Force, Intent, Effect

by WayfinderRed

StarWarsAU: Palpatine is successfully killed and the Empire never rises. Mass effectAU: mostly scaling fixes to make the story work better. A Republic Unknown Regions exploration fleet discovers a strange object in deep space while investigating the disappearance of a colony fleet. Meanwhile the Alliance prepares to launch the Normandy on it's first mission. M for language/in case

2. Chapter 2

I own nothing. All licenses belong to their real owners, EA and Disney I guess.

Now that that's over with. This chapter is a little weird, there is a whole lot of stuff happening at the same time so I posted timings a the start of each section where there is a overlap, otherwise they take place in continuity. As you'll see, I did some balancing so that the SW universe doesn't completely clap the ME universe. Also, the SW universe has absolutely ridiculously inconsistent figures. The scale is just absurd in the ME universe the main gun on a Dreadnaught is rated around 38kt, the anti fighter cannon on an Acclamator is rated at 5mt. A completely stupid number. so I scaled SW way the hell back and broke down the new balance in the first section of the chapter. SW still claps but they won't be as OP as they are in this chapter for the rest of the story.

I really appreciate the reviews, I fixed the formatting issue in the last chapter that people pointed out. I am planning for there to be issues with the Batarians as the ME universe fully establishes them a belligerent, racist, and arrogant species who go out of their way to be assholes, I can't see a scenario where they wouldnt try to start something with the Republic.

Guest poster, I love the effort and you brought up some interesting points and topics that I plan to address on both sides but I wont get to everything. I also had trouble figuring out what you were getting at exactly as I couldn't find any particular thing you were trying to get at.

/-\

15 1440Z 02 2183

Eden Prime high orbit

Flag bridge of SSD Force of Intent

"Grand Admiral Khah out." Khah closed the line and settled in to see if his counterpart in the other fleet would reply to his ultimatum, surrender, flee, or die. He didn't think he would get a reply, the most likely course for the enemy to take would be to flee. Analysis of local ship design principles indicated a preference for spinal weapon systems, fixed broadside cannon, light point defense, and high speed and maneuverability. The locals had the advantage at anything more than about 200km.

Their ships used- as he understood it- gravity well manipulation for propulsion giving them a distinct advantage in speed and maneuverability, nearly twice that of their republic counterparts if not more. The physical nature of their weapons combined with high velocity vs the size and relative sluggishness of the Republic ships gave them a higher effective combat range. On the other hand, Republic ships had the advantage in FTL, raw firepower, durability, fighter combat, and ground force transport, support, and logistics.

Hyperdrives were much faster than local FTL with the exception of the Relays which had fixed point to point routes that were easy to blockade. Turbolasers and the like had limited range- the most extreme range his ships were able to engage to effectively was around 600km- but had a raw energy output more than an order of magnitude higher, they also had more guns per ship by a large margin. Republic armor plating was both stronger per centimeter and much thicker, though was meant to disperse the heat and energy of turbolasers. Republic ships also had particle shields as well as ray shields, while the locals only had particle shields, meaning that Khah's forces could engage with their shields while the local's shields were completely ineffective.

The rest of the points all boiled down to the same thing. The Republic built their ships around fighter combat and transport capability, almost all of their ships capable of carrying and supporting at least two squadrons of fighters or bombers as well as a battalion of ground forces. Coming from the principle of force projection; that a single star destroyer should be capable of maintaining control of a solar system without significant support.

While General Wherda-Ad was ultimately the commanding officer of the fleet and Islarra was in control of diplomatic and scientific endeavors-making her the representative of the Republic and the head of the Expedition, which made her the actual person in charge of everything- Khah was the one who led the fleet. At the moment he only had battlegroup Intent, though battlegroup Manticore was on its way and battlegroup Guardian was headed to the other side of the relay to cut off any ships that fled. Each battlegroup consisted of 180 ships with a disproportionate number of star-dreadnaughts and SSDs. Where most battlegroups were built around a single SSD or star-dreadnaught, the battlegroups of the 3rd Expeditionary had five each, 1 Executor, 1 Assertor, and 3 Bellators. In the case of battlegroup Intent, they replaced the Executor with the Intent herself and the Assertor with an Annihilator Star Dreadnaught.

Looking at his assets and the positioning of his fleet, there was really nothing he could effectively do if the other fleet decided to run. At that point it would become a positioning game, thankfully he had the relay as a clear piece of key terrain. "Signal the ground forces to launch and have the fighters stand ready. Tell the Imperators to widen their formation and put the Acclamators on the outside. Get the Fury to reposition so that they are maintaining bearing 0-0-0 by 0-3-0 from us. Keep EWAR offline. Captain, get the howitzers to target ships designated 1-3, main batteries target ships 4-15, all other batteries across all ships to fire at will once targets are in range. Hold fire until my mark."

"Aye Grand Admiral. Widening formation. Ground forces away. Fury repositioning to 3-6-0 by 0-3-0. Main batteries spooled up; gunnery reports all batteries ready to fire on your mark." The flag bridge was too small for people to be running around reporting directly to him, instead his senior officers would merely turn to report from their stations above the command pits.

"Sir, the opposing fleet is reorienting. Detecting power spikes from all vessels along their frontage."

Khah took in the information with a level of surprise, the situation being what it was, he expected to make erroneous estimations. But this was suicidal, he was missing something, something important. "Then they mean to engage us. All ships ahead full, do not adjust from current heading. Keep the Fury ahead of us by 50km. And scramble all fighters."

He had arranged his fleet so that when engines were at full they would naturally begin to encircle and cut off the opposing fleet, they would only have one escape route. The relay, the entire time they were retreating-and he would force them to- they would be in the forward upper arc of both the Intent and the Fury- where the majority of their primary firepower was able to cover. When they got to the relay- if his timing was as good as it normally was- battlegroup Manticore would arrive from hyperspace and cut them off. Any ships that escaped would be faced with battlegroup Guardian, and battlegroup Endeavour was standing by a few lightyears away, waiting for orders.

"Sir, hostilities have been initiated, opposing fleet has fired. Three seconds until first volley impacts, fire is concentrated towards one of our Venator class Star destroyers. Second rank volley arriving in five. All ships holding fire."

The first wave of shots landed in a rippling cascade across the Venator's shields, then the second, then third. "shift that ship back, use one of the Nebulas. It'll look like a good target. Open fire the second we cross the 600km mark. Get me a status on that Venator."

"Aye sir. Ships repositioning. Venator is down to 15% shield strength, the hostile fleet is maintaining target on the Venator."

"Sir, Battlegroup Manticore reports an ETA of 13 minutes."

"Sir, crossing the 600km mark in 2 minutes. Estimating 120 volleys of comparable yield before we are in range."

Khah really didn't like the sound of that. Four volleys would be enough to bring down the shields of a Venator, the armor on an Acclamator had demonstrated the ability to deflect a hit from a local cruiser, but there were four dreadnaughts in the fleet and while estimations indicated that his ships could handle such a shot, things always went wrong- especially under such extreme conditions. "Enough holding back, all ships activate EWAR systems, force them to close. I'd rather not lose one of our ships because we were going easy."

Instantly the enemy fleet stopped firing as their targeting systems were completely overwhelmed by the outgoing ECM. Khah hadn't wanted to play all his cards in the first battle, but he was completely unwilling to lose a ship simply because he wanted to test his ship's armor durability. He had complete trust in the fleet's EWAR capability, it was one of the principal weapons of naval warfare. During large conflicts, each side would deploy sufficient ECM to completely debilitate their non-optical targeting methods. It was why every gun was normally manned locally, why they made ships for broadside fighting; when you had to target by mk1 eyeball, you wanted to get close and maximize your number of guns and their target area.

The thing that really bothered Khah was that the hostile fleet hadn't reacted to his attempt to encircle them, not that it would have done them any good. There was nowhere for them to go without closing with his ships, but most Admirals would have at least tried to maneuver. What am I missing? What's the play? Outnumbered and out gunned I would be working towards something, some goal. These are invaders, they aren't making a last stand for territory, they aren't preforming scorched earth tactics. Committed to the position? Why? Or are they expendable?

It was that thought that made Khah look towards the relay, still inactive and the fleet there unmoving. Expendable then. They don't care if they lose these forces.

"Sir, we are within range."

"Fire!"

"Aye sir, firing."

Khah would only ever admit it when off duty, in private quarters, and over a drink with trusted friends; he was disappointed with the battle. These geth were the monsters used to scare children into behaving, the symbol of the dangers of AI to the Citadel species. To him they were nothing more than everyday droids, worse in battle than the CIS had been. Even as they closed to ranges where they should have been able to return fire with visual targeting, the geth stayed still and only took occasional, poorly aimed shots without any coordination between ships. It was frankly pathetic.

/-\

1445Z

Command bridge of SSD Force of Intent

Selind had complete faith in the Grand Admiral, Selind had worked with him for far too long to have any doubts about his decisions. Even then, he would admit to being apprehensive about moving forward without his EWAR systems online. He released a breath he hadn't even known he was holding when the Grand Admiral ordered the Venator and Nebula to switch places. He knew the plan, he knew what the Grand Admiral wanted to do, and he knew the orders given to the other battlegroups. It didn't make him any happier about watching one of his escort ships be used as the naval equivalent of a punching bag.

What did make him happy was how unbelievably effective their EWAR systems were. The instant they activated them, the geth fleet stopped firing. He had read through as much of the Codex as he could on his limited downtime- even taking time while on the bridge to study it. The geth had been brought up multiple times, always in the negative; they were part of the reason that even things as simple as droids were going to cause diplomatic issues; which would be nothing compared to when they found out about the Cartographer and the Linguist.

One thing Selind had picked up on pertaining to the geth was that they were networked intelligences. Each an independent- if simple- mind, it was when they were in numbers that they became something more. It had been relatively irrelevant information as the geth hadn't been seen outside of a place called the Perseus Veil- a considerable distance away by both relay and hyperspace- for 300 years, and so they had focused on other topics that they considered more important.

Selind had first joined the navy as a droid technician and so was far more interested in the geth than the Grand Admiral, so he had figured out the reason for the disproportionate effect before they closed to combat range. They were networked, and despite the appearances of individual platforms, they weren't droids. And most importantly, they had developed on their own for the last 3 centuries in a galaxy that was so afraid of AI that they hadn't learnt how to develop their electronic warfare capabilities beyond the most basic.

So when they activated their EWAR systems- one of which was wide spectrum jamming- they had not only disabled electronic targeting but had cut the geth's ability to communicate from platform to platform. The geth didn't have officers from what he understood, instead working like a hivemind to reach a 'consensus'. Now without the ability to network, they had effectively been blinded, deafened, muted, and concussed.

Selind heard the order to fire as it was given, anticipating the order as they closed to range. One of the most important skills he had learnt over the years was the ability to accurately anticipate orders so he could carry them out immediately and on reflex, it required not only anticipation but the ability to plan out each potential order and how to carry them out. "Fire on assigned targets, then fire at will."

"Aye Sir! Firing on assigned targets."

The resulting battle was anything but. The geth were all but completely encircled, offering only minimal and uncoordinated resistance as each ship attempted to engage individually. The Intent was the first to fire, hers having the highest range and firepower. Her primary armament consisted of four single-barrel Laser-howitzers with the firepower to mission kill an ISD with a single hit if its shields were down, and 16 three-barrel Ultra-Heavy Turbolasers- UHTs he had heard the gunners call them- with higher combined yield than the howitzers, shorter ranger, lower rate of fire per barrel, but were turret mounted, providing them with a larger arc of fire.

Selind felt them before he saw them, each of the four shots slightly staggered as the howitzers fired upon the dreadnaughts. 600km was a long way for even the fastest of turbolasers, the howitzers were not fast; but that didn't matter when they hit. Four brilliant blue bolts, each longer than their targets, smashed into their targets. Despite being invisible to the naked eye, the ensuing explosions were bright enough to hurt the eyes of anyone looking.

"Main batteries, Fire."

/-\

1445Z

Ultra-Heavy Turbolaser #3 Control tower.

Petty officer first class Bevrin was of the opinion that he had the best job in the galaxy, he was the chief gunner of the number three UHT on the Force of Intent. He was the chief gunner of the largest naval gun currently in existence; larger than a Venator, with three barrels big enough to fly a corvette through and firing chambers large enough to have a dogfight in, took a full minute to recharge each barrel after every shot, and gave off enough waste energy that it made the air inside the command tower shake as the sloughed off particles hit the reinforced transperisteel windows.

This was the big day, the first time they would be fired in combat. This would make or break the ship's reputation from this day forward, it was bad luck to serve on a ship whose main guns failed on their first combat firing. Superstition would set in; morale would be compromised. Bevrin had his target, the ship just had to give her all.

From his chair, Bevrin needed the view provided from the optics mounted above each barrel to sight his target. He was dialed in on 'ship 7' a cruiser sized target by local measurements. It had taken a while to get used to the chair, it was the most advanced gunnery station he had ever manned. He missed his old dials and cranks, he would have settled for one of those joy sticks on the quads on an Acclamator; but no, this was something else entirely.

It had something to do with the system that allowed them to link dozens of guns to a single station to minimize crew requirements. His controls were touch sensitive, with user variable sensitivity, automatic target tracking, and more besides. On most ships he aimed the gun, on this ship, it felt like the gun aimed him.

"Main batteries, Fire."

End of the day, it was still Bevrin doing the shooting. He smiled as he hit the Big Red Button that read 'READY', the tower flooding with a flash of blue light at the same instant as room was filled with the high-pitched ringing from the windows vibrating.

It was exhilarating to have such firepower at his fingertips. It felt wrong to have so much firepower unleashed so easily. It felt good to do his duty, to bring vengeance to the invaders. It felt simply amazing to watch 'ship 7' disappear in a burst of light. And most importantly; the ship had sung its fury and earned its warpaint, she had proven that she was every bit the ship the crew thought she would be.

Bevrin brought the turret onto a new target, manually tracking for now. He felt his spirit soar as the system changed from 'CHARGING' to 'READY'. Blue light flooded the tower once more as he pressed the firing button. Bevrin loved his job.

/-\

1440Z

Outskirts of Eden Prime Starport

Cuir heard more than felt the HAVw A6 Juggernaut roll over a cluster of geth walkers, the suspension happily eating the impact before it made its way to the 144 men of the 1st company riding in its troop bay. The tactic of ramming had proven itself with the Juggernauts throughout the Clone Wars and had become a staple of the 437th Legion's heavy maneuver regiments. Once more, the tactic was proving itself against an enemy.

They had landed further out than Cuir would have liked but hostile triple A had been thick enough to discourage the landers and even the 170s were having trouble punching trough to attack the ground positions. Their convoy had been forced to roll into- and over- multiple fortified positions, each cleared by simply letting one of the Juggernauts to ram the main line and let the MCV escorts handle the leftovers. Cuir was saving his troops for the fighting inside the spaceport, Tal would need all the help he could get when they met up to assault the spaceport proper.

From his command station's holo-table, Cuir was able to watch the entire battle unfold. He would be forever thankful that he was born a clone and was a leader of the clone army for one simple reason; the clones were raised and trained to be a self leading and highly competent army, he had no need to micromanage his subordinates as he was able to trust them to do their jobs with only minimal guidance from him so he could focus on his men. A quick order to an artillery battery to shift fire support priority or alerting a subordinate commander to the presence of an anti-tank position were the most he needed to flex his authority.

They had one more major fortification to overrun before Cuir would dismount alongside his troops: a makeshift barricade that some Alliance marines had put up that the geth had taken over. They were to hit the barricade at close to the Juggernaut's top speed of 160km/h before slamming the brakes so the men could dismount near directly into the suburbs around the starport. The MCVs would follow them in and act as centerpieces to the coming urban brawl.

Cuir looked over the coming battlefield. If we weren't trying to reduce collateral, I would just get the pilots to drive us right into the starport and dismount there. As it is, I'm running my men through one mighty slog. Geth are dug in all along our best route, no artillery, no heavy walkers, and no bombing runs, going to have to make do with what we have: Blasters, blades, and guts. At least we'll have armor support this time, and Tal will RV with us before long.

Cuir suddenly got a very interesting report from Paladin team, one of the 437th's two embedded commando teams. "Commander, we have a situation. We have a turian Spectre down here, he's alive but in a very bad way; major lower abdominal wounds and our medic thinks he isn't breathing but wont risk doing a tracheotomy on a species whose biology he doesn't understand. We'd appreciate it if you could expedite a CASEVAC to us."

That's not good. Cuir looked over what he had available. "Hold one Paladin, rerouting CASEVAC to your location, hope you don't mind sharing a blood tray." Troch had reported an Alliance marine down, it was easy enough to reroute that bird to make a second pick up. "Herf 3-1-1 Aurek, reroute to Paladin team for emergency pickup of wounded turian operative located at the cargo yard north of your current location."

"Wilco Commander, rerouting to Paladin team for emergency CASEVAC. Herf 3-1-1 Aurek out."

"Paladin, CASEVAC is on route. Continue your mission as soon as the casualty is loaded."

"Sir, we have also just acquired a detainee, secondary witness to the incident. He says he could understand their conversation."

"Affirmative Paladin, no change. Cuir out."

Cuir knew that would make for an interesting debriefing, but he had other things to deal with at the moment. Namely the barricade that was rapidly getting closer and the armored Jedi General who just started assaulting the enemy behind it. Cuir braced against the holo-table as the Juggernaut hit the barricade at a speed of way too kriffing fast and the whole vehicle shook with the impact before the drivers slammed the brakes and sent them lurching once more.

The troops were standing before they came to a stop, piling up at the top of the ramp. Cuir knew that the men in the other three Juggernauts would be doing the same, the whole of the 1st battalion standing ready. Cuir grabbed his DC-15A3 and joined them, nodding at one of the Lieutenants as Cuir stood next to him. The troopers all did a final weapon check as the ramp started lowering with the hiss of hydraulics.

144 pairs of boots thundered down the ramp, blasters whining and snaping as they fired. They basically ignored the General, instead focusing on finishing off the geth around the outskirts of the position. Cuir held his blaster tight to his shoulder as he charged down raking bursts of full auto fire across small groups of geth. As his boots hit dirt, he reached down a grabbed a fallen trooper by the drag handle on his back plate, dropping his blaster to his hip instead of trading for the F-11C that acted as his sidearm.

"You with me trooper?" Cuir's HUD linked to the trooper's armor tally and showed him that the trooper was alive, but it didn't tell him much more than that. A heavy groan was his answer as the trooper started to try to get up.

"Just took a few rounds there sir. I'm good to go."

There was a bit of blood leaking out of the trooper's bodysuit beneath his lower chest plate. Cuir waved a medic over to his piece of cover. "get this trooper on his feet, sergeant." The medic got to work as Cuir rejoined the fight. He ran forward under the cover of the Juggernaut's chin guns as a pair of MCV-3s pulled through the ruins of the barricade and added their repeating laser cannons to the fire.

The troopers moved between the limited amount of cover, only exposing themselves when there was no other option. Cuir dove behind a piece of scrap metal that looked like it had been a geth walker a few minutes ago as a rocket flew inches above his head. There was an explosion and then screaming as the rocket landed near a trooper squad. Cuir rolled out of cover and laid down a stream of suppressing fire.

The geth hadn't impressed Cuir at first, they were completely outclassed in the vehicular warfare department-where the 437th excelled- but in an infantry fight they massively outclassed the CIS in terms of accuracy and tactics; and they were worse than a platoon of SBDs for how many rockets they threw out. They were also awkwardly durable, the lightest went down with a single hit but their strongest still took less than five rounds. The big surprise for Cuir was the effectiveness of their kinetic barriers against things like Plex missiles.

Cuir kept his fire up as a trooper readied a Z-6 rotary blaster next to him. Two thermal dets went out, landing at the base of two large pieces of cover that the geth had occupied. The twin explosions shattered the cover and the geth platforms behind them, exposing the remaining geth to a stream of fire as the trooper with the rotary stepped into the open and walked the blaster across the geth's former positions.

They pushed forward by platoon as they made their way into the town via a wide road that probably served as the main overland corridor. Even with Tal leading them, it was slow, hard going. The geth were dug in hard, every single bound required the use of either the Force or at least a few thermal dets. Things became a whole lot simpler with a single shout.

"E-Web up! Watch your lanes." The shout was from behind Cuir, and he wasn't the only trooper to immediately move off of the road that they were pushing down. Set to full power, the E-Web was capable of breaching tank armor and was a serious threat to buildings; the pair of troopers manning the repeating blaster unleashed a quartet of such shots.

The geth then did the exact opposite of what Cuir expected, they charged. One absolute monstrosity of a platform led the way as two of larger geth varieties flanked it along side dozens of the regular trooper variants. Cuir barely had time to react as three of his troopers fell to hostile fire, the E-Web spat another burst that disintegrated the largest geth, and he was hit in the side by a Force push that spared him the scattergun burst from a now uncloaked commando geth.

The battle at large faded from his mind, everything focused on the geth in front of him. It had tracked him flawlessly as he fell, the scattergun in its hands pointed squarely at his chest. Cuir pulled his blaster up; too slow. The geth fired again and Cuir's world became pain, but pain was an old friend and Cuir calmly carried through with his aim. He squeezed his trigger, a bolt of blue light meeting the geth platform dead center before it fell.

A medic was on top of him before he even understood what was happening, his intermission with the geth assassin he would later come to know as a 'hunter' had taken his attention from the rapidly evolving firefight around him. The medic pressed his hands against Cuir's armor and under suit, patting him down to find bleeding or broken bones. "Looks like your armor ate it…" the next bit was completely drowned out by the E-Web laying down another burst of fire at something out of his line of sight. "…ral wants to push the starport ASAP so I'm letting you go with a stim."

As he spoke the medic was prepping the stim, shoving the needle into Cuir's neck and depressing the syringe before rejoining the fighting. Cuir took a moment to let the stim work its magic, removing the syringe himself as he scrambled to his feet and pushed up to where the General was firing from the corner of a building. "Thanks for the save."

Tal turned towards him while maintaining lethally accurate fire. "You would have done the same vod." He paused before continuing, nodding his head towards the starport. "there's something over there that's giving me a really bad feeling. I want the men ready for anything."

Cuir pointed at an incoming group of hostiles. "Sir, I think anything just arrived."

Cuir had- like the rest of the clone army- been raised with the idea that Jedi were perfect, infallible, that they were beings of grace and dignity that were able to handle anything that came to them with ease; that thinking had gotten a lot of men killed at Geonosis. It also meant that there was a period of desperation when the clones discovered that Jedi were just normal people with some extra abilities; Cuir's moment had been one of the most emotionally painful experiences of his life.

It was right after the fighting on the ground at Geonosis, when Tal had first seen the clones for who they were, for what they were. Tal had reacted to their very existence with disgust; there Cuir was, all of 10 years old and off his first real combat deployment, and his General hated them for no reason that they could determine.

The next few months would fix that, it was never the men that Tal had been disgusted with, it was what had been done to them; Mandalorians believed that the soul of a Mandalorian was connected to their culture and history, that a Mando would be unable to find their way into the afterlife without these anchors and guides. Tal saw an army of Mandalorian men who had never been given their souls, an army of walking dead men mocking his culture with every step they took.

What Cuir saw charging at them made him understand Tal's visceral reaction to the clones. The things were distinctly human in shape but twisted. Grey skin, lines of cybernetics, glowing eyes, and their limbs were all wrong. They charged with a demented, drawn out scream that was disturbingly like a TIE's engines in flight.

Suddenly the geth stopped advancing, stopped taking cover, even stopped firing; but that was very suddenly the lowest priority on Cuir's list as the things charged his men like a line of B1s. Armored fists and humming vibroblades met twisted, decayed flesh and seeping cybernetics in something resembling a waking nightmare. Up close they looked like the mummies that the Sith made out of particularly powerful lords, embalmed husks of the former resident of the flesh.

Thoughts left head as he drove his vibroblade into a husk's. In his peripherals he could see Tal's lightsabers flashing and the occasional blaster bolt where a trooper could get a clear shot into the melee. He struck out with his fist, grabbed his rifle by the barrel and swung at the nearest husk. The stock impacted with a satisfying crunch and Cuir was rewarded with the husk's skull caving in under the hit. Suddenly one of the husks screamed, and Cuir's helmet went dark as all its systems went dark. "EMP!"

Blasters died in their wielder's hands and helmets became the next thing best to useless as they lost all the things that made them useful except for the armor. The troopers reacted exactly the same way that Cuir did, they pulled blades, gripped the barrels of their blasters or any bits of debris that could serve as a weapon, and charged.

It was short and brutal, at some point Cuir found himself using an honest to the Force brick. He would never be able to answer to where he found it, but it was what he had to work with. One of the husks had gotten its claws into his armor, leaving a long series of deep cuts in the chest piece. what the shab, what are these things made of? And then it was over, the husks were down, the geth had fallen back to more defensible positions and offered only the most minimal of resistance.

Helmet lights flickered on and blasters beeped as they signaled a return to full charge. "Company hold, watch and shoot! Repetition, snap fire!" Cuir didn't like the situation at all, the geth before had been ruthless and efficient; now they were suddenly on the back foot, cowering, and completely combat non-effective. Cuir sensed a trap. If it smells like a gundark, roars like a gundark, and eats like a gundark…

It was a whole lot of men not moving for the amount of open ground they had and until this moment the numbers had worked in their favor, now Cuir had all of two sections in cover and every other trooper exposed.

/-\

Tal moved forward slowly with his blaster held firmly to his shoulder, around him was the entirety of 1/1/1/437; 144 men plus the two trooper sections he had landed with. He reached out with the Force, testing the currents and the connections between all things that the Force touched; the bonds between the troopers, thick and heavy with shared hardship; the heady mist of the dark side, fueled by the tragedy currently befalling the colony and the horrors inflicted on its people. And above all else, the shadow of the dark side blinding him to everything past his own line of sight.

It was always hard to sense droids, their minds just worked differently, the way they thought and how they came to decisions; it was like trying to read the intentions of a rock. He couldn't sense anything resembling a feint or deceit from the geth, but he wasn't taking chances when there was such a huge change in the behavior of a hostile force. Something moved behind cover, Tal felt a flash of danger and let the Force guide his trigger. A geth trooper fell before it had left cover.

Something changed, something moved in the shadow. The shadow became aware, turning its attention towards him. It screamed with a billion voices full of anger and frustration directed at him; not just in the Force but with a wave of concussive force and a brutal, deep, resonating warble that reminded him of the in-atmosphere landing horn they first put on the Venator line.

And then the shadow moved, rising into the air. And he saw it; it was some sort of cephalopod, long and tall with a ring of tentacles around its base and along its back. Slick, oily purple and black metal gleamed like a freshly polished blade. Red lightning crackled across its surface. The worst part was it was alive, the shadow of the dark side was centered on the being. A living spaceship, a droid beyond all others. Interestingly, he could sense that this thing was the leader, or perhaps master would be the better term.

And now it was leaving. Tal wouldn't call what he was feeling from this thing joy, but it was certainly satisfied. It had gotten what it wanted and saw no need to maintain its presence. That made Tal angry, this thing had orchestrated the purging of a entire colony as the cover for something and it got it. Tal's greatest pleasure in life as a warrior was finding what his opponent wanted, what allowed them to fight, what they needed to carry out their plan; and then take it from them. This thing had just walked thinking itself victorious; Tal was going to find out what it wanted here, and he was going to take it, own it, and use it against this thing.

Tal waved the men forward. "company forward. Let's go get that starport."

Not many things truly scared Larissa these days, surviving the wrath of a proper Sith Lord tended to harden one to fear. Shepard scared her. Larissa had arrived late to the fight having jumped earlier after sensing a nexus in the force that she had been compelled to investigate; it had been two teenagers and the corpse of a child, one Asari and one Human. She had waved down a LAAT and had the troopers evacuate them back to the Intent.

The squid thing had flown away by the time she had rejoined Troch and his men, and it was one of the most terrifying things she had ever encountered. The shadow in the Force had been that damn thing, to be able to sense a presence from systems away was a great sign of just how dangerous this thing was.

She had found Troch fighting alongside three Alliance soldiers, two of which were biotics. And one of them was so bathed in the dark side that she felt like the worst parts of Korriban; it rolled off her in tendrils, poured off her skin in layers, formed mist at her feet. She was a pillar of rage, a burning inferno of hate and anger, and it was all held together by a thread of pure willpower that felt like a neutronium structural beam.

Larissa had never seen biotics in person until now, but she knew that what Shepard was doing should have been beyond human abilities. Troopers pushed forward through the wedge of destruction she left behind her, widening the wedge through a tide of what Larissa could only think of as undead. She had seen similar things on Korriban in the service of some of the more deranged or malicious Sith Lords; the ones she was familiar with had less metal though.

Larissa's lightsabers flashed through a complicated series of arcs, crescents, and whorls. Two ruby red blades singing death to all before her as she danced through the geth at Shepard's side. Tal only resorted to dual blade fighting when in tight quarters, Larissa lived for it; Her lightsabers were both built around dual blade fighting, one guard shoto and her other a short hilted single-handed blade both made of black metal with silver trim, she had killed dozens of her rival apprentices with them, even her first master had fallen to them.

Larissa used every bit of her prowess with the dark side, she had been an alchemist and a sorceress both, it had given her insights into the nature of the Force that many others did not. The Force didn't have two separate sides as such, it had two different ways to be channeled; it was more like an ecosystem than anything else.

The light side channeled things like balance, peace, harmony and focused on preserving stability; in turn it provided guidance in how to achieve these things across the galaxy. The dark side channeled strong emotions, passion, violence, and the desire to reshape the fundamental nature of the world, it focused on change, evolution, and survival; in turn it provided the raw power required to achieve anything you could desire so long as you could resist being pulled under, all it asked was that you change things.

And so, she changed things. She pulled the heat from the air into her skin, freezing anything that came within inches of her, the air and geth alike. She pulled the heat from her skin to her veins, from her veins to her blood, blood to lungs. Once she moved the heat into her lungs, she used it to light the air aflame as she exhaled, casting gouts of fire from her lips.

For all the destruction she could wreak, it nowhere near matched the purity of Shepard's rampage. For every section or squad of geth Larissa destroyed, Shepard took apart a platoon. She threw balls of black energy that pulled in squads at a time before viscously crushing them and causing the ball to explode with a casual wave of her hand. Rolling waves of force rippled across the ground, tearing up the surface around her.

The two of them lead the way towards the starport, leaving the troopers to search and clear the buildings they passed. Apparently, Shepard and her team had been looking for something that had been taken from the dig site- Tal was right again- and the starport was the only place that made sense for it to have been taken. Larissa lost herself in the fight, her conscious mind fading as she danced between the impressions in the Force that were the geth.

Suddenly the fighting stopped, and Larissa found herself at the end of a tram, Shepard and Troch next to her. Shepard was panting with exhaustion and chewing on a bar of food while she talked with her team. Troch stood next to Larissa with a can of bacta spray. "hold still there ma'am, looks like you took some shrapnel; lets get some bacta on it while we have the chance." She let him spray down a series of small injuries that she had collected during the fighting.

Larissa hadn't lost herself in a fight in years- from her perspective- she normally was able to keep firm control after years of working with the dark side, this loss of control was disturbing. Maintaining control was key when dealing with Sith magics, it was far too easy to be consumed by the dark side and have the spell go horribly wrong.

The waves of dark side energy pouring off Shepard had pulled her under its thrall, thankfully not enough to control her. Now that Shepard wasn't using her powers, her aura of dark side energy had faded significantly; now Shepard felt like just about any other person in the galaxy, the pure willpower was still there but now the most pressing thing Larissa felt from her was tiredness and concern for her team.

It was as impressive as it was worrying, no one who could switch from such incredible rage and hatred to basically normal like Shepard did could be considered healthy or stable, Larissa had known Sith lords who had a better handle on their emotions. If all goes well, this is the last time we must work together. Just one more fight, and I have a trick for next time.

She looked around the tram, three Alliance soldiers and as many troopers as they could pile on milled around between impromptu fire positions. "how many men made it on?"

"just under 90 ma'am, honestly I don't think we need this many between you and the Commander." Troch seemed to be sincere in his assessment and Larissa couldn't disagree.

"Has Tal started his attack?"

"Chrono shows another five minutes before his attack is scheduled, Cuir hasn't reached out to adjust timings; I'd say we're on schedule. And there's the guns." Three distinctive blasts of landing artillery shells signaled the first stage of the planned attack, the only artillery permitted in built up areas at any point. There would be another few fires before the main assault; they would be focused on the perimeter walls with the intent to open as many routes into the starport as possible.

Once the walls were down, Tal would lead his men in an assault that would sweep from one end of the starport to the other in a single hyper-aggressive bound. Each of the landing pads would be assaulted sequentially; Larissa's objective at this point was to secure the only significant egress route: the tram line. Unless something went horribly wrong, the battle would be over in the next few minutes.

/-\

Shepard didn't trust these people, the timing of their arrival, the fact they spoke English- or at least had their translators primed for it- and size of their forces. Regardless, she liked them; they had gone out of their way to evacuate any survivors, given aid to Jenkins, fought like hell, and their leader carried a sword and could breathe fire. The image of complete badassery was topped off by the shining white armor of the soldiers and the woman's black and red outfit with that featured clawed armor; Shepard would want some if she could find a way to get it into regs.

Shepard guzzled from her canteen, drinking down as much of the high-density energy drink as she could get as she spoke with Kaidan and Ashely. "How many did we manage to get out?"

"7 by my count, four scientists and three dock hands." Kaidan said "The rest well… we managed to pull some down before they turned completely, the Grand Army troopers brought flamethrowers up and burnt the bodies; for safety or respect I can't tell."

"How's your energy Kaidan? Need a drink? Protein bar? And you Williams, how's your supply?" Shepard's first concern had to be civilians, then her team; Torfan had brought that into focus all too well, she had gotten far too many killed, it was a miracle that she hadn't been discharged.

"I'm low but I have another few good fights in me before I need an up." Kaidan looked bad but he sounded sure of himself. Shepard turned to Williams.

"Full weapon load, three grenades, two packs of medi-gel. Armor is intact and shields are at full. Morale is high. Ready to kick ass Ma'am." Shepard liked the Gunny, she was motivated, skilled, determined, and was a survivor judging by the fact that she had outlived her entire unit and didn't seem to be a coward.

The civilians had been evacuated, her team was in good shape, and she was hammering down the energy her biotics demanded. Now she could bring her attention to the next part of the fight, the starport. If all went well, it would only be a few more minutes before the fighting was over and she could get the rest her body so desperately desired. It was one of the things that bothered her the most about her powers, something that she constantly wished she didn't have to deal with; the gnawing hunger, the constant need for sleep, the weight loss after every mission, and the pain as her nodes warped her tissues and burned through energy reserves at the limit of human biology.

It was starting to set in now, a full body ache focused on her ribs and hips. In the next hour or so- depending on how much she used her powers- it would spread to her knees and elbows then to her extremities, getting worse by the minute. It would start getting hard to breath an hour after that, and then she started to run the risk of cardiac arrest. She would start bleeding before that, internally, from her eyes, fingers, sometimes even her skin would self lacerate under the stress of the energies she was unleashing; the ones she barely managed to keep contained.

The universal sound of incoming artillery sounded before three heavy blasts sounded from the starport. Shepard turned to look at the 'Grand Army' soldiers and their officer who was standing towards the side of the tram and talking quietly. "those shells yours?"

The woman turned towards her. "AV-7, three rounds. There's another three volleys incoming to bring down the walls." She paused. "Apologies Commander Shepard, I failed to observe basic manners. I am Commander Larissa Sooth, assigned to the 437th Legion's airborne regiment." She bowed deeply to Shepard.

"What's the plan?"

"Drop the walls to let the troopers hit it from multiple directions in bulk, sweep the place section by section and lock it down." Larissa explained "This is the only area where the enemy can exert significant transport capability, we take this and shut them down, take them apart unit by unit as they attempt to make their evacuation. I understand you have a package you need to extract, its all yours. We aren't interested in anything except stopping this invasion and saving as many of your people as we can."

"On behalf of the Alliance, I thank you for your assistance to our citizens. Also, for letting me do my job. How long do you plan to be here?"

"Until the geth are defeated or the Alliance asks us to leave, whatever comes first. No more than a few hours at this rate. We are very familiar with the problems surrounding a military occupation and we would like to avoid that by all means."

That was an interesting statement, experienced with military occupation and looking to avoid it. These guys looked tough, fought tough, and knew what they were doing, dangerous combination at the best of times. And the timing was alarming, to wage a planetary campaign in a few hours was impressive no matter how you cut it.

A few more artillery volleys landed as they closed with the starport. Kaidan shouted as the station came into view. "Bombs!" That got a lot of attention; the troopers on the tram repositioning as what Shepard assumed was an EOD team moved towards the ramp. A small number of geth started firing from cover and Larissa leaped towards them as the troopers fired back.

The tram landed, the troopers charged out with precision fire, and the whole thing stalled awkwardly when one of the EOD techs shouted, "Hurry up boys, I have no idea how the Kriff this thing works, and I don't want to hang around long enough to find out!" Kaidan shoved his way towards the bomb, activating his omni-tool and kneeling to walk the tech through the defusal sequence.

Shepard didn't hang around to watch, Kaidan was capable and there was fighting to be done. She charged out to find the geth caught in the most brutal crossfire she had been of the pitching side of, three flanks were filled with troopers who poured fire into the geth and husks, she was pretty sure that she saw hand-held rotary weapons in the mix, and in the middle of it all: Larissa and another laser sword wielder in heavy armor similar to that of the troopers.

The two of them danced through the geth and the husks, blades of light flashing between foes. The new one's were various shades of blue, two arm mounted cyan blades and a sapphire blade mounted on a meter long handle. Shepard had thought Larissa graceful- and she still retained a certain elegance- but this one fought like water around rocks, fast and vicious where close, smooth and deceptively tranquil with distance. And then Shepard ran in and broke everything. She was good at that.

/-\

It was happening again; the dark side was pouring off of Shepard. it seemed to pull inward first, flexing like the oceans before a tsunami. And it would be just as powerful when it hit, washing away all in its way. Larissa felt Tal's alarm at the sheer potency of Shepard's emotions, she sent him a wave of reassurance before reaching out and grabbing one of the tendrils emanating from Shepard.

There was an interesting thing about the force, the dark side didn't care who wielded it; it was fickle, capricious, willful, and only cared that it be used. It was near impossible to twist the light side from the will of its wielder, though it could be deflected. The dark side would happily be turned and lend its strength to any who were willing to use it.

Her first master had lashed out at her one day, torturing her with torrents of lightning. In a blind panic, Larissa had reached out for the dark side to fight back and instead vaporized her master when she had blocked the lighting from leaving her master's body. It had taken her weeks to figure out what had happened, once she did, she had ensured that no one else did; no one had ever been able to pin the deaths on her.

This would be the first time she used the technique in this exact way, but the theory was solid. She pulled the tendrils into her and shaped them to her means. She was a proper conduit for the Force, she provided it and shaped it but let Shepard provide the power. It worked far better than she expected, her next burst of lightning was triple the size she was used to and was barely under control.

Larissa threw all of it into the next swing of her lightsaber, rolling out a massive wave that was a combination of a force push and force lighting. It broke walls and ripped the floor up, sent geth and husk alike flying and burning from the discharge, and if it wasn't for Tal, it would have done the same for the troopers. Interestingly it still had some of Shepard's will in it, traveling not in a single solid wave, but in rhythmic pulses similar to what she had seen Shepard preform with her biotics.

And suddenly it was silent, what she had unleashed had apparently killed or destroyed every last geth and husk in the starport. Tal walked up to her while waving the troopers to secure the landing pads. "I understood less than half of what you just did; next time you want to try a new power, run it by me first." Larissa was about to defend herself before she realized that he wasn't reproachful but instead proud. "Good job clearing them out."

/-\

Everything had gone basically to plan until Larissa did… whatever it was she had done; it was an impressive piece of force manipulation that passed almost completely over his head, but what he had understood made him have second thoughts about this 'Commander Shepard' he had heard about from Selind. Selind had made contact with a ship called the Normandy whose Captain had advised them about Shepard's mission. Tal couldn't have given a shab about the Normandy's mission until now, he had way too much else on his plate to micromanage the supervision of a friendly spec op team.

Shepard wasn't force sensitive; he could tell with a glance. But there was a vergence centered on her, and that made him very interested. No wonder they had crossed paths here in the shadow of the dark side, the force had wanted them both here; what for and why were the questions.

"Sir, you're going to want to see this. Shepard, I think we found your package." A trooper sergeant called over from the ramp to one of the landing pads. Tal deactivated his lightsaber, planting the end of the handle into ground and holding it like a walking stick as he made his way over. Immediately he saw the big glowing beacon, exactly the same as the ones in the Codex. That would do it, that thing is worth a genocide and half your military to these people, even if they won't admit it.

"This your package Shepard?" She had followed him as soon as the trooper had called and was now discussing something with one of the Alliance soldiers.

"This is it, pick up and deliver to the galactic community discreetly to prevent this exact scenario. Biggest diplomatic haul in my lifeti- Alenko!" Shepard ran towards the now active beacon that was holding the male Alliance soldier in the air in front of it. Tal stayed back, sensing no danger to either of them; though there was something building in the force that intrigued him, something like a premonition or vision.

Shepard grabbed her soldier, throwing him clear before being dragged in herself. The beacon flared, Shepard sized, and the beacon exploded. Shepard landed hard, her team rushing to her aid alongside a trooper medic. The medic took a second to run one of his tools over her before turning to the Alliance soldiers. "Unconscious but otherwise fine, some weird brain activity though. Bed rest would be the best thing for her unless a real doctor tells you different."

Tal was distracted from the scene in front of him by Cuir coming up beside him with a data-slate. "General, the evacuation is almost complete and geth forces are capitulating across the planet, navy report near total destruction of hostile vessels; apparently the Manticore did a number on their reinforcements. Interestingly enough, there seems to have been a close call with a Council fleet that came to investigate the loss of communications with a diplomatic vessel that had been waiting for us, turns out having an SSD drop out of hyperspace less than 500m from you makes people nervous."

Tal leaned on his lightsaber, thinking it through. "any shots fired?"

"Negative"

"Small blessings. Good work, but it seems… sudden." They had fought hard to get to this point, and suddenly the geth were rolling over to die.

Cuir nodded "Fleet activated EWAR around the same time the geth got dumb, that moved the timeline up significantly. Turns out the geth are extremely vulnerable to electronic warfare. Normandy incoming to pick up Shepard and what's left of the beacon, and her Captain has volunteered to escort us to the Citadel."

"Khah must have been busy." Tal was actually impressed at how well things had progressed. He knew it wouldn't last but would enjoy it for now. "Start packing up, we can hand off the refugees on the Citadel, let them deal with it. What are the casualty figures?"

"2000 total on our side, three dead inside the legion, 15 total. Alliance figures are near total, we accounted for less than fifty survivors out of a garrison of nearly a thousand. Civilians got the worst of it, currently counting 200 thousand dead and just about everyone else we evacuated is some degree of injured." Cuir read the list clearly but subdued.

Tal hung his head. "Who were ours?"

"An MCV crew got overextended and the APS was overwhelmed. Tenn, Boresight, and Fric. From the 2nd Regiment, their brothers collected their tallies and scuttled the vehicle."

A LAAT came down on the edge of the pad and a trooper called out from the bay. "General, the Grand Admiral is asking for you to join him on the bridge. Something about smoothing over a potential diplomatic incident."

Tal grabbed Cuir's shoulder as he walked past. "You're in charge, clean up here and come on back, I want the 437th there when we reach the Citadel. I'll take care of…" He waved his hand in the air "this."

The LAAT passed less than a dozen meters by the Normandy as it came in, an absolutely gorgeous ship to Tal. While he preferred the more angular and edged shapes, he had to admit that the Normandy was a piece of art as much a warship. Long and sleek with a slight curve, a raised triangular tail piece, and two large body following wings. A predator of a ship; it reminded him of his own corvette if he pulled all the missile pods from it and smoothed out the hull.

They pulled away before he could get more than a quick look, flying up through the atmosphere on the improved engines that allowed them to break atmo. Tal was genuinely surprised by the amount of wreckage that now floated where there had once been a geth fleet, the Fury using her near 29km hull to push through the debris in search of survivors alongside a few Acclamators and a trio of TIE reaper corvette hunting packs. The occasional volley of fire signaling the discovery of a disabled or damaged ship.

The LAAT dropped him off in the diplomatic and command hangar where two navy troopers were waiting to escort him to the conference room. Khah was standing in front of the holo-display that was currently projecting only in 2d, the images of an asari and a turian. "ah good, My Lord. This is Admirals E'salia and Vindicus" he gestured at the asari and the turian as he named them. "and they wish to have us answer to a few things."

Tal removed his helmet and held it to his hip before bowing and introducing himself. "I am General Tal Wherda-ad High General of the 3rd Exploratory, what seems to be the issue?"

Admiral Vindicus came charging out "We demand that the Alliance answer to the large-scale violation of the Farixen treaty and multiple technology sharing treaties. You will stand down and relinquish your ships to the command of the Council or we will be forced to engage."

What the actual shab, he has to be joking. Tal looked over at Khah, realizing now why he had asked for Tal. "We are not part of this 'Alliance'. We owe our allegiance to the Galactic Republic and are not subject to any treaties that we would knowingly be in violation of. I can have a member of our Diplomatic corps be brought down to speak with you but were hoping for a audience with the Council on the Citadel itself."

Vindicus wasn't having any of it and was clearly the more senior as the asari made no effort to spare him from his actions. "all are subject to council law, of which you are in violation. Stand your ships down, your protests ring hollow human; the Alliance will answer for this."

Tal turned to Khah and cut the link. "Ion bolts only. Prepare boarding parties, I want them both on to be there when we meet with the Council."

"With pleasure my Lord." Khah marched out with the faintest hint of a smile.