20 Minutes after arriving in Tihonian Valley
"You people are completely insane"
This was all Garrus could say after hearing the plan they came up with to stop the BEC advancing through the valley.
After arriving at the crash site, he and Lord Bredon were taken to what was left of the ship's bridge. The Gett Haran still had satellite uplink allowing us to see exactly how many BEC forces were making their way towards us. As soon discovered, the entire 3rd Army was heading their way.
Forty-two thousand infantry, about three hundred MBTs, hundreds of artillery units with full air support.
Instead of blowing up the wreckage and simply retreating, Mandalorians were talking about an INSANE plan to stop an entire army with everything they had, which was not much, a little over 700 able-bodied soldiers, most of them were just local militia or whatever is their equivalent of reserves, three dozen HMGs, 6 AT turrets, a couple of infantry AT rocket launchers... that's it. At first, Garrus's reaction was to just laugh at them... then he tried to explain to them that staying was a suicide... still no normal reaction.
"Do you people have a deathwish? You can't stop this army with what you have, end of story!" their refusal to think logically was starting to really annoy him.
"Garrus, it has to be done" said Bredon "Our forces on the continent are in complete disarray, we were not even remotely ready for an attack on this planet, BEC can't move past this valley for the next 24 hours or we will lose the Capital City, if we lose it will free up enough of their forces to mop up any remaining resistance on the continent"
"I know that! I heard the briefing, but you can't hold it against that army with so little forces of your own" the Specter kept arguing " their air support alone could glass this entire valley, on top of everything else"
"Fortunately we have something here that they want to keep as intact as possible" Alor'ad Raginis smiled "they won't risk the destruction of all this valuable tech in the valley, which means they have to come out here and get us in person"
Garrus thought about it. On one hand, it directly takes away the air support and heavy artillery out of the picture... on the other hand, they still have hundreds of tanks, tens of thousands of troopers and a LOT more ammunition than the defending side.
"They can still drown you in bodies, light artillery barrages, and tanks that you can't kill" he pointed out, slightly more hesitantly.
"That is true... fortunately we have the element of surprise on our side"
"How the hell do you have an element of surprise? They are marching towards you!"
"True, but that's not the surprise I meant" Raginis said, smiling " during one of our wars about 300 years ago, a man called Surami made himself known as one of the most tactically brilliant commanders in history. He never had a numerical advantage against us, didn't have superior technology, his soldiers were also inferior to our own, and yet he lost only four battles against us, out of a couple dozen" Garrus leaned closer, this somewhat caught his attention "after the war, when we interrogated his command staff and properly analyzed our past battles against him, we finally understood what was his actual strategy. He never actually WON a battle against our superior forces, he only forced them to retreat"
"Um... this is how you win a battle" the Specter pointed out, a little confused "you beat your enemy into submission and force them to pull back..."
"Not what I meant" Raginis clarified "the casualties suffered against him were minimal most of the time *sigh* he attacked recklessly, without holding any forces in the reserve, stretching his lines, sending everything he could at us. Our commanders, having no idea that this was all he had, put up little resistance before withdrawing, often leaving lesser facilities they were defending" the Turian smiled, seeing his point " when he knew we wouldn't retreat, he simply found another target that would pull back under enough pressure. Every time he fought us, we had every advantage, but we didn't know that. Our commanders were always sending more and more forces to secure their flanks in case the frontal and reckless attack was just a ruse, pulling back patrols in case he wanted to take their forces apart piece by piece, his greatest weapon was us, not knowing what he might do, paranoid about his secret plans, flanking attacks, always modeling his behavior after the way he fought minor skirmishes, where he actually used all those tactics since he had enough manpower to do it and wasn't outnumbered 5 to 1"
"That is... an interesting story, but how do you plan to implement it?" Garrus asked, remembering the story for future reference.
"We set up our lines here" Raginis marked a spot in the valley close to the ship "all the debris and interference will mask our forces from orbital scans, as they approach, we use Surami's overwhelming fire strategy and hit them everything we've got, keeping only a platoon near the wreckage as a security force in case of an infiltration"
"This might work" Bredon decided "for a time, and we are trying to buy exactly that. Time, our scattered forces need it badly"
Nodding, Garrus brought up his Omni-Tool and sent a few data packets to Raginis's 'datapad'
"Here, analyze these files, it should help you during the battle" he explained "full combat specs on whatever equipment they have, I can't help you with the units all those numbers are in, but you should be able to translate them based on sensor data from other battles"
"Thank you, Mr. Vakarian, we will put this data to good use" Raginis thanked the Specter.
"My lords! Sorry to interrupt but we've received an urgent transmission from the Capital" one of the Mandalorians manning the console informed them.
"Put it through" ordered Bredon.
The holotable in front of us lit up but died soon after.
"This is the Capital Command to any Mandalorian forces in the Tihonian Valley, do you copy? I repeat, this is Capital Command to any..."
"This is Alor'ad Raginis, who am I speaking to?" the Mandalorian commander answered the hail.
"This is Alor'aan Marcus Corhan from clan Ordo, I've been organizing a centralized command of this planet, what is your status?" voice on the other side asked.
"Stable for now, but in about 6 hours we will have an entire BEC 3rd army at our doorstep and we are outnumbered sixty to one..."
"BEC? Is that what the enemy calls itself?" interrupted Corhan
"Affirmative, with help from Lord Bredon and one of the prisoners, we have gained access to a lot of useful data, I will send it shortly" confirmed Raginis
"Well I'll be damned... is Bredon with you right now?'
"Indeed I am Marcus, it's good to hear you haven't got your ass shot yet... oh, I keep forgetting" Bredon trailed off, smirking.
"That was a lucky shot!" came the annoyed response
"Yea yea sure... anyway, tell me about our situation more, how deep in shit are we?" he asked
"Not gonna lie to you, very" Corhen started to explain "the SatNet can't locate the majority of our forces on the ground, there is way too much interference from the 'BEC' ships and jammers all around Shanylia... what the hell does BEC mean?"
"Batarian Expeditionary Corps, a new military branch in the Batarian Hegemony" Garrus chimed in "a separate branch of the Batarian Military forces"
"Ahh, that must be the prisoner Raginis mentioned, you still collecting strays, Bredon?"
"Nope! Not keeping him, he's owned by another galactic government's intelligence agency, our possible allies in the future."
"As if that would stop you, anyway" Corhan started again "the clans on this planes are scattered, cities are few and far in-between, only part of them have any decent defenses and shield generators. The house they are trying to start on this planet, House Livoral, is still not even remotely ready for something like this, which is why we are trying to make all clans fall in line, but so far it's been going slow, they are scattered and scared, there are some small-time mercenaries, a couple of old veterans like me, and a shitload of random clans that aren't even officially recognized, they're just normal civvies, and I'm talking barely above Republic-level civvies."
"This certainly makes the situation even more interesting, what do you need, old friend?" Lord Bredon asked.
"Time, buy us all the time you can, we need it badly before the reinforcements can arrive, speaking of which, have you received the news?"
"What news?"
"That report you sent along with an SOS made it through, along with all the data our techs pulled from those holographic devices"
"Those are Omni-tools" Garrus offered.
"Yes, those. I think it is for the best if I just let you watch it for yourselves, sending the files"
As the data transfer finished, Lord Bredon took out one of his more expensive-looking datapads from a pouch on his armor and tossed it on the broken holotable, activating its projector, a strange symbol, like a skull with long tusks, appeared in the air.
"All Imperial forces and citizens of the Empire, stand by for an emergency broadcast from the Mandalore"
A tall figure in an ornamental armor replaced the emblem, with a powerful-looking sword strapped to his waist and long cloak attached to its back, it certainly commanded authority and looked intimidating.
"Children of Mandalore, hear me" the voice was deep, commanding, powerful "I have received confirmed reports of an alien attack against one of our border worlds, Shanylia. The attackers have been identified as the Batarian Hegemony, they have attacked us without provocation, hoping to enslave our people, steal our technology. Their actions will not go unpunished, our people are not some cattle to be stolen. With these words, I, Vespian Sammond, Mandalore the Continuator, ruler of the Mandalorian Empire, declare war on the Batarian Hegemony.
We will show those spineless weaklings how big of a mistake they made by attacking our people, we will slaughter their armies, we will leave their worlds in ruins. They will rue the day they made us their enemies! For Manda'yaim, Oya Manda!"
The message cut off, leaving Garrus with every Mandalorian in the room smiling widely.
"There is another message for us" Bredon informed them "I'll play it too"
He touched the datapad again, activating the hologram. The same skull-like symbol appeared, this time the message was audio only.
"This is an Empire-wide alert to all Imperial forces" it began "Mandalore has declared ki'agr bu'nijr solus. Shanylia is under attack by a hostile force. I say again, we are under attack by a new alien race. All nearby Imperial forces are to immediately send reinforcements and link up for a counter attack. First and Second fleets are being mobilized to reinforce the front and counter-attack. More instructions will be sent on coded channels. For the Empire"
The entire room went silent, astonished by what they just heard.
AN: Sorry it's so short, but I decided to cut the chapter into three parts: this, the actual battle(about 2-3k long) and the... hah, not gonna spoil it for you!
Anyway, sorry for the wait, but I was really stuck at the Mandalore's speech and title, the former had to sound and look epic, the latter had to... actually mean something lore-wise.
You also got the first hint at a re-worked social structure for the Mandalorians, and yes I have to do that in order to have Mando-like society and make sure they can actually run an empire. It will be complex, strange, but it will still borrow heavily from Legends. Although it will not be the same as Mandalorian War-era.
You undoubtedly noticed a reference to the republic... and Jedi/sith powers... all will be explained in due time. (I'm still working on the lore)
ki'agr bu'nijr solus - Threat Condition One
Now, the reviews!
1nt3rD1ct0r: I know the 1st person is a turn off for many, myself included, and I will rarely use it from now on. Unfortunately, I had to use it for the introduction because an omniscience narrator would kill any attempt (poor as it was) at showing the first contact from Garrus's perspective.
Joy is Overrated: Bredon mind-raped Garrus to get his language (Turian) and gave him Basic, to let him communicate with other Mandalorians as well. But as you can see from the fact that in the 1st person all Mando'a are not understood by Garrus, he doesn't know that language. As for the Spartans/Astartes, I've got SOMETHING in mind, borrowing from 40k a little, a little from actual star wars lore, a little from others... don't worry, my solution will be more than interesting, and will heavily influence the lore in a couple of places.
Shadow Walker of Fire: Thanks!
helkil: Thanks again for pointing out the fucked-up paragraphs. As for your question... I haven't decided if either of them will have the force. Just figuring out the galaxy-wide lore at the moment. Maybe I should do a galactic history entry?
Also, Holy shieeet. Barely 2 chapters in and this story go 50 follows. Thanks guys!
Oh yea, one last thing before my autistic mind forgets again. I'm still looking for a cover pic for this story... any ideas?