Mass Effect is the property of Bioware. 20th Century Fox owns the Alien/Predator franchise.
Another short chapter. I hope to get the next one out in a few days. It's nearly finished, but I kept it separate because there is about a week between the events in that chapter and this one.
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Shanxi, underground command centre
"Again?"
"Yes sir. The entire platoon was wiped out."
Three days. only three days since the invaders had changed tactics. General Williams felt as though it had been three decades. He suspected he looked like that too. Considering the handicaps under which he had worked, he hadn't had a bad war, so far. Unable to match the enemy in numbers, his soldiers had slowly fallen back into the city, shortening their defensive perimeter and bleeding the attackers every step of the way as they contested street after street, giving them their very own Stalingrad. Now, everything had changed. For three days turian warships had rained down destruction on his troops. Every time a marine unit opened fire on the approaching turians, they, and the buildings they were hiding in, had simply ceased to exist. The death toll was catastrophic, not only among his marines and the remnants of the planetary militia, but under the civilian population as well. There was no way to know for sure how many civilians had stayed in the capital, let alone how many had perished under the rubble.
The first orbital strike had been followed by a new demand for surrender from the invaders. At the time no-one had been willing to speak in favor of such a course of action, but, as the aliens demonstrated their willingness to tear down the entire city on top of inhabitants and defenders alike, more and more of Williams' officers had changed their stance. It was one thing to die fighting. To die pointlessly without being able to shoot back was a different story.
The general drew a deep breath. It was time. He had wasted three days, praying for a miracle. That miracle had never happened and thousands had payed the price for it with their lives. No more. You have to end it now.
"Send a message on all frequencies. Tell the aliens... Tell them I'm ready to surrender."
Turian temporary headquarters, Shanxi City
"No resistance?"
"No, sir. in fact, no sign of the enemy at all."
"Good, prepare to move forward. Keep your communications open at all times and be ready to call in bombardment the moment you make contact with the enemy."
Colonel Macrus stared out of the window of the human building in which he had set up his new headquarters. His third in two days. From the window he could see the last spot where his soldiers had engaged the enemy. Or, rather, been engaged by them. It had been a massive structure, towering up into the sky. Now it was a dusty crater, filled with rumble and and an unknown number of sentient being buried beneath it all.
Macrus was tired. More tired than he could remember ever having been. The new policy was working, that was certain. Faced with orbital bombardment, to which they simply had no answer, the moment they opened fire, the humans seemed to have given up. Turian soldiers were probing ahead, cautiously, but so far no-one had taken even a single shot. That was good. Perhaps this was truly the end of the war. If so, it had been a costly one. More than half of his regiment was out of action, either dead or wounded. Most other units were in a similar situation.
It wasn't supposed to be this way. He snorted. A lot of thing were not the way they were supposed to be. This was supposed to have been a simple, straightforward mission: Enter the star system, land on the planet, and take control. Then the humans would be forced to negotiate and everyone could go home. But now... Over five thousand turian soldiers dead or wounded, not counting the losses that the navy had taken in the battle for the system; half a city in ruins; and as for the human death toll, there simply was no way for him to tell. All that to take over what was clearly a new, underdeveloped colony world. They still had no clue as to the actual strength the humans could bring into the war if the rest of their species got involved; and they would get involved, no matter what general Arterius and the sycophants on his staff kept telling the rest of them. There was no way any species would be satisfied with negotiations now.
"Colonel, sir!"
One his aids came rushing into the room.
"Yes?"
"A message, sir. It's from the humans."
-o-o-o-
Shanxi City, somewhere underground
Corporal McKinney and the few remaining members of his squad had sought refuge in the cellar of an abandoned office building. There they had stayed for two days as the aliens marched through the streets above them, unable to take any offensive action for fear of drawing the fire of the warships in orbit. They were out of food and water, let alone the necessary medication to treat the walking wounded that made up more than half of the unit.
Cursing under his breath, McKinney stacked their weapons in an abandoned room, then tossed in his last remaining grenade. It was a small gesture, perhaps a petty one, but it made him feel a little better to know that at least their equipment would not fall into enemy hands. Then, his duty fulfilled, he gathered his soldiers and marched out into the streets.
-o-o-o-
Exogeni facility
Commander Leftcourt sighed as he heard the news, unsure whether to be angry or relieved. Solsec's mercenary troops had fought a magnificent battle, but they too were failing. The turians had finally managed to push into the Exogeni complex and establish a forward base of operations. Now the battle raged in the corridors of the complex as the security force, in ever decreasing numbers, sought to contain the breaches in their defenses. They were holding, but only just, and they, too, were running out of ammunition. Not that it mattered anymore. With the marines and the militia out of the fight, there was no way they could hope to hold the complex against the invaders. They had fulfilled their contract to the best of their ability. Pointlessly committing suicide was not part of the deal. It was time to call it a day.
"Start destroying all records that you want to keep secret. We'll delay them until you're done."
-o-o-o-
Shanxi military headquarters. Research facility
"Alright people, those are the last files. Get ready to transmit."
Lieutenant Velina Sosa looked around the lab where she had spent most of the last two weeks. It had been so fascinating! New technology, new ways of doing things. Now it was all coming to an end, and she had to break down everything they had put together.
"We're ready, ma'am."
"Good. Transmit everything, then purge the system."
Selina gave the lab one more regretful look. They had made such great strides in understanding the alien technology. It really was too bad that they had to stop now. All she could do was hope that their reports would reach the right people.
-o-o-o-
USM Dagger, Shanxi space
The frigate had been lying dead in space, using neither propulsion nor active scanners, observing the events on the planet. Now, thing were changing. Commander Farnsworth studied the latest transmission that they had received.
"Are you sure this is all? We won't get a second chance."
"Yes, skipper. General Williams was quite clear. There will be no further information."
"Good. Compress all data and target the relay. Make sure all hand are standing by to get us the hell out of here.
-o-o-o-
The turian patrol was caught by surprise. Fighter squadrons had been patrolling the area around the mass relay ever since the human warships had departed the system and it was inevitable that they would become less alert over time. Still, they reacted with admirable speed, vacating the area to avoid being caught by any ships that might enter through the relay. It took only a moment more to determine, that this was not an incoming transit. The relay had been activated from inside the system and it was purely a data transfer, rather than an actual transit. There was no need to attempt to track the activation signal as, only moments later, a human frigate lit off its drives and started accelerating away.
The continued presence of a human warship in local space did not come as a great surprise to the turian pilots. In fact, it had been suspected from the start that the humans had left some of their ships behind to observe the invasion. This was the first time that any such ships had been spotted, though, and the fighters set off in pursuit, hoping to catch the human vessel and cripple it so one of their cruisers would be able to come withing combat distance.
They were wasting their time. The human frigate, basically a collection of four massive engines with a small hull strapped on as an afterthought, had too much of a head start and could accelerate nearly as fast as their fighters and the turian pilots were left grinding their mandibles in frustration as the small vessel disappeared in FTL drive. Still, it was not a complete loss. Undoubtedly, the ship had transmitted the human surrender to whoever was listening on the other side of the relay. Perhaps that knowledge would finally convince them to open negotiations.
Arcturus Station
Three officers and a civilian were sitting in a briefing room.
"That is... quite a story!"
Admiral Drescher leaned back against her seat. "I have to be honest with you, gentlemen, ms. Vickers, if it hadn't been for the records, both from Anzio itself, and from the marines' helmet cameras, I'd be tempted to have you all locked away, pending a psych evaluation. As it is..."
She paused. "... as it is, I have no choice but to believe you. Still, it leaves us with a lot of unanswered questions."
There was a moment of silence in the conference room. Then the admiral continued. "From what we have managed to learn so far from interrogating the handful of prisoners that admiral van Buren took during his first engagement, the aliens we are fighting, these turians, as they call themselves, are part of a larger organization, consisting of at least three species: the turians themselves, and two others. Descriptions of the other two species match the ones that you observed aboard the Calypso. Unfortunately, that is about all we have discovered. Interrogation has been extremely slow due to language difficulties. From the transmissions that were sent at Shanxi it seems that the aliens have had rather more success in dealing with the language barrier; understandable, since they have apparently dealt with this kind of problem before. We, on the other hand, have found it extremely slow going. Of course, we may actually have had more success than we think. The prisoners may simply be hiding behind the language problems to avoid answering questions."
"Admiral, if I may..?"
"Yes, ms. Vickers?"
"As far as we could tell, there was no hostility at all, during our initial encounter. It was only when these turians showed up that the situation deteriorated. Even then, the first ship never participated in combat. If these aliens are allied, one would expect them to have joined forces."
"Perhaps. Keep in mind, ms Vickers, that we are not talking about humans. I would strongly suggest that we refrain from projecting human style motivations on them. Besides, humans would not necessarily act as you describe either. The first ship you encountered may not have been aware of the outbreak of hostilities. If so, they might have hesitated to engage, even after their purported allies showed up. Then again, we don't know the exact nature of their relationship. No, we cannot afford to make any assumptions. Still, I admit it is intriguing. So far we have seen no sign of any force other than the turians involved in combat against us; and frankly, that is already more than we have been able to handle so far. If there are other species out there who have decided to remain neutral, well, there may be an opening for diplomatic efforts and your initial contact with them may help us out in the long run." She shrugged. "But, that is something for the politicians to debate. Meanwhile, we have a war to fight. Fortunately, the political situation on earth has largely resolved itself by now, which means that we can end this waiting game and start acting. Captain Ramirez?"
"Ma'am."
"What is the ETA on Anzio's repairs?"
"About forty-eight, ma'am."
"Good. Thanks to certain changes in government policy I expect to receive green light for the counter attack at any moment. Once that happens, I want second fleet in Shanxi space as soon as possible. General Williams has been on his own for more than two weeks now. I don't think he'll be able to continue the fight much longer, unless we can get a relief force on the ground. Frankly, I need every ship I can get my hands on; that includes Anzio. I'll have formal orders for you to report to rear-admiral Grissom aboard Tannhauser Gate. He will command the initial landing operations."
A soft ringing tone heralded the arrival of a priority message on the nearby terminal. Admiral Drescher turned away from the others and started to read. Then, without a word the admiral stood up and walked toward the window. As the seconds ticked away, no-one spoke. After what seemed like an eternity, she turned around, her face carefully expressionless.
"It seems I was mistaken. The need for haste is largely gone. That was a priority communications from one of our few remaining assets in Shanxi space. General Williams has surrendered the planet to the turians. It seems we will be able to take our time with the preparations for our counter offensive ."
She turned her face back toward the window.
"Your orders stand. Report to admiral Grissom. We will use as much time as we need to get ready for deployment. But when we are ready, second fleet is going to come down like a hammer. We'll teach these aliens the one true lesson they'll ever need to learn: Fighting with humans is just another way of committing suicide."
Shanxi City
General Desolas Arterius stood in the center of what had to be the city's main square, surrounded by government buildings. As he watched the flag of the human government was lowered and replaced with the banners of the regiments that had taken the city. It had been a costly battle, but, in the end, turian arms had prevailed. Now, all he had to do was wait.
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Kralizec314: It's a case of blaming the victim. Desolas is the sort of person who can always find justification for whatever he does, simply because he is the one doing it. From his point of view, he's been pretty nice. From the start he offered the humans a chance to surrender without taking any more casualties and, since the mess at the spaceport, he has been pulling his punches by not bombarding from orbit. This is a big problem for the turians, because they need that kind of support (they lack armoured vehicles with heavy weapons), so his soldiers (including his brother!) have payed the price. Of course, from a more objective point of view he's still an ass. He's a bully crying 'why do you make me hit you?' What he doesn't realize is that he has made a fatal political error. After the spaceport blew up he insisted that all bombardments had to be approved by him personally. Now that he has done that he will be the perfect scapegoat.
OMAC001: It's coming. I needed for Williams to surrender first. That he was only days away from getting help just makes it that much worse.
timedraven117: The council could try to put economic pressure on the hierarchy, but it would only work if the other governments supported them. Unfortunately, they might not, because they like having the turians pay for the defense of citadel space. Also, if the turians walk out, the volus may go with them, which would upset the financial system. And, if the turians stop protecting citadel space, the treaty of Farinxen becomes meaningless, which could lead to an arms race. It's the sort of situation where nobody is really happy with the status quo, but everybody is scared of finding out what the alternative would be.