It's been almost half a year since the last update, and I've written a few other stories during that time. But let's go back to this one and start finishing Ark 2. Admittedly, I changed the format later, preferring to divide one story into several shorter ones, rather than writing one long story, but here I will stick to the previous format. I have plans after Ark 2 is over, but I don't know if I will implement them. But back to more important matters.
I hope you enjoy this chapter and count on your comments to help me improve my writing for the next chapters and other stories.
Chapter 11
= place: Amare home system, December 1, 2179 =
In his room, Captain Kodai was reviewing reports of the state of war between the two alliances. To simplify matters, the alliance of Ethos, Amare, and the rest were called the Allies. It was called differently in the language of Ethos and others, but 90% of the people were unable to pronounce it, as did most aliens, due to the difference in the vocal cords. There was no problem with naming various objects, such as books, and computers, but with proper names, such as names and surnames. Better not to talk. Kodai was looking for some reports on a possible place where Rachnii might be.
The plan was simple and approved by the commanders. Find Rachnii and communicate. Depending on their intentions, he would either eliminate them or drag them over to their side. Many could talk about how much the Coalition has a technological advantage over the Citadel, and how it is equal to it in military strength. But it was all very inaccurate.
Geths accounted for almost 85% of the total economy and construction capacity of ships for the Arcturus Coalition, humans for 14%, and Quarians for 1%. The calculations clearly show that the Citadel can produce 3-4 ships for every Coalition if it comes to full war production. Currently, they are able to keep up with the speed of shipbuilding, just because their ships are smaller. While the Krogans are potential allies, with their wild nature, Genophage and the absence of any modern infrastructure, and the tiny territory of only one system, it would be a long time before they were actually useful to the Coalition.
Rachni, on the other hand, produced ships in a very unusual way. According to the information, the frigate could be built in just 2 weeks and the cruiser in 2 months. Or at least that's what they did during the Rachni Wars, according to Quarian reports. If they had them as allies, they could reduce the production advantage of the Citadel's ships to just 2 to 1, which would give the Arcturus Coalition an advantage. Of course, both of these calculations didn't count the Batarians and the rest of the new species, which were literally a wild card. Might prevail on either side. Terminus Systems may have done the same, but they are too busy with their own affairs to actually engage in a full-blown war.
Kodai knew it was going to be a great fight against time. Since the information about the Allies and the Interstellar Alliance reached the Citadel, they began work on improving the MassEffect FTL drive and even plans to build their own relay. He wondered about how much humans and aliens can motivate themselves when their warm positions are at risk.
It was then that he finally decided to include the map donated by Etos so that he could check his guess. He began to impose exactly the same characteristics as previous analysts Amare, Yoruba, Piresji, and other analysts. But it did lead to changes that relied on information picked up during the Rachni Wars and their own galactic map. Recording from the former Quarian Archive indicated that one Rachnii ship managed to jump before annihilation, despite being badly damaged. On the basis of this, Allied analysts, information about the biology of Rachni and maps of both sides, he was able to determine the most likely whereabouts, a system simply called WM-943. It had the minimum necessary for Rachni, it was in a position from which Rachni could be released into the battlefields, on the line of a jump from the relay, SUS territory, but the system itself was practically useless and hardly explored at all. Literally a perfect place. This will most likely need to be discussed with other Allied and Coalition commanders, but a small raid into these regions should be fairly simple and, considering the possibility of eliminating Rachni from the war, very attractive.
= place: Travers - system ZX92; December 3, 2179 =
The operation planned by the Allied fleet on Traversa was a spectacular success, eliminating nearly 250 Hegemon ships, losing only 37 destroyed and 62 damaged alone. The remaining Hegemony and allied ships gathered at opposite ends of the ZX92 system. It didn't have any rare more important features. A star, almost like an Earth star, but only 3 planets in the system. The first was too close to the star and not suitable for colonization. The other two are gas giants with a few moons and no minerals. The system itself was also located on the proverbial "end" of the relay network. The only point anyone would want to come here is an unknown type of gas in one of the gas giants with unknown properties. In fact, before the war, the System Alliance planned to send an expedition to collect samples and test the gas. If useful, it would be possible to take over the system, terraform one of the moons and start mining. But the process would take an entire decade.
For Admiral Okita, however, the only thing that mattered was that the system didn't give any tactical advantage to either side. Which meant it would be an advantage for the Hegemony ships, which had more and larger MassEffect guns. Not to mention, many of his allies had their own ways of fighting and their own styles of command. Keeping it all in order, with so many ships, was simply impossible. So he chose a different tactic.
A formation of 650 Batarian ships began to approach the line of 600 SA and Travers colonies ships. The distances between the formations were enormous, measured in billions of kilometers. But with a short-stroke FTL, each of them could cover that distance with the blink of an eye. However, this was extremely risky as the FTL drive had to wait a while before being used again. In other words, there is no way to retreat for a while.
The exception were the Asari ships, which had two cores, which forced the ship to be built in a specific way. The 30 Asari ships that were in Okita's fleet made a quick leap 'under' the Batarian ship formation and began firing at them from a distance of 500 km. The impact destroyed 6 ships and damaged 12 more. The Asari retreated with a second FTL jump before the Hegemony could respond with fire.
The enraged Hegemoni commander wanted to start a counterattack as soon as possible, but he knew that an attack on the fleet in such a position would be suicidal if he didn't gain some advantage. Fortunately, the scanners found one.
The SA ship formation was slightly behind the gas giant in terms of its position, which made the jump risky. But the formation of their allies was in an ideal position and at a distance of about 1 million kilometers from the position of SA ships. This meant that he would have enough time to destroy, or at least significantly weaken, the human allies' fleets before they were within range to help them. He quickly ordered the coordinates to be prepared.
After the calculation, the Batarian fleet took a position 'over' the fleet of human allies to take advantage of the armor weakness of the Turian ships, which made up the vast majority of this fleet. The rotation of the ships, however, took some time, although it will be faster than the ships of the defense forces of the small and poor colonies of Travers.
The attack backfired very quickly, as among this fleet were human ships already prepared to launch their energy turrets right at the position where the Batarian ships had arrived, taking the first salvo. Okita knew that setting up System Alliance ships and their allies' ships separately would create an enticing target. And by upsetting the Hegemony commander with a quick attack, he dims the mind so that he doesn't ask questions like why would an enemy commander divide his forces like this? The ships discovered by Batarian were decoys. A simple and effective trick used in the war in a variety of ways for hundreds, if not thousands of years.
Anyway, the Batarian fleet was in an uncomfortable position and under heavy fire. To save the situation, he tried to order the fighters to take off. However, they were intercepted by human fighters and their allies after they had been previously spied by a rocket attack.
Finally, however, the spinal mounted MassEffect guns joined in, which, thanks to a larger ship, should get the advantage back to the Hegemons. However, the allied forces managed to destroy or disable such a number of batarian ships that it was simply not possible anymore. With FTL propulsion still unfinished and torn to shreds, the batarian commander swallowed his pride and surrendered.
In combat, the Hegemony lost all its ships, 300 destroyed and 350 captured. Half of the seized had varying degrees of damage. The Allied fleets lost 56 ships destroyed and 147 damaged from shelling by the Batarian fleet. Although significantly reduced to only 400 undamaged ships, the Allied fleet was the clear winner in this fight.
= place: Begketor system; December 5, 2179 =
The first phase of the Mothball fleet annihilation operation has begun. Stealth System Alliance frigates entered the system and immediately activated cloaking before the obsolete listening stations in the system could track them. They approached quickly and quietly. Each frigate held a detachment of 64 N soldiers. The best equipped and trained military formation in the history of mankind. They are said to be rivaling the Specters of the Citadel, but thankfully there has never been a need to test this.
Especially just as they were about to approach, 5.00 local time, the pre-arranged date and time, explosions broke out at multiple locations across the width of the Hegemony warship storage base. As soon as that happened, the frigates began to land. Or so it was, but in fact, they just dropped armored vehicles filled with N troops where the mighty warships of the Hegemony once stood.
When they all landed, they set about attacking their predetermined targets. Unfortunately, they couldn't thoroughly prepare for this attack, as the more they waited, the more of the ships here would hit the front lines. But it was enough to develop a plan with the help of maps donated by the Rebellion.
As the fighting began, the spies quickly showed their true colors by attacking the Hegemon soldiers. To distinguish them from the rest of the Hegemony troops, it was enough to look at their armband, with the symbol of the Rebellion. With the enemy behind their backs spreading disinformation, elite troops ahead, and explosions in between, the Hegemony troops were swiftly overpowered and all control building blocks were seized.
At 6.00 am local time, as the Hegemon fleet began to re-organize, the SA-Rebel Strike Force arrived. The information about the attack had probably already been sent to the Batarian commanders, so they didn't have much time before reinforcements arrived.
On the bridge of his flagship, the SSV Matterhorn, Admiral Singh watched the tactical demonstration. The plan worked without complaint. He captured 80 warships and 140 batarian corvettes in front of his fleet. His ships immediately began attacking. Aligning itself before executing the Warp jump, his fleet returned in exactly the same formation. The first part consisted of his flagship, the Everest-class dreadnought, the Matterhorn, 24 Berlin-class heavy cruisers and 24 Alamo-class frigates to escort and defend against attacks. In the spindle formation, they plunged into the unprepared ships of the Hegemony, quickly eliminating them. The second formation, consisting of 1 aircraft carrier Einstein-class, 24 destroyers Leonidas-class and 36 frigates Alamo-class, launched the attacks in a loose formation. Groups of 3 destroyers and 3 frigates launched hit-and-run attacks on a group of batarians, while the carrier with an escort of 12 frigates was several thousand kilometers away and sent fighters into battle.
But the admiral admired the Rebel fleet the most. It consisted of 22 of their own corvettes, as well as 30 turian-made corvettes and 20 converted civilian ships. Their 7 escort carriers and 24 frigates were also converted civilian ships with light side cannons, but 8 were Asari frigates albeit older. And 13 destroyers, nearly all were converted civilian ships of various types. Just one destroyer was a full-fledged military vessel, and it was an old Quarian ship. However, the 4 cruisers were almost from the highest possible shelf. 3 turian vessels and one batarian. Their tactic for taking out 50 corvettes and 20 warships was simple and murderous.
First, the corvettes flew into the enemy formation with the destroyers and activated their scanners jammers. In close combat, they disrupted their own formation and the Hegemony's formation, making it 1v1, or in small groups. Then fighters from the escort carriers flew, catching these individual ships. Eventually, 4 cruisers escorted by frigates entered and swept away the remnants of the Hegemony forces. Tactic well-practiced and well-conducted. It was through this display that Admiral Singh found respect for the Rebel Navy. They annihilated all the Hegemon ships at the cost of 14 corvettes, 4 frigates, and a destroyer. He himself lost 14 frigates, 6 destroyers, and 3 cruisers. An additional half of the steelth frigates were shot down.
"Admiral, we are receiving a message from the Rebel cruiser." - the communications officer said.
"Connect them." - Admiral Singh said. Batarian male, Admiral Usotor Ghokgodrak, if he remembered correctly, appeared on the screen.
"Admiral Singh, I have just been informed that the 11th Hegemony Fleet will be here in less than 30 standard minutes." - Usotor said.
"It's faster than we anticipated." - Singh answered, a bit surprised.
"They probably planned to move her to keep their positions at Travers." - Usotor suggested.
"So what shall we do, Admiral Ghokgodrak?" - Singh asked.
"In 20 minutes, 200 ships will be ready for the FTL jump." - Usotor said - "As soon as they enter FTL and head to our base, we blow up the rest and escape this system. I don't want to tempt fate."
"Agreed." - Singh said.
When Hegemony's 11th Fleet arrived in the system, all they found was a destroyed base, the fleet, and the survivors. They explained the situation and then set off with the fleet to collect whatever was left on the planet.
= place: main base of the Gamilas Empire expedition; December 6, 2179 =
At the main base of the Gamilas expedition, General Erich Domel contacted Abelt Dessler, leader of the Great Gamilas Empire. After giving the initial greeting, the General gave a report on the latest discoveries and asked for further orders.
"You are to continue the expansion of our bridgehead and build another one in the territory of the Elcors." - said Dessler.
"What about sending an ambassador?" - Erich asked - "Shouldn't we inform them of the inspiring Gatlantis invasion?"
"From the information, we have gathered, it appears that they won't believe us. Better to wait for the Gatlantis to attack and ally ourselves with the Citadel against them. In this way, the main burden of the war will be played on the territory of the Citadel, not ours."
"So, we are to sacrifice them." - Erich said a bit indignantly.
"You disagree with my decision." -he said more than asked Dessler.
"With all due respect, but as a soldier, I believe that this will slow down our preparations against Gatlantis and reduce our chances of winning. Besides, if the Citadel leaders find out that we've been hiding it from them, we'll make very powerful enemies out of them."
"You're right. But the truth is, the Council races and their vassals are our only serious rivals at this moment."
"What about the Arcturus Coalition and those races of their northern borders?"
"These are understandable questions, but I'll start with these new races. According to the information obtained, these races have been at war for a long time. Not only that, most of these races were once members of one alliance. It boils down to a civil war, and such is the most devastating one. They may have some interesting technologies, but ultimately they will need 10 years to rebuild the economy. As for the Arcturus Coalition, it is indeed the most technologically advanced force in the known galaxy, but that's only because of luck."
"Luck?" - Domel asked.
"Luck." - confirmed Dessler - "The Terrones are a very young race, and their advanced technology comes mostly from the ruins of the ancient Prothean race, and the wrecked ship of another advanced race, possibly the Jirelian. If it were not for this, they would still be confined to their star system. Quarrians have been little more than hikers for most of the last 300 years, and have only recently acquired what could be called an economy. For this reason, up to 90% of the total economy of the Arcturus Coalition, and the only reason the Citadel Council can't just overwhelm them with numbers is the Geth Consensus. Additionally, the Terrons and Quarian/Geth territories are separated from each other by a large space of underdeveloped systems. It seems that they recognize these weaknesses because, according to the data sent, they started to expand them significantly. Ultimately, however, this is what makes it possible for any war to quickly separate the Terrons from their allies and eliminate them with a massive assault, then redirect their efforts to the rest of the allies."
"So if we bring the main clashes of the war into the territory of the Citadel, we will be the dominant power in the post-war years." - Domel finished.
"Exactly, General, and now continue to prepare and expand your supply bases." - said Dessler - "We have reactivated 5,000 ships and although they are obsolete and untrained crews, they will free some 2,000 advanced warships from the front, along with their veteran crews, in addition, I intend to send more land divisions[1], 36 in total, additional engineering divisions, more supply ships, and some 2,000 patrol ships to escort. In addition, a large number of orbital, air and land defense systems and equipment for the terraforming of the next 5 planets will arrive, along with personnel to handle all of this. This should allow you to prepare an appropriate defense in the next 3 months."
Domel stood shocked for a moment. Such amounts of equipment and soldiers would lift the number of people under his command to some 20 million. And most of it will be frontline soldiers, not reserves, auxiliary or logistic personnel who work in the Empire building new ships or other war materials.
"And in order to be able to command it all, you will be promoted to High General." - Dessler finished.
Domel then got down on one knee and said - "I am proud to accept this promotion and promise to fulfill my duty to Gamilas. I won't let you down."
"I know that." - said Dessler and the meeting was over.
[1] The standard division of Gamilas Empire numbers 300,000 military personnel.