"Tell me everything, Commander."
Major Hackett's voice, a normally benevolent and pleasant sound, had twisted into a low growl, frustration clearly written on his face.
His annoyance wafted through the air like the stench from a corpse of a freshly killed Faceless, or the Thin Men of the First War.
The Commander sighed, static rushing across the comms.
The voice was resigned and tinged with fear. "The team researching the relay sent a 'X-Ray inbound' signal before we lost contact with the ship. The 5th fleet is already at the relay they passed through, and they're waiting for orders. Your group will be needed for recon and hacking, and if possible, peaceful-"
"Sir, they attacked us! They attacked a defenceless cruiser!"
"I know, Hackett! We all want to turn this upstart piece of alien shit into scrap, but humanity has been at peace for so long! If we go in gung-ho, guns blazing like fucking recruits, we'll be fighting again! Humanity hasn't recovered from ADVENT and the goddamn Elders, I WAS THERE!"
Hackett stared up at the holographic black monolith labeled with an ominous "SUPREME COMMANDER, SOUND ONLY". For security purposes, the Supreme Commander of XCOM never appeared in person, always a nameless, faceless black monolith. When Hackett first 'met' the Commander at a military meeting, he had thought that the black monolith was comical, stupid even.
He could even remember himself saying, "What is this? A kids' TV show? What's next, giant robots fighting giant abominations?"
As time passed, though, and the amount of time spent around the monolith had increased, it had become less comical, less of a joke, but rather a stern and imposing figure signifying the Supreme Commander's might. It was just like a tall, unbreakable wall; exactly like the army he commanded.
"Understood, Commander. I apologise for my earlier actions."
The Commander made a gruff sound of agreement. "The other advantage we'll gain from this is that we can open fire on them mercilessly and blow them to pieces and have the excuse that they fired first and we attempted peaceful reconciliation." On that grim note, the hologram winked out of existence with a purple flash.
Brilliant.
[Line Break]
Hackett's footsteps echoed through the near-empty corridors of the ship. Engineers passed by in groups with the occasional Cyberdisc, accompanied with its squadron of drones. The only other sound was the low hum of the Elerium Cores below his feet.
Looking back now, Hackett could see the truth behind the Commander's words.
Even though humanity had left ADVENT behind in the previous century, the scars of their authoritarian regime still ran deep. There was an underlying fear of the alien species that had integrated into human society, even if it had been shown that they had been acting under the control of the Elders.
Hackett walked briskly into the room across the corridor, passing by a group of crawling sectoids. They were short and large-eyed, with a disproportionately large head that was almost comical, Hackett thought dispassionately. They were different from the sectoids of the ADVENT regime, who were tall, beady-eyed and disturbingly human-like.
The room was the size of a football field, and was filled with human troopers, who snapped to attention upon Hackett's entrance.
Hackett cleared his throat noisily and spoke out, "I'm sure you've all heard of the alien attack on the Tygan Institute ship. If they're such big warmongers that they'll attack peaceful research ships, we'll just have to put the rabid fuckers down. They want a fight, we give them one!"
The troopers roared their approval.
"However, the Commander wanted us to try and use peacefully approach them first. That way, we can still blow them to pieces and have the excuse that 'they fired first'."
The troopers cheered, though this time with much less enthusiasm. The thought of having to peacefully deal with hostile X-Rays was frustrating, to say the least.
"XCOM is humanity's first line of defence and we have protected Earth from the Elders and ADVENT. They are the weapons and armour of Humanity, and shall always be. We will not surrender and we will defeat the aliens no matter what! Vigilo Confido!"
"Vigilo Confido!"
[Line Break]
I won't let these things beat us without a fight, Hackett couldn't help but think, as the Bridge Drives deactivated with a sharp whine and the supercarrier O'Connor landed at the destruction point of the research ship and prepared for hostile contact with a new alien force.
"Sensors are at maximum efficiency. Heat levels are within acceptable parameters..."
A Cyberdisc reported on the ship status with its synthetic voice while its fleet of drones flew around the bridge, manning open control panels.
A Psi Operative linked her mind to the Hyperwave Relay in the belly of the O'Connor and projected her psionic energy across the vacuum of outer space. Hyperwave Relays were long-distance psionic transmitters/receivers, developed from Elder technology. They were theorised to be the reason why Elders were able to retain control over thousands of soldiers and aliens.
"They're picking through the wreckage, sir," she reported through the comms.
Hackett scowled fiercely and felt white-hot rage bubble up in his chest. So they're not above desecrating corpses, are they? I'll have the scientists dissecting their mangled corpses.
"Give me an estimate on size, Operative."
"Erm, they're about...200 meters long?" Surprise and disbelief coated her voice. "That's the largest. The smaller ones barely clear 100 meters."
"What." That was a...surprise. They'd thought that they're be going up against kilometre-length warships, not some pathetic patrol ships. A laugh rippled across the bridge, all tension gone. Looks like this'll be a curbstomp. I almost feel bad for them. Almost.
Shaking his head, Hackett called out, "Dr. Johnson, what do the long-range scanners say?"
Dr. Johnson, chief scientist aboard the O'Connor, stood up from his seat and said, "Element Zero density high. Nothing Elder. No Psionics, no Elerium. Hard to say what kind of race. Architecture to different to be Prothean. Underusing Element Zero potential, energy usage inefficient. Possibly reengineered Prothean tech. To small to match up Prothean design. Possible MAC use."
Hackett nodded slowly. Another species that had discovered Prothean technology, and had tried to reinvent it, only to fall short and have wildly inefficient tech? A mystery for another day. The good news is that the Elders hadn't attacked them, which means their tech would be less inefficient than ours.
"Sir! The alien fleet is moving in the direction of the Relay!"
Presumptuous aliens. Hackett thought with a sneer. We can't have that happening now, can we? Don't you know what happens to intruders? Wouldn't you like to know?
"Get all the Skyrangers out. Send the Specialist teams to get access to their network. Other teams are to suppress all signals and activate Ghost mode to maintain concealment. I want all combat ships to form a net around the relay. Nothing will get through."
"Yes sir!"
[Line Break]
Lieutenant Winchester was annoyed.
He'd been hyped for battle upon the Major's speech, and he was ready to kick alien ass, gripping his CPL-9 plasma rifle so hard his knuckles turned white. Unfortunately for his squad, they had been stuck in a Skyranger for almost half an hour now, with no commands for deployment or an other action. It had gotten so dull that even their, GREMLIN, had begun flying in circles. He knew it did it to annoy him, and annoy him it did.
"What's the damn brass doing..."
He shifted his shoulders wearily, the WAR suit servos whining as they adjusted to his new movement.
One of the many specialised teams on the O'Connor, they were a team of Specialists, equipped with a GREMLIN and a Cyberdisc, along with its squadron of drones. Well-versed in hacking and decryption, the team was a powerful asset and a potent threat to all mechanical units they'd meet in the field.
Just when Winchester was going to try taking a nap in the WAR suit, the Skyranger comm crackled and all the dozing team members blinked and looked up.
The comm system aboard the ship buzzed to life, a GREMLIN AI speaking into the system.
"All personnel, this is your announcer speaking. Combatants are to report with your appropriate weaponry to your respective Skyrangers. We'll be joining the 5th fleet at the destruction point. Suppressing energy levels to prevent detection. MECs and Mutons report to Skyranger 2,7..."
The comms cut off and the AI pilot took over in briefing the squad.
"This is your pilot speaking, we'll be flying in concealed to access the X-Ray's network. We'll be doing covert hacking, no firing allowed. Yet. It'll be a good challenge..."
Winchester grinned savagely, his teeth bared in anticipation.
An unknown alien system with a different computing system. This'll be interesting.
"...but we all know that you are one of the Union's best, and this would be peanuts in comparison to the harder exercises Specialist training puts you through."
Damn straight you're right.
[Line Break]
The bridge of the THS Watchful was a small hub of activity, the cacophony of talking Turians filling up the room. Engineers walked in and out and computer systems beeped.
The discovery of a new, unknown race was rather unsettling, to say the least. However, the potential outcomes and rewards of a such a discovery - it was unimaginable. Speculation and rumours were rife in the ranks of the Watchful of the new species. From outlandish beings to rouge AIs, the possibilities were endless, and there were none the crew did not discuss.
Granted, the creatures had flaunted Citadel rule and had activated a Relay, an act rendered illegal by the Rachni Wars. They simply couldn't risk another event as catastrophic as that from occurring again. The defeat of the Rachni was a Pyrrhic victory - the Krogan had to be uplifted, and look how well THAT turned out.
"The lack of Element Zero is key to understanding them," even the bridge, head of command in Turian ships, normally strictly controlled areas, were not safe from the rumours circulating on the ship on the fallen ships' origins. An excited tech continued after a pause, seemingly thinking about such a civilisation. "They could simply be a new spacefaring species, new to traveling across their system in minutes. Who knows, maybe this is the first time they've discovered tech on this level! Would explain the odd lack of weapons or flight systems."
Another one rolled his eyes and said, "Shut the hell up, you've been talking for an hour straight. Don't you remember the one time you were spewing bullshit about rogue AIs? That one was pretty stupid."
"Yeah, but wouldn't that be cool? What if they're trying to wipe out all sentient lifeforms and assimilate them and they saying, 'Resistance is futile, beep boop.'"
"Still, those odd energy readings were surprising. Such a small ship with such a large power source? Even those Salarians can't fit power generators into a space that small, and these greenhorns with no idea what is Element Zero can do that?"
Another tech simply grinned wryly, "Any of that can be true, and if you two would stop talking and do your job, maybe you'll realise that we are all asking the same questions. After all, haven't we been talking about the same Spirits-cursed things about these aliens after we blew them up?"
The original speaker waved his hands and his mandibles flared, as if to retort wittily but he simply couldn't think of a counter-argument. His partner sighed in relief. "Finally. Now stay that way." As if one cue, a holographic screen beeped and flashed at that moment. "Sir, salvage teams report few intact samples. Dragging what they found aboard now."
"Excellent work, all of you." the Captain Darnian hovered behind the three techs, his mandibles shifting into a smile. "Today was an unexpectedly fruitful day. Once we get these back to Palaven, we'll all be in for promotions and commendations. Any progress in determining the location of the alien planet?"
"Not yet sir," the first Turian spoke. "VIs still-" A loud and abrasive tone cut in, "No they aren't." The screen flickered before every screen on the bridge was replaced with the image of an oddly asari-like creature.
"Who is this? What have you done?" The Captain thundered, his voice shaking with rage and contempt.
"Ohh, right, forgot the introduction. My name is Specialist Winchester, and I belong to the race whose ship you just blew up. I know that you may be pissed that someone borrowed your toy, but melting them in hellfire is just rude. My team intercepted your signals and hacked into your ship's main processors. We made a suitable translator and took control of your ship. Similar things are happening to the other ships in the fleet." The speaker grinned with satisfaction, his teeth bared in insolence.
"Y...you! How dare you do this! You were breaking Citadel law, and you dare to attack your superiors? Respect you betters, alien!"
"So you can't be persuaded to leave peacefully?"
"We are Turians, what could a puny spacefaring race possibly do to us? Surrendering is for cowards and weaklings!"
The alien made a 'hum' sound thoughtfully and said, "Gremlin, record that and send that to the brass. So you won't mind if we attack? We don't people who shoot first and ask questions later."
"Go ahead, alien." The word dripped with contempt and dislike, and it was spoken like a vulgarity. "We await your challenge. We will enforce Citadel law and teach you lawbreakers about being obedient."
"No can do, sir. We just got ordered to engage. Prepare for complete annihilation." The alien smiled mockingly.
The screen flickered before the ship died, systems failing left and right.
"Ensign! What happened?" Darnian yelled.
I don't know, sir! We just lost control of the systems to the aliens. They've reached the power generator, and they've overridden my safeties! All of them.
We lost life support on Sector 7, Captain! The weapons systems are powering down. Manual override in 3, 2-"
[Line Break]
Somewhere in space, a GREMLIN felt schadenfreude wash across his circuits. Manual overrides were a pain in his metaphorical ass, but they were meant for wrestling control away from a third party in a system that hadn't been completely overtaken yet.
Key phrases being hadn't been completely overtaken and yet.
Both didn't apply.
:ACCESS POINT ACQUIRED_
:EXPLOTING FOREIGN CODE_
:QUERY: SYS Shut down POWER and revert to AUXILIARY power?_
Y/N
/COMMAND Y
[Line Break]
"-1!"
The ship power generators shut down, life support and computer systems failing to exist.
The act repeated itself across the 5 other Turian ships.
Darnian bowed his head, his head in his hands.
"Spirits, what have I done?"
[Line Break]
Cheers erupted across the bridge, tinged with bloodlust and exultation at the first strike.
Hackett tented his fingers, his smirk hidden by his gloves.
Humanity had managed to shipwreck down the ships and the Council had authorised a full-out assault. What could possibly be better? Oh right, blowing their ships up, but the Council had direct orders to leave the ships as untouched as possible. He stood up and announced, "All ships, we are authorised for an assault. I repeat, we have been authorised for an assault. Our Specialists have turned their ships into sitting ducks, all enemy ship-based weapons systems have been disabled. All Skyrangers are to deploy. Firestorms are to patrol and alert us on any moving objects. Keep an eye out for activity."
The war had begun.
[Line Break]
"Verbal reports coming in. All instances report successful forced entry. I repeat, forced entry on X-Ray ship 1 through 5 is successful. Live feed coming through now on all troops."
Data pads and holographic screens exploded in a burst of information, sound files and video feeds flickering past in a cacophony of sound and images.
Johnson's eyes darted across the screen, frantically selecting specific video feeds across the sea of data.
"What do you make of this, Doctor?" A tech asked.
There was a pause as Johnson made an odd throaty noise before selecting a specific feed from the cloud of open programs on the screen. The feed showed a group of soldiers gunning down an alien with a sea of plasma, a transparent field appearing in front of the alien briefly before the alien fell over screaming.
"Alien could be reptile or avian. Hard to say. Dissection necessary. Vivisection nice, but not required." Hackett felt himself shiver at the doctor's almost giddy grin and casual mention of vivisection. "Tech is...weak. All Element Zero based, fires projectiles from mass effect fields. Ineffective against Vahlenite armour. Field appears to be shield, stopping kinetic strikes. Mastery of Element Zero on infantry level...disturbing. However, remaining aspects unimpressive."
"So...?"
"Plasma weapons overkill. Highly effective. Shields reduce velocity of incoming projectile. Rendered ineffective by plasma heat. Look here," the scientist said before pointing to the corpses of several dead aliens. "Burn marks, more severe that 3rd degree. Corpse with minimal damage required for dissection. Burnt corpses hard to study." The scientist looked delirious with joy. "So much to learn, to study. Can't wait."
"I'll ask the Psi Operatives to mind-control one. Does that count as an intact sample?"
"Close enough."
[Line Break]
Captain Darnian of the Watchful was terrified, more so than he'd ever been. The aliens had immobilised the whole fleet and were butchering everything on the ship.
The camera feed of charred Turians and the sight of blood splattered across the walls was nauseating, with many techs emptying the contents of their stomachs across the once pristine floors of the bridge.
One by one, patrol groups across the Watchful had gone offline, and the last one had the time to squeeze in two screams before a weapon whined in the background and the com had been filled with static. In other words: they were the last one left, and there was only so much time that they could hold out for. The whole ship's self-defence mechanisms had been shit down earlier by that grinning alien. Even now, the alien's words resonated in his mind:
Prepare for complete annihilation.
The words had chilled him to the core, the smile on the alien's face one of mocking and contempt. Privately, he was unsure of their victory, and was regretting attacking the new species.
Turians clutched rifles with unsteady talons and huddled behind the defunct computers. Darnian had arranged the crew in the best defensive arrangement possible, but despite Citadel rumours, Turians didn't exactly design everything on a ship for war. The bridge was large, open and cramped, exactly like a strategist's worst nightmare. Cover was easily destructible and was scarce. Fear, thick and cloying, surrounded them like a heavy rain cloud, so much so that it was suffocating to be in the bridge. "Men, it is clear that we won't be leaving the ship alive." Nice way to start a rallying speech, a voice at the back of Darnian's head snarked, "But! We will not surrender, and we will continue fighting until they all die or we do! We have defended Citadel space and we might die, but we will not be beaten."
Ragged and unenthusiastic cheer rang out across the crew. Nobody really believed that they couldn't be defeated. The aliens had brought down their electronic defence in a few seconds, the cutting-edge encryption falling apart instantly, like a primitive wooden treehouse in a gale-force wind. It was pretty traumatising to have all your power removed from you in a second. Honestly, Darnian had no confidence in the speech working and had been on autopilot from he first spoke.
Darnian opened his mouth and was going to try again but he was interrupted by a solid thud on the doors. It was a few moments before there was an odd crackling sound and the door simply exploded in purple light.
"Your existence is null."
Alien soldiers charged in with weapons that glowed sickly green. Recognising the danger, a tech screamed, "Fire!" And the air was saturated with projectiles, forcing the aliens to be pinned in place. Suddenly, a purple flare erupted from the aliens before surrounding Darnian in an ominous purple sphere. "Wh-What the f-fuck is this?!" He yelled, the sphere forcing him onto his knees. He couldn't breathe!
An alien barked out an order and pointed at the centre of the bridge. Shortly after, a blue drone flew in amongst the rifle fire, dodging all of it before releasing approximately half a gigawatt of electricity, executing five unfortunate Turians. They suddenly collapsed, screaming and frothing at the mouth.
"Fucking monsters!" A tech screamed and waved his gun at the aliens. Sparks flashed across the metal walls as the black-armoured soldier ran out of cover and weaved in and out of gunfire expertly before cleaving the tech in half with a bright blue blade, the tech's screams drowned out by the sound of gunfire.
Another alien simultaneously levelled his gun, a hulking monstrosity that glowed green and rotated ominously. "GET ON YOUR STOMACHS!" An officer screamed. Darnian followed his instinct and flattened himself on the ground just as the gun spewed greenish hellfire rapidly, burning through cover and shredding Turian flesh, slamming into a hapless Turian comm officer. The screams were punctuated with the whine of alien gunfire and the sizzle of burnt carapace.
Another alien pointed a long rifle and fired, the head of a Turian turning into faint blue mist, his rigid body collapsing in shock. Another alien lobbed a grenade, the container releasing a sinister dark green fluid, splashing across a console, a Turian screaming as his flesh dissolved and his skin melted.
Even worse still, the aliens had deployed what appeared to be a large metal disk, which had flown in before it shockingly transformed into a somewhat insectoid shape, revealing a large cannon that vaporised a screaming tech.
"You assholes! GO TO HELL!"
A well placed shot punctured an alien leg, the alien screaming as he fell, the rifle clattering uselessly on the ground. A satisfyingly large pool of blood formed, the alien's screams decreasing in volume until it stopped moving.
Yes! We hurt one of them! They can be killed!
Alas, it was all for naught, as an alien machine stomped in, its huge gun making short work of the remains Turian forces. There goes the rest of the infantry, Darnian couldn't help but think, as aliens swarmed the room, searching for any survivors.
Darnian struggled to break free of the sphere's hold on him, to no avail. An alien, clothed in white armour walked in front of him, the white fur on its head swishing from side to side. It crouched in front of him, a look of disgust and hatred clearly written on its face. Darnian looked up from the floor to say some proud final words, to show these primitives that the Hierarchy woul-
The alien grabbed his head, forcing him to stare into the glowing purple eyes. In that moment, the being known as Darnian was non-existent, now a thrall of the human, the strand of purple psionic energy linking the two minds. The link was one-way, mind you, and the Turian was now nothing more than a puppet. Now under the control of a human, the Psi Operative smirked and dismissed the sphere holding him down.
"I've mind-controlled the leader, Central. I've got a live sample."
The fight had ended in a mere two minutes.
Phew! That was some writing, easily the hardest I've ever done. I need as much constructive feedback as possible. After this, I'll be writing something else, so don't expect this to update too frequently. Also, the notes app on Apple does that, huh? I'm not going to do that again. Also, what do you think of Darnian? I tried my hand at making a Turian name. Give me your opinions.