Hades-4 Bunker, Eden Prime, June 14, 2192 AD, 08:44 PM Local Time.
"Tyson, update."
Field Major Jack Harper was in charge of all Alliance Central Intelligence operations in the Anchorage sector. His superior, Colonel Jürgen was killed when her shuttle was shot down by Batarian fighters. It also didn't help that General Volter had decided to lead from the field and not from his command bunker, leaving another position for Harper to manage.
"Sir, the main Batarian force has landed at Wellington Valley, they have also turned the area into their main staging grounds for their ground forces. Squad 13, with help from the Turians have managed to destroy one of their makeshift airfield at Kusarigama hill, crippling their air support and giving us air superiority in that part of the sector." A dark skinned man read from the computer screen, scrolling down to review data that's always being updated.
Harper lit a cigarette and took a long drag from it.
"A large Batarian group is making their way towards Yeller and Moore. Fighting is still underway in New Singapore and Canton City. Still no word from both Kellertown and Dellaren. Several other minor towns have gone off the grid as well. Squads 18 and 22 are engaged in New Singapore and Canton City respectively. Nothing from Squad 13 is currently deep inside enemy lines, and have not reported again." Tyson continued.
Harper looked at the Holo-Projection of Anchorage. All the information that Tyson had read was highlighted, along with a large timer indicating 9th fleet's ETA.
23 more hours to go.
Harper let out a deep sigh.
"Those towns that the Batarians hit aren't the most important settlements in Anchorage, all of them combined hardly provide enough food nor materials for them to make a sizeable contribution to the sector." Harper observed. He looked over the map again. He studied the Batarian's projected movements, and the potential targets. He came to a conclusion that he should have seen earlier, given the circumstances. "The Batarians are hitting targets of opportunity instead of targets of critical importance!"
He should have seen it sooner. The Alliance had prepared their defenses for a full invasion. That meant massing their troops in important infrastructure and major cities. This was a smash and grab raid, which would require a different approach.
"Tyson, contact General Volter, tell him that the Batarians aren't following their usual strategies. Recommend that he divert some of his forces to protect some of the lower priority locations. We need to be more aggressive to counter their attack."
"Already done, sir." The younger information officer said.
Things seemed to calm down a bit after that. General Volter had received the message and had already began to reroute available troops to some of the smaller towns. From the information that Harper was receiving, the troops were still a few hours out from their destinations, while the Batarians could be ready to attack the towns within a minute.
Overall, things were not going well for Harper at the moment.
"Son of a… Sir, Three Batarian ships have entered the atmosphere! Readings show that they're in direct trajectory towards New Singapore."
Scratch that, things were terrible.
"Damnit! Alert Valhalla Airbase, we need to intercept those ships or else the troops in New Singapore will be decimated!" Harper ordered. He leaned intently on the holo-projector as three blips appeared high above Anchorage.
A frigate and two corvettes.
'This isn't good, if the Batarians can get their ships into position above the city, they can smash our local air support and leave our ground forces around the area vulnerable to air strikes.' Harper thought to himself.
"Bad news sir, General Matsuo says all of their interceptors are tied up in other fronts." Tyson said.
Harper grit his teeth.
"What do they have that we can use? They can't possibly have all their forces tied up!"
"Uh, the General said that the only thing that they can spare at the moment is a gunship unit. They can have it loaded with anti-ship rockets in less than an hour." Tyson relayed as he brought up the gunship unit's file.
X-Ray Squadron, a well decorated unit led by Lieutenant Colonel Travis Moreau. Rather young, considering his rank. His track record shows that a large majority of their operations are successes, with those that are failures being an extremely narrow defeat.
Harper was in deep thought. A gunship squadron can't stand against the combined firepower of three starships, even with weapons designed to fight superior foes. A thought struck him at that moment. If he couldn't bring the ships down from the outside, he may have to try it from the inside.
"Tyson, what is Squad 13's current status?"
"Eh?" Tyson looked up with a confused look on his face.
"A well trained squad of soldiers could either destroy a ship by way of sabotage, or could seize control of it. Sending them in while the gunships fight it from the outside yields a greater chance of success compared to trying to do them without each other."
"All right." Tyson searched the network for the squad "Boss's squad and the Turian soldiers last reported two hours ago when they engaged a Batarian company 14 kilometers north of Kellertown."
"Damn, that's deeper inside enemy lines than I thought. Tyson, do you think Moreau is capable of doing this?" Harper looked as if he was on edge. "I'm sure that sending them deep inside enemy lines to extract soldiers is pretty normal for them, but a pack of ships? I'm not so sure."
Tyson stopped to think about the question for a few seconds. Major Harper rarely asked him for his opinions. If, and when he did, it usually meant that things are starting go out of his control. Looking at X-Ray Squadron's records, he reviewed the things that they had done and compared it to their current situation.
"I think they'll make it through."
Harper looked straight into his eyes.
"You're sure?"
"I have faith in their capabilities."
"Faith? I guess that's all we can count on right now." Harper scoffed. "Call Lieutenant Colonel Moreau and tell him of his objectives. Make sure that he flies as soon as his squadron is ready. We may not have much time."
"Way ahead of you, sir."
-000-
Valhalla Airbase, Half an hour later
"Tower, this is X-Ray lead. We are locked, loaded, and ready to launch. What's the situation out there?"
The whine of Mass Effect engines could be heard in the distance as 16 Mi-144 'Rattlesnake' gunships and a CH-47 'Mammoth' transport craft powered on for what would be one of the most dangerous operations they have faced so far.
"Affirmative X-ray lead. Batarian forces are estimated to be company strength at minimum. Enemy air-support is minimal, but we have reports of AA batteries and missiles around key locations on the area. A radar emplacement was spotted 2 clicks away, on top of a ridge. We recommend you fly under a ceiling of 1 kilometer to avoid unnecessary attention." The tower operator said. "You may launch in 2 minutes."
Travis nodded quietly and ran through the details of the operation again. They were armed to the teeth with weapons that he considered overkill (under normal circumstances) and were ordered to pick up a group of soldiers and a their alien friends deep inside enemy, before delivering said soldiers board an alien frigate while they provide fire support.
It felt like another Tuesday.
Once they launched, Travis had pushed his gunship to full speed, going over 450 kilometers per hour. The flight towards Squad 13's last known position would take at the very least an hour and a few minutes to spare at best. Searching for the squad may take some more time.
However, considering the fact that it was night time, and Anderson's love of high explosive weaponry, looking for the turned out to be pretty easy.
"Pretty sure that's them boss." A gunner from another gunship buzzed in from the radio. An explosion was seen from their position, high above the woods. A huge ball of fire erupted from between the trees as its boom was heard even through the loud hum of the craft's engines.
"Guess we're going where the explosions are at." Travis remarked.
The gunship squadron moved into position and changed its formation, with the Mammoth now at the rear. That transport craft's survival is important to the success of this mission.
The radio buzzed again with as X-Ray 2 shouted through the comms, The Nordic accent heard clearly.
"Hey boss, we doing this clean or are we gonna make them shit their pants?"
X-Ray 2 was referring to a certain technique that was seemingly forgotten by the armed forces into the middle of the 21st century.
"Hell yeah! Load up track 12 people, I feel like listening to the classics." Travis said as he pressed a few buttons on his mobile device. The device synced to the rest of the squadron's speakers, and began to play.
-000-
"Holy shit! How many fucking tanks do they have?" Collins shouted over the sounds of battle. He fired a burst at another Batarian before ducking down to reload. "I'm on my last mag!"
Things were going 'tits up' as Wisecrack, who Saren later learned was named Collins, would probably say.
Saren threw himself into cover beside the one named Anderson, who was busy throwing another grenade.
Anderson must have been getting tired, as the grenade didn't fly too far. Saren helped and gave a slight push to the grenade, rolling it into the middle of a Batarian squad, killing most of them and wounding the rest.
It wasn't that killing the Batarians were hard to kill. On the contrary in fact. Saren had scored quite the body count with his pistol and biotics alone. The problem was that there seemed to be no end to the Batarians trying to kill them.
Saren shook his head and focused again. He charged a warp and threw it a charging Batarian who was covering his friends behind some kind of ballistic shield. The shield vibrated and warped itself apart, allowing Carla to shoot him from her vantage point. The Batarians around him scattered into cover, stopping their small advance and relieving some of the pressure from the right side.
The tank was still a problem though.
Kesarus launched a rocket which then pierced the tanks side. It was an unlucky shot however, as the rocket exploded but only crippled the tank's right track. The tank used its remaining track to pivot itself and aim its broadside cannon at their position.
Collins charged at the tank, ignoring the fact that there were almost a dozen Batarians around the vehicle. He ran up near the cannon's barrel and stuffed a grenade into it. He ran back as the barrel exploded, but the shockwave threw him off balance. He tried to regain his balance, and he almost did, but a Batarian managed to get take aim and fire a burst from his rifle, hitting Collins in the back. The Human fell down with a scream of pain. Saren saw that the man needed help and launched a throw attack at the Batarian. The Batarian flew several meters and was knocked out. He then took Collin's rifle and began to drag the wounded man back into cover. Annette ran to try and patch him up with medigel. Anderson took the rifle from Saren and checked its ammo. It had only ten shots left.
Anderson cursed under his breath. Saren did too.
The ground rumbled again, causing Saren to peek out of cover. The tank was still operational.
Shit.
The heavy vehicle moved around to use its other broadside cannon. Saren looked to Kes, who seemed to get the message, but replied with
"I'm out of rockets!"
That complicated a lot of things.
The tank fired its cannon. The shell landed not too far away, blasting Annette and Anderson off their feet, and causing Collins to scream from the pain of the shockwave. At least, that's what Saren thought he did, as he couldn't hear anything aside from some very loud ringing.
A second passed, and then another. More explosions shook the ground. He laid on the ground and looked up to the sky with blurry vision. A large, black silhouette flew past.
What?
Several more flew past him, and as his sight became clearer, he realized that those were the silhouettes of gunships.
Saren got up shakily, and looked to the direction of where the gunships had flown towards. He could see more than a dozen of them, flying in formation. They turned around and flew back towards their position. The ringing sound started fading, and then he heard strange sounds coming from the gunships. Not like a strange engine sound, or some other mechanical thing that one would expect from things like it. It sounded like an old instrument that his brother had thought him to play back home. The sounds slowly became clearer, the rhythm started becoming noticeable.
The gunships were playing music.
The noise of the music was occasionally cut off by the sounds of explosions, and machineguns shredding the Batarians.
The strumming noise of the music became more apparent, and so did the vocals.
"Some folks are born, silver spoon in hands…" the music went before being drowned out by the roaring of the machineguns.
A large craft, one that Saren would assume would be extracting them, landed in a clearing not so very far away. Saren got up and pulled Anderson to his feet. He then helped him carry Collins towards the transport. The Boss (the only Human in the squad didn't his name) followed shortly with the rest of the Turians following.
They all entered the craft, which then one of the gunners shouted out that everyone was in. The craft's engine grew louder and began to take off, the rear hatch of the vehicle closing in behind them. Annette went to take care of Collins' wounds. Anderson sat down on one of the seats, and motioned for Saren to do the same. As he sat down, he was surprised at how nice the chair felt.
"Are all Human chairs this comfortable? Because I can get used to this." Kal joked, getting a laugh from Anderson and the other Humans.
"No, most of them are better." Anderson said, shifting slightly on his seat.
"Like or not, you should get comfortable." The Boss cut in. "We just got orders. Get comfy, sleep, or whatever you Turians do to rest. We're headed straight to the eye of the storm."
-000-
CODEX Entries:
Council/Hierarchy Tension Buildup: Leading up to the war, the Hierarchy had begun absorbing minor races found within what was declared Turian territory. The Council was not at all pleased at this, requesting the Hierarchy stop doing such. This led to several heated arguments between the Ambassadors, and on one occasion, a full-fledged fight. It was sufficed to say that Council/Hierarchy relations were in tatters. Escalation was also inevitable when several Primarchs became the targets of an attempted assassination which were traced back to an STG cell operating in Hierarchy space. The Salarian Union officially condemned the cell and called them rogue operatives. Things finally came to a head when fighting between JCN and Hierarchy Navy vessels both came into blows above the Salarian colony Sardan. Reports from the JCN ships claim that a two dozen Turian ships stormed out from FTL, began making demands to seize several Council registered merchant ships and then began shooting at said ships. All of the targeted ships were destroyed. The JCN fought against the Hierarchy ships, but at the time they were outnumbered, and most of them were destroyed too. Those that managed to escape reported back to the Fleet headquarters. Reports from Hierarchy ships say that they dropped out of FTL and demanded that merchant ships be turned in to their custody, as they claimed that the ships were operated by Hegemony sponsored pirates and slavers who had raided a Turian colony. The Hierarchy demanded that they be punished under Hierarchy law. Council historians regarded The Battle over Sardan as the first battle of The Great War, although historians from the Hierarchy and Alliance disapproves of this, and regards the Raid of Kendrais as the true opening battle of the half-century long conflict.
A/N
I am really, really, really sorry for not updating sooner. I got caught up in school, and in between that I just couldn't bring myself to right more than a sentence per-day. Add to that the fact that I am a lazy schmuck, means that this chapter coming out very late was in fact, inevitable.
So I finally played around with Jack Harper, currently a field agent in the ACI, although he will be rising the ranks fairly quickly soon.
I will also try to be more focused on the individual in the coming chapters, until the need to include the 'larger perspective' comes anyway.
Because I'm probably gonna upload the next chapter really late again, I'm just gonna drop in a few 'sneak peeks' (slight spoilers? IDK, Skip the numbers if you don't want to know) into the next few story arcs.
1: Liberation of Shanxi will focus on a Williams character.
2: Batarian Civil war, with Harper and some rebellious slave alien OCs as the focus. I haven't thought of their characters, but I need a Batarian, a Turian, and an Asari, so if y'all feel like submitting, fine by me.
3: Sparatus will play a major role in the first contact with the Council.
4: Battle of Fairixen (Fairexin, Farixen? My internet's dead atm of writing this so don't judge) and the Occupation of Nevos, with Wrex, Aethyta, and Squad 13
Most of these should be *kind of* representative of what would happen in the future. Not sure how these are gonna be pulled off, but these are the things that *WILL* be in the story.
nComs will be referred to as mobile devices, or devices, because I just figured writing would be easier that way.
Anyways, thanks for being patient, again, sorry for updating so late. I will try to write faster, hopefully with good quality too. Review if you feel like it, or PM me if don't like reviewing. Tell me your thoughts. Thanks and enjoy the rest of the day (night, whatever).