AN: Here it is finally ladies and gents a lot later than I hoped, but a lot sooner than I expected, it took me and the input of around twelve of my discord followers to actually put together a full timeline to redo the entire battle of Agamemnon.
So if things don't make sense in future chapters for the near future please bear with it, it's been hell to get this far most of us including yours truly has started university. So expect delays.
I would like to thank all of my loyalist followers, for their comments and reviews, even the mean ones, I do read them and they do help me improve.
I would also like to thank all those who've managed to get BDD past the miracle 150,000 reads. It's an achievement I don't see too often. Thank you.
Please stick with me through this and I'll promise this story will keep improving, keep developing and keep going.
Signed.
GRLS.
November 30th 2151 CE [Common Era] 2207 EMC [Earth Military Calendar].
Turian Frontier Space, Agamemnon System.
Turian Sixth Fleet, HNV Spirit of Palaven.
Command and Control Centre.
[+13 Hours since First Contact with the SSV Lion]
[Play: Mötley Crüe: Kickstart my Heart - Kickstart my Heart]
Galaven watched the strategic situation from his post inside the Spirit of Palaven's combat information centre; the galactic map had been replaced with a scale real time map of the Agamemnon System.
His mandibles clicked twice in thought, Commodore Acharius had taken to deploying the Sixth to fill in a lot of defensive holes left from sustained combat losses, meanwhile the SSV Lion continued to present itself as the largest threat in the theatre.
Either the captain and crew of the Lion had supreme confidence in their ships capabilities to soak up a monstrous amount of firepower; or the entire crew were absolute lunatics and or complete battle fanatics like the Krogan. He wasn't sure which frightened him more.
The Lion was outputting a scary amount of firepower, which wasn't surprising given the fact that she had fifty batteries with three snub mass accelerators apiece mounted in them, covering nearly every possible angle of attack. This left her only vulnerable to the rear, and even then several batteries could still provide limited arcs of fire rearwards.
Galaven watched as several of the Lion's batteries launched their forty kilogramme munitions directly at a Batarian cruiser which decided to close its engagement range to near point blank after its main gun had been disabled, if only to try at least trading blows with its secondary broadside guns.
'I've seen Batarians keep fighting in desperation, but this… this is nothing but sheer fear. Whoever is in charge of these fools isn't of a sound mind. I almost feel sorry for them, almost.' Galavan thought privately to himself.
"Sir, the Lion has disabled the Torfan's Wrath, she's adrift and venting atmosphere." Galavan nodded acknowledging the report just given, Citadel law dictated prisoners had to be taken. Convention, however, dictated the fight had to be won or lost before any attempt was made.
Which meant that unfortunately many slaves would undoubtedly suffocate long before a capture of POW's was attempted; no doubt sacrificed as a means to increase their master's odds of survival.
"You've not said a word since the battle started, what's on your mind Adrianus?" Galavan turned and asked his executive officer.
Adrianus looked up from his post below Galavan. "It's just, these humans have in mere hours decapitated all naval conventions, their ship is a mess of conflicting ideologies and purposes, one contradiction after another. It survives an absolute monstrous amount of firepower through armour alone…" He said, causing Galavan to nod.
Adrianus continued. "It's not from a lack of element zero that the ship has no kinetic barriers. Scans of the Lion prove she has systems in place to use the mass relays, it's by design that she lacks them. She carries inordinate numbers of fighter craft, yet she has enough firepower to kick in the teeth of any conventional force." Adrianus was trying to figure out just what it was the Lion was designed to do, it stung not only his pride as a turian that he couldn't.
It stung his pride as an engineer, which was worse for the man Galavan called his friend.
Galavan decided to throw in his perspective for what it was worth at the moment. "It's not like the batarians have been incompetant in trying to kill it, the Lion is just built radically differently; anywhere their rounds have punched through just hasn't caused any lasting damage, almost as if they've been striking secondary or tertiary systems the entire time, like a charging krogan battlemaster shrugging off a hail of fire."
November 30th 2151 CE [Common Era] 2207 EMC [Earth Military Calendar].
Hegemony Combined Fleet Alpha, Dreadnought Divine Right.
Bridge / Combat Information Centre.
[10 Hours until Alpha Relay Reinforcement Fleet arrives.]
[Play: Black Sabbath: Paranoid - War Pigs]
Admiral Trentch was known to the Hegemony to be a particularly ruthless man, who would do practically anything underhanded so long as it elevated his station amongst the higher castes; murder, blackmail, rape, torture and kidnap, he is one of the few to ever recieve a council spectre kill on sight order, he was persona non grata anywhere in civilized space.
The man was paranoid, but he had good reason to be, after the last attempt on his life he would refuse to leave his personal safe room without donning a full combat harness of mark ten heavy partisan armour; only ever removing it when fully sealed back in his room.
It seemed to the admiral's executive officer that Trentch's state of mind had finally snapped, the admiral had been so close to victory, only to have seen it snatched away before him by some third party super dreadnought had apparently been too much for the man to handle.
His orders had been frantic at first, becoming increasingly more unhinged over the course of the battle. Whatever species had designed the unknown dreadnought had clearly built it to endure fights no other regular dreadnought could hope to sustain, except maybe the Destiny Ascension.
"Concentrate all forward firepower on that abomination!" Trentch barked towards his gunnery officers, spittle being launched from his mouth. Thanks to his open comms the orders he gave were automatically being relayed to his surviving fleet assets.
The mission had fallen through on its objective. That objective being to irreparably shame the Turian Hierarchy, to prove to the citadel powers that the hierarchy could be brutally wounded and that if it could be wounded it could be beaten, possibly forcing the turians to the negotiation table.
And if tens of thousands of slaves could be captured, all the better for the hegemony.
"Superficial damage, Sir! That monster's armour is too thick to reliably penetrate. Anywhere not protected we can't reliably hit, it has little to no blind spots in its firing arcs." a junior caste officer disbelievingly relayed from his post.
Only to be silenced with two barks of the Admiral's personal sidearm. "Excuses! Slaves, remove that sack of filth's corpse from my bridge. You!" Trentch bellowed, pointing to another unsuspecting junior caste officer, causing him to jump slightly before they collected themselves.. "You've been promoted, fail me even once and you'll be joining that vermin you replaced." Trentch finished.
"Yes m'lord." The officer replied, taking his new post as a nearby slave wiped the previous occupant's brains from the console.
"Arm all disruptor torpedoes fleetwide, target the colony's capital!" The bridge crew turned to look at their superior, as if to confirm what had just been said. "You heard me, arm all of the disruptor torpedoes and fire on the colony. Now!"
The bridge crew of the Hegemony dreadnought Divine Right resigned themselves to committing a war crime, punishable by death in citadel space if found guilty of the act. "Arming torpedoes. Targeting Agamemnon's capital city now m'lord."
Multiple confirmations were given over the fleet network that they were following through with the new orders given, the bridges of a few more batarian ships decorated with the blood and viscera of the few remaining operators with a conscience who dared speak out against it.
November 30th 2207 EMC [Earth Military Calendar] 2151 CE [Common Era].
Turian Frontier Space, Agamemnon System.
SSV LION R-106, Combat Information Centre.
[Play: Blazon Stone: Hymns of Triumph and Death - Iron Fist of Rock]
The Lion shook hard as another series of main gun rounds struck the forward armour of the alligator-head like bow, several klaxons wailing away as another series of outer compartments were breached by the low tonnage shells.
"Forward compartments have been breached, automated blast doors have been sealed. We've had two gas line ruptures and fires have broken out in gallys nine and seventeen. DRT's responding." one of the CIC staff adeptly rattled off from the upper alcoves.
"Sir, several montressian observers have taken to providing medical assistance." Another staff officer reported.
"So long as they aren't actively participating in a combat role they're still regarded as observers, if they want to provide medical assistance, let them." Liam replied whilst having covered the mouthpiece of his wireless.
Turning back to his wireless and uncovered the mouthpiece. "Durandall, Roland, pull out the reserves, our regular birds are being swamped with close air support requests planetside." Liam ordered his deck chiefs over the line.
"We'll get it done, Sir." They both replied in unison.
"Sir! Massed infra red bloom from the enemy fleet, one hundred mark that one hundred fifty plus disruptor torpedoes inbound." A senior sensor operator bellowed towards the captain.
"CIWS is set to auto engage on the portside, we need to inform the Hierarchy fleet to stay clear of it, their IFF frequencies aren't recognised in our system." The chief gunnery officer bellowed towards Lieutenant Smollet.
"On it gunny!" Smollet barked back before opening up a channel to inform the Hierarchy fleet of the potential threat.
"Enemy torpedoes are adjusting course; about a quarter of them have locked onto us, the remainder… Christ! The remainder are targeting the colony directly!" the same senior sensor operator from before bellowed out.
"CGO what's our CIWS intercept Point of no Return (PonR)?" Liam bellowed to his chief gunnery officer.
"At current range and velocity the bulk of the torps will pass by, in fifty seconds, comps are predicting a sixty percent kill rate at this distance sir!" He replied concisely.
"No choice, Helm expose a full port broadside and down angle it by twenty degrees; CGO retask the dorsal CIWS to overlap with the Portside, I want you to focus those disruptor torpedoes down!" Liam quickly grabbed his wireless before announcing. "All hands, all hands, brace for hard contact."
From outside the ship the Turian fleet watched as the aft starboard side thrusters light up in a brilliant blue, presenting a full broadside to the on coming wave of Hegemony torpedoes, the Hierarchy fleet whilst capable of saturation fire with guardian lasers had limited their own engagement range in case the Lion's strike fighters returned to rearm and refuel, least they were killed by the auto targeting systems.
Space lit up with golden tracers as over two hundred anti fighter anti missile batteries opened fire in short controlled bursts, thousands if not tens of thousands of rounds were launched at hypersonic speeds.
It was sector denial on an unprecedented scale in known space, but seeing as the Lion had a specific function to launch an unprecedented amount of strike craft, the fact the Lion had so many anti fighter batteries didn't seem so extreme.
Even so, even with an entire sector of space saturated with munitions, several disruptors broke through.
Seven enormous electric blue warp fields bloomed against the Lion's Titanium battleplate, the rapidly expanding blasts creating random and unstable mass effect fields which were asymmetrical causing the target to rip itself apart.
Inside the Lion's CIC her crew were launched from their posts, several systems overloaded their fuses blowing them, all of a sudden the entire lighting system failed, drowning the rooms in nothing but the emergency red light.
"Sir, the main reactor just scrammed itself!" Reported an engineer who managed to get to his feet rather rapidly. "We're running on emergency generators only." he finished.
"Good thing is comms are still working through landlines." Lieutenant Smollet retorted.
Grabbing his wireless that hung beside him Liam spoke into the mouthpiece. "All hands, all hands, switch to analogue procedures, reminder to all gun crews, you need to switch the shells to proximity or timed fuses manually."
Liam placed the back of his hand against his hairline above his left eyebrow, though he couldn't see it too well. The burning on his head and the wetness on the back of his hand told him he had a head wound. "Aid kit!" Liam bellowed, only for Smollet to throw her station's aid kit to him.
Opening it he pressed the gauze to the wound. "Ka'mara tie me off would you." Liam asked his executive, who nodded in response, making her way to him, using the basic first aid training she'd been given the last year to practice.
"Thank you." Liam thanked her.
"Ka'mara contact the deck chiefs, those reserve birds they're making ready, I need them retasking, tell them I need six pellis made into battle busses, tell them blue steel is authorised, I'm heading to the trauma station, the conn is yours until I get back." Liam explained gently pulling the taller woman to his height whilst putting his forehead to hers.
"Aye sir. I'll keep her in the fight." she replied, before kissing him on the lips. "Corporal, make sure the captain makes it to the trauma station." One of the door guards gave a nod approaching Liam on his right, slinging that arm over his shoulder.
"I'll get it done ma'am." the male corporal replied.
Ka'mara watched her commanding officer disappear through one of the bulkhead doors, before picking up Liam's wireless she noticed Smollet with a shit eating grin on her face. "What?" She asked rather hotly to the Lieutenant.
"Oh, nothing, I just made a considerable sum of money is all." Smollet smugly replied.
"Get back to work Lieutenant. I have the conn, patch Liam's wireless to both deck chiefs, Liam gave me a job to pass on." Ka'mara stated rather matter of factly.
November 30th 2151 CE [Common Era] 2207 EMC [Earth Military Calendar].
Turian Frontier Space, Agamemnon System.
Capital City, Hierarchy Forward Operations Base [FOB].
[Play: OTHERWISE - Soldiers (Single) - Soldiers]
General Katus Sulmius listened to the constant streams of radio chatter inside his command centre within the confines of the local defence garrison, teams of hierarchy technicians moving from post to post, delivering reports and updates to the necessary officers.
"Sir report coming in from the Admiral; we have Batarian disruptor torpedoes incoming, the human dreadnought intercepted a large number of them and the rest of the fleet couldn't intercept the remainder." one of the technicians bellowed.
"Alert the populace, activate the civil defence sirens." General Katus barked to his junior officers; within seconds of giving the order the growing wailing screech of the siren echoed throughout the capital city, the garrison internal PA system also kicked in to an almost deafening level.
Unfortunately the general had to hesitate activating the groundside air defense batteries; due to the fact human fighters were still within the city limits and they had no IFF tags which the automated system recognised, meaning the guns were just as liable to shoot them down as well as the incoming torpedoes.
"Sir, communication coming in from Red Actual. It's one of the human strike craft." a radio operator informed him.
General Katus looked towards the radio operator before ordering. "Patch them through directly to my comms specialist." Nodding to acknowledge the given order, a burst of static hit his earpiece before a voice came through it.
"This is red actual to the OIC of the hierarchy garrison, my wing is almost out of munitions we're going to use the last of it to intercept the incoming torpedoes, next in chain of command is blue actual; any requests for close air support will need to go through them; how copy, over." A what the general assumed was a male pilot informed him.
"This is General Katus, I have received and understood your information, I'll inform my chain of command all requests need to be directed to callsign blue actual, may the spirits guide you and your men red actual." General Katus replied.
"Understood, general we'll do our best. Out." Red actual cut the comm link on his end, dozens of sonic booms were heard throughout the city as forty of the Lion's fighters took to climbing on a ballistic trajectory.
The real time 3d strategic map highlighted the incoming torpedoes as yellow markers raced to intercept them, the system registered multiple missile launches from the strike fighters out of a little over sixty torpedoes nine were missed.
However, trajectory predictions estimated that at worst two torpedoes would strike the city proper; the rest were heading for the city limits and outskirts regions, a spirits damned miracle all things considered, especially knowing that the worst of it had been absorbed by the Lion proper before even reaching the planet's atmosphere.
Right now General Katus had to reorganise restrategize as another series of hard pushes by the slaver bastards had collapsed another holdout position to the last man, the fight for the capital would be hard fought, but the hierarchy would prevail over the enemy.
As it always had, as it always will.
November 30th 2207 EMC [Earth Military Calendar] 2151 CE [Common Era].
Turian Frontier Space, Agamemnon System.
SSV LION R-106, Starboard Flying Control [Flyco].
[Samuel Kim: Castlevania - Bloody Tears (epic version)]
Sat dead centre on the nearside wall, of the extended flight pods was flyco the 3 metre tall ballistic glass blister controlled all traffic coming back to the Lions deck, typically most landing procedures were heavily automated, however with a lack of main power flyco had to resort to the old tried and tested method of getting their birds on the deck.
Sat within the highest post overlooking the various consoles and junior officers was one of two Landing Signals Officers. "Viper Red 019, Lion, you are clear for approach, starboard bay, hands on approach, speed 179, checkers green, call the ball."
Through the flyco's PA system the feminine voice of Red 019's pilot came through with a burst of static. "Copy Lion, I have the ball."
Covering his mouthpiece the LSO turned to another officer. "Any word from engineering on when main power is back operational."
"Negative sir, chief Carson's lot are having to un-scram the reactor, it'll take a bit of time for the reactor to build up to optimal again." the officer reported.
"Well shit." the LSO muttered to himself.
Even with the ship reduced to analogue operations the hanger bay grease monkeys were busying themselves with six Pelican battle bus conversions, attaching monstrously large multi launch missile systems to multiple hardpoints.
It wasn't often such conversions were made, but if you needed a small but devastating strike package delivered, battle busses were the best means of doing it, vipers could do the job in a pinch, it wasn't recommended by any means.
Durandall turned to one of his teams of engineers, another batch of red wings being off loaded via the lifts. "Are the reserves ready for launch?" Durandall bellowed.
"Aye chief, it's an absolute shitshow portside so the battle busses are only going to have half of their cover available." Durandall rubbed the bridge of his nose with his index finger and thumb.
"We won't be able to cycle red fast enough, we still have a stock of raptor jump drives in storage right?" Durandall half asked his subordinate.
"Yeah boss, but they're not rated for Pelican operations." They retorted.
"Think I don't know that, we'll make it work, pull them from storage, jury rig them into the troop bay, get the techs to rig up a terminal that'll put our birds behind the enemy… Captain, come here for a second." Carson informed and ordered before bellowing to the reserve wing's commanding officer.
"What is it chief?" he asked after a brief jog towards their spot.
"Cap, listen with portside as FUBAR as it is; only black wing is capable of deploying and that isn't enough to guarantee that the strike will work… I've got my lads and lasses working on rigging the battle busses with Raptor FTL drives, you and yours need to keep the enemies eyes on you, with no FTL computer we're rigging a terminal with two sets of co-ords, there and back." Durandall reported.
"God damn, that's going to be rough on the poor bastards flying them." Black wing's commanding officer muttered to himself. "My boys and I will get the job done, chief, how long will they need to get the job done." He asked.
"Best guess. Six minutes." Durandall replied.
"They'll get it, next rounds on you though chief!" Was the captain's parting words as he rushed back to his viper that was almost ready to be inserted into the launch tube, it was going to be absolute hell for black wing to survive the strike.
Within fifteen minutes the last of the battle busses were pushed into the lifts, ready for taxi on the flight pods hanger deck, black wing, already prepared launched from their tubes pulling an immediate high g-force maneuver to skirt the ventral underside of the Lion before burning ballistically towards the enemy fleet.
A full minute later six battle busses flew clear of the fore end of the starboard pod before disappearing in a small flash of white light as their FTL drives deposited them directly behind the enemy fleet.
A minute after appearing 240 long range missiles were rapidly fired towards the enemy intermixed were 24 micro disruptor torpedoes and 60 decoys absolute hell was about to be unleashed on the Batarian fleet and by the time their operators realised what was happening they wouldn't be able to react.
Still the Battle busses had to survive the next five minutes for the jury rigged FTL drives to spool back up to get them to safety, but at least the Lion would have been given some breathing space from the strike.
To be continued...
AN: I would like to personally thank Stratcat my discords resident grammar inquisitor, Mike. C the American who pesters me daily asking. "What are you working on?" You damn well know what I'm working on.
Menial Morriss for his ever snarky menial attitude, congrats to your promotion to menial minus five by the way, Ubernoner for your insightful ways of developing the plot, NeoDraconis for his German humour and insight into Mass Effect.
You Lads or Lasses (I don't judge) are the real MVPs in keeping myself and my Discord going, I'd also like to thank those who I missed who've also joined Discord and contributed in their own ways.
Making the server wouldn't have been worth it if you hadn't joined in the first place.
I'll have to do something special for reaching 150,000 readers.