Shanxi high orbit, Shanxi System, Two days after the Relay 314 incident
Captain Hilatis was dumbstruck. As he saw the last of General Arterius's ships exiting the relay, he could not stop thinking about how a minor skirmish, against a new race could have escalated so quickly. Desola had brought an entire Turian fleet to the fold, some 6 cruisers, 48 frigates and even a dreadnought. There must've been some two hundred thousand troops ready to disembark on the poor alien's planet. As his ship was all but knocked out of the fight, he was know standing at the Invictus's bridge, serving as an "advisor" for General Arterius and Admiral Nixen, who held command over the naval portion of the deployment.
He told both men what he saw, showed them the telemetry data from the battle. To him, it was clear that the aliens they were going to face were anything but primitives: their ships evenly matched with the Turian's. It made sense to him the overkill the two officers brought. But still, what Desolas and Nixen were talking about was the subjugation of a new race that did not know any better, to make them client races of the Hierarchy.
They had entered the enemy's system a couple of hours ago and, once scouting was complete, it was discovered that the bulk of the alien's naval forces were indeed destroyed by Haliat's actions. The planet, a medium-size garden world, was only protected by small vessels and a couple of under armed space stations. Nixen was eager to give battle.
And give battle he did, ordering full speed ahead. As the small corvettes opposing them were too nimble to be hit by the massive guns of a Dreadnought, Nixen had his ship laying waste to the two space stations, who were turned into a field of debris and dead bodies rather quickly. The pester ships also fell with ease to the GARDIAN arrays most ships possessed, but not before unleashing barrages of spirits damned missiles at them. Hilatis could swear the missiles blinked out existence for a second, only to reaper right next to a Turian ship, lasers not capable of destroying then. A frigate closer to the center of the formation burst into flames, hit by a nuclear warhead (to the complete contestation of everyone aboard Invictus). "Spirits", cried Nixem, "these primitives are using nuclear ordnance! Only the krogan do that!".
But, alas, the Turian's forces were just too much to the brave defenders, and one by one their little ships died, hulls melting under the intense energy of laser point defenses or vaporized by mass accelerated slugs. Turian losses were small, but still surprising given the disparity of forces engaged: three frigates destroyed, one cruiser moderately damaged and dead in space, engines pierced by a particle lance that completely ignored its shields.
With the end of space operations, it was time to commence a ground offensive, and Desolas took his post as commander. Hilatis had few things to say, never even seeing one of the aliens face to face, so he just sat back and thought about the events of the last days.
Outskirts of New Shangai, Shanxi, three days after first contact
Major Hu Enlai was still processing the fact that he had been fighting aliens for the past day. When the invasion force started descending into the skies over Shanxi, he thought, naturally, that World War 3 had broken out back on Earth, and now the colonies were getting thrown into the fight as well. But as he observed the shuttles landing on an open field just outside the city, he was taken aback when those… things disembarked from them. They certainly did not look human, and in fact, when one of them took its helmet off, they looked more like the logical conclusion of dinosaurs surviving the meteor and gaining sentience.
Still, they were the invaders, and he had a job to do. His tank battalion was hidden in the woods, camouflaged to the best of the crew's abilities and ready to counterattack any landing site they found. When the last of the shuttles touched the grass, they charged ahead. The type 99 was an old model, but it was constantly modernized to the point of not even resembling the vintage anymore. The 30 or so tanks at his disposal opened fire in perfect synchrony, 150mm armor piercing shells flying hypersonically at the enemy's vehicles.
Only for them to be deflected by some sort of shield the alien's vehicles possessed. Major Hu cursed, and ordered another salvo, this time with two tanks each aiming at one target. This time the shells found their marks, the strange levitating tanks going down in flames, and the soldiers they were supposed to support scattering behind the wrecks. But his strategy left several enemy tanks alive, and now they knew where the attacks came from. Their response was swift. Although their guns looked much thinner than a 150mm barrel, their bark was just as loud and, by the looks of two of his tanks having their turrets blown off and shot to the skies, their kick too was just as strong.
The surprise attack by the Chinese managed to halve the turians's numbers of tanks. But the rest had no problem in picking off the inferior human models. Hu's battalion was nearing the breaking point after 10 minutes of combat, only 17 of his tanks remaining. The enemy infantry was content in just staying behind cover and did not join the fight. Just as Hu was about to call for a tactical withdrawn, the orders for a general retreat to the city came from High Command, and so he and his bloodied battalion made haste through the woods, protected by a thick smokescreen.
New Shanghai, Shanxi, Three days after First Contact
The alien forces had a much harder time landing on the city proper. The sheer number of anti-aircraft guns and missiles deployed all over the city made its skies a slaughterhouse of unsuspected shuttles. The first wave was reduced to barely 30% of its initial strength, and the soldiers who survived quickly found themselves fighting savage close quarter battles against the Chinese defenders. Jack Harper was still hiding in his apartment, clutching a pistol, and trying to decide what to do.
That's when the first shoots came thundering down the sky. The aliens must have orbital superiority, he thought, and just realized the threat Chinese air defenses poses to their transports. A building down his street was reduced to a pile of rubble, a ship most likely targeting the AA guns deployed on its roof. After the initial wave of destruction brought by orbital bombing, the aliens probably decided it was best not to kill their own troops who managed to survive landing and sent in fighters and gunships for more precise attacks.
The scene outside his window was almost surreal. A city on an alien planet, under attack by actual aliens, fighting against Chinese troops for every street, every building, every room. It was like Star Wars meets the Battle of Stalingrad. Jack could not help but laugh at the whole situation, but soon he recomposed himself and set to find his encrypted communicator. He must warn Washington of this new development.
As he turned the device on, he briefly wondered if his superiors would even believe him. "Hi, it's Harper, I'm calling from a Chinese colony in the buttfuck of space, they are under attack from a bunch of angry bird aliens, please advise". That would make people think the CIA restarted the old MK Ultra program and pumped him full of fun drugs. When the contraption finally turned on, he quickly inputted the code to establish a comm link to Washington, but just as quickly found it inoperable. "Damn it! They must be jamming communications". His thoughts were abruptly interrupted when a missile came crashing down on his apartment, sending him flying across the room and hitting his head on the wall.
Beijing, Earth, one day after first contact
He did not show it, but he was about to piss himself. Ever since that message had come trough heavens knows which backchannels the Party had installed on Shanxi colonial administration; the whole Politburo was on the verge of a meltdown. Why the colonial government had decided not to warn Beijing about a possible First Contact, and a possible confrontation with said first contacts, was beyond him. It took an intercepted message from a destroyer commander for the leadership of The People's Republic to become aware of the shitfest currently taking place on the edge of Chinese space. The situation was quickly becoming worst than Tiananmen Square, the fucking Covid epidemic and the Taiwan takeover combined.
The hawks at the military wanted to respond, quickly and violently, to send the whole fleet to Shanxi and to kick the aliens back to whatever black hole they've crawled from. But a mobilization of this scale would in turn scare the pants out of the Americans and Europeans, so the bureaucrats at the Foreign Ministry put a stop to the admiral's plans. But the president and his acolytes wanted to do something, so a scaled back version of the mobilization had been ordered
Now they had no concrete plan, no communications with Shanxi System and no idea of what was happening there. The military had sent scout ships trough the relay, but those were soon lost to whatever the hell was currently occupying a Chinese colony.
He would gladly take World War 3 instead of this current mess.
Armstrong SFB, Jupiter orbit, Sol System, one day after first contact
The Chinese were at it again.
What "it" was was a mystery, at least for now. The only thing she knew was that a good portion of the Chinese fleet was mobilizing over their main base near Neptune. She tried asking her contacts in Langley, she knew the CIA had some spooks on Chinese territories, but they were incredibly lip-sealed, even by their standards.
It wasn't a global conflict, no. Earth was still there, and there hadn't been any indication Homefront forces were being mobilized. So, it left only extra solar territories as the source of "it", the fact that Shanxi was not responding any comms was indicative of this. Plus, there was no sign of the Europeans freaking out, or the UN, which was good, it meant whatever was happening was a strictly Chinese problem.
Unless they were planning on making it someone else's problem as well. Good thing the president called for a DEFCON 2 status, that would make sure everyone really had a problem if push came to shove.
She had nothing to do besides keep staring at her monitors, trying to discern intent from hundred different pings representing all the vessels that were currently mobilizing. She fixed herself another cup of coffee, it was going to be a long shift.
Foreign Ministry offices, Brussels, One day after first contact
People knew things that she didn't, and it made her angry. Her job was to know things, and to know how to get to know things, but she was at a loss. Hours of Kafkian talks with the Chinese ambassador yielded the same results time after time: "a normal readiness exercise, involving half of our fleet and possibly live nukes, nothing to be worried about. The fact that our main colony is completely cut off from communications networks has nothing to do with it."
The UN wasn't any better, although they were less likely to be hiding something and more likely not important enough to be in the know of said something. The Americans had given a figuratively shrug to her questions. They knew something was up, and the fact that Europe also knew, but was as lost as they were, was enough of evidence for them to convince themselves it was just typical Chinese shittyfuckery, as if a colony going dark was the same thing as a couple of Chinese bombers flying over Alaska.
So, in retrospect, perhaps not all people knew things she didn't.
The prime minister and his cabinet were tense, they wanted answers. If someone had started a shooting war against the Chinese (or if the Chinese had started a shooting war against themselves) they needed to know, how could they ensure the stability of the Balance of Power otherwise? Admiralty had just decided that consolidating their fleets around Saturn would be the most stabilizing thing to do, maybe they were right.
She groaned, loudly, and lit a cigarette, a small reprieve from a very fucked up day.