Mass Effect is the property of Bioware. 20th Century Fox owns the Alien/Predator franchise.

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Sorry, I know I promised another battle, but the chapter got too long compared to the others, so I decided to split it in two. Next phase of the battle is on the way.

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July 18, 2228, human reckoning

USM Osawa, just outside of system LV-758

Eager though he was to engage the alien ships, rear-admiral van Buren had not abandoned all caution. Rather than charging in blind, he would make sure he had the latest available information before deciding on a battle plan. The four destroyers had come out of FTL speed well outside the limits of system LV-758, where they could be reasonably sure that their FTL transit would remain undetected. That had been nearly twenty-four hours ago. Since then they had sent their recon drones into the system at high speed. Using passive sensors only the small craft had investigated the situation. The news was was grim indeed. So far the reconnaissance drones had found the wreckage of one of the RDVs, most likely Bomarsund, and no sign of the other two vessels. If any of his officers had hoped that this would cause the admiral to reconsider they were sorely disappointed when he called his senior officers to a video conference. If anything, it had only hardened van Buren's resolve.

"We have detected signs of at least four alien vessels, not including smallcraft." Captain Shen, the admiral's chief of staff was giving a general briefing. "That is one vessel less than reported in captain Jankowski's original message, perhaps two, depending on whether the second frigate remained in the system."

"Looks like he got one of the bastards," someone remarked.

"That is possible, but we cannot overlook the possibility that the remaining ship or ships are still hiding somewhere in the system. In any case, we currently have tentative identifications on three destroyer-sized ships and a frigate. They also seem to have at least some fighter-sized craft with them. The latter is potentially worrisome, because we have not seen any sign of a mothership. Either those cruisers are actually hybrid cruiser-carriers, or there is at least one other ship around here somewhere. The ships are currently clustered around what's left of the RDV. From the looks of it, they're using shuttlecraft to scour the wreckage."

"Bunch of vultures," van Buren muttered. "Alright, that's enough, Shen. Listen up, everyone. We all knew that we would be coming too late to come to captain Jankowski's rescue and that's exactly what we have found. Bomarsund seems to be gone and Auriga and Gallipoli have either escaped from the system, or they were destroyed completely. Either way, there is nothing we can do to change that. Still, it looks like we're not too late to make our own contribution to the battle and we're going to make sure that it's a memorable contribution.

"Admiral..." one of the officers spoke up, possibly with more courage than sense for self-preservation. "Are we sure that we want to do this? I mean, we don't actually know what happened, so shouldn't we at least try to establish communications before we attack?"

For a moment there was silence and the other officers held their breath, waiting for an explosion.

"Communications, captain Santana?" van Buren's voice was deceptively mild. "Are you suggesting that we just waltz into the system like a bunch of colonists walking into a xenomorph's hive. While we're at it, maybe we should paint giant bull's eyes on our ships to make it easier for these freaks to take a shot at another human squadron. Is that what you suggest?"

"No sir, but-"

"Good, because I'd hate to think that one of my ship commanders was an idiot. We already know what happens when you try to communicate with them. Presumably, that's what Jankowski tried and look where it got him. We may not know exactly what happened, but we do know that they have destroyed at least one, possibly three, of our ships. Ladies and gentlemen, that is NOT acceptable, and we are going to make damn sure that they get that message loud and clear. Then, and only then will we talk to them, if we're in the mood and if there are any of them left. Does anybody have a problem with that?"

There were no further comments.

"Good. Then let's get to business. I want all ships ready for a short hop. We'll come out of FTL as close to the enemy as a we can. That way, even if there are other vessels hiding somewhere in the neighbourhood we'll be able to deal with the ones we know of before the others can interfere. Assuming that we are successful in either destroying the enemy ships or expelling them from the system, we will then remain there until further notice. Remember, we don't know where they came from. If this species originates from the other side of the mass relay we will be in a perfect position to block any further incursions into local space. If not, well then we'll just have to find their homeworld. Who knows? We might even pay them a visit some day."

HNV Primarch's Pride, System LV-758

It had been almost three days since the battle and Livestian had still not managed to come to terms with it. The 24th recon squadron had scoured the entire system in an attempt to gather as much information as possible. This had included picking up a number of lifepods from the destroyed alien vessels. Initially, he had had little hope of finding any survivors. Both ships had exploded, one of them with such force that it was hard to find any wreckage at all. However, a surprising number of lifepods had been found from the second ship, including over forty survivors. Opening the lifepods had led to a new shock. For one terrible moment, Livestian had thought that he had somehow attacked asari vessels. Fortunately, that turned out not to be the case. A simple medical test had shown that these creatures, despite the superficial similarity in body shape and facial structure, actually had nothing in common with asari. Well, almost nothing. Unfortunately, the one thing they had in common was also a major problem: Like asari, and most sentient races for that matter, the aliens had a biology based on levo-chiral amino acids, which meant that they could not ingest turian food. At least that was not something Livestian was willing to put to the test anytime soon. The situation was bad enough already, even without accusations of prisoner abuse. Of course, that left him with the serious problem of how to feed them. Turian ships carried a limited supply of levo-food as a precaution, but not enough to feed a large group of people for any length of time.
In the end, he had decided to dispatch Palaven's Glory, the most damaged of his cruisers to transport the prisoners to the nearest fleet depot. It solved two problems at once, for the cruiser had sustained sufficient damage that it would be more of a liability than a help if any more of the aliens showed up. With some luck, the prisoners might even be able to help set up some form of communications, though so far they had not been cooperative.
The remaining ships had started to collect what they could of the alien equipment that was now floating around. It was a risk because there was no way to tell if, or when, the aliens would come back, but Livestian had judged that the opportunity to acquire more information on these people was simply too important to pass up. Meanwhile, Livestian had set himself another task: to go over the records of the battle to try to understand what had happened. The results were not encouraging. Many of the characteristics of the alien ships made no sense whatsoever, but the hard data on their performance pointed toward an unpleasant conclusion.

"I was wrong, lieutenant," Livestian said to his first officer, with whom he was discussing his final conclusions. "They had no spinal mass accelerators; none of them. I don't know why they turned toward us, but it was not to open fire."

"Captain, there is no way to know that for sure. We could not take the risk. Not with a dread-"

"It wasn't a dreadnought!" Livestian shouted. He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. This wasn't lieutenant Tirius fault.
"It wasn't a dreadnought," he repeated more calmly. "Take a look at the performance data. It didn't have any more offensive firepower than those cruisers; and they were already underpowered for their size."

"Perhaps..." Lieutenant Tirius sounded hesitant as she tried to come up with an explanation. "Perhaps it's a matter of technology. There may be some practical limit to the size and power of their weapons."

"No, if they couldn't build more powerful weapons, they would either build smaller ships or increase the number of weapons per ship. There is no way, that ship was meant to be a weapon platform."

"But then, what was it? From the look of these data, it had the size and armour of a dreadnought, the shields of a cruiser and the armament of a frigate. What could possibly warrant such a combination?"

"I don't know lieutenant. But whatever it was, it was not designed for combat and that means that they probably didn't intend to attack us either."

"I suppose so. But, captain, like I said, you had no way of knowing that at the time."

"That's not the point, lieutenant. Legally, we're in the clear. The moment they tried to infiltrate our computersystems, we had a right to engage them. For that matter, it could even be argued that we had that right the moment they signaled the mass relay. But this is not about legally justifying what we did. It's about long-term consequences. If that ship, whatever it was, does not fall apart on the way home, they will tell their people that they have been attacked. That is not a good beginning of a first contact. At the very least they will mobilise ships and establish a military presence in this area, which could easily lead to further violence. At worse, they will launch an attack on citadel space.

"If they do, we'll beat them, captain. They cannot be all that numerous, or we would have encountered them before, and their technology is less advanced than our own. Those mass accelerators were even weaker than our broadside armament."

"And yet they were strong enough to cripple Palavan's Glory. Be careful not to make too many assumptions, lieutenant. So far we've seen examples of two of their ship types and neither seems to make much sense as design. Clearly, we're missing something. Nobody builds inefficient ships just for fun, so they must serve a purpose that we don't understand yet. Besides, even if you're right and we do defeat them in the end, what would be the cost? I'm not even talking about loss of life, just the money. The hierarchy's finances are already stretched to the limit with the current naval budget. If the war leaves us weakened, we might not be able to replace our losses. Then what? Our fleet guarantees the safety of citadel space. If we cannot fulfil that task-"

"Then let the other races take up some of the slack! Why should we pay for their safety?"

His words had clearly touched a nerve, for he could almost feel the lieutenant's anger reach boiling point. Though shortsighted, it was not an uncommon attitude these days. The hierarchy's economy was stretched thin to maintain the strength of its fleets, while in the meantime the other council races benefited from a peace dividend, secure in the knowledge that the turians were maintaining order. It was the price the turians had to pay for the shortsightedness of their ancestors. Riding high after their victory over the Krogan and eager to obtain a council seat, they had accepted, even insisted, on the role of galaxy-wide protectors, never realising the long term effects it would have. The reality had been a shock, even though it had been a while before people felt it and even now most turians were not fully aware of the implications. For the dubious pleasure of being able to push around non-council races like the elcor and the hanar, the turians had committed themselves to a huge military budget, which their economy, even supported by the Vol Protectorate, had great difficulties to maintain. By now it was too late. Even if their pride would accept admitting their inability to fulfill heir duties... Livestian's mandible flared in dismay at the potential consequences.

"Try to think that through before you speak, lieutenant," he said sharply. "If we fail to maintain order, the treaty of Farinxen will come up for revision. The batarians would be the first to insist that they needed additional dreadnoughts to 'take up the slack' as you put it. What happens then? If they start building more dreadnoughts, we'll have no choice but to keep pace, even if we have a head start. If you think the current situation is bad, wait until we have to compete in an arms race. No, that is not an option." He shook his head. "Anyway, we're getting away from the main issue. The fact is that we can ill afford another war right now. Especially one that may drag out over time and in the end may leave us patrolling yet another demilitarised zone, even if we are victorious. We have to find a way to end this quickly."

Even as he spoke, an alarm sounded from the bridge.

"Captain, we have an FTL transit. Four ships. They are closing fast on our position."

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Concerning the spacestation vs. planet base discussion:
It actually isn't entirely clear how deep a ME style ships can go into a star system without coming out of FTL. According to background info it should be OK to go all the way to the planet, but In ME3 the reapers can chase Normandy around a system because you always have to be at the edge of the system to go to FTL. In any case, a relativistic impact of a ship-sized object will always be lethal. Fun fact: a 10,000 ton ship, impacting at one third of the speed of light, has the same kinetic energy as a 2 km solid iron asteroid at typical meteorite impact velocities. The resulting crater is estimated to be about one kilometre deep in solid rock according to an online impact calculator. I know this is a very rough estimate, because a smaller, faster, object would have different impact characteristics, but it gives an idea of what would happen. Underground shelters won't cut it against something like this. Even if you dig deep enough to stay below the impact crater, your shelter will collapse; and even if you can avoid that, you'll be buried alive with no way to get out.