Disclaimer: I do not own Mass Effect nor Honorverse. I am merely throwing the two worlds together. Any original characters, however, are mine.
No beta so forgive errors
Now that the chapter has been put up, the polls are officially closed.
Oh and for your guys' information. 1c is the speed of light.
I want to thank GhostForce1911 for offering to Beta, but since I took so long to write this chapter, I couldn't afford to make you guys wait any longer. Still thank you for offering, and thank you for letting me bounce ideas off you.
-TED-
Chapter 2: The Fatal Mistake
Bellona Censorious was sure that what Primarch Caecilius Praeconinus had ordered her to do was morally wrong. True she was honored to be in command of her first battlegroup, honored to command the Invictus, the dreadnought which led the defense fleet for the planet of the same name, but the orders that she was given left a bad taste in her mouth. Unfortunately, orders were orders and she had no choice but to obey her primarch.
True the report from the patrol had stated that there was a pre-mass effect race trying to open up a prime relay. It was unlikely that they'd succeed but still, to conquer a race for merely trying? True they were committing a crime, but they didn't know that they were breaking a law. Even so, the Primarch didn't think that the Quarians could be trusted to dissuade the race from opening the relay. Hell, Praeconinus was sure that the Quarians would egg them on, just so that they could claim the virgin worlds that could be found on the other side. All of the benefits without any of the downsides, something that a vagrant race like the Quarians would do. Not only that, but this race seemed to be aggressive. From what the patrol reported, the Quarians had detected three dreadnoughts in the system. Only a hostile race would open a relay with dreadnoughts.
"We're coming up on the relay system now ma'am," her pilot stated and Bellona nodded. Soon they would come into contact with a new race, one that was about to be brutally punished for attempting to open a mass relay, and one that would eventually be folded in as a client race of the Turian hierarchy.
"Transitioning in five," her navigator reported as she fortified herself. Her battlegroup had five dreadnoughts and their supporting screens, a total of thirty ships. That should be enough to handle the smaller fleet that awaited her in the system.
Her fleet of thirty ships decelerated into normal space in a blast of blue-shifted energy. "Ma'am all ships reporting in," her communications officer voiced. "The Triumphus will need to discharge before she jumps again ma'am."
"Any idea where the opposing fleet is?" Bellona asked as she looked about.
"Ma'am, I'm detecting gravity signatures near the relay. According to the data that the Quarians gave us, I'm reading three dreadnoughts, six battleships, four cruisers and four destroyers."
"Good proceed to take us farther into the system. If we're lucky, they'll be curious and come within firing range," Bellona said as inwardly she felt sympathy for the poor souls that were about to be punished for reaching beyond their means.
"Ma'am! The relay is activating! Vessel incoming!"
"What!" her eyes widened even as a vessel came through the relay. From her instruments she could tell that it was obviously a battleship. "It must be a prototype coming back from scouting the other side. Navigator, I want a micro jump to take the fleet between the opposing fleet and the prototype, send the information to all ships. We'll take out the prototype first and swing around to deal with the rest," she said. Those poor fools. They would have just gotten a beating here and a stern talking to before becoming a client race. Now, they had to be punished, and severely. She knew the moment she got back that her Primarch was going to establish contact with the other Primarchs and advise a fleet attack on their home system. Once their people were bombed back to the stone age, only then would they be enfolded into a client race. There was going to be a lot of innocent blood spilled because of their stupidity.
"Coordinates sent ma'am!"
"Execute!"
-TED-
"Kheela!" Shala said as the turian fleet entered the system, without a single Asari vessel. "They brought an entire assault fleet! Quickly you must inform the commodore that they plan to attack!"
Marlene Hibson drew back in surprise at the sudden outburst. She was the granddaughter of Ranjit Hibson, brother of Susan Hibson, and was an officer of the Star Empire of Manticore whose survey ship was on loan to the Kingdom of Torch. The TLN Josepha Zachary, a converted light cruiser,was currently on her way out of the system bearing the alien visitors.
"What but why?" she asked confused as the ships began to head farther into the system.
"They must think that they can enfold your species as a client race if they wipe out your military quick enough," Daro'Xen mused as she looked at the fleet. "Turians only believe in total war, and attacking in overwhelming number. This fleet is a precursor, there'll be an all out attack on any colonies within reach of the relays."
Marlene froze as she listened to the alien admirals. "Takeshi prepare to record a message," she said with a calm voice that didn't betray her inner turmoil.
"Recording skipper," the young Beowulfan com officer stated.
"To all ships, Authentication code: Lima, Mike, Echo, Niner, Seven, Zero. Case Zulu, I repeat Zulu Zulu. Approaching fleet hostile, I repeat, approaching fleet hostile. End recording."
"Recording terminated Skipper, uploading now."
Josepha Zachary would not be in the upcoming battle, but she hoped to whoever was listening that her message was in time to warn the commodore before all was lost.
Shala'Raan on the other hand could not help but feel sorry for the humans. True they looked as if they were the bastard children of the Asari and Quarians, and all the members of this crew looked so…young. If these were Quarians than most of the crew would be on Pilgrimage. What sort of race had their children crewing their warships?
-TED-
"We made it!" Andrew Davis said as TLN Prometheus appeared on the other side of what would one day be called the Shanxi-Arcturus Mass Relay junction.
"Andrew, I think you should be heading towards your cabin," Captain Albert Rocha said as he looked at his tactical displays.
"But Albert, we've just made history! Shouldn't we be celebrating?" the excited astrophysicist, and third ranking member of the science expedition asked as he looked at the other man. "Well…of course we have to go back the way we came, but look the Torch Navy is right there," he said grinning.
"And there's an unknown fleet in the system Andrew."
That seemed to take the wind from the man's sails, and to be honest, Albert would have wanted to celebrate as well, but whose ships were those? They were using plasma torches as propulsion and they were vectoring towards his ship on an intercept course. They'd cut just inside the Torch picket, get well within their energy range before they arrived, but he had no idea who they were. Was this a first contact situation with a race that had achieved spaceflight?
"Sir I'm reading Dark energy signatures from them!" his tac officer stated and both he and Andrew's eyes widened. Dark Energy? Was this the same race that had built these Relays? If so, why did they bring a small flotilla of cruisers. Had they trespassed? Were they about to create a diplomatic incident as their first contact with the builders of the relays?
"Incoming message from TLN Josepha Zachary sir," his com officer stated, body rigid. "Playing it now," he said.
"-I repeat, approaching fleet hostile."
"Helm, reconfigure to impeller drive. Maneuver with thrusters, get the belly of our wedge facing those ships the moment the drive is active. Launch Keyholes and decoys. Prep the counter missiles and get our laser clusters online. Andrew get back to your cabin and get into a skinsuit," Albert ordered even as he sounded GQ. Although Prometheus was a survey ship, she still had her missile tubes and energy mounts. The Manties had been worried enough about a possible Mesan attack to arm what was supposed to be a civilian survey ship. Unlike the other light cruisers of her class, Prometheus didn't have pod carrying capability for that space was utilized by the enhanced sensors and science labs that all survey ships needed. Unfortunately, she also wasn't equipped with offensive missiles. Instead, she relied solely on her ridiculous acceleration, countermissiles, and energy mounts. Without her impeller bands online, Prometheus was a lamb being led to the slaughter, and Albert knew it. He had to rely on her countermissiles and lasers to protect her long enough for the drive to come online.
"Energy spike! The alien fleet has disappeared!" his tac officer responded. Albert frowned even as his XO handed him his skinsuit. He stripped quickly and put it on, wincing when the plumbing connections were made.
-TED-
The absent fleet reappeared just within Prometheus' countermissile envelope in a burst of blue shifted energy. The five dreadnoughts fired their mass accelerator cannons. Five twenty kilogram slugs went flying towards the Prometheus at .013c every two seconds.
Prometheus spun on her axis, presenting her unarmored belly to the incoming fire. The Warshawski sail, a pair of beautiful discs of gravity began to recede as the vessel reconfigured to impeller drive. The beautiful auroras danced and swirled as the hundred kilometer long gravity discs were pulled back towards the ship. Her laser cluster were online and ready, and she began spewing thirty countermissiles every thirty seconds. The rate of fire from the dreadnoughts allowed their slugs to slowly get closer and closer to the Prometheus. The Keyhole facing the enemy opened fire, lasers shooting out and incinerating the slugs as they passed by. When they reached the 20,000 kilometer mark, Prometheus' lasers joined in the fray. Last ditch lasers blasted out, incinerating the slugs and turning them into their composite atoms.
One of the decoys exploded magnificently as it took a hit meant for the Prometheus. Two more of her sister decoys joined it in death as they took the mortal blows meant for their mother. The last slug in that volley managed to escape the laser holocaust that destroyed its fellows as it continued flying towards the Prometheus, one of the few slugs that had been fired accurately in her direction.
-TED—
"Incoming slug!" the tac officer shouted as finally a slug managed to evade their defenses. The slugs were a combat nightmare, since they had no drives of their own they were hellish to detect. Had it not been for Ensign Mercedes' brilliant idea to program the countermissiles to target the faint traces of dark energy the slugs were bathed in, they would have been peppered by enemy fire already.
"All hands brace for impact!" Captain Rocha shouted. At .013c the slugs velocity was enough to pierce through Prometheus' unarmored belly. He had hoped that the bands could be reconfigured in time, but it looked like it was all for nothing. Without her bands Prometheus was a sitting duck, completely at her enemy's mercy.
"Impact in five!" his tac officer shouted again.
"Impeller bands online!" his helm officer crowed in triumph.
The vessel shook wildly as it suffered from the kinetic impact of the slug slamming against an impenetrable barrier. The ship was jostled before the secondary band came online, hiding Prometheus from her enemy's sensors.
"Helm take us out of range. Keep the belly facing the enemy."
"Sir!" his tac officer said, surprised that they'd be running when now they could take the fight to the enemy.
"We have VIPs onboard. We leave the fleet to the navy. This ship has to make it to Shanxi, or everything we just lived through was for nothing." Prometheus came first. They needed to get her safely away so that the success of her maiden voyage could allow the militaries of their respective star nations to start building warships like her.
-TED —
Bellona cursed as her prize began to fly away from her at incredible speeds. The battleship flew away at nearly the speed of light. They had almost destroyed it. She had seen the slug that had almost gutted the vessel, if that damn gravity shield hadn't appeared! Apparently they needed to reconfigure the gravity bands in order to fly the ship in normal space or in FTL, because now the ship that had at first been nothing more than a sitting duck was flying away at .95c!
"Ma'am, the enemy fleet has cut their acceleration…They're launching fighters! Three thousand fighters!" her tac officer gasped as she cursed once more. "Launch our fighters, have them intercept theirs before they get within range of the fleet. Activate GARDIAN lasers. Turn the fleet around, target the dreadnoughts!"
-TED—
Junius really wanted to know what the commander was smoking. Sending a scant five hundred fighters against the three thousand fighters vectoring in on them. All of those fighters were also flying near the speed of light, in fact the readouts on his fighter read the approaching enemy was flying at .99c! Still the armament on those dreadnoughts had to be ridiculously light in order to make room for so many fighters.
His flight group would engage the fighters far from the dreadnoughts, plenty of distance away as the dreadnoughts finished their slow lumbering turns and brought their fire to bear on the ships millions of kilometers away. "Alpha Leader to all fighters, prepare for engagement," he said as he finally got visual confirmation of his target.
Those weren't fighters! Spirits! They were missiles! "Alpha Leader to all fighters, engage the missiles! Engage the missiles!" The fighters broke ranks as they charged at the enemy missiles, spewing fire at the objects, but their gravity bands were too resilient, they simply maneuvered to protect themselves before continuing! Those missiles flew like fighters!
"Damn, I can't get a bead on this one. All fighters switch to missiles. Shoot these bastards out of the stars!" It was at that moment that the Dazzlers activated, sending garbage data into his ship and screwing with his sensors. He was blinded temporarily and his ship fell off course.
He didn't see the torpedo behind him until it was too late. The torpedo unloaded it's powerful graser into the cockpit of his craft. He was instantly killed, and the graser pierced through his vessel to claim the life of his wingman. For four hellish seconds it fired, swinging on its thrusters and clipping another fighter, gutting a fifth before the sheer power of its graser burned the torpedo into nothingness.
Fifteen similar torpedoes made short work of the fighter squadrons. Once there was a screening element of four hundred fighters, after four seconds of concentrated graser fire the fighting screen was dropped by half. The follow up wave left only thirty fighters functional. None survived the third.
-TED—
Alex X gritted his teeth as he controlled the missiles flying towards the enemy fleet. It angered him that he had to use up the Dazzlers and Graser Torpedoes far too early, but that fighter compliment was something that neither he, the skipper, or the commodore had expected.
Still the missiles were not without countermeasures, for he still had enough of a different class of ECM emitting missiles left.
-TED—
"Shoot those missiles down!" Bellona roared as her ship fired it's GARDIAN lasers. Her crew had been in a state of shock since they first discovered the three thousand fighters flying towards her. They shock became astonishment as those were not fighters, but missiles.
Even so, her command would survive this, and she knew she'd get at the enemy fleet commander. Already two of the enemy's ships had broken off, heading to join the battleship that the prototype was rendezvousing with. It was her thirty ships against their fourteen. They were outnumbered two to one.
The computer controlled GARDIAN lasers shot down the first couple hundred missiles, but for some strange reason or other, the rest of the missiles learned of their capabilities. Did these aliens put VI's in their missile systems? Bellona didn't care to know as she watches as the swarm of missiles descended on her squadron. Suddenly, the missiles began to multiply form the mere fifteen hundred left, to thousands. Her defenses were swamped trying to pick out which ones were real and which ones were illusions, but they reacted too late and the missiles struck. Although there were enough missiles to wipe out her entire fleet, the missiles that exploded only targeted two of her dreadnoughts and their screens.
Bomb pumped X-ray lasers pierced the armor of her ships. Though their ablative armor could withstand most of those hits, the sheer multitude of the lasers prevented that from occurring. They burned past the protective plates and burrowed deep into the hull, exposing her crews to space.
The Dreadnought Tristitia was now a blackened hull, bleeding atmosphere as she started to drift away from the battle group. She fared better than her sister Ira whose back had broken, and secondary explosions shuddered through her frame before a containment failure made the kilometer long dreadnought explode in a ball of plasma. Unable to move away, Tristitia was caught in her blast and soon joined her in oblivion. Of their escorts there was little to be said, for there was little left of them to see.
Bellona's heart ached, in that opening salvo she had lost nearly half of her fleet! Of her thirty ships only eighteen remained. Her fleet's bombardment had been casually blocked by those ships, who had presented their damn gravity shields to block her slugs.
"Ma'am the Triumphus is preparing to jump."
"Contact Captain Arturius!" she snapped.
An older Turian appeared on the screen, he had only the left side of his face painted a dark blue as he looked calmly at her. "Commodore Censorious," he said in greeting.
"Why the hell are your jump drives hot Arturius!"
"I plan on jumping into the middle of their formation and firing everything I've got Ma'am. To buy you and the rest of the fleet time to jump to safety," he said calmly, though there was steel in his eyes.
"I-"
"I know what you are thinking ma'am, but we need to get our combat data back to the fleet. These primitives are dangerous. We have to crush them hard, and for us to do that, we must know how they fight."
She bit back her retort. What the older Turian was saying was true. They had to get back to Turian territory, to rally the fleet. This new presence was a danger to the Council races, and needed to be stopped preemptively, or a war as bad as the Rachni wars was going to occur. Especially since it was obvious that they were an aggressive species seeking conquest. "It will take us thirty seconds to jump," she said, already giving the order to prep their drives.
Arturius nodded. "Spirits be with you Commodore. I'll hold them off as long as I can," he said to her before his transmission ended.
-TED-
"Ma'am! They're building up dark energy over there!" Alex stated as he prepared his defenses. The enemy was going to jump again, he just knew it, and he was going to be ready.
-TED-
The Triumphus jumped into the middle of the fleet, firing every missile, every GARDIAN Laser, and every slug it could before it was destroyed.
TLN Boonville took a 20 kilometer slug to the bow. It's bow-sidewall wasn't strong enough to absorb the impact, and so the projectile hammered deep into the vessel, causing the light cruiser to list in place. The damage to the inertial compensators allowed the gravimetric sheer to turn the surviving crew into gooey puddles splattered all over the bulkheads. TLN Philipi took a laser blast meant for the heavy cruiser TLN Carnifex Ferry, the unshielded spider-drive frigate lost its starboard broadside as the laser burned through that entire section of the ship before the beam impotently struck Carnifex Ferry's lower impeller band.
Two lasers struck TLN Shilo taking out Radar Two, Laser One, and driving deep into the vessel, damaging both the bridge, and the flag bridge.
The bulkhead exploded, sending shrapnel all over the bridge. Henry Benton screamed as a piece of the bulkhead impaled him to his chair, his body dead long before it realized it. Jason Cruz's shock chair broke, sending the San Martino flying overhead, to slam face first against the holo display. What the impact didn't damage, the electrical surge fried.
Sharon D took over her dying department head's job learning from the flag bridge that the Commodore had taken shrapnel to the face, luckily, and by god how damn lucky the man was, he had survived and was being taken to medical. She sent a message to Carnifex Ferry to inform Captain Webster that he was now in command of the flotilla.
Hannah Shepard rode her command chair like the Valkyries of old. Her eyes hardened like glaciers as she listened to the damage reports streaming in. "All energy batteries open fire! Take those bastards out!"
Alex X, covered in the blood of one of his junior ratings who had been decapitated by flying shrapnel, fired his energy weapons at the dreadnought. It joined the fire of seventeen other ships, to pound the dreadnought into its composite atoms, but the dreadnought's mission was complete, the rest of the alien fleet had fled.
-TED-
Codex Entries:
Apollo missiles: Command and control missiles that are launched in a missile broadside that allows tac officers to have real-time control of their missile systems. Their inclusion in a missile broadside increases the probability of direct hits by nearly 100%.
Case Zulu: A military code used by the Grand Alliance with only one meaning: Invasion imminent. All instances of Case Zulu are taken seriously and usually result in reinforcement of the system by any nearby Grand Alliance fleets.
Dazzlers: ECM emitting missiles that attempt to overload enemy sensors with garbage data in order to hide their deadlier cousins.
Dragon's teeth: ECM emitting missiles designed to confuse the enemy sensors into believing that there are more missiles than there truly are, allowing the enemy ship to waste countermissiles on invalid targets.
Ghost Rider platform: Ghost Rider platforms are stealth reconnaissance platforms developed by the Star Empire of Manticore. Fitted with powerful sensors and a gravitic pulse generator, the platforms can give detailed information of enemy ships across an entire star system.
Graser Torpedoes: The main missile armament of spider-drive ships; powerful grasers attached to engine drives, these gamma firing laser cannons are powerful enough to punch through capital ship's defenses. Once fired, the torpedoes only last for four seconds before the sheer heat of the graser destroys the torpedo.
Mark 20 'Keyhole V' platform: Designed to enhance countermissile sensors, the Keyhole platform has been improved to the point that it not only has capability of increasing the telemetry links of a warship, and thus the number of missiles it could launch, but also doubling up as anti-missile, anti-LAC, and anti-Spider-drive defense platforms. Equipped with laser clusters, and a single graser, a Keyhole sensor platform serves well in its duty of ship defense.
Missile Pods: Designed to carry multiple missiles, missile pods are the primary armament for all warships heavier than a destroyer. Missile pods can carry anywhere from six to ten missiles, and are utilized to multiply a vessels missile broadside in space engagements. Missile pods are extremely vulnerable to proximity soft kills (nuclear fire) and are therefore carried within ships designed to carry them. The amount of missile pods that can be fired in a single broadside is limited to the amount of telemetry links a warship has.
Survey Ships: Designed for long periods of time in space, Survey ships take on the roll of deep space explorers for humanity. These vessels are former warships, primarily light and heavy cruisers, whose armament has been taken out and replaced with extremely powerful sensors and well equipped science labs. Due to their former military origins, Survey Ships are the second fastest civilian ships employed by humanity, thanks in part to their military grade impeller rings and inertial compensators.
Warshawski Sail: By reconfiguring a ship's Impeller Bands, they can create a pair of discs that are hundreds of kilometers in diameter. These discs are then used to navigate in hyperspace. Due to their ability to trap the energies found there, Warshawski sails can also be utilized to power the ship, thereby making interstellar travel economical. While the discs themselves are invisible to the naked eye, the energies that they trap can be, creating beautiful auroras surrounding the ship. Warshawski sails are also utilized when transitioning through a wormhole junction.
-TED-
So, how'd you guys like the battle? I know I pussy footed around it for a bit at the beginning, but I was a bit worried about portraying it accurately and engagingly. I also vacillated on including the Manticoran missile swarm, but the course of the battle actually allowed a pretty effective usage of it. Forgive me fact checkers if my missile cycle times are off. The honorverse wikia is unhelpful on that score and I didn't want to delay this even more by having to go hunting through the books for accurate missile cycle times.
Please Review!