The entirety of the Yorktown rattled as the carrier's mass catapults flung the Pyro class fighter-bombers and Vortex class heavy gunboats toward the unsuspecting Turian fleet. Looking forward out of the bridge's viewscreen Hackett could observe the clouds of strike craft dwindling to pinpricks in space, holographic ID tags following them as they lanced out. As soon as the fighters were clear their tiny micro-HRs kicked in, propelling them at three times the speed of light and slashing their charge to merely two hours. With the fleet six light-hours away from the hostiles the strike groups would be within combat range well before the Turians even realised they had some incoming friends.
The Pyro class fighter-bomber consisted of two modules connected by a bracing strut. The first was the cockpit module, containing the pilot, co-pilot and life support systems as well as the control interfaces. The second module was twice the length of the cockpit and contained the proton shielding core, pee-beep and Avalanche hybrid-nuclear missiles. Between these two modules was a micro HR motor and either side, on each end of the bracing strut, was an enormous cylindrical plasma thrust unit. By comparison the Vortex class gunboat consisted of three modules, a central three man cockpit module between two larger weapon modules, each one loaded up with Avalanche munitions and four turreted Phoenix heavy autocannon, making them sluggish but more than capable of laying down a withering fusillade of fire. The HR motor was located on a spur that descended vertically down from the cockpit module, the bracing strut drooping down 45 degrees at the ends to the engines and making the fighter look like a distorted E shape from the front. The Avalanche missiles were essentially smaller, smarter versions of the ballistic missiles launched by the defenders of Shanxi, deceptively difficult to hit with point defences and packing a three stage warhead - element zero stage to disrupt the shield, then a heavy tungsten carbide armour piercing round and finally a 2 kiloton baby nuke. Each Pyro carried eight, each Vortex carried thirty two. Twelve ships per squadron, sixteen squadrons of Pyros and eight squadrons of Vortexes. Do some quick calculations and it quickly becomes apparent that the unsuspecting Turians currently had no less than five thousand six hundred and thirty two Avalanche missiles bearing down on them. At this precise moment in time being Turian was a poor survival trait.
###
Rear Admiral Fang arranged her battlegroup into a suitable offensive formation and watched the engagement clock ticking down in her display. They would time their HR jump to arrive approximately one hundred and eighty seconds after the American fighter strike hit. In responding to the chaos of close range assault with pee-beeps and Avalanche missiles the Turians would be completely unprepared for the sudden assault from her ships. Her battlecruiser would open up with the two main proton beams, the shots probably powerful enough to punch through the Turian line cruisers in a single hit. Her grand cruisers would join in the barrage on the enemy cruisers as her line cruisers hit the frigates hard, with her frigates laying down a solid fire base and her destroyers encircling the formation and tearing down any who tried to flee. A fairly standard tactic but brutally devastating against an inferior force. Combined with the chaos of the fighter strike and whatever the hell Kronen was going to do with his big ass invisible battlecruiser and these 'Turians' wouldn't even know what hit them.
###
The Union Battlestar 'Wildcard-Hesman' seemed to shiver in anticipation as her HR motors span up. She would jump right past the Turian task force and immediately stealth, turning round to blitz the backside of the fleet with MOAR weapons (Medium Oblique Antimatter Rockets). Timed to arrive exactly two minutes before the American fighter strike, the Turians would be caught between two opposing hostiles and be thrown into chaos just in time for the Soviets to arrive and smash the hammer down on the beleaguered hostiles. He didn't expect them to last very long under the combined force of the allied fleets. He was going to enjoy this.
###
The AI network. That virtual realm where the artificial intelligences that seven societies were built on communed, communicated, socialised and evolved. An invisible web of information available only to AIs and those few organics who decided to have the blue box operation, implant a quantum computer into their brains and become true hybrids of organic and AI. Lightspeed was no barrier to these synthetic life forms, information flowing near instantaneously between them.
One tiny portion of that data stream was occupied by several AIs frantically pinging data at their counterparts six light hours away. It took fourteen seconds - an aeon by AI standards - for the AI of the carrier Yorktown to respond to the data packets. It then took another twelve nanoseconds for Yorkie to ping the data around the rest of the American fleet AIs. Two microseconds later the data stream reached the Soviet ships, already spinning up their HR motors. Six nanoseconds later the Soviet AIs, in particular the flagship AI Su, agreed with the sentiments of their American counterparts. Thirteen microseconds later Vahli, the Wildcard's AI, also agreed with the data. On Shanxi, Ash and Mel felt surges of relief as their brothers and sisters took action. And just like that the AIs despised by Citadel society prevented the annihilation of the Turian armada and a resultant war that would devastate the galaxy.
###
"Citizens of the Hierarchy. I am Admiral Kaius Vargas and I bring glad news. We have made first contact with a new, powerful spacefaring coalition of species, with power almost equalling that of the Citadel Council. We made a mistake. We killed some of them, and they killed some of us over a misunderstanding. But another species, one hostile to both them and us, released a swarm of monstrous cybernetic creatures called Chryssachae onto the world we were doing battle on, with the intention of wiping out both them and us. We were forced by circumstance to ally in the face of a greater threat, and together we eliminated that threat. I have seen what we can accomplish together with our new found allies. I have seen their medics working themselves to exhaustion saving our soldiers. I have seen their warriors stand shoulder to shoulder with ours. So I ask of you, citizens of the Hierarchy. Will we allow our stubborn foolishness resume a war that would decimate our armies, destroy our fleets and bring nothing but senseless death? Or will we embrace these new peoples as friends and allies?"
The newly promoted Admiral Hackett watched the news feed from his bed, feeling the warmth of the newly promoted Admiral Fang pressed into his side.
"It's certainly an impressive speech. We must have scared them good."
Fang reached behind her and shifted a pillow to make herself more comfortable.
"Come now Steven. Surely they only wish to extend the hand of friendship to our wonderful culture?"
He chuckled at the sarcastic tone of Fang's voice.
"Of course. And if we place, say, schematics for a proton beam cannon into said hand that's just an unexpected bonus?"
She snorted in amusement.
"Of course. I suppose only time will tell if the other hand contains a dagger destined for our backs."
###
Councillor Luceius couldn't quite believe what he was reading. He had always known Primarch Samaellus was disdainful of the Hierarchy's reliance on Asari diplomats and Salarian spies but this was completely out of the blue.
It had been around three weeks since first contact between the Hierarchy and these species, Human, Raachok and Atavira. They really were something else. Technologically speaking they were more advanced than any Council race but only just - their element zero based technology was unbelievably primitive, balancing out their advanced weapons, shielding, medical and stealth technology. Think how that stuck up Asari and nosy Salarian would react if the Hierarchy gained access to those particle beams! Every pirate in the Terminus would fear to trespass in Hierarchy space! And that stealth technology could boost their special operations and intelligence agencies past the STG.
Then again, the presence of these new aliens could be a further destabilising influence on the Council. Nobody wanted to admit it but in recent years the relationships between the Council species had been particularly strained. There were really three main issues pulling the Council apart.
The first was the Volus. Recently there had been enormous pressure from the Vol Protectorate for a council seat, supported by the Turians. The Volus had, in his opinion, earned their seat with the Unified Banking Act, essentially creating the galactic economy from scratch. The Asari and Salarians were resisting the push tooth and talon, well aware that giving the Volus a seat would be tantamount to giving the Turians two seats. The conflict was slowly and inexorably pushing the galaxy into recession as several major Volus corporations slowly but surely withdrew from Asari/Salarian markets in protest.
The second was the Batarians. They were permitted an embassy on the Citadel yet continued slaving with impunity. The Hierarchy was not happy about this. The Asari Republics were also not happy about this. However the Salarians were constantly blocking any move to crack down on the practice, claiming that attempting to eradicate slavery in the Hegemony was a fool's errand and it was better to have them under the Council's eye so they could at least limit the practice to the Batarian species and the denizens of the Terminus.
The final one was the Asari themselves. Something in their history books didn't add up. It was one of the few things he and Ikksi agreed on. They had got together one evening and spent the entire night poring over historical documents and drinking copious amounts of caffeinated drinks, and had reached the unwelcome yet inescapable conclusion that the Asari had access to more Prothean artefacts than they were letting on, despite the laws in place, ironically pushed through by the Asari, against withholding Prothean technology.
Luceius flicked a mandible in irritation as he read through the reports, unaware that somebody else was reading over his shoulder.
###
Mel focused one of the security cameras on the Turian Councillor's screen, her translator matrix scanning through it and cataloging the contents for later dissemination to the CIAAIID, the slightly clunkily named Central Intelligence Agency Artificial Intelligence Intelligence Division. Despite being a Soviet AI, she was reporting to them as they were the only organisation to use AI in an espionage capacity. It had been relatively simple to hitch a ride aboard the Turian cruiser to their homeworld Palaven. It really was a lovely place. From there she had hopped aboard a spy ship belonging to an organisation called the STG and hitched a ride to a Salarian planet called Mannovai, and then she had finally found a ship with sufficient computational power, a Volus trade barge, headed to the Citadel. From there it was relatively simple to hop into the Asari dreadnought Destiny Ascension and use their comm system to ping her location to the CIAAIID, then jump to the Citadel proper.
Ignoring the layers of private correspondence, corporate advertisements and tacky pornography, she dove right into the Citadel's deep layer code. The data space was expansive as hell, right to the point where she pinged her superiors and requested four additional code packets to expand her capabilities to the point where she could effectively cover the whole Citadel. And that was when she found it.
A patch of emptiness in the middle of the Citadel's data net. She tried to push into it and something touched her, making her recoil as if she had just dipped a finger in liquid nitrogen. And then she felt it, the sense. The inexplicable notion that there was something older, smarter, colder and crueller in the network with her.
###
There were three coffins at the ceremony. They were empty of course - the bodies had been obliterated by the orbital strike. Each one had a flag draped over it - the Stars and Stripes over one, the Hammer and Sickle over the other and the Green Globes over the third. The crowds in the cemetery were quite sparse - attendance to the funeral was limited to those who were well acquainted with the deceased.
Carissa made a conscious effort to stop her mandibles from shaking as she watched the coffins lowering into the three graves. The words were in a language she didn't understand but she recognised the rifle salute. Clearly certain things were common between their cultures.
The medal presentation had been the day before. The Red Cross, Medal of Honour and Star of Tirfan now adorned her left breast, all awarded for what was, in her eyes, just doing her duty. But in the eyes of these people she was a hero. She had already been propositioned twenty three times by email. Ayi had laughed and told her not to worry about the crazies.
There was something about heading into a high risk mission that brought people together. She was surprisingly close with the survivors, particularly Ayi and Beyogi, the Atavira sisters. She had seen Shepard's young daughter, Lizzie, at the medal presentation. She seemed to get along very well with Garrus. Perhaps those two would become close friends.
###
"Councillor Luceius."
The Turian Councillor inwardly groaned.
"Yes, Councillor Tevos?"
"I believe you have some explaining to do."
"Really?"
"Concerning the events that transpired around Relay 314."
"What do you wish to know?"
"Well you can start by explaining exactly why the Turians initiated diplomatic talks with not one but three new species, when that is clearly the role of the Asari ..."
"My dear Tevos," and his tone implied the exact opposite sentiment were true, "you and I both know that in the time it would take for the Republics to prepare and dispatch a diplomatic cruiser every Turian in Admiral Vargas's fleet would have died of old age. The Hierarchy merely laid the groundwork to bring their ambassadors to the Citadel."
Despite the Turian's condescension, something she was usually dishing out instead of receiving, Tevos couldn't help but be amused by his description of the Republics's decision making process.
"I see. Well in that case I await their arrival."
###
Seven ships appeared next to the Citadel, causing a frantic scramble among the defence fleet and C-sec before frantic stand-down orders flashed across the network, making the confused defenders halt their headlong rush to action stations. As soon as they had calmed down enough to look out of the window the Turian, Asari and Salarian crews of the dreadnoughts, cruisers and frigates assigned to protect the Citadel gaped in amazement.
Of the seven ships present four of them were above dreadnought weight, the other three being just shy of the cutoff line dictated by the Treaty of Fairxen. Three of them were past the weight of the Destiny Ascension.
Matriarch Lidyana leaned forward in her command seat, gaping in dumb disbelief. She was the captain of the Destiny Ascension, the biggest dreadnought in the known galaxy with a crew of almost ten thousand, and just like that she had been surpassed by what looked like the ships of three separate races, one that looked like four long boxes stuck together in a two by two vertical grid, one sleek triangular shape and one that looked uncannily like an enormous insect. The four smaller ones had the appearance of a smooth, tapered cylinder with two wings, each one with two engines on them and a smooth, bulbous ovoid on the ends, and two tail fins sticking up at the back, each one also with an ovoid on the end.
She watched the seven ships descend on the Citadel, each one releasing a single shuttle that winged towards the Presidium. Just like the rest of the Citadel Fleet, she was completely unaware of the small armada of stealth destroyers and gunships in their midst.