"Repensum est canicula, motherfuckers!" - SCPO Rodriguez, GM-S SSV Kilimanjaro, Battle of LaGrange Point Two, 2183

SSV Kilimanjaro (IV FLT), 2,500 km from Feros, Feros Space, Attican Beta Cluster, July 7, 2183

The round exited the cannon at almost two percent of the speed of light.

The round was made of Depleted Uranium, shaped and forged from the native metals of Venus, each one crafted for the capital class vessels known as Dreadnoughts. Throughout every Navy in the galaxy, it was they who were the powerhouse of a species' might, and the very definition of them were based upon the main cannon of the vessel. For the Kilimanjaro-Class Dreadnought like the Mighty Kili, the thirty kilogram round was made up of an ultra-dense radioactive actinoid rare earth metal known to be seventy percent more dense than lead. It was lightened through the electromagnetic use of Mass Effect properties in the breach of the main cannon before accelerated through the seven hundred meter tunnel to reach a speed of fifty-four hundred kilometers per second, passing through several electromagnetic gates to exponentially increase its velocity through the tunnel. Each gate was separated by a hundred meters of distance, too close and the effect would be less than statistically efficient, and the longer the main cannon was, the faster the round would accelerate before leaving the vessel. Thus the reason Dreadnoughts were the titans of space; they threw the heaviest rounds at the fastest velocities.

The round traveled at fifty-four hundred meters per second, going along a projected arc thanks to the gravity of Feros.

The SSV Normandy, the Systems Alliance Navy's sole Stealth Reconnaissance vessel, was already in position rimward to the Geth Fleet; it was sitting in stealth at the Geth's rudder. Its many sensor readings and telemetry were sent back to the rest of the Fourth Fleet via laser-link communications through the Alliance Secured Communications BattleNet; the encrypted communications protocol that kept a Fleet in communication and in coordination, distributing information and readings to all vessel simultaneously so as to keep all dissemination up-to-date and ships on-target. The rounds' target was a Geth Light Cruiser, a six-hundred and thirty meter vessel that was designed to fight those of its Class, meant to be the 'faster' vessel of the Cruiser-Class to close distance on a Fleet to take down smaller vessels and engage enemy Cruiser. In common parlance, Cruisers were known as the bloody infantry of space.

The round continued on its path around the planet of Feros, curving in a protected three-and-a-half degree arc as it traveled, four minutes from its target.

Space, as one science fiction writer from the late-20th Century put it, was big… really big. Despite modern advancements in bringing vessels to near-luminal speeds in-system and sling-shotting through Mass Relays and crossing vast gulfs of space in mere hours, it still took time to cross distances. In the modern Navy of the late-22nd Century, the concept of battle was to remove all form of enemy communications, disrupt as many of their sensors as quickly as possible, and then move in for the kill at distances generally less than ten thousand kilometers so ships wouldn't have enough time to maneuver away from impacts or flee to safety. Many went into the colloquially-known 'knife ranges' of less than a megameter, where GARDIAN Laser Artillery was effective against vessels to heat and bubble armor while Naval fire was near-instantaneous at the thousand kilometer distance. All Captains and Admirals throughout the galaxy knew that 'pressing fringes' with the enemy was the only guarantee way to kill a vessel and ensure a victory, hoping to outlast their opponent. Some even specialized at 'fang ranges', where ship-on-ship collision was a possibility, the five kilometer range being thought suicidal… unless one was a really good pilot.

The round continued to travel towards the Geth Fleet, unobserved and unobstructed.

The SSV Normandy launched its two missiles via the Steele Maneuver, disgorging the heavy munitions with air pressure so as to maintain stealth as the Multi-Fusion Objective Acquisition Batteries were accelerated down the electromagnetic tunnel without the use of the light catapult, keeping its thermal image within the vessel to make use of its Internal Emission Sink technology. Someone had forgotten to design a way for the Normandy to fire its missiles or main cannon and maintain stealth, or perhaps it was physically impossible to do so. Yet Lieutenant (junior grade) Vanessa Steele had bent the rules by ejecting munitions via air pressure, blasting them out as if through an airlock just to showed that she cared enough to say fuck the rules. The Normandy's Gunnery Chief targeted two Heavy Cruisers, aiming for their rudders; where all ships were vulnerable.

The round was now less than three minutes from impact.

The thirty kilogram mass of Depleted Uranium didn't have a sensor suite or communications to see a twin bloom of explosions rocking the Geth Heavy Cruisers as the Motherfucker of all Bombs detonated in the engine compartments and cores of the vessels sitting hundreds of thousand of kilometers apart, the explosions separated by only a few seconds of time, a testament to the Normandy's piloting skills by one Flight Lieutenant Jeff 'Joker' Moreau that so little was needed for a physical adjustment. The MFOAB's had been shot out by air, but then physically launched in vacuum with a mechanical timer; a small addition by First Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko to avoid Geth hacking. The Geth had, at best, a few seconds warning before both cores of their Heavy Cruisers ruptured with the titanic explosions of the Motherfucker of all Bombs, the cores going supercritical in seconds and exploding violently; 'going nova', as most called it. A shockwave of high-gain strong radiation force bloomed at half the speed of light as vessels near the event were washed over with blinding radiation, sensors turning to static as shields fizzled nearly instantly with megaSeverts of radiation bathing the Geth vessels in highly-ionized radiation.

The Geth never knew what hit them. Not from the MFOABs. And certainly not from a shot launched from around a world.

The Depleted Uranium round struck the Geth Light Cruiser at fifty kilotons of TNT; three times the force of the Hiroshima Bomb known as Little Boy. Without any kinetic defense thanks to the radiation sweeping through the area from the core detonations from the Heavy Cruisers, the shield emitters down, the round struck the armored hull of the Geth vessel with full unimpeded force. What the Systems Alliance Navy didn't know about the Geth was that, as a synthetic race without the needs of organics, the vessels were rather lightly armored, forgoing the need of oxygen, air pressure, gravity, light, heat, and comfort. For the Light Cruiser, its wealth of defenses laid within its more-advanced cyclic shielding technology, meant to bounce rounds from vessels of equal rate easily; it was never meant to bounce the round from a Dreadnought. Plus, the shield and its emitters were malfunctioning from the ensuing shockwave of the double-destruction of the Fleets' Heavy Cruisers, the bloom of radiation still expanding as the round penetrated hull, splintering plate and spraying metal inward as the hull caved in like tissue paper. The round was hardly slowed down or malformed due to its density as it continued on uncaring, smashing through the superstructure of the vessel, splintering the frame as it continued through into the decks of the Cruiser, plowing through electrical conduits, charging stations, server banks, uplink nodes, and processor cores. The true strike was when the round greeted itself to the Heavy Helium solid fuel tank of the vessel, igniting the megaliters of explosive fuel that powered the sub-luminal thrusters of the Geth ship.

From impact to violent explosion took less than a millisecond. The Geth, even with their billion calculation runtime, didn't know what hit them.

During the rounds' five minute and eighteen second flight, the Mighty Kili had fired forty-three times, once every seven seconds with minor vessel corrections to align itself to the trajectory arc of each shot.

Blinded and without communications due to the destruction of two of its Heavy Cruisers and resulting strong radiation force, the Geth Fleet were unaware of the onslaught as the second round from the Kili opened up a Heavy Destroyer seven seconds after the first struck. The third turned another Light Cruiser into a gutted wreck. The fourth a Heavy Cruiser well within the growing sphere of high-gain radiation, holed and cored, effectively a mobility kill. The fifth another Heavy Destroyer that was sundered, split in half. The Geth never knew that they were being systematically assassinated, sniped from behind a planet, unable to 'see' their vessels being destroyed while also unable to 'talk' to one another as ship after ship was purged by the Mighty Kili. Three hundred and one seconds after the first round was fired, the forty-third and final shot was fired while the first one was still flying towards its destination, the Dreadnought pausing to fire to cool down its main cannon. It had fired enough times to turn a Turian Fleet into shambles, possibly causing even that brave race to retreat.

The Geth never had that option. The Fourth were going to make sure of it.

Twenty-nine vessel were destroyed out right with core detonations, fuel ignitions, or ammunition cook-offs. Another seven were blasted to total ineffectiveness. Seven more were holed and gutted, more path of destruction than vessel. Thirteen vessels were ignited by the destruction of the Heavy Cruisers, too close to the epicenters to survive.

The ninety-five ship Fleet had been reduced to thirty-nine.

They never knew what happened, their sensors static'ed by strong radiation force and their communications snowed over by the force. They were blind. They were mute. The all-knowing, all-seeing synthetic race of the galaxy was left in the dark as to their demise.

They certainly didn't see the Kilimanjaro, flagship of the Alliance Fourth Fleet, lead its battered fleet from around the moon of Vegna into a charge into their position, weapons primed and ready, the survivors of the Geth onslaught at the edge of their proverbial seats to exact vengeance for the losses they had suffered, being led by a Lion. Commodore Shepard intended to go for the throat, and there was no doubt in any Sailors' mind amongst the Fourth that Humanity's First SPECTRE would lead them to victory. It was as Senior Chief Petty Officer Raul Rodriguez said before firing the first retaliatory round.

Payback was a bitch, indeed.

Hundreds of sensors recorded the event that proved to be the cumulation of what would later be known as the "Battle of LaGrange Point Two (Feros)". Damn near all of them belonged to the Alliance Fourth. One was a monitoring probe from the Salarian Union's Special Tasks Group situation just inside Theseus' heliosphere, capturing the light images several hours later. Another was a monitoring device from the Intrinsic Data Services, the Quarian Migrant Fleets' Intelligence Branch, planted on an asteroid to keep Pilgrims connected with their families and Flotilla. A ShadowNet communications relay, never discovered or destroyed by the Geth, monitored the battle in near-real time, being situated in LaGrange Point Five, known as the Greek Camp.

But the best 'action' was recorded by none other than Flight Lieutenant Jeff 'Joker' Moreau, Helmsman of the SSV Normandy.

The Normandy was a conglomeration of prototype and theoretical technology when it was built, the hybridization of Turian and Human concepts merged together in an untested craft first drafted on a computer and tested in computer space, as most things were. When it was being built, Naval assessors and designers crammed in as many concepts as they could towards the idea of a 'stealth' vessel, putting in backups that were likely not even plausible for space.

Such as a physical vid-capture recorder with a rather impressive telescopic lens based off the old Hubble telescope.

When the Geth Heavy Cruisers died a cataclysmic death due to the MFOAB's, Moreau had captured the event on camera. When the Geth Fleet was tore apart unseen from shot occurring a percent of an AU away from around a planet, Jeff recorded each and every strike. The decimation of the Geth Fleet had been observed and record. For prosperity's sake, of course.

It didn't hurt that the Flight Lieutenant uploaded the pics and vid onto the ExtraNet through a variety of websites, social media servers, and YouTube with the hashtag #WhaddupBitches several hours after the battle, when systems communications had been restored through a rigged ExtraNet CommBuoy built by Tali'Zorah nar Reyya aboard the SSV Langemarck. It went super-viral in less than an hour, Citadel Space servers physically slowed by the amount of downloads and views of the Alliance Fourth taking on the Geth at near-fringe range, almost suicidally charging right into the middle of their Fleet in what was known to the Systems Alliance Navy as a 'Nelson Drive'; a tactic almost four hundred years old. The Kilimanjaro drove right into the heart of the Geth Fleet, opening up its broadsides and wrecking vessels both port and starboard at the same time. The fifteen remaining vessels of the Fourth followed behind dutifully as missiles and GARDIANs were opened up, battered Human vessels carving up Geth ships as the Mighty Kili led them at Mark Seven; full flank for the Dreadnought, and the maximum speed for many of the injured Human ships. Sailors on every deck of every vessel whooped in glee with every kill made, when a Geth vessel crumpled to their guns, detonated with their missiles, or went up in a growing corona of nova fire. Retaliation was at hand, and every soul of the Sons and Daughters of Terra was exacting every red penny out of the Geth's ass.

It was said that a Turian Admiral watched the video in question seventeen times in a row and deemed it 'bloody brilliant' before yelling at his Helmsman to enter a simulation chamber and try to reenact the scenario. Scuttlebutt on Hierarchy Naval chatrooms said he couldn't after two dozen attempts.

The galaxy watched in awe as a battered Alliance Fleet took on the Geth and came out on top, reducing a force six times their size into a wake of destruction. Helpful commentary from the vessels of the IVY Fleet were inserted in by various members of the Fourth to punctuate kills and maneuvers, especially that of the voice of Humanity's First SPECTRE, Captain Jane Catherine Shepard. What had been a hundred and twenty vessel ended up with the Geth Fleet at a total loss; there had not been one physical survivor. A later military report from Captain Shepard suggested that, with the destruction of the Geth Dreadnought at the get-go, all the Geth software had no uplink storage site to run off to in case of hardware destruction; she had effectively made the Geth mortal. Without that uplink, the Geth Fleet couldn't coordinate as well, nor could it link back to the Consensus to 'escape' a Critical Mission Failure. It was a Total Party Kill, and even when Geth reinforcements arrived minutes after the obliteration of their original fleet, they too found out the hard way that Humanity wasn't about to back down, lay over, and die.

Billions watched the videos, from Humanity, to the Turians, to the Quarians, to the Geth. It played on the Citadel. It played in Omega. It graced social clubs and dive bars. It was talked about around the proverbial water cooler in nearly every environment one could think of. In a war that had been dropped on Humanity's lap and told that it was their problem to deal with, the videos detailing the Battle of LaGrange Point Two showed that Humanity had been vastly underestimated by the other species in the galaxy.

Military analysts, political observers, power players, and the high-and-mighty of the galaxy watched on in wonder at the sight of a bedraggled and battered Fleet abandon caution and take the fight to the enemy, the topic too fresh and too-talked about to be ignored. Turian military strategists called the move bold and daring in hushed tones of awe in their sub-harmonics. Their Salarian counterparts called it too risky, but at the same time praised the maneuvers as original and breathtaking. Those of the political forum expressed their views of taking such a damaged vessel into the heart of enemy territory, so to speak, wondering if any line of communication had been open for negotiation or cessation of hostilities. Military entrepreneurs, those who manufactured arms and components for the various Navies of the galaxy, many of them Sailors at one time or another, could only watch in glee at a battle worth of honor and song was displayed, wondering how much revenue this would generate them; green collars, one and all. The Citadel Council had been directed to view it by the Commandant of the Office of Special Tactics, and for once, Councilor Sparatus Quinlinus had nothing to say about Humanity; in general or as a whole. Aria T'Loak, the Dark Queen herself, watched on with a glass of pria pris wine in hand, watching every maneuver with interest. Vice Admiral Han'Gerrel vas Neema was said to have nearly burst out of his own EnviroSuit in rapacious joy at the sight of the Geth being laid low, shouting himself hoarse in glee as the Heavy Fleet Admiral took the file to study its tactics and incorporate it into his own forces. Lord Marshal Garm Kalador Jor'raddah, High Admiral of the Batarian Hegemony Imperial Navy and the Right Hand of the Glorious One, His Holiness of Kahr'shan and Voice of the Pillars, watched the events with a sense of disquiet; even the Pillars of Strength and his own arrogance failed him as he watched the Alliance Fleet tear the Geth to pieces, knowing one day the Commodore leading that very Dreadnought might very well do the same to him and his fleets. The Lady of the Chamber, Lady Eloa'Varis nar Thessia vas Armali, smiled at the sight of the battle, knowing of the woman who led it; the Aunt of her dear friend Sara Elaine Ryder. Her investment in Humanity's First SPECTRE was certainly being repaid in great dividends as she viewed the battle with great pleasure, showing it to her staff so they too could enjoy.

In the suite of his own personal space vessel, rogue Council Agent Saren Arterius flew in a frothy rage at the sight of yet another plan spoiled by a monkey, learning of the events a day later, well after he had gotten what he needed out of Feros. Like both Eden Prime and Therum, the Geth were to reduce the site of his operations to rubble, covering his tracks and leaving nothing for anyone to investigate his motives or means. They had failed him for the third time.

The videos were broadcast throughout the galaxy. Practically unedited, highly commented on, trope'ed and trolled, with remixed Human dubpop songs dubbed over such as Kenny Loggins' Highway To The Danger Zone, Judas Priests' You've Got Another Thing Coming, or Ludacris' Move Bitch (Get Out Da Way) played to grand effect. Forty-eight galactic hours after the battle? Everyone knew that the galaxy's underdog certainly had bite.

Especially when the Dreadnoughts' Commodore ordered her Helmsman to do an utterly insane, generally thought impossible, normally ground move with the Mighty Kili when facing another Geth Dreadnought generally known as an 'aerial'.

It was normally reserved for gymnasts; a move that was a somersault that involved said athlete to do a running jump-and-cartwheel without their hands touching the ground.

The galaxy watched in awe as someone did it with a two-hundred and thirty-four megagram vessel measuring seven hundred and thirty-two meters over a kilometer-plus long Geth Dreadnought.

It was known throughout the galaxy as the Last Flight of the Kili.

"All hands! Prepare for Nelson Drive!" Captain Jane Catherine Shepard (SAN, N7, OST… Commodore of the Kili) shouted as the Helmsmen of the flight deck of the SSV Kilimanjaro aimed the remnants of the Fourth Fleet straight into the teeth of the Geth Fleet they opposed. It was generally considered a bad idea just to fly straight into the center of a Fleet formation where every vessel could aim at the oncoming threat and blast them silly. But Jannie had seen what the MFOAB had done to that Dreadnought, and she knew what happened to vessels when a core went supercritical and exploded; everything withing a fraction of a percent of an AU had its sensors snowed and its shields practically stripped. The Geth were vulnerable.

And N's were particularly lauded for exploiting weaknesses and vulnerabilities.

"ETA for broadsides, thirty seconds!" Came the voice of Lieutenant Commander Charles Pressley, the Kilimanjaro's XO rang out over the sound of Sailors working hard at their positions, words being traded back and for as information was sent and collected, notations were spotted and passed along, warnings and sightings told to comrade-at-arms. Despite being understaffed, some injured minorly, a few terminals and their dutiful personnel never replaced, never had such a team worked together so well for just one purpose. War was in their hands, vengeance in their blood, and duty called to them as it had never been done before. The last time Humanity had been so outnumbered had been when a dozen Turian Fleets had come to decimate Humanity's only two fleets after they had routed the original fleet attacking Shanxi, having forced them off the battlefield due to damages and loss-of-ship from their devastating missile strikes. It had been the Asari that had come in that day to stop the shadow war the Hierarchy had been waging against the unknown species, literally flying in between both groups to prevent a further escalation of force. There were no Asari craft that day to stop what was to come.

Not that the Alliance Sailors would have stopped; they had lost too much to back down now, fallen Sailors and vessels urging them on.

The Fourth flew valiantly in a singular column straight towards the Geth, one vessel behind another, with just enough distance that the fusion thrusters of the leading vessel didn't damage the one following it. It was known as the Nelson Drive; where the flagship took the lead and the punishment, to sail right int the middle of the enemy to lad upon as many shots as possible to as devastating an effect as could be made, enemy fire having to be caution not to hit their own vessels. It was made famous by Lord Horatio Nelson, the Wolf of the Nile, having fought the French nearly four hundred years prior to establish English dominance upon the open seas. His modern-day successor, Jane Shepard, planned to use the very same tactic; split the Geth in half and blast them at both sides at near-fang ranges.

The Kili flew forward at Mark Seven, trailing fifteen vessels behind it; the shield of the Fourth. The IVY Fleets remaining Carrier, the Marco Polo, readied itself with broadside capabilities, having lost all its fighter craft during the initial battle and part of its hull still shattered. The Moscow-Class Stratford-upon-Avon Patrol Cruiser was next, trailing atmo and hydro from its gutted lower decks, the last vestiges of the shot that took out its proverbial hip. The two York-Class Heavy Cruiser Bombers, the Marseilles and the Timbuktu were next in the line, having fully stocked up on missiles and fully loaded every available pod with munitions to fire at everything at once, able to spit out fifty missiles in any direction. The three Nathan James-Class Missile Destroyers, the Hicks, the Doss, and the Lauchland, flew torn and battered, the Doss only armed with LAM-C Imperial fifty caliber deck guns but still willing to fight while the Hicks had two functional missile pods but had rigged its probe launcher to fire missiles as well. The three Hastings-Class Patrol Frigates, the Ypres, the Vimy, and the Langemarck, trailed behind, the Frigates almost falling to pieces but the crews voting unanimously to support their kin and species in driving the Geth out of Theseus Space. The Ranger-Class Corvettes, the Rabbit, the Beetle, the Stingray, the Barracuda, and the Cooper, flew rear to protect the six of the Fleet and to tug the Frigates if their engines were to fail, their Gatling gun-like micro-missile launchers able to saturate a vessel with a great deal of explosives quickly. And at the rear of the Geth Fleet, having moved out of the powerful double-wake of the demise of the two Geth Heavy Cruisers it had killed, was the SSV Normandy, primed and ready to fire upon any escaping vessels.

When Fleet met Fleet, it was a head-on collision.

The SSV Kilimanjaro had been built to stand toe-to-toe with a modern Turian Dreadnought, military advisers and planners finding ways to create a ship that would go up against the galactic peacekeepers that had once decimated one of their most successful colonies, thinking it the 'monkey homeworld'. They had studied the designs of the other Dreadnoughts of the galaxy's navies, looked upon the course of Human history, and took a page out of the Blue Water Navy's tactical handbook and made a modern day equivalent.

It was called the broadside.

No other species had the advantage, considering the only other species to develop nautical warfare had been the Asari, and even then it had been lackluster compared to the absolute wars Humanity had waged in its waters. The Everest-Class Dreadnoughts did not deploy the broadside, for they were built when Humanity was alone in the galaxy supposedly. And despite the many Dreadnoughts that the Council species were allowed to have (the Turian Hierarchy alone had thirty-seven), no new keel had been laid for the Asari, the Salarian, or the Turian Navies as they had filled their quotas under the Treaty of Farixen, and were left with the option of scrapping a multi-gigaCredit vessel and laying down the foundations and economic ruin of designing and crafting a more-modern equivalent. Oh, some had ripped open a few spaces on their decks for 'side guns', but they were weak pitiful things that were hardly worth the cost or effort.

In the galaxy of naval straight-on fighting, it was solely Humanity that fired to its flanks to devastating effect.

The main cannon still cooling off after its maximum allotted amount of shots, as well as its emergency amount, had been used against the Geth Fleet, the Kilimanjaro entered into the sphere of the Geths' naval posture, breaking into their formation with the intent to obliterate. Its first double-sided broadside lanced out as LAM-C deck guns, GUARDIAN laser artillery, and missiles were fired with extreme prejudice. The Kilimanjaro possessed one-hundred and fifty six perpendicular side cannons measuring at ten kilogram throw weight with a two hundred meter acceleration tunnel to bring a round at a thousand kilometers per second, giving it enough force to equal the Little Boy bomb of World War II; the nickname of the broadside cannons. Of the Little Boy cannons, fifty-four were operational on the starboard side, while only thirty were functional on the port side. Every one of them were already loaded with ten kilogram Depleted Uranium rounds, the tunnels charged and ready, and the Gunner Divisions pumped and ready to go.

When the signal came from the Gunnery Chief of the Kili, all hell broke loose as eight-hundred and forty kilograms of ship-killing power erupted at the same time as Gunners fired to each side of the Dreadnought, mass accelerated rounds, focused laser beams, and missiles blooming forth in a drive that would have made the Wolf of the Nile proud.

Rounds impacted upon targets to either side of the Kilimanjaro as the Dreadnought flew right through the middle, never deviating. Shields were down on all vessels from the core detonations of the Heavy Cruisers, and there was no protection from the might of those Little Boys as they flew towards their destinations, each target picked with reverent hands by Sailors willing to risk their lives in vengeance. Like the Blue Water Navies of old, where the ships were made of wood and its men out of steel, their modern-day successors proved their mettle by never giving up or giving in despite damage and loss. All hands that could eek out that extra gram of performance out of the battered Kili did so in many ways; power distribution to keep the weapons fully charged, de-thermalization to keep anything from melting, pumps and pipes calibrated to maximum efficiency to keep the core going strong, and the Watches on top of their positions to aid their fellow Sailors in their efforts, whether to watch a screen or to jury-rig a repair. There was no finer battle to be had than to beat a foe who so seemingly to be unbeatable in numbers, and to be brought so low by Human ingenuity.

And lots of fucking munitions.

Rounds impacted hulls as the broadsides targeted five vessels; three to the 'larboard, and two to port, Little Boys angled as the Dreadnought rocketed by. Two Destroyers and three Frigates suffered the abuse of the strikes as they were impacted multiple times through a series of rounds, bombarding the ships with naval artillery. The Kili itself shuddered with the force of its own wrath as guns were fired and auto-reloaded, eyes on the heatsinks of the Little Boys and the LAM-Cs as GARDIAN Arrays chewed through armor plating of nearby vessels as accelerated fifty caliber rounds pierced and penetrated hulls, if only just. A dozen missiles landed on targets pinpointed by Sailor and computer as GUNGNIR met Geth explosively, the penetrating warhead impacting against hulls and puked forth to rupture on the inside of the vessel with its one point two kilogram anti-matter warhead, annihilating everything within a fifty cubic meter area. The Kili continued on course as its Commodore eyed the incoming information collected by the ships' affected sensors, the high-gain radiation of the destruction of the Geth vessels effecting it, but not nearly enough to stop her Sailors for letting the Geth know how they truly felt.

Three seconds later, the Mighty Kili belched out another devastating broadside, taking out another four vessels; two Cruisers and two Heavy Destroyers. Gunners engaged smaller craft as missiles were reloaded and fired, the crew in the hum of battle, hitting their groove. Everyone wanted in on the actions, and nobody was disappointed as the Kili drove on, leaving debris fields and shattered hulls in its wake.

The SSV Marco Polo, tailing the flagship, entered the engagement area with its own broadsides, a mere fraction of what the Kili possessed. Having lost all its fighter craft and pilots defending the IVY Fleet from the Geth's initial strike, men and women fired anything and everything the Polo possessed for those seventy-five brave pilots that daringly flew at Geth vessels in a desperate gamble to protect their brothers and sisters in Blue. Every one of them had died fighting back, and their ship-borne brethren were going to make it right by making sure that Hell would be fully populated with the scraps of their enemies as deck guns and missiles blossomed from both port and starboard, ensuring that everything that the Kili struck was undeniably dead. One lucky LAM-C Gunner got a hit on a Patrol Frigates' main thruster, piercing its fuel lines and causing it to detonate a few seconds later, much to the commemoration of his fellow Gunners' Mates and his own Captain. It was his first vessel kill, and he vocally declared it wouldn't be his last.

When the Kili fired its third broadside, the Cruisers were firing at longer-ranged targets, getting the smaller Geth spacecraft that were less affected by the nova blast of its Heavy Cruisers, the Marseilles and the Timbuktu built to be shipkillers, while the Moscow-Class Stratford engaged closer targets with its shorter-ranged munitions. The battlefield was getting clogged with the debris of Geth vessels, ships coming apart violently by explosions or disintegrations as the three Cruisers added their own violence to the fray. Missiles belched forth from the York-Class Cruisers while the Stratford pitched its bow while drifting in a diagonal to engage an equal-weight vessel with its main cannon, drilling a Geth Cruiser amidships and sending it reeling before the Tim put a missile right into the very same hole and command detonated it right in the middle. The vessel was violently ripped in half, the aft section going catastrophically as its Heavy Helium ignited and turned that section of the ship into metal confetti, the bloom of fire washing over the tumbling bow and melting the armored plating and exposed decks. The Strat didn't take any chances as it put a broadside into the wreck and shattered its remains.

The fourth broadside was executed as the Kili flew into the very heart of the Geth formation; equidistant on all sides, surrounded by Geth that had yet to engage. There were a few survivors that hadn't gone with the MFOABs' result on the Heavy Cruisers, and the Kili's Gunners helped themselves, correcting that mistake.

The IVY Fleet's Destroyers came into the fray with little for them to target save with their missiles. The Hicks, Doss, and Lauchland make up for that deficiency by locking onto target any Destroyer-Class or better and unleashing their GUNGNIR Odin Spear's at a variety of distances, some of them taking as long as five seconds to put steel-on-target. Some of the targets were struck multiple times over a period of several seconds, and usually the last missiles were only further obliterating debris fields where the Geth once flew. They were righteous kills, confirmed on the spot.

The Vimy, the Langemarck, and the ailing Ypres came in right behind the Destroyers, lasing everything that had already been shot and torn up, ensuring no survivors. Of the remaining vessels of the IVY Fleet, the three remaining Hastings-Class Frigates were in the worst shape of all, barely held on together by emergency repair and emergency prayer. Yet not one man or women voiced concern in joining the drive as the Frigates proved themselves to be as much of a threat as their vessel predecessors of old; the Littoral Combat Ship of the 21st Century and the Sixth-Rate Frigate of the Napoleonic Era. GARDIANs spewed forth their infrared death at tumbling wrecks and shattered remains, causing more detonations of any potential survivors as one planned missile was leveled at lone Heavy Cruiser left in the field specifically for the Ypres; the same vessel that destroyed the Francis Drake, and the wife of the Ypres' Commanding Officer. Ensign Novalee 'Nova' Reid stood aside for a brief moment as Commander Blaine Clark launched the missile himself, avenging his wife and the Drakes' eleven-hundred member crew as the Heavy Cruiser, already damaged from the eruption from its sister Cruisers, took the missile right to the chin and blasted the bow in an implosion that reduced the entire mass of the vessel by a third. Three seconds later, the Polo systematically avenged its sister and gored the vessel with everything available on its port side, rounds, lasers, missiles, and broadside reducing the last surviving Geth Heavy Cruiser into metal chunks that even LADAR couldn't pick up anymore.

Clark went back to his post after thanking his Gunnery Chief for the fine aim, and went back to commanding his crew, while the crew of the Polo shouted For The Drake! in commemoration before going back to killing Geth.

The Kili fired its sixth broadside, raining Depleted Uranium upon the Geth, its Commodore and XO working in tandem to keep the targets coming as its Command Staff stayed on top of their duties, keeping any issue the vessel had managed. The Dreadnought was rapidly overheating from the overclocked guns, and the Gunners were firing through their ammunition and energy supply at a prodigious rate. The thermalization panels on the vessel, some cracked and damaged, some not working at all, couldn't keep the vessel cooled enough; ignored by order of the Commodore. The Geth Fleet was unprepared for retaliation, and giving them time would only mean the death of the Fourth and the success of the Geths' objective. No one person in the IVY Fleet would let that come to pass. Two years stationed at an Alliance spaceyard refitting and retrofitting a Dreadnought was a much better option than letting the Geth get away with it all. Every Sailor wanted the Geth to pay, and they were going to do just that to the very best of their abilities.

It was as once said in a movie a hundred and fifty years prior, only Men are brave. And the men and women of the Fourth proved it.

The Ranger-Class Corvettes entered into the battle with a spray of missiles, three being launched from each of the five Corvettes, blasting two Destroyers on the far end of the Geth Fleet before even the Kili reached that far ahead. They had been given the rearguard as targets, giving the little vessels something worthy to fight against after all the larger vessels had demolished everything in the front of the formation and gutted the Fleet like a wolf on a rabbit. The crews of the automobile-named vessels cheered at their own kills as missile pods were reloaded by Gunner's Mates and fired again, reigning destruction from afar while one vessel, the SSV Barracuda, blasted a two-hundred year old song sharing the same name after a female-led band named Heart, much to the enjoyment of its crew. Its captain, a mere Lieutenant Commander, smiled viciously at the sight of her command enjoying themselves as they took down Geth like professionals, knowing that her men and women would remember this day for the rest of their lives.

Broadsides were fired as quickly as possible, missiles were launched as fast as they could be reloaded, LAM-C machine guns fired until the barrels were near melting, and GARDIAN Lasers with power supplies so exhausted they couldn't boil an egg continued to pillage the Geth with fury and wrath, not one Sailor ever thinking of letting up. The Kili was near the end of the Geth Fleet as it delivered its eighth and final broadside, turning three Destroyers into shattered wrecks as GUNGNIR missiles streaked throughout space to detonate against unprotected hulls, vaporizing all that was inside. Geth ammunition cooked off as fuel went up catastrophically, vessels blowing to pieces in clouds of metal shards, the electronic death cries of the Geth only heard in the digital world. No mercy was ever asked for, suggested, or given as the IVY Fleet speared right through the heart of the Geth, and like a spear, pierced it fully and lethally. By the time the last Ranger-Class Corvette had exited the Geth's former sphere of influence, there wasn't one Geth vessel left intact. Lieutenant (junior grade) Vanessa Steele commented that one could fit the largest piece available 'into a bucket', the totality and overkill having been that complete. When the Fourth finally activated their bow-facing thrusters to slow their drive, meeting up on the far side of their enemies position and rejoining the Normandy where it had stood sentinel from any vessel that dared to flee its well-deserved wrath, every man and woman on the Fourth now knew a feeling more intoxicating than any other.

Victory.

It only lasted two minutes when LADAR Technicians throughout the Fleet began to cry out of vessel acquisitions at a distance of an Astronomical Unit, heading towards the Fourth at Mark Nine, numbering twenty.

And at the very lead was a Geth Dreadnought.

"Commodore! Multiple bogey signals coming in at one AU, moving at Mark Nine… on an intercept course!" The voice of Petty Officer (Third Class) Aubrey van de Mare rang out over the CIC of the SSV Kilimanjaro, the cheers and celebrations going on upon the Bridge of the Mighty Kili dying as the thought of the impossible accomplished died away. "I'm reading two-zero bogeys… and a Dreadnought at the fore!" The Yeoman looked up from her station, her eyes wide enough to tell even through her visored helmet.

Jannie was afraid this was going to happen.

The Geth Fleet had been idle the whole time the Fourth had been nursing its wounds and repairing itself, and she had been wondering when reinforcements would arrive. She was pretty damn certain she was correct about the role of a Geth Dreadnought, so it shouldn't have been a surprise that the Geth would send another one.

No doubt the Geth were getting a full view of what happened to the original fleet, and were likely a little peeved. If machines could get mad.

"All ships, cast away and return to Vegna! Now!" The Commodore called out as the Kili's holographic display showed the incoming contacts and their Estimated Time of Arrival as nine minutes and forty seconds. That would be enough time to put the planet and the moon between the Fourth and the Geth, but now they had problems. Her shambled fleet had put everything in the effort to ravage the Geth, and fresh troops were now in the way. Twenty pristine Geth vessels being led by a Dreadnought were going to slaughter them out in open space. They needed time to formulate a plan now that they were out of MFOAB's. Fourteen vessels turned about to head back to the safety of the moon Vegna, including the SSV Normandy, but Jannie saw two signals that weren't turning away.

The Ypres and the Langemarck.

"Blaine! Greg! Get your vessels aweigh and get to port, on the double!" Shepard called out over her console after toggling the vessels in question, signaling them over the BattleNet. Their velocities indicated that they were drifting, moving at less than Mark One. That could really mean only one thing.

"Kili Actual, it's Ypres Actual." The voice of Commander Blaine Clark's voice came over the Alliance Secured Communications BattleNet, his tone… resigned. "Spine's gone. We've lost all maneuverability." That announcement gutted Jannie on the spot; the ship was permanently dead-in-the-water now. The repairs they had made to fight the Geth had held on for as long as necessary, but the strain had taken the band-aid'ed wound and likely made it worse. The SSV Ypres would be no more no matter what.

"Captain! It's Specialist Zorah!" The Quarian's panicked voice came in over a din of klaxon alarms. "We've got a coolant leak in the main line that I'm patching as we speak! I need five minutes to recharge the core… but no one on the Bridge is responding! I sent one of the Bosun's Mates to find out why!" The SSV Langemarck was essentially dead in the water for the next ten to fifteen minutes. Minutes they didn't have.

"Rescue ops?" Jannie looked to Lieutenant Commander Charles Pressley, who merely shook his helmeted head, answering that question. With the Geth Fleet coming at them full flank, there wouldn't be enough time. Any ship that came to pull of the crew would likely be obliterated. Both her and Charles had stood and listened to Lieutenant Vanessa Steele propose to the Ypres' Gunnery Chief over a SkypeLink, asking Ensign Novalee Reid to marry her. The redhead had cut the conversation short because there were more pressing issues at the time, but she had overheard the conversation. "I'd rather mourn what I had than what I didn't do," Vanessa had proclaimed, and Jannie knew exactly what the Lieutenant meant. Those men and women kept their ships together through hellacious conditions, and the ships were finally giving out, having given their all. Now a Geth Fleet being led by a Dreadnought was bearing down on them, and those crews were as good as dead. Normandiers who were off-duty had volunteered to board the Ypres and the Langemarck to help get the vessels aweigh after the destruction of the Geth Dreadnought, making Shepard proud of her crew who stepped up to help their fellow Sailors. But if those ships couldn't move, the approaching Fleet would obliterate them at its leisure.

Not. One. Fucking. More.

"Ensign Harbeck," the Commodore got the Kili's CAP/Tactical Officer's attention, "have you ever done an aerial on a Trident?"

"Yessss…" The pilot replied, his tone confused. There were no A-61 Trident Fighter Craft on the Dreadnought.

"I need you to take over the Helm and prepare to execute a gymnasts' aerial with the Kili."

The entirety of the CIC of the SSV Kilimanjaro went silent save for the very surprised 'holy shit' from Senior Chief Petty Officer Raul Rodriguez as the Trident Pilot abandoned his station and ran for the Helm towards the bow of the Bridge, swearing up a storm.

"XO? Full flank, intercept course, right down the throat of that Dreadnought." Humanity's First SPECTRE ordered as she looked from Pressley to Rodriguez. "I need one shot, so I need you to overclock every EM gate we got to beyond safety protocol, on my authority. Melt the fucking cannon if we have to." Jannie was already typing in the emergency safety override for the Dreadnoughts' power governor on its main gun; technically that was illegal by the Treaty of Farixen. Well, she was a Council Agent. "Ops? Draw power out of everything else save thrust, the main cannon, sensors, and the bow shield emitters. Rob and rape every Watt of power we've got to keep those shields going, Yeoman. Suck the juice out of datapads and your OmniTools if you have to." Petty Officer (Third Class) Aubrey van de Mare just nodded her helmeted head nervously. "Engineering!" Shepard called out over her Console. "I need you to de-atmo the entirety of the Orlop Deck and the Lower Gun Deck after evacuating it post-haste. Then I want you to flood the Aft Hold with all the air you just stole. Pressurize it as much as it can hold."

"You're about to do what I think you're about to do?" Pressley responded first, sounding… amused. "Thrusters and vent to launch us?"

"When I say jump… I'm going to make the whole Goddamn ship jump." Shepard replied, eliciting a 'Madre de Dios' from Chief Rodriguez as he crossed himself.

"ETA to intercept, four minutes and thirteen seconds at Mark Seven." The XO announced, his tone assured. "Helm? Punch it."

"Punching." The voice of Ensign Jeff Harbeck came over the intercom, his tone cool under pressure as he piloted the Dreadnought, quickly accelerating the Kili to full-flank. "Want me to avoid incoming fire or take it on the chin?"

"Avoid." The redhead replied, knowing that the Geth Dreadnought measured something over a kilometer in length, almost a fifty percent increase in length compared to the Kili. That meant it could accelerate its rounds at a faster speed, delivering more force. They would need to survive playing chicken with a Dreadnought in order for this rash plan to work. As far as Jannie was aware, no one had ever tried to even attempt to do what she was about to do with a Corvette, much less a three-quarters of a kilometer Dreadnought. She didn't doubt that the move would likely cause severe damage to the vessel, but looking at a Geth Fleet in the teeth, in perfect health and without any heavy weapons to back them up?

Nope, time to be unconventional and make shit up on the fly.

"Commodore? Thirty seconds to full evac of Orlop and Lower Gun Decks." The Kili's Chief of Engineering spoke through the intercom on Jannie's Console, following her orders without asking what or why. "We're going to start to run in the red in about three minutes, ma'am. Recommend emergency hydro-dump into the system."

"Denied. We'll need the power for the shields and the thrusters." Shepard clicked off the intercom, probably just leaving a Lieutenant Commander and Masters' in Engineering with a dropped jaw. "What's the time of impact and rate of fire for that Geth Dreadnought?"

"Considering its about the same size and likely the weight of the Destiny Ascension?" Charles had an answer for everything; God bless the man! "Sixty-one hundred meters per second velocity, and twelves seconds per shot. I give it two light-minutes before they start firing." A light-minute was pretty standard for an opening salvo along with the effort to move forward and close distance where dodging and evading were near-impossible. And both ships were flying towards one another in a head-on collision, meaning that time would be essentially halved.

"Tab it and count it on the display, XO. Nav, keep us on target and aim right for their bow." The redhead told First Lieutenant Matthew Dawson, who was nodding nervously. Two clocks were running on the holographic image over the CIC; a Time-to-Target indicating when they would 'impact' the Geth vessel, and a Time-to-Impact indicating when its shots would reach the Kili. Timing would be everything. "All hands! This is Commodore Shepard." Jannie activated the 1MC, distributing a ship-wide announcement. "Geth reinforcements have arrived with twenty vessels being led by a Dreadnought.

"And we're taking that bitch out." The Lion reported.

"Everyone, lock and strap yourselves in, and prepare for a bumpy ride." The redhead toggled the 1MC off, ignoring a request call from Commander Mark Vanderloo, probably about to asked her what the hell she was thinking, taking the Geth on in a singular vessel that was running on its last legs.

"Three and a half minutes." Pressley called out, his voice calm as the XO kept his attention to the task at hand while Jannie overheard vox's amongst the crew praying quietly; for victory or salvation, she couldn't say.

"Gunnery, keep an eye out for thermal signatures."Shepard reminded Senior Chief Rodriguez, who wordlessly nodded, the entirety of his focus on just that.

"Three minutes."

"Commodore, this is Chief Engineer Samuels. Aft Hold pressurized at twelve atmos." The Kili's Chief of Engineering reported over the intercom. "Two and a half minutes until we're running in the red."

"Noted." The redhead was already logging in her password for the emergency command safety override to emergency vent the Aft Hold through the Keel Cargo Bay door. One didn't just open doors in space with atmo and lives in it unless one were very desperate or very insane.

All things considered, Jannie was pretty sure she fit in the latter category.

"Two minutes." Pressley called out.

"They're firing!" Gunnery Chief Rodriguez shouted out, obviously detecting the thermal bloom of a main gun firing from the Dreadnought. With a vessel going at Mark Nine, and firing a sub-lum round already accelerated due to the vessel, it would only add to its speed and impact. Probably disastrously. "Time to impact… thirty-eight seconds." Jannie did the calculations in her head; the Geth had the opportunity to fire ten shots before both vessels collided. Would they fire during the next twelve seconds, or would they wait to see what would happen when round and Dreadnought met?

Jannie noted that the CIC's holographic display noted that the Normandy was providing assistance to the SSV Ypres, no doubt on Mark's order. Good man.

"Captain, it's Specialist Zorah." The Quarian came over the intercom, the Pilgrims' tone… subdued. "Leak is patched and I'm recharging the core, but…" nineteen seconds to impact, "one of the patches on the Bridge gave out during the drive. Bridge crew is gone, sucked into the void, Ancestors watch over them and guide them home. I don't exactly know who is in charge right now."

Six Sailors had crewed that Bridge… one of them being the Normandy's own First Lieutenant Gregory Roger Adams.

Thirteen seconds to round impact.

"Helm, prepare to juke port, and hold onto your gullets!" Shepard called out over the ships' 1MC, letting her crew know that they were going to be feeling very shitty in a few seconds. There hadn't been another salvo from the Dreadnought since the first round fired. The Geth were playing it safe.

Good.

Three seconds to impact.

"NOW!"

The entire ship shuttered as it was forced eighty-four meters to the port side, almost everyone being jerked starboard from the force. The overclocked docking thrusters burst from the output, three of the eighteen catching on fire as another seven went offline for various malfunctions. That would be the last maneuver to port they would do.

"Minute twenty."

"Geth are firing again!" Rodriguez called out, a little less panicky this time. "Twenty-one seconds." The Geth made a mistake, opening up as early as they did, Jannie thought cruelly. They needed to be closer. Much closer.

"Helm, prepare to duck." Jannie announced to Ensign Harbeck before typing in a connection. "Specialist Zorah? Take command of the Langemarck with whomever you have left, and get that Frigates' ass off the battlefield on the double, Misses. Get out and paddle if you have to." Shepard closed the connection after she heard the glum Aye-Aye from Tali, no doubt the Quarian feeling horrible for the lost of crew aboard the ship; something more significant than even what Humans perceived, as Jannie understood it.

"Third shot!" The Gunnery Chief called out, twelve seconds right after the second. Charles had nailed it on the button. The third shot was aimed right for them, and the Dreadnought was rapidly advancing towards them as the Kili went full flank with the core going near-critical as they closed distance, intending to play chicken with a Dreadnought as they passed right by knife range and headed towards talon range.

Three seconds to round impact.

"DUCK!"

It was as if a giant had kicked them all in the ass. Hard. Everything loose went flying upwards as restraints were strained as the Kilimanjaro dropped sixty-two meters, half of its dorsal docking thrusters quitting during the burn, and two rupturing, leaking Heavy Helium as the ship shook violently, metal groaning in protest throughout the Dreadnought.

The wake of the passing Dreadnought round was close enough that metal trembled and cavatated with its presence.

"Jesus." Charles breathed out, taking a deep breath at the knowledge of the near-miss. The damn round probably missed them by meters… perhaps less. "Fifty-seven seconds, ma'am."

"Third shots' following the second one. Automatic miss." Raul inputted, trying to wipe his helmeted brow but unable to do so. "They haven't fired again."

"They're bracketing us." Jannie replied, nodding her head. "They know we can't keep dodging, and they have the time." The rest of the Geth Fleet was more or less behind the Dreadnought, incapable of firing without damaging their lead ship, and unable to shift port or starboard fast enough to engage effectively, either slowing them down or not getting enough clearance. Likely, the Dreadnought figured it was enough to pulverize one little, battered Human Dreadnought. "Helm? One eighty barrel roll."

The Kili shook from the strain, already having suffered two powerful thruster maneuvers that were damaging the ship to avoid taking a Geth Dreadnoughts' punch to the chin, and now rotating as to fly upon its back. The Geth might figure that the next maneuver would be to starboard.

"They're firing." Raul gulped as a datapad fell to the ceiling of the Bridge, as well as a few other miscellaneous items that had been left unsecured. Sometimes the inertia dampeners helped with the feeling of vertigo, but this time the Kili had turned them off, sacrificing their power for the main cannon. They literally had one shot, and they were going to make it count.

"Bet you it goes wide to starboard." Jannie's smile was hidden by her helmet, as she looked to Charles as the third shot passed them by on the same trajectory as the second; above them. The groan of metal as the concussive force of its passing was a little alarming, but the ship held together. It was almost as if the Kili wanted this just as bad as its Commodore, holding it together just a little bit longer.

"Time to impact, fifteen seconds." They were now in talon range.

"Helm, hold course." Jannie briefly wondered if the Geth were starting to panic now, seeing a Dreadnought barreling right towards them like the Hammer of the Gods. Their lead vessel certainly hadn't altered course, something the Level Three Council Agent was counting on; playing chicken against something that didn't feel fear. Why would the Geth need to divert course?

Why indeed?

"Forty seconds." Lieutenant Commander Pressley kept count, his voice as stoic as always. At just over a light-minute apart, the vessels were rapidly approaching one another at a force that would reach Mark Sixteen; one point six times the speed of light. Jannie didn't even know the statistical force that would cause other than it would shatter both ships and cause them to go core critical almost instantly and simultaneously. She doubted the Geth thought it would come to that.

Only Men were brave, after all.

"Five seconds to impact." Rodriguez called out, whispering a prayer as the Dreadnought shot approached them at a speed of over six thousand meters per second as they themselves traveled at two hundred and ten thousand meters per second. "C'mon, baby, you can do this…"

The shot passed by without any need of maneuvering; it had gone wide to starboard, just as Jannie had predicted.

"Now they'll get sloppy."

"Geth are firing! Ten seconds!" Rodriguez kept to his duty, his voice belying his emotions; he was afraid. Next to him, Petty Officer van de Mare whimpered loud enough to bleed through her helmets' vox as they began to approach fang range to a vessel approaching at Mark Nine while they themselves sped towards them at Mark Seven.

"Hold course!" This one might be a miss, this one might be in the chin. She was going to save those port thrusters for the very last, and leave the keel thrusters for the grand finale.

"Thirty seconds and closing." The XO announced as the Kili continued to rocket towards the enemy, never straying from its path other than to avoid being struck by the enemy's main cannon. In the game of chicken, it was the first one that flinched that generally lost.

"Three seconds to impact!"

"ALL HANDS! BRACE!"

…nothing.

"The fuck? They missed? THEY MISSED!" First Lieutenant Matthew Dawson laughed out loud, slapping the Podium in front of him in glee. "You bluffed the Geth! I'm never playing poker with you, Commodore!"

"Twenty-five seconds." Pressley kept count, his eyes on the displays of the CIC, his veteran eyes keeping tabs on everything. If they survived this, Jannie would fully recommend him for promotion and pin the silver oak leaf to his uniform herself.

"Gunnery? Clock our gun at one hundred and fifty percent." That was the absolute maximum the main cannon could fire, overpowering its electromagnetic gates, mass tunnel, and light catapult. It could only sustain it for a period of about thirty seconds before the cannon went supercritical and began to melt and fracture, rendering it inoperable. Yet overclocking it would effectively double the force of their shot, equaling to a hundred kilotons of TNT; almost as powerful as a Wyominix-Class Dreadnought. Firing a round through an overclocked canon would damage it enough that port would be needed to fix the damages. They would literally only have one shot at this, and one shot only.

And Jannie knew exactly where she was going to put that round.

"Helm, charge port thrusters, and prepare to juke on my command." Jannie's green eyes were only on the displays, the trigraphic holograms depicting the Kilimanjaro as it approached the Geth Dreadnought, the scale growing smaller as the vessels got closer.

"Fifteen seconds."

"Fire at us, you son of a bitch!"

At thirteen seconds until vessel impact, the Geth Dreadnought did just that.

"Three seconds to impact!" Rodriguez practically squeaked out as they fully entered into fang range of a Dreadnought; the point of no return. Shepard waited until the last possible second.

"HELM!"

Everything shifted to starboard… again. Hard. Crew members were jostled as the wake of the round passed within mere meters of the Kilimanjaro as it drove forward hard, never slowing down or turning about. Thermal plating and hull were buckled and cracked from the near-proximity of the Dreadnoughts' fire, rippling along the starboard side as the Geth missed once more in the last shot the Dreadnought would ever take.

The synthetic race had made a critical error; it had tried to conventionally fight an unconventional warrior, it had tried to outguess an N.

"Damn that pilot has nerves of titanium." Pressley replied with a deep breath. "Ten seconds."

"Harbeck…"

"Nine…"

"Ready Keel…

"Eight…"

"…thrusters. Gunnery…"

"Seven…"

"…lock target and…"

"Six…"

"…fire at my com…"

"Five…"

"…mand. ALL CREW…"

"Four…"

"…PREPARE FOR COM…"

"Three…"

"…BAT JUMP BADGE…"

"Two…"

"…AND GODSPEED!"

"One…"

"JUMP!"

Author's Note: IVY Fleet? Prepare for glory!

Who's sweating?

I mention that the Nelson Drive is where Lord Nelson basically charges a Fleet formation in a singular column. This isn't true all, and not at all what Nelson did. He, in fact, did the opposite; he split up his fleets so he could hit them at both sides, port and starboard, decimating them quickly.

"Space is big… really big." - Douglas E. Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

A fan of mine (SEVORIS!) reminded me of this little fact that weapons fire travels at a percent of the speed of light. Light hits Earth from the sun in 8 1/3 minutes. 813 minutes an AU is a real long time (600 minutes is ten hours, so 13 hours and 33 minutes at 'max' range). So I invented distances that are close, closer, and 'the white of their eyes' close. This use to be very true in Blue Water Wood Navy, where ships use to bring about next to a vessel to destroy it, or in the Romans' case, physically ram them with the bowspirit. Ramming speed on a ship? Well, it worked for Picard, right?

If you feel the need to yell or beg about the next chapter, then my work here is satisfactory. I wonder if anyone in the FF'dom has anything like this? Not that I've seen. Some naval battles? Yes (cough cough, LogicalPremise). An entire chapter devoted to a singular battle, be it two drives? I don't know. Don't think so, but there's a ton of stories in here.I wanted to go with unique. Pretty sure I succeeded. Thanks to LogicalPremise and his wonderful series Of Sheep And Battle Chicken for having actual Naval battles (which, I shouldn't be surprised out of a former Submariner). A lot of what I did here was inspired from his work and his service with the US Underwater Navy.

I promised you a real space fight. Now sign this POD order here and you can get your next chapter delivered right to your device.