Chapter 15: Consternation
(EDITED, SEE A/N AFTER STORY)
A news report woke Aulgar from his nap. Four eyes fluttered open, sputtering as a curse followed shortly thereafter. "Fuck… off with that crap Bifarki… I'm trying to get some fucking sleep…" There was no rest for anyone in the Crew Quarters. Even if you were in the 'Officer's Section' like Aulgar was. Really, the Officer's Section was just a place near the entrance with curtains around it so the more foul odors of the common crew didn't seep in as much. It did nothing to stop the noise of drunken revelry, the subsequent fighting, and the loud snoring of his subordinates after they all passed out 'Karthor drunk. Fucking 'Karthor… worst alchol money can buy, but its cheap enough to buy in pallets…
Bifarki hadn't finished turning off his omnitool yet, so Aulgar decided to get up and slap some sense into the Junior Officer. Bifarki knew this routine well enough, so he started to explain himself as Aulgar mustered the energy to roll out of his bunk. "Oh come on Sir, the SN has something good for once! Apparently the Turians have gotten in some serious trouble with some client race…"
Aulgar rolled his eyes, "If the State News ever told the fucking truth it wouldn't be called the State News, Bifarki, now shut that off before I break that damn omnitool myself. What's the time?"
The junior sighed, before muting the broadcast. "It's 15:00, your shift's starting?"
"Unfortunately. Any neulshit come down the pipe while I was out?"
"Some real neulshit sir. Apparently the long range scanners actually picked something up, we're embarking."
Aulgar blinked with his lower eyes, "I swear, it's gonna be an asteroid with an eezo deposit or something…"
"It wasn't the eezo scanners my friend, it was the EM array! They intercepted some kind of transmission."
That surprised the Senior Officer. "Were they able to decode?"
The Junior nodded. "No… it was in some strange format, but some direct audio components were recovered. No idea what they said, but it sounded Krogen, like you told the Captain."
"Damn, might be enough to get that XO promotion, you think?" The man grinned wide, all but announcing his sarcasm. Bifarki only blinked in response, sharing the humor, if in silence. "Alright, fine. Look, watch that propaganda crap if you like, I'm going to find a clean shower and head to the command deck. How's the Senior Captain's mood?"
"Excited, for once? Less irritable than usual at least, maybe with your advice proving good, you'll be in good graces? Harz knows."
"Harz knows indeed." Aulgar saluted his subordinate, and made his way out of the little compartment they called a quarters. Life aboard Batarian cruisers was nothing if not seeped in pleasing your superiors. Aulgar tended to think he was not too unreasonable with his requests. Let him sleep for as long as he was allowed, let him work without dealing with your screw-ups, stuff like that. It made him feel decent, in that way. Being reasonable. It wasn't always so reasonable with other officers. The ones repaying their misery as a subordinate to others down the line. No wonder the crew loves to drink.
The showers, like always, were a mess. There was little use in expecting otherwise, just a low sigh as Aulgar found one with as few 'nasal clearings' as possible. Aulgar didn't envy the men assigned to cleaning this place, though he did wish they cleaned before his shift started. Still, the lukewarm water was some modicum of relief for the aching parts of his crest. The feeling of elation at Bifarki's news still hadn't left him. It really was Krogan. Gods! The taskforce the HV Ellerika (Aulgar's Ship) was a part of had been sent to deal with raids on the colonies on the near side of the Skyllian Verge. These raids were… odd, to say the least. Usually, raids in this new sector were committed by three general factions: Pirates, usually of the Batarian or black-hull mercenary variety; rival colonizers like the Asari or the Turians doing targeted and entirely deniable raids on infrastructure; or Savages, the minor primitives that fought helplessly against the Batarians that kicked them off their planets, or enslaved them entirely. The last two were often connected to each other and had predictable patterns. Black-Hulls wanted to be recognized for their actions so that they could get bigger and better contracts. And Battarian pirates rarely enslaved other Batarians, risking their subsidies from the Hegemony being taken away. Which left none of the usual suspects available.
What was stranger was what was taken. Council backed raids rarely killed anyone, focusing on infrastructure and economy, while pirates often took people and anything precious that wasn't nailed down. These raids, working counter-spinward towards the Attican Traverse along small, low population outposts and colonies, rarely took captives or precious cargo. Instead, they ambushed food shipments, and stole refined alloys and industrial machinery. Like they were replenishing stores, rather than selling the good stuff for Jyp dust and Asari maidens.
Some of the flag officers had suggested Quarians: suit-rat splinter groups had been known to pirate in the lesser trafficked parts of space. But Quarians were rarely stealthy, and they usually left survivors. These raiders didn't. There were no live witnesses to the raids. Ships victimized had their airlocks blown out and their computers hard wiped. Agri-colonies had every man, woman, and child executed. Even slaves. This wasn't from malice either. It was cold, and calculated, and brutal. Even the weapons were remarkable, some sort of eezo/plasma derivative that Hegemony engineers had never seen before. Aulgar suggested the Krogen on a hunch that a clan had decided to settle a new world out in the far reaches, but it had been laughed off. No one thought that Krogen could have the tech for plasma. Of course, until Aulgar did some digging around in some Salarian research articles, and found instances of plasma tech in use during the Krogan Rebellions. That shut them up right quick. Then the evidence of remarkable strength started rolling in. The pulverized ribs, dented bulkheads, all of it pointed to something big, strong, and committed. Krogen could be that, if led by someone charismatic enough… maybe he shouldn't be this excited about facing them…
In any case, Aulgar was likely in the Senior Captain's good graces, and that was something to be happy about, especially after spending weeks in the research lab. The lift dinged, and Aulgar straightened up. He slid his ID into the reader, sending his name and title into the viewscreens of the announcer guards outside. "Senior-Officer-of-the-Sensors is on deck!" Boomed the men in unison, drawing a series of half hearted affirmatives from his station. Aulgar walked through the minor clutter that preceded the general shift change, saluting the Captain on his way, who was gesturing angrily at some low-caste servant. The looks on the faces of the departing crew were exhausted, and generally disheartened. One could certainly understand the apprehension at a first combat after weeks of idle and safe work, but when even the young men looked dour, well... Perhaps the new recruits were getting more cowardly?
Under-Senior-Officer Horinthal looked like the Pillars had come to grant him eternity. "Thank the gods, the Senior Captain's not in a good mood today. You have my luck, sir."
Aulgar was caught by surprise as he made his way toward his station. "Wait, what? I just heard we'd found the enemy. Shouldn't he be oiling his whip?"
"You heard that from the midnight shift, didn't you? We just got new orders from Praised Admiral Lir'Thole, we're to wait for him to assume command before we move out-"
"And let the bastard take all the glory for himself!?" That comment turned a few heads in his command booth, but nobody said a word.
"I… Senior Officer it's…."
"Orders, that's what you were going to say. Wasn't it?" The Senior's blood was boiling. "I spent hours working on those statistics Horin, hours! And that slimey ditchfucker wants to take my hard work and-!"
"Comms Officer!" Oh shit.
"Senior Captain Miortvy!" Aulgar turned on a dime to meet the Senior Captain, now face to face. He turned his lower eyes down, as a sign of respect, but his uppers were still locked with his superior. A sign of defiance. The Captain looked surprised by the gesture, but then, so was Aulgar. His blood was hot, but he realized only now how much so.
"Officer, your temperament towards a superior is running dangerously close to treason, I suggest you apologize."
"With due respect Senior Captain, what has our Admiral done to earn that?" There was a bite to his voice that stung the air. A few of his own subordinates flinched at it. Miortvy was stunned, his eyes wide. Whether that was at his misappropriation of the Admiral's title, or the tone he used, didn't much matter.
"Watch your tongue, Comms Officer! The air you give is tainted…" He replied, testily. Though his voice said this, his eyes did not. He agreed, at least in part. But a superior's order was a superior's order. Aulgar was starting to disagree with that sentiment.
"The Admiral's order is tainted! What he's done is a disgrace! A disservice to our hard work, our months of tracking! All he has done is sit on Erszbat and enjoy the gardens and his Asari whores-"
"Enough! You are lucky I do not execute you now! Deck Guards take possession of this man-"
"You know it sir!" Aulgar's voice broke, as he fell to his knees. "He has dishonored you, Senior Captain. He has dishonored your command how many times since he took command of this squadron-" The deck guards arrived at that moment, taking him by his arms to his feet. "Are you not of the same blood?! Are you not of Kur'zen, just as he is?! He treats you like trash to be picked up by the slaves-"
"Stop." The Captain's voice was quiet, and wavering. But the whole deck still heard it. Aulgar shut his mouth quickly. He may have crossed the line in his desperate bid. "Tell me how you propose to make this right?" The Captain cast a look to the soldiers holding Aulgar, and they let him go without a word.
"Senior Captain… I… you command 40 ships, do you not?"
There was a pause, before he nodded, moving his head from its suspicious stance to one more open, if still apprehensive. Aulgar took this as the breakthrough he needed.
"These raids have been conducted by a careful foe, one afraid of showing itself to a proper task force. Though they may be ruthless, they are still weak. Our ships are some of the best the Batarian fleet can offer, we command 15 cruisers, 5 heavy cruisers, not counting the Ellerika. We can defeat these pirates all our own."
"How do you suggest we deal with the repercussions? Even if we are victorious, we must still plead our case to the High Command?"
"When has High Command ever argued with results? If anything, they'll praise you for taking initiative, securing unknown technologies! Defeating a menace that has killed thousands over the last few months. It could win you a promotion, a title! It could win all of us one, not to mention the fact that they'll be needing new families to resettle those colonies-"
"Okay, okay. Enough, Senior Officer." But Aulgar had made his point well enough already. The whole command deck had nodded when he mentioned the titles they could earn. And the land resettlement initiatives were more than well known to all, they were the dreams of all men in the Batarian Navy. Even their Captains. "Under-Senior-Officer of the Comms, have we transmitted the Praised Admiral's orders to the rest of the fleet?"
Aulgar's subordinate nodded to the affirmative, still staring wide-eyed at his direct superior.
"Good. No one outside of this deck is to know of the Admiral's orders. We shall say the message was lost in transmission. Senior-Officer of the Comms?"
Aulgar jumped. "Yes, sir?"
"You are hereby promoted to Senior-Officer of the Deck. You may take the XO's position at my side." That made Aulgar kneel on instinct. A commotion started among the crew (mostly among the flag officers), but it was quickly silenced with a look. The Captain bent down, to whisper in Aulgar's ear. "Do not mistake this for generosity, I expect you to take the fall should we fail." The Captain then stood, and returned to his seat. "Helm, make way to the enemy's last known coordinates, on the double."
The first thing she felt was the warm air blowing across her skin. The fresh scent of the Limiar trees, carried on the wind. Her fan was the second thing she felt. The cool air blew a stray strand of hair into her mouth, and she was up in a second, spitting and dragging the errant hair out.
Shit. She was awake now, wasn't she? Jessa sighed, and debated just flopping back down, into the refreshingly cool sheets of her bed. But it wasn't to be, was it? It was Friday. More importantly, it was her last day of school for a whole year while she went traipsing off into space. The sigh that followed was heavier, carrying with it six months of apprehension and long, boring nights. She felt for her phone, hiding somewhere in the cooling blankets, before giving up and gingerly removing herself from the bed.
"Hey, Alice? What's the time right now?" Jessa said into the empty room, hunting for her towel.
"It's 6:46 Jess, you've got about 40 minutes before the bus arrives, shall I get the shower going?"
"No no, why waste the water, right? Just make it hot please." Jessa answered, snatching her towel from a forlorn corner of her room. Alice was a VI, obviously. Her Dad wasn't exactly a billionaire, after all, and god knows they wouldn't really need one for a skiffer repair shop and a two bedroom apartment, but still, it was nice to have. Especially for showers. "Oh, and could you call my phone after I'm done? I kinda can't find it."
Alice hummed in the affirmative, and left Jessa to her shower. She didn't have much time to savour it, but she did do the usual maintenance. Applying dye to brighten her auburn hair, cleaning herself, practicing the flight warmup procedures Uncle Eser had drilled into her skull, the usual. It was a solemn affair, but one that deviated little from routine. Life was like that sometimes. Lacking the melodrama our brains craved on auspicious days. She was dressed quickly, a thin long sleeve to take the bite out of the morning winds, and shorts for the heat later in the day. Her backpack was mostly empty; it was the end of the year after all, and most of her day would be drifting on the edge of boring end-of-year parties and gorging on baklava and kik chips. Not her idea of spending today, but it wasn't like she got to choose.
She descended the flight of stairs, dreading the solemn talk her Dad was going to give about ends and beginnings, like he always did on days like this. But somehow, he didn't hear her coming down the creaky steps, or fumbling through the cupboards for the instant ramen she loved to eat for breakfast. "Er, Alice? Did Dad already leave for work?" She asked, as she grabbed an egg from the walk-in.
"He left while you were in the shower, there's a message if you want it?"
"Sure."
Alice hummed, before a recording played. I swear, if it's just his speech recorded I'm gonna freak out… "Hey hon-bun, sorry I couldn't be here, I have a busy day and I just found out Giancarlo forgot the new keycode, so I had to leave early! I figured you'd appreciate the time to yourself anyhow, but if not, my deepest apologies for assuming you wouldn't want to spend time with me. I'll be picking you up from school at the time you specified, so try not be late…" There was a long pause. "I… I hope you know that I'm really proud of you Jess. We'll talk this afternoon, love ya."
The pot was boiling, so she turned the stove down and went to retrieve her mealbox. "...love you too…"
The doorbell rang, and the little moment she was having got cut short. "What time… Who is it!" Alice made to answer her, but the mystery guest made it known.
"It's Yohan! I waited for your ass at the bus stop for like 10 minutes, lets go! I am not being late for Mr. Lian's breakfast dumplings girl!" Yohan..? Wait, it was already 7:30!?
"Alice!? Come on, I could've used a heads up?" Jessa gestured wildly at the VI's smart camera, as she raced to find where she'd left her backpack, and then out the door. Jessa had her hands up, already apologizing with her body language before her mouth did the same, as she started to speed walk towards the bus stop.
"You know I have a fucking phone dude, you could have called…?"
"Oh yeah? Check your phone then?" Yohan had a smug look on his face as Jessa dug it out of her shorts, and found it off.
"Oh, would you look at that? The phone you always leave off was characteristically off at this critical juncture as well-"
"You still didn't call though!" She shoved the phone into his face, showing off the conspicuous empty call history. Infuriatingly though, that look wasn't wiped off his dumb face.
"I simply calculated, using my gigabrain, that it would be off anyway, and thus, I would have won this argument anyway-" Jessa's loud, deep groan told him he'd officially won this one, so he toned it down. "Besides, I wanted you to enjoy a little workout for our last day together. You did love PE, thought you'd miss it."
"I took this job specifically to avoid it next year, Yohan."
"For old times sake then?"
Jessa decided that murdering him in view of the school bus would be in poor form, so she planned to do it tomorrow during the going away party. Luckily, the line to get in was still relatively long, so they hadn't been noticeably late. As they made their way to their usual spot on the bus, Jessa sank into her side of the booth, watching a rare cloud drift in the sky. Mercator was a hot planet, and even the small bits of civilization carved into the most hospitable places sapped the air of moisture, and the soul of spirit. At least, that was what she'd heard from travelers. She'd never been off-world, so there was little to compare it to. If anything, the heat was a comfort. And as she watched the neighbourhoods fly past her, watched the small skyscrapers of the inner city float in the background.
Yohan nudged Jessa, and laughed a little. "Starting to look like you might miss this place, Helmsman Jess." He wore his smile a little softer.
"Maybe…"
"Don't go all mopey teen on me, I'm not your dad, stop day-dreaming and-"
"-Start with 30 milligrams Hexaethyl Monocriton, and we can move on to 60 in a few hours…" A soft, undulating sound came from behind her, which Jessa recognized as her 'awake' alarm. The two attendants looked down, and smiled. "Ms. Shepard, good afternoon!" Said one of them. "We're just updating your drip, you were super dehydrated so we wanted to keep you in good shape." The male nurse explained from… somewhere… Jessa's eyes were still blurry from sleep, and she couldn't really tell who was speaking, the blob at her IV bag, or the blob on her other side.
A door opened, and a familiar voice spoke. "I was paged, is everything alright?"
"Your patient is awake." The male nurse answered, "Everything's looking nominal, so we'll move on to the next patient?"
"I… yes absolutely." Smiles waved them off, and went to sit at Jessa's side. "I'm glad to see you're finally awake. We think you had a panic attack of some kind, it triggered your abilities in a… surprising way." Jessa was starting to see the walls. Covered in dents and long, deep gouges where the paneling had ripped off. The delicate drawings of starships and interstellar vistas she'd labored over for weeks had been torn to shreds.
"I can see that." Jessa mumbled, still not looking at her supervisor.
"Despite this, uh, setback, we've been able to make some real discoveries surrounding your powers. It seems that when your amygdala was stimulated by your panic attack it was far more efficient at activating the neural pathways that lead to your lymph nodes than any other attempts thus far. I was planning on scheduling you for further testing under Neuronal Imaging, so I was hoping-"
"You don't have to ask me." Jessa said, blankly. What was funny was that under the ruined plexiglass walls, were the walls made of starship grade Titanium-B. Impenetrable to anything but a plasma torch, and that would still take hours. She could see the grading lines, telling her just how thick these were. Ten inches of Titanium-B could stop an asteroid the size of a golf ball traveling at 5% the speed of light. There were 30 inches between here and the outside world: a Halo, guarded 24-7 by a UNSC garrison specially created for this purpose. The doors themselves felt more solid than the walls, and the walls could stop a low-yield nuclear bomb.
Smiles only looked at her, puzzled. "Of course I do, Jessa. I care about what you feel comfortable with." Smiles was framed by the door, still smiling, as if he couldn't hear the shit he was spewing.
"You don't need my permission to do what you need to do, Smiles."
The doctor's eyes twitched, and the smile faded. "You know that's not true." But Jessa didn't. She said nothing, and Smiles took this as permission to continue. "In any case Jessa, this discovery could mean any number of things. We might be able to design some kind of implant to help you use your powers, find out how your powers are connected to your nervous system, this is the breakthrough we've been working towards for weeks-"
"I'm never getting out of here, am I?"
Smiles looked like he'd been slapped in the face. "What?"
"Nobody knows I'm alive, right?" Jessa was still looking at the drawings on the walls. The cargo haulers and destroyers, zooming off into the stars.
"Jessa come on-"
"I'm owed the truth, right?" She turned her head, and now Smiles was looking off into space. "Am I ever going home or-"
"In two months, official casualty numbers will come out of the UNSC War Assets Bureau. The WAB will publish a statement regarding the boarding of a civilian vessel, the UNV My Other Spaceship's a Car. They will report that, despite a valiant effort by the crew, all hands were lost in the attack. A flash clone of your body will be provided to your family, with artificial evidence of alien dissection. All members of the crew will be posthumously awarded the Civilian Medal of Valor for their enactment of the Cole Protocol, and the destruction of their slipspace engine. I'm sor-"
"Okay." Said Jessa. There weren't any tears. "I'll do your test."
"Welcome back to Citadel Nightly News, this is Maracele La'Nara with my co-host: Ziomatio. Our main story tonight: The mysterious movements of Turian forces in the 314 region have been explained! Turian whistleblowers from the Hierarchy Garrison Command have reported a violent first contact with an intelligent species from beyond Relay 314. With 314 only three jumps from the Citadel, our analysts are worried about potential blow-over from this-"
"Can you turn that shit off, please?" Laiel groaned. Councilor Sparatus was dealing with his headache rather poorly. His wife, Kienli, had recommended breeus tea, and if anything the smell had far worsened his mood. The last month, to be fair, had the Spirit's share of the blame. Damage control, furious negotiations with the Primarchs, and dealing with further yelling from Tevos was further accelerating his need to drink, and the result? Headaches, and waking up with hangovers two hours before a secure Council meeting. The Turian Hierarchy is the culmination of nearly 5000 thousand years of continuous civilization, and it's anti-hangover pills still took 2 hours to activate. He might as well have waited this damn thing out.
Currently, Laiel was being shuttled to Secure Strategic Center 1337, nearly a light year from the Citadel, and his cool bed, and his wife, and any kind of food that wasn't emergency paste. Tevos had called the meeting here a few days ahead of schedule, apparently something confidential had happened the day before, and forcing a postponement of his meeting with the Triumvirate of the Admiralty this afternoon. Given that the meeting was going to be about fleet redeployment to ensure a pacification of both the Turian Rogues (a distasteful concept in and of itself) and the Primitives, Sparatus wasn't looking forward to this conversation.
"We're approaching 1337, prepare your baggage, Councilor." The pilot announced. The shuttle was cramped, and for the most part utilitarian and shapeless. In reality, it was far and away the safest, fastest shuttle on the market, but that didn't stop the interior from feeling like it was designed for Hanar. Sparatus grabbed his day-bag, and moved his seat to the exit. His guards did the same. Sometimes, being one of the most important people in the galaxy was a remarkable chore. Actually, it usually was. Unlike working as the Primarch of Giantrami, most of the people you served weren't Turians, and generally hated you and your opinions… Turian politics were far more civil than most other races. Of course, Laiel had known this academically since he was a boy, being groomed for high level service in the Hierarchy. It was much different actually being your species' representative to the galaxy. Perhaps that was what had made his drinking habit steadily worsen over the last year. Perhaps it had been the mass mutiny of thousands of loyal Turians. Either or.
The shuttle shuttered once, and a solid clunk emanated through the ship. The pilot got on the intercom once more. "We have touch-down: we are currently pressure cycling… doors open in three… two… one." And then, they were on SSC 1337. The Center was built into a rogue asteroid, suitably sized and located near the Citadel, which has been hollowed out and fitted with state-of-the-art stealth technology. Officially, this place doesn't exist, and in the grand scheme of the galaxy, it never has. They were inside the primary hangar, a dull place of metal and silence, survived only by the hydroponics bay and irregular shipments of food. Laiel hated this place, but he felt a certain sadness for the poor sods assigned to live here for months on end, with nothing but the bare walls and silent rock to listen to. Liael shook his head, and started walking. The sooner this meeting was done, the sooner he could be back at the Citadel, and enjoying civilization, and not this cruel mockery of it.
As always, Liael was last to the conference room. He gave a quick salute to the honor guards of his fellow councilors, and gave himself a moment to collect his resolve, given that he was certainly about to walk into a hail of screams. He wasn't wrong, though for what may have been the first time in his career, it wasn't directed at him.
The ambassador they'd assigned to the situation, some renowned Asari diplomat, was sitting on the main screen, almost entirely catatonic in posture and facial expression. Perhaps she was trying to wait out the storm of questions being hurled at her, specifically from the Salarian Councilor, Olene; which was remarkable considering she hardly got out of her seat for her own children. Spartacus enjoyed the serenity of this moment for a long time, before he took his seat, and cleared his throat. Tevos, the Asari Councilor, wheeled on her heels and in a moment inhaled a shout and an admonishment, as she beheld her colleague. To Olene's credit, she noticed Laiel and kept on shouting at the diplomat, which Sparatus had to respect. Still, Sparatus had no idea what was going on, and someone needed to rectify that. "Excuse me, Councilors, Ambassador. Would someone mind explaining what has occurred?" Sparatus had some ideas, of course, but he wanted to focus on the comedy he was witnessing before he had to deal with the massive embarrassment to his nation.
Tevos said nothing, and just slinked into her chair, Olene looked like she wanted to say something, but did the same. "Did negotiations fall through? The diplomatic corps got turned away? I hope this isn't another Yahg incident-"
"The rogue battle group has surrendered." The ambassador interrupted.
"I'm sorry, what? I don't care if these primitives were the Protheans themselves, the battle group? A squadron maybe-"
"Admiral Desolas officially handed power to a Human Fleet. They called themselves the 'United Human Government.' These were not primitives, they were an interstellar nation."
"Admiral Desolas? I know the Arterius family, I met him in person when he was commissioned he… our contact in the fleet-"
"-Is wrong. Or late. When you get back in touch with High Command, they're going to tell you what I'm telling you, but with less information, and more platitudes to keep you from tattling to the council. They don't know I'm here yet, it's chaos in the fleet right now, whoever your contacts are probably don't even know I'm here, assuming they're not high ranking officers. So let me tell you the truth. Like I told your colleagues. And then we can get back to the business of salvaging something from this situation." And she did.
It was a quiet journey off into the void. More so than usual on the Ellerika. Perhaps it was the fact that, for the first time in years, the ship would be seeing combat. Or perhaps that over half of the flag staff were rookies who had never seen more than a pirate surrender after firing a warning shot. Was Aulgar afraid? Oh, absolutely. But anyone who wasn't at least a tiny bit worried for their eyes before a battle was a fool. These raiders, who ever they were, weren't going down without a fight. They weren't getting any sort of mercy from the Hegemony, so surrender was out of the question. This fight was to the death. Helm called out a de-warp alarm, and the deck tensed.
"DE-WARP IN THREE, TWO, ONE." And like that, the ship lurched slightly, and the nauseating feeling of a combat de-warp washed over him. "Sensors, status on enemy contact?" The Senior Captain ordered.
"Nothing on low ranges, we might need the sensor boat to take a look in nearby space. We shall not fail you Senior Captain."
"Good, Liaison with comms and have the Xexis load a wide bore sensor. Weapons, keep spooling..." There was a pause, and Aulgar realized it was his turn.
"Fight Deck, send an all call to- Flight Deck! Why are our fighter screens not fueled and loaded?"
"Sir? Our Late Senior Officer of the Deck-"
"Liked to have our flight wings sitting fucking pretty on the perch while we're walking into a combat zone? Rectify that, and set up eezo capable scouts, we might need them to start chasing leads." There was a meek nod, which told Aulgar that he needed to have a chat about why basic procedures weren't being followed by the last XO. "Comms, have fleet data route its way into the comms boat, security, start preparing anti-boarding measures-"
"My apologies for the interruption Senior Deck Officer, Senior Captain, sensors has a radiation trail! Looks like a leak from some sort of coolant line, before a hard cut… they'd have to be using a spooling eezo drive for something like that to show up, right?"
Vulgar took the mantle for that, as the Captain looked like he was reviewing something. "Cross reference with engineering, and get comms to confirm that with the rest of the fleet. We might get something from FTL sensors…"
The Captain motioned to him, and he stepped off his podium to confer. "Everything going well sir?"
"Personally, I think you're doing excellent. But I do believe we should let the bastards have their rest?"
Aulgar shrugged. It wasn't like being XO was new to him; and in his experience, honing your crew into what you wanted worked by far the best on a Batarian ship. But he acquiesced, no reason to spit in the master's face. "If it is your wish, Senior Captain. I would like to hear our strategy for the morning?"
"Same as any flagship, Deck Officer. Stay back and let the grunts take the hits." He chuckled a bit. "In all seriousness? We'll almost certainly have numerical and munitonal superiority, There won't be any super strategy, use our frigates and destroyers to trap them, let our heavy guns do the rest. Alright, comms looks like he's having a hissy fit, let's get back to it." The Captain stood, and waved his hand at the poor junior officer from Sensors waiting in the wings. "You have a report?"
"Yes Senior Captain, Sensorboat Xexis has picked something up using long range scans, minor gravitational lensing from a star cluster, it leads in the same direction as the radiation leaks, so it probably them."
The Captain eyed Aulgar warily. "It would take a large fleet of eezo ships to do something like that, wouldn't it?"
Vulgar dismissed that out of hand, though not without a tremble in his eyes. "Or they may have been burning a long time? Damaged eezo drives can make single ships look like war fleets, ask the Khar'shan home defense fleets."
"In any case, I think we ought to let Sciences take a look themselves, we might be able to get an accurate estimation on fleet estimated size from them."
"Getting Fleet Science to do anything more than estimating an asteroid's mass is gonna take days. We still have them weak, and we know pretty much where they are…. Helm! Can you work out an estimated location on these ships from a gravitational lensing?"
Helm took a second to respond. "Uh, if you gave us a couple minutes, Sir?"
Aulgar grinned. "We could be on them now, Senior Captain."
The Captain just sighed. "Fine. Helm, that's your task! Junior officer? You have comms relay helm's nav data to the rest of the fleet. And get your scout fighters back in line, flight deck, we won't be doing any more scouting for quite some time."
It was a short wait for the coordinates to be set. Even shorter for the transition into warp. The average Batarian State Engineering Alephy Eezo Core could propel a ship at approximately 5000 times the speed of light. Given that these coordinates were less than a 300 billion kilometers away, that journey took about 3 minutes. It took less than 3 seconds for alarms to start blaring across the fleet as they de-warped.
"Status Sensors!" The Captain belted.
"Four unidentified vessels in holding around a small asteroid-... wait… have our sensor boat verify, is that a ship?"
"Look at those things, they look like art pieces that got thrown in an Arc Reactor." Another officer chuckled
The Captain silenced him with a glare. "Display on tac-map!" A display popped up on the main screen. The forty ships of their task force appeared, arrayed against four… super dreadnaughts… and…. What? Super Dreadnought just means greater than 1200 meters… Aulgar opened his mouth, but no words came out.
Weapons took his words for him. "The VI calls that big thing a ship?! It's 5000 meters long!"
Sensors followed up. "I'm not detecting an eezo drive! What the fuck did we just find-"
"I've got a massive energy build-up on all four escorts!" Escorts? Those things could be flagships on their own right! They're 1500 meters long-p
Suddenly, Aulgar realized he was in command. "Launch fighters now! Shields you're up, take on 110% capacity till we know what we're facing-"
"Enemy projectile launched, evasive actions!" Screamed the Captain. G-forces suddenly hurled Aulgar into his podium's guardrail, and nearly launched him over.
"What the hell are they shooting at us!"
"Plasma?! Shit XO, you were right!" Aulgar didn't know whether or not he should enjoy that. "Pillar's Grace, I just lost IFF on Kilikura. It went straight through her shields!"
That made the deck erupt. Chatter overpowered the Senior as many panicked voices started screaming all at once. This was, historically, the XO's job. "CHAIN OF COMMAND! Maintain order soldiers! Senior Captain, orders?"
The Captain looked, well, not great. "Senior Officer of the Deck, you have bridge command, I need to coordinate forces in the Tactical bay."
Oh. Wait, did that mean? Shit. "I'll await tactical direction sir." Aulgar moved quickly to the command podium, and found that he had nothing to say. There was little information, little data to pull from, and nothing in the way of strategy in dealing with an enemy that completely bypassed shields. Aulgar was lost, and he really needed to not be. "Shields, redirect 50% power to weapons, I want to assist the Royarch and Mardik in their pummeling of target A1-"
"Target A3 just launched a-" The ship thundered, and this time, Aulgar couldn't stay in his seat. He was hurled hard into the railing, and tumbled off of it, and the ground below. Circuits sparked, and the inertial dampers groaned angrily. They were spinning.
"Helm! Get us right side up! Security, give me a hull integrity report!"
"Sir! Feeds are coming in, but we just lost 15 lower decks to that fucker! I got 300 missing IDs, and 190 that need help!"
Organize that response! Comms, get me tactical advise from the Captain right fucking now, I need to know where to point these guns-"
"He's dead, XO!" Security interrupted.
"What!? Where is he?" Right, tactical. Near the lower decks, all of which were blasted to pieces by a fucking PLASMA round. Aulgar sighed, "Belay the explanation. I want tactical authority right now! And Helm! Why the fuck are we still spinning!" Helm said nothing, and slowly the rotation started to lessen. It'd need to do for now. Several other flag officers objected to a second promotion, but it wasn't really up for debate, given that the whole fleet was being tossed to shit, and they were looking to the Flag Ship. The tac-map showed 3 dead allies, and by the look on Weapon's face, their mass accelerators were doing Neul Shit. "I need that fucking commision boys, or this fleet is done!" Someone said 'Aye', and a chorus followed that worked well enough for him. "Okay, good. Patch me into the Tactical network, Comms. We need to kick these fuckers."
The plan was simple. Use the five heavy cruisers as battleships, and have them pummel the enemy shields until something slipped through and they stopped shooting back. Use the lighter ships as cover/bait, and try not to get hit. Easier said than done. Wrangling the five ships of the line from their positions far away at the back was not easy, and telling them to put all power into their weapons, ignoring their shields, was even more pissy. But, after one of the bulbous enemy craft blasted a hole straight through the side of a Light Cruiser, the direness of the situation became steadily obvious.
"Comms! Targeting A1, slave firing line ships to my order! Let's blast that coward!" The massive clunk of the guns, mercifully spared by the plasma round, began to hum across the ship, as he watched the charging reticle across five ships slowly reach it's zenith…
"FIRE!" The Ellerika shuddered, and took evasive action as another plasma round attempted to break her hull. Suddenly, the four enemy escorts, mostly concerned with harassing the fighter screens and taking pot shots at frigates, became very active in their attempts to rip a hole in his firing line's superstructure.
"Shots inflicted estimated 10% damage to enemy shields! We need more firepower!"
Aulgar agreed. "Bombers! Flight Deck where are they!"
"I'm coordinating the wings now, where are they going?"
"To fuck that ship's shields up, have your fighters harass enemy's coming to support. Are we charged?!"
"Yes sir!"
"FIRE!" And the ship groaned under the power of the blast.
19% Damage.
A ship was lost.
Aulgar directed Frigate torpedoes at another target, hoping to start weakening their shields too.
"FIRE!" And shudder.
28% estimated damage.
A bomber squadron launched her payload, shattering the shields.
"Light Cruisers, take it down!"
An adjustment to the strategy. They needed to start breaking the next target.
"FIRE!" Shudder.
Number.
Crash.
Thunder.
The first ship stripped of shields exploded in a messy haze. A bomber squadron was consumed by the explosion. He couldn't think about that.
The thing they were escorting moved slowly, and didn't fire back. He ordered his ships to use it as cover. To angle themselves behind it's hull, to cloud their movements behind it's leaking coolant.
Another super dreadnought dead. Her innards gutted by six frigates simultaneously. Crash.
Thunder.
His fleet was like a storm. His lasers fought back against the stemming tide of fighters. Two frigates made a pass on the enemy, raking her shields with GUARDIAN arrays. The shields were gone in seconds, letting his firing line tear the enemy in two.
The last escort fought hard, but 30 ships could beat even a dreadnought. And they did so without fanfare. And like that, the battle was over. Aulgar sat down, not at the podium, but on the ground. "Sensors, what is the… whatever that ship is, where is it going?
"I'm checking estimated trajectories now… nothing on my equipment. Is the sensor boat still active?"
Aulgar checked the nav-map, and saw it still pinging. "Liaison with them comms, and start organizing for a patrol back, we need-"
"Wait, wait, I'm getting something. Detecting energy readings and… mass…"
"What? A Rogue Planet? Sensors?"
Sensors said nothing, and only pasted an image from the sensors boat. Aulgar wanted to admonish the man for posting to the board without authorization, but as the Officer upped saturation, Aulgar fell silent, eyes wide. In the depths of empty space, there before them laid a Ring.
A/N: The Great Journey Awaits.
EDIT
The first part of this note is in regards to the edits I've made to the chapter above, and will be spoiling future parts of the story to appease the reviews that seem to not enjoy the victory of the Batarians in this chapter. If you don't want SPOILERS, DO NOT KEEP READING TILL THE LINEBREAK!
Okay then. The Covenant in this chapter are the Covenant Remnant, not the Swords of Sanghelios (SOS) or any Covvie Successor States. As I've hinted at in chapters previous, the Covenant Remnants are a shadow of a shadow of their former selves, after their many defeats against the UHG and the SOS. These ships here are in remarkably poor shape, as evidenced by a CAS carrier leaking coolant, and by Covenant forces raiding heretics for supplies, something no self-respecting Covvie would do unless it meant the end of their religion. In addition to the fact that the Batarians had a 10-to-1 advantage, and that these ships were mere destroyers (sorry about the confusion on that front, it's been fixed), it seems reasonable to me that the Batarians could win with significant casualties. Because, it should be noted, losing a quarter of your forces in a battle is not good when you outnumber them by a factor of ten.
Please rest assured in the future that I do have a plan, and a justification, for the vast majority of what I write, and that it will be explained in due time (though I admit that it may be a long time). Additionally, insulting my intelligence and threatening my life over fanfiction is silly, and although it is a great motivator to write edits and author's notes, it also is sorta mean, so please don't?
In other news though, it has officially been one year since I posted this story, and to celebrate, I'll be doing a little audience participation! Well, technically. In a few chapters, I'll be in need of a piece of music that, let's just say, will need to represent humanity. It will be an orchestra piece, and it will be played for some ambassadors to the UHG.
I'd love to hear your suggestions on a piece! Really, anything that encapsulates humanity or the human spirit, or maybe just something moving and powerful. I don't know! I will be gathering any suggestions that I find compelling, and will then create a poll for you guys to vote on your favorite in the next update! Yes, this means that if you submit a meme suggestion, I reserve the right to pass on it.
Feel free to submit music to me via my PMs, or through the Reviews section! Also, don't forget to leave a review, even if you don't have a song suggestion! Reviews keep the pencil sharp!
-Turtle