SSV Sunlight Yellow, Utopia System, July 3, 2192.
The Alliance's most powerful and advanced dreadnought zoomed towards the Mass Relay in full speed as it led the charge against the slaver scum. Sitting in the in the command seat was Admiral Kahoku, the most experienced admiral in the Alliance navy, second only to the legendary Jon Grissom himself. Rivals as they were, Kahoku was elated to hear that he would be leading the attack that would hopefully lead up to an offensive against the Batarian's core worlds.
The 4th fleet under Kahoku, composed of battle hardened sailors and ships from the now defunct Colonial Commonwealth, would engage the Batarians in a lightning strike as Drescher's own 9th would head up the rear and support the attack with the three spacecraft carriers now in their disposal. Alongside the Sunlight Yellow, was its sister ship, the Son of Man. Together theycharged head first and began the final approach to the Relay. Energy lanced out from the Relay as it launched 397 ships in astronomical speeds.
Skip ahead a few hours later, the Sunlight Yellow and her sister ship dropped out of relay transit at the edge of the Kuomintang System, and continued their advance towards the planet. Already the meat shields that the Batarians used were detected. This time however, the Alliance was prepared.
Kahoku simply smirked as he thought of how fucked the Batarians were.
"All missile cruisers, fire at will!" He ordered.
The missile cruisers are the Alliance's answer to the Batarians meat shield tactics and Kinetic Barriers, wrapped into one. These ships are without main cannons and instead utilize a terrifying amount of missile pods on its side. At this very moment, the cruisers fired an entire salvo which then redirected itself towards the alien warships. The missiles dodged and weaved through the field of meat shields that was standing in between the Alliance fleet and the Hegemony invaders.
The Batarian ships opened fire at the missiles with their GARDIAN lasers, but the sheer amount of them flying towards the invading ships meant that plenty of them managed to get through the laser grid and slammed directly into the ship's hull. Kinetic barriers didn't do much towards targets moving slower than the average Mass Driver slug, meaning that torpedoes, missiles, and the occasional suicide bomber could damage these targets with extreme ease.
An officer from the internal communications section then called out to him.
"Sir, cyberwarfare division reports that they have figured out a way to cripple the enemy defenses!"
"Cripple the enemy defenses?" Kahoku asked as he looked at the officer intently.
"Yes sir, it seems that the meat shields are being remotely controlled by the Alien shipyard way behind their fleet. Cyberwarfare says that if we can cripple it, we can take the meat shields out of the fighting entirely."
This revelation was a great turn of events for the Alliance forces. Kahoku estimated that the fighting could be cut down from four, to one and a half hours.
"Excellent news sailor, tell cyberwarfare that the next drinks the buy are being paid for by me!"
Kahoku knew that things like these did wonders for morale. He encouraged his sailors to exceed performance by giving them good incentives. In this case, booze. The admiral took the communicator that was attached to his command seat and called out to the rest of the fleet.
"This is Admiral Kahoku to the 4th fleet, the Alien shipyard is now designated as a priority 1 target. You are all advised to destroy it with extreme prejudice."
Soon as the message was sent, six of the missile cruisers fired full salvos at the shipyard. Although most of the missiles were cut down by nearby ships and the shipyard's own GARDIAN lasers, four of them managed to get through and slam into the body of the station. The meat shields began to move in less organized manners. Another salvo from the six ships fired again and this time it was met with a much better result. As the Batarian ships fell one by one, a clear corridor between the shipyard and the Sunlight Yellow became available.
"Helmsman, line the ship up towards the station. Gunnery Chief, I want that thing gone yesterday!"
Replies of acknowledgement were heard as the mentioned crew did as they were ordered.
"Load HE shells!" the Chief ordered.
The helmsman lined up the ship so that the main gun could get a clear shot at the station. Soon as targeting calculations were done. The secondary Gunnery officer reported to the Chief.
"HE shells loaded!"
"FIRE AT WILL!" the Chief then ordered.
Inside the firing chamber near the rear of the ship a hollow tungsten carbide shell the size of a bus, filled to the brim with explosives, is loaded into the 1.1 kilometer long Mass Driver rails. As the gun operators received the order to fire, they activate the rails into full power which launched the projectile at sixteen million kilometers per hour. The shell slammed into the station almost immediately.
The shipyard bucked under the force and threatened to shatter. It was a testament to Batarian engineering that it didn't. The timed fuse inside the shell had something else to say entirely however, as a second after the station was hit, it detonated the explosives, blowing up with the power of a small nuclear bomb.
The shipyard was shattered into pieces, and its remains fell into the planet as it burned up in the atmosphere. The meat shields stopped moving entirely.
This allowed the Jerusalem and her fellow carriers to dispatch the tug ships that would tow the hostage holding crafts into their respective carriers.
The 4th fleet began cleaning up the remaining Batarian ships. What little of them that surrendered was boarded by Alliance Marines, their occupants arrested, and later tried for crimes against humanity in Terra Nova.
The fleets began organizing itself into positions outlined to begin the liberation of Shanxi. The 4th and a majority of the 9th's combat ships moved to form a blockade to hold off against whatever forces the aliens would throw at them. Meanwhile the rest of the ships that weren't assigned to the blockade performed support duty for the ground attack. Frigates and Corvettes equipped with began scanning the surface and occasionally performed airstrikes.
One of the carriers, the Libertalia, took in all the rescued people from the meat shield ships and took them back into Alliance space where they would be offloaded and taken care of, before the ship returned with more ground forces.
Above the skies of Shanxi, the Jerusalem and the Defiance deployed hundreds of landing crafts filled with Marines and Airborne units. This was the largest collection of landing crafts deployed by any human fleet in all of history. Not even the historic invasion of Kyushu by the United States, or the siege of New Canaan by the Sol Union could match the amount of manpower as well as firepower being deployed.
The Marines and Airborne units would have to establish a secure beachhead for the Army and the Aircorps within two weeks so that the bulk of the Alliance forces could be deployed.
-000-
SSV Defiance, A few days earlier.
"Attention!" the executive officer announced to the Marines sitting around their tanks. Immediately, they stood up and lined up as fast as they could.
General Volter looked through all the men. He was proud of them, each and every one. But at the moment he was only interested in one of them.
"As you were." The General said, his German accent cutting through the room. As the Marines began to return to their leisurely positions, the general halted the company's CO. "Except you Williams, you come with me."
The General took the Captain for a brief walk around the staging hanger as he conversed with the soldier.
"Tell me, how is Gertrude these days?" The General asked sharply.
This took the captain by surprise.
"She's doing fine, sir. Though I'm sure that you wouldn't just call me here to ask how your daughter is faring at the moment." Williams said. Try as he might to cover the bitterness in his voice, anyone who has known him well enough would know what he was feeling through at the moment.
"Please Danny, call me Heinrich, I only want to be called 'sir' while we're on duty. As of right now, I am speaking to you as your in-law." Volter reprimanded the younger officer. "And yes, I actually wanted to talk to you about your father. He was the General in charge in Shanxi was he not?"
Williams wasn't sure he liked where this was going, though he answered anyway.
"Yeah, he held onto Chiang Kai City up until we lost contact with him."
"That is quite true. Though there is no consensus at the moment, plenty of the politicians, mostly from the Terra Firma party, are looking to turn him into the scapegoat. Are you aware of this?" Volter said again as he leaned on the wall by the window.
"What? Those bastards, we don't even know if he's dead yet and they want to play the blame game!" Williams said angrily.
"Quite infuriating no?" Volter said. It was becoming evident to Danny that this conversation was going to lead up to something very important to the Williams family. "Old Max would be blamed for the loss of our 6th largest agriculture colony, and your family would likely get shafted in your military careers."
The simple thought of it was enough to make Danny's blood boil.
Volter observed at his son-in-law for a few moments, before continuing.
"What if we could prevent that however?" The general said.
"How so? Doesn't seem like we could do anything about it. Even if we retake the planet, dead or alive they're gonna turn dad into a pincushion for everyone to blame. Him and the rest of the family." Danny said as he clenched his fist.
"Well, that is likely to happen. Unless of course, we give them more incentive to love you than to hate."
"What? How are we going to do that?"
"By making you into the hero." The general then stated matter-of-factly. "I've already made up my mind about it, so there's really no point in arguing. You and your company will spearhead the landing force. In the eyes of the public, you'd be a hero." Volter then explained
"Spearhead the force, me? Heinrich, I know you care about us, and that you are trying to help, but are you sure that's the wisest decision? I'm not even sure I can pull it off!" Danny exclaimed, shocked.
"Nonsense, your company's record is among the best in all the divisions under my command. You will do more than fine."
"Isn't this nepotism though?" Danny then asked.
"Perhaps it is, perhaps it isn't. We shall find out when the fighting is over, and I can bring the rest of the corps down."
With that, the General left a still shocked Daniel Williams to contemplate on his new found responsibility.
-000-
A/N
Fast updates! ~confetti pops~ I finally found it inside me to finish up a chapter quickly.
That's the Battle above Shanxi done with. I honestly wanted to make the fighting a lot longer, but I can't seem to figure out how to do it. At the end I just beefed up the chapter with some introductions.
Next chapter is the Marine Corps landing at Xianjin coastline and the Airborne Infantry fighting behind enemy lines.
Thanks for reading, write what you think in a review or PM them to me if you feel like doing either, and enjoy the rest of your day.