Facing the Darkest Days

The darkest times I ever faced in my military career? Yeah I get asked that question more often than I'd like. My answer always remains the same yet somehow people are still surprised by it every time.

Inevitably (in my own personal view at least) the answer is drawn from my experiences during the First Contact war. Why should that surprise people? I guess it comes from a tendency among the politicians and the media to downplay that particular conflict. Not that that's a criticism mind you, I can see the argument for not bringing it up too often. A war fought over a misunderstanding? Well no one want to be reminded of that all the time, particularly given the diplomatic embarrassment of it all.

I understand their reasons even if the faces of fallen comrades swim across my vision even as I write these words. Like so many others I was deployed to Shanxi during the war. Our orders? To liberate our colony from alien occupation or if that proved unachievable to dig ourselves into entrenched positions and hold out, keeping the fighting going on that planet so they couldn't launch an offensive against Earth. Yes you did read that correctly, the Alliance top brass absolutely thought that an invasion of the homeworld was possible, perhaps even imminent.

My battalion was deployed to the so called ' Clear Blue' valley. It's named for its source, a large alpine lake higher up in the mountains. That lake feeds the river Hope which flows through the valley and down into the capitol. To us the name was a joke with a bad punchline. In the valley the river changed from 'clear blue' to a filthy quagmire that proved a nightmare to fight through.

In the original plan the thought had been to use the rough terrain as cover for a surprise attack on the capitol before the Turians knew what was happening. We'd reach the city after two days march we were told, in fact it would take almost two months to cross the distance.

The Turian were ready for our attack and quickly threw a large proportion of their forces to prevent us from reaching the city. How they had known we were coming became a topic of intense speculation within our camp. Some thought there might be a spy in our ranks, somehow feeding information of our movements to the Turians. Others believed the top brass could have set this up intentionally as a means of drawing the bulk of the enemy forces into a hellish war of attrition in the swamps.

As with many things hindsight offers a much simpler explanation. Now that I understand their technology better I feel almost foolish to think we could have just 'sneaked up' unnoticed. We were all well camouflaged but as far as their scanners were concerned we couldn't have done much worse if we'd marched in formation carrying flares above our heads. I can't begin to imagine what was going through the Turian operators mind when he saw us approaching so brazenly.

So the Turians sent an army into the swamps and we spent the next few weeks slugging away at each other. Casualties on both sides were as bad as anywhere in the war. The swamps provided no cover and made moving quickly virtually impossible. The other battalions got the 'glorious' victories, we got mud, death and stalemate but still we held the line.

The Turians had an outpost at the bottom of the valley. It served as a final defensive position before the capital. To have any hope of launching an offensive against the city we would have to take that outpost. In total three attempts were made to capture it.

The first two attempts were abject failures. I was actually lucky enough to be spared the horror of the first. My unit was held in reserve, waiting for a call to advance that never came. The Turians had swelled their ranks and waited for our assault. The resultant slaughter had driven us back into the valley, at the cost of hard won territory. A week later we had regrouped our position and were ready to try again. This time my unit was on the frontlines and it is this day that most often haunts my this occasion the Turians were far less well prepared than they had been before.

We somehow managed to fight our way up the hill and breach their facility, sustaining heavy casualties along the way. Evenly matched this time the fighting was bitter and brutal. Cold Turian determination was pitted against our burning desire to liberate our colony. We battled at close quarters (even hand to hand at times) before word came in from behind our lines. The Turians had put together a second force and attacked our flank. Even as we pressed the attack we were being cut off from our main army. I was actually inside the outpost when I received the order to retreat.

At that moment my rage was so great I wanted to charge on ahead, alone. Only the knowledge that my men would follow my suicidal example held me back. I ordered the retreat, taking as many as I could out of the compound and back down the hill. Not all of them came with me. Some were just as enraged as I was and stubbornly remained behind to fight. Some had gotten separated from the main unit and couldn't make it back to us. Too many died.

So you can probably understand why I had mixed feelings when I was asked to help plan the final assault. Certainly I wanted payback for fallen comrades but I was apprehensive of another failure that could end in slaughter. Despite the fact the war ended almost thirty years ago this is the first time I feel able to admit that I almost turned the assignment down.

But young and naive as I was the idea of turning down an assignment was unthinkable so I did my best to develop a strategy, drawing on past failures. My own squad, let alone the battalion, were not best pleased about what I came up with but ultimately it was my decision. Rather grudgingly it was agreed that we would launch the new offensive in two days time.

So there we were on our third attempt, once again charging up the hill towards the outpost. We were more prepared for what they had in store for us there this time so our initial progress was promising. The Turians hadn't had time to properly reinforce their lines (nor had we) or even repair their defenses so we breached the perimeter easily enough.

Then word came in that the enemy were pulling the same trick again, their second army quickly moving in to cut us off. This announcement we disregarded entirely, continuing our assault on their outpost. Our attacks quickly overwhelmed all of their outer defenses but the small complex surrounding the main commander center proved impenetrable. This part of the outpost had been built directly into the hillside and even our heaviest weapons couldn't open any breaches. The only way in was the main gate which would have funneled all our men into scope to be picked off like fish in a barrel. Our reports from behind us suggested that we had now been completely cut off by the second army.

This was exactly as I had anticipated and signified that it was time to execute the final stage of my plan. Leaving a small force behind to keep the defenders boxed in (the issue of a single entrance hindered them from breaking out just as much as us from breaking in) I led the majority of my troops back down the hill. We had carefully timed this so that our attack from the rear would coincide with the counter attack of our main forces. The Turians second army was caught between our two armies while the troops defending the outpost were pinned down and unable to assist their comrades.

The fight was still brutal and bloody but ultimately the Turians never stood a chance. Neither, as much as I hate to admit it, did the troops I left behind to keep the outpost at bay, who were all killed. Their sacrifice, along with my willingness to forgo the capture of the enemy stronghold allowed us to destroy the Turians main army in the region. The outpost commander confirmed his willingness to surrender the position the next day, in truth he didn't have any other choice.

So the battle was won and we were free to push onward to the Capitol, effectively ending the months long siege and thus the war on Shanxi. Losing on Shanxi forced the Turians to mobilize a far larger force from across their empire which caught the attention of the Council. When the rest of the Citadel races learned about the essentially private war being waged by the Turians they stepped in to suggest a more diplomatic approach. The war was swiftly ended after that probably saving at least thousands of lives. So does make me the hero who helped end the war or the monster that left eighteen good men up on that hill to die?

All I know is that winning a war sometimes requires bold strategy and the willingness to take risks to achieve victory. Prudence might be a sound strategy in some cases but not when it is simply delaying the inevitable. The hardest lesson for a commander to learn is that there is no single 'correct' strategy and that even 'playing it safe' isn't always a safe thing to do. That's why I took the risk of bringing the Resistance to London, the heart of the Reaper's power. And it's also why I dare take this next risk as well. I am going to kill Harbinger.