Chapter 55
Divine Thunder
Author's Note: After voicing my concerns last chapter I received mixed responses. To my relief some of my reviewers agreed with me, some of them took the neutral ground saying that Nelson only represents the worst of the UNSC, and some actually defending his nuking...dear God. Screw it If there's one thing I've learned about debating it's that all you get from it is a headache. I will just say this, if Bioware has taught us anything, it's that you can't judge a race by stereotypes, they told us that Asari were diplomats, Turians heavily disciplined, and Krogan blood thirsty, and then proceeded to show us the shy Liara, cowboy cop Garrus, and reformer Wrex respectively. Oh and by the way I'm sticking by my guns, sticking to gray and grey, interesting characters, and nearly everyone is sympathetic. Ever war in the history of this fucking planet has been grey and gray, with the exception of a couple that were gray and black. Also in case I didn't make it clear, I didn't say that the UNSC shouldn't be using nukes, I would give that order myself, it's just that just because you need to do something doesn't make it morally stable and you shouldn't be praising it like it was divine punishment from god like some of my less moral reviewers are.
"Status report of the hostile fleet and the planet's surface Ensign," Admiral Nelson ordered as he sat on the bridge of the Devastator.
"Tubes five and six have been fired and the Shivas have impacted on their targets. Combined with the Shivas deployed earlier and the Archers, estimated Jiralhanae ground casualties range from 50 to 100 million. The Empire fleet has also sustained massive damage with only 42% of their ships still operational, another 3 to 5 million casualties. Our fleet has taken moderate damage, 21% of our ships have been destroyed, I'd say around a million casualties."
"Good continue bombardment." The Ensign nodded as he continued to type commands in, but his movements were rather stiff. "Something the matter Ensign?" Nelson asked sternly.
"Admiral, won't there be repercussions for what we've done here? We will be put on trial and-"
"Are you dense?" Nelson asked scathingly. "Do you really think that I would drop Shivas on a Jiralhanae planet if it meant I would spend twenty years in a maximum security prison? I received a direct order from the UEG authorizing the use of nuclear weapons, no doubt Admiral Hall received the same orders in her mission to Dosiac."
"The UEG senate approved this?"
"Try higher."
The Ensign's eyes widened as Nelson spoke. "Pr-President Richards authorized the use of Shivas?"
"I can't blame you for being surprised," Nelson remarked. "I was taken aback as well. Who would've thought that President 'Goody Goody' Richards, the man that opted for peace with the Council and the annexation of the Quarians," Nelson's lip curled as he said the word Quarian, as if he had just stepped in something fowl, "would have had the stones to use WMDs. He tried to sugar coat it of course, saying that it was a last resort and he was only doing it because it was the quickest way to end the war and how uneasy he was about giving the order, but at the end of the day a hundred million Jiralhanae are dead because of his orders. I am rather glad that he decided to finally grow a spine though, those gorillas are finally getting whats coming to them."
The Ensign turned back to his control panel, a look of shock on his face. 'I never thought that Richards would do anything like this, I can see Udina, but Richards?' His line of thought was broken as his console beeped. His eyes darting down, he blinked in surprise. "Sir I am picking up slipspace ruptures, the Jiralhanae fleet is withdrawing from the sector." He glanced at Nelson, "Do you want us to pursue?"
"No, let them go, we have bigger fish to fry." The navigator nodded as he turned back to his console, before jumping as it began to beep loudly. Nelson let out a groan, "What is it this time?"
"I'm picking up a major power surge from the planet's surface, approximately twenty miles away from the city where our troops landed."
On the surface of Altena in a clearing twenty miles from Vimeirus City, there was a massive grinding as the ground slid apart, really a five mile long camouflaged door. Gears shifted as a massive platform was lifted up to ground level from an underground facility, a massive structure on it. Divine Thunder was easily thirty kilometers tall, half of which was the massive barrel, itself a mile in diameter, which was being rotated to face the heavens. A multitude of power cables stretched from underground and into the bottom of the weapon. At the base of the structure were a dozen of Jiralhanae in purple armor, working at consoles. "Divine Thunder firing squad here, we are receiving power from the Vimeirus City power grid, all systems online," one of them reported into his COM unit. "Target acquired, waiting for you command Emperor."
"Do it, vaporize them all," Tritus commanded through the Battle-Net.
"Understood," the operator said, typing commands in. There was a humming noise as Divine Thunder received power and the firing squad slid on protective ear ware. "Fire," the operator said, and one of his subordinates pressed a button.
With a crack similar to that of a lightning bolt, Divine Thunder fired, a massive, continuous pink beam of plasma soared from the barrel with near light speed and broke through the atmosphere in a second. Back on the Devastator, the blast from Divine Thunder registered on the scanners, but even as the navigator turned to report it, the ship was hit. The sheer heat and the force of the beam caused ship flash sublimate, reducing the massive dreadnaught to gas with the exception of a few scorched pieces of metal. In the fraction of the second that Nelson had before the blast hit, he felt the intense heat of the plasma. Just before he was vaporized, one word was able to fly through his head, 'How?'
As the Devastator was destroyed, the beam Divine Thunder swept through space, tearing through the Alliance fleet before coming back to destroy those that had been missed. Divine Thunder swept back and forth for a solid minute before the structure back on the planet's surface deactivated as gallons of coolant were pumped into it in a frantic attempt to cool it. In orbit of Altena, all that was left of the Alliance fleet was a handful of scrap metal aimlessly spinning in space.
The firing squad stared up into the sky, not saying a word as they took in the sight. Then one lifted his hand to his COM unit. "THE EMPEROR PROTECTS!"* he bellowed, his words echoing in millions of COM units across the planet, a massive roar of approval rising up. Altena had been defended.
*Before you completely lose your marbles and accuse me of being unoriginal IT'S CALLED A SHOUT OUT!
XXXXX
"They're...running," Mack mouthed in a disbelieving voice as the Jiralhanae warships which were heading upwards towards space. "I...I don't believe it." It was bizarre, one moment Jiralhanae dropships were raining down torrents of spikes, and the next second all of the troops in the area had pilled on to them and evacuated.
"I'm not complaining," Damon said as he and the other Winters sat nearby, his armor having being removed from the torso up because of a spike imbedded in her shoulder that a medic was currently tending to. "Gah God damn it would you be careful!" he hissed as the medic slid the spike out before quickly wrapping bandages around the wound. "Can't you just slap some biofoam on?" he asked as the medic knotted it off.
"Sorry but we're having a bit of a shortage and we're holding them in reserve for those in critical condition, same goes with morphine."
"So I'm supposed to suck it up then?"
"Aw, would you like be to kiss it and make it better?" Crystal asked teasingly, brushing her light brown hair out of her eyes in a slightly seductive manner.
"The kids are here Crystal," Damon muttered, chuckling slightly.
Taylor gave a grim smile as his eyes turned to focus on Tali, who was staring at the edge of the permitter staring blankly off into space. When he had tried to approach her after the battle had ended she had rebutted him, saying that she needed to be alone and that he should catch up with his parents as he hadn't seen them in awhile. Taylor found himself twiddling his thumbs as he looked at her, he couldn't help but feel nervous and that Tali was a time bomb waiting to go off. From what he had heard, Rael and Tali had not had a very healthy relationship to begin with and now this bombshell had been dropped on her.
Just then, Taylor saw Rael walking towards Tali and stopping right behind her. He couldn't help but notice that his throat felt rather dry as he watched the two, slightly nervous about what was going to happen.
"Tali," Rael said to his daughter's back. She didn't reply. "We need to talk," he continued, attempting to get a response. Instead of speaking, Tali silently began to walk away, not looking at her father. "Tali where are you going?" he half asked, half demanded.
"Why do you care?" she whispered in an extremely quiet voice.
"Tali we need to sort this out, I am your father and-" Rael's sentence died as Tali spun on the spot to face him, a look of sheer rage on her face.
"You're my father are you, well you could have fooled me," she hissed. "Two and a half decades you act like a military instructor to me instead of a parent, you never gave a damn what I was feeling, all you cared about was getting the homeworld back. All of a sudden you come back into my life and try to act like you actually have a place there? You had your chance my entire life Rael, it's a little late now."
"You think that I don't care about you?" Rael asked angrily. "What do you think that I've been doing ever since you were born? Every single thing that I have ever done has been for you and Sirona and now you accuse me of this? You ungrateful little-"
"Oh, so I'm ungrateful now?" Tali shouted, cutting her father off, "Is that it? I don't fully appreciate you and what you've done for me is that what you think Rael? Name one thing you've done for me in the last five years Rael, I'm rather interested in what you have to say."
Rael's brow furrowed in anger. "Since the start of this war President Richards asked me personally to conduct high level research on the Geth, trying to find ways to bypass their firewalls and disable them in mass quantities, perhaps even rewrite their programming. I'm sorry that you didn't realize this by now Tali but I can't hold your hand every step of the way like a child."
"I child am I?" Tali growled. "You remember that cybernetic Jiralhanae that was trying to rip your head off ten minutes ago? His name is Sukron, and you probably don't know this but on Feros he cut me, stabbed me, burned me, broke most of my ribs and nearly choked me to death, I apologize for being upset that I was tortured and nearly killed and couldn't tell you because I had no way of contacting you!"
Rael looked momentarily stunned at his daughter's revelation, but regained his composer in seconds. "It was out of my hands Tali, any communications that we had could have been traced to our location, we were limited to top priority, our research on the Geth was vital and critical to the war effort."
"And now we come to the root of my problems," Tali whispered, her voice suddenly dangerous quiet. "Would you care to explain why Sukron was saying that it was you that lead the Coalition here."
"You're telling me that you actually believe him?"
"You haven't denied it yet," Tali replied, her voice icy cold. Tali gave Rael a piercing glare, and the Quarian man instinctively found himself fighting a little as something stirred in the back of his mind. "What exactly did your experiments entail?"
"I hope that you can understand that it's classified and that I can't go around talking-"
"Classified?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. "From what I heard the entire Coalition knows the details of your plan now, so would you care to tell me why Sukron said that this entire invasion was your fault?"
Rael stared at Tali before speaking. "We were reactivating Geth and connecting them together in an attempt to find ways to attack their communication network. I had a lead and accelerated our process to follow up on it, now we'll never know, the Jiralhanae destroyed the lab in the attack."
Tali held up a hand, silencing Rael. "I've heard enough," she said, "you got greedy, that's all I need to know." She began to turn, intending to walk away.
Rael's hand shot out and grabbed her by the shoulder. "Daughter we are not finished here ye-" Rael's sentence died in his throat as Tali, her eyes brimming with rage, buried her fist in her father's stomach.
"Never," she said as Rael staggered back, attempting to catch his breath, "call me your daughter again. Your actions here could very well destroy the bond we have created with the UEG and if things go bad we will be without a home once again. That's one thing you could never understand, you were constantly trying to find me a home when I already had one," and with that she turned and walked away from her father. Watching her with worry, Taylor noticed that she was blinking furiously, as if she was holding back tears.
Rael stared at his daughter, a look of sheer shock on her face. "Sir," said a voice, and Rael looked to the side to see Mack staring at him. "We need to go." He glanced at Tali. "I'm sure that with time and patience you'll be able to patch things up with her." Rael nodded dumbly as he followed the Brigadier to the one of the three Pelicans were the VIPs were waiting to take off. Even as they both boarded, Mack didn't have the heart to tell him that if he had indeed leaked UNSC intelligence, he was looking at thirty years as a minimum.
Taylor approached Tali cautiously as the Pelicans slid their doors shut and began to take off. "You ok?" he asked.
"My father was an accomplice to genocide, how do you think I feel?" she snapped.
Taylor couldn't help but flinch at Tali's comment, but he refused to back down. He couldn't help but wonder if that was a stupid move. "He had a point, do you really trust Sukron?"
"He practically confessed to me," Tali said, turning to face Taylor, "Everything fits, it explains how the Jiralhanae found this planet, why Sukron was looking for him of all people, how do you explain how Sukron knew where he was is there wasn't a leak?"
Taylor bit his lip, feeling like Tali had backed him into a corner. He let out a sigh as he Pelican's flew overhead. "Don't you think that-" he began, but was cut off by a massive explosion. Snapping his neck upwards he saw Two Phantoms firing their main cannons and the Pelican that Mack and Rael were on exploding in the air.
Taylor felt his jaw drop and heard his father bellow, "MACK!" before the Phantoms flew away. Tali stared at the debris now showering that earth, her eyes wide.
XXXXX
"Amazing," Lotan whispered as he, Tritus and Rason stood outside of the Vimeirus City power plant, the beam from Divine Thunder visible even from this distance.
"Divine Thunder Tritus said, staring at the concentrated plasma. "An exterminate weapon designed specifically for destroying targets in geosynchronous orbit. A single shot is enough to obliterate an entire fleet and shatter any attack." He glanced at Lotan, "The main threat to this planet is over, thank you for everything that you've done Lotan."
"But still," the engineer muttered, his eyes sweeping the landscape, where several mushroom clouds were still present. "So many dead."
"We did all that we could, the Empire has powerful enemies, causalities are inevitable, no matter how hard we try to prevent them."
"Emperor, I must ask you something." Tritus raised an eyebrow. "Why did you chose now of all times to declare war? Would it not have been better to wait until the Marauder rebellion was crushed. Also we could have had more time to prepare against this."
Tritus sighed. "After today the least I can do is answer that question. Truth be told I had originally planned to squash the Marauders and then spend decades building up our forces. But someone pushed me over the edge."
"Who?"
"The one who was able to win the loyalties of both the Geth and the Batarians, Saren."
"The Spectre that defected?"
Tritus nodded. "He made contact with us three years ago, in part he is the one who persuaded me to declare war. While I had my own reasons and motivations to do so, he put the nail in the coffin so to speak. He more or less said that he wouldn't be able to hold the hearts of his followers forever and if he wanted us to be allies we would have to strike soon. So we did."
"That makes sense...in a way," Lotan said. "I just...ugh this is rather complicated."
"War always is," Rason remarked. "So many angles, so many motivations so many fronts."
Tritus sighed. "I am well aware of that. Even though we have won today our victory is hollow. Millions are dead...I have made up my mind," he glanced at Rason. "When you have a chance, send a message to Dosiac. I want the Imperial Guard deployed."
Lotan jumped in surprise as Rason stared at Tritus. "The Guard Tritus? Would it not be for the best if they remained on Dosiac guarding the Imperial Palace?"
"The Palace holds symbolic value and nothing more," Tritus replied. "The Guard is the best of the best, I want them on the front lines defending our people. Their talents are wasted having them lounge around the Palace."
Rason paused before nodding. "Very well."
Before they could say anything else, there was a loud thump and the three of them turned to see that Xeron had landed a few yards away, his aura purple again. "Ah Tritus, I see that you have succeeded," he said smiling warmly as he dropped two metal spheres onto the ground.
"Xeron what are those?" the Emperor asked.
"Anti-tank charges," Xeron replied. "I found two Humans attempting to arm them inside the plant, and several others elsewhere. They were clearly attempting to destroy the building, had we arrived later they might have succeeded."
"That disturbs me greatly," Tritus muttered. "But there is little purpose in dwelling on what could have been. Lotan we should have the Alliance forces destroyed or captured in a matter of hours. Afterwards we will begin emergency relief efforts, you and any other civilians are allowed to join if you wish, but until then I cannot ask to take any further part in combat."
"Emperor now that you mention that there is something else I wanted to ask you."
"Yes?"
"There has been an idea that I've been entertaining for some time now. I have been considering...joining the military."
"I thought that you hated the sorrow of battle."
"I do," Lotan remarked bitterly. "But after seeing what has been done here today I realize that the Empire needs every last able bodied person that it can manage defending it. I am willing to make that sacrifice, I was just wondering what you thought," he said, looking at Tritus for guidance.
"I cannot give you the answer you are looking for Lotan," Tritus admitted, "this is something you must answer for yourself. This decision will no doubt affect the rest of your life and I do not want you to be killed because of an impulse of anger brought on by this battle. If you want my advice, think this through for a couple of days, make sure that joining the armed forces is a choice that you must be truly committed to. Some join for poor reasons, such as for glory, for easy money or simply because they want to kill for the sake of killing." His lip curled in disgust. "I ask that you truly think this through and why you want to do it. Only then should you make your choice."
Lotan bowed his head, "Thank you Emperor."
Tritus gave a small smile. "Is it not the duty of a leader to guide his people?"
Author's Note: I think I just noticed a pattern in my stories, female OCs seem to outnumber male ones 3 to 1 and 5 to 1 by the end of the story because I killed off all of my male ones and maybe one female. I don't know why I do this, I mean Male OCs I've killed this story alone, Michael Rivers, Mack Norman, Ryan Nelson, Ramos 'Mortam and Demas 'Mortam, hell even Taylor had an unpleasant encounter with Sukron's knife. My ladies on the other hand seem to be getting off scoff free with the exception of Falys' back story and Rebecca's tragic mind rape, I just ran a scan through my head and no female OCs have died this story, Hell I haven't even killed any female characters in general, in fact Crystal was supposed to be the one to go down in a ball of fire this chapter but I changed my mind at the last second and killed three male characters in one go. Personally I think that there's this subconscious thing going around inside my brain that female characters are easier to create and sympathize with and you can't really kill them off because they're women and now because I typed that I'm going to go bash my brains out with a frying pan because I'm starting to talk like a feminazi. Yeah just a weird little thing that pops up in my writing that I wanted to address.
Also something else I would like to say about this chapter, I know some people are going to complain about what Tali did, mainly because nowadays you can't walk down the street without someone saying that you did it wrong and acting like your actions doomed the Earth, like online if you have the nerve to get -1 in a Halo game you're the scum of the Earth. Let's face it good intentions or not Tali's Dad is kind of like Thane, neither of them are winning father of the year awards. I think I listed all of the reasons that she would be mad at him in the chapter and you can only take so much before you flat out explode. The invasion of Haven did not help her relationship with her Dad either.
