New chapter for you all and Enemy Within rocks!
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12:45 Hours
500,000 Km out from Shanxi, Orbit
Adrien Victus slumped slightly in his chair as he looked into the view screen before him, completely exhausted as he met the gaze of Admiral Garen Trenus as best he could.
"Auxiliaries will be transported over to your vessel within the hour Commander, the repair vessels will also be arriving at that time to begin fixing the damage to your ship. You showed great initiative and thinking during the battle so you should expect something from command in the near future. In the mean time, make sure you get your ship back to fighting status in case reinforcements for this species return," the Admiral declared with a practiced calm, "We'll be starting the landings within half an hour so if you care to observe, feel free."
"Understood sir," Victus replied tiredly.
"Get some rest too Commander, Trenus out," the Admiral finished.
As the display winked off, Adrien found himself slumping even lower in his chair, grateful that there were now others there to take care of pacifying the planet below. After the damage that had been wreaked on the battle group he had been apart of, he would rather have just returned to Palaven and never set foot in this corner of space again, the weapons this people wielded were terrifying.
He was roused from his thoughts though as his XO cleared his throat beside him to get his attention. Perking up slightly, Adrien gave a sigh before heaving himself up as he said, "LT, you have the bridge, I'm heading to my quarters, see to it I am not disturbed unless it's an emergency."
"Understood sir," was the reply.
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12:45 Hours
Deep Space
Captain Hackett felt the customary stretching sensation that accompanied the end of a warp jump as the Last Order re-entered normal space amidst the three fleets accompanying it. He was about to snap out an order for the status of the fleets when the sensors officer beat him to it.
"All ships reading green and accounted for, we'll be ready for our next jump in a minute and a half," the officer reported.
"Good," Hackett replied, "Navigation, alter the destination for the final jump to bring us in at the edge of the system, I want to see what we'll be up against before we run in there full force."
"Understood sir, orders away and acknowledged," the officer at navigation replied, typing away at his console.
There was another minute of silence before the stretching sensation returned and the vast Human armada disappeared.
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12:50 Hours
Aboard the Turian dreadnought Great Valor, Admiral Garen Trenus was carefully looking over the deployment of the masses of shuttles and troop transports as he prepared to turn the majority of the military activities to his Army counterpart as they started landing soldiers on the colony below. While the kinetic rounds had done a great deal if damage in destroying the military facility that had been attacking them, the city around it had remained relatively unharmed to a surprising degree he noticed. He considered it a likely sign that these aliens built their cities to survive such damage, that or this planet was surprisingly active geologically, either way things were solid and urban combat was going to be likely.
Still with three dreadnoughts on station along with the entire support group for each ship, Trenus felt relatively confident in their chances of taking the city with decent speed.
But that wasn't his job fortunately.
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No that job belonged to General Varkin Gergis who even now stood in the Great Valor's deployment bay, over seeing the loading of the last shuttles personally before he boarded one that would take him to a destroyer that would be accompanying the assault craft down into the atmosphere.
As he reached the destroyer's CIC, the necessary message came in, telling him that everything was ready to go, and as he felt his mandibles pull into the Turian equivalent of a grin, General Gergis gave the order and the entire assault force descended en masse.
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13:30 Hours
Shanxi Colony
On the surface of Shanxi, X-COM soldiers who had already been deployed to various hard points and bunkers around the city waited with baited breath as techs restored secure communications around the colony. The few that were in bunkers with access to ground to space scanners had felt their breath hitch in their chests as the great fleet of vessels had moved into orbit above the world. From that fleet hundreds of dropships, easily recognizable by their configurations, had assembled around a trio of what had been termed destroyers and begun to descend towards them.
Silently, those in command of various groups of soldiers watched the feed as the aliens came closer and closer, praying to their choice of deity that the automated blaster launchers would do their job.
And as the alien drop ships crossed the fifty thousand kilometer mark, it seemed they would.
Across the city and the nearby countryside, dozens of camouflaged silos opened up before emitting the same hellish green glow that had been present in the fusion lance before venomous green orbs of plasma suddenly rocketed up into the air, their trajectories curving and turning to take them into the alien dropships. Adding to the surprise, before the orbs of plasma had even crossed a third of the fifty thousand kilometer distance, a second salvo had launched, soon to be followed by a third.
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The shout of 'Incoming missiles!' was all General Gergis and indeed most of his troops had for warning before orbs of compressed plasma rocketed into the formation of descending dropships. Only detecting the fast moving spheres at the last moment, the bulky ships were only able to just start evasive maneuvers before the first salvo flew into the midst of the formation.
The spheres curved into the groups of ships with remarkable ability and speed before the computers on the ground decided the anti-ship level missiles were close enough and around enough vessels to detonate.
As the first blaster missile detonated, it had curved through a ninety degree turn to nearly hit the side of a drop ship where it exploded in a flash of lime green colored light, washing over its target ship and two other nearby dropships. The one that had been at the epicenter never stood a chance, vaporized in the first microseconds of the explosion while sensors and cameras watched as the other two literal melted away inside the fringes of the explosion, their hulls peeling away and their atmospheres spontaneously combusting from the spectacular heat of the plasma before whatever was left fell away or exploded with the ships' drives.
Gergis could only watch from his destroyer's CIC as twenty-three other explosions played out through his formation of drop ships and destroyers, watching in horror as the destroyer For Palaven which had been leading the charge took three of the missiles and exploded in blinding flash as her Element Zero drive went.
Feeling uncertainty grip him for the barest of moments at just what sort of attack this was Gergis reconciled himself to a far bloodier battle than he had ever experienced before shouting the order he knew he needed to give as a second salvo of the same weapons appeared on sensors just fifteen thousand kilometers out.
"All ships, break for the surface! Land where you can and stay on the ground!"
With that order, the formerly neat, tidy, military display of Turian power that was the invasion fleet became an unorganized riot as pilots and captains pushed their ships to the max in order to land as fast as possible and get out of the cross hairs even as a second wave of plasma orbs entered their ranks and exploded, taking out fifty-three ships.
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13:39 Hours
Turian dreadnought Great Valor over Shanxi
Admiral Trenus could only watch in what could best be described as white knuckled terror from his command chair as he watched Gergis's invasion play out before him. Personally he had thought such a large force was a waste, but as he watched a full quarter of the landing force be destroyed by the time the colony's third salvo of attacks had arrived he couldn't help but be grateful to whatever commander back at Palaven it had been that had ordered such a massive force.
"Figure out where those damn things are coming from and provide some support to our troops damn it!" He shouted angrily as he watched the feed continue.
"We're trying! Where ever these things launch from they don't leave a heat signature and they're moving so much we can't find the source!" One of the bridge crew shouted.
The drop ships were closing on the surface and spreading out as the fourth salvo impacted, leading to slightly less grim results than before.
Only twenty-nine ships went down this time.
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14:21 Hours
Shanxi
General Gergis coughed slightly as he pulled himself from a crash seat in his destroyer which had remarkably made it all the way to the surface without getting targeted till the sixth salvo which had removed the right wing of the vessel.
Fortunately, a combination of good luck, pilot skill, and low altitude had let them land relatively softly. Relit overly being the operative word. His ship would never fly again, but as he looked about, he guessed it could still function as a command center for the ground troops.
"Alright everybody," he called out roughly, "let's get things going, we have work to do."
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Alright there's the new chapter and I'll apologize right now for it being short. I'm holding off on the ground combat because I'm still playing through X-COM Enemy Within and haven't seen all the new toys that are there to play with so that will be in the next chapter which will come after I finish the game and have thoroughly explored all the technology.
Now to address some comments.
TSCSupremeCommander, How did humanity spread so fast?
A: The way humanity spread so fast is by switching over from wet navy production to space navy production. There are at least thirty facilities on the planet right now capable of building at least one, if not more, 500 foot long or larger ships at a time. If you standardize the design so parts can be sent anywhere in the world, these facilities, which are designed to build massive vehicles already, could begin pumping out space capable cruise ship sized vessels at a rate of perhaps 1 every year and a half. And with a service life of sixty years a piece if not more, that's a massive fleet to use to spread across the stars, especially in the middle if a post war baby boom, and with people wanting to potentially escape another attack and defend their home.
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KhazintheDark, have they already figured out redirecting rather than stopping attacks?
A: Yeah, we've actually had that down since the soviets invented sloping armor on the T-34 in WWII. But yes, it will certainly be noted as something humanity already has.
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Trife, Just don't make humanity bow to the council, ok?
A: Humanity is superior lol.
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CelticReaper, Just don't let the aliens get their hands on human tech!
A: all human tech self detonates when the user dies like original X-ray tech, and besides that, the Council races wouldn't know what to do with human tech even if they did get their hands on it.
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Lizonjoe25, happy with how professional you've portrayed the Turians. And I wanna see the Asari try and stop this.
A: Thank you, they aren't stupid after all, head strong and prideful maybe, but a good beating can cure those. And by the Asari try and stop this, imagine Iran's nuclear talks by way of North Korea.
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Hornet07, Shanxi only has four fighters and one fusion lance?!
A: Shanxi is a new colony and sadly in a bit of backwards thinking, they were expecting an attack more like the kind at earth where the enemy came in low and as an easy target. The Commander can't manage everything.
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Fallout5368, don't forget the other tech.
A: being addressed this chapter and next.
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