Hello everyone! I'm back from the vacation of Tet Holiday. I wish everyone a very happy (lunar) new year, with success, love, harmony and luck!

During the past three weeks, it is a pity that my writing rate was VERY slow. Hell, only a quarter of this chapter was written in that time. Yeah, very slow... This chapter is also slightly slow-paced (at least it felt like that). If you feel disappoint, I promise that the next one will see a lot of named characters being sent to hell. And a lot of explosions, classical human's Art and Science of War along with some colorful curses. Too bad that Desolas will not be present.


Reviews' response

Olav152: Thanks for liking my incarnation of Desolas. He will be the living trope of Bunny Eared Lawyer of the Turian invasion force. Well, he and his aide/lover/girlfriend, though the latter is more... sanity-questionable. The bunch of somewhat-sane (sarcasm) engineers will play a role in the fic. But it will not be written in the next three or four chapters - and it will not be pretty. Expect half of them dead by the end of this fic (I've watched too much Russian war drama and Japanese war animes)

AdamZeeper: Cái đó gọi là Đại học :) [This guy is surprised to know that I have three weeks off for Tet Holiday. Normally, it is only ten days to two weeks for students]

OMAC001: To be fair, the Turians are also sentient and sapient beings. It is bounded to have certain similar features as our society - though whether they are the sane or crazy parts is another story.

general-joseph-dickson: Thanks for your review.

Chornus1326: Thanks liking my "new" Desolas. Regarding the miles and metric systems, well, it is an on-going joke online. The world is surprise to see that US keeps using the imperial system (with miles and pounds) - and the US just says that they are the only one who has sent men to the Moon. Well, that, and I'm a Vietnamese, I've never used Imperial units before (apart during fic-writing like this)

Guest: Thanks for liking my fic and enjoying the last chapter. Well, this is a new chapter here. Hope you enjoy it.

Pteaset: Thank you for your inspirational reviews.


"Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."

- Winston Churchill (1874 - 1965), Prime Minister, army officer and writer of the [former] United Kingdoms. Famous for his leadership of United Kingdom in World War Two.


Location:
Lagrangian point 4
Zhusanjiao system
Hegemony of Oriental
Terran Federation

Time:
09:12 - Terran standard time
21 February 2201

The Combat Group One and Two limped back to Zhusanjiao system. Their former was laced with injuries and traces of highly intense combat. While they only lost one of their number, they still had thirty one ships left. However, none of those thirty one ships had any capability in joining the fight for the next few days. Half of their number had more than a quarter of their hulls missing, and the other half had critical components being exposed to the void: bridges, engine rooms, reactor halls… In addition, all of them reported that most of their ordnance had been spent in the fight.

Combat Group Two showed no visible damage, but their Aviation Groups had been spooked. The enemy had already shown their ability to reconfigure themselves, to adapt on the fly and fight back. While the damage was negligible, the implication was heavy. With luck and time, such crude methods would be able to shatter the Terran Shield. After all, that was how many wars and battles were won: with crude methods, and sufficient time and luck.

Even with the presence of the Anvil dry dock, replenishing the exhausted ships still took considerable time. In addition, the dry dock was actually rigged with explosive, just in case the enemy was able to jump in the system directly, or strong enough to blast away Combat Group One and Two of Insurance Task Force, or both. So far, it was not the case. However, none of the civilian and Quarian engineers was recalled. Instead, military engineers and mechanics were called up to fill in the spots.

Ships after ships, the injured vessels of the Task Force lined up to dock with Anvil, patching themselves up for the next fight. Meanwhile, the more intact and in-shaped vessels remained behind, laying a minefield around the Mass Relay. They knew that the enemy knew they would do so, but they knew the Turian knew they knew… or something like that. Anyway, the base line was this: even if its presence was known, its purpose of delaying and damaging the enemy was still done. For the Terran Federation, it was enough.

The mood of everyone was strung up. They knew that the Turian was right after them, and the dino-birds only slowed down because they were not stupid enough to push on their luck, or simply because they lacked the number to try it. Luckily, there was a silver lining of hope. The drones left behind by the Task Force had sent regular reports through the Relay, utilizing the yet-analyzed form of FTL travel as the medium. As it turned out, the Turian had completely stopped in their pursuit and began fixing themselves up. It was good news for the rank and file men of the Terran Navy, giving them extra time to patch themselves up.

For the commanders, especially the ones high enough on the rank, that… carried certain heavy implications. Sure, they had the time to replenish their strength, but the same thing could be said about the dino-birds. It appeared that despite their relative small sizes, each vessel had a very high relative amount of logistic materials. Sure, the absolute amount shown was still much smaller compared to each Terran ship, but the ratio of estimated logistic tonnage to ship tonnage was… alarming, to say the least.

Roughly, each ship had enough material to patch themselves from "a beehive" to combat-capable-looking. In a more technical manner, they were able to recover more than a third of their armor plating. The number was not so impressing, considering that a Terran ship could lose up to three quarters of its armor and still live long enough to have them fixed. However, the part Turian ships did not need any dedicated docks or special structures was not only impressive, but also frightening. It seemed that the Turians were functioning in the same way as the Roman Army back on Earth – each soldier carried his own portion of food and drink, thus reducing the logistic strain of the supply corp.

Considering that Roman Empire was still one of the most kick-arse and long living Empire in the human's history, that was a real problem coming to think about it. The Turians simply proved it by their existence – they were the peacekeeper and police of the Galaxy for the last one thousand years. If they were not competent or wonderful like that, surely they were swept under the rug long ago already. After all, within five days, they were able to bring back all of their remaining heavy hitters to combat condition.

Five days passed under heavy atmosphere. Both sides were preparing for the impending fight. The Terran received extra ships, reinforcement in another word, increasing their number of warships, strike crafts and supply vessels. In the meantime, every non-combatant of Shanxi was evacuated, one way or another. On the ground, there were soldiers sent directly from Terran High Command, local Guardsmen being activated and militia being raised. For obvious reasons, only volunteers were accepted as militia, and the badges were only distributed if they met certain requirements, such as they really volunteered for the job and not being "shamed" into taking it, they had enough physical fitness or understanding of local terrains. The staggering loss of Vietnamese militia in the early days of World War Three proved why such criteria were needed on top of patriotism. They held the line, buying crucial times for the regular forces to drive into the flank and rear of the enemy – at the cost of 80% of their men killed, maimed, heavily wounded, captured or fled within five days of fighting.

Bunkers and tunnels were kept digging. The process began a few weeks after First Contact with the Quarians was kept in motion. The human's paranoia finally paid off with a tunnel system spanning under the entire capital city of Shanxi and connecting the nerve center to various small villages and towns spread around the globes. The structure, in theory, was capable of standing to a minor nuclear attack (humans' definition, at least) and holding up to ten thousand people with full rations for up to six months. An independent bunker system was also erected, covering critical traffic points and supply depots, each could support a platoon for a few weeks against CBRN (Chemical – Biological – Radioactive – Nuclear) threats.

Now, with all civilians evacuated, those defense systems were being used by the newly-christened "Healthcare" DCLXVI Corp under the command of Lieutenant General Jacob Williams. And yes, it was really named Healthcare, after the presence of Insurance Naval Task force (and to spite in the face of USNA politicians, who had yet to finish a universal healthcare program). The number 666 was chosen to number the formation because it sounded terribly similar to "sex – sex – sex" under heavily accented English. The High Command was just being themselves as usual, absolutely bonkers.

Such insanity was accepted, because they were competent and bright enough for the job. Eighty thousand personnel with various support units and local Guardsmen and Militia – that number was nothing to scoff at. In theory, they could send more, but the threat of orbital attack was a constant one, not to mention that putting all men on the ground was synonym to putting all eggs in a basket. Now, they had fifty thousand being garrisoned on the planet and ten thousand would act like a mobile quick respond force in the opening move of the attack. The remaining group of twenty thousand men consisted of Marine only, used as the final wave of in-system reinforcement or as boarders to capture enemy ships.

For five days, Naval ships were still under a constant fast-paced repair, but there was nothing they could do to fasten it up, short of using magic blue space babes. The enemy was coming, but at least they have mined the Mass Relay to block off a good portion of hostile fleet before them streaming through. The only thing they had left was to wait.

Admiral Shivam Sodhi was in constant contact with the Central High Command and his subordinates, planning out various simulations and war plans, trying to finalize all details of the defense plan. Five days, every man of the Insurance Task Force was put under heavy strain, even more than their graduation exam week. Everyone saw their mood getting worsened and grinded down.

Then, things turned worse. When the mark of the five days had passed, the signal of the drone was lost. Not by any technical failure or someone spilling coffee on the boards, but because it was attacked directly. A fighter wings approach the drone on high-velocity vector, they were not planning for any patrol or scouting, they had already known the presence of the drones via unknown means. It spelt disasters.

The whole formation of over ten drones was completely wiped out. Not even a single one was left behind. No one knew how the Turian was able to find them, a full score of Naval officers had already wet their pants, unable to answer the question.

The why was easy enough. The Turians were preparing for a counter-attack, possibly in a few days. It would be a sweet spot, between having the Terrans tired out and yet to recover while they would be in their best mental shape. In addition, it was plausible that they had reinforcement inbound, and it never hurted to blind the enemy's eye on that.

It was a tense time. Combat Group One was still in a bad shape, twenty three destroyers and eight cruisers came back through the Mass Relay with their bodies literally shot to hell and back, and now only fifteen destroyers and two cruisers were at combat acceptable level. The remaining was still waiting for their turn to be fixed. Even with the reinforcement, it seemed that there was no other option. The Terran would be unable to intercept the Turian with full force and have to rely on the minefield for that job.

They would stay near the dry dock and the Outpost to block the invasion force. On the bright side, the Mass Relay behind them led to a barren system, nothing but five giant rocks and a dying star. There was simply no other way to get out of here, short of FTL travelling to neighboring systems, one by one, and searching for any human's installations by hand. Best case scenario, it would take the Turian two weeks to find the nearest one, more than enough for the human to plug in the hole if their line of defence was broken here.

That was part of the reason why they decided to make a stand here. There was simply no way that the Turian could drive into the heart of Terran Federation in a short period of time.

Five days had passed since the last engagement. Now, with their drones silenced, they stood ready for the upcoming fight.

The Mass Relay flashed, its signal was collected by a drone groups, then encrypted and sent via FTL communication toward Task Force Insurance. The computers quickly decrypted it and turned into human-friendly data. The Turians had arrived.

The first wave comprised of twenty ships and still rising, classified as Turian frigates. The order to detonate any mines was held, waiting the moment the number of enemy ships had reached a certain threshold. The first part was well enough, enemy ships keep pouring out of the Mass Relay, en mass. However, the drones, with their enhanced sensors and dedicated computer programs, quickly found out a problem. All Turian ships were damaged, and a brief scan show a "highly likely" chance that they were the ones joined in the last fight.

The Terrans were puzzled at first. Sure, in video games, one would send forth his weakest and most damaged units to absorb the defense fire. However, video games were vastly different from real life, no matter how much effort was bump in to make it so. Sending men (and women) to die in wave like that was not only stupid, but also heartless. That was not to even mention the inefficiency of the practice and the political quagmire after that.

Sure, technically, if the enemy had a slave caste, too many mouths to feed or a fuck-it-all attitude, they may throw their men blindly. It would be a terrible fate for mankind, but in the end, it would still be their job to find it out, confirm it and battle against it – nothing changed in the first place. In addition, the actions of the commander and the Codex had already disproved that idea. The Turian armed force was a conscription-based one, with a high chance to go career and many competent commanders. Sending ships in wave like this was not encouraged…

Then, if such was the case, the question remained: Why? The bridge officers of the Indominatus were quiet, trying to figure out the enemy plan. They kept staring at the read-outs from the drones, looking for a pattern in the hostile action. Then, the moment when a hundred frigates had passed through the Relay, all of them lit up the space.

In synch, the ships at the head of the formation blew themselves up, pushing the mines away deactivating and detonating others. Behind them, the remaining ships opened fire with their laser turrets, cutting through the death trap. Then, the moment they surged through the explosions, they went up in flame again, destroying more mines in the process. One ship could do little, but when a hundred ships did that, well, it worked in a brutally efficient manner.

The minefield was neutralized completely. Well, some were detonated, but against potentially unmanned ships? They were just useless, or at least not as useful as the humans wanted them to be. They were wasted, not being able to kill or destroy any enemy lives. At least the Turians would not have to worry about fixing those one hundred ships, they simply borrow the Terran nukes – free of charge.

Fire ships tactics. One of the oldest trick in the Art and Science of War, back in the day where humans had yet to venture to the ocean and only fought on the rivers. It was an easy-to-make trick, cost-efficient and highly deadly when used correctly. The Turians may have different names and terms to label it, but the idea was the same, they just turned one of the classic tactics of humanity against them.

They gave away more than seventy heavily-damaged ships to clear way for the main thrust, effectively gain the initiative and upper hand in mobility and number. They had the choice on when and how to deploy, and the Terran had little to none ability to effectively counter that. The odds had shifted towards the Turians already – and that was even before the fight and before taking into account the possibility of alien reinforcement.

The only saving grace was that the drones were still intact, still transmitting the image and signal from the Mass Relay area with FTL communication. However, for fifteen minutes, apart from radiation dying out and ship wrecks drifting away, there was nothing happening. That was another issue: the Turians had already found a simple solution to counter the effect of radiation killing their sensors. They simply had to move in later, when sufficient amount of radiation had already died out. The best solution was the simplest one – it seemed that the Turian commander liked that as well.

Admiral Shivam Sodhi kept his finger crossed, hoping that guy was an exception and not the rule, or he was being sane, for that matter.

Fifteen minutes passed away, every sailors and officers drew their breath. Hurry up and wait was their mondus operandi. They saw the minefield being disabled within a few short minutes, the whole area was lit up with explosions, flashes and enough gamma ray to make a new legion of the Incredible Hulks. The red alert was given out, brining everyone from dozing off state to wide alert in a few seconds, then full combat readiness in less than five minutes. Then, nothing happened, not much, at least. Everyone was strained, mentally and physically, but they still had to remain in their post, even if all they were allowed to do was to stare blankly at the screens and walls. Well, Terran Navy for one.

Then, at the mark of fifteen minutes, the drones noticed the first flash of ship transport. Then another, two more, four, six… The number kept rising and rising. The sheer count alone was able to make everyone gawk in ridiculous, it seemed that the Turians had finally done playing games and brought out the hammer.

Five "dreadnaughts" were transitioned first, leading the pack and blasting their defense laser to clear out the immediate vicinity. Then, a massive weight of more than one hundred and fifty "cruisers" appeared in the system. Last but not least, five hundred "frigates" appeared, covering the flanks of the armada. More than six hundred ships, in total. Nearly five time worth of the original fleet in the last battle.

Then… five fleets in total? Against that number, the Terran had eight cruisers at 80% efficiency, twenty destroyers at 70% efficiency and three more at 50%. Luckily, fresh reinforcement of eight destroyers, four standard cruisers and four specialized cruisers gave them some room to fall back. The addition seemed to be spot-on, delivering critical fire support for Insurance Task Force. But even then, with the new ships, they were still outnumbered by a factor of thirteen, completely overshadow the factor of four in the previous engagement.

A factor of four means a closed win for the Terran, but a factor of thirteen would see their deaths.

On the deck of Indominatus, the AI Gabriel Angelos made some quick calculation and got a 80% casualty rate in the battle, assuming the Terran planned a "No surrender and no retreat". If they prolonged the fight to FTL out of the system, the number was "just" 50%. They sounded severe, but everyone knew the risk, they had volunteered for this job, which meant that they had already accepted the possibility that they may have died some day in combat.

If death was the price to pay to keep their friends, their families and their homes safe, well, that was a price they were willing to pay.

Everyone's eyes were glued to the screens, watching every move of the Turian fleet. With that knowledge, no one was caught surprise when they executed an in-system FTL movement to move past a few astronomical units in a blink of an eye.

The Turian fleet jumped out, distancing themselves a few thousand kilometers away, right into the range of both sides. The void between the two stayed silent for a few tens of seconds, with both sides trying to lock down the hostile and keep the enemy from doing so. The humans had the edge in experience and equipment quality, but their enemy had the edge in number. Quantity had its own quality, that chilling line was never truer than now.

The Insurance Task Force positioned themselves at Lagrange point 4, or L4. They needed a position to evac and field-repair their ships, but they also wanted to make sure that Shanxi was not hit by any main gun attack, lest a calamity happened. Then, with the presence of a dry dock at the said position, the site for the planned stand had been prepared already. They just stood there motionless, watching and staring down the Turian drawing a bead on them.

The two sides opened fire in the same time. The Turian combined armada let loose a full torrent of kinetic strike packages, highly likely as a cover for their slower but much more deadly disruptor torpedoes. On the other side, centered on Outpost Hotel-Omega 29, the Terran responded with a mass missile launch. More than three thousand missiles were launched in the first strike, and it was quickly backed up with the same amount in the second, barely two seconds between the two.

The No man void between the two fleets was quickly heat up, the sheer ambient signal and reading from the weapon launches was enough for both sides to gain a partial lock on each other. It worked out better for the Terran as they could correct the flight path of their missiles, but those took time to arrive at their targets. On the other hand, the main guns of the Turian only took a fraction of that time to hit on the Terrans.

Slugs of metal slide through the ship screen, forcing many Terran ships to relocate to avoid being hit. A few ships were not very lucky, suffering glancing hits over the length of their hulls. The Dnieper lost all of its missile pods on the top and the Krakow suffered failure in its side thrusters. Various types of breakdowns were observed and suffered on other ships. Luckily, none of the problem was critical.

However, it was only the first strike, coming from the mid-weight and light-weight ships. They were meant as gauging shots rather than outright lethal packages. The dreadnaughts, seemingly equipped with the best arrays of sensors, made the final adjustments, then let loose their fully charged attacks. Five metal slugs were launched at relativistic speed… and all of them struck on their targets. Five cruisers of in the formation were hit, and they quickly erupted in fiery explosions. The balls of fire illuminated a corner of space, before quickly dying away. The scores was 5 – 0, in the favours of the Turians.

To retaliate, the Insurance Task Force returned fire with their MAC strikes, focusing on those five dreadnaughts. Those were the most dangerous ships, due to their potential damage as well as their ability to counter-electronic-warfare. However, the Turians were well aware of that, and using the fact that the payloads of the humans were much slower, they could attempt to evade or intercept the strikes.

Easier said than done, of course. The mass and concentrated attack arrived in the same time with Time on Target control, giving the highest level of carnage and destruction possible. Not many sane commanders would dare to put themselves in harm's way, especially when they knew very well about the stopping power of the MAC payloads. Besides, even with the speed of "just" 50km/s, detecting an incoming strike in the vastness of space and responding in time were hard jobs.

The first two dreadnaughts were struck, their shields were completely removed, exposing their own hulls for the next strikes. The following slugs slammed on their frontal hulls, visibly turning them away. Lights flickered on those ships, explosions could be seen dotted on the hulls, and their frontal sides were very similar to the beautiful landscape on Tuchanka. The next three dreadnaughts were much luckier. Not all shots connected on their barriers, and the ones landed only caused glancing hits. In addition, the remainders only hit on escorting cruisers and frigates. Sure, the small ships were destroyed, but the Turians had enough number for replacement.

Then, the missile barrage arrived from an elevated angle to the Turian fleet, plus 60 degrees to be exact. Like the previous engagement, the Eezo-ships prove capable in stopping a full swarm of missiles, even if they had to rely on brute force and number to deal with the job. After all, six hundred ships meant that they carried enough closed range defense turrets to blast through any missile swarm they knew of.

The ones they knew of was the key part. And the Terran missile swarm was not alike to anything they knew. Who in the right mind would give their missile stealth powers? Anti-radar, anti-Infrared, anti-UV and even anti-electronic takeover features were standard on any space-borne missiles launched from the Terran line. Only a species knew nothing but war could do that. And which one was crazy and resilient enough to live and thrive in war apart from the Krogan?

Due to the high number of missile and the low efficiency, the Turians had to alternate between their turrets. One would open fire when another rest for cool down and the like. However, the sheer number of the missiles – more than three thousand of them – gave the aliens quite a challenge. Sensing no other option, Turian captains gave the order for their ship to rotate around their longitudinal axis, bringing the GARDIAN turrets on their belly to bear. However, it played straight into the Terran's playbook. Why?

The Turians would have an answer when they re-watched the feed: the humans. Because when they were busy focus fire on the first missile barrage, a second wave had already approached from the other side, negative 80 degree elevation. These missiles revealed themselves in the final boost toward targets much later that the first barrage, catching the Turians by surprise. Coupled with the fact that most turrets pointing toward them were still in recommended cool down mode, they arrived relatively unharmed.

Another three thousand missiles, all of them dedicated anti-ship for space warfare, was a real might. Spreading them out to hit all six hundred ships was stupid, so the Terran Admiral did the sensible job: focus fire. The dreadnaughts, no matter their shape and status, were tagged with no less than thirty. Cruisers were slotted with fifteen and the remainder, if any, was tagged with a Wolf pack program, gunning toward any available targets.

The result was satisfying to say the least. Half of the cruiser force was damaged, all dreadnaughts were hit, and the frigates may have fried their circuits while overloading the control on the laser turrets. The momentum of the Turian force was stalled for a brief moment, as if the humans were laughing in the face of Fate and Death.

However, their enemy became Galaxy peacekeeper for a reason. They quickly recovered and re-organised themselves. The more intact ships moved forward, covering their wounded comrades. Fields of fire were deployed, overlapping each other to gain the maximum coverage against the remaining missiles. In addition, while they were still doing so, the Turian remained moving forward to the dry dock and countered with a mass kinetic strike.

The weapon officers of the Terran ships quickly noticed a problem: the launch of Turian disruptor torpedoes had already arrived. Intercepting them would be easy, but doing so while watching out for the deliveries of the Turian ships was not. In addition, while the Turian armada was hit, they was only scratched and bled. Wounded, but not incapacitated. Therefore, their barrage still had the same mass at the first time.

Moreover, it seemed that the dino-birds had already figured out the critical weakness of the humans. Their ships were unable to make fast and rapid maneuvering in a short moment. It meant that compared to the last time, the Turians did not have to do any harsh re-calculations, they only need to take more accurate readings.

This time, the humans suffered heavy damage. The accuracy of the shots were still low, barely 20%, but 20% of 600 was 120, and the humans only had less than 50 ships. Four destroyers and two more cruisers were wiped off the map, the still-wounded destroyers quickly showed the gravity of their injuries, and all captains were shouting, even if their microphones were working normally. Casualty reports started filling in the console of the Admiral, men and ship… Biting down a curse, he checked the situation. The Turian were still moving in, it would not take long before they could brute-force through the electronic blanket with sheer number and power. Combined with their rate of two shots per minute at full charge, he knew that they could win the battle…

Sure, they would suffer heavily, but they would still be the winner in the end. Heck, they could do that when they outnumbered him four to one already. With the factor of thirteen? Well, he was more surprised that he could hold out for this long.

Sacrificing good men for a glory last stand would be stupid, but retreating at once would be a crippling blow to moral. In other words… a fighting retreat movement. Scenario Delta-Five then. At least it was not Foxtrot level yet. The play book of Terran armed forces had an unofficial scenario naming, from Alpha "all is good" to Foxtrot "fucked up beyond any recognizable". And yes, it could have turned for worse, something like a massive fleet outnumbering his Task Force by a factor of 50 in Echo-Four or a Apocalypse device in Foxtrot-Ten.

All strike crafts were given order to launch. Luckily, all carriers were positioned behind a screening formation, protecting them from battle damage so far. The Indominatus, Courage and Spite let loose their strike wings. This time, the entire wings were launched, not a single strike craft was spared. The humans needed the shock value and extra jamming to cover their retreat. After all, they would be turning around and igniting their engines, exposing themselves to gun fire.

But leaving without giving any parting gifts would be rude, very rude. The Admiral's mother had already drilled it into his head when he was much younger, so he decided to give it to the Turian. As usual, it was a combination of missile launches and MAC packages. However, the difference was that he called up the pair of missile cruisers for the job.

"Weapon free" was his message to the ship, and they quickly obliged by launching over a thousand missiles, per ship. Combined with the organic missile pods on other ships, it was literally a Macross Missile Massacre, numbering well over four thousand units. The MAC packages were launched a moment later, estimations showed that they would arrive about sixty seconds before the missiles.

Fair enough. The order to turn around was given, but the Turians had already seen them doing so. A new barrage was sent, and this time, the Terran continued to suffer. Ships were struck mid-way through their turn. Destroyer Truong Dao was struck in the middle of its side hull, the relativistic round cut a clean line through its body, leaving a giant hole behind. Her sisters, Doan dao and Nhi con khuc were struck by some hidden disruptor torpedoes and disappeared in giant balls of fire. Cruiser Berlin and Dnieper were hit on their engines, significantly lowering their speed and maneuverability.

The bridge of Indominatus shook, courtesy of some light-weight hits coming from Turian frigates. While none of them was critical, they sure put the whole crew on edge, even more severe than normally. The Admiral, still secured in his strap seat and hard suit, spared a brief moment to glance up. His bridge crew was still operating efficiently, the Captain was sitting in the CIC (Combat Information Center), co-coordinating the attack of the strike crafts. Everyone felt the shots connected, but none abandoned their posts. For a crew in a First Contact War (and/or First Interstellar War – and he probably had just jinxed it), it was more than satisfactory.

With the spinal mounted MAC pointing away from the approaching Turian fleet, the humans had to rely on the missiles and strike crafts to deal the damage, which they did with extreme prejudge. Light-weight nuclear ordnance had been approved, and the Turian quickly get peppered by dozens of one-kiloton missiles. In retaliation, the aliens sent forth their frigates, which surged forward and released another volley of disruptor torpedoes.

The battle was slowly turning into a slug fest, with both sides chasing each other while sending their light-weight units to harass the enemy. It was nerve-straining, to say the least. Not many human ships were equipped with enough anti-ship weapons for close range fight, and the Turian ships were not designed to counter that many small fast-flying objects. On the other hand, the Turian frigates could not come in too close due to rapid-firing auto-cannon turrets dotting on the Terran ships. Each turret could puncture a hole on the kinetic barriers and severely damage the frigates hull, which forced them to constantly twisting, turning, and unable to cause any meaningful damage. The strike crafts, meanwhile, failed to penetrate the ring of fire from the Turian ships. It seemed that the aliens had decided not to aim accurately but only vaguely in the general direction. After all, throwing enough stones and one may hit something, and they did not really need to hit the strike crafts, simply keeping them away was a success already.

However, damage was still struck and dealt. The Terran lost an extra pair of cruisers, both of which suffered critical engine and reactor failures, forcing their crews to evacuate and land on other ships. That was not to mention other "not-so-critical" wounds on all other ships. The issue further slowed down the retreat process. Around them, however, were the husks of ten-odd Turian frigates and a few more seemingly intact ones. Those were the unlucky ones… Their comrades were attacked with light-weight nuclear weaponry. The close proximity and the nature of the attack were able to score a dozen more kills, including a mission-kill dreadnaught. The poor ship did not disappear in a nuclear fire, but with her engines turning off and her hulls punctured, she was pretty much neutralized.

Still, shot by shot, the Terran was suffering from heavy damage. Sixteen ships were killed in total, seven destroyers and nine cruisers, all of the remaining ships suffered various degree of damage, brining the approximate death count to the lower end of three thousands. That number was roughly a third of their number and about a fifth of their total power. To think that such carnage was handed in less than thirty minutes…

On the other side, the Turians had already lost more than thirty ships, including a mission-killed dreadnaught. While the number was still in the human's favour, that number was only 5% of their total force, and the remaining was hungry for pay back. The only thing stopped them from surging forward was, potentially, the carefulness of the Turian commander. After all, the humans were forced to retreat after losing a considerable number of their, but there was no guarantee that they would not leave any surprise there.

Or the aliens prefer capturing the dry dock (which would turn into an inferno soon), the space station outpost (welcome to CQB 101: Don't fuck it up) and the planet Shanxi itself (with a very warm reception party below).

The fighters on both sides were withdrawing, returning to their respective sides. Of course, the Starwraths and Starfurries also took some potshot at the retreating Turian frigates, who also gladly to return the favour. A brief but intense gun duel took place there, where both sides simply launched basic strafing runs, the ones that would result in catastrophic consequences. Nearly twenty Turian ships had new holes on them for ventilation, and a dozen of Terran strike crafts had to launch their hook to grab on the friendly ejected pilots.

Both sides decided it would be a terrible idea to keep lingering around, therefore, they quickly broke contact and vector away. The human pilots returned to their carriers and the frigates boosted toward the outpost Hotel-Omega. It appeared that they wanted to capture the space station intact, or with the Insurance Task Force being forced out of position, finally they could focus fire on it.

The whole crew of the Outpost had volunteered to remain in their posts, planning to gain extra intelligence at the final moments, giving the ground forces extra warnings. No matter how the Admiral tried, he could not convince them to rethink it, or rather, he could not make an effective counter-argument. In addition, even if he could, the possibility that the crew agreed to evacuate was slim to say the least.

While this was not their home planet, Captain Lee Xijang and Commander Cho Minhu were citizens of the Hegemony of Oriental, who were fiercely patriotic and loyal. For them and their PAC neighbors, dying for Motherland was not regrettable, it was the highest honour one could hope for. Of course, they were pragmatic enough to know if their deaths were fruitful, the problem was that they were competent and charismatic enough to convince the Admiral that the answer was "yes".

It seemed that there was no other choice. The crew had already volunteered for the job. They would delay the final advance of the Turian, giving the ground forces any piece of intel they came across and buying the GROPO a few more minutes, hours at best.

Admiral Shivam Sodhi felt a bitter taste on his tongue. It appeared that the naval fight for the system had been lost. Sure, it was expected, but to experience it was a totally different job. No matter how one mentally trained himself, retreating and suffering defeat deliberately were still hard jobs to do. The other part, well, the Admiral just hoped that the fight here had cost the logistic power of the Turian fleet dearly, and the fight on the ground would cost them more. Then, may be their supply line would be over-extended, giving the humans an opportunity to strike back.

The Shield had failed, then the Dagger and Hammer shall hold the line. No matter what. After all, while the battle was lost, the war was still raging on… No, the war had just begun.

For the Motherland, then.


Author's note: This chapter is mostly showing the Turian took control of the Zhusanjiao system (with Shanxi planet) via brute force. To put it in plain terms: they are using an armada equivalent to four to five full strength fleets (plus the attached ground forces) to fight for the system. They outnumbered the humans by a factor of thirteen. A third of the Terran defenders was killed (as in "killed", not mission-killed) and they had to retreat.

To be fair, I always have more connection to ground and aerial warfare. Navy combat, both wet and void, is... hard to described for me. I can recognise the key points and features, but putting them into words is much harder compared to describing the carnage through the eyes of a soldier. I promise that I will try my best to compensate with the perspective of some GROPO then.