BREAKING NEWS: Communications lost with Chinese colony of Shanxi, reports of partial mobilization of Chinese fleets
EBC World Services
The Chinese system of Shanxi has been out of contact for the past 48 hours. Chinese officials maintain that an unusually powerful solar storm on a nearby system has put their comm buoys out of service, but repairs are underway and should conclude in a few days. There are reports of distressed relatives camping outside of the Colonial Affairs office in Beijing, seeking whereabouts of their loved ones.
Communications with far away areas of the galaxy are notably unstable, given the novelty of the technology involved. Blackouts are a somewhat common occurrence, but none have been so long, and so severe as the currently ongoing event.
Reports of a partial mobilization of the Chinese Fleet around Neptune have sparked fears that the communications blackout in Shanxi is the result of military action against the colony. The Chinese government denies the relation, saying "the movement of our vessels is part of a routine readiness exercise, to ensure our Navy is always ready to defend our territories and our Mainland".
European and American officials have expressed their support for the Chinese people "in this moment of grave uncertainty" and in a swift resolution for the outrage. But they also warned Beijing of "destabilizing military movements" that could "endanger the peace and safety of the Sol System". The United Nations has released an announcement wishing for a speedy recovery of communications and offering technical and material assistance should the Chinese government needs it. The UN has also appealed for "cool, responsible decision making" in face of the current fleet movements.
BREAKING NEWS: Chinese Fleet departs for Shanxi Colony, as communications blackouts enter third day
EBC World Services
Vessels from the Chinese Solar Fleet, the main body of warships of the People's Navy, have entered the Sol Relay and passed Arcturus Stream en route to Shanxi this morning. Inside sources from the American military have claimed a "large force consisting of four balistic battlecruisers and accompany vessels". Beijing has issued a statement conceding that "the currently shutdown is more serious than initially thought, and we are moving our military to assist maintenance efforts and to provide aid for colonial citizens should the need arise".
But European officials have put the official Chinese version into question, saying that "a force this large is indicative of a more serious situation". Security personnel from Europe and the United States fear that a large-scale conflagration of public unrest is at fault for both the blackout and the military mobilization. "We have ruled out foreign attacks against Chinese territories", said one unnamed European intelligence officer, "and we do not believe that a solar flare is responsible for such a large incident, so we have tentatively concluded that civil unrest is ongoing on Shanxi"
Some experts have criticized the apparent eagerness of national governments to dismiss what they believe is an extremely likely explanation: an alien invasion. Professor Conrad Verner, researcher of Xenoarchaeology at the University of Leeds, England, tweeted "we know for a fact aliens exist, or at least existed, we are flying spaceships based on Prothean tech after all, and now we have a human settlement going dark for no obvious reason and a superpower sending its troops to investigate, it's a grave mistake to dismiss the possibility of aliens so quickly". American officials admitted that "[an alien] invasion is a possibility we investigated but found no corroborating evidence. We also believe that any non-human species advanced enough to invade one of our planets would have been identified long before an actual invasion could take place".
The United Nations has called for a security meeting to discuss the latest developments. "Regardless of the reasons", said Fernanda Hernandez, general secretary of the UN, "the complete failure of communications with an important human planet is a serious enough situation to warrant international cooperation, secrecy by the Chinese government and wild speculation by other countries is not the way forward".
New Shanghai, Shanxi, six days since First Contact
Desolas frowned, the invasion was taking longer than expected. He had hoped for a swift victory achieved in a couple of days from the invasion, after all, he was going against a lightly populated planet of a primitive race. With only one major settlement site, his shock troopers should be enough.
That had not happened, despite overwhelming space superiority, and good results at landing sites outside the city, the results had been less than stelar inside the city proper. The first wave, tasked with securing important locations and decapitating local leadership had failed spectacularly. The primitives had good air defenses, and many of his shuttles fell to an onslaught of missile and projectile fire: out of a thousand men, only 300 had made it to the surface intact, another 400 or so injured at varying degrees of seriousness, 300 didn't make it.
The bulk of his forces that landed on the outskirts fared better, but not well enough to his liking. The primitive's tanks were no match for his own on a one-to-one fight, but they had advantage of position and knowledge of terrain, which made his life difficult. Over 30% of his tanks were destroyed or incapacitated during the landings. But superiority in numbers and technology trampled the advantages the natives had, and the enemy forces pulled back to the city.
Which only made things worse, now his forces were pitched in close quarters combat in a hostile city, and almost all his advantages from having space superiority were gone. He certainly could, and the thought crossed his mind, pull back his troops and blow the city to kingdom come, but that would defeat the purpose of conquering a Primitive world to make them clients of the Hierarchy.
New reports came by the minute. The natives used chemically propelled guns, firing large bullets at high speeds, something council races had not used since the opening stages of the Rachni Rebellions, when desperation drove the Salarians to find ways to miniaturize mass accelerators to fit on small weapons. But even that piece of ancient tech posed a problem to him: the bullets, while having with the same energy as a normal, civilized, Council weapon, were much slower, the increased mass making up for it, and the energy shields on his soldiers could not identify it as a threat. Their shields were useless, and armor could only go so far, specially because it was designed to defeat a very small thing going very fast, not a not-so-small thing going not-that-fast.
His casualties were mounting, trading bodies on a very equal rate with the primitives. They didn't have shields, and their armor seemed very light, but even them, they were able to inflict as much pain as they were getting. Something needed to be done. Intel on their foe was light still, they couldn't crack their language to develop translators that fast. The little he knew came from direct experience: their tech was not that different from his, except for small arms, which indicated a race that also found Prothean ruins; they bore an almost uncanny resemblance to the Asari, only not blue, and with hair; they seemed to be decent warrior, disciplined and professional, he could respect that, at least intellectually, but now he could only hate them, and their defiance in face of a superior force of a superior race.
His musings were interrupted by a distant explosion. For the sound of it, another primitive mortar round hitting the vicinity of his HQ. Not near enough to duck for cover though, so he just stayed staring at his holo-map. He was about to head of to check on his troops when he saw the message.
"Enemy ships inbound, force larger than First Contact, several ships at 800 plus meters. Orbital support unavailable for the moment"
His day was not getting any better.
Shanxi System, orbiting Relay 311, First Contact +5
Rear-Admiral Pan Qiang stood as she was on a state parade to commemorate the 100 anniversary of The People's Republic. She was the first female officer to hold command over an entire battlegroup. At least she's certainly that she's not just a token woman on the mission, she worked hard enough, beat the crap of many a soldier and sailor, commanded with distinctions vessels both in oceans and in space, chasing privateers coming from western space.
But it was still an enormous honor bestowed upon her. To command the first reaction force against an alien hostile, and to liberate the "Jade" in president's Yao eyes. High command did indeed give her a decent number of toys to play with: four big boats, the ballistic battle cruiser, twelve cruisers, each ballistic battlecruiser having 3 for protection, and some thirty-six destroyers, to make sure nothing passes their battle sphere. They also gave her some very interesting toys: new generation of torpedoes and cruise missiles, equipped with miniature eezo cores and capable of performing small FTL jumps during flight, to close in faster and to put the enemies' locks in disarray, to top it all off, an inspired choice in warheads. Nuclear, Salted Nuclear, EMP, Anti-Armor, HEAT, or simply good'ol High Explosive. Even some more, exoteric choices were present: chemical weapons, pure napalm, white phosphorus. She could have a field day with these aliens.
And if the reports from the Wuhan were accurate, the enemy fleets would like to close in the distance before shooting, and it fitted her plan just fine. Long before they could bring their cannons to bear, they would be under a barrage of missiles. Time to prepare a battle tactic.
It would be simple to lure the main ship of the enemy's formation into a well design trap: it was the biggest ship on the other side, and it would be protected by all the other small ships. Typical western thinking, and it seems theses aliens are also fond of it. Se would position her four capital ships in the middle, in groups of two. The cruiser would stand to their sides, and the destroyers were to form a semi-sphere around them, leaving the hemisphere facing the enemy empty. The first strike would come from the 4 ballistic battlecruisers. Two salvos of 6 missiles for each ship, armed with nukes designed to maximize EMP and electrical discharges to fry their shields. From them on, HEAT warheads at most sensible spots: bridge, engines, the main gun. Any stragglers could be dealt with the cruisers and destroyers afterward.
Crossing the Relay was extremely easy, there were small enemy ships guarding the other side and picking off the poor scout vessels sent to evaluate the situation, never to return. Rear-Admiral Qiang solved this problem by firing several torpedoes armed with salted nuclear war heads, who would at least fry up all their system just long enough for her ship to pass, or completely vaporize the poor souls too close to the epicenter.
When her main fleet jumped into Shanxi proper, all they could see was a graveyard of ships, all kinds of ships: Chinese, aliens, even some poor American or UN ship caught in the crossfire. But the enemy's scout force was no more. After hours of flying at sub luminal speeds, her sensors started pinging boogies up ahead. She prepared herself for giving battle, one that will go down in history books.
Shanxi System, orbiting Shanxi, First Contact + 5
Admiral Nixem was at the helm of his flagship, the dreadnought Invictus, newly completed by Menae's shipyards, and proud of the Turian Navy. He could not believe the contact marks he was seeing: 4 ships of capital-class size, 800 meters. Twelve cruiser-sized ships, 500 meters and thirty-six of what he could only guess were very heavy frigates or light cruisers, at 250 meters. Readings were going haywire. They were indicating the presence of eezo cores, Helium torches, shielding technology but no mass accelerators on the big ships, only smaller ones on the cruisers. They were also identifying higher than normal background radiation emanating from… everywhere on those big ships. Could they be carrying nukes?
He ordered his ships to deploy in standard battle formations, which meant leaving his dreadnought at the center of said formation, and to move forward to put the enemy boogies in range for their weapons. Just as his ships were starting to move, the holo table in front of him came to life, tracking hundred inbound missiles, he immediately told GARDIAN operators to stand ready for engagement but, just as he did so, the markers all disappeared from his screen.
Only to reaper seconds later literally on top of his formation. "Spirits" was the single word he managed to muster before hundreds of explosions rocked the space between his ships. He did not know at the time, but the first salvo consisted of salted nukes and EMP's nukes, designed to fry shields, sensors, and electronics alike.
And they were brutally efficient in their intended design. Nixem was frozen in place, various crew member shouting that their systems were offline, including the shielding. It took 30 seconds for the reboots work, and when they finally had their electronics and sensors back, their shields were still offline. This presented a very pressing problem, because as soon as the holo map came back to life, Nixem saw another group of missiles heading their way, only much bigger.
The moment the missiles disappeared, all he could do was to lower his head and mutter a quick prayer for the spirits, and those were the last thoughts to ever cross his mind while the bridge of Invictus was destroyed by heavy explosive payloads.
Shanxi System, orbiting Shanxi, First Contact + 5
All Captain Hilatis could do was stare in shock. Having been moved to a cruiser once his usefulness ceased to Desola and Nixem, he was serving as a bridge support officer when the attack struck. The cruisers and frigates closer to the Dreadnought suffer the same fate as their capital ship. One dreadnought out of commission, but by the looks of it, still limping, 2 cruisers evaporated outright, another one almost broken in half. He couldn't even see the remains of most frigates, but at least 24 frigates destroyed or badly damaged. What was supposed to be a strong Turian fast response fleet, bane of pirates and warlord all over the galaxy, reduced to nothing more than 3 cruisers and 24 frigates.
Whilst the battle against the center of his formation raged on, Hilatis and his comrades were not idle. His cruiser fired at the enemy's counterpart, only to find the enemy vessel shields were still full. The experience and quality of man and material won the day for the Turian, as the cruiser they were dueling lost its shields and went nova, taking an unsuspected destroyer with it. Realizing what was now happening, Rear-Admiral Gaius, now in command of all surviving fleets, ordered a fighting retreat to the Relay 314. Three cruisers and 24 frigates fighting a desperate attempt to disengage from a vastly superior enemy. Turian gunnery took down another cruiser and a couple of destroyers, but as the native's behemoths turned their attention from their fallen prey to Gaiu's forces, they began to prepare for another salvo.
It was them that Gaius made a decision that would go down in history and thrown his family name in shame. He ordered all his ships to cease fire, power down their weapons and turn the engines down. Absent the spoken language to communicate with his foes, the Rear-Admiral made his surrender clear by his actions. He just prayed to the Spirits those aliens would understand him.
Shanxi System, orbiting Shanxi, First Contact +5
Rear-Admiral Pan Qiang immediately understood what her counterpart was trying to do. Quickly, she called for her weapons specialist and her chief engineers to power down all weapons and disengage the engines. She also ordered her communications specialist to tell all other ships to do the same. The Chinese navy responded with absolute perfection to her commands, all ships powering down seconds after the order was given
Now, Qiang stared at the great void of space, only broken by a collection of broken ships, alien ships. She knew nobody had developed working translators, so she and the aliens would not be talking like old grandmas just yet. Still, she had to do something, so she ordered a full spectrum channel to be set, and to await alien confirmation of connection.
The wait lasted for a couple of seconds, hours if you asked Qiang. When the video channel open, she was surprised by the individual standing in front of her. The creature started speaking in clicks and whistles, accompanied each sound with a low hum that reminded her of late-night gossiping sessions near a ship's eezo core. She tried something new, something to at least start bridging the colossal gap in communications both parties had. She pointed her two thumbs to her chest and in a controlled, slow manner said: "Pan Qiang", pointing her index finger to the alien in front of her.
Gaius couldn't believe his eyes. They were aliens, but they looked almost like long lost cousins of the Asari. From the looks of its (hers?) chest, the one speaking to him was a female. When she wildly pointed her finger to herself and spoke words he could not possibly comprehend, he heard someone next to him talking, luckily in clear Palavani. "I think she's saying her name" said Hilatis, mesmerize with the creature on screen.
The admiral decided to take a leap of faith and follow the captain's suggestion. Slowly, he pointed two talons at his chest and said: "Rexus Gaius".
The alien smiled, like an asari would and that freaked Gaius and Hilatis a little bit more, they were really like one another. Then, this… Pam? Gestured wildly at her surroundings, showing off the crew that congregated behind her. "Human", she said, "Chinese".
That utterly confused both turians. They were almost certain that one of those words meant her race, but the other… Could that be that this alien race was compose of various races? No one looked different enough from their spokeswoman, colonial affiliation? Then again, same answer.
Gaius decided to ignore this for the moment and, dragging Hilatis to his side, pointed his talon at them both: "turian".
"Turian" the woman repeated, as if letting the word dance around her mouth, feeling the way the soundwaves caressed her tongue and escaped her lips
Just then, someone spoke to her off camera, and she smiled what an asari would call a "shy smile" and pointed at them "you stay, please", she said, making a point of showing her standing in the same place. Pointing to herself, she said "I need to go", gesticulating a kind of unmovable walk. Seconds after, she was of camera, and the connection was cut.
"Spirits", it was Hilatis who spoke first, "what are we going to do now? Just sit tight?"
Gaius gave a side glance to the younger turian and said "I don't see any other options, but we can at least try to contact Palaven and tell them what's going on. Maybe the Council as well"
"Wouldn't it be treason? I mean, revealing to the Council what we just found?". Asked a ensign close to them, Hilatis was thinking the same thing, and noded in support. Gaius frowned, "We were fulfilling a Concil mandate investigating and patrolling this region, the Citadel is as entitled as Palaven to know what happened here. Don't let Desola's and Nixen's jingoism get to you, no one would let us simply absorve this… human? Into the Hierarchy. At least with the Council in the loop, this whole situation can also be somebody else's problem as well."
And with that, he turned around and marched to the long-range communications facilities, he had a very interesting report to make.
Out in New Shanghai, Jack Harper was just regaining his senses after spending quite some time unconscious. The sounds of battle still raged in parts of the city, but they had certainly subsided. Getting up, and feeling extremely thirsty, hungry, and weak, his first thought was the illegal comm device he had on his apartment. Scanning his surroundings, he was pleased to see that the thing was still intact, and no one seemed to have noticed it. He would be in a world of trouble if the local authorities had found that out.
He tried to get up, sitting with his back to a wall, he opened a small emergency packet he carried on him all the time. Carbohydrate's gel, some sweets, protein bars, food to at least give him a chance of surviving and destroying his kit until help arrive. He downed the gel hungrily and, when he felt a sliver of strength back in his body, he got up and went to the kitchen in search of more water.
After an hour of hydration and energy gels, he felt strong enough to try and send a message to home one more time. To his surprise, the device came readily to life. "They must have taken down whatever it was that was jamming comms". The communicator was simple, only able to transmit short messages, like a telegraph of old, so Jack had to be concise
"Shanxi colony invaded. Hostiles are from alien race. Heavy fighting in New Shanghai. Prepare our defenses"
Light years away, two high ranking governmental officers received similar, if not totally equal messages. In Washington D.C a CIA agent stationed locally to provide the President with 24/7 information barged trough the oval office, startling the man who was just beginning to doze off on his desk.
"Sir!" the young man said, breathing getting more erratic, "We got a report from the CIA! Alien invasion in Shanxi is confirmed!"
And just like that, all the sleep from the President's face was washed in a wave of fear.
Meanwhile, on the Citadel, Councilor Thenala Tevos was getting ready to call it a day. She stacked her data pads and put them inside her bag, turned off her computers and took a freshly made tea, intending to savor the beverage on her way to home. Her plans were immediately canceled when an Maiden, who worked as a assistant's assistant at the embassy, came running trough the door, only stopping by colliding with the Councilor and throwing her precious tea all over the office.
"By the Godess Milega! Why are you charging like a blood raged krogan into my office!"
"I—I apologize, Madam Councilor, but we have just received extremely important news! It's the turians, they found a new race!"
"So, we begin first contact protocols, which take time, this could have waited tomorrow"
"They found them, Councilor, and they invaded one of their worlds!"
Tevos facepalmed, of course the gun-ho Turians would shoot first, talk later. What could easily be a very calm procedure had been turn into a security crisis of unforeseeable proportions. She very loudly sighed and threw her bag back into the couch. This was going to be a very long night.
A/N: Hey guys! I'm editing this chapter because I messed up my docx files and initially uploaded one with just half of the chapter. Now I'm getting the rest of it online.
As you may have noticed, I'll be sticking with a mixed format for this fic. Sometimes certain events will be told trough "in world" forms: Book chapters, news articles, goverment reports, etc. That steems from the fact that my background in "writing" comes from writing this kind of thing, and not fiction or literature, so I'm more confortable with the format.
I plan to finish the First Contact war next chapter. After that, we will have a very free form telling of the geopolitical acomodations following the intruduction of the Citadel to humans. Expect to see things like Mindoir, Elysium, Batarian Slaver raids and Cerberus terrorism making an appearence. After that, if this fic still exists, we will enter on the game's story proper. I haven't decide if I'll just roll with one country (because writing from three perspectives is hard) or keep going with smaller pieces but covering everyone. Also, my Shepard will probably be from the EU, but I think I'll spice things up by having Hackett and Ash working for the UN, and Vega and Kaidan working for the americans