22/07/2157
In the silence of space, ships started to suddenly appear besides the Shanxi Mass Relay. One by one they arrived, angular birds of prey, at first they were small, but eventually larger and larger ships were decelerated to sub-light speed. The number of ships grew steadily. A number of ships far in excess of what had been expected even in the most dire of predictions. Of course, the scene would only be observed by the Asteroid Mining Vessels hidden within the system's Oort Cloud long after said ships had already arrived at Scafell via FTL. That was their cue, and from the cloud, as near to the Relay as they dared position them, they emerged. Boxy and utilitarian, they were designed for two purposes, mining asteroids, and towing asteroids. Some were dark brown, while most were gun grey, the colour of the priming and radiation resistant paint used as a first layer upon ships produced by their given company or nation. Outer coats were considered not worth the cost or trouble for such low end cheap ships, whose outdated nature could be seen as clear as day from their grungy engine exhausts, spewing forth dirty orange plumes characteristic of old Hydrogen-Oxygen chemical thrusters, as opposed to the modern pale blue of plasma torch drives.
Behind each were cables connected at various anchor points to their respective asteroids, a central bundle of cables stretching forth from the aft of the ships, from a boom extending between their main engines, before expanding to a whole net of individual cables anchored to varying points across the surface of each of the irregular space rocks. A method used in peacetime to transport rocks which were not suitable for mining in the cloud, being neither small nor large enough for such a fate, it had now been weaponised. Only manned by skeleton crews, the vessels' job was simple, and they entered FTL while towing their deadly cargo.
The Fleet General was not taking any chances, they would not be ambushed like the Patrol Flotilla before them, assuming the natives even had any military ships left. They had managed to achieve a remarkably low drift after travelling though the relay, so it took but a short time to establish their proper formation before immediately entering FTL. The trip was short, and they quickly found themselves in a very high orbit over the planet. The central holographic display updated, his fleet had emerged from that trip retaining their tight formation, no mean feat, and he expected nothing less.
"Conduct a sensor sweep. I want to know what orbital forces they have left." While most Fleet Generals left the command of their ship to their second in command, he preferred direct control. As far as he was concerned, the duties of Fleet General were hardly so taxing as to render the ability to command one's own vessel compromised, not to mention the fact that the ability to directly command his own ship gave him much more tactical control.
The presence of a small space station was noted. No larger than a small cruiser, it had various docking arms, a central cylindrical superstructure standing proud at a right angle to the horizon of the planet. The presence of multiple asteroids held to it via cables, lower on the central cylinder than the docking arms, in varying states of being cored out clearly indicated the non-military purpose of the installation. If he were in charge of defending this planet he would arm and man it, an unassuming outwardly unarmed station was the perfect place to hide some orbital artillery. Of course, it could also be rigged to detonate should his men step foot within it, so boarding was out of the question. A simple problem, requiring a simple solution.
"Weapons, fire main gun at enemy space station. 5% charge. Shoot to kill." 5% charge would be more than enough to obliterate it. The massive spinal Mass Accelerator underwent its pre-fire checks, the miniature drive cores which generated the gravitational fields necessary to accelerate the 25 kilogram projectile activating in the same sequential manner as they would in proper operation. Once the computers and technicians confirmed full operation of all components, the round was loaded from the internal ammunition stowage, transported to the gun's breech via the autoloading mechanism, before being rammed into position.
"Sir."
The order was relayed, the gun was fired. Accelerated from effectively stationary to almost 0.1% the speed of light over a period of little more than 7 milliseconds, a mere 5% of the total potential of the weapon system, the depleted uranium round leaves the muzzle at the bow of the ship. The sabot carrying it through the approximately 900 meters of accelerator barrel splits into even quarters, dispersing as much of the gained frictional heat as possible, as the core round continues unabated. As near to instantly as far as any organic life form could tell, it reached its target, and impacted directly centre mass of the station. The round instantly mushrooms, as it is designed to do in order to impart as much kinetic energy as possible, the shockwaves of the impact transferring through the the superstructure of the station, instantly shattering it into a million fragments, the impact energy was enough to trigger the ignition mechanism set up to detonate the explosives remotely. The station not only tears itself apart from the shear kinetic impact and stress its structure was put under, but subsequently detonates as the oxidiser and explosive of the vacuum-capable munitions contained within are allowed to meet.
The Station disappeared from the display. He was indeed correct, it was rigged to detonate. Sensors were reporting no other major orbital infrastructure or vessels, only a minor quantity of satellites too small to mount any weaponry or even serve as kinetic impactors. "Give the order for the ground forces to prepare for deployment." Just as he gave this order, chaos erupted across the fleet, as ships immediately engaged independent evasive action, and at least three smaller troop transports completely disappeared all together. Shortly after, two mass troop transports reported major damage and were flashed up with an annotation representing as such.
"Sensors, report."
"Sir, they seem to have come from the system's outer asteroid belt, they drop out of FTL just before impacting our formation, release their carried asteroids, before attempting to move past us and enter FTL again."
Just a few kilometres away from the Turian formation, the British Asteroid Mining Vessels drop out of FTL, release the cables connecting them to the asteroids, and then attempt to accelerate 'over' the Turian formation, relative to the Scafell Horizon. The second the cables disconnect, the dirty orange flares of their thrusters extend aggressively, as the skeleton crews push their engines as far as they will go. As they pass over the fleet, though, they detonate spectacularly as their drive cores are breached, or simply are melted to slag, left to drift aimlessly until they leave Scafell's sphere of influence. The invisible beams of the GARDIAN systems lancing up and hitting each vessel square on, guided by advanced VIs, these laser systems far exceed the range capabilities of any Human system, let alone British system, and so the expected safe distance to travel past the Turian fleet turned out to be severely mistaken. What had been planned to be multiple asteroid bombardment runs had turned into what can only be described as veritable suicide bombing.
"Multiple troop transports have been destroyed, sir. Six mass troop transports report major damage, but minimal losses, two report major losses." Not exactly ideal. These primitives were certainly resourceful. Though, it hardly made a difference, the vast majority of their ground forces were still alive and intact, they would just have to watch for similar tactics should they need to invade another planet. The best measure he could think of would simply be to adopt a formation in which the troop transports were entirely covered by Navy vessels from all angles, rather than protected behind the standard arrow head formation. Orbital supremacy had been secured, so they should prepare for the ground invasion. It would have been far easier to simply bombard the enemy resistance from orbit, and force them to surrender, but he was under strict orders to minimise collateral damage, an angry client species was an ineffective client species. So the first stage of the invasion began, and all his Dreadnoughts and Cruisers launched their fighters into the atmosphere of the planet.
22/07/2157 - 19:00 Local Time
"They did not take the bait." God damn it. It was a long shot he knew, but he was hoping to take at least a few ships with that trick. At least the asteroid bombardment seemed to have worked, not that it made much of a dent in the bloody armada, and they were taken out as well, so no follow up strikes. They had ten, TEN, capital ships, and countless cruiser and destroyer sized vessels. From what they could tell from the Station's sensors and cameras, before it was destroyed, they seemed to have a variety of Light Cruisers alongside Heavy Cruisers of a similar size and design to the one that faced the Hood, with many of the Frigates being much more blocky and less predatory than the other ships of this alien race. If he were to wager a guess, those were the troop transports, and if that were the case then they were screwed, they could easily carry almost 10,000 troops in there, if they were human sized and packed like sardines. 10,000 troops which he would have to presume to be their elite, a force trained and equipped specifically for planetary invasions, as opposed to his majority conscript force.
The central command room was quiet, for the first time since these aliens showed their face in what is coming to be called the First battle for Scafell, the only noise being the slight buzzing from the holographic table before him. The display now showed the city, with various annotated circles of varying radii centred upon it. With a radius of 25km was the ring labelled "Anti-Air - 30mm", the close range AA emplacements which were located in the trenches, as well as across many of the roofs of the city's skyscrapers. These were pretty much the largest and most complicated guns the city was capable of gearing its factories up towards producing in the time frame they had, and so they had produced as many as they could. The next ring was 75km in radius, "Anti-Air - Greyhound Ground-to-Air Missile", they had but a limited number of them, but enough for a long battle, in theory. Next was "Anti-Air Artillery - 100mm", the fairly hefty Mass-Railguns were located on the buildings four ring roads away from the outermost circumference of the city, near enough the centre, and far enough in to be protected as long as possible. They were critical to their defence, with their 100km effective range they should allow the armoured units to operate fairly safely, however we only had a few, being a backwater colony, so their actual capabilities were limited by that fact. Finally was arguably the most important aspect, the "Artillery - 155mm", with a range of 125km they should be able to keep the enemy at a distance for a while, before they were inevitably taken out, or ran out of ammunition, that is. Much like the 100mm AAA, they were few in number, and unlike the 100mm, they could not produce more ammunition, so the stockpile they already has was what they had to live with, which was a worryingly small amount.
This would be a hard fought battle, no doubt about that. He had given explicit orders, the 155mm Artillery Mass-Railguns were to hold fire until he gives specific order to do otherwise. The risk of losing the precious guns to counter-battery fire was far too high, even with them protected by the buildings of the city. Of course, they did not know where to position them yet, so they were in the city centre, ready to be towed to the desired front when the enemy landed. The Royal Scafell Hussars, whose name was chosen by the men of the Armoured Regiment itself, had been split into three components. Its HQ Squadron remains within the city, as a fast reaction force should both other components be totally lost before they can fall back, A and B squadron were formed into Group Alpha, and C and D into Group Beta. The two armoured groups were positioned in the city outskirts, ready to deploy into the field as two separate formations. They were to remain within the cover of the Triple A emplacements placed atop buildings located around the city centre, as well as being supported by direct RAF cover. Their job was simple, co-operating with the mechanised forces of the Army, they were to conduct hit and run attacks upon the enemy once they begin to advance towards the city, from whichever direction they intend to do so. Of course, the enemy could land in multiple places, however in such a situation they would just have to prioritise.
With the enemy fleet certainly here, the order was already give, and the outermost buildings had been evacuated, and troops taken position within them, while the Trenches had already started to be manned. By this point they had around 48,000 conscripts trained and equipped, just enough to properly man the 40.8 kilometres of trenches they had dug outside of the city. Many think trenches are the hallmark of combat more than two centuries ago, but they were perfect for defending a position even today. The enemy could not simply drive tanks over the lines, due to the expansive minefields established in front of the trenches, and with the Anti-Tank equipment the Trenches were equipped with, it was hardly viable to traverse the mine field slowly enough so as to avoid them. Any mine-clearing efforts would be frustrated by the fire of those within the trenches, and the armoured pillboxes established behind them. The only real viable way for them to deal with the them and get through to the city proper was to push through the old fashioned way, they would succeed eventually, of course, but the key word there is "eventually". After the first Trench is sufficiently compromised, an organised retreat shall be called, and then comes the even more bloody urban combat, for which we are more than prepared.
Of course, all of these defences would be useless if they were to utilise orbital bombardment, or simply siege them out, however the fact that they had yet to flatten them or their obvious gunnery emplacements indicates that the gamble was right, and that they wished to take them alive rather than dead. Which means that these aliens would attempt to win this conflict without anything that could be seen to escalate the means used, or at least, he hoped. For one this required them to have similar standards on morality and decorum within warfare, and for another that required the current lack of orbital bombardment to be due to that desire, rather than any number of alternatives. However, as far as he was concerned, if that was not their intent, they were doomed anyway, so they had to operate under that assumption. They also could not siege them, they had no idea about the dire food situation, as far as they knew we were fully stocked, or even had means of feeding ourselves within the city. Hell, they could even think we were sapient robots. If they want the planet, their only options are to destroy or occupy us, especially if they are already aware of the threat that reinforcements present.
Then the bad news came in. He had been hoping up until this point that all those capital ships were Dreadnoughts, and that they followed the British practice of not carrying any fighters or sub-craft. "Sir, enemy aircraft entering the atmosphere. More than a hundred of them, sir."
Baxter looked far from pleased. "Well, there goes any hopes of air supremacy. The RAF is going to be limited to operations within the range of the Greyhounds. Our AAA wont be able to hold off so many enemy aircraft, and sacrificing what few aircraft we have wont achieve anything."
"Our tanks will need air cover, what do you suggest we do, entirely abandon 50km of delaying action? That could put our entire time-frame in jeopardy!" Ward was, as always, not taking Baxter's reservation well. "Get those flyboys up there, or I swear to god-"
"And what? We loose all of our air power in one foul swoop. I am not saying that my men shall not deploy when the time is right, but we cannot hope to fight over what seems to be over one hundred and twenty aircraft! We have about half that in TOTAL, and half of that half in terms of aircraft that can be remotely effective in air superiority missions!"
"You do not even know how effective these aliens are in the air! For all we know, they could fly like ducks, and shoot like drunkards!"
"You mean the same aliens who managed to beat the Hood? Fat chance." Baxter was getting indignant. Not something Williams liked to see, it usually indicated that this argument would go on a while if he did not intervene. Sometimes he wondered if these two officers were put on Scafell as a means to remove them from any command that mattered to any potential inter-national conflict.
"We will just have to operate within the range of the Greyhounds then. If we are lucky we can shoot enough of the bastards down with our AA that we can wrestle local superiority from them. Look on the bright-side, at least they did not have a carrier, then we would be swimming in enemy air power." Of course, if they had a carrier that would have been the least of their concerns, air superiority was a means to an end, and even with the superiority they had, 120 aircraft was not enough to risk on a full on air attack on the city, not with its AA defences. If they had a carrier or two though, they would have had more than enough craft for such an attack, which would overwhelm our defences and allow for precision bombing of our artillery, anti-air defences, and key positions. An oversight of the enemy, and they were damned lucky they made that oversight.
These aforementioned aircraft were clearly probing their defences, occasionally dipping into the range of the 100mms, which would spew out a line of tracer-laden rounds from the city, which he was sure would look particularly striking against the dusk sky, had he been above the ground to see it. Sure enough, a few of them got unlucky and were hit, at least one had their wings torn off, and entered a swift downward spiral only to detonate upon the barren fields beyond the city, while another simply detonated the instant the 100mm round travelling at hypersonic velocities impact the fragile airframe. Their kinetic barriers did next to nothing against such high impact energy. Drawing their electricity directly from the cities fusion reactors, the four of them located underground, under the inner most ring road, their rate of fire is not nearly as limited as they would be should they have been deployed in the field, instead of being limited by the portable generator's energy output, these installations were limited by the heat produced by them firing. A situation which had resulted in strict orders to never exceed middling barrel temperatures, they did not have the means to replace them.
Oh for- He was mistaken, those were NOT light cruisers, well, they could have been, but they clearly had a different purpose in this case. They were landing, they were bloody landing, alongside the blocky frigates he clearly identified as transports correctly. Almost 225km away from the city, slightly unfortunate, he had hoped they would land close enough for him to bombard them with his artillery, but clearly they were more clever then that. Sure, they did not know he had artillery, nor the range of his artillery, but they clearly were not taking any chances. While the large transports took off again before too long, the frigate-sized transports did not, presumably they would serve some purpose? Either as atmospheric craft, or as pre-built buildings for a base, he did not know. This was not good, "run the numbers, assuming them to be humanoid in size, how many troops could they carry with such transports."
The answer came back quickly, and it was not comforting. "Sir, they estimate that they could carry between 35,000 and 85,000 humanoid troops." A wide range, but they had no clue about anything about these aliens. Even 35,000 was an incredibly horrifying prospect, 13,000 actual troops/air men, and 48,000 conscripts, of which almost 40% were not actual combat personnel, to face what he could only assume would be 35,000 elite troops prepared for planetary invasions much like the Royal Marines. At least they had prepared defences, for what good that would do.
22/07/2157 - 22:30 Local Time
The order had been given, and their ship entered the atmosphere. Of course, inertial dampening rendered the whole affair rather tame, but it could not get rid of the signature slight vibration felt when a ship previously in vacuum begins to feel the full effects of atmospheric friction. His brother was in one of the mass troop transports with his Legion, luckily escaping the fate that many proud soldiers had faced when the natives launched, or dropped he guess, asteroids onto their ships. Even more luckily, he had not suffered the fate, seeing as he was in a light troop transport, specifically one which would form one part of the HQ base structure, and while mass transports were damaged, light troop transports were all but evaporated by the impacts. It truly was testament to the efficiency of Turian communications that he, and all other officers, were made aware of the situation as it developed, despite how minor an officer he really was.
A short while later a soft thump was felt through the hull of the small ship, they had landed. He immediately began to make his way through the ship towards the airlock, the spartan utilitarianism of the interior making such a trip as uneventful as it was quick. Exiting the ship, he prepared to assist in the establishment of the base, as all the men were expected to do regardless of station. Swiftness in the establishment of a FOB was paramount to avoid vulnerability to early counter-attack. All around him massive dust clouds were being kicked up as transports both massive and small landed, the massive rear loading hatches of the mass transports lowering swiftly to spill forth the legion each ship carried, alongside all the vehicles, equipment, and supplies to keep the legion operational during the invasion. This stage of a planetary landing was often romanticised, vids depicting entire legions marching out in lockstep were commonplace. In reality, it was far more hectic. The far faster option was to unload and quickly as possible, with each vehicle, crate, and weapon assigned to a single, or small number, of troops beforehand. This would result in what can only be described as ordered chaos, everyone undertaking their own personally assigned task with as much speed and efficiency as possible.
His assigned task was to assist with the deployment of the GARDIAN systems that would protect the base from both air and missile attack, an important precaution even with the air superiority that the fleet's fighter complement had secured. He made his way to the Southern turret's location, the base of the turret already having been assembled by those who landed before him, and was currently surrounded within and without by fellow Turians attempting to bring it to operation as soon as possible.
23/07/2157 - 01:00 Local Time
The enemy aircraft finally left for their ships in orbit. The fact that they were not replaced with a second shift to ensure continual dominance was telling, for it meant that those 120 or so fighters were all they had, and that they had deployed them all at once to ensure the highest chance of aerial supremacy, and most important, distract them from the landing being taken place. Them leaving presented them with a massive opportunity. Assuming of course that this was not a faint.
"Baxter, I assume the No.1 and No.2 Squadrons are ready for an escorted ground attack mission?"
"Of course, they were ordered to re-arm themselves following the aliens assuming total aerial supremacy. No point equipping them all for air superiority if they would just fly to their deaths."
"Then order them to scramble. These aliens cannot have established their base already, so they should still be vulnerable, and with their aircraft refuelling and rearming…"
"I like the way you are thinking, sir." For someone so often characterised by caution and reservation when it came to deploying the men under his command, the prospect of a fairly safe assault against these aliens clearly appealed to the man.
By this point the artillery and armoured forces had deployed suitably against the enemy's landing zone, thankfully only one landing. Which should mean they are ready should kicking the hornet's nest result in an attack. The Space Port had been re-purposed into effectively a second RAF base, more than doubling the amount of aircraft they could launch at once. Immediately the No.1 and 2 squadron pilots rushed from their base-side quarters to their aircraft within the hangers, and those already within their aircraft began to taxi them ready for launch. The escorted ground attack mission had been planned in advance, much like most other missions, in regards to which aircraft was to be armed with what, and would fulfil which role. The Supermarine Saexs of the No.2 Squadron had all been equipped with 12 Vortex air-to-ground missiles, their main armament replaced with two 60mm mass-railguns each for good measure. All multi-role British aircraft are designed in such a way that their main armament can be easily exchanged in order to swap between fighter, interceptor and strike-craft roles, the former usually armed with Chain guns and air-to-air missiles, the second with less chain guns, and half their missile armament replaced with fuel tanks, and the latter with a larger gun and air-to-ground or anti-ship missiles. The Saex was a significantly larger aircraft than the Hawker Harasser, and hence could carry a far heavier air-to-ground armament. By contrast, the Harassers of No.1 Squadron had been equipped as fighters, to escort the Saexs should the alien refuelling be a faint. Baxter's caution showing even here.
Then they began to launch, and the twin aerospace fusion turbines of his Saex began to spool up. A large aircraft featuring variable wing geometry, the Saex was hardly as elegant and slight as the purely atmospheric single engine Harasser. The Saex featured a rather flat yet wide fuselage, designed for optimal performance as a lifting body for re-entry, with two intakes in-bedded into the fixed roots of the wings, much like the Vulcan bombers of almost two centuries ago. The wings themselves were fairly large, and when fully spread out had a remarkable wingspan, however once up to speed they would fold back to form an almost perfect continuous delta wing in combination with the large tail planes. The rudder was located on a boom that extended behind the engines and tail planes, with the engines themselves being shrouded by the hull, except for heat resistant panels mounted within the shroud above and below the engine's exhausts, to direct the thrust in a gimble up and down. The reason for the size of the Saex was that it is the first atmosphere-capable small craft to be equipped with a Mass Effect drive core, specifically to enable the usage of inertial dampeners and kinetic barriers, which allow for it to be far more effective as an aero-space craft, making re-entry faster and more easy, alongside making it far more mobile in a vacuum than all prior aero-space small craft. Painted pitch black for camouflage in space, the Saex was a rather menacing sight.
He pushed the throttle to the maximum, and despite the inertial dampeners Blake was pushed all the way back into his seat. In but a moment he was airborne, and behind him he knew his fellow Saex pilots of No.2 Squadron would be launching in quick succession to join him. He took a quick glance to his left, and sure enough from the RAF base proper he could see the launch of No.1 Squadron in their Harassers. The Hawker Harasser was five years older than the Saex, and was wholly designed around atmospheric operation, they were far smaller than their aero-space counterparts. They were not just smaller, but substantially cheaper, and easier to maintain, the product of necessity as the RAF simply does not get nearly a comparable amount of funding as the Royal Navy. The Harasser was a single engine aircraft built entire around that engine, like the Saex around its drive core, a canard delta wing aircraft it looks right out of a history vid about the early 21st century's Anglo-American arms race, especially with its standard gun grey paint job.
"No.2 squadron, form up on me." He performed a banked turn to orient his aircraft towards the alien landing site, and sure enough his squadron formed up into a flying V of fifteen aircraft with him as the tip. No.1 Squadron formed a defensive formation around No.2, with ten of the Harassers flying on either side, and fifteen flying above in their own flying V.
"No.1 Squadron is ready to escort, you are free to begin ground attack mission, No.2"
"Confirmed, mission is a go," and they began their acceleration. Speed was to be their main friend, especially if these aliens had anti-air set up already. Quickly passing the sound barrier, already half way to the landing site, their sonic booms were no doubt heard by every living thing on the surface.
23/07/2157 - 02:15 Local Time
They were making good progress establishing the FOB, however he and his compatriots were having a hard time getting the GARDIAN system operational. The dust kicked up by the landing should have dissipated by now, but it had not, and it was fouling the lensing. That and energy generation was still not fully set up, for some reason. Apparently a large portion of the components necessary had been damaged or lost in the asteroid attack, and they had to be sourced from backup components carried by the warships in orbit. Which did not help the dust situation when they landed even more craft to deliver them. Most of the outer defences had been established, outer walls and turrets, along side the dug outs and kill boxes, with accommodations still largely neglected. The General was getting impatient.
Then came the unmistakable sound of a sonic boom, and with the naturally astute hearing Turians were gifted, especially in regards to sub-harmonic frequencies, he could easily recognise that it was an overlapping boom produced by multiple aircraft. Immediately the base's alarms sounded. He thought the fleet's fighters had that covered! Where was their spirits damned air cover!?
The next second, thousands of rounds began to impact the ground, throwing up lines of small dust cloud erupting where ever the projectiles impacted the ground. He was luckily already within cover working with the southern GARDIAN turret, but many others were not so lucky, he saw at least one solider get shredded by a direct hit from the aforementioned cannon fire, his hard suit and kinetic barriers doing little to protect him. Then came the explosions, erupting all over the base, but primarily where they had located the armoured vehicles for temporary storage. A sudden secondary shock wave is felt as secondary detonations, presumably fuel and munitions for the vehicles, completely overshadow that of the initial detonations. His comms were quickly overtaken by calls for medical assistance, men down, damage to equipment or constructions, and requests for anti-air cover. The anti-air vehicles which were being manned as a stop gap until the GARDIAN systems were operational had already opened up, lighting up the night sky with blazing streams of mass accelerator fire, firing at targets he could not see, which had clearly boomed past the base over the short seconds that the attack had taken place within. The lack of anti-air missiles being launched from those vehicles indicating that the enemy aircraft had passed over too fast to secure a lock.
23/07/2157 - 02:30 Local Time
The attack run had been successful, despite the ferocious anti-air fire they had put up. The attack served two purposes, other than just to disrupt their efforts to establish themselves, specifically reconnaissance and assessment of their forces. They were clearly humanoid, both in scale and form factor, and seem to possess a great number of troops, as well as armoured vehicles. The lack of an air strip or aircraft confirmed that they were going to be entirely reliant upon the craft carried and launched from their capital ships. They also seemed to be in the process of setting up five particularly large and potent looking turrets, presumably a form of heavy anti-air artillery. The fact that they were not operational yet was probably a key part of why the attack was so successful.
They slowed down after having gone the distance between the base and the city again, turning around and accelerating back to super-sonic speeds to return. They were not passing over the base again, they had expended their air-to-ground munitions, no need to risk their hide against their anti-air defences. They had gotten off scot free, which was certainly unexpected. Who knows, they may even be able to refuel and rearm quickly enough to get in another attack run before the aliens regained aerial superiority.
"BOGIES, THE ENEMY FLEET HAS DEPLOYED ALMOST 60 AIRCRAFT. BOGIES INBOUND." The various alerts for radar lock, lidar lock, etcetera immediately sounded up. That was absurdly fast, both in how fast they had been able to scramble from ships in orbit after just falling back to them, but also in how damned quickly they had managed so many forms of locking. They must have scrambled what aircraft they had almost ready as soon as possible. His squadrons were in no position to engage, and were almost within the range of the Greyhound ground-to-air missile batteries. If they could just make it…
"Do NOT engage, repeat, do NOT engage!"
The alerts got alot more hectic, they had just entered the range of their Greyhound missiles in the city, but the enemy had clearly launched their air-to-air missiles themselves already. Damn it. "BREAK, BREAK!" The formation split, each aggressively dodging as swiftly as possible, something only possible from the speeds they were going at due to the advanced material sciences used in the construction of their aircraft, and the inertial dampeners within the Saexs. The Harassers by contrast did the best they could without killing themselves from G forces, flipping or turning themselves around after slowing with the use of flaps, to launch their Red Robin air-to-air missiles. By now the aliens entered the range of the ground-based missile batteries as well, and the 100mms were already firing at them.
Shit, one of his squadron just got hit by an enemy missile, despite their impressively erratic movements. They were almost there now, the home stretch. The Aliens were finally pulling off, no doubt recognising the danger the anti-air of the city presented. However, their missiles were still inbound-
Bloody hell, he had one on his tail. Quickly entering a steep dive while deploying all the countermeasures he had on hand, from flares to chaff, it was no good, the damned thing was doggedly pursuing him. He had no idea what it was using for guidance, either it was something novel and beyond him, or they simply had incredibly effective anti-distraction software. Pulling up from his dive, and entering a steep banked curve at the same time, his HUD began to bleat about G-forces overwhelming the inertial dampeners. He bloody knew, he could feel it god damn it. In the corner of his eye he saw a Harasser try to evade its own pursuer, only to get blown apart by it less than a second after it caught his eye, at least he thought he saw the pilot eject.
By god, it was a stubborn bastard that was for sure, he decided to try one last thing. He pulled back HARD on his joy stick, and the Supermarine immediately pulled upwards into a cobra, the engines screaming, the HUD screaming, his velocity fell almost immediately, the engineers would no doubt chew him out for this. The missile passed straight by where he once was going to be in a few milliseconds, and just as he had intended, failed to reacquire its target, flying off into the darkness before detonating against the ground. He pulled out of the manoeuvre, and checked on the status of the others, they had lost two Saexs, and three Harassers, though, they were reporting having seen at least three alien craft be downed by either the Red Robins, Greyhounds, or 100mms. A costly exchange, with them already outnumbered, it was decidedly not worth it. Though, it would have been far worse had the enemy still had all their craft airborne when they undertook the mission, and at least they struck them where it hurts.
23/07/2157 - 02:50 Local Time
The fires had been put out, and wounded taken to the half-finished field hospital. At least their GARDIAN systems were finally operational, granted, they only had a range of 50 kilometres in atmosphere, nothing compared to the anti-air systems the natives used. The reports had come in from orbital imaging, and it seems they used veritable artillery cannons for their long range anti-air armament. Primitive, something one would expect Krogan to do, but considering that they had already lost a few craft to it, it had to be effective. The main benefit of their GARDIAN system however was that it was FAR more reliable and effective at even its maximum range than their anti-air systems were, and was equally reliable against missiles. They should be virtually immune to any and all air or missile attacks aimed at their base.
After his assigned work on the GARDIAN systems was complete, he could return to the newly established HQ, to begin to fulfil his actual role as an officer. He re-entered the ship he had landed in, and it was an entirely different environment to when he had left it. Filled with holographic monitors, displays, and tables, with a large number of fellow staff officers co-ordinating the preparations for defence against any potential attacks, and for an eventual assault. The rest of the construction of the base was being undertaken by the Legions, such as their quarters, the vehicle hangers, etcetera. Electronic Warfare Command had just been established in another adjacent landed ship, and Drone Operations in yet another. They would soon be ready to begin to gather proper intel, far more accurate than could be achieved through orbital imaging.
"Desolas, good of you to finally join us. You would be pleased to hear that their desperate air assault did deceptively little in terms of casualties. Most of its effect was disrupting the operations to establish the base. Though it did damage a fairly substantial number of our armoured vehicles." The General was known for his penchant for getting to know all the staff officers he would be working with, no matter how minor. This generally made him rather popular, especially when combined with the fact that he would in turn actually listen to them, unlike some higher ups which tended to ignore anyone of a lower stratum to them.
"It looked fairly spirits damned effective where I was standing, sir. How many were wounded?"
"Only about half a single Legion's worth, roughly seven hundred received injuries which rendered them casualties. Only a hundred or so actually died, though another eighty are heavily injured. All in all, not that bad for an unopposed air assault from what seems to be at least three full squadrons of aircraft." One of the other officers reported, in charge of the administrative efforts to keep full record of how many of their soldiers were injured, dead, or combat effective. A very important aspect of command and control, knowing which units were understrength and by how much could mean the difference between victory and defeat. Every officer within this HQ filled a similarly important role in the collating, organising, and relaying of such information to the actual commanding staff. His role was simply to assist in the development of proper plans of action from the intent of the commanding staff. A lot of the work he would have nominally had to do had clearly been done by his fellow staff officers while he was busy with the GARDIAN systems, presumably due to them having finished their tasks regarding the establishment of the base far before he had. A given considering the delays he had experienced.
"Yes, unopposed. The Fleet General's gamble of deploying all his fighters at once to wrestle aerial superiority did not pay off, they did not engage as he had hoped, and it simply resulted in all of them being out of the air at once. The arrangement has changed, they will operate in shifts, with half the fleet's fighter complement providing active air cover at any given time. Now that our GARDIAN systems are operational, the base itself is fully secure, so they will be dedicated to protecting our eventual assault." The General leaned forward on the holographic table in front of him. "Said eventual assault is what we are currently planning, Desolas. We cannot simply besiege them, for all we know they have ample food supplies and internal food production methods. Not to mention, an occupation is a far more effective diplomatic bargaining chip than the colonial equivalent to a loosely held hostage who is still armed and dangerous."
"That, and they could very well be a far more established species than we have thought, and could be preparing some form of relief force. Of course, even in that case it is doubtful they could challenge a Turian Battle Fleet, but we cannot take that chance. If we have the colony, that relief force would be faced with having to take the city back, even should they manage to wrestle orbital control, which should force them to reconsider their mission." He had yet to meet that officer personally, he was either the second in command to the General, or one of the higher ranking commanding staff. Either way, fairly important.
"Indeed. That city must be taken, while both minimising collateral damage, we all know how most species feel about 'civilian' casualties," this raised a short laugh from a few within the room, "as well as minimising our own, obviously."
The plan they had assembled in his absence was then explained in great detail with the aid of the holographic table. It started with determining the weaknesses in the defences of the city via the usage of drones, a fairly expected decision, they would need to know how to best punch through in order to minimise their own casualties. The plan revolved around a three pronged assault, one directly frontal from their landing site and base to their city, with two in the flanks. The idea was that these three forces would advance as one group initially, to be best covered by mobile AA platforms and air cover, before splitting off before reaching the effective weapons ranges of these natives. Next would be to push through what ever outer defensive lines they had established, if they existed, before pushing into the city proper. They would then wrestle control over the city layer by layer, building by building, via standard Turian urban clearing tactics. Of course, the idea was that they would surrender the minute their outer lines of defences collapsed under Turian pressure, with the rest of the plans effectively being back ups encase the primitives did not surrender at the stage prior. A proper urban sweep would be slow, hard, and costly, and should be avoided at all costs. If they forced their hand by refusing to surrender however…
Of course, there were many many variable factors within the plan, accounting for various different situations and outcomes, all reliant upon information about these natives that they would gather prior to actually even beginning to prepare the assault, but the main plan was already prepared. It followed standard Turian doctrine to the letter, an assault of concentrated firepower and ferocity that should ideally break the enemy and bring them to their knees with minimal casualties on either side. Of course, the assault force would also be perfectly ready to continue the process should they not be willing to surrender at that point. The Salarians and Asari may see such methods as brutal and inelegant, but they worked. Shock and Awe works against any opponent, bar maybe the Krogan, but with the Krogan you need to bring all your firepower and manpower to bear at once anyway, you do not have much choice in the matter.
After he was brought up to speed, he began to properly settle into his role within the command structure. He hoped his brother was having similar amounts of success with his position within his Armiger Legion.