Strange times make strange bedfellows.
-English proverb
Outskirts of the Luxor System, CSV Archangel - Spectre Garrus Vakarian
March 20th, 2183
The klaxon blared and Blasto's voice came over the intercom. "This one calls all hands to battle stations. Code Harvest, we have made a crash translation into hostile occupied territory. This one repeats, Code Harvest, all hands to battle stations."
Garrus had already been preparing for the hailing and landing procedures, but now he dropped the paperwork for entering foreign territory and rushed for the cockpit. Code Harvest in the Luxor system meant one thing and one thing only: Reaper invasion.
The recently independent Illuminated Primacy was not a major galactic power, but politically that still had a great deal of weight. The long time Council races had great respect for the hanar, especially the volus and elcor, who were major trading partners with the hanar. While both of those species had military power equal to about one turian patrol, their economic and political capital combined was enough to have the Councilor's mandibles trembling at the thought of their breaking off as well. What was still true was that the hanar still had a lot of favors they could call in, as well as their loyalty to pledge anew, that could bring great fleets down upon the Luxor system. If the Reapers were here, that meant full scale war with them had just been declared. Mere hours after full scale war with the League had been.
"A war on two fronts. Saren, you son of a varren, what are you playing at?" Garrus snarled to himself as he stormed to the bridge.
"What's the situation?" Garrus demanded of the officer of the watch, his turian XO Marinus Dromon.
"Many contacts sir, so many the long range sensors are getting confused as to just how many there are. Best estimate puts that at more than 8000 ships, and at least 80 of those are capital ships. More are probably hidden behind various celestial shadows."
"Those sons of bitches are attacking MY planet!" Blasto's voice snarled, as his holo popped up on Garrus' display. "Beholds the Enemies of the Enkindlers and is Enraged says we go and vaporize a few of them."
Dead silence, save for the hum of the engine. Blasto had used his name. Not just his face name, which would have been bad enough, but his true name. Garrus had known that, as the captain of the ship and the one who'd saved Blasto and his piloting skills from a long stay in a C-Sec jail. Hanar never, under any but the most dire of circumstances, used their names when referring to themselves. It was equivalent to all the worst swear words any of the other species of the galaxy could have come up with. Worse than that, a hanar's name was sacred.
"Well?" Blasto demanded. "If you haven't got your knickers out of a knot at Blasto's language yet, Blasto is going to pick one and make it explode."
Well, at least he was down to using his face name. Garrus turned to his tactical officer. "Prioritize a vessel on the outskirts, big as you please. We need to cause a distraction so we can get down the surface of the planet. Get the messenger shuttle away immediately to the Citadel, I don't know if they have word of this already, but they need to know it's happening. Our priority is to get to the surface and extract Dr. T'soni. She's going to know what's going on, and that prothean AI of hers just went up in value. Get a move on people!"
As the bridge exploded into action, Garrus backed off to a quiet corner to watch. Space combat was not his specialty. He could think in three dimensions well enough, and he wasn't a bad hand at grand tactics or strategy, but ground work and small unit tactics was where he shined. The space battles were the area of Dromon's expertise, and why Garrus had brought the former Hierarchy Tactical Officer onto his ship.
Within two minutes, they had a target picked out, a nice juicy dreadnought by its profile, limping along the outer system with only a bare handful of escorts. It had obviously been damaged in the fighting, but the look of its wounds suggested by fire from cruisers and frigates of all things. What sort of idiot captain of a dreadnought, or the captains of his screen, let such small ships get in close enough to do serious damage?
"Any idea on what these ships are, other than Reaper?" Garrus asked one of his LADAR techs.
"No sir," the young turian shook her head. "They've got some characteristics of Reaper craft, what with the spikes and weird machine profile and all, but they're not actual Reapers from what I can tell. We've picked up a few transmissions from the planet, they're almost an hour old by now though and nothing else is coming. From what I can tell they appear to be working for the Reapers and demanding the surrender of Dr. T'soni and the prothean AI."
"Well, then we'll have to make sure they don't get that, won't we?" Garrus thrummed, patting the tech on the shoulder and moving off the bridge. He had a ground team to prep.
Outskirts of Luxor System, ILS Normandy - Commander John Shepard
March 20th, 2183
The GQ alarm had been quieted, but the air was still tense as the Normandy crept further into the system.
"I need answers people!" Navigator Pressley barked, glaring around the command room.
"Sir, we still do not have a matching profile on those ships. They have markings that indicate they have some relation to the Reapers, but they are not of a make fielded by any known species."
"They've seized the orbital's sir, and the wreckage orbiting the planet indicates that all planetary defenses have been neutralized. Passive scans indicate hostiles have begun landing, but have not initiated orbital bombardment."
"What about the hanar fleet?" John demanded, staring into the galaxy map on the bridge. "What happened to them?"
"There is a large debris field orbiting approximately 18 light minutes from the planet. Images caught by probes indicate that a hanar task force was destroyed, but not even close the majority of their fleet or even any of their capital ships."
John nodded, rubbing his chin. "The mission just changed. Our priority now is recon and retrieval. If possible, we need to extract Dr. T'soni and the prothean AI to gather information on the invasion. If possible, I want to try and contact the surviving hanar command structure. XO, do you think you can get us into closer to the planet?"
John didn't have high hopes for that. If he were blockading a planet, he'd have LADAR hitting every possible cubic milimeter of space around it, making sure that no ships managed to escape. In an age where it was well known that a large number of nations possessed stealth units, there was no reason not to.
"This is going to sound insane sir, but perhaps," Pressley declared, looking up from his screen. "There appear to be a few narrow approach vectors that are not being covered by active LADAR. It would be close, and if those ships shifted the wrong way we'd be sunk, but we might make it."
"How close would it be?" John asked.
Shrugging, Pressley put the tactical chart on the main screen, overlayed with tactical coverage. "This ship hasn't been fully tested yet, and we don't know the full extent of our enemies capabilities. It would be uncomfortably close."
John mulled that over for a moment, then nodded." "Take us in, slow and quiet. Try to find a way through. Bug out at the first sign of danger. See if you can locate Dr. T'soni somehow, or get any line on the remaining hanar forces. I'm going to the comm room to talk with command. They need to hear about this."
"Priority line to Arcturus, flag it Code Harvest," informed the comm tech as he strode into the main QEC hub. The quarian nodded, and in a few moments the image of Fleet Admiral Han'Gerral appeared.
"Shepard. You've just flagged a Code Harvest in the Luxor system. What's going on there?" the chief naval officer of the League demanded.
"Sir, Kahje has fallen. Forces we believe to be controlled by the Reapers have seized the system and are actively invading the planet. We have scans of what we initially suspect to be the wreckage of the hanar fleet now. I'm uploading the tactical data to you now."
"Oh bugger me with a plasma torch," Gerral growled even before the tactical data was streaming in. "I'm bringing the Prime Minister and the-"
"I'm here. Steven is coming," the voice of Vexxu'Hackett, Secretary of the Navy and Gerral's civilian overlord interrupted. "I've got no video on this comm, but I can see the basics of the data. As you humans would put it, the hanar are screwed."
"Ma'am, this fleet's bigger than anything we or the Council could muster according to our scans," John supplied for the two officials. "And I'd be surprise if we had got them all."
"All dreadnoughts," Gerral mused, his eyes focused somewhere outside the pickup. "And their deployment...its armature at best, ludicrous at worst. I can't find any real logic or order two it."
"According to this, that's 72 dreadnoughts Admiral," Vexxu said.
"Yes, not something anything but the combined might of our fleets would want to engage," Gerral allowed. "With that many, we'd take a huge hit in the drones, and even if they're just standard dreadnoughts, unless they were idiots we'd lose most all of our ships trying to take just them out, and that doesn't factor in all their support craft." Then the admiral shook himself. "Commander, you've done well. Continue to feed us more data. I want to know more about their ship deployments and patrol patterns. Something about this seems wrong. If this really was the Reapers, I doubt they would be so idiotic in their deployments."
John nodded, that made sense. He had already begun to suspect something fishy was going on above Kahje when Pressley had told him about their LADAR coverage. Still, a fleet this size was a serious threat. "Do I continue the mission?"
"Yes," answered Vexxu. "But don't do anything stupid. If you can't get to the planet, loiter around in the system and continue to stream data back to us. Inform us immediately if any new developments arise. Carry on commander."
"Admiral. Secretary." John saluted formally and turned even before the display had dimmed and headed back the bridge.
"Alkeno, prep the mako and the ground team. Expect a hot LZ, and a possible underwater deployment," John barked over his comm.
"Aye aye sir, we're all warmed up and ready to go. Will you be joining us?"
"Possibly, we'll have to play this one by ear. Get my gear ready, you know my locker combination, it's the same one I had on Brain Camp."
"Understood sir, 16.7.57. Remember the Belari."
"Remember the Kelphic," John automatically responded, then after a moment's pause, added, "And revenge for Kahje."
Luxor System, ILS Archangel - Blasto
Bad things happened to people. Sometimes, that was Blasto's fault. Things like their air car getting re-wired, or their hoverboard absconded. Planets, however, should not be absconded with under any circumstances, especially not Kahje. Not the plant of shinning seas. His planet getting invaded was not going to fly.
"This one still has outstanding warrants in every ocean and sea," Blasto muttered angrily to himself. "This one's planet cannot fall."
"What was that sir?" one of the technicians asked.
Flicking an annoyed tentacle in a rude way, Blasto snapped, "If Blasto has something to say to you, air breather, Blasto will say it, not mutter it."
"Yes sir, sorry sir."
If Blasto's mother could have heard him, she would have cleaned his gills with glick-oil. Blasto could only pray to the Enkindlers, something he hadn't done in a rather long time, that she was still alive to do so.
Slowly, carefully, Blasto eased the Archangel closer to the heathen monstrosity that was polluting Blasto's void. It was a big ship, no denying that. Even by turian standards, 1.2 kilometers was an enormous dreadnought and the main gun on this ship was likely able to tear holes in even the most advanced shielding and armor. While the Archangel was exceptionally well armed and armored for a cruiser sized vessel, even its defenses would be useless against that main gun.
That, however, was not a problem for Blasto. The Archangel was a new class of ship; the turian destroyer. Designed to come in on stealth and open up on the enemy with a massive alpha strike, destroyers were ship killers. Of course, after that alpha strike, the ship would be incredibly vulnerable for precious minutes while its heat sinks vented so it could resume stealth. In a normal operation, a destroyers attack on a fleet was a death-or-glory maneuver. Or possibly just glory-and-death.
Of course, normal fleets didn't leave their capital ships alone and un escorted four light seconds from the primary body of the fleet.
"In optimum range now," Blasto reported.
At that point, the tactical department took over. Weapons that had been charging locked on to the calculated weak points in the wounded capital ships barriers and hull. In one massive salvo, the six Thranx cannons and four modified laser weapons all discharged in synchronized order, at a point blank range of only 10,345km.
First, the lasers struck, long lances of light ripping holes in the enemy ships hull at the points where its kinetic barrier nodes were most vulnerable. Then the six Thranx shots struck home. Heated to 2000C, the shots were coated in a silicon based compound to trap the radiant heat in the vacuum of space and prevent cooling. When the molten metal impacted the dreadnought, it transferred both its kinetic and heat energy to the ship, blasting through armor like the proverbial heated knife through fat. Two shots struck home at the heart of the enemy ship, its eezo core. Since ships used helium reactors and element zero to power themselves, their power plants were highly stable, and unlikely to explode. Even with the massive damage suffered, the dreadnought stayed mostly intact, with only a few large pieces fragmenting off.
Despite its overall structural integrity, the dreadnought was very, very dead. Most of the ship had large holes in it that lead to the void, and with primary power lost thanks to the destruction of its reactor, many blast doors were slow to close, or failed to close at all. Most of the crew would have had time to reach emergency vacuum suits if they followed proper drill, but the crew was inexperienced, and fighting broke out in the panic. Very few of the crew survived, with a 90% casualty rate and over 7000 dead within minutes of the attack as air bled out of the ship in great clouds.
Now it was the tentacle biting time of waiting for the capacitors to vent, as the Archangel painted itself as a bright shining target on the computers of every ship in the enemy fleet.
And two other ships in the Luxor system.
Henduul Orbit, OCV Reckoner - Miri Goldstein
"New contact! By the Eye of Wrath, it just killed that limping dreadnought in sector alpha-31-zeta!"
Jerking out of the haze of thought, Miri sat bolt upright as she examined her display. Sure enough, the bright flare of a venting stealth ship had just popped up right on top of the now destroyed enemy dreadnought.
"Jesus Christ, what the hell could do something like that?" Paul Grayson, the Reckoner's captain swore.
"Turian destroyer," Miri declared even before her own tactical officer could match the emissions to any sort of label. "We knew that they'd commissioned some sort of stealthed ship killer. Looks like one just showed up. Do we have a match on that ships emissions?"
"It's the Archangel my lady," Grayson informed, leaning over the shoulder of the LADAR officer. "Vakarian's son's ship."
"Indeed. Well, I suppose when things get as dark as they come we shouldn't be surprised that a Vakarian would stick his head quills into it," Miri mused. "Open a priority laser channel with the ship and bring us up to launch readiness. Broadcast a signal to the main Primacy fleet informing them of this new development, but demand they remain cautious. We don't know what's going on just yet."
Luxor system, ILS Normandy - John Shepard
"My God, it's the Archangel." John stared at the data feed down in the cargo bay again, and shook his head. How had Garrus Vakarian arrived so soon, and what was he doing blasting away at a hostile dreadnought?
"He has to be here for the same reason as us sir. Thessia got slammed by the Collectors. Maybe he thinks that T'soni knows something about that we don't. They are rumored to be Prothean after all," Navigator Pressley offered.
John nodded, his mind racing. "Get me that ship on a laser link. Perhaps we can work together and share knowledge. These ships have to be related to the Reapers, somehow. If there's one thing I know about Vakarian, it's that he hates Reapers even more than I do."
Which was quite a lot. Granted, Vakarian had lost his father to them and John had "only" lost one of his closest friends. He still remembered Alexandra Harrington, murdered by the Reaper's puppets on Elysium seven years ago. Her and all the other lives lost in the war. One day, John intended to put that debt to rest on the Reapers heads.
"Yes sir. Are we to continue on our course? The enemy's acting like a kicked nest of ants."
"Yes. Keep us out of active scanning range as much as possible Pressley, but I want to find T'soni as fast as possible. That has to be what these people are after."
Luxor System, CSV Archangel - Garrus Vakarian
"Well, the good news sir is that they're doing exactly what we thought they would," Dromon reported.
Garrus snorted. "That works as bad news as well. Every ship in the system making right for us could be construed as a suboptimal situation."
"Well, you did want us to uncover the planet so we could sneak in there sir. Most of the ships have left orbit. We're just about cooled off, and..." Dromon trailed off as a blinking light appeared on his consol, his mandibles raising in surprise. "Incoming hails sir. From the OCV Reckoner and ILS Normandy."
"Repeat that," Garrus ordered, his own mandibles raised in surprise.
"We're receiving hails from the ILS Normandy and the OCV Reckoner sir. Its...its Shepard and Goldstein sir."
"On my screen, now!"
It took several seconds for the hails to come on. They were being transmitted on a tight beam to prevent interception, which meant that if the Archangel moved the transmission would be lost. Unless Garrus gave the two ships his flight path. Which might be a bad idea of they were actually enemies. Garrus didn't have much time, and he sent out his own hails, one to each ship. Time to see if this really was his two favorite humans in the galaxy.
The agonizing seconds ticked by for the messages to cross the void. Goldstein's message was the first to return. "My sister stayed with David Goodman and his asari mate Delan along with their daughter Citti," Goldstein answered with a raised eyebrow. "I would ask you to prove yourself, but frankly nothing screams 'Vakarian' louder than dashing into danger to blow up a ship that out massed you by a factor of ten."
"I'm the better shot, and if anyone is asking, they can ask Admiral Balak," Shepard's image stated. "I think we can work together on this Garrus. It's going to be more than a one man job to get T'soni out of there, which I imagine is your mission as well."
"Send them our course and make like a hole in the void," Garrus ordered as the capacitors finished venting. Three ships. With one ship, this would have been near impossible. With three, they could play hell with these invaders.
Luxor System, Word Bearers Creed - Warmaster Bregdar Thull
"What do you mean it disappeared?!" Thull demanded, holding the sensor tech aloft in a double handed grip on his throat.
"Ship...gone...vanished...don't...readings are not..." the teach wheezed, his claws scrabbling off Thull's armor plated chest.
"USELESS!" Thull roared, ripping out the tech's throat and tossing him to the floor. "First that ship appears from nowhere, and now it vanishes! Is there a single competent sensor officer on this ship?"
"Warmaster, I believe it is a stealth ship of the kind the Herald informed us of. It does not match any pattern in our computers, but according to the sims the heathens have been developing other kinds of these cowardly vessels," another sensor tech informed, keeping his eye banks focused on the deck where they belonged.
Wracking his brain, Thull remembered something about such ships in his own mission briefs. Ships that hid were no weapons of true warriors, but that was no excuse. The Herald had told them that the heretics would employ stratagems that not even base cowards of the lowest birth would try back on Parnack. In the name of the dark gods, they would be cleansed, and shown the light.
"We cannot go after it like a snuck-hound casing a gremse," Thull mused. "Send out the small ships, have them cast their nets of light wide. We shall root out this coward. Keep the body of the fleet back, around the planet. Like the gremse, they may try to draw us away from the nest to save the tender young. Like wise hunters, we must not be swayed from our true course."
The ship's crew murmured their assent, and silent servitors hurried forward to remove the body. Thull's lips curled back. He was the hunter. Not the prey.
Luxor System, OCV Reckoner - Miri Goldstein
"There, the command signals are coming from that ship. Watch how the others move around it as well, protecting it. It has to be the flag ship."
Miri's fingers flew across her keypad, highlighting the ship in question and putting it onto the shared tactical grid. Garrus' original plan had been good: get the enemy to uncover Kahje so that one of the stealth ships could slip in and evacuate Liara to deal with the problems in both the League and the Citadel. At first it had seemed to work, but then most of the ships had withdrawn to Kahje orbit, leaving smaller vessels to patrol the volume of space where the Archangel had struck. It seemed to Miri that it was whoever was on that flagship that had called the other ships to heel. So, naturally, if that ship were removed, the rest of them would be free to uselessly charge about the system and allow access to the planet.
"Are you sure we can trust that Citadel ship to do its job properly?" Captain Greyson whispered to Miri, leaning over the back of her command chair.
She looked up at the captain with a single raised eyebrow. "Can we trust the League ship?"
Greyson muttered something and went back to his post. To be fair, it was a legitimate question, though no more than the questioning of the League's loyalties. Ultimately, Miri was fairly certain both Garrus and Shepard had their own people's best interests at heart, and not hers. As long as those interests aligned, they could be trusted. It was when they started to drift apart that it would be time to act.
Luxor System, ILS Normandy - Jeff "Joker" Moreau
Jellyfishes were not pilots. They were the subject of Fornax stories and jokes. They did not out fly Joker, the best pilot in the entire damn galaxy.
"Tricky little bastard thinks he can show off just because his ship has big guns," Joker grumbled. "You need speed too."
"What was that sir?" one of the techs asked.
"I said watch Zulu-31B's speed. We don't want him getting away."
"Of course sir."
Ignoring the sniggers, Joker turned back to the display as he carefully guided the Normandy through the sensor net of their foes. It was a close thing, with the Normandy coming perilously close to the active LADAR range of their enemies multiple times, with the Normandy flitting in and out of their enemies range with only kilometers to spare, practically no distance at all in space. Maddeningly, the Archangel matched the every move of the Normandy, despite its larger mass. Joker was holding down the Normandy's thrust, and he did have the consolation that the ships oversized thrusters made it harder to handle, he still couldn't get over the fact that a jellyfish was matching him move for move.
"Entering the target area," Joker reported over the comm. "Think you can handle this?"
"Leave this to Blasto. Blasto will teach the filthy invaders to pollute his waters."
The comm signal ended, and Joker rolled his eyes. "And here I thought hanar were supposed to be polite."
Still, the hanar appeared to know his business. In a few moments, the Archangel had lined up the enemy flagship. Joker paid carefully attention to his instruments, but even during the charge up, there wasn't a single blip on the long range scanners. If it wasn't for the laser link, the area occupied by the Archangel would have looked like just so much empty void.
Right on schedule, the Archangel opened fire on the enemy ship. Streams of molten metal and lances of bright laser fire ripped into the enemy ship, instantly crippling it. However, unlike the pervious capital ship, this one had not been damaged, and it managed to survive, bleeding atmosphere. But that was why the Normandy was there. Now that the turian ship had used its alpha strike, it had several seconds before it could fire again, or risk roasting vital systems. In that time, the still functional enemy should could bring its weapons to bear, and even the Archangel's impressive shields and armor couldn't survive a capital ships firepower, even a crippled one.
Of course, the Archangel wasn't alone. It's attacks had left gaping holes in the barriers and armor of the enemy ship, and the Normandy broke stealth and opened fire. As a small cruiser, it didn't have the magnatude of firepower the Archangel had, but that wasn't important now.
"It's not how big it is, it's how you use it!" Joker hooted, as the Normandy screamed in for a point blank shot and fired at the one part of a ship that would explode if you hit it just right: life support. All that compressed oxygen and stored power in one convenient location. A fire ball bloomed, and Word Bearers Creed split in two. Warmaster Thull and his crew hadn't even realized what had hit them.
"Vent fast, we have to reenter stealth!" Joker cried, and the Normandy's own systems shut down as the ship's capacitors bled off excess heat as fast as it could. The Archangel did the same, and both ships managed to reenter stealth with mere moments to spare as the rest of the invasion fleet bore down upon them. They sped away from the planet, seeking new ships to prey upon.
And as they did, the OCV Reckoner dove through the holes in the enemies LADAR coverage, ready to retrieve the individual that might just be able to bring to light the dark truths of the galaxy.
Authors Note:
Kahje is the second planet in the Luxor system, with Henduul as the fourth planet. It's a terrestrial planet with an unusually active magnetic field and a planetary ring, making it the perfect place for a stealth ship to lie low and observe the action relatively close to hand. Henduul has few exploitable resources, and its only significance is a few scattered empty prothean ruins that attract the occasional pilgrim.