STG Monitoring probe Alpha 00124-874, Kites Nest, Harsa, 2176
The small stealth probe left by the Salarian Special Tasks group, or STG, was designed to monitor Batarian fleet movements throughout their home system, and make sure they didn't build too many warships. However, on the the 23rd of September 2176 in the human calendar, it detected a large burst of radioactive isotopes, one's that didn't occur naturally in space for more than a few micro-seconds. It detected them for over a minute. Seconds after the isotopes disappeared from the probes sensors, it started reading contacts, five of them. Four Dreadnought sized contacts surrounding one that was too large to identify. Hegemony forces had yet to detect them. The probe re-orientated itself to face the contacts. The basic V.I controlling it couldn't possibly hope to understand the what it was seeing, a ship, 100 kilometres in length and over 20 kilometres wide and tall. It started launching ships. Thousands of them. So many that the V.I was unable to track them all. The fleet went from five ships to millions.
The new ships were only a few meters bigger than the probe, all of a sudden, before the V.I could send the report back to Sur'kesh all our bound transmissions were cut off. If it had the emotional capability and sophistication to do so, the V.I would have panicked. Unable to send the data back to the STG base on Sur'kesh, the V.I did what it's programming told it to- keep recording, it kept doing so, even as one of the small drones launched by the massive vessel altered it's course, heading straight for it. A small flash of light as the drone fired its weapons marked the end of STG stealth probe Alpha 00124-847.
Hensa class Cruiser Intrepid, Kites Nest, Harsa, 2176
the Captain of the Intrepid was a blood thirsty man, but he wasn't stupid. After detecting the oncoming storm of what could only be hostile vessels he pulled up a display of the system, it showed the rest of the home defence fleet in orbit or near Kar'sharn in small blue triangles, the new contacts were represented by red triangles, the largest one was in the centre, its impossibly large mass dominating that part of the system. Thousands of the smallest contacts broke off from the fleet, disappeared in a display of radioactive isotopes and gravitational distortion- and reappeared near the Mass Relay, halting outbound Comms and destroying anything trying to leave or enter the system. A Frigate wolf-pack went to try and punch a hole through the small single ships blockading the Relay- they failed. He didn't know what happened but the five Frigates simply disappeared from his tactical display before they'd even gotten into weapons range. That wasn't a good sign.
"Helmsman, have the battle-group form up on the Intrepid, we're going to take out that blockade." the Captain ordered. The crewman hesitated only for a brief moment before complying with the orders. Out of the four hundred ships in-system twenty nine of them peeled off and moved along side the Intrepid. The thirty ships performed and inter-system jump, exiting twelve thousand kilometres from the Relay in perfect formation. The Captain of the Intrepid had chosen that distance from the Relay because it was clear of any hostile contacts. Only it wasn't. The single ships had predicted their destination and beat them to it. Lances of energy whipped about in the darkness, cutting through barriers and armour like tissue paper, Frigates exploded as their drive cores overloaded, peppering the black void of space with miniature blue and orange stars. One of the smaller Cruisers listed and careened in front of the Intrepid, half of its Starboard side missing and all the decks exposed to the vacuum.
"Fire the GARDIAN lasers,burn those fighters!" the Captain barked. The crew complied, the infra-red laser turrets turned and took aim at the small single ships. The short range lasers fired, although invisible to the human, and batarian, eye, the effects were not. Golden shields flared as the lasers hit their targets, some faltered after receiving four or five bursts of laser fire from the remaining ships. The small drones were protected with only a small amount of armour which bubbled and melted from the super-heated lasers. The deck of the Intrepid rumbled as the smaller mass driver guns on the hull open fire as well. While it was almost impossible to hit something as small as a fighter with the guns it didn't matter- the swarm of single ships was so tight that the crew were feeling just a little bit claustrophobic. The metal hull groaned from the stress of moving the multi-thousand ton vessel through space, against the backwards recoil of it's guns. A large bang and rumble shook the ship and her crew, throwing them off of their feet and out of their station. Conduits overhead exploded and stations overloaded, killing any crew members unlucky enough to be too close.
"Sir! Primary Drive Core is going critical, overload in less than a minute!" a crew member shouted as the Captain stood up.
"Vent the primary coolant and pump in the back ups!" the Captain ordered. It was a risky choice, the Intrepid wasn't designed to vent it's coolant during combat, or pump the reserves into the primary system but if he didn't, the ship's reactor would go critical, but he ran the risk of melting the coolant system and the core overloading anyway. He had to take the risk.
"Yes sir." the crewman replied as he started working furiously to do it. In the aft cameras the Captain watched as radioactive coolant was jettisoned from the aft section, the super heated gas flash froze, destroying any single ships that had gotten too close. "Drive Core stabilising sir."
"Good, divert all power to the engines, get us through that relay!" the Captain cried out, staying in system would doom him and his crew, he would sacrifice the rest of the groups to get the Intrepid out of the system and then warn the rest of the Hegemony, they would retake Harsa and burn their attackers into dust and echoes. The battered Cruiser moved forward, it's weapons silent and it's engines burning bright as it moved at best speed for the relay. It wouldn't get the chance.
Forerunner Fortress Class Vessel Horizon after War
Bornstellar watched as the Batarian Cruiser tried to push it's way through the swarm of Weapon-ships, he couldn't allow it to escape. He ordered the Perseverance, one of the four Dreadnought's with him to intercept the fleeing ship. The Commander of the Perseverance complied with little haste. Moving his vision towards the planet he ordered the three other Dreadnought's to join their weapons and power through the Horizon after War, not that he'd need that much power to destroy the three hundred ships left of the defence fleet. The Vengeful, Glory of the Mantle and the Penance of Ancients started supplying the Horizon with extra power and slaved their weapons systems to the Fortress-Class vessel in a brilliant display of golden, green and blue energy moving like liquid silver through space, it danced off of and around the hull of the Horizon. It would have been beautiful if the results weren't so destructive.
A brilliant blue and gold beam shot out from the tip of the Horizon's weapon studded tail, it shot forth at near light speed and swept through the small fleet and wiped it out with a single powerful swipe. Nothing was left between the Forerunner fleet and the Batarian Home-world.
"Deploy the station above the northern pole, construct the factory in the clouds, make sure they do not locate it." Bornstellar ordered. The Warriors and Ancilla's started their jobs. They all knew they wouldn't be the ones destroying the Batarian's government or their civilization. They'd just allow them to destroy themselves. The station was placed in orbit over the northern pole, its angular oval shape dominating the sky in the Arctic circle. Manned by only a few Warriors and Lifeworkers was to act as an observation station that could deploy thousands of Weapon-ships and contained a single Sentinel Tank to deploy if necessary. The Factory would be constructed in artificially produced storm to hide it's existence and would construct thousands of Sentinel's to weaken the batarian government's standing military before the Sentinels retreated and let the Batarian's slaves finish the job.
Forerunner Dreadnought Perseverance
The Dreadnought moved away from the Horizon and executed a maximum burn to the fleeing ship. The distance was not so far that they'd have to perform a Slip-space jump but it wouldn't be quick either. The Perseverance's reaction drive allowed it to travel at sub-luminal speeds that would have torn Mass Effect based ships apart. Racing up-star towards the batarian ship the Perseverance readied her weapons, blue and gold light formed in the forward weapon ports, excess plasma drifted out of the magnetic field, casting the ship in blue-green cloud. The scene of the small battle was littered with debris, batarian ships that had been sacrificed to allow the cruiser to get as far as it had were still burning, their broken hulls and lifeless decks were twisted and molten. The wreckage was still aglow. The Weapon-ships were chasing the damaged Cruiser, being kept just out of range by the increasingly inaccurate laser fire from the dwindling number of low powered laser emitters on the aft section. Scans indicated the interior temperatures were rising rapidly, quickly approaching the point at which nothing would survive.
The Perseverance moved through the swarm of Weapon-ships, quickly overtaking the smaller ships. The Batarian Cruiser was just four thousand kilometres from the inter-galactic relay device. The Commander of the Perseverance pushed the reactor past it's red-line to make sure that ship didn't escape. At three thousand kilometres from the enemy ship, the Perseverance opened fire. Blue and gold light stuck out in multiple bursts, the already damaged ship lurched to port as it's starboard decks were exposed and consequently decompressed. More fire struck out from the Perseverance's weapons, punching hole clean through the thin and weak armour, vaporizing the crew and melting metal. The reactor went critical. It's aft section started to bulge and sprouted orange and red flames before the ship was engulfed in a brilliant blue and black explosion of element zero and dark matter, spreading radiation and small amounts of debris every which way. The Perseverance's shields fluttered a slight gold as they repelled the small shrapnel and radiation.
Over the course of the next months these events would repeat themselves in every Batarian system. The Forerunner fleet left no witnesses and cleared up the system's of any wreckage before moving on. A dormant relay on the periphery of Batarian space was moved to a system within the small Forerunner territory for study. They may be able to replicate it on a larger scale, and maybe Bornstellar thought, just maybe his children would meet Risers.
So, hope you enjoy'ed, leave a review. please? hopefully a new chapter will be up for 'The Impossible Life of Preston Cole' within the next few days along with Sam's Journey and First Contact. Hopefully.