Chapter 4 Ground Assault Day 2
-Shanxi Capital City Limits-
"2nd Shanxi unit," a major said over the comms of the of the over 1,000 troops wearing full white armor with a matching colored helmet with a T-shape visor. "The Turians armor is 30 minutes out! The Krogan have hurt them but they are still capable! Command doesn't know how long the shield can hold out! So be prepared for anything!"
"Sir, yes sir," as multiple soldiers said in unison from their trenches as they pointed their D-15 rifles towards the forest tree line a kilometer out. Multiple soldiers carrying extra battery packs for both their hard light rifles and the machine gun counterparts.
As the minutes crawled by, suddenly distant explosions could be heard from the distance.
"Sounds like the Krogan are giving them hell," a random soldier said.
"I think the N7 may have joined them," another piped up.
"I say 8, maybe 9 kilometers tops," said a third.
Engine sounds suddenly appeared to their ears as the trees branches moved or broke off from the trees as a few dozen Turian hover tanks exited the forest with some of them with multiple burn marks and/or some dents on them.
"Hold your fire," the human front line CO ordered.
As Turian supporting infantry exited the forest, the tanks opened fire, unfortunately their rounds are currently being stopped by the human shield.
-In Orbit-
"General, the remaining armored units have begun firing on the barrier," the comms officer said.
"Finally some good news," Desolus said. "This new species is more troublesome than the operation is worth. Still good Turians follow orders."
"The scans of the nearly intact space station over the northern pole have been completed," said a technician. "I'm sending you the data to your Omni-tool."
Desolus activated his Omni-tool to look at the data and noticed something off. "How is its single power core producing triple the power than the Destiny Ascension?"
"We don't know," the technician replied. "It's producing all kinds of weird readings, so we are taking a more cautionary approach."
"Keep me informed," Desolus ordered, "and make sure send this information to command."
"At once general."
-Shanxi Forest West of the Capital-
A pair of N7 wear black armor, by the shape of the armor it was a male and female, armor of the same design of the defenders of the capital watching hundreds of turians either marching or riding in hover vehicles, while laying down. They are currently overlooking the force on top of a small hill.
"I count a thousand," said the male one.
"So what's the game plan Djarin," asked the female one as she readied her rifle.
"I'll take the 500 on the right, you take 500 on the left Shepard," Djarin replied as he adjusted the sights on his.
"Screw you, I'll take on 501," replied Shepard in a mock insulted tone.
"That's the spirit," Djarin replied.
Shepard stood up as she began charging towards the Turian force, with reckless abandon, as she fired her rifle in short bursts as Djarin carefully took his shots.
The sudden attack caused slight confusion among the Turian force before their training took hold as the quickly returned fire and the ones riding the vehicles got out before firing too.
The shots being fired at Shepard bounced off of her shields or outright missing her while the ones firing at Djarin were mostly nearly missing him with the occasional one bouncing off his helmet's shield.
As Shepard reached the Turian force she picked up the closest one by the neck with her left hand, while shooting a second with her rifle in right as the second ones corpse fell to the ground, she crushed the first one's throat before throwing his limp body into two more of his fellow soldiers.
She casually took a step to the right as a small 3 meter tall uprooted tree hit multiple turians. Shepard didn't act as if out of place when the turians saw that it was floating in midair.
"What, you shitty birds never saw a floating tree before," Shepard asked as she reloaded her rifle.
-Shanxi Military HQ-
"General, the city shields at 98.6%," said one of the officers.
"If their ships in orbit don't start shelling us, we can probably last till reinforcements arrive," Williams replied as he lit another cigar.
"How can you be sure they know we are in trouble, General Williams sir," a young officer asked nervously, obviously hiding his fear.
"Standard protocol requires every new colony to send a proper signal back to HQ every 12 hours, till a time that they see fit," Williams replied before looking at his watch. "Due to the communication blackout caused by our new friends, we missed that deadline a little over 27 hours ago."
The young officer still looked unsure as another officer asked, "Where is Warlord Wrex?"
"Half of his Honor Guard went out 'hunting', while he personally is setting up choke points around the city," William replied as he exhaled smoke.
"Krogan, can't stay out of trouble."
-Turian forces outside the city barrier-
"Commander," a Turian came up to him as the commander looked through a pair of binoculars.
"Speek," he ordered as he looked at the human line.
"General Juso is demanding an update," the Turian responded.
"The Spirit's damned barrier is still up," the commander replied with frustration. "It hasn't changed in the last hour of shelling! Where in the Spirit's name is the artillery!?"
"MIA," the Turian replied.
-Interstellar Space-
A rogue 2 kilometer long asteroid suddenly explodes into tiny pebbles before smashing into a massive metallic grey spherical ship just shy of the size of the Earth's moon going 16,000 kilometers an hour through the void of deep space.
Deep within it, the control room sat with multiple overlapping images of the space around the ship. It is she ship's bridge, with dozens of people busy with their assigned tasks.
"Any word from Shanxi," Admiral Kohaku asked as sat on his chair.
"No sir," an officer replied. "They are still not responding to our hails."
"How much longer till our warp drive cooldown," the Admiral asked.
"15 hours," the chief engineer responded. "Though we are one 15 hour Jump before we reach the edge of the Shanxi system."
The admiral looked at the internal communication officer and said, "Our warp drive may have been refitted but she still requires the same cooldown. Tell the crew to be prepared for anything."
-Shanxi Forest-
Hackett, who's now no longer wearing her torso armor, and is now wearing her under armor shirt. She just used an uprooted 16 meter, with a thick trunk and purple leaves, tall tree to use surplex maneuver and squash a random Turian. As she got up another Turian used his rifle to shoot a burst of rounds into her back, all it did was punch a few tiny hulls in her under armor before bouncing off of her skin.
Hackett turned toward the Turian and with a head tilt as she pointed her knife at him, asked, "Did you just shoot me? With that shitty pea shooter?! Why did you think that was a fucking good idea, huh!?"
Hackett then ran towards the Turian as he shot at her as she ran towards him. The rounds continued to bounce off of her skin. As she got to the Turian she used treadmaness amount of force to jab her knife into the side of his neck, breaking the kinetic barrier in the process. The amount of force used had the entire length of the knife go through his neck, his head to be removed from his torso. The rest of the Turians body fell to the ground and as blood began to spill out, the head hit the ground.
Hackett started cleaning her knife on some bushes leaves as Djarin walked up to her as he finished reloading and said, "You know the major is going to be up your ass for losing your gun and torso armor again."
"He can bite my perfectly round ass," Hackett replied as she examined her blade. "And for the record, 501 kills."
"I'm pretty sure that one Turian shot herself in the head before you threw a boulder bigger than she was at her," Djarin said nonchalantly as they began walking.
Hackett waved him off and replied, "I'm still counting it."
"You are insane."
"You just realized that?"
As they walked away from the battle ground, a thousand Turians dead with different injuries. The battleground trees and boulders are damaged that came from grenades or from the various weapons that was used.
-In Orbit-
"General, the tech team just sent a video of the station power core," a tech officer said. "You will need to see it. You won't believe me even if I told you."
Desolus activated his Omni-tool to look at the video and asked once he looked at it, "What am I looking at."
He is looking at a massively yellow ball of fire between 2 metallic structures coming from the walls. The tech responded, "A star that is approximately 50 centimeters in diameter. It is in its own containment field, so that's why we were getting odd initial readings."
"Where did they get a star that size," Desolus demanded.
"You need to ask a helioseismology expert about that," the tech replied helplessly.
Desolus growled angrily as turned off his Omni-tool and looked at the comms officer and ordered, "Tell the frigate Hammer to enter the atmosphere and to start firing its MAC at the planet's capital shield, only the shield! We are losing too many soldiers on this operation!"
"Sir," the said officer replied as he relayed the order.
-Shanxi HQ-
"Sir, a frigate just entered the atmosphere, right above us," a seasoned officer said as he looked towards the General.
"So this is where the fun begins," Williams said grimly as he inhaled his cigar.
-Somewhere inside the capitol-
A Krogan let out a battle cry as he saw the frigate take its position.
"Come on you Turian filth," Wrex cried out as he pointed his hammer towards the frigate, the Krogan around him began chanting in excitement. "A thousand years of Krogans rage is about to be unleashed upon the galaxy!"
"Today is a good day to die," a Krogan honor guard said with a toothy smile.
The frigate started firing on the barrier.
-Shanxi HQ-
"Shields at 90%," a man on the control console. As the seconds ticked by. The sound of the shield being hit could be heard at a regular interval. "60%, 45, 30, 16, the shield is coming down!" The frigate stopped firing.
"The Turians have begun charging the city," another officer cried out.
-City Limits-
"All units open fire," the major cried out, the soldiers didn't hesitate. Turian infantry dropped like flies and the tanks followed as they were hit by a combination of RPG's and portable missile launchers.
Human soldiers died instantly as tank rounds hit them and Turian infantry concentrated their fire on individual targets.
Cries of pain and the calls of 'Medic' could be heard over the weapons fire as both sides continued the battle.
After 10 minutes of fighting the major had no choice but to call out, "Fall back into the city! Leave the dead!"
-Shanxi HQ-
"Major Hill has ordered a retreat."
"Now it's your turn, Warlord," Williams said over the radio. All he heard was a deep hearty laugh from the Krogan Warlord.
Somewhere in the city Wrex called out, "Krogan of the Urdont Clan. Today we show the Turians how Krogan, not Turian, became the original warriors of the Citadel!"
Krogan war cries could be heard throughout the city with gunfire and explosions coming closer to their position.
"Krogan, we have waited over a thousand years for this day," Wrex continued. "Make sure you remember it till the day you die!"
Turians rounded around the corner in front of the Krogan, Wrex pointed his hammer at the Turians and as he did both sides opened fire on each other.
-Venus Naval HQ The Lonely Mountain-
"I don't like this," an admiral said. "We shouldn't have settled Shanx, as it is over 200 lightyears from our closest colony, and we chose General Williams to oversee our Outer Colony defenses because he is very thorough and never misses a regular scheduled communication check."
"He is a decorated officer for defending his posts from pirate attacks in the 30's and early 40's," another said. "4 bronze stars, 3 silver stars, 6 Purple Hearts and a recommendation for N7 training for which he refused chose the promotion to a general for a more stable family life."
"The Citadel doesn't like it when others activate a relay," a third added. "Maybe a random patrol stumbled upon France as they came through an activated relay."
"Don't joke about that," the first responded in anger.
"We don't have to worry about activating more relays for much longer," the second said. "Project Stargate is nearing completion."
"The first test is a decade out," the first responded, still angry.
"We have plenty of explored planets that we can put colonies on in the meantime," the third replied. "The Enterprise is already on route to Shanxi and even if the Citadel had decided to enforce its will on the planet, Admiral Kohaku will take care of it or have you forgotten its contingency fleet that makes the Enterprise its drydock?"
"Enterprise doesn't haven't anything bigger than a destroyer," the first replied as he grabbed his graying hair with his hands.
"Theortically one of our destroyers is worth two of Turian state of the art cruisers," said the second.
"Theoretically!" shouted the first back. "Even if we could fight the Turians on equal footing, the other member species might back them up with their own forces! We should reinforce Shanxi with the Seventh Fleet to secure our border!"
"I'll order them on emergency standby," the second replied thoughtfully.
"Project Cerberus will need to be activated sooner than planned. Who should we appoint to lead it?"
Codex:
D-15 assault rifle: The standard rifle for the Alliance armed forces. 4.15 kilograms, 50 round battery pack. Capable of switching between armor piercing and high explosive rounds with just a switch on the gun. Effective firing range of 500 meters.