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Shanxi – Theta System
2112.11.02
General Sparatus stared blearily into the orange glow from her holographic computer screen, not really seeing the data.
It had been three days since the engineer's fleet had arrived in Theta and ruined her attack. They had been so close – she had been so close – to breaking the aliens last line of defence and pouring through into what was left of their colony. She had even managed to breach their line before the last – desperate – counter attack of a single engineer officer had killed the troops that made it to the enemy trench.
That area had been sure to collapse if she attacked again, but even as the engineer officer's grenades were going off Admiral Drescher's fleet was pouring through the relay. That dishonourable fool Arterius had actually surrendered to her unconditionally rather than continue fighting, dying honourably attempting to carry out his orders. The shame of the defeat, the surrender of an entire turian fleet and the loss of its banner to the enemy, stung her and all of her troops deeply.
She had raged in the privacy of her command APC when she heard the surrender order from HWS Enforcer, they were so close. The negotiating leverage, the ability to salvage some pride and to make Orinia's kidnappers pay, it was all in her grasp and then the dammed navy had snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
It didn't matter that she could practically see the total collapse of the defending forces, it didn't matter that everything was about to be worth it, the navy had lost. Her troops would be under orbital kinetic bombardment within the hour and she had bitterly ordered the retreat back to their forward operating base.
Most of her troops had made it under the kinetic barriers before the engineer ships had entered orbit and begun their bombardment. They hadn't let up since, but the engineers weren't the only ones who covered their positions with powerful barriers. Granted they took it to the extremes, but the barriers covering a turian FOB were rated to withstand anything short of a main gun orbital bombardment or an in atmosphere nuclear strike.
"General." Commander Atticus stated wearily from the door. "The enemy forces have begun their main landing."
Wave after wave of transports had headed to the battered remnants of the two small spaceports near the centre of the colony as soon as the engineers had entered orbit. Fresh soldiers, supplies and weaponry had poured into their defence lines. But it had been only a small fraction of what the transport ships in orbit could hold, in that her officers had all been in agreement. Their conclusion was that the space in the centre of the city was too crowded and to covered in debris for the aliens to set up a proper forward base there.
Having landed enough reinforcements to hold any attack that she was capable of mustering while they controlled the skies, they would land their main force elsewhere and set up a forward operating base before moving directly against her own positions. It would seem that she was still capable of reading the engineers military actions correctly, even if they were a complete mystery otherwise.
"Location?" Her voice was tired and unrecognisable even to her.
"Right where you expected General."
"Prepare to move out, we will fulfil our orders."
Atticus shifted uncomfortably. He and the other officers had tried repeatedly to get General Sparatus to agree to surrender, but the General was adamant that they fight on. He decided to try one last time. "What orders General?"
"The first one they teach you in basic training. The order to bring victory to the Hierarchy."
The glare the General sent his way would have made a lesser man crumble, but despite his hatred for the engineers and respect for his General, Atticus pressed on. "There can be no victory here General. Even if we win, defeat their vanguard and destroy the landers bringing down the pieces of their FOB, they will just regroup and land again. Somewhere much further away and beyond our reach next time, despite the delay that will cause in their attack."
General Sparatus looked as if she wanted to gut him on the spot, a look she had reserved for the engineers until now. "It will cause a large number of casualties, material damage, and hurt their pride. When we defeat their vanguard and wipe out their landing ground it will give us leverage, leverage I will use to negotiate a conditional surrender rather than the unconditional surrender that this Field Marshal Moran is demanding."
The General looked over at the legion's banner in the centre of the camp, visible through her office window. "I won't be responsible for the capture of the second turian banner since the Krogan rebellions. I won't."
Atticus's respect for General Sparatus took a body blow as he realised her greatest fear. It wasn't the destruction of her legion, or their collective shame. It was her personal shame, the destruction of all of her dreams of advancement and her vilification in the history books.
Atticus glared angrily at the floor. He had always thought that Admiral Arterius was weak, unwilling to do what had to be done and full of regret at the actions they had taken against these primitives. It was galling to realise that when the time came, when the two banner officers true selves were revealed, Macen Arterius was the better turian than Vetra Sparatus.
He had taken responsibility for his actions, taken the shame upon himself to save the turians under his command from a meaningless death under the guns of an undefeatable enemy fleet. He had sacrificed himself for the good of the whole, as a good turian should.
General Sparatus was going to sacrifice hundreds of turians under her command, who she was supposed to protect as well as lead to victory, simply to try and alleviate some of the shame that she – that they had all – brought upon themselves by their actions. Ever since Captain Sidonis had first encountered these 'humans.'
Atticus's anger at the engineers, at the General, at everything threatened to spill over. He wanted nothing more than to take his service pistol and escort Sparatus to the brig for disobeying orders, but he could not. The law was very clear, General Sparatus was his commanding officer and her orders were to be obeyed. If she had broken under the weight of the enemy assault, suffered a nervous breakdown, then he could have legitimately relieved her of command.
If she didn't have the fig leaf of the orders to maintain order and council control on the ground in the operational area of Third Patrol Fleet – as determined by its Admiral – he could have arrested her for disobeying orders. But neither were true, and there was no latitude in the law for bad orders or officers who were placing themselves above the good of the whole unit. Good turians were not permitted to judge their superiors, they followed orders. Good or bad.
"What are your orders General?" He growled out, hating every word. He would hold the General just as responsible for every turian that they would kill as he would the engineers, spirits take both of them. His only solace was at least the troops hadn't seen through General Sparatus as he had. At least they would die believing in their General, and their mission.
"Order the last of the troops to their vehicles and brief them to conduct anti bombardment manoeuvring at all times starting when we leave the base. We move out in 10." General Sparatus replied still staring at the banner of the legion, fluttering in the breeze. She would never hand it over to the humans. Never.
Shanxi – Theta System
2112.11.02
Colonel Muller frantically manoeuvred his tank regiment as he tried to avoid incoming fire from these 'turian' hovertanks. With the marines all deployed to reinforce the defences around Qinghai, Field Marshal Moran had decided to deploy an army corps to secure the landing zone before construction started on the forward operating base.
Consisting of three combined divisions the General had reorganised them into 2 infantry divisions and 1 armoured division upon landing, sending out his armoured division as a screening force as the infantry divisions prepared defences around the perimeter of the FOB landing site. It was supposed to be an ample guard force, but that calculation hadn't counted on the turians conducting a do or die attack with every single remaining vehicle they possessed as soon as the first transport landed.
"Keep moving people!" Muller growled into his comms as another of his tanks blew up, the shockwave rocking his own gently. Blue flames engulphed the armoured vehicle as it's hydrogen engine and fuel tanks caught fire, the fire proof bulkheads shattered by the turian round's impact. Only one of its crew made it out of the turret before the flames licked from the opening showing the entire crew compartment was on fire, but Colonel Muller didn't have time to mourn and he ignored the screams, he was too busy trying to save those of his soldiers that were still alive.
Just as the reports from the Shanxi garrison forces said, these turian hovertanks needed 4 hits to take them down. Three to take down their barriers and a fourth to finish them off. Lacking any kinetic barriers, as the Alliance had yet to miniaturise them enough, his own tanks couldn't even take a single hit. The surrounding fields, full of burning Alliance tanks, showed the brutal truth of that discrepancy.
All along the front line, the armoured division was trying to buy time for the infantry divisions to dig in. Every moment they held the turians back was more time for the infantry to throw up some cover for themselves to use if the turian attack broke through, which it was in serious danger of doing. The command net was filled with calls for air and orbital support as the Brigadiers tried to manoeuvre their brigades as best as possible against the major advantages the attacking turian forces had in speed, manoeuvrability, armour and numbers.
His own regiment was mostly German, and until now Colonel Muller didn't think that anyone could beat his people at tank warfare. The turians had blown that fantasy to pieces within seconds of the battle being joined. Now not only had his initial thrusts been shattered, he couldn't even extract his regiment from the fighting to regroup and counter attack. The turians had their jaws latched around his regiment's throat like a wolf with its prey, they couldn't escape.
No sooner had the thought crossed his mind when the fire from the turian forces he was engaging suddenly diminished.
"Pull back! Disengage and regroup for a counter attack immediately." Muller quickly gave the orders and watched with pride as his regiment executed them, withdrawing out of range of the turian forces that were suddenly quite happy to let them go. Having seen to the fighting withdrawal and regrouping of his own regiment Colonel Muller spared a glance for his opponents, trying to see what had granted him the desperately needed reprieve.
"COLONEL ALBRICCI WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!" Colonel Muller hollered down the command comms net in total shock at his counterpart.
Colonel Marianna Albricci commanded the division's regiment of scout tanks. Small and fast they were even more vulnerable to the turian hovertanks than his own battle tanks were, destroyed by even glancing hits from the enemy's guns. Even worse it took 6 hits from their guns to bring down the enemy's barriers and the enemy frontal armour was too thick for the scout tanks weapons to penetrate. To destroy the enemy hovertanks, even with their barriers down, they had to hit their sides or rear.
"I'm giving you the opening you need Muller!" Colonel Albricci responded determinedly, the sound of an explosion in the background signalling the destruction of one of her tanks even as she answered Colonel Muller. The news of her brother's death leading his brigade in the defence of Shanxi had left her resolute to beat these aliens, no matter what the cost. It seems the sight of so many charred human bodies, and burned out tanks that were tombs for even more, had given the same determination to the rest of her regiment as well.
Colonel Muller cursed as the scout tanks charged into the turian line, weaving and drifting around enemy hovertanks they threw up huge sprays of dust from their tracks churning up the soft, dry soil as they used their high speed and tighter turning circles to stay out of the turians lines of fire. More than one managed to get the turians to fire on their own forces by dodging out of the way at the same time the enemy fired, hiding the turian hovertank from friendly gunners with the bulk of their own tank, dust sprays and smoke screens until it was too late.
But they couldn't keep it up. With their own guns practically useless the casualties began to mount, and with every one of Albricci's scouts destroyed, there was one less to prevent the turians concentrating their fire and bracketing the franticly evading scouts, no matter what tricks they tried to pull to hide themselves or how skilled their drivers were.
"Hurry Muller! There will be nothing left of my regiment soon!" There was still nothing but cold determination in Colonel Albricci's voice despite the horrific casualties. Her scouts continued to occupy the turians attention like a swarm of wasps as Colonel Muller quickly issued new targeting orders to his rapidly reforming regiment. Colonel Mullers forced reformed as fast as they possibly could, watching the scout regiment swarming the turians despite having ineffective weapons and the fact they were being knocked out by the dozen. Selling their lives for the time that they needed to reform and counter attack.
All of them silently swore that if anyone made jokes about the Italians' courage or fighting ability after this, it was going to be the last thing they did.
Finally – finally – his unit was ready. Several tanks had been left behind in the rush, engines or tracks damaged their commanders had called out for the regiment to leave them behind rather than slow their overall speed. They would use the onboard medkits to try and save some of the injured left behind in the wake of the units – hopefully – successful attack.
"All units advance!" Colonel Mullers tanks charged forward as one, the roar of their engines and the plume of dust they kicked up a mechanical battle cry. Once more they were a united formation working in concert, rather than scattered individuals fighting for their own lives.
"Stay on target." He watched the range close and the hit probability rise, he desperately wanted to open fire, to relieve Colonel Albricci and get revenge on the force that had killed so many Alliance soldiers, but if their sacrifice was to mean anything this attack had to succeed. And that meant he had to wait for the best shot he could get.
"Stay on target." The turians still hadn't seen them. The swarm of scout tanks – pathetic toys to their eyes – were unable to even damage them significantly, but they were constantly avoiding their efforts to destroy them. Worse they were even getting them to kill their own friends and comrades by accident as they lured them into firing, then darted out of the way to reveal a tank crewed by people they knew, people that they had had breakfast with only that morning.
More than one turian gunner had screamed impotently as they were forced to watch their own round blow their friends to the spirits. The turians were beyond frustrated, beyond angry.
They were furious.
More importantly to Colonel Muller, that fury had caused them to develop tunnel vision. Focused exclusively on Colonel Albricci's swarming scout tanks, they had failed to notice Colonel Muller's reformed battle tanks charging back into the battle, and now they were almost at point blank range.
"Fire!" The first turian hovertank had finally noticed them and turned its turret to face his charging battle tanks, but it was too late. His entire unit fired in unison and dozens of turian hovertanks exploded, each had been the target of 5 of his own.
"Stay in your fire groups. Retarget, fire!" Colonel Muller grinned as another wave of turian units exploded, with his tanks working in unified fireteams the turians tech advantage was wiped out. Stunned and confused, the turians were having difficulty processing the sudden change from pursuing an inferior force fighting for its life to being left vulnerable to the Alliance counter attack.
Unit after unit in the turian line stopped advancing, hesitating before they finally began to reverse, trying to gain some space and adjust their tactics and firing priorities to this new reality. Colonel Muller had no intention of giving them that space.
"Stay on them! keep up the pressure!"
Alliance forces continued to press forwards even as they took casualties from the turian counter fire. Colonel Albricci's scout regiment began to pull back into the safety of his main battle line, firing at any vulnerable targets they saw as they withdrew. The battle tanks watched in horror as the change to only focusing on one enemy allowed the turians to recover.
"Albricci, tell me you intended this to happen." Colonel Muller growled out as his worst fears were confirmed, pockets of turian units were re-establishing formations and halting their backwards movement. Turning into a wall which the battle tanks charge would shatter on, just as it had the first time. Muller began to feel despair as the chance to exact vengeance and beat these aliens slipped through his fingers.
"Just a little longer." Colonel Albricci replied distractedly as more and more turian pocket formations linked up to form a larger, more cohesive whole. Then, just as the turians looked as if they might recover into some form of functioning unit wide formation, she sent her scouts charging into the gaps in the turian line, smashing through before they had a chance to fully close them and form up.
The shock of overcoming the human forces and reforming, only to have that formation shattered again before they could take the fight to the enemy broke the morale of the turian hovertank crews. Their tactical withdrawal became a retreat as they increased speed away from the Alliance forces and their return fire became more scattered and inaccurate.
Colonel Muller's spirits soared as he looked at the chaos his Italian counterpart had wrought. Finaly the turian forces were beaten and retreating, they had done it. He looked at the tactical readouts for his regiment and the casualty count caused him physical pain. Over 35% of his force was destroyed or disabled, it was a high price to pay but he reminded himself that it was worth it.
The turian attack had been smashed and they had defended their sector, protecting the vulnerable beachhead from being overrun before the army could land. He was about to order his regiment to pull back, to hold the line and protect the landing ground when the thoughts of the two Generals he had read up on most recently, in preparation for fighting this campaign, flashed through his mind.
Whatever they had been personally, General Robert E. Lee and General 'Stonewall' Jackson had been military officers of stunning capability. Holding off a force superior in numbers, weapons, training and logistical support for years. It was why he had studied them intently in preparation for this campaign against the alien invaders.
The Confederate Generals had achieved this amazing feat by attacking almost constantly, never allowing themselves to be forced onto the defensive or to be satisfied with just causing the Union army to retreat. General Jackson's quote echoed through his head even as the casualty count continued to rise. 'When you strike (the enemy) and overcome him, never let up in the pursuit so long as your men have strength to follow; for an army routed, if hotly pursued, becomes panic-stricken, and can then be destroyed by half their number.'
A grim resolve settled in his stomach as Colonel Muller gripped his controls tighter and activated the comms. "Stay on them! don't let them get away!"
"Colonel if we keep chasing them we'll open holes in our line! Our neighbouring regiments are still heavily engaged." The concern from his XO was genuine and reasonable. Their neighbouring regiments weren't faring anywhere near as well as they were and if they pushed forward and the turians on their flanks noticed and managed to cut them off. They would be trapped, encircled and utterly destroyed, the hunters turned into the prey through their own overconfidence.
Colonel Muller considered for a moment, but his resolve steeled at the sight of how much their neighbouring regiments were struggling to halt the turian advance. This gamble could change the course of the battle for them, granting them the much-needed reprieve that Colonel Albricci had bought so dearly for them. "If we keep these turians on the run the retreat will become a rout! The panic will spread throughout their entire army when they realise one of their sections has been pushed back miles. Stay on them, trust in our comrades to notice how out of position we are and to guard our flanks."
A chorus of enthusiastic confirmations came over the comms as the regiment increased speed, engines roaring and tracks churning up the dirt of Shanxi they raced after the turians, closing the distance between themselves and the retreating section of the turian army. Never letting up, never allowing them to stop and reform. Colonel Muller was about to get onto the comms to continue to offer encouragement as the gap between their flanks and the nearest Alliance forces opened wider and wider, but he paused when he heard music coming from outside the tank.
"Does that bloody woman think she's in Apocalypse Now?" Muller muttered to himself, remembering the iconic scene of the helicopters attacking to Flight of the Valkyries from jury rigged PA systems. Colonel Albricci's scout force had built in PA systems as they were the tanks that would be assigned to help the police were martial law ever be declared. They were useless in a battle but for sum unfathomable reason the Italian Colonel had decided to use them to play Sabaton – Ghost Division
"Colonel Albricci…." Colonel Muller began, voice tight with frustration.
"THEY ARE THE PANZER ELITE! BORN TO COMPETE! NEVER RETREAT! – GHOST DIVISION – LIVING OR DEAD! ALWAYS AHEAD! FED BY YOUR DREAD! – GHOST DIVISION."
Colonel Albricci responded grimly, making him pause and actually listen to her explanation. "I'm hoping that the turians have installed the translation software on all of their units. They're already shocked and confused, the idea that their being chased by an elite unit should really cause them to…"
Before she could even finish speaking the last few bits of coordination between the retreating turian units collapsed. Some increased speed, trying to get away and reform to engage in battle again, some just broke and turned away, others stopped retreating and tried to stand and fight. Whatever they did they were overwhelmed by the Alliance forces chasing them as Colonel's Muller and Albricci both let out whoops of joy and continued to pursue them at full speed.
Codex Entry: Humans – The Treaty of Mars
(Citadel Codex, First Human SPECTRE Collector's Edition, 2183)
The Treaty of Mars was incorporated into the founding charter of the Systems Alliance following the events of the 6-minute war in 2085 CE. Before the Systems Alliance was founded the human home system of Sol was colonised by the competing human nation states.
These nation states also had space going navies to defend their colonies from attack by other Earth nations. Despite the general feeling of unease that this situation was a powder keg waiting to blow, the governments of Earth saw no way around it as they refused to leave their colonies undefended. A similar scenario had played out with nuclear warheads in the human standoff known as the Cold War, deterrence was based on MAD: Mutually Assured Destruction.
The Systems Alliance was in the process of being created and there was a growing feeling that the space going militaries would need to be coordinated to a degree that had never been seen before. In the face of an alien attack, the human navies would have to work together seamlessly despite their differing operational methods, rank structures and training standards.
The ships themselves would all have to be able to be supplied using the same logistics system as well, having a dozen different ship sensor systems for example would completely overload supply lines in the event of war. This meant that all ships would have to be designed with the same components for the humans to fight effectively as a united species, meaning that each unique technology developed by a nation for its warships would have to be shared with every other nation. If they were not, the logistics of a dozen different navies tech bases would cripple any unified human war effort.
Talks on this topic would most likely have eventually broken down if it were not for the events of the 5th of March 2085.
Two nations with relatively new colonies on Mars, India and Pakistan, also shared a disputed border province on Earth. This had taken the two nations to the brink of war several times in the past and now it did so again. However, while the nations themselves did not actually go to war, their naval forces in Mars orbit antagonised each other in a slow escalation of hostilities.
This was not unprecedented, it was the same on Earth where the two nation's ground and air forces doing their own antagonising and escalation. In Mars orbit however, unlike on Earth, one of the weapons officers on the Indian flagship, the INS Vikramaditya, panicked and opened fire as he believed a Pakistani attack to be imminent.
Over the next six minutes the battle raged as the warships of India and Pakistan fired at each other. Three were destroyed, but it was one shot that changed everything. The Pakistani warship PNS Alamgir fired at the Vikramaditya. She missed.
The shot impacted the surface of Mars with an explosive force of 0.4 kilotons. It wasn't a large blast by the standard of the nuclear-powered explosions that humans could produce at this time. But it was more than enough to wipe out the Brazilian colony of Amazonia.
The battle ceased as both sides watched the accidental deaths of 50,000 Brazilian civilians with horror.
The worldwide reaction was both condemnation and fear - fear that the next time this happened it would be in a war between larger nations, with bigger warships, and in Earth orbit.
The Treaty of Mars was the result of that fear. It stated that all nations were only allowed to maintain minimally armed and limited size orbital guard cutters in space. These were also only to be used to provide security for their colonies and shipping lanes, maintaining law and order.
The only body allowed to field true military warships was the new Systems Alliance Navy. The crews of those ships would also be mixed so that no one nationality would be in command of the international fleet. Critics stated that this would effectively put the entire human space going navy under American and Chinese control, as those two nations would maintain a stranglehold on the Alliance Executive Council.
There were several riots, but the fear people had of dying by accident from a stray shot from an orbital battle, coupled with the intense diplomatic arm twisting from the USA and the PRC, ensured that all nations with a presence in space eventually signed the treaty, on the condition that neither superpower could gain majority control.
Though many nations would secretly keep a squadron or two of warships, constructed at black shipyards and hidden from prying eyes, when the Systems Alliance was founded in 2086 CE it became the sole naval power of humanity and all other military space forces were disbanded. Officially.
Timeline Changes So Far
First colony on mars: 27 years earlier than canon
Discovery of Prothean ruins: 64 years earlier than canon
Founding of the Systems Alliance (council of nations version): 63 years earlier than canon
First Contact War: 45 years earlier than canon