Chapter 6
Edited by a person of many names Blood Raven AKA TimedRaven117. Go check out his story Mass Effect: X-Com Theory!
TFS Vanker, Shanxi, 2657GS, April/25/2329 AD
Albiraka sat on the bridge with the rest of the crew watching the main screen as one of his security officers tried to interrogate the "Skinnie". So far they had gotten nothing out of him, as the language barrier was, as expected, proving to be an infuriating obstacle. However they were learning things from the bodies of his fallen comrades.
The "Skinnies" seemed to range from 7 to 9 feet tall and were thin, which was probably why they were called a term he was starting to think was a special slur, like the Batarian "four eyes", or Quarians "suit rats", and had thick leathery greyish skin. Their finger and toes were clawed and they had bone protrusions on their shoulder and elbows, and on at least one of the bodies, the spine as well. Their head was topped with five bone horns and on the sides of their mouth there were two pairs of protruding mandible tusks. The top pair seemed to be able to move, while the bottom pair seemed to be split between non moving tusks, or a bit of extra flesh. It was possible this was a way to tell the difference between ages groups or a racial separation within the species, but without a greater sample size it meant nothing.
The face of the skinnie was hard to describe, they had no upper lip, no perhaps it was better to say their upper lip was composed of a wall of solid teeth, which was kinda odd considering they did have a lower lip. The last piece of information they had managed pry from the corpses was that the Skinnies had two small black eyes and nostrils holes on their forehead between the eyes.
Their equipment was telling as well, their guns seemed to be chemical combustion based like the Terrans, though the bullets in them were tipped with various substances that were most likely poisons or other dangerous contaminants, like plutonium or anticoagulants, and they carried a electrofied staff on their back as a hand to hand weapon.
Their suits showed that they were natives to a much hotter climate, that they were able to breath both methane and oxygen and got the most out of a mixture of the two. This species seemed to be an outlier like the Volus, with that discovery and he doubt it would be the last they find from the bodies. In fact a new one was discovered as he looked at the screen. The Skinnie sitting across from his officer started convulsing. His officer stood up and tried to help but the skinnie was already dead. By the time a guard and medical officer could rush in to help the skinnie, it was too late.
Shanxi, crash site, April/25/2329 AD
Jack Harper laid prone, on top of a hill as he looked through his old snoopers, binoculars with heat, night vision, and several other modes, at the alien craft. To say he was surprised it had survived entry in as big a piece as it did was an understatement. It was as big as a Roger Young class frigate, and anything that big built by the Federation became subject to "fragile keel syndrome", and had a chance to break apart long before crashing. He saw signs of battle, a large burnt part of the field, and some crops tattered from gunfire being the biggest clues.
However he doubted the "Turians" were dumb enough to not have a watch, so he flicked his snooper to thermal. It was starting to heat up as the day progressed into the afternoon, but he saw clear enough that red figures popped up, lots of them hidden in and about the field, as well as more positioned in a hastily dug battle line covered by camo netting that matched the terrain. He could also see now that there was a camouflaged observation tower that he had missed on his first look.
"Sneaky bastards aren't you." Jack complemented with a smile. The defences were up to standards, though he doubted the skinnie hovercraft would set off the mines they had hidden under the soil, something he guessed at, since this species knew enough tactics to dig trenches. He reached up to his helmet and sent a signal to the other mercs to make their way up the hill behind him.
Taking a deep breath he uttered, "Here we go," Switching to the provided channel the general had given him he alerted, "This is Terran advisors to Turian vessel Vanker, please report, over."
He gave it a few minute waiting to see if the aliens had heard him and was about to call again when the response came.
"This is Colonel Stradas of the Turian Hierarchy, who is this? And what's this about advisors?"
Letting out a breath he hadn't realized he had been holding, Jack replied, "This is Jack Harper, security contractor employed by the Morita Arms Company and a veteran skinnie fighter, General Williams sent me and a few of my operators to give you intel on the skinnies. He didn't inform you on our presence due to unreliable radio channels."
There was a pause and then the alien stated, "Alright Operator Harper. If you're lying to me the best thing that will happen to you is ending up in our brig." He left the threat hanging, just letting Jack imagine the various fates that could occur.
"Not a problem." Jack muttered before he rose to his full height, raising a hand to show his presence. The other mercs waited for the all clear to be given before they would rise, but as Jack joked, "Visible appendages are the universal sign for 'don't shoot me assholes.'" He waited like this until he saw a figure move out of the fortifications.
And proceeded on a very roundabout, lengthy path, doing several loops before reaching the edge of the field. What he assumed was the safe path through the minefield. Once they reached what he assumed was the edge, the soldier waved Jack over.
Jack started walking down the hill and one by one, his fellow operators started to slowly show themselves from the tall grass, taking care to not look threatening. Jack could see he had half a dozen red dots on his chest and head each.
Jack reached the bottom of the hill and met with the alien who simply spoke, "Follow close." In broken English and led the way back toward the ship. Jack took as much mental notes about how the Turians back looked as he could during that time.
The Alien led them right up to a gash in the ship's hull they were using as an entrance and requested "Weapon here. All please"
Jack shook his head in negative, but looking to two of his soldiers said, "Adams, McDonnell, stay here and check the guns. Eva, Ulrich, try and find a spider hole to dig into, Friedman make sure that launcher is in order, and see if you can't make any special surprises for the Skinnies. Ben with me, keep your pistol and knife."
Looking at the Alien as his squad dispersed to their ordered duties, Adam and McDonnell taking backpacks from their fellow soldiers and assembling specialist equipment and weapons. Eva and Ulrich nodded before going out in search of a high place to dig in, taking with them only Ulrich's pack. And finally Friedman with his mustache smiled as he set about righting his beret and pulling out his favorite rocket launcher, the FedCom 402-ML"Javelin" Missile Launcher, making sure to take note of avenues of likely approach for enemy armor and heavy infantry.
Finally, Jack began to remove all his various weapons and placed them on the provided table; his rifle after ejecting the cartridge in the barrel, clicking on the safety and unloading it. with all its ammunition magazines and ammo cartouche boxes, holding all the ammo he was expected to fight with. Next his pistol and back up pistol, unloading them, setting the safeties and neatly organizing the ammo clips. and Finally he removed both his primary, backup, and boot knife.
Ben Hislop also removed his weapons in a professional and organized matter, leaving only his primary knife and pistol. While the Turian looked like he was going to make a fuss about it, his arm lit up orange and after looking at it and tapping the holograms that appeared, nodded and led them inside where they met a small squad of Turian Soldiers holding rifles and a bit more bulky armor. After receiving one final weapon check, with Ben getting the most thorough examination for any other holdout weapons he may be carrying, they were finally on the move to the command center.
Jack was still wearing his Morita company power suit under his light armor so he wasn't completely helpless if this whole meeting went to Klendathu, but they didn't need to know that. It was not long before he was led into a hallway, where he assumed the commanding officers were waiting for him. The Turian led him to them and then left at their signal, "So which one of you is Colonel Albiraka?" He inquired.
"I am Captain Albiraka." The Turian on the right corrected, it was hard to tell them apart. Jack memorized the facial markings as a matter of course, hoping that would help down the line.
After never receiving a proper introduction for the other Turians in the hallway, Jack produced an encoded message on paper and began to decipher it, "This is the information you need to open a secure channel to General Williams." The Terran informed the Turian, "I'm just gonna presume your Colonel Stradas right?"
The second Turian nodded, "Yes."
"Good to meet you Colonel." Jack flashed a smile then continued, "So what do you want to know about the Skinnies? I got ten gigabytes of data on their forces, weapons, and leadership typically used by them, but I'm sure you want someone who actually fought them to inform you of their special capabilities. "
"You say you fought them before?" Stradas asked, Jack nodded in reply, "How is their military organization? What kind of weapons can we expect? And how likely are they to respond to us destroying one of their scouting patrols?"
"Their military organization is outdated as crap, it's a feudal levy, as a result the training on most their troops are below basic for a military minded army, and as we Humans know, being conscripted to fight means you don't care about the fighting. Give them an avenue to run by and apply a little pressure and unless they are particularly dedicated to this mission they will run. The only ones you need to really worry about are soldiers who wear gold armor, and Venerables who have red heavy armor powered suits. Those are the career soldiers and will fight much harder and do their best to keep the levies in line."
"As for weapons, probably everything the general went over with you already if you haven't been informed of those yet, you generally have Boneshard weapons with poison ammo, constrictor weapons that can be used for capturing, and laser weapons that can flay the flesh from your bone." Taking note that the Turians seemed to have thick skin he added, "Something you may not need to worry about as long as it's not the vehicle mounted version. They have hovercraft which defeat the purpose of your minefield out there if it's set off by weight by the way, and they tend to mount mass driver weapons on their hovercraft as crude tanks, they aren't much better than an IFV."
"As for how likely they are to respond to the destruction of a scouting party, likely nothing more than what they were planning already. From what I understand this is a classical warlord type leader. If I had to guess I'd say he probably will send a small force just to keep you occupied, make sure you don't try and link up with general Williams, and steal your equipment for later study if he survives long enough."
"Warlord type? What does that mean exactly?" Captain Albiraka asked.
"In order to keep the better track on how the Skinnies work, Military Intelligence separated each leader into their own little type. Like a video game. Lords are more feudal thinking, caring about territory and inheritance and all that political bullshit, Generals tend to be honorable warriors, or the really good ones, soldiers, and have come up through the ranks. Which makes them a little more respectable." Jack explained, revealing the Terran bias for soldiers, "There's also Warchiefs which are supposedly great orators and can inspire their troops to zealot levels of fanatical devotion. And finally there's Tyrants, who are out to makes gains for themselves and those around them who are loyal, they are the kinda monster who is willing to kill millions of innocents if it would help them reach their goal. "
"As you can see, they don't really have a good chain of command, no official NCOs, small officer corps, reliant on cult of personality and religion to get their conscripts fighting. Take out the head and the usual warband will fall apart. For an army this size he likely has lieutenants, but we have no way of knowing if they are loyal to him, or his cause."
Captain Albiraka shook, "With how backwards this species is, how have you not rolled them over and dealt with them yet?" He asked.
"We have bigger problems than the skinnies that takes up most of our capacity to make war. But I can bet you the next target on our shitlist is these guys." Jack continued knowing the next question, "No I can't tell you what it is, officers have been hanged for letting out info they shouldn't to fellow Terrans, I'm not going to even try and push my luck with aliens we don't have an official treaty with."
Captain Albiraka nodded, seeming to understand, than questioned, "Do you have any idea how they kill themselves with-"
"Suicide gland." Jack deadpanned, already knowing the answer, "SICON's not sure why it got through the natural selection filter of stupid shit our bodies create, or where it comes from, but it creates some chemical that completely destroys the body, bones, flesh and DNA. Turns the poor bastard into a slurry you could slurp up with a straw."
"Why would they have that in them?" Colonel Stradas asked in confusion to himself.
"No idea, but I always bet on aliens… whenever you run into something odd like that in space, it's usually some other alien species genetic fuckery."
Commander Center, Shanxi, April/25/2329 AD
Brigadier General Alexander Williams studied the holographic map of the city with a careful eye. It was a low detail image since they were running the mapping from satellite uplinks that had not been shot down around orbit of the moon, and the equipment on the destroyer, but it did it's job, giving him a bird's eye view of the siege.
So far the enemy had only broken into the city in the north, the powersuits unit and Marauders were keeping the Skinnies from expanding their bridgehead further into the city. However they had began an attack on the east forcing him to order the Destroyer over that part of the city, right now he could tell that the ship was firing its crimson beams on the enemy formation that had charged the wall on that side. Hopefully this foolhardy attack would cost the skinnies more than his own reserves he mused, as one of his aides came up behind him.
"Ah sir… I'm not sure what's going on, but we've lost contact with MAC Hauler 7." The aide reported.
"What?" Williams looked to the map and ordered, "MAC Hauler 7 on the map." As the AI went about the work he asked, "Did they say anything was wrong before we lost contact?"
"No sir, the last report was an hour ago, they reported nothing wrong, and were moving the Laser to a new position, sector 7 I believe."
That wasn't odd, the guns were moved every few hours each on their own schedule to prevent an organized strike from wiping them out all at once. Williams turned back to the map wondering what was up when the AI found MAC Hauler 7, on the east side of town her gun pointed to the sky… and the destroyer Jamestown in her sites.
"Wha-" The gun on the back of the MAC Hauler 7 fired, represented by a red dot being produced, ripping a massive hole through the edge of the destroyer, causing it to list to one side, and roll onto it back mid air, the ship held that place for a moment, the room dead quiet as the shock took hold. Then the ship began to move away from the city, shuttles and escapes pods launching from the doomed and burning craft. The ship was going to crash and explode wherever it hit, the captain was most likely trying to get her as far away from the city as far as possible, hopefully on top of the enemy encampment.
"Send a squad of troopers to that position immediately and kill the crew! No belay that, capture the crew then bring back here for 'punishment'!" Williams ordered, he didn't know what had happened, who was responsible, and if they could survive without the aid of the destroyer, but he did know that he was going to make sure the person responsible was sent to hell before the skinnies overran the city.
East of Shanxi, Officers pavilion April/25/2329 AD
Fear and greed, two of the most powerful forces that held sway over the human mind. They were also something that was easy to manipulate as far as General James Projak was concerned. Projak watched the troublesome destroyer leave a black smoke trail across the sky with a smile as he sat on a fold out chair under a cheap umbrella, alcoholic drink sitting on the table next to him. It was easy to get some of his guards to sneak through the defences, they were skilled in stealth. So he had sent a few in the night before, in order to gain favor and appear like a genius to his lord if they needed to destroy the ship.
The hard part was to have them to find a Terran soldier and offer him a "deal" that he would accept, no one was stupid enough to betray their nation during a siege, before yes, but you had no insurance during the battle one misplaced bullet and the traitor joins the dead loyalists. Probably took time for the Guards to convince a Terran to turn traitor, but they obviously got enough information on how to use the MAC and used it to achieve Projak's goals splendidly. "Ar'Ack." Projak said, taking his glasses off to clean spot of dust of them.
"Yes my lord." The guard said, his red armor spotless, and gold trim gleaming in the glorious sunlight.
"Send a force to follow that ship, if it survives the crash let me know. The warriors could use a good looting, slave taking, and scavenging to work off the stress." He commented pushing his glasses onto his face.
'If they don't just nuke it first.' Projak mused.
East Federation territory, Shanxi system, TFS-CB William WallaceApril/25/2329 AD
Commander Huaka Kamea relaxed in his seat as the Wallace decelerated. He had gotten orders to take his ship to this backwater world a week ago, and had made good time in getting here, he had taken full advantage of his Athena Battle Cruiser's speed and fuel resupply system to cut a few days off the journey. He didn't know what was going on, he figured he would find out once he got there, but the message he had gotten from the Sky Marshal had left the impression that it was a little more than a minor fleet movement, if that.
Opening his eyes from his rest, Kamea asked "Lieutenant Toutain, link up to the local defence network, let them know we arrived." He sat back and waited for the long awaited explanation. Instead his crew started to get suddenly nervous.
"Sir the local defence network is down. I'm detecting a few satellites in system, we're trying to get a signal from them now." Lieutenant Toutain reported in his french canadian accent, "Bringing images up now."
The view screen changed to a live stream from a satellite most likely in orbit of the colony's moon. The image zoomed to reveal the burning colony of Shanxi, with several Skinnie starships hovering miles above. The bridge crew were staring at the destruction with horror and Kamea let them, it was good motivation to hit back, which he wanted to, but because of the enemy, he had to play his part.
He quickly brought up a link and called up the Mobile Infantry commander on board, it took two rings to bring him, "Captain T'Phai, we have arrived at Shanxi, however the planet is under siege by a significant force of Skinny raiders, due to the makeup of your force we must head back to-"
"Commander Huaka Kamea," T'phai interrupted, drawing out the a's in his name, "Do you believe Shanxi can hold without our aid?"
"Shanxi, from my reports, is severely understrength, I doubt she will last the next three days without legendary tactics, or a lot of damage." Kamea informed.
"Then Commander Kamea we should ignore the regulations and prepare for a combat drop."
"Alright, Captain T'Phai prepare your men for drop and good luck, and hold on this will get bumpy." Kamea turned back to his horrified crew, but this time they were staring right at him. "What? He's the one ordering the attack."
"But sir!" Lieutenant Toutain replied, "Regulations are clear, that we should not allow skinnies to fight-"
"T'Phai has years of loyal Federation service, and the ear of Brigadier General Juan Rico of the Roughnecks, the big bug-war hero, he can get away with this. Now if you are done being petrified like a bunch of school children awaiting vaccination shots, prepare the ship for a combat drop, there's an enemy out there who thinks he can fight the Federation and needs a good old fashioned stomping to remember who he's dealing with, I intend to deliver that stomping on a silver fucking platter!"
to be continued
Terran Gunsmith's Extraordinaire Codex edition, Volume 1:
FedCom 402-ML"Javelin" Missile Launcher: Using a specialized hopper feed for loading missiles, it has been plagued with issues of reliability as it invariably attracts dust into its open feeding system. Despite later models using a closed clip system, its reputation for unreliability has stuck. However its effectiveness when it works cannot be understated as multiple targets, either flying or on the ground can be eliminated with large blast radius'.
Units produced: ~847,000,000 (847 Million)