weight. But that idea wouldn't work if it had a fuse that was like the M9 or M11 grenades or an impact fuse, plus if he misjudged the leap, he could crush Diia or at the very least severely exbarate her injuries.

That left two options, jump on the grenade or covering Diia with his own body to shield her from the explosion. The latter could work, but there was the fact that he needed to be careful lest he aggravate her injuries, not to mention he would have to cross twice the distance to get to the downed Cabal.

That meant, Ash mused to himself as the grenade reached the apex of it's arc, while maintaining suppressive fire. He would have to pick arguably the most painful option. But to his surprise his mind went back to catching the grenade, maybe he could airball the thing? Yes that would work.

The grenade slowly tumbled into reach and then Ash shifted, his movement was but a blur to those watching him, he expertly snatched the grenade out of the air and then with all of his impressive might hurled it upward at a slight angle. The grenade sailed upwards at a relatively impressive velocity.

Time resumed and the Spartan leveled his pistol and opened fire again at the quite frankly shocked alien troops. The pistol clicked empty as another hostile dropped to his fire, in that time three more had been dropped by Fred and two by Mark. He hit the magazine release and the empty magazine clattered to the ground. He drew his last magazine and slotted it in. "Last mag!" he shouted over the comms before opening fire again.

Yet it wasn't enough, more hostiles in that heavy armor stormed into the courtyard and began laying down thick suppressive fire, effectively pinning the Spartans down and preventing them from being able to fall back. If they had been in Mjolnir Armor it wouldn't have been a problem but sadly they weren't in Mjolnir armor.

The first clue that they had that extraction had arrived, was the pelican shaped dot appeared on their motion trackers and hurtled in fast and low. Second clue was when with a roar, the massive, angular bulk of a Pelican dropship seemingly materialized out of the morning twilight. Immediately it's armor began sparkling as gunfire was directed primarily to it.

"RPG!" Ash roared as he spotted a Turian heft a very familiar looking weapon onto his weapon. With a roar, the rocket shot forth with the speed of a lance thrown by a god, not at the pinned soldiers but at the Pelican.

It detonated against a hardlight barrier that sprang to life once the onboard systems detected the incoming rocket and came to the conclusion that the shot would likely bring the craft down. The shot defeated, the hardlight barrier faded out of existence.

Two more rockets flew at the dropship. One missed, the other crashed against the pop-up hardlight barrier, exploding in a greasy fireball. A series of explosions rocked the Pelican violently as grenades from a launcher crashed against its flank, punching deep dents into the armor of the dropship.

"Kingfisher, tallyho!" the obviously annoyed pilot said, the dropship climbed upwards slightly and then it's rocket pods flashed. Blast-fragmentation rockets lanced out, ripping apart enemy positions with incredible ease. The immense craft spinning on its x-axis and continuing to hammer out rockets. Once that had been done in roughly a one hundred degree cone, the next part of the punishment that it was dealing out came down the pipe. The burn.

The chin mounted plasma cannon came to life, unleashing a crackling roar as a onslaught of indigo colored plasma burst forth. The gunner swept the cannon across enemy positions, the heavy energy bolts burning through kinetic barriers and armor as if it wasn't there. Turians fell to the ground dead or dying as they were ripped to pieces by the massively powerful energy bursts.

The remaining soldiers quickly retreated from sight of the enraged Pelican dropship. "Get aboard the Pelican, go! Go! Go!" Fred roared.

Ash scooped up Diia and bolted for the Pelican which came in and started hovering less than a meter above the deck. The last to stagger aboard was Kuril who most certainly looked like he had been through hell.

"CLEAR!" The crew chief shouted and the pilot for the dropship immediately increased thrust and the craft leaped into the air. It pivoted on its axis and then accelerated, rapidly leaving the AO behind. The two F/A-303 Fenrirs quickly forming up with the Pelican in order to provide cover as the three planes quickly climbed away and vanished into the brightening sky.

The mission had been a failure, any hope of resolving this conflict without the two primary forces on world tearing each other to pieces had fled. That didn't leave many choices except for one, which was to fight. Thus, the two forces would be forced to fight each other until one side was broken, having been rendered completely combat ineffective.


0515 Hours, February 12th, 2625 (Military Calendar)

Shanxi-Theta System, Shanxi III, In orbit of Planet Shanxi

Onboard the Palaven Fighting Ship Judgement Day

"Status report" General Caitius Bruril barked as he strode onto the CIC of the Dreadnought Judgement Day to start his shift.

"The ground forces are getting thrown back with heavy losses, as of three hours ago, it's been confirmed that both the 38th Mechanized Infantry Legion and 371st Assault Infantry Legion have been completely destroyed in their holding actions to allow for the rest of the ground forces to get to the city of Badate and start reinforcing their position. The humans are advancing under the cover of those mobile surface to orbit guns, friendly fighter cover is almost non-existent too thanks to suffering heavy losses from enemy SAMs and ack-ack. To make matters worse, the Cabal Team that was sent in to relieve Lanus, their must have been a screw-up or someone jumped the gun, because their shuttle got shot down in the stratosphere." A tech reported.

Caitius swore, that was bad, two whole Legions gone. The ground pounders were suffering losses that hadn't been seen in decades. Plus the fleet had been smashed pretty severely, if a human fleet jumped in system with the intention to shoot on sight, he doubted that he would be able to hold fast for their warships clearly held the firepower and durability advantage, but it seemed like he had the edge in speed, maneuverability, and rate of fire.

Plus he did have a few extra tricks up his sleeve, some that would be considered clever and others that would draw contempt from his peers. Regardless, in his mind when it came to fighting enemy warships that were vastly superior to his own nearly anything went. Thus anything he could use as an advantage would have to do in this situation.

In that vein he had several carefully placed traps that he was ready to spring at several moments throughout the conflict if it came to that. Still, he didn't know what the composition would be for the enemy QRF, but considering their luck, it was bound to be headed up by one of those "Cruisers" that the documentary had explained was the most common capital ship in the human's navy. Even though they were the size of damn super-dreadnoughts. The idea that their warships were absolutely massive, was insane in the extreme.

Still, being down to two dreadnoughts, three battleships, fifteen light cruisers, another seven light cruisers that were being run solely by the ship's VI and repair drones, a single VI run heavy destroyer and two crewed heavy destroyers, ten manned light destroyers, nine VI run light destroyers, a single VI run heavy frigate, five frigates, and two VI run frigates was all he had at his disposal for ships that could still actually maneuver and fight, plus a few other ships that had their systems slaved to their VIs that while they couldn't fight anymore still had enough structural integrity left to accelerate and accelerate hard.

At least the reinforcement group had brought a specially modified assault ship the Bloodwing, two Battleships, a maniple of Heavy Cruisers and two maniples of Heavy Destroyers so they were looking a little better in terms of ships and fighter numbers. Which was good, still if push came to shove would it be enough? That was one answer that he simply didn't know if it was true.

"Great, any other good news?" Caitius asked.

"An update from Kuril, Cabal member Diia has been taken out of ICU today, she's stable but still in critical condition." A tech reported and Caitius nodded, it had been a bitch and half to work out the plan to get a crack medical team down to the surface without having them shotdown.

At least things were starting to look somewhat better. But it hadn't been easy explaining to Palaven Military Command just how confusing and convoluted the situation on the human world of Shanxi had become. But one thing that Caitius had come to agree on was that if the Turian Hierarchy and the 'United Nations Space Command Defense Forces' which was the military arm for the 'United Earth Government' ever went to war. The results weren't going to be pretty.

"Sir, one of our recon pickets is reporting that they are picking up strange radiation readings some fifteen galactic standard light-seconds from their position." Another tech said several minutes later.

Caitius blinked, that was concerning and not by a small amount either. Fifteen galactic standard light seconds away from the picket put it over four million galactic standard kilometers from the frigate and some fourteen million galactic standard kilometers away from the main formation.

"Sound battle stations throughout the fleet, have the battlenet established." Caitius whispered, a lump forming in his stomach as he spoke the words.

CIC erupted into motion as alarms wailed, the harsh white artificial lighting changing to the dark red of combat lighting. The view ports were sealed with a soft clang as armored panels slid down in front of them, moments later the holographic displays on those panels came to life. Members from the recently relieved third watch came back onto the command deck along with members of the second watch, reinforcing the first watch. Muted clunks rang through the decking as torpedoes and shells were loaded, at the same time the intensity of the reactor increased.

"Withdraw all pickets back to the fleet except picket fifteen, sixteen, and seventeen." Caitius ordered, referring to the frigates and destroyers on station.

The system display shifted as the blue dots indicating retreated back to the main body of the fleet. With three ships, two light destroyers and a heavy frigate remaining on their station in order to observe the arrival. Caitius watched the display with bated breath, mainly because he knew that the human QRF was arriving.

On the displays, space ripped itself apart as a series of glittering portals snapped into existence. "Slipspace rupture detected" the ship board VI intoned. Moments later, like a hungry thresher maw erupting from the ground, the human warships burst from the portals, their engines aglow while the hulls had an aura of radiation around them.

The remaining pickets panicked immediately, for they wheeled around and began to accelerate. As the tactical display updated, Caitis felt the bottom drop out of his stomach as the human warships resolved on the display as the reason for the pickets panicking became obvious.

The warship that he assumed to be the flagship was immense, nearly three galactic standard kilometers in length, roughly brick shaped and bristling with weapons. His trained eyes picked out carefully placed thruster ports, layered point defenses, missile tubes, torpedo launchers, heavy secondary guns, what looked to be launch tubes for something, on the ship's flanks facing forwards were muzzles for what had to be mass accelerators, while on the bow was a small dome, and finally above that dome was the immense muzzle of what could only be the ship's MAC gun.

The ship trailing behind it was also larger than the Judgement Day, being easily one thousand one hundred meters in length. The craft had an instantly recognizable appearance compared to the other ships, with the front widening in width and height for the forward most hundred meters before gracefully transitioning to a somewhat blocky appearance, giving it the look of some aquatic predator given how smooth it was. There was only a few turrets and missile pods visible but a lot more point defense in return, what really caught Caitius's eyes was the sheer number of doors that appeared to be in the ship's flanks. His first impression was that they were torpedo tubes doors, but something didn't quite match that theory for they looked similar to some of the tubes on the flagship. Plus he saw what could be hangers maybe? That ship was an unknown and one that needed to be dealt with swiftly.

There was also four smaller ships that shared the overall profile of three of the ships destroyed over Shanxi several days ago. But they were even bigger, dreadnought sized at nine hundred meters long, they had dual spinal muzzles, point defense weapons, missile tubes, hangar bays, torpedo tubes, and secondary guns. Caitius realized that judging by their posture and performance from similar ships that these craft were obviously a designated ship killer, designed move fast and hit hard, which meant that it was likely a destroyer analogue of some description.

The last six ships looked vaguely similar to the last four ships that had been over Shanxi a few days ago, but the gap between the booms had been filled. Which meant that the spinal weapon had likely been repositioned and thus would probably be harder to take out. Plus they also had an array of missile tubes, secondary cannons, layered point-defenses just like the other ships. But they likely had much lighter armor and undoubtedly a high thrust-to-tonnage ratio meaning that they were likely a frigate analogue.

"SIR! The Storm King is opening fire!" A tech said as one of the enemy destroyer analogues flashed red indicating that it was a priority target as the heavy frigate Storm King wheeled around and began reversing frantically away from the human warships that were advancing in-system as if they were invincible juggernauts. From the ship's four torpedo tubes burst forth a salvo of twelve torpedoes, their antimatter beam drives powering up and boosting the lethal warheads forward once they had been hurled clear of their tubes. They rapidly accelerated to their maximum speed of two hundred fifty-sustained g of acceleration and began to crawl towards the hostile warships, which were some six million galactic standard kilometers distant.

The destroyers Oathsworn and Emerald Light also swung around and fired their own spreads of twenty-four torpedoes each which also began accelerating towards the enemy flotilla as well, the missiles crawling across the screen.

Now the waiting game began, the torpedoes were steadily crossing the distance across the void. Ironically it had been because of the relative closeness to the enemy ships when the torpedoes had been launched, it meant that they either had to do a major burn that would eat up a lot of delta-v and thus could leave them handle capped for the rest of the battle or they could sit and take it.

On the flipside, any hope of a peaceful resolution just went down the drain. Which meant that he had some time to put the battlefield plan he had thought up into action before all hell broke loose.

"Attack groups one and two, commence your burns to points Amax and Barx. You'll jump to engage the enemy fleet with slashing attacks on my command." Caitius ordered calmly before giving his next set of orders. "All fighters that are planetside are to come up stairs and prepare for attack on enemy warships."

One of the bridge techs turned around, confusion was clear on his face. "Sir, that will leave our ground forces with no air cover."

"I know that, but we don't know how many fighters that they have, thus we need every fighter we can scrape up." Caitis replied as the engines of the two designated attack groups flared and they branched off from the main formation, heading to their predetermined attack points.

It was common for combat to start at such incredible ranges, to the point where the enemy was just dots on the tactical plot, with smaller accelerating dots representing torpedoes. But that made combat damn stressful, just watching the Spirits-damned dots crawl across a plot, he could physically feel the tension in the compartment rising as the torpedoes streaked across the screen, steadily gaining velocity as they raced through the void and towards their respective targets. Such was space combat until they got into Mass Accelerator range, long and stressful bouts of nothing happening while at range with intermittent bouts of excitement and terror.


0530 Hours, February 12th, 2625 (Military Calendar)

Shanxi-Theta System, near Shanxi III, Planet Shanxi

Onboard UNSCN Pillar of Autumn II

"Trajectory for the incoming torpedoes indicates that possible targets are the Normandy, the Wind of Redemption, and the Autumn. Warhead-type is unknown and doesn't match any known design, they are accelerating at a constant of two hundred fifty-gs." Velvet said in a calm voice as three friendly ships were highlighted on the tac display and she analyzed the torpedoes.

"What sort of burn would we need to perform in order to evade?" Reuben asked sharply.

The helmsman quickly consulted his displays before speaking up. "It'll be a high-g maneuver and will cost us a fair percentage of our remass, sir." he typed in a few commands before speaking up again. "It will also be right at the safety envelop for the Old Girl as well, even if we reduce her mass using the ezero core. However our escorts can easily perform last minute evasive maneuvers if they drastically reduce their mass."

Rueben swore under his breath, that left them with only a few options and only a few were pleasant. The enemy torpedoes were well out of range of his Starstreak II Long-range Aerospace Defense Missiles and would be for some time, thus he could stay on this track and use his point-defenses alone to defend the fleet. Another option was forcing a tail chase, but such a maneuver would put the White Plains at risk of being gutted by a torpedo plus they would have to overcome their own forward momentum first and thanks to orbital mechanics, they would then have to setup a major burn to get on the right orbit heading back in-system. The third option was that he launched some of his fighters to intercept the missile, but that would mean he would have to put fighters through a refueling and rearmament cycle which could prove to be problematic if it happens at a bad time. The fourth option was to do a position jump, but no one had ever done a position jump so soon after dropping out of slipspace, which meant that it could result in a catastrophic malfunction.

But he would have to risk it, then again as the saying went "fortune favors the bold". Launching a squadron of fighters now would be risky particularly if the enemy timed another attack perfectly. But it would have to do, a firm weight settled upon his shoulders. "Space Boss, commence operations. Skeleton squadron is cleared for launch!" Rueben ordered sharply.

"Yes sir!" The space boss replied before barking her orders. Rueben knew that deep within his ship, that crews were now scrambling to get fighters ready for launch. It was a simple enough mission, launch and destroy enemy missiles before they could hit the fleet.

His eyes watched as two groups of smaller contacts broke away from the main group of enemy ships and began to haul ass heading out-system. But something about what those ships were doing didn't sit right with him. For once, he wished that White Plains was a Prometheus class Fleet Carrier which not only had the ability to carry swarms of UCAVs, fighters, bombers, AEW aircraft, but also sloops and light corvettes. Plus they had significant firepower as well, much more than the light armament that the Hannibal class Light Carrier had.

The plot around the Pillar of Autumn II grew cluttered as the twelve Claymore fighters shot out of their launch tubes, formed up and then boosted forward, rapidly accelerating away from the fleet and raced towards the missiles.

Watching the fighters close in on the incoming torpedoes added a new feeling to the tension that was steadily building, one of anticipation. The triangular shaped craft raced forwards, their engines aglow with the reaction products from their antimatter drives. Their crews already setting up an intercept as a course path with numbers besides it reached out from the Claymore formation and towards a point in space that was changing periodically as the powerful targeting sensors that the aerospace fighters gathered data and sent it to the navigation program which then ran the calculations to plot an intercept that gave the fighters the most time to engage.

Right, that's done. Let it's hope that our ECM system is up to the task. "All ships initiate defensive jamming, standby on point-defenses." Rueben ordered, once again he found himself eyeing the plot and watching the enemy small ships that were still doing their burns. Something felt wrong about what they were doing, they were heading out-system true but they weren't heading for the Mass Relay and they hadn't jumped to FTL. But those ships weren't headed for the predetermined Interstellar Jump Points either, they were up to something.

"Tactical, make sure you keep an eye on those sloops and corvettes. They are up to something and I don't want to get caught flat-footed." Rueben added.

"Yessir!"


Caitius watched with concern as the positions of the human warships became obscured with white noise and false targets as they began jamming, the number of hostile dots outlined in red seemingly multiplying. The dark green triangles that were the friendly torpedoes began to waver on screen as their targeting systems struggled against the jamming, before suddenly the torpedoes blips were outlined in a thick black line that stood out sharply against the pale orange of the holographic display with another black bisecting the triangle width wise. Which indicated that the onboard VI that each torpedo was equipped with had just switched to the 'home on jam' capability that the torpedoes had and engaged their ECCM systems to try and burn through the jamming.

From the mess of jamming, twelve small red ovals resolved themselves. They were arranged in four groups of four and were powering towards the torpedoes. That's when the Storm King, Emerald Light, and Oathsworn switched on their active sensors in an attempt to burn through the jamming. Still, the appearance of those ovals indicated that they were either fighters or drones.

"Get me a sensor scan on those hostile fighters. I want to know what we are dealing with." Caitius ordered.

His order was received by quick replies. In less than a minute, a sensor scan appeared on a seperate screen, the enemy fighters were drastically different from the ones that had been seen over Shanxi days ago. They weren't relatively small darts like those fighters had been, but they were massive monstrosities that had a distinct triangular shape that was seventy galactic standard meters long and ninety galactic standard meters wide. With propulsion provided by two massive antiproton drives that would've been more at home on a corvette pushing the immense craft along at incredible speeds. Initial scans also detected ezero cores and heavy mass accelerator weaponry as well as weapon bays, but more disconcerting it also showed hit probabilities for the GUARDIAN laser arrays, it was barely in the thirty percent range. Which indicated that it had some stealth capabilities, nothing like the Salarian ships but good enough to screw over GUARDIAN laser array targeting.

Still, he eyed the plot, something didn't seem right about the fighters that were racing outbound. Their trajectory didn't match up for an intercept burn towards the Storm King, Emerald Light, and Oathsworn, but it appeared that they were instead burning hard to intercept the torpedoes.

Can't have that occurring, Caitius thought before giving out his next set of orders. "Bloodwing, launch one wing of fighters and intercept the enemy fighters that are moving to intercept our torpedoes."

The Bloodwing was one of the Assault Ships in the fleet at least at first glance. So one could be forgiven that like all assault ships the Bloodwing was lightly armed and had small ezero cores compared to her size, meaning that it was relatively useless for mass lightening, instead like all ships of her type, they used almost all of the benefits of element zero for inertia dampening, artificial gravity, and kinetic barriers. Each one of the immense ships was capable of carrying lots of troops and supplies.

But the Bloodwing as well as her two sisters however had an unprecedented number of strike craft, ten full wings of strike craft with almost no troop carrying capacity as a result. However unlike the craft she was based upon, she also had teeth in the form of two Battleship grade mass accelerators in her wingroots, with a secondary armament in eight double turrets along her flanks, and finally over a dozen GUARDIAN laser arrays. To increase protection compared to the space frame that they were based upon the normal Light Cruiser-size ezero core that Assault Ships were typically equipped with had been replaced with a Battleship grade ezero core. This granted the Bloodwing as well as her two sisters the Indomitable and Menae much heartier kinetic barriers as well as allowing for mass lightening that actually meant something. The compliment was four wings each composed of ninety-six Besa interceptors, four wings of Phalanx fighter-bombers with seventy-two craft in each, and two wings of bombers each composed of one hundred craft.

Caitius watched as the plot around the Bloodwing became incredibly crowded as a horde of fighters boiled out of the ship's belly. They rapidly formed up into their flights and squadrons, creating diamonds within diamonds. Then, with a rapid-fire series of flashes, the Besas raced into FTL.

They materialized a scarce sixty thousand galactic standard kilometers away from the enemy in an absolutely perfect position to intercept them with a rapid gun pass before being able to flip around and then give chase.


"That's a shitload of fighters." Skeleton Three said in a subdued tone.

"No shit." Skeleton five replied.

"Looks like two full wings of enemy fighters. All Skeleton Fighters prepare to engage." Skeleton Leader said as a new course plot appeared, changing from the intercept with the enemy torpedoes to one that made them intercept the hostile fighters.

Breathe. Flying Officer Henry "Dancer" Barstow thought to himself as he forced himself to take a deep breath as he gripped the controls for his Claymore Multirole Space Superiority Fighter, applying the proper controls to shift his fighter's course. The number of hostile red dots on his display however was absolutely absurd.

"Papa-Alpha-Tango, we need reinforcements now." Skeleton Two said over the comms.

"We're working on scrambling Mage and Wizard squadrons right now. They'll be launched in ten minutes." The Space Boss on the Pillar of Autumn II replied.

"Try and light a fire under those crews, we'll be engaging in maybe seven minutes max and it'll be a miracle if we last two minutes afterward." Skeleton Two said.

Breathe. Barstow thought as he finished the maneuver that brought his fighter onto an intercept course. From the way this was looking, they were going to be entering dogfighting range.

He was now that he thought about it, both excited and terrified that about that prospect. Excited because of how rare entering close range combat with aerospace fighters was these days and terrified because one little mistake was all that was needed to result in being reduced to a mere puff of flame and shrapnel.

The range counter ticked steadily downwards. "Arm missiles and guns. Prepare yourselves for snap maneuvers." Skeleton Leader called out as the distance continued to close. Fifteen thousand kilometers now, pinpricks of light were appearing in the far distance just barely visible as the enemy fighters raced in at the velocities far superior to the Claymore.

With a simple command sent via his Pilot's neural lace, Barstow armed the six ASGM-75 'Minotaur' Long-Range Aerospace Missiles, the eighteen ASGM-125 'Diamondback' Short-range Aerospace Missiles, and the two seventy mike-mike mass accelerator cannons that his Claymore was armed with.

"Start locking 'em up." He ordered to his RIO.

"Affirmative." came the reply.

Targeting brackets quickly slewed onto six enemy fighters and starting glowing a baleful red indicating lock-on. The onboard CI quickly coordinating with the CIs on the other Claymores, making sure that no two fighters were targeting the same bandit. Twelve thousand kilometers to go, the lock-on tone was warbling in his ears as the targeting computers acquired their targets.

"Enemy targeting radars are trying to acquire us!" The ECO shouted.

"Spoof 'em!" Barstow replied.

"Spoofing!" The ECO replied.

The range was now less than ten thousand kilometers, approaching eight thousand fast. His thumbs hovered over the trigger, waiting for the call that would allow him to fire. The range continued to close.

"Weapons free!" Skeleton Actual shouted as the fighters blazed past seven thousand kilometers.

"Fox three! Fox three!" Barstow said as he jams down on the trigger. Six missiles rip away from his fighter, thanks to usage of Mass-reducing fields and Hybrid-fuel rocket engines that powered the missiles they were accelerated to kinetic kill velocities with an extremely lethal warhead for added punch.

The surprised enemy fighters twisted and twirled in varying directions as a cloud of missiles lanced forth from the Claymores and started homing in on the enemy fighters. Harsh high-g maneuvers and a healthy use of decoys saved some of the fighters but not all of them.

Motion-sensor/lidar/thermal guidance brought the majority of the missiles to within just a few dozen meters. Once they were properly oriented, an extremely controlled high-explosive detonation began as the nose cone blew off and then that explosive reaction spat a payload of tungsten carbide cylinders each a half-inch in diameter. The sheer velocities involved meant that they ripped through shields and armor with ease.

"Sweet Jesus!" Barstow breathed as three enemy fighters were simply eviscerated by his missiles, the onboard CI counting up the kills.

"No energy shields! Good lord they're helpless!" Skeleton Ten shouted.

"Sucks for them!" Skeleton nine replied.

"Brace for snap maneuvers! Here we go boys!" Skeleton Actual said as the disorganized enemy fighters frantically tried to reorganize after the devastating missile salvo.

Not that the humans were going to let them for as the UNSC fighters screamed past fifteen hundred kilometers their formation split apart. Six fighters went high and six fighters went low and as the vaguely feather shaped alien fighters tried to reorientate so they could engage when the Claymores ripped into them.

Barstow whooped with glee as one enemy fighter shattered from the sustained burst of his guns. Kicking in his afterburners the Claymore screamed forward, the g-forces that bled through the I-comps pinning him to his seat.

The tactical display became a convoluted mess as fighters dueled. "I just got one!"

"Splash five, splash five!"

An enemy fighter shot past him, a Claymore screaming after it, a missile leaping away from the big fighter, and behind it was three enemy fighters. Barstow swung his big interceptor around and came up behind the enemy fighters.

Before the aliens even knew he was their, two missiles leaped from his fighter and crossed the scant hundred kilometers in seconds and punched both alien craft out of existence. The last fighter flipped one hundred eighty degrees and opened fire with its mass accelerators, the rounds caused the energy shield bar to flicker and begin to steadily drop. But not fast enough to make a difference, the brackets glided onto the enemy fighter and then the 70mm mass accelerators bellowed a pair of what looked like blinding blue beams lancing out from his fighter as the hyper-velocity shells screamed away.

The kinetic barriers offered no resistance as the heavy shells blew the enemy fighter in half, it's reactor going up a moment later with a brilliant anetic flash and reducing the majority of the fighter to dust and vapor.

"That's five for me!" Barstow said with glee in his voice, he was an ace. A legendary title among fighter pilots, he never expected to make ace in his career, let alone in his first engagement.

A Claymore and a alien fighter slammed into each other at full speed to Barstow's right and both fighters vanished from the plot as the sheer speeds involved released energies that vaporized both craft in their entirety.

"I am hit! I am hit! Bailing out!"

A burning Claymore shot across Barstow's path, the fighters responsible racing upwards towards another friendly, they were less than ten kilometers away. With simple inputs to his controls, the Claymore reacted amazingly well, bringing the fighter up onto their six.

One enemy fighter broke apart into its basic pieces as another Claymore did a high velocity gun pass on the enemy formation before flipping around and blasting an enemy fighter on its six.

The missile tone growled heartily in Barstow's ears as enemy fighters were locked up. "Fox two! Fox two!" Barstow shouted as he fired his missiles, they shrieked across the void and punched three enemy fighters out of existence.


"Pull those fighters out of their right this spirits-bedamned instant!" Caitius thundered as he viewed the butchery that was unfolding via the long-range sensors from the Storm King. He had long regarded the Besa as a death trap, but against these things, they were without a shadow of a doubt death traps.

"Spirits, I've never seen anything so lethal." The Space Boss of the Judgement Day said in horror, as the enemy fighters continued to slaughter the Besas with indomitable ease. As they watched on the screens, the few remaining friendly fighters tried to escape, but the human's questionably large but unquestionably lethal fighters didn't let them.

It ended a few seconds later as the enemy fighters ripped the few survivors that tried to disengage to shreds. An entire wing of Besa class Interceptors had just been completely annihilated by just twelve enemy fighters with only two confirmed kills and one of those appeared to have been an accidental ram that had vaporized both fighters.

"Sir, we got pilot beacons. The Bloodwing is requesting permission to launch search and rescue operations." A communications officer said.

"Denied, in such close proximity to enemy fighters the dropships will get slaughtered." Caitius growled as he watched the screens update and his mandibles flared into a cruel smile.

The one-sided slaughter of the Besas had put the human fighters horribly out of position to attempt to intercept the friendly torpedoes. Which were hurtling onwards towards the UNSC ships at steadily increasing velocities. Unless they wanted to burn a lot of their reaction mass, it was practically impossible for them to make an intercept.

"Our sensors have burned through the enemy jamming!" A sensor officer shouted as the false positives resolved into solid contacts. The displays changed as one torpedo managed to acquire lock-on on an enemy warship which flared gold. Within moments it's VI linked to the other torpedoes and they locked on as well, then their indicators changed to a striped blue and green with the black outline and bisector.

It meant that they were still using their home on jam capability but they had entered their terminal stage of flight, their ECCM systems engaged and their sensors having firm lock-on.

From the targeted ship flashes of green light strobbed along its flanks and the incredibly lethal warheads began to get punched out of existence as the ship's point-defenses engaged. Yet it wasn't enough, the missiles though few in number were moving hard and fast. Counter-attack missiles launched as the targeting systems managed to burn through jamming, but the velocity of the torpedoes was so great that out of the one hundred forty missiles launched only one managed to hit it's target. Finally from more points, streams of orange light roared into the void as the Destroyer began evasive maneuvers obviously having been caught off guard by the sheer speed of the incoming.

But the decision to go evasive, Caitius noted had come too little too late. No maneuver apart from going to FTL would save the ship now. Regardless, it was somewhat effective, over half of the remaining torpedoes, roughly forty or so, were swatted out of existence by the close-in point defense fire. Leaving twenty torpedoes left to continue their attack.

A spread of missiles erupted from the flank of the hostile warship, raced out for maybe a half second and then they detonated directly in the path of the incoming torpedoes. The blinding lances of plasma that the detonation of those missiles birthed took the number of torpedoes from twenty to five in an instant.

Then they impacted one after another. The first three white flashes of disruptor warheads detonating caused the ship's shields to explode into existence, a shimmering blue-gold hexagonal field covering the ship. The plating underneath the shields visibly cracked and tore as the wild gravitational fields created by the torpedoes leaked through and began to wreak havoc on the armor underneath.

The fourth torpedo slammed into the same general area as the first three torpedoes did and detonated, the shields pushed to their limits sputtered and died as the torpedo detonated with incredible results. Armor plating that had been cracked and torn by the first three outright shattered, a glittering mosaic of metal and composites was flung into the void. The sunlight catching the pieces and making them glint, creating a weird but pretty effect along one side of the hostile ship. A great gaping wound some fifty galactic standard meters across had been torn into the ship's armor and it had likely been horrifically comprised in a broad area. The torpedo revealed however that like his own ships, the humans used spaced armor to increase protection.

That protection was now worthless as despite the best efforts of the onboard VI that had to be running it's point-defenses, the fifth torpedo flew into the great gash that the fourth torpedo had created and detonated against the pressure hull plating.

Instantly an area of armor that comprised a full citadel kilometer in length shattered, the metal flung outwards at high velocities while a great white plume of air roared out of a breach in a hull. The dreadnought spun like top as the whole warship flexed visibly, plumes of shortly lived flame erupting upwards from the ship's back as metal was simply shattered and rent apart like it was putty. The warship's wild out of control spin had something that was to be expected, the companions of the stricken dreadnought had to break formation so that they wouldn't get hit by the multi-million ton chunk of out of control metal. Secondary explosions bloomed through the ship's hull as the catastrophic effects of the torpedo impact had unexpected but welcome effects, as explosions wracked the hull and ripped it apart even further. The ship's lights were flickering while it's engine cones flared brilliantly as her pilot desperately tried to regain control. Eventually succeeding in doing so, but at the cost of having the drive cones going dark.

Judging by the motions the ship had been doing, Caitius suspected that the ship's back had been broken, if that had been the case then they weren't capable of FTL jumps or maneuvering otherwise the ship would just tear itself in two. Regardless it meant that an enemy capital ship was out of the fight.

"Mark that ship as mission-killed, maybe we can salvage her if we succeed in defeating the QRF." Caitius ordered.


0557 Hours, February 12th, 2625 (Military Calendar)

Shanxi-Theta System, near Shanxi III, Planet Shanxi

Onboard UNSCN Pillar of Autumn II

"Normandy is down! I repeat the Normandy is down!" A bridge tech yelled as the marker for the Normandy went to bright red as the ship fell out of formation in a three degree per second downward spin. Her once sleek and powerful form now a mangled shell of its former self, the wreck was bleeding air and fuel for the ship's powerful Deuterium-He3 Fusion Reactors. The latter crystalizing in the absolute zero vacuum of space and forming an icy trail that made it appear as if the ship's lifeblood was spilling out from her grevious wounds.

"Skeleton squadron is heading back to the fleet to assume BARCAP, they report two fighters lost in exchange for destroying over ninety enemy fighters." The Space Boss called out.

"Sir the Normandy has activated her disaster beacon. The crew casualties and damage is, catastrophic. Eighty-five percent of her crew is dead with the survivors all wounded in some way, her marine and ODST compliment has been completely wiped out and the same goes for her aerospace crews. The damage report is as follows: decks three through ten in all sections with exception of sections one, two, and all comprised sections have been gutted and exposed to hard vacuum, the ship's back is broken in easily a half-dozen locations and all of the frames have been damaged in some way though it might be glitch. What isn't a glitch is the fact that the primary and secondary fusion reactors are offline, backup fission plant offline, mass effect core offline, main repulsor drives destroyed, secondary repulsor drives offline, Slipspace drive destroyed, all emergency thruster tanks destroyed, all portside maneuvering thrusters destroyed, remaining maneuvering thrusters are either destroyed or damaged with all of them being offline due to lack of power, all portside weapon mounts destroyed, all secondary batteries offline, MACs destroyed, all energy projectors either offline or destroyed, all point defense lasers inoperable, all starstreak long-range aerospace defense missile batteries offline, all remaining CIWS mounts are either offline or inoperable, starboard side torpedo tubes and Inferno missile batteries are operable but in dry launch mode only, shields offline, backup hardlight barrier offline, quantum entanglement coms offline, artificial gravity offline…" Velvet said rattling off the damage.

"Alright, I get it. What isn't damaged, offline, or destroyed onboard the Normandy?" Rueben demanded cutting the AI off, the damage report didn't paint a pretty picture for the situation onboard the Normandy.

The time that Velvet sifted through the information at her disposal lasted less than a thousandth of a second before she replied. "Emergency backup power online, auxiliary life support online, portside lifepods online, emergency lights online, maser communication suite online, and one of the exterior running lights is online."

Rueben growled under his breath, just five direct hits from enemy torpedoes had rendered one of his four Daring class Heavy Destroyers completely and utterly combat ineffective, no worse than that, they had reduced her to such a ruined mess that she was only fit for the scrap yard. "Reorganize the formation to make up for the loss of the Normandy, stand by for tactical slipspace jump, bring us to within a million kilometers of the enemy. Prepare for energy projector salvo fire." He ordered as he clenched his fist, these sons of bitches were gonna pay.

"Jump plotted sir, ready to execute on command!" A bridge tech said several minutes later.

"Jump!" Rueben snarled.


CODEX ENTRY - Ship-to-ship weapons - Torpedoes: Torpedoes are self-propelled and self-guided munitions with a variety of purposes, from being fitted with sensor packages and then shot into gas giant to figure out it's composition, temperature, winds, etc. to being equipped with devastatingly lethal warheads. With acceleration curves of up to 250-g or 2.4-kilometers per second squared, they are the one weapon that has more range than a Mass Acceleration Cannon and can actually hit their target. However, while they can be used at range, they can be easily shotdown by interceptors and point-defenses which use mass accelerators and GUARDIAN lasers respectively, not to mention at launch they are incredibly vulnerable. But the warheads that they can use are lethal in the extreme, from Disruptor warheads which use rapidly shifting gravitational fields to rip a target apart at the molecular level to the extremely rare and incredibly destructive plasma and antimatter warheads which can inflict catastrophic damage against their targets. They are typically powered by either antimatter beam drives or micro-fusion drives.


AN: Yes, I really am that evil….

In other news, before you call bullshit on those torpedoes slipping through the Point-defense, those things were hauling ass, when they impacted those torpedoes were going some three-megameters per second, meaning that every second they covered roughly three-million meters. That's something of an outside context problem for UNSCN Point-Defenses.

As for Turian warships panicking, you just had what's equal to a Super-Dreadnought and five Dreadnoughts, along with six Cruisers just drop out of slipspace. I think that sort of reaction would be expected.