A/N: Real quick the previous chapter was re-uploaded with a few things fixed, mainly the distances. It's in light hours now; though I didn't realize that wasn't much of an improvement as now everything was really far away until after I made the upload. Fuck it, I refuse to go back and change it a third time. I'll just retcon it saying that since the invention of warp, light hours is now a new method of measurement. If my story ever gets its own TV Tropes page, number 1 on there is gonna be "Writers can't do Math." Sorry for the long note, back to the story.
"1,000 Quarians… about 2,500 Humans and AI's, and about 2,000-3,000 Turians were killed in the First Battle of Yankee Station. In Confederacy space, such numbers were looked at with a sad shake of the head; perhaps a quick prayer thrown in for the deceased's souls and their families.
For the Quarians, Turians, and the rest of Citadel space such numbers were looked upon like it was a bloodbath. The last real major war that the Citadel species had fought was the Krogan rebellions, and while the numbers made even our war against them look like a simple slap fight; no one was alive from that time period to remember such horrific numbers.
The Turians of course down played the numbers, keep up appearances and all that. But neither side was really ready for the four yearlong slugfest that would rage across the galaxy in 10,000 places; including Palaven and Earth." –General Octavia Elizabeth Lee, UCA
UCNS Antietam
Hackett tried not to squirm under the withering glares of his superiors.
President Grant was gripping a glass of whiskey so tightly that Hackett was honestly surprised that it hadn't shattered into a million pieces. Chancellor Isaaman was reading through battle reports, but her eyes seemed like they were on fire. The cabinet members of the executive were openly scowling and staring off into something unseen from his hologram. The Prime Minister wasn't back from his emergency session of Congress yet, but Hackett knew deep down the man was furious like the rest of them. The Joint Chiefs were all quietly conversing with each other, what though Hackett had no clue.
The Quarians were shifting between quiet depression and open anger, them at least Hackett could tell who they were angry with. He was just glad it wasn't him; that disaster that he had, for lack of modesty, managed to save a few days ago still stung somewhat.
The only one that was nervous in being in conversation with the bigwigs like him was the hologram of the woman on his left; Major General Octavia E. Lee of the United Confederacy Army; in command of the 31st Army Engineering division.
Lee was now the defacto leader of the ground defense of Shanxi; and with the orbital shields in place, she was now building large networks of trenches and tunnels that would have made the armies during WW1 and Vietcong respectively turn green with envy.
The conversations drifted off as the Prime Ministers Hologram finally appeared.
"It was close, the Isolationists fought tooth and nail; but the moderates sided with us. We have now issued an official declaration of war. Now we must turn our thoughts to the task at hand… John, you have been given the emergency powers that come with wartime. Ayelet… we need you to give him command of the Army and Air Force." He said, sounding very tired.
The Chancellor stood, raised her right hand and said, "As Chancellor of Nations, in front of these witnesses I hereby give Control of the Army and Air Force to the President of the People to better wage this war of defense against our enemies. I reserve the right to take control away should the President exceed his authority in waging this war." Her voice was clinical, like a doctor talking during surgery.
The President for his part seemed to age 10 years as she finished her declaration. He was now the most powerful man in the Confederacy. "As President of the People, I accept control of the Army and Air Force. Now that that's out of the way; Admiral Hackett, General Lee give your reports."
Hackett and Lee looked at each other, before Lee shrugged and stepped forward.
"We have spent the entire week entrenching and tunneling all over Shanxi. The orbital shields are in place and fully functional, and the anti-aircraft emplacements are in place at all the major cities and towns of strategic and tactical importance and ready to blow anything unfriendly out of the sky.
I don't plan on letting them get even close to those cities and let them cut off our supplies.
We've intentionally left undefended landing zones to force the Turians to land and follow the paths we want. I'm going to draw this out, pick them off as they March. Once they reach the trenches we'll make sure to stop whatever we haven't killed." Lee said.
Grant nodded and looked at Hackett.
He took a breath, "The entire 7th fleet has finally arrived; we have the fleet carrier Enterprise, and 6 escort carriers including the damaged Antietam and Krakow. We've finally been resupplied with proper anti-ship ordinance along with the anti-ground ordinance we still have left from Yankee station.
The Battleships Guadalcanal and Tarawa are in place and holding position outside of the relay we uncovered that leads to Yankee Station.
We have 18 heavy Cruisers, 27 Anti-Aircraft/Light Cruisers, 43 Destroyers, and 70 Destroyer Escorts with them. And we have 5 cruisers, 11 destroyers, and 23 destroyer escorts with the carriers, who are holding position in orbit above the planet." He said calmly.
The President nodded, "Good, you did a great job there Hackett; protecting the Migrant Fleet and salvaging your own. I'll make sure that Commander Adair gets that Medal of Honor you recommended her for. If she's alive we'll have to keep it secret so she doesn't get targeted as a POW. Now…"
He glared at the Quarians. "Care to explain why the Turians opened fire on you and then us?"
The five admirals shifted uncomfortably; silently glad that they weren't with the president physically at the moment, the delegates having since returned to the fleet.
"Opening a relay is a offense punishable by death in council space. The Turians probably assumed you helped us activate it and tried to destroy your fleet to after they were finished with ours." He said weakly.
Grant glowered for a moment, then looked at Hackett; "How many ships are there in the enemy fleet?"
"About 350 ships have now come through the relay, we're outnumbered sir. But our AI's gave us a distinct advantage during the Battle of Yankee Relay. The Turians had to use manual targeting on us once the AI's started our ECM suite. We also have ten orbital defense guns in place as well now, which should give us better odds." Hackett replied.
The White House, Washington; Earth
Grant was trying his hardest not to break the glass he was holding.
He wasn't mad at Hackett, no that man deserved a promotion for salvaging that disaster. He was a little annoyed with the Quarians for not warning them about the threat on the other side of Yankee Relay. Yes they knew about Council space, the Geth and all that, but that had been a far off distant thing that the Quarians had said was still far away.
Now they were a very present and real reality that was gunning for them. Now there were more relays being discovered in human space, all of them being blockaded with Task Groups since they were already being stretched thin.
He had given the order for more Carriers and warships, and the Confederacy was already gearing up and mobilizing for war. But that would take time they didn't have.
He was just angry with the situation in general. I had such a nice dinner planned and everything. Guess you'll have to wait my little archer and hearth. He thought.
He rubbed his eyes,
"Alright, if you two need anything let me know. We've been blockading any relay that leads out of human space that we find, but Shanxi and Yankee station take priority since there's an actual fleet there. Make sure you send out the alert if the Turians make a move." He ordered.
Lee and Hackett nodded, their holograms disappearing. The others began reading reports that Grant barely listened too, his mind was in a far off place. He just hoped Artemis was okay at her classes; the media wasn't exactly being kind to him at the moment.
"Alien Lover!" Artemis ignored the latest jeer thrown at her as she walked down the hall, though she unconsciously brightened her glow in anger.
It was times like this that she really wished she was homeschooled, or that her dad wasn't the president. Artemis was an AI, meaning she was smarter than the average human; she didn't let on to just how smart she was though. She outpaced even some of her AI classmates; what dragged her down was her inability to focus, something that had always plagued her father.
That and she suspected that she had caught her caretakers somewhat fiery temper, she was quick to anger if provoked. Artemis was smart alright, and she had the sneaking suspicion that her dad and "Caretaker" were close in more ways than one.
The Secret Service Agents kept their distance as usual, remaining a part of the background.
Her dad wasn't exactly popular at the moment, vouching for Aliens that hated AI's and who ended up drawing in a new species that also hated AI's and other aliens. Artemis walked into her history class, about a third were AI's as usual. To an outsider, it was odd seeing how AI's dressed; they always dressed to a "theme," of sorts. George, one of her father's key advisors was always dressed in a WW2 general's uniform, she and Vesta dressed like Ancient Greeks; it always depended on the AI.
Artemis took her seat, not really paying attention to the lesson as class started; It was one of those days, where you only really half listened in case the teacher asks a question and you didn't want to be embarrassed by not knowing the question or the answer.
She just hoped her dad wouldn't be too worn out by the time she got home. She always tried to keep his spirits up; if that didn't work she would go to Vesta instead and see if she could cheer him up.
She had to resist the urge to put her head down on her desk; her progressive insomnia was getting more intolerable, and apparently stress made it worse. I wonder what the new aliens are thinking right now.
TSF Righteous Fury
Admiral Pompepilia Isarius, Captain Castis Vakarian, Spectre Saren Arterius, and General Desolas Arterius all watched the Primarch and Turian Councilor sift through the information they had sent forward about the aliens that had attacked them.
"These aliens nearly defeated you despite being outnumbered and only having frigates and destroyers." The Primarch asked.
"No sir, they had 6 cruisers. But half of them were odd; they seemed to be exclusively used for carrying strike aircraft. I am chagrined to admit it, but those alone nearly beat us once our fighter screen was knocked out." Pompeplia answered.
"Hm. Confirmed presence of AI's on the one ship they left behind. They might not have opened the relay, but they are even guiltier than the Quarians it seems." The Councilor noted.
Castis shifted uncomfortably, but Pompepilia could tell they were thinking the same thing. A law that they had no knowledge they were breaking. Neither dared voice their objections however.
"It seems congratulations are in order for all of you; you General for punishing the Quarians and the Aliens, and you Admiral for fighting off an unknown foe and forcing them to retreat." The Primarch said.
They all took the praise wordlessly, giving him a quick salute. "Have you found where these aliens are from?" he asked.
Saren answered this time, "Yes Primarch, a nearby jungle-mountain world. It is likely their home world considering the buildup of ships and cities we have seen from the probes we have sent. We outnumber them, but only barely. But I'm confident we can suppress them once we are groundside. They are clearly a violent species considering how harshly they attacked us."
The Councilor and Primarch both nodded; "Good, move in and suppress them immediately. I'll tell the council that we have discovered a violent new species and we are moving in to suppress and civilize them; a simple policing action." The Councilor said.
After the meeting was finished, they all went back to their duties, prepping themselves for an invasion. Pompepilia felt a certain pall of dread as she gave the order to move to the newly uncovered relay.
"I realized then that we weren't heading into a quick and easy Police action. We were heading into the jaws of hell to borrow a human phrase. I think me, Castis, and more progressive and religious members in our military could feel that pall that hung over us; that sort of prescience that told us we were making a horrible… horrible mistake."
–Memoirs of Admiral Pompepilia Isarius
When Isarius' fleet came through, Hackett ordered immediate action. First the digital AI's began to use their ECM suite's and jammed the Turians targeting equipment.
Then the Cruisers and the Battleships began to lay into the bigger ships of the Turian fleet. The battle was on; the Guadalcanal and the Tarawa blasting away with their 18.1 inch guns. Both sides opened up with every gun they had; the Turians began to use their more accurate Mass Effect FTL drives to jump into the 7th fleets defensive formations, closing to point blank range to maximize their guns effectiveness while minimizing the advantage the Confederacy could take from their disable targeting software.
As the battle raged across space the Turians began to realize that while the smaller Confederacy vessels had a slight advantage at closer ranges due to their torpedoes, at close range the bigger ships such as the Cruisers and the two Battleships, were vulnerable to precision strikes.
The tide of battle began to turn as Isarius began to exploit this small but important advantage.
"One problem that human ships always had, all the way back to when we had simple old sailing ships, was that big ships always were overspecialized. They were always meant to do one thing, overwhelm enemy ships in one on one engagements.
A Human Battleship against a Turian Dreadnaught, the battleship wins every time. Four dreadnaughts against one battleship; the dreadnaughts would lose one or two of their own, but they would overwhelm the battleship.
It's that whole weakness that lead to the usage of Carriers, hundreds of aircraft to overwhelm the defenses of those capitol ships. 'Death by a thousand cuts' is what we call it. And unfortunately the Turians were able to exploit this weakness perfectly during the first naval battle of Shanxi." –Admiral Steven Hackett, Personal Journal
The Turians began using their frigates as sacrificial lambs for lack of a better term, and began to overwhelm the battleships defenses.
The Tarawa retreated first, after a mostly destroyed Turian frigate crashed itself in a suicide run into one of its two 18 inch main batteries and disabled it.
Then the Guadalcanal was forced to make a run for it, 50% of its compartments breached, and two of its three reactors destroyed or disabled.
The Confederacies line began to waver, one more push was sure to break their defenses. Then Admiral Hackett threw in his last reserves. Captain Robert Carpenter's PT boat squadron; fierce fighters at any time, but now enraged at having missed breakfast which had been promised to be their first "real meal" in weeks.
"The PT boat squadron's arrival on the battlefield was like an omni-blade running through our lines. They destroyed dozens of our frigates and destroyers, just as they had begun to make progress. I had nearly forgotten about the lethal effectiveness of Confederacy torpedoes once they were in range, but the universe seemed all too ready to remind me of it." –Memoirs of Admiral Pompepilia Isarius
The tide of battle turned again in favor of the Confederacy. The PT boats charged after the fleeing frigates while the rest of the fleet dealt with the disabled and crippled ship left behind; but they were immediately cut down by a hail of lasers and slugs.
After the battle, an officer asked Carpenter where his command was, "Dead in space," he answered.
Slowly but surely, the Turians began to force Hackett's fleet to retreat, sheer numbers combined with their distinct close range advantage causing Hackett to lose ground. After an hour, Hackett ordered the retreat, sending a warning to General Lee about the incoming invasion.
"I will deal with it as best I can, but you must relieve us if we are to be expected to hold the line indefinitely." Lee replied.
Before he ordered the retreat, Hackett authorized a "small boys" attack. Human warp drives, while much faster, were also incredibly inaccurate. Hence their development around sub light naval doctrines and tactics. 12 destroyers and 23 destroyer escorts charged into the Turian formations, unleashing a hail of 5 inch shells and torpedoes. 26 Turian cruisers, destroyers and frigates are destroyed by the storm of torpedoes. Half of the Destroyers and DE's are also destroyed or disabled, but the rest escaped with Hackett's fleet.
The 7th fleet warp jumped away, leaving behind 2 Escort Carriers, 6 of the heavy Cruisers, 13 of the AA cruisers, 30 destroyers, and 41 destroyer escorts as burning wrecks. Over 20,000 Humans and AI's were dead, and another 9,000 captured; the remainder of his forces having all suffered minor to moderate damage before their retreat.
The Turians had suffered more casualties, 35,000 dead, wounded, or missing; along with about half the fleet completely destroyed or disabled. But they could afford the loss, now General Arterius, and Admiral Isarius began their invasion of Shanxi.
Shanxi; 70 miles south of Orbital Shield Generator (OSG) 5.
Hannah carefully moved through the bushes, the jungle forests giving her Marines and the Guardsmen superb cover. So this is what my ancestors fought in, now I know why they couldn't win. She thought, remembering that they had fought in the pacific theatre in WW2 and in Vietnam.
Hannah, her platoon of Marines, and two Platoons of Shanxi Guardsmen were advancing to one of the many roads that General Lee and her engineers had made to force the invaders on a certain path. The Turians had fallen for the trick hook line and sinker; already they were getting reports of entire companies of Turians being slaughtered by only one or two platoons of Guardsmen, Soldiers, or Marines.
Her troopers were like ghosts, making next to no noise as they walked; Her Nightfall armor was surprisingly quiet all things considered. A Guardsman officer rushed to her, his Asian features hidden behind his mask.
"Ma'am, our AI's are in position; ready when you are." He reported.
"Good, spread your boys and girls out into four man teams; one with each AI. I want to stop them in their tracks; we got reports of vehicles in the enemy column so get the RPG's ready." She ordered.
The man nodded and took off; as much as Hannah was loth to admit, despite their inferior equipment and training the Guardsmen were their equals in many ways. Shanxi had been settled by mostly Japanese immigrants, while Japan was a peaceful country, they still had some of the finest soldiers in the Confederacy. Hannah had the sneaking suspicion that they were trained more than what they let on.
The men still used old M16A4's with various attachments, but they all had bayonets fixed to the barrels. While tactically idiotic, she would have paid to see them go full Banzai charge on the Turians.
"Here they come!" a gold colored AI whispered. He had used mud and put an actual physical uniform on in order to hide his light. He took aim with an RPG at the lead vehicle.
Saren tried to keep the scowl of his face as he rode in the vehicle. As much as he didn't want to admit it, the primitives were a legitimate and viable threat. Not one suit rat was to be found on the field, probably having abandoned their "allies" to save their own skin. Like what they had done to him.
They were getting reports of fierce resistance, horrible ambushes and traps everywhere the invasion force went. It seemed like the entire planet was one giant trap for them. They had already lost about 5,000 troops and a healthy portion of their vehicles.
What had convinced Saren and his Brother that they were in the middle of a death trap was that they had landed practically unopposed except for a few platoons of what were clearly militia people. As soon as they had landed their forces the primitives Air Force had struck, blasting everything out of the sky that moved.
Then as they began to advance through the highways, they had to stop every kilometer to deal with bombs disabling or destroying vehicles. And every time they stopped, a small platoon sized force would wait until the Turians began to repair the vehicles and retrieve the wounded before they would unleash a firestorm of gunfire. They didn't use grains, instead they used massive slugs, which ripped apart their innards and shattered bone; as opposed to going right through them.
The troops had begun to designate them as "Engineers," because the aliens skill at engineering defenses and death traps was becoming more and more painfully obvious with each passing hour.
They had also been getting frankly ridiculous reports of "spirits" helping the engineers. Glowing bipedal beings that seemed to shoot them with arrows made from light, which burned those hit from the inside out. But Saren had dismissed those reports as exaggerations.
It was why he was here now, to gauge the accuracy of the reports coming in from the field. So far he had to agree that these aliens were engineers at heart. They used every tool in their arsenal to make up for their deficiencies.
KLANG!
Saren felt himself get jostled in his seat as the APC careened upward, then he bashed his helmeted head into the roof of the cramped vehicle; and everything went black.
A/N; Sorry for the long wait ladies and gents, and for the lower quality chapter; but I wanted to get this out rather than keep you guys waiting any longer. Finals are over which gives me time before summer classes' start up to make some progress. I admit I was a little stumped as to how to do this next chapter, it went through 5 different versions, before I settled for the current version; believe me if you aren't impressed with this one you should read the rejected chapters, oh lord were they bad.
The war is going to be picking up now, but most of it I won't cover in this story. Once this one is done, I may do a small collection of side stories from different fronts of the war; but we'll see.
For those that may complain that I made the UC navy weak, what makes you think that Hackett didn't want to retreat? When outnumbered and on the defensive, you fight with an elastic defense. Make the enemy fight tooth and nail for your position and then slip away to a new one; bleed your enemy dry. It's what made the south almost win the American civil war several times. (BTW when I say that, I mean the south was one major victory away from having Europe recognize the confederacy, Antietam changed that.)
I wasn't able to find any media depicting what Shanxi was like, (although I only played the games so I'm not a good reference point,) so I settled on a landscape similar to Vietnam, mixed with the large mountains and valleys of Afghanistan. Yeah Saren ain't gonna have a good time.
If y'all want to make a TV tropes page of my story, please do it. It's one of my favorite sites.
Well… leave a review as always; let me know what you think Ladies and Gents.
See ya when I see ya.