Incursio
A/N: Yeah, the chapter is finally ready, the delay was because I had big f******g writer's block. Plus some technology research I have been doing for future chapters.
The true soldier does not fight because he
Hates what is in front of him,
But because he loves what is behind him.
-G.K. Chesterton.
"How in the hell that happened!?" asked Admiral Sirius Vakarian, shocked and perplexed.
"We don't know," an officer answered.
"Do we know what they are?!"
"Most possibly planetary defense cannons, sir!"
More ships exploded beside his ship; even at their current speed the cannons didn't miss a shot.
"Do we know their location?" he asked just as a dreadnought exploded, the crew started to work furiously trying to triangulate the positions of the cannons, motivated by the reports of ships being destroyed.
A few minutes later a crewman shouted, "I did it! I triangulated their positions, they're eight in total, passing on the information."
"DEPLOY FIGHTERS ESQUADRONS RIGHT NOW!" Vakarian roared.
Less than a minute later the hangar bay was open, and eight fighter squadrons were on course to the coordinates, but when they arrived, they were greeted with something… disagreeable.
"What's the situation with the fighters?" asked Vakarian almost ten minutes later. "Have they taken down the cannons?"
"No, sir," answered his XO cautiously.
The Admiral turned his head sharply. "Why not?"
"They're having problems with AA guns protecting the cannons, they're like nothing we've seen before."
"What?"
"They aren't common ones, the pilots report … bullets," replied the XO slowly.
'Bullets?' thought Vakarian, a little confused. 'Just how primitive is this race?' After a few seconds he asked, "How many cannons have they taken out already?"
"Six, sir, but… with heavy losses," said the XO slowly.
"Goddammit!" roared the Admiral, slamming his fist on the rail of the galaxy map.
"Sir, the pilots reported that the last of the cannons have been destroyed and they're coming back."
"Casualties?" he asked, fearing the answer.
"Only… only four squadrons made it back, and two of them only have a fighter left."
"And of the fleets?"
"We lost nearly one hundred and fifty ships and three dreadnoughts, sir."
This was incredible, they had lost three dreadnoughts, and they hadn't even reached their destination. He was sure these 'humans' had a surprise in store. "Tell to the rest of the admirals to increase speed, I want to make the humans suffer for this."
"Yes, sir."
Meanwhile, above Earth
"Ma'am!" said a human-sized hologram as she appeared from an omni-tool.
"Yes, Cindy?" asked Admiral Kelly Parker, the Admiral of the First Fleet, the one designated to lead the Oblivion fleet.
"We've received reports from Mars," said the AI. "The planetary defense cannons detected the turian fleets and have engaged them."
"How much ships are coming?"
"At least twenty thousand ships, ma'am," replied Cindy sadly.
The Admiral's face fell immediately, if the reports were true they were going to be outnumbered by three thousand ships.
"What happened to the cannons?" she asked.
"They were destroyed by enemy fighters, ma'am."
"Were the AIs able to escape?" she asked, hoping for the best.
"Yes, they were able to escape to the principal storage on Mars," replied Cindy and the Admiral sighed in relief.
"Ma'am," said Cindy a few moments later. "The Third Fleet has reported that enemy signatures are approaching."
"How many?"
"Twenty-one thousand."
"Dammit," muttered Kelly.
"What do we do?" asked Cindy, a hint of fear in her voice.
"Pass the information to the rest of the admirals," she said as she formulated a strategy. "And make sure to distribute the orders to put the Oblivion Fleet in defense formation, and I want it done yesterday!"
"Yes, ma'am," said Cindy and the hologram disappeared quickly, leaving Kelly alone with her thoughts.
"This is bad," thought Admiral Vakarian. "How many ships have been detected?"
"Nearly eighteen thousand ships, sir," a crewman answered.
"But I thought we destroyed . . . how could we not have . . .?" he stammered and the rest of the sentence die in his throat when he saw a massive, triangular ship. "I WANT TO KNOW HOW MANY OF THOSE SHIPS THEY HAVE!" he roared.
Minutes later someone answered, "They have sixteen of those super dreadnoughts, sir."
"Sir!" another crewman shouted. "The enemy is deploying massive amounts of fighters!"
"Where are they?" the Admiral demanded.
"Some of them are coming here!"
"How many?"
"Spirits damn them, nearly five hundred of them are headed for us."
"Prepare the GARDIAN lasers immediately!"
"GARDIAN lasers ready, sir," said the soldier.
What happened next took all of them by surprise.
"Sir, the fighters are crashing against our ships!"
"What?!" he asked, voice raised to the point of shouting.
"The fighters, they're crashing against our ships."
"The GARDIAN lasers aren't working?"
"No, they are but they came in swarms in order to fool them."
"DAMMIT!" roared Qu'ing.
"Ma'am?"
"Yes, Cindy?" asked Kelly as the hologram appeared at her side.
"I've been talking with the rest of the AIs, we think we can hack the systems of their ships."
"How so?" Kelly asked, now interested.
"We can overload their drive cores, turn of life support, things like that," replied Cindy, sounding a little nervous to be proposing this to the admiral.
Kelly thought it over. "Very well, but return before they can detect you."
Cindy nodded and disappeared.
Vakarian finally calmed himself after seeing the last of the suicide fighters being shot down. He could see the enemy fleet through the window another few minutes later and they would be nothing more than scrap metal, he would make sure of that, but then he saw a cruiser's thrusters turn off.
"What the hell happened now?" he asked quite furious by the constant problems.
"The Palaven Sword reported that their drive core overloaded and went offline, sir."
The Admiral sighed. "Tell them that we don't have time to hel-"
Suddenly the Palaven Sword exploded, breaking into several large pieces that floated where they were pushed.
"Report, now!"
"We…we don't know what happened, sir!" said a nearby crewman and outside the windscreen, several more ships' thrusters turned off.
"By the spirits," whispered Vakarian when suddenly eleven more ships exploded.
"Uh, sir I know you are not going to like this, but fifteen ships have reported life support failure, and now they aren't responding," said the XO and the Admiral didn't answer him, instead he put his hands on the railing of the galaxy map and dropped his head.
"Sir, are you okay?" asked the XO and he didn't answer. "Sir?"
"They have AIs," he finally spoke, everyone in the CIC turned to look at him.
"What?" asked the XO.
"They have AIs," repeated Vakarian
"That's impossible," said a crewman. "No one is that stupid." He thought that over for a moment. "Well, the quarians were stupid enough."
"How you know that?" the XO asked ignoring the crewman's comment.
"You tell me," snapped Vakarian lifting up his head abruptly. "Our ships are having simultaneous drive core overloads and life support failures."
"That could be a coincidence."
"Yeah… sure," Vakarian said sarcastically. 'What kind of monsters have we found?'
"Done, ma'am."
The hologram of Cindy appeared so suddenly that she startled the Admiral. "Goddammit Cindy, you scared me!" exclaimed Kelly a hand to her heart. "Anyway, how many?"
"Twenty-nine ships in total, ma'am."
"Good job," said Kelly and then Cindy began to fade. "Oh, Cindy, one last thing."
The AI reappeared. "Yes?"
"Tell me when the enemy fleet is in firing range."
"Yes, ma'am," said Cindy and she faded completely, a few minutes later she appeared once again at Kelly's side.
"Don't say anything," Kelly said before Cindy could open her 'mouth'. "I suppose you were able to pass the information to the rest of the fleet?" She nodded. "Good, now open a comm to the rest of the fleet."
"Done."
"Listen up everyone," she said sternly as she tried to come up with how to tell the soldiers what she had to. "I'm not going to lie, a lot of us aren't going to make it through today, but, today is the day all that we have trained for comes to fruition, today we fulfill a promise made decades ago to our motherland. Today we protect Earth against those stupid enough to try to hurt her, if we fall today then we will do it protecting our home till the last inch of soil!
"Today we will shout as one voice to the galaxy that no one comes into our home without our authorization! Today the turians will know the price for trying to come here uninvited. Today the human race make their entrance to the stage," Her voice took on a predatory tone. "I'm Admiral Kelly Parker, change and out."
The whole CIC was clapping, including Cindy.
"That was quite the speech, ma'am."
"Yeah, but now, are the railguns loaded?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"And for the rest of the fleet?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Good, open fire on my signal."
"Yes, ma'am," said Cindy and the AI's hologram faded.
"Three… two…one… fire at will!" commanded Kelly.
The entire fleet made a volley at the turian fleet. In that precise moment, the battle for Earth had begun.
A few hours later the battle was still in full swing, the turians withstanding heavy losses. Their ships were made to utilize kinetic barriers in their favor, and during the battle it was paying off as the turians ships were able to withstand a few shots from the humans' railguns but given their rate of fire the armor unable to support it. That was not even including the assault against the flagships, who could confront several dreadnoughts themselves. The humans' plasma shields were rather useless against the turians' mass accelerated weapons, but the armor of the ships was only dented by the turians shots, although the frigates were not sharing in that good fortune. Five hours later 65% of the turian fleet was destroyed, meanwhile only 15% of the human fleet had been destroyed.
Vakarian was desperate, only 35% of the fleets remained so he needed to think fast, then an idea came to him.
"Tell to the soldiers to board the shuttles, we're going to invade the planet right now," he ordered.
"Sir, that is impossible," replied his XO, his patience with his superior's tactics wearing thin. "How are they going to bypass the humans' fleet?"
"Making a short FTL jump," he replied and the XO nodded.
Minutes later, shuttles began pouring out of the hangar bays of the remaining dreadnoughts and cruisers, carrying nearly four thousand turian soldiers. Once they had approached the human fleet, they made a short FTL jump just as instructed, and bypassed the fleet entirely, entering the atmosphere of the planet.
Meanwhile, on Earth:
The camera turned on to show a helmeted woman in her mid-twenties in a deserted street in the middle of the eternal night of Earth. "Hello, my name is Kalyn Giddens, reporting for CNN from Los Angeles." She turned to look at the street. "Oblivion protocol has been enacted for the first time in our history and already the effects are being felt." She began to walk down the street. "We're receiving reports from all over the world of hurried evacuations and the funneling of populations in all major cities to camps in scattered areas. We've also—"
"Ma'am!" someone shout behind them, cutting off the reporter.
The camera panned to show four N7 soldiers, two pilots seated in their Titans and three wolves chained to each N7.
"What are you two doing here?" a pilot asked, his voice deepened by the Titan voice modulator.
"Reporting," Kalyn answered calmly.
"No, this is a restricted warzone," said an N7 sternly. "Leave the area, there are several camps outside of town where you'll be safe."
Kalyn strongly disagreed. "No, we need to stay here, the people need to know what's happening!"
"Ma'am, they know enough to leave the city, as should you," snapped the N7 and his wolf started to growl.
"No we-" she stopped when she saw the pilots turn around.
Looking up, hundreds of shuttles filled the sky, lights flashing from the vehicles in an effort to see in the dark sky.
"CONTACT," the two pilots roared and fired their coilguns at the enemy shuttles.
The Titans and colossi deployed around the city began their assault, two of the N7s reached for their tactical cloaks and attached them to the waists of Kalyn and the cameraman.
"Press this button to turn it off or on," one of them shouted above the sounds of the coilguns and railguns. "Understood?" They nodded and so did he. "Good, now get the hell out of here!"
Kalyn and the cameraman activated the cloak and faded from sight just in the moment a shuttle deployed turians in the end of the street.
"GET TO COVER!" an N7 shouted.
"RELEASE THE WOLVES!" another roared.
The wolves were released; they were called wolves not only because of their designs, but because they were real wolves to their enemies. When they attacked the turians, they went straight for their throats and chests, using their adamantium claws and teeth to tear at the armor and soft flesh of their enemies. The N7s and pilots watched as the wolves devoured the first line that had appeared, confident that they would buy them enough time to mount a proper defense. They were all that was standing between the civilians and the enemy.
Meanwhile in another section of Los Angeles, a platoon of rangers were protecting civilians who hadn't yet evacuated:
"FIRE IN THE HOLE," shouted a soldier and a grenade was launched at a few turians.
"I need a fucking radio!" Commander Fernando Gonzales shouted.
"Enemies on the right!" cried one of his soldiers.
Gonzales then found a radio. "Here Commander Fernando Gonzales, requesting Titan assistance, I repeat, requesting Titan assistance, we're pinned down in the town hall. We are protecting civilians who haven't reached the evacuation convoys, we are outnumbered, passing coordinates." He then passed on the coordinates of their position hoping that someone would hear the message. When he looked up he saw the sky tinted a with orange, it was a beautiful sight, but he had no time to full appreciate its beauty as he had to immediately run for cover, then shot at a turian who stood up.
"Casualties?" he asked, gunfire echoing around their position.
"We have lose five rangers, sir," replied the man to his left, looking down at his HUD. Then a green point disappeared. "Make that six, sir."
"Dammit," he spat as he stood up and emptied a mag in to a few turians.
"Sir, we need to withdraw, they're going to overwhelm us," he stood up to shoot but he received a shot in the Visor, thankfully the visor was only cracked.
"If we withdraw they're going to have a clean shot at the civilians," snapped Gonzales. "If just one of us is still breathing at the end of this, those civilians are safe." He then threw a grenade.
"Out of ammo," someone shouted.
"Changing to pistol," other shouted.
The situation was quickly becoming desperate, they were killing turians, but they were appearing faster than they fell, then the whistle of a Titan capsule falling was heard, followed with another one.
"ALLIES AT YOUR SIX!" shouted a very enthusiastic soldier.
The entire platoon then turned to where the voice had come from, but then quickly became engrossed in watching the pilots as they entered their respective Titans, the moment the nearest pilot was inside he activated his Titan and grabbed a turian by the face then applied pressure, crushing the turian's head. The other grabbed a turian by the legs and threw him at another one, breaking their bones from the sheer force of the launch, and then the first Titan grabbed a turian by the arms with one hand and the legs with the other and started to pull in opposite directions, breaking him in half. The Titans continued their killing spree, crushing and destroying those in their path, the turians fired back at the Titans but when they saw armor wasn't even being dented, they withdrew.
Gonzales stepped out of cover and let out a sigh of relief.
"That was close," said a soldier at his side.
"Yeah," he breathed, very relieved to be alive. "Tell the others to search for wounded enemies. Whomever has the highest rank, keep him alive so we can interrogate him then execute the others."
"Yes, sir," said the soldier, giving him a salute before leaving to relay the orders.
Gonzales watched as he and other three other soldiers moved to the wounded turians. When he saw the Titans checking the perimeter, he entered the Hall to call for an evacuation, he reached for the radio then heard a few muffled shots, and he just smiled.
Above Earth
Vakarian was desperate, his fleets were being decimated, he was possibly the only admiral alive… he had no choice… he had to do it, seeing as how he was going to die anyway.
"Charge the main gun, aim at random points on the planet, NOW."
"What?" his XO asked, shocked.
"You heard me."
"No sir, you know that is illegal."
"I DON'T CARE, ALL OF US ARE GOING TO DIE ANYWAY!" roared Vakarian, his voice betraying his fear. "And if I'm going to die, then I'm going to take as many of those bastards with me as I can."
"Yes, sir," muttered the XO, the man was not happy with his orders, but orders were orders.
"Main gun loaded, sir."
"Fire," the Admiral said calmly, and the dreadnought fired its main gun.
"Ma'am we have a problem," said Cindy as she appeared at Kelly's side, "a big one."
"What?"
"One of the remaining dreadnoughts has fired its main gun."
"And?" Kelly asked, not really paying attention.
"The projectiles were not aimed at any ship, they are on a direct course with… Earth," Cindy said and then watched as the Admiral's face changed almost instantly. "The dreadnought was destroyed," continued Cindy and Kelly smirked, "but it managed to make another five shots." The smirk immediately disappeared.
"Calculate places of impact," commanded Kelly. "IMMEDIATELY."
"Yes, ma'am," said Cindy and the AI began working furiously. "Two of the shots are going to hit uninhabited places, one of them a partially evacuated section of Los Angeles, and the last two… are going to hit safe points."
"Which ones?" asked Kelly, on the verge of tears.
"Los Angeles B, and San Francisco C," replied Cindy quietly. "There are about ten million people in these camps, ma'am."
A lonely tear tracked down Kelly's face. "Broadcast to the safe points and the city, we need to alert them immediately."
"Yes, ma'am," Cindy replied before disappearing.
Los Angeles, Safe Point B
A siren of alert started to sound at the camp. Some of the people immediately scrambled for the convoys, knocking down others in an effort to board before the impact. The ones who decided not to board embraced their loved ones one final time, and prayed to their gods before the impact hit. They, and the ones who tried to board the convoys, were either killed instantly or in the shockwave that followed. There were very few indications that people had even been there.
San Francisco, Safe Point C
In this camp the situation was different, the people knew that they were doomed. They just held onto each other, some were crying, others were just silent, accepting their fate. Their deaths were painless.
Los Angeles
Gonzales watched the Chinook lift off, taking the civilians and the prisoner to a safe place. He just stood there, watching the helicopter leave the area, until he heard a loud noise. He turned his head to where the sound had come from, he saw a white flash in the distance and then was thrown back by the shockwave; before losing consciousness, he prayed that the Chinook got away.
Above Earth
"Ma'am, the remnants of the enemy fleets are withdrawing."
"Good," Kelly answered in a plain tone.
"Are you okay?" asked Cindy going to put a hand on her shoulder, only to remember at the last moment that she was a hologram.
"No," replied Kelly somberly. "The enemy fleets, is it still in range?"
"Yes."
"Cindy, I need to ask you a favor," said Kelly as she turned to face the AI.
"Yes?"
"Could you please upload into one of their ships and pass along a message to the Citadel Council?"
"What?" Cindy asked dumbfounded, she could not believe what she was being asked to do.
Kelly sighed heavily. "Upload yourself into one of their ships and when you arrive at the Citadel, play a message in everything you can. Please?" The Admiral looked so broken and desperate that Cindy knew she had no other choice but to comply with her command.
"Alright," said Cindy softly. "What is the message?"
Los Angeles
Gonzales opened his eyes, his visor was still intact so that was a good start, and then he checked the subsystems of the armor in his HUD;
Medi-gel Dispenser: Offline.
Long-range Scanner: Offline.
Mine Detector: Offline.
Radar: Offline.
Thermal Visor: Offline.
Exoskeleton Strength Enhancer: Offline.
Exoskeleton Speed Enhancer: Offline.
Exoskeleton Power Source: Offline.
Gonzales mentally cursed, without the power source the exoskeleton was useless, besides that using the MK without the strength enhancer would be almost impossible. He sat up with some difficultly and removed a pile of debris on his leg, he tried to stand up but felt a sharp pain, he then tried to reach a nearby M4, after a few tries he reached it then he tried to stand up using the rifle as a crutch, he managed to get on his feet. He observed his surroundings, on the floor were soldiers; some might have been unconscious but most likely, they were dead, in the distance he could see a few mechs, unsure which they were at the moment. Then he saw the mangled evacuation helicopter and lowered his head, grieving for the lost civilians, after he lifted his head and took in the true damage of the warzone he was standing in, he moved forward slowly and saw the fungus. "What a beautiful sight," he thought before collapsing to the ground, dead.