AN: Again, this is posting at SB first; if you'd like to see more comments on the story, and a whole lot of economic debate, go read it at the SpaceBattles Creative Writing forum. You need to be a member to access the threads these days, but it's pretty much the best place I know of aside from to read fanfiction.
((()))
AN: Nothing I could find would tell me where Shanxi actually is, so I'm placing it in the Exodus Cluster. As to people's comments about the expansion factions, the basic idea of them will at least be mentioned, but none of them will be 'factions' properly.
((()))
Shanxi was at once both an expensive place to live, and an exceedingly luxurious one. Where the Morganites held significant influence, the two properties tended to appear, rather consistently. Part of the expense came from the fact that as a University controlled world, it had never been fully terraformed, and all the lovely elements that came with that; habitation domes, greenhouse agriculture, alien microorganisms, etc, etc.
It was also the University's sole cloning and resurrection hub in the Exodus Cluster thus far, and thus the only one within reasonable range of where the Zoloto Gold had been destroyed. Quantum Entanglement communication being what it was, the sentience relays implanted in the neural tissue of the Zoloto Gold's crew could have grounded them into any C&R Hub that was active, regardless of where, or even what, galaxy it was in, but standard operating procedure was to shunt them to the nearest facility.
It was because of this, that the citizens and guardians of Shanxi had eighty-three first-hand accounts of just how imminent the threat posed by the unknown fleet was, and preparations began immediately. There wasn't a great deal that could be done, really, as Shanxi only had a modest pool of nano-fabbers, a small defense force, and a great deal of transhipment and logistics facilities both on her capital's skyhook, and on the surface, for the many ships that passed through the system's Zero-point Wormhole Construction Device.
Naval support was immediately summoned, but as per their customary military doctrine, both Morganite and University military assets in the area were almost entirely defensive, surface-based units designed for war over territory. Not for fighting unknown vessels willing to open fire with no warning on civilian vessels, whose commanders would very possibly have no issue with bombarding an inhabited city from orbit.
Ymir Kolokolotsov, the Planetary Governor, requested requested that Shanxi's defenses be reinforced by units from other garrisons through the Matter Transmitter network, but due to rising tension with the Spartans on Planet, the request was denied until a more imminent need could be demonstrated. Instead, Shanxi was evacuated of all personnel not linked into the C&R network.
So, by the time the Turians arrived in orbit, the only defenses at hand were an (automated) armed merchantman, and what Shanxi's own nano-fabber had been able to produce...
((()))
"Damn," Garen Arturius said from behind his flagship's sensor officer, "Half of those hulls must be power generation and Kinetic Barriers."
"Their ships sure as hell are tough enough for it," Domin Kryk, the sensor officer, said with a nod, "Maybe their home system suffers from an excess of space debris?"
"Who knows?" Garen said with a shrug, before returning to his seat, "They seem to have shit-all for weapons, so it's not like it matters much."
The rest of the bridge crew, silently watching the expanding cloud of plasma that had been the world's only apparent defense, felt little inclination to disagree.
"Well," Garen said, turning to Chelik Victus, the communications officer, "Hail the planet, and get me their ranking officer so we can start negotiating their surrender."
"Aye sir," Chelik said, "It may be a while, there's a lot of traffic down there."
((()))
"Professor," Marissa, Governor Kolokolotsov's Transcendii assistant said, "The aliens in orbit appear to be hailing us, seeking contact with our ranking officer."
"Oh?" Kolokolotsov said, spinning in his comfortable chair, behind his hand-carved oak desk, in his ridiculously oversized office.
As a full Professor, recently granted Tenure, Kolokolotsov was a veteran at surviving the travails of University middle-management, and as such, was a very accomplished spinner.
"Have the Morgan Industries personnel completed their evacuations?" Kolokolotsov asked.
"Yes," Marissa said, "They even took their pets with them."
"Good," Kolokolotsov said, "I'd like you to initiate a full stress-test of the base's power-grid, up to full emergency rating on all power conduits. Not like we'll have a chance like this for maintenance cycles again anytime soon is it, hm?"
"No, Professor," Marissa said, with the air of the long-suffered aide, an affectation she'd perfected over the last three decades, "And the aliens?"
"I suppose you might as well put them through," Kolokolotsov said, "See what the blaggards want. Any luck at decoding their language so far?"
"I don't think I'll dignify that with a response, Governor," Marissa said with more than a hint of sarcasm, manifesting a digital avatar on his desk purely so that she could roll her eyes at him, "They're smart enough to isolate their communications hardware from the rest of their systems, but their security is like a sieve. You're on."
Kolokolotsov smiled at the Transcendii's response, then pulled his feet into his chair, allowing himself to spin purely on inertia as he did so. While the being on the other end of the 'call' would be restricted to watching Kolokolotsov spin, the Governor used his cybernetics to receive the visual directly on his 'HUD.'
"Hm," Kolokolotsov said, inspecting the creature visible on his 'screen,' "Bipedal, roughly avian or reptillian descent, psuedo-exoskeletal structure, but definite endoskeleton present, binocular vision, markings of some sort of social significance on facial structure."
((()))
Garen started at the creature's sudden words, confused both by its rotation, and startlingly Salarian-like mode of speech, not to mention that it had already apparently been translated to his own language. Then the creature started speaking again.
"Judging by the scale of your ships external and internal construction, your species is of similar overall proportion to our own, what most of my peers, as well as myself, held as the most likely. Tell me, do all of your species initiate first contact with acts of war, or is it just you?"
Garen ground his teeth slightly, before beginning to speak himself.
"I am Garen Arturius," He said, harshly, "Comman-"
"Your name and rank are irrelevant," The creature on his screen said, waving an appendage dismissively as its spin continued to slow, "That is the same group of vessels that attacked the Zoloto Gold at the Zero-point Wormhole Construction Device, which makes you a war criminal. That is all the name you need."
The creature finally stopped spinning, and turned to face him, revealing a startlingly Asari-like face.
"So tell me, War Criminal," He said, leaning forward and placing what were clearly hands in front of his furry face, "What terms of surrender are you willing to accept?"
"Standard terms for a client race of the Turian Heirarchy," Garen said promptly, "Which-"
"No, no," The creature said, laughing briefly, "I mean the terms of your surrender to the University, to stand trial for your crimes."
The bridge of Garen's flagship, rather abruptly became intensely quiet.
"You cannot be serious," Garen said flatly, the metallic tinge to his voice making it sound even more so to the creature on his screen, "We have destroyed two of your Cruisers, without receiving the least portion of damage, and this is a single Patrol squadron. What in the Spirits name do you think you could possible hold against us?"
"First off," The creature said, starting to spin in place again, "You destroyed two civilian vessels, which were largely unarmed. Second, I fail to see why I would feel any desire to surrender to a race that clearly has no compunction about committing wholesale slaughter of races they have never had contact with before. Third, what makes you think our space assets are remotely comparable to our surface assets, as far as military might is concerned?"
((()))
"I know you like to bluff," Marissa whispered quietly into Kolokolotsov's virtual 'ear' via his implants, "But this is insane."
"Really?" Kolokolotsov asked silently through the same implant, "Tell me, how long is it until the Tachyon Field's fabrication is completed?"
"Five hours, six minutes, roughly," Marissa said.
"Fascinating," Kolokolotsov replied, "Care to wager as to whether or not I can stall them long enough for it to be completed?"
"If I win," Marissa said harshly, "The base will be destroyed. What do you plan to offer me under such circumstances?"
"I'll absolve you of all responsibility," Kolokolotsov said casually, though Marissa well knew that was not a small consideration given how vicious the political infighting amongst the University's Academician-minor's could be.
"Fine," Marissa said, "And if you win?"
"You agree to a date with me," Kolokolotsov said, and Marissa could feel the sharkish grin on his face, even if it did not reveal itself in the slightest on his physical face.
"Deal," Marissa said snappishly, "I suppose I'll go start writing my expose for the Morgan Newsies. They always pay well for nasty accusations of those fallen from grace."
"You do that," Kolokolotsov said, and his invisible grin intensified, "Keep your schedule clear for next Thursday."
Marissa manifested an avatar on Kolokolotsov's desk, just so that she could roll her eyes at him. Again.
((()))
Garen Arturius was suffering from a certain degree of brain-lock. Like all patrol commanders in the Turian Hierarchy, he was more flexibly-minded than most Turians, but he was quickly discovering that this really did not prepare him adequately for First Contact. He had never understood, fully, before now, why the Primarchs were so adamant about retaining the Hierarchy's alliance with the Salarians and the Asari, but right now, he would have greatly appreciated having an Asari diplomat on hand to try to make some sense of this alien creature.
It hadn't threatened him exactly, but it had behaved in a manner to suggest that it held moral supremacy, and that somehow, in and of itself, made its own victory assured. Then there was the suggestion that the planetary installation was much more well-armed than their spacecraft had been, although that certainly did not add up to what their surface scans had revealed. Deciding he needed more information, he slammed his hand down on the 'mute/blind' control for the transmission for a moment, before turning toward's the Bridge's sensor station.
"Kryk," He said, "Are you detecting any new Eezo signatures powering up?"
"No sir," Kryk said, shaking his head, "In fact, after more time to look over the data, the amount of Eezo activity I'm picking up down there is far too small for a colony of that size, but their direct power generation and consumption is positively ridiculous."
"Any idea what it's actually being used for?" Arturius asked.
"Not really," Kryk said, "The power use is fairly distributed, and has been fluctuating fairly steadily throughout the installation, though there are a few loci that I'd suspect were the site of barrier generators, or weapons emplacements, if there was any Eezo use to go with the power consumption."
"What grade of weapons emplacement?" Arturius asked.
"Well," Kryk said, hesitating for a moment, "If there were Eezo signatures present, and their tech was on par with say, the Batarians, or somewhere between ours and theirs, I'd expect something with that much power at its disposal to be able to take on a Cruiser detachment with a reasonable chance of success."
Arturius expression hardened, something which was extremely difficult to distinguish for any sentient being not accustomed to reading the expressions of a species that had metal plates naturally growing out of their face. Garen's patrol detachment was comprised of eight frigates; granted, they were pure combat vessels, with none of the extraneous survey or scientific fittings Asari and Salarians liked to outfit their ships with, but that kind of firepower was not something Garen wanted to get blindsided by. Considering the base's power output, and that its use was shifting, it was entirely possible that their commanding officer, whoever he was, and whether that was even the person Garen had been speaking with, was simply trying to conceal his weapon emplacements until such time as the shooting started.
There was nothing for it, but to try and coax more information out of the creature on the other end of the hail, and give Kryk more time to refine his scan data.
Garen turned back to the display attached to his command chair, and deactivated the mute/blind button.
"-And what is it with you people and the Zero-point Wormhole Construction Devices anyways?" The furred creature, Garen was now almost certain it was a mammal, and probably masculine, had apparently kept talking, "Do you think you have some sort of personal right to-"
And he was [I]spinning[/I] again. Garen settled himself in for a headache-inducing delaying action.
((())))
Marissa knew she had lost the bet, when Kolokolotsov was able to drag his conversation with the 'Turian' around to politics. It wasn't a difficult leap from the precedents of interstellar, or 'council' law, that the Turian had apparently used to justify his attack on the Zoloto Gold, and mankind at large, but Marissa knew it would be her doom. Kolokolotsov's first field of study was Xenology, and while he was hardly a revolutionary thinker in the field, it had combined with his high effectiveness as an administrator to earn him his posting out on the frontier of explored space.
His second field of study, Psychology, had been entirely appropriate to people-management; Marissa had watched, somewhat dumbfounded, as he deftly discerned key portions of the alien's culture and psychology, deliberately obfusticated and stonewalled the creature into nearly instigating a stroke (which by now Marissa was quite confident was possible with their physiology). Kolokolotsov also tricked the Turian into revealing the existence of the Asari, Salarians, Krogan, and Volus, as well as their general roles, strengths and weaknesses, in galactic society, and that there were, at a minimum, three hundred and fourteen other Zero-point Wormhole Construction Devices strewn throughout the galaxy.
Marissa was also fairly certain that Kolokolotsov's abuse of the hydraulics built in his chair, using them to rock back and forth, bounce up and down, and flex side to side, combined with his spinning, had confused the hell out of the Turian, and if the creature was at all experienced at dealing with other races, scrambling to discern the significance of such things. She was, at this point, frankly surprised that her boss had not activated the chair's vibrating massage function, just to further mess with the Turian.
His... unique method for buying time, also had mixed benefits for her continuing efforts to secure support from the rest of the University; on the one hand, more time to redistribute forces was now available, on the other, if these aliens could simply be talked to a standstill...
Marissa sometimes deeply hated the Machiavellian intercenine politics of the University's sub-Academicians, Deans and Provosts.
Then Academician Zakharov himself returned from his Council meeting, and everything changed.
((()))
"This meeting will come to order," Natalya, the Academician's personal assistant, declared as she entered the Council Chambers of the Provosts.
The chamber immediately became deathly silent as the Academician followed his assistant into the chamber; he rarely had her precede his entrance with that declaration, and when he did, he always meant business.
"While I returned from the Council meeting," Zakharov said, his voice still carrying a light Russian accent after more than three hundred years, "I was briefed on the situation on Shanxi."
He stopped for a moment to scowl at the table, before continuing.
"As well as the fact that not only have no reinforcements been sent to our most distant frontier world, but also the fact that no research teams have been sent."
Several of the Vice-Provosts and senior Deans at the table paled at Zakharov's words.
"This dereliction of duty, is inexcusable," Zakharov growled, sweeping the table with a harsh gaze, "Fortunately for all of you, I have been able to, again, preserve the Univerity from your incompetence."
With that, he seated himself at the head of the council table, and gestured for Natalya to speak.
"You are all, save those of you holding purely research positions," The deceptively young-looking Talent said, "Aware that the latest Council of Faction Leaders was primary dealing with the tensions between the Spartans and the other factions, specifically regarding their threats of war if they are not given access to territories off of Chiron."
Most of the council members nodded.
"In the interest of resolving the current crisis," Natalya said, "The Academician has agreed to cede half of Shanxi, including both land and sea territory, to the Spartans, in exchange for their services in dealing with the Turians and associated races in any and all military conflicts."
Silence continued to reign over the Council of Provosts, and Zakharov leaned back in his chair, broad smirk forming on his face. It was no secret that Kolokolotsov was one of Zakharov's favorites over the last half-century, and they had been fools to snub him.
((()))
"Power spike!" Kryk shouted urgently, distracting Garen from his and the still-unidentified creature's discourse on the merits and failings of how the Heirarchy treated its client races.
"Weapons fire?" Garen demanded, not even bothering to blind his still-active comm line.
"Negative," Kryk said, now clearly confused, "No signs of a Kinetic barrier either."
"What the hell are-" Garen turned back to his comm screen, to discover that the connection had been cut.
"Whatever they were buying time for," Garen spat, "It's happened. Tell the Marines to prepare for force reconnaissance," He turned to his communications officer, "How long until Admiral Khoryk's fleet arrives?"
"Seventeen hours, sir," Chelik said promptly.
"Very good," Garen growled, staring at the planet-view on the bridge's main viewscreen, "We'll teach these vermin not to spit in the face of the Heirarchy's authority."
((()))
Unfortunately for Garen's forces, and his reputation as a competent commander, Elite Spartan formations were flooding into Shanxi's capital, and only, city, through its Matter Transmission Hub. Kolokolotsov had successfully stalled Garen for just under seven hours, and managed the whole thing without giving up so much as the name of his species, or himself.
Marissa was sulking; Kolokolotsov was celebrating his victory with his bubble-pipe.
((()))
AN: Beware of mood shift from previous chapters. Actual killing occurs in this chapter, and that's always ugly business. Also, for those of you more familiar with the SMAC weapon tech, I'm paying particular attention to the affect that everything other than 'Hand Weapons' appears as a heavy weapon that isn't carried, y'know, by hand, as well as the fact that Impact Rifles are still mentioned as being in use when Hovertanks have also been implemented. To whit, the heavy weapons an infantry unit uses may be a Quantum Laser, but they're still going to be packing something else for their riflemen.
((()))
"SPARTANS!" Brigadier Adrian Commersly barked as he entered the warehouse where the 21st Heavy Infantry had assembled, "STATUS!"
"READY FOR WAR!" Every man and woman in his unit shouted back as one, standing to attention in their battle armor.
Ascending the small podium in front of his regiment, Adrian turned to survey his command critically. Amongst any of the other Factions, the 21st would have qualified as an Elite unit; men and women trained and seasoned to combat effectiveness and mobility beyond what most any infantry regiment was capable of. Every man and woman in the unit was equipped with Neutronium Armor, a Personal Cloaking Device (PCD), and a self-sustaining Quantum Reactor that, barring a direct hit from heavy weapons, would need neither service nor repair for half a century of operation. Each five-man fire-team consisted of two riflemen equipped with thirteenth-generation Zakharium-augmented Impact Rifles, an E-War specialist to deal with Probe Teams, and two heavies carrying either a Chaos Gun for heavy anti-infantry use, or a single Quantum Laser between the two of them for anti-armor use.
For the Spartan Confederation, this was merely a standard infantry combat formation. Certainly, the University could field better equippeed divisions, and often did, but only the units defending their core Bases, and the Academician's Guard, could hope to match the skill and tactical mobility possessed by standard Spartan formations.
After what had happened the last time the Peacekeepers had tried to 'disarm' the Spartan Confederation, it wasn't worth even bothering to compare with their military, in Adrian's informed opinion.
"Spartans," Adrian declared, powerful voice not requiring a sound system to reach all of his men, "Once again, our way of life has proven not only prudent, but necessary.
His tone of voice and demeanor changed from declarative, to deadly serious, and a mental command sent the digital brief of the unit's mission orders on Shanxi to the MMI of every member of his Regiment, before he continued speaking.
"You may have heard rumors that the University and the Morganites have made contact with a sentient alien race," He said gravely, "These rumors are true. The 'Turians' are a militaristic race, with technology at least comparable, if not superior to, that of the University. Unsurprisingly, they have destroyed every University unit they have come into contact with thus far, though in all fairness to the eggheads, neither of them were military units."
Adrian paused for a moment, allowing his subordinates to filter through at least some of the files he had forwarded them in the brief, before continuing.
"I know you are all also aware of the issues the Confederation has been facing due to lack of adequate territory. Well, the Colonel and the Academician have come to an agreement, and the terms are very simple."
Commersly took a deep breath, the muscles in his jaw flexing in an uncharacteristic display of emotion on the part of the highly-disciplined man, his eyes beginning to blaze with an inner fire.
"If we hold this world until such time as University naval assets arrive," Adrian said fiercely, "Fully half of the planet will be ceded to our control."
He did not need to mention to his men, that this would better than triple the Spartan's total territorial holdings, to a man, they already knew this.
"We are facing an enemy of unknown psychology, doctrine, tactics, logistical support," Adrian continued, "What little we know of them, is that they make extensive use of Zakharium-based technology in their weapons technology, which the Academician himself has admitted is more advanced than anything the University has produced along such lines. Our strategic and tactical situation is literally as poor as it can be, we face a numerically superior foe, about which we have next to no intelligence, on ground we are not familiar with."
He stopped for a moment, and his nostrils flared, his eyes blazing, before he continued.
"With what we fight for!" He bellowed, "Is there any chance that we will surrender this world before death claims us all?"
"SIR NO SIR!" His Regiment declared as one, and a predator's smile curved across Adrian's face.
((()))
The Turian Heirarchy was as much a military as it was a society. Military service was mandatory, and every Turian carried a rank within their society, which directly translated to military authority. Both in space and on land, they fought with discipline, and extremely well-developed strategies and tactics. The Turian military was well-experienced in dealing with races that were belligerent at first contact, customarily via military conquest and turning them into client races. As far as Commodore Arturius and Admiral Trenatine, the commanding officer of the Cruiser detachment that arrived to support Arturius' forces, were concerned violating Council Law regarding unopened relays classified their as-yet unnamed opponents as belligerent.
From the moment that the alien colony cut off contact, the Arturius began landing infantry and light armor assets around the city, keeping to a distance he believed would protect them from anti-air fire, which proved to be true, to at least some degree. From there, they simply enforced a siege, while waiting for Trenatine's Cruiser detachment to arrive, which brought with it a proper planetary assault force, including artillery, heavy armor, and mobile hospitals and vehicle bays.
During this waiting period, they sent a number of drones on overflights of the alien city, mapping its surface layout. The Turians were somewhat surprised that no AA fire was employed against the drones, but took it as a sign that their opponents lacked either the ability to effectively detect and track the drones, or the weapons to try and take them down. Either way, what it said of their relative capabilities pleased the Turians, even if they'd failed to detect the presence of so much as a single alien within the city.
The day after the Cruiser detachment arrived, the attack began.
((()))
The two days that the Turians spent waiting for reinforcements, then setting up their own logistics centers outside of Shanxi Prime, also gave the Spartans time to move two more regiments through the Base's Psi Gate, supporting the 21st Heavy Infantry with the 18th Heavy Infantry, and the 3rd Light Air. Unlike Heavy Air units, which were designed for Strategic deployment, Spartan Light Air units were formed of one-man Gravships around the size of a groundcar designed to serve as close-air support, essentially functioning as extremely high maneuverability helicopter gunships.
None of the infantry moved outside without their PCD's active, and the Gravships did not move outside of the base's internal passages. Due to a mixture of University and Morganite civil design philosophy, Shanxi Prime was laid out in three distinct rings; the innermost housing the administrative and research facilities, with housing for ranking faculty, the middle ring containing the commercial district, general residential, and the Recreation Commons, and the outer ring containing warehouses and industrial facilities. The only strategic assets within the base that were really of note, were the Psi Gate, which resided underneath the core district, and the Nanofab facilities in the Eastern part of the outer ring.
Between material and energy limitations, the nanofabber wasn't really capable of producing any of the University's more advanced hardware in enough quantity to substantially refit any of the Spartan units now defending Shanxi Prime, so Professor Kolokolotsov had inquired of Brigadier Commersly just what the General would like for him to produce, the answer he received was very simple:
Decoys.
((()))
"Attack."
The order was simple, direct, and came from Admiral Trenatine himself; with a single nod Colonel Lucius, ranking Turian infantry officer, set the assault in motion. Roughly half of his forces were dug in in the hills around the city to maintain containment, and now he was committing the other half to an assault on the city's eastern flank, specifically aiming to take control of one of the high power-consumption facilities. He, and the rest of the Turian forces in-system for that matter, weren't really sure what the facility did, but it was as good a target as any, and the aliens obviously thought it did something worthwhile, judging by the amount of power they were pumping into it.
Four heavy tanks, tracked vehicles with Kinetic Barriers strong enough to survive a light orbital bombardment and enough heavy repeating weaponry to tear through those same barriers in less than a minute, took point, rumbling over the hills surrounding the alien city, and opening up with their primary armaments. IFV's and APC's rolled out behind them, smaller weapons systems ready to target any enemy units flushed out from behind destroyed cover by the heavy tanks fire.
The entire assault almost ground to an assault before it even began, as a barrier around the entire city absorbed the mass effect rounds, made visible only by virtue of the rounds disintegrating against its surface.
"I thought you said there were no Eezo signatures large enough to support a city-wide shield!" Lucius barked, turning to glare at his Intelligence officer.
"There isn't sir," The male protested, "Whatever that barrier is, it's not Mass Effect based."
The Colonel snarled, and turned back to the mobile HQ's primary tactical plot and the visual feeds from his men arrayed around it.
"All Infantry are to withdraw behind the hills immediately," He barked, "Armor Unit Four is to accompany them. Armor Unit One will advance to the barrier, while two and three cease advance and provide fire support as necessary."
The assorted armored vehicles immediately began maneuvering to follow his commands, and Lucius desperately hoped that the barrier prevented the aliens from firing out, as well as preventing him from firing in.
((()))
"Their commander's cagey," Adrian said calmly, "Something worth respecting, but it'll make our jobs more difficult."
"If it was going to be easy," Brigadier Griselda Yaga, the 18th's CO, said, "They wouldn't have come begging for us to save their asses."
"True enough," Adrian said, before glancing at one of the staff officers in their current HQ, "What's the energy output on those guns?"
"It's pretty anemic, sir," The officer said, "Enough to make paste of our infantry armor, but I doubt a glancing hit would take down one of our Gravships, much less an armored Speeder or Hovertank. A direct hit would take a Gravship, but judging by the size comparison, I doubt any of their infantry weapons stand a chance against our Neutronium armor. Their lighter vehicles, could go either way."
"Better than I hoped for," Adrian said, nodding, "Now let's see how they respond to the drones."
((()))
Lucius did not gain the opportunity to discover whether or not his foes could fire through their own protective shield, as he met no opposing force before Armor Unit One reached, and then crossed, the barrier. Once it passed between the first of two large outbuildings, however, a swarm of bipedal automatons boiled out of the two structures, pouring weapons fire into the heavy tank.
Considering that there were more than two dozen of the security drones, their performance was not very impressive, foolishly moving into the open rather than firing from cover, and barely managing to drain the tank's barriers by a single percent, before the tank's gun crews efficiently cut the drones to shreds. They hadn't even been equipped with Kinetic Barriers.
Regaining some of the confidence he had lost at the revelation of the none Eezo-based defensive screen, Lucius ordered the advance to begin anew, though this time he apportioned a smaller percentage of his force to make the attack, sending something closer to a third, than a half, of his forces in.
((()))
"Well," Adrian said, "That was interesting."
"Good fire discipline," Griselda admitted grudingly, "I could make some use of men like that."
"So could I," Adrian said, "But more importantly, they didn't fire on the drone with the PCD."
"I noticed too," Brigadier Steven Hammer, CO of the 3rd Light Air, said grimly, "I do believe it is time for a counter-attack."
"I quite agree," Adrian said, "Tell your men to be careful though, our intelligence is still incomplete, and the Impact Rifles were damn ineffective against their shields."
"Sir," Hammer said, nodding.
((()))
All across Shanxi Prime, doors opened. Some were garage doors, some were gym doors, some were just large doors for houses. From each and everyone of these doors, as best as anyone could tell, nothing issued forth. After this nothing passed through the doorways, they remained open, having no particular need to close.
Nothing in particular then proceeded to move over the city, out of the city, and cross the Turian lines, to move into strike positions over the Turian logistics and command centers. University E-war technology was far and above beyond what the Turians were implementing, and their communications networks were completely compromised by then, meaning the Spartan 3rd Light Air, knew the location of every Turian unit on planet.
As a matter of efficiency, while on ground-assault missions, Spartan aircraft equipped with Cloaking Devices were configured so that the same trigger, toggle, switch, or button that fired the aircraft's weapons, also served to deactivate the cloaking device. There was literally no perceptible delay between the Spartan Gravships appearing over the Turian forces, and opening fire.
Quantum Lasers, so named for the weapon's manipulation of quantum principles to augment damage output, were not susceptible to the protective effects of Kinetic Barriers. All Citadel races, including Turians, depended heavily upon their Kinetic Barriers for protection from heavy weaponry, and the armor alone was far from sufficient, effectively serving only to augment the damage dealt by the Quantum Lasers, as the large slabs of metal shattered into hellish storms of shrapnel, butchering the Turians they were meant to protect.
Every targetted Turian position was utterly obliterated, including the primary force concentration to the Base's east, the supply depots, vehicle bay, evacuation craft, and the command center. With the entire command staff killed in less than a second, the twenty-seven seconds it took the 3rd Light Air to cloak, reposition, then decloak and open fire again, was not enough time for the Turians to form a coherent response to the attack.
By the time the unexpectedly effective aerial assault was completed, the only remaining intact Turian position, was the portable hospital.
That was when Kolokolotsov hailed the Turian fleet.
((()))
"You want me to surrender," Admiral Trenatine said flatly, "After you just butchered six regiments-"
"No," Kolokolotsov said harshly as his chair gradually waved him back and forth on Trenatine's viewscreen, the first genuine emotional response Trenatine thought any Turian had managed to get out of the creature, "We did not butcher anyone. We destroyed a group of pirates attacking sovereign territory unprovoked. You Turians and your minions butchered the crew of the Zoloto Gold at first contact, and the Daily Dollar in orbit when you arrived here. We have restrained ourselves from retaliating until such time as you made it clear you would not be dissuaded from continuing on your murderous rampage."
Kolokolotsov paused to take a sip of tea, completely ignoring that most of the tea was slopping out of his cup onto his bathrobe as his chair rocked from side to side; as a matter of fact, he did not even like tea, he was a coffee drinker, but it served its purpose. Mostly, Allowing the Turian to get started again, so that Kolokolotsov could cut him off again if he felt it was necessary.
"That's varren shit," The Turian growled, "Your vessel at the Mass Relay was in direct defiance of Council Law-"
"This is not Council Space," Kolokolotsov cut the Turian off again, activating his chair's 'spin' function, "Nor have we ever encountered a copy of 'Council' decrees, or territorial markers. Your law holds no sway here, and as it is apparent you have no intention of surrendering, there is no purpose in speaking further at this time."
With that, he ended the call, then shut his chair off before it could team up with the tea to make him nauseous.
((()))
AN: For those of you who are particular fans of me as an author, please consider having a look at my new blog, now referenced on my Author Page. I'm moving more involved thoughts on the various fandoms there, as well as pontifications upon the schools of thought that underpin all fiction writing, and rather than run to long AN's, like I sometimes did with Brutal Harry, I plan to refer to things I post there in AN's, save for at the end of a story.