May 8, 2089

Unclaimed Space

Henry Calloway sat in his observer seat, his companions-both human and quarian-sitting beside him. The Admiralty Board had ultimately decided that humanity's offer was worthy of discussion, and had proposed the issue to the Conclave. In what was, according to Neph, typical quarian fashion, the Conclave had debated the issue to death over the past few days. Henry's only contribution had been to present humanity's evidence of batarian aggression, but he doubted it made much difference. The quarians loathed the batarians, they had stolen one too many wayward pilgrims for that not to be the case. That the batarians were in the wrong was taken for granted by most of the Conclave.

The debate had made for strange bedfellows. Two factions that were normally completely at odds with each other had found themselves on the same side. There were what Henry had privately dubbed the "Warhawks" who were constantly advocating for an escalation of conflict with the geth, and thus believed that the material support from humanity would allow them to truly bring the fight to the geth. There was also the "Anti-War" faction (another of Henry's unofficial namings) who advocated for abandoning any thoughts of war with the geth and focusing on rebuilding quarian civilization on a new world. They saw human material support as an opportunity to finally be able to begin to reestablish themselves and stem the tide of desperation that was pushing their people towards war.

These two factions were normally minorities, but with their combined numbers they gave a credible chance for human-quarian cooperation. Their main opponents were what Henry had dubbed the "Moderates". The faction seemed to represent the typical opinions of the majority of quarian-kind. They advocated for not taking rash action that could endanger the fragile existence the quarians had been able to obtain as nomads. To openly support humanity, a race encountered only days ago, and one that was now at odds with the Council (an organization that, in their opinion, quarian-kind could not afford to draw even more ire from) would be a rash action that put the entire species at risk.

Neph sat beside him. He suspected the woman was rolling her eyes, though it was hard to obtain proof of that with her helmet. Watching a pair of politicians debate, she turned to Henry. "They've been making the same points for two days now. You'd think they'd just put it to a vote already."

Henry turned to her and smiled. "A healthy democracy thrives on exhaustive debate."

Neph scoffed. "I'd hardly call us a 'healthy democracy'."

Henry's smile grew wider. "This is nothing. You should see the legislatures of some of the nations back on Earth. Some of them even break out into fist fights."

Neph was genuinely surprised. "You're joking."

Henry shook his head. "Dead serious. Why is that hard to believe?"

"I don't know. You just seem so...amiable." Neph said.

"You've only met, what? Two dozen humans? Maybe three. Several of whom had diplomatic training. We are an entire civilization. There's bound to be plenty of variance between us." Henry said.

"I suppose so." Neph said, feeling a little sheepish. The pair grew silent after that, and joined their companions in watching the debate between the two politicians wrap up. A recess was called, and the group made their way to Neph's grandmother's house, which had become their resting place in between sessions.

"Bah, I wish I could offer you something to eat, but we can't afford to waste space on levo food." Neph's grandmother lamented.

"It's fine ma'am, really." Tim said, for the third time in the past two days.

"Please, just Zila is fine." she said.

"Alright then. It's fine, Zila." Tim amended.

Neph's grandmother had tearfully expressed her gratitude for saving her granddaughter to the humans upon meeting them. Tim, in particular, was a recipient of her gratitude, having been the leader of the team that had saved Neph's life. Tim took it all with the same courtesy he took everything else.

The humans sipped water through their helmet straws, waiting out the clock. They group had decided to forgo their return from the recess, instead watching the proceedings on the quarian equivalent of live news. It was a choice that Henry was coming to regret, as a vote had been called, and all they could do was watch and wait. The quarian reporter finally announced it.

"Yes, we're getting the results now...46% in favor, 52.7% opposed, 1.3% abstained." the announcer said.

A barely audible intake could be heard among the watching humans, and their two quarian companions. Well shit. Thought Henry. His mind raced, searching for acceptable courses of action. He settled on one, reluctantly. "Alright people, we're going for a meeting with the Admiralty." He said.

Lieutenant Fahri, chief engineer, spoke up at that. "What for? It's over. We lost."

"That doesn't mean I can't still salvage something from the situation." Henry said.

While still somewhat dejected, the group got up to move with a new purpose.

"You want to stay as an...ambassador?" Admiral Yoza asked.

"Of a sort. Someone specifically trained for that will take my place as soon as possible, of course, but until then it is necessary to maintain diplomatic contact." Henry replied.

"Forgive us, we don't often have governments express an interest in diplomatic contact with us." Admiral Zilv said.

"Or just contact, in general." Tun barked a laugh.

"Well, even if you can't directly cooperate with us, we would still benefit greatly from a healthy business relationship. Let your pilgrims know that the pilgrimage gifts they get from us would be substantial." Henry said.

The Admiralty exchanged glances. Zilv spoke. "We can't cooperate with you directly, as per the Conclaves mandate."

"But they haven't forbidden pilgrims from going to your space." Tun finished.

"Normally, a given batch of pilgrims would be sent out piecemeal, dropped off whenever we pass near civilized space. However, it's not expressly forbidden for pilgrims to make their initial journey in...larger groups." Xoza said.

For the first time since the vote, Henry smiled. "I see. These "larger groups", would any of them be interested in trying to find their pilgrimage gifts in human space?"

"I'm sure there would be many who would express an interest. The latest batch of pilgrims is finishing their training very soon. We could send them in a larger ship. Naturally, it would be remiss of us to send them into unknown space without a guide." Tun said.

"I'm sure I could find some volunteers on the Samar." Henry said, smiling wider.

"Very kind of them." Zilv said.

May 10, 2089

Among the latest batch of pilgrims, about 32 had volunteered to make the voyage to human space. They piled aboard the Neera, an elderly tramp freighter that had had it's cargo containers pressurized and connected, then filled with bunks and living arrangements. The Samar was its escort and guide, and the pair set off from the migrant fleet, beginning the voyage to Earth.

In the CIC of the Samar, Tim sat in his command chair, watching the approach to the first relay they would need to take on their journey. Like the others, he was disappointed to not be bringing home the proper quarian aid his people needed so desperately. A ship full of what was essentially college graduates was a poor substitute, but it was better than coming home empty handed.

Privately, Tim couldn't really blame the quarians for their decision. If an alien diplomat from a previously uncontacted species had shown up to Earth and requested material aid in a war that they had only just now heard of, he doubted that the UN would rush to their aid. Not without collecting more intel about the situation first. That the Conclave had seriously considered the offer at all was a measure of just how desperate the quarians were for material aid, in Tim's opinion.

As the pair of ships came up upon the relay, the navigators of both ships cooperated to make the jump. As the ships popped out on the other side instantaneously, Tim took in the system they had landed in. The same thought that had occurred to him days ago when he had taken the same relay in reverse on the way to the Migrant fleet occurred to him once again: Why the hell did the protheans build their relay here?

The system was a particularly scrawny red dwarf star, it's only orbiters being a smattering of asteroid fields and planetoids, with no other celestial bodies of note. Almost completely worthless, as far as star systems go. Tim didn't waste much more time pondering the strange decisions of ancient alien minds, and instead he ordered navigation to set their course through the system. Several hours from now, they'd reach the edge of the system and would make the FTL trip to the nearby star which carried the next relay they'd need to take on their journey.

Prator felt a brief surge of triumph when the light of the two ship exiting the relay made its way to the tiny observation probes he'd left near there. It confirmed he'd made the right call. His flotilla of ships was hidden behind a nearby planetoid, which covered their light and heat emissions up. Prator need only pick the right time for his ships to reveal themselves and pounce on their prey.

In the CIC of the Samar, less than an hour into their trip through the system, the sensors officer shouted out "Contact!"

"On my screen." Tim ordered. The sensors officer complied, and the sensors data was put on his screen. It was five contacts, flying in a loose formation. The one in the center of the formation was bigger than the others, likely some kind of cruiser. The ship's computer recognized to of the signatures as being the same as those detected by the Yuri Gagarin weeks ago. Tim swore. It was almost certainly batarians.

Tim didn't know if this was a preplanned ambush or just a bad luck run in with actual pirates, but he definitely knew that their intentions wouldn't be friendly. His mind raced, his training taking over as he ran through his options. None of them were good.

He gave his orders. "Order the Neera to gun it back towards the relay, then set us up for a lancer run on the lead ship."

His XO, Lieutenant Lisa Smith, went to stand beside him. "What's your plan, sir?"

He turned to her. "We need to get the big one out of the fight as quickly as possible, but we don't need to completely destroy her to do it." Hey keyed in the comm number of Chief Paulo. "Chief, prep two boarding teams and get them to the pods."

"Aye sir." the Chief replied.

"This'll leave us a little light on bodies for damage control, sir." Lisa pointed out.

"Lieutenant, if we take damage serious enough to warrant the extra hands, we've already lost." Tim replied.

The Samar moved to follow the commands given by its crew, and vectored itself towards the lead ship, burning as hard as it possibly could.

The Hegemony had quickly learned that trying to match the Council in dreadnought production was a fools errand, and so had set themselves to mass-producing smaller classes of ship at a prodigious rate. As those ships age, they became surplus ships, typically being mothballed at large boneyards in Hegemony space. There they would be frequently "lost" or "stolen", after which they would inevitably end up in the hands of the Hegemony's allies and proxies. Prators flagship, the Resh'Dar'Nin, was one such ship, entrusted to him by the Hegemony for use in the mission.

Prator's confidence had grown by the presence of the light cruiser in his flotilla. However, as he watched the human ship charge at him, some of that confidence began to wane. According to typical tactical thought, trying to fight at such velocities was foolish, as all you end up doing was adding the velocity of your ship to the velocity of any impacting mass driver rounds, significantly increasing their power. The human ship's defiance of that logic made Prator concerned that it's captain knew something that he didn't. It charged forward, dodging the incoming fire, the handful of shots that did land hit very hard against the barriers thanks to the ship's velocity, but the ship still pressed on.

As the human ship grew closer, Prator was becoming concerned that the ship was making some kind of kamikaze run. He had sent two ships, a frigate from Halmak's old flotilla and one of the two Q-ships the hegemony had loaned him to give chase to the fleeing transport ship. He was beginning to regret that decision as he watched the human ship burn ever harder towards him. Just when he thought his suspicions were confirmed and this really was a suicide run, the human ship suddenly pulled up, and from a silo in its belly it let loose a swarm of...something. The ship's sudden pullup had also revealed the two much larger contacts in its wake.

As the Resh'Dar'Nin's laser defenses tore their way through the incoming contacts, Prator growled out an order. "Report! What kind of weapons are those? And what are those larger contacts in the back?"

His sensors officer reported. "No trace of anything special on the smaller contacts, not even any Element Zero. As far as we can tell, they're just simple chemical rockets. The two larger contacts appear to be some kind of shuttle or other small craft."

Prator suppressed his groan. It's a boarding maneuver. He was about to order the laser batteries to focus on the incoming shuttle craft, but as he watched things play out he realized that would be a mistake. The missiles weren't anything special, likely just lumps of matter with a maneuvering thruster bolted on, but they were coming in fast. They wouldn't hit much harder than a normal mass driver round, but there were just so many that Prator couldn't risk diverting the attention of the lasers from them. If enough made it through they could do some serious damage.

He grit his teeth and gave his orders. "Security teams are to prepare to repel boarders. And recall the Ent'shan to our position."

As the Samar pulled out of its lancer run, Tim watched the boarding pods rapidly decelerate to a crawl, slipping through the enemies kinetic barriers and magnetically clamping themselves where they landed. The pods would cut into the hull and two squads of rangers would wreak havoc through the ship.

It was a hard thing to send his rangers into this situation. Realistically, he didn't know how he would retrieve them. These were the sorts of decisions officers had to make. For now, all he could do was focus on the mission. He had Samar flip and burn hard towards the Neera. He hadn't missed it when the two ships had broken off to pursue the transport.

Senior Chief Ranger Amancio Paulo lead his squad to link up with the other squad, his rangers carving a bloody path through anything that stood in their way. He suspected this wasn't a proper military ship, the response to his boarding action was too disorganized and ill disciplined for it to be otherwise. It was also possible that they had simply caught the enemy by complete surprise, and they'd organize a proper response soon. This possibility made it something of a relief when he saw the squad led by his second, Chief Ranger Ezekiel Efron.

He approached the man. "Any casualties, Zeke?"

"None so far, Chief. Do we have a path to engineering?" Zeke asked.

"We think so. My squad will take point." He raised his voice. "Everyone, let's move out!"

The two ranger squads made their way to the rear of the ship, facing little in the way of resistance. When they finally reached the drive core and engineering room, they fanned out stepping over the corpses of what had presumably been the engineering team. Eventually, a ranger found what they were looking for. Flipping the big emergency shutoff lever, the boarding team left the cruiser drifting, unable to accelerate or make significant course changes.

Zeke laughed. "That'll wake them up. If I were them, I'd be sending everyone with a gun to engineering."

Chief Paulo nodded. "Have everyone set up in defensive positions." He turned to Senior Ranger Rosa Kreischer, their tech specialist. "Any chance you could fuck around with their weapons and systems from here?"

The ranger leaned her rifle against an engineering console and cracked her knuckles. "Hell Chief, gimme enough time and I'll give you a whole mass driver battery."

As the Samar burned towards the Neera's pursuers, one of them had inexplicably doubled back. Sensors revealed that it was the frigate, and it had placed itself in an intercept position with the Samar. Behind it, the Q-ship still burned hard after the Neera, slowly but surely gaining on it.

Tim drummed his fingers against the arm rest of his chair, and then suddenly stood up, turning to face Lisa. "We don't have time to get in a spinal mount duel with this guy, not with the other one bearing down on Neera."

Lisa gave him a concerned look. "You want to make a torpedo run, don't you?"

Tim nodded. "I don't think we've got a way to take this guy down quicker. Their laser defenses our stronger then ours. I think we're going to have to launch all of them if we want to breach their defenses."

"We already used up all of our lances in one pass. If we burn all of our torpedoes on an overkill here, the only thing we'll have left to fight with is the spinal mount." Lisa pointed out.

Tim shrugged. "It'll have to do."

The Samar went in for an attack run on the frigate, but this time it didn't come in at the dangerous speeds it had used before, instead it came in at about the same speed any other ship in known space would for a disruptor torpedo run.

The key difference is that these weren't disrupter torpedoes.

The Samar came in under heavy fire from the batarian frigate, but she still managed to get her torpedoes away and break off. Unfortunately for the Samar, the heavy fire did manage to buckle her kinetic barriers at the moment just before the break off. One of the batarian frigate's secondary mass drivers scored a lucky hit, striking the Samar in her underbelly.

This lucky hit didn't spare the frigate its fate, however. It's defensive lasers were more advanced and performed admirably, but these torpedoes had no need to increase their mass and slow themselves down, unlike disrupter torpedoes. Two of them survived the lasers as they streaked in at high speed, and, microseconds before impacting against the frigate's kinetic barriers, they detonated their warheads.

The warheads were a ten kiloton nuclear shape charge, sacrificing raw power for precision. The nuclear explosions shot out at the target in a single direction, preventing the waste of energy that came in a normal warhead. The frigate was obliterated, its pieces flying off in the direction of the explosion, destroyed with all hands

Tim felt the whole ship groan from the strike. The fact that he wasn't dead and the ship was still flying showed that the Samar's armor had taken the hit reasonably well. "Damage report!" he called into his intercom.

It was Lieutenant Fahri, the chief engineer, who responded. "All critical systems are still intact, but the spinal mount's been damaged."

Tim grit his teeth at that. "Any chance for repairs."

The chief engineer sighed. "Maybe, but it'll take time."

Tim sighed as well. "Time we don't have. Get our barriers charged back up, max out our power input for them. Anything left over goes to the engines."

"Aye sir." Fahri said.

Lisa looked at him. "What are you thinking?"

Tim returned the look. "Something stupid." He stood up straight and called out orders. "Plot a direct intercept with the other ship. We're going for a Bison." There was silence on the bridge for a moment, followed by a rush of activity as the crew scurried to follow his orders.

"I'm assuming I don't need to remind you, sir, that this class of ship is not exactly optimized for a bison maneuver." Lisa said, concern etched on her face.

"No, you don't Lieutenant. If there was a better option, I'd take it, but right now the choice is between this and leaving those people to die." Tim said.

The Samar Maneuvered itself into position, and then burned hard towards the Q-ship. A Bison Maneuver was a tricky thing. Too fast, and you'd just blow yourself up in a kinetic explosion. Too slow, and you give the enemy's point defenses extra time to lay into your hull. It was a risky and highly situational maneuver, one intended for the big, highly durable hulls of the mainline warships of the Space Force, and it hadn't been tested in the field with a ship of this class. Desperate times call for desperate measures, however, and the Samar began to decelerate on its approach to the Q-ship.

Lieutenant Fahri spoke with Tim. "We're not the optimal class of ship for something like this, sir, but the enemy is definitely some kind of converted freighter. Against the frigate from earlier, I'd say no way. Against this thing...I'd say maybe."

"It'll have to be enough." Tim said. He turned to Lisa and said. "Is everything ready?"

"Yes sir." she said.

Tim nodded, then keyed his intercom. "All hands stand by to brace." Everyone in the CIC, himself included, strapped themselves in. "Execute." Tim said. The Samar began a headlong charge at the Q-ship. The Q-ship's captain made his first mistake when he broke off his pursuit to meet the threat. It is, however, a mistake he couldn't be blamed for, as he couldn't possibly have guessed at the insane plan the humans had cooked up.

The Bison maneuver was intended as a way for patrol ships to disable noncompliant civilian ships in an emergency situation, without having to resort to the overkill of using their primary weapons. In those circumstances, the ships are moving much slower, and the maneuver isn't intended to kill. However, the ever-paranoid Space Force had envisioned a scenario where it might be used in combat. It's a scenario not unlike the one the Samar was in: a ship with it's weaponry expended or disabled, but still retaining full movement, and having the battle situation be such that retreat is not yet a viable option.

Another name one might use for a Bison maneuver would be a "ramming maneuver".

In the CIC, Tim held his armrests in a white knuckled grip. He watched his screen carefully, waiting for the perfect mome-"Increase our mass now! Everything we have!" he ordered. As he did so one of the crewman in the CIC followed procedure as well.

The crewman keyed the intercom, and shouted. "BRACE! BRACE! BRACE!"

The Samar hurtled towards its unfortunate target, and as the batarian captain watched its approach, he noticed a very suspicious lack of weapons fire from the human ship. It simply came on in a direct charge, eating incoming mass driver fire with its kinetic barrier, and the laser fire with its thick hull. When the batarian finally put two and two together, he made his second mistake: he ordered evasive maneuvers. Because of this, instead of facing the charge head on and offering the largest amount of mass for the Samar to have to fight through, the Samar was instead perpendicular to the Q-ship when it struck.

Against such large masses, the kinetic barriers of the two ships were useless. To spare her radiator-wings damage, the Samar had came in flipped on its side. Heavy armor wrapped over a reinforced, military-grade hull crashed against cheap, civilian-grade freighter hull. The freighter crumpled like aluminum foil. The increased mass the Samar had given itself offered little in the way of an increase in durability, but it definitely added power to the impact. In less than a second, the Samar shredded it's way through the Q-ship, ripping it in half and careening out the other side. The two pieces of the Q-ship went flying off in different directions.

The Samar was in one piece, but not unscathed. She looked the worse for wear, her hull scarred and battered, her engines offline. She drifted away from the wreck of the Q-ship, unable to stop herself.

Aboard the Neera, the pilgrims were in a frenzy. The captain of the ship hailed the Samar, many of her passengers crowding behind her to look over her shoulder. "Neera to Samar, we will render aid. Are there any survivors?"

The Samar opened up a direct video feed to Neera, and a disheveled and bruised Major Tim was on the other end. "This is the Samar, do not, repeat, do not render aid. Make your way through that relay immediately. There's no time."

The quarian captain was incredulous. "We're not going to just abandon you!"

Tim's face hardened. "And I'm not going to abandon the rangers that boarded the cruiser. We'll have our primary systems back online soon enough. We're not helpless. Now, get those kids the hell out of here before those other two frigates make for our position." he cut out the transmission

Behind her, many of the young pilgrims were expressing their objections, loudly. "Shut Up!" The captain shouted. "They fought and died to give us this opportunity to flee, to squander it would be an insult to the dead. Get back to your bunks, and stay quiet." With reluctance, the pilgrims made their way back to the living area of the ship, dejectedly. Some reacted with anger, others cried, but the all complied.

The Neera went through the relay.

Aboard the Samar, Tim worked frantically with his crew, the infirmary was busy collecting the casualties, while engineering scrambled to get the thrusters online again. Tim had every free pair of hands working to get the spinal mount online again, though in truth he wasn't even sure if it was possible. The secondary maneuvering thrusters were still online, and the still-drifting Samar had turned to face its enemy.

Hello, this chapter came together very quickly and was made from a lot of quick flashes of inspiration that came together into something much different from what was originally planned. I hope you enjoyed it, and as always thank you for reading and please share your thoughts in the reviews!