Captain Kuril, of the turian empire cruiser Justice Bringer, stood in the CIC of the ship, overlooking a galaxy map. A small blue circle showed the sector of space they were in. Technically an unknown sector. A group of pirates had activated the mass relay leading here. Unfortunately there wasn't a system at this end of the relay. Like the long lost Mu relay this one must have been blown out of its system by a supernova or some other celestial event.
"Launch our probes. See if you can locate those damn pirates. All crew are to remain at battle stations until further notice." Kuril mentally reviewed the forces at his disposal. Four frigates, his cruiser and the troops of the 41st suppression brigade loaded aboard an aging freighter. They had a limited number of FTL capable probes that would be sent to the nearest star systems to search for habitable planets or the like.
"Commander, probes have detected a ship only a few hundred kilometers away from the relay! The size of a large frigate, or light cruiser."
He fully expected the pirates to have gone to ground; a handful of aging frigates would be no match for a turian patrol fleet. He expected to spend several weeks searching this sector for the pirates, then to wipe them out when he inevitably located them. So he didn't expect the probe operator to have found something so soon after leaving the relay.
"Why didn't our own sensors detect it when we left the relay?"
The probe tech checked his readings before speaking up again, "It appears to be built for stealth, minimal heat emissions, no detectable kinetic barriers, and it's covered in some sort of radiation absorbing materiel. Its sheer luck that our probe was close enough to detect it."
Kuril felt a small trickle of fear at the small of his back. The pirates were either much more prepared than they had thought, or something else equally as bad was happening. The best course of action would be of course to destroy the vessel before it could do anything to hamper the fleet. "Tell the frigate group to intercept and destroy the ship."
He watched on the monitor as the frigates approached the unknown. After only a few seconds the stealth ship reacted to their presence, it began maneuvering and spinning around, strangely not to present a main gun to the enemy, but as if to present the side of the ship. It was maneuvering relatively well for a ship its size, the frigates fired a few shots, but it was already out of the way.
"Massive missile launch detected from the enemy vessel. Two hundred missiles heading towards lead frigates." The same probe controller only barely kept the emotion out of his voice.
Kuril felt that cold trickle turn into a block of ice as both frigates vanished under the cloud, their guardian systems unable to cope with the sheer number of missiles. The second pair of frigates began scoring hits, but the enemy vessel was tough. It appeared unarmed besides the missiles, but it sped towards the two frigates, obviously hoping to get within guardian laser range.
The captains of Kuril's frigates were only too happy to oblige. They charged as well, eager to avenge their fallen comrades. The enemy vessel continued to take hits, and yet even as it entered guardian range it still did not fire. They're going to ram!
His frigate commanders noticed as well, they were only a dozen kilometers apart when they began turning. The enemy ship would get close before they could maneuver away. Kuril watched with a clenched fist as the enemy ship knifed in between his two vessels.
He pounded that fist into the railing as not one, but both of his remaining frigates vanished from the display.
"Heavy fusion explosive detected captain," the probe tech informed him, too late to do anything to save his frigates. "Detecting survivors among the debris of frigate group one. There's also some debris from the enemy vessel."
"Begin recovery operations, I'll be in my quarters," Kuril released his grip on the railing and left the CIC.
ooooooo
Lt. Richard Hall floated in the black of space. One of the alien cruisers had gotten a lucky strike to the bridge of the To Kill a Mockingbird. The captain was dead, and he was now stranded in space. The XO of the prowler had obviously ordered a suicidal charge to preserve the Cole protocol. Hall had seen the explosion as they overloaded their fusion generator.
He could see the glittering debris of the first two ships. He had been surprised when the handful of missiles carried by their prowler had actually managed to destroy the enemy vessels. He was so used to seeing covenant vessels shrugging off enemy weapons fire that he had nearly shit himself when the enemy ships were blown apart.
Of course, then an enemy shot had struck the bridge sending him floating out among the wreckage. He didn't know if he had the guts to kill himself. He definitely didn't have a gun to make it quick, and he didn't fancy the cyanide capsule in his fake tooth. He knew it didn't really matter though. His suit had a slow leak; he would be dead long before the aliens picked him up.
Those were his last thoughts as he drifted off to sleep. He didn't notice the sudden bright lights as an alien shuttle approached him.
ooooooo
Liara switched out her heatsink for the fifth time for this battle alone. Her heatsinks were of the reusable kind, but they did need a long time to cool off before they could be used again. She was reduced to using still hot sinks for a shot or two before she needed to reload. The alien pistol Shepard had given her had run dry a long time ago. She had developed a migraine that left her biotics less powerful and unfocussed.
The fire from the alien named Shepard had slacked off; he seemed low on ammo as well. He was using a variety of captured alien weapons, some fired energy projectiles, and others superheated metal spikes. Yet even those were running out of ammo.
The bodies of smaller aliens clogged the doorway. They were sent in as little better than cannon fodder. The larger ones came in one or two at a time, only about eight of their bodies were spread out among the dead.
A few bullets whizzed by her head, tearing apart one of the bird-like aliens. Shepard had called them jackals. She waved a weary thanks to the injured soldier sitting up by the main computer. Liara picked up one of her discarded heatsinks and slotted it into her gun again, Two shots, I'll need to make them count.
Her gun was hot even through her encounter suit as she aimed in at an unarmored brute. The shot tore through its head dropping the last of this wave. A high pitched beeping came from her pistol, Liara looked down at the small readout, 'critical failure'. With a sigh she set the gun at the side of her suit and joined Shepard and Tali in picking weapons from the dead. Shepard picked up ammo for the spike rifle he had taken from a dead brute, Tali grabbed another alien pistol. Liara walked over and picked up a spiky pink weapon, and a couple blocks of pink crystal lying near it.
The black armored alien picked up what looked like a long purple rifle of some sort from a dead bird-alien. He also grabbed several arm bands from the same kind of alien. He handed them to her and Liara.
Each of the three put one on, and Shepard showed them a few buttons on the side of the band. He pressed them and the gauntlet sprang to life, a full fledged energy shield in from of him.
Liara mimicked his motions, when she heard a warning klaxon start blaring.
"Firing sequence initiated." Her eyes were drawn to motion outside. A metal ring of some kind was moving up the massive tower outside, which she assumed to be a barrel of the massive weapon. The ring reached the top, then accelerated down, vents opened up along the length of the weapon, and then a flash at the top, followed instantaneously by an explosion in space.
"We did it." Liara turned to face Shepard, the alien reached up to his helmet, de-polarizing it and activating his comm system. "Midnight Dreary, you are all clear. Midnight Dreary? Respond."
With her own communication system patched to Shepard's she heard the reply from their ship. It was extremely garbled, "Rog... ...at... und... threat by covenant seraphs... not... -ick you up... the captain sends his... ogies... repeat, we are under attack by..." The message cut out after that.
"Attention commander," The AI spoke up behind them. "Station sensors report radiation similar to a ship entering slipspace."
Liara looked at the floor downcast, as a wave of depression hit her. That meant there was no way off this station. Shepard's ship had left them behind; the alien's ship was blown apart. Their own ship was either destroyed or had fled. She would never get back to the citadel, never figure out what killed the Protheans, never even have a child.
She sat down, and buried her helmeted face in her hands. Still somewhat in shock. She didn't notice Shepard coming to sit next to her. "I'm sorry."
She wasn't expecting an apology, "What?"
"I should have gotten an extraction for you, or sent you to the hangar bays instead of asking you to stay and help. I thought our ship would be able to pick us up, I'm sorry they couldn't."
"You mean you aren't mad that you were left behind?" Liara asked the alien, genuinely puzzled.
"I knew this was likely a one way trip, but it needed to be done. The survival of my species is at stake, the people on that ship need to make it back to our homeworld. They might carry the secret that could end the war."
"Oh," Liara looked up at the alien's face, feeling embarrassed, "Now I feel selfish, I'm just an archaeologist, worried about getting back home and finishing my research, you're here fighting to save your entire species."
Shepard leaned back against a planter and looked up at the planet slowly coming into view of one of the windows. "Yeah... sometimes it's hard to believe all that humanity has lost in this war."
"Hey! If you two are done feeling sorry for yourself, the nice AI lady here says more brutes are on the way!" The human known as Joker called out.
Liara saw a small smile spread across the human's face. "Well, you heard him, we've got at least one last fight left in us."
She just shook her head, "What's the point? Why not give up?"
In a heartbeat she found herself picked up by her shoulders and staring into the human's face. "Don't ever give up, you hear me? That was the last thing my father said to me before he locked me and my mom in an off world transport. Don't. Ever. Give. Up. Even if all hope is lost, we fight just to prove that we were alive, to prove that we were here." With that the man released her, and walked back to his position near the door.
Liara looked down at her captured weapon, and looked around the command center at the dead defenders, who had apparently died to the last to defend this station the first time. She made up her mind and walked over to her position by the doorway, giving a nod to Shepard and Tali.
Liara turned back to the doorway, hearing the distant sounds of brutes, and idly wished she could see her mother one last time.
ooooooo
Nihlus, council specter and protégé to the living legend Saren Arterius, woke with a start from his sleeper pod. He was travelling in a turian spec ops frigate investigating a lead on a missing asari scientist for his mentor. He opened his eyes and found one of the naval troopers waiting for him. "What is it?"
"The captain just received a call for aid from the cruiser Justice Bringer. They were attacked by an unknown alien force near a previously unknown mass relay as they were chasing pirates." The trooper gave him the quick explanation, "The captain wishes to go to their aid and wanted orders."
To Nihlus, that explanation sounded suspiciously like the beginning of the rachni wars from history so long ago. "Of course, if he feels it is important we should head there immediately."
Knowing he wouldn't get any sleep Nihlus headed to the frigate's small mess hall.
Several hours later they arrived at the mass relay. Nihlus was standing on the bridge, looking out at an assembled turian fleet. The brass commanding the turian military had apparently decided on a show of force strategy. No less than ten heavy cruisers and forty accompanying frigates had answered the call. More impressive was the mighty dreadnaught at the center of the formation. A fleet like this had only very rarely been called upon since the end of the krogan rebellions.
The fleet was holding position around the end of the relay. A small message popped up flagged for Nihlus.
"Specter Nihlus, your presence has been requested on the Void Hunter." With that the message ended.
Already the admiral in charge of this expedition had called for him. He sighed and consigned himself for a round of back patting and strutting of higher ups as they congratulated each other on a successful conquest, even before it began. At least as a specter he could get away without playing a game of polish the gizzard.
Nihlus followed the same trooper who woke him up to the shuttle bay.
It was a mostly uneventful shuttle ride to the Void Hunter. The only surprise was when he arrived. It looked like the top brass was actually waiting for him in the Hunter's flight deck. As he stepped out he greeted them in the traditional turian manner for soldiers of different branches of the military and of equal rank. He could tell the general in charge of the ground forces seemed a bit miffed at the equal greeting rather than being seen as a superior. The admiral, however, took it in stride.
Nihlus assumed the admiral had worked with a specter before. His thoughts were confirmed as the admiral started speaking.
"It's good to finally meet you, my little brother the specter speaks about you constantly. He says you are almost as good of an agent as he is." That suggested the admiral was related to Saren, Nihlus didn't know any other turian specters that well. "But we can't sit around here and reminisce about former missions we have a planet to conquer. Our probes have found the world the enemy vessel came from. We've even managed to get an early translator working it took a few days of monitoring broadcasts, but it works, unfortunately the one enemy combatant we've captured is being very tight lipped. We would like to get an idea of the defenses surrounding the world, but he won't say a word beyond his name and serial number. We even had to put him on suicide watch after we found a poison capsule in his tooth."
Nihlus knew where this was going, citadel regulations were strict regarding prisoners of war, but as a specter he would be above those laws. "Well then, it sounds like I might have a few talents you have need of. Speak no further; just point me to his cell."
The admiral performed the turian equivalent of a smile. The general didn't seem too pleased with the situation, and seemed to ignore what he just said. He was probably one of those types who hated the idea of agents above the law.
"Of course, you are a man of action I see," The admiral gestured to an aide, "Show the good specter to the prisoner's cell."
After he was out of sight he shook his head, the admiral struck him as slightly corrupt, too much like a slimy merchant in the bowels of the wards, and not much like a warrior. He wondered how Saren could actually be related to such filth. He knew the hunter class of dreadnaught quite well, having served on one in his early military service. He found himself travelling not the standard brig, but to the high security wing. The aide brought him to a small armored door. Only one guard stood outside, but as the door opened he saw two guards inside, in a lone chair positioned ominously above the drain sat a creature. Its face had a few bruises and cuts where its previous interrogators had gotten a little rough.
"Leave," He ordered the two guards in the room with his best specter voice, while making sure his translator was updated. He grabbed the alien's head and examined the wounds. "Amateurs."
"Ensign Richard Hall, serial number-"
"Cut the crap," Nihlus interrupted, "I'm sure you think you're being very brave and whatnot, trying not to give out military secrets. But the fact of the matter is, we know where your world is. If you want to avoid any unnecessary casualties, you'll confirm for me what defenses your world has."
Nihlus expected stoic silence, maybe just a repetition, but he didn't expect cold mirthless laughter.
"Ha! What is this? Good cop, bad cop?" The alien rolled his eyes. "Pathetic."
Nihlus walked around the human, getting behind him in what was normally a psychologically disturbing zone for most creatures. The alien apparently knew what he was doing and tilted his head back and imitated snoring.
"Oh, very cute," Nihlus remarked, trying to catch the prisoner off guard.
"Uh huh, you can just stop this little charade, I'm not going to tell you where our forces are, I'm not going to tell you how badly they can kick your ass, the only thing I will tell you is a friendly warning in thanks for the free food." He gestured to several empty tubes of asari nutrient paste. "If you see a big purple ship of any kind, just run away, run far away."
Nihlus sighed and consigned himself to a long interrogation.
ooooooo
Two hours later, and Nihlus still had nothing to show for it. After that brief bit, he couldn't get a word more out of the prisoner, even when he resorted to physical torture, just to see if he would say anything else.
He walked to the admiral's briefing room to make a report, he found several other officers already there, the captains of the cruisers surrounding the flagship most likely, along with the general and a few other army officers.
Nihlus saluted, figuring the admiral would appreciate the gesture. "Admiral, I regret to inform you that getting anything out of the prisoner will take much longer than I had anticipated, possibly a few days. I did manage to get him to say something other than his name and rank though. He said it was a friendly warning, about some sort of big purple ship. Nonsense I'm sure, but it was the only other thing he said."
Most of the officers laughed at that statement, Nihlus noted one captain did not join in with the others, and marked him down mentally.
The admiral quieted his underlings by standing up from his seat. "No matter, from our probe sweeps we have plenty of firepower to subdue this planet. Please specter, take a seat, I'm sure a briefing isn't on your to do list, but we would value any input you have."
Nihlus took an open seat next to the captain he noticed earlier, a man named Kuril. The holographic projector came to life, showing an image of the planet in the center of the room. It rotated slowly to show all the officers each view of the planet.
One of them stood up to begin the briefing. Nihlus found he didn't have to interject, after all these people had experience planning a space battle, while he had none. He did notice that they glossed over the part where several hundred civilian spacecraft were seen fleeing the planet below. Which suggested they had warning, and at the very least colonies other than this planet. The admiral assumed this was their home planet, and Nihlus didn't see much to contradict him. Several large cities sat on the planet's one continent, a massive orbital elevator rose from the largest.
All in all it pointed to this being at least a primary population center. One difference in viewpoint Nihlus had with the admiral, was that he thought their military would crumble quickly in the face of orbital superiority, after interrogating the prisoner he knew that a foolhardy assumption. Another was regarding the rather pathetic looking cruiser sitting lone sentinel over the planet. The general was convinced the cruiser was their most powerful ship, and at best they had more frigates like the stealth ship hidden on the planet itself. The admiral thought they were new to space, and that the mass relay was their first significant discovery other than a handful of underdeveloped colonies.
After seeing footage of the battle at relay 314, Nihlus knew that assumption to be wrong as well. The only one that seemed to share his sentiments was the captain commanding that cruiser. The specter knew something was off; this battle was likely to be a lot harder fought than the brass anticipated.
After the briefing he pulled captain Kuril aside. "Captain, tell me honestly what do you think about this plan?"
Kuril glanced side to side, making sure his superiors weren't watching, "Honestly, it's a sucker punch waiting to happen. If they have forty or so of those frigates, and play them right. Massed missiles could take out this entire fleet, Void Hunter and all." The captain shook his head, "That cruiser that they're so quick to write off looks more like a floating cannon than a ship. And that survivor we picked up? He disarmed one of the guards and shot the other one twice, before cracking the pilot's face plate. If the co-pilot on that shuttle had been a little slower he would have probably gotten away."
Nihlus was shocked, that sort of performance was something an asari commando might be able to do. The man in the prison bay didn't exactly scream special forces. "Are your crew okay?"
"Yeah, the doctor says they'll make a full recovery, but if the soldiers on that planet are half as well trained and a quarter as determined our troops will be in for a little stroll through hell."
"Thanks for your time commander," Before the captain left he added, "Good luck, whatever happens."