Das Schicksal hat seine Hand auf dich gelegt. Es ist nun Ihre Pflicht, es zu bewahren.
Unser Schicksal liegt in deinen Händen, Leerenwanderer.
Theta Lyrae system, 0400HRS, 17th July 2257
Tōkyō-class heavy cruiser SSV Countdown to Heaven
A slight shudder went throughout the ship as the seventeen-hundred meter long heavy cruiser exited FTL, a ripple of light forming in the darkness of the interstellar void that erupted moments later into a plume of foggy mist, rapidly dissipating to reveal the twin-split mandible bow flanked by two angled triangular delta wing build of the heavy cruiser backgrounded against the starry sky, encased in a thin layer of ice that unceremoniously broke off into thousands of smaller fragments. Some fragments fell into the cruiser's plasma blue exhaust of her antimatter torches and were vaporized, never to be seen again. The emblem of the Systems Alliance was emblazoned across the side of the vessel in a golden tint, in contrast to the light gray color of the armor plating, dotted here and there by a few golden stripes.
She was soon followed by her fellow ships, for a series of ripples in the fabric of spacetime burst open to reveal a sizeable battlegroup of ships emerging from the foggy mist, shedding off their ice coatings as they did so. Each ship bore a similar design, save for the smallest, but they all shared the same golden emblem and stripes that the Countdown to Heaven posessed. The 550-meter frigates broke off to form their respective wolfpacks, while the 700-meter destroyers and 1400-meter light cruisers assumed their own battle formations, all of them forming up on each other into one large formation that crept steadily towards their destination. The Countdown to Heaven herself assumed a V-formation with the rest of her heavy cruiser squandron, nine seventeen-hundred-meter long heavy cruisers forming the core of the battlegroup.
Normally, there would be no reason to deploy so large a battlegroup to such a remote corner of human space; especially one with only a single garden world for colonization. Not even pirates or pirate fleets would warrant such a deployment; most pirate ships could be easily dispatched by orbital guard cutters or in the worst case scenario a frigate wolfpack or two. Even hired privateers would get the job done, and done well.
Only one reason could warrant the deployment of such firepower—a Mass Relay.
"Activation signal sent, awaiting confirmation," the Countdown to Heaven's temelentry officer reported, his eyes scrolling down the wall of text appearing on his console. "Signal sent and confirmed, return ping recieved. Relay 314 is now active, Captain."
"Sucessful activation of Relay 314 is logged and reported to the Admiralty, Captain," the Countdown to Heaven's communications officer reported. "We are cleared for relay transit."
"Thank you, both of you," responded Captain Fujimiya Saito, his steel gray eyes fixated on the red glowing tactical display, showing the position of his battlegroup relative to the relay, and the relay's current status as well. It was active.
Outside, the relay in front of them flared to life as the activation signal was confirmed, it's dormant gyroscopic rings flaring to life and lighting up with a ball of static eezo, spinning this way and that as if their lives depended on it. Lights flashed to life all over the formerly-dormant fifteen-kilometer scructure, signalling that the glorified space catapult had finished it's activation process and is now standing by.
"Activation of Relays 313 and 314 confirmed as sucessful, both relays are active and standing by." the temelentry officer reported again. "Both relays are standing by and ready. We can send a task force through at any given time."
"Copy," Fujimiya said, before turning to the statusboard that lay at the front of the heavy cruiser's CIC, indicating the ships and squandrons that they had available. Apart from the nine-strong heavy cruiser division he had, there were also fifteen five-strong frigate wolfpacks and two nine-strong main battle squandrons. While the former was a five-strong group of frigates, no more, no less, the latter was two three-strong destroyer divisions and one triple-ship light cruiser division. The relay's icon on the display was also updated to show the relay as active, courstey of the multiple AIs that ran the ship alongside with her human crew. What lay beyond the relay was still yet to be seen, but there was nothing to stop them from waltzing in and finding out for themselves, either.
"Task Force Alpha, you are cleared for departure," Fujimiya ordered, his comms officer complying and relaying the order towards the grouping of a main battle squandron and three frigate wolfpacks that had been assigned to the task force supposed to be sent through the relay beforehand, supposed to map out the area before returning. "Everyone else, hold position around the relay. Stand by for further orders, if shit dosen't hit the fan, we'll be giving them the welcome coffee."
"And what if the shit does hit the fan?" the tactical officer asked, her vibrant auburn hair cut short at the jaw standing out in stark contrast to her navy blue uniform.
"We are the backup plan, Sakurajima," Fujimiya chuckled.
"Yeah, right," the tactical officer merely rolled her eyes at that. An artificial intelligence 'born' and grew up in the suburbs of Tokyo before joining the Navy, she was known to be an oddball amongst her peers who preferred to spend her free time reading books about history and philosophy than going clubbing and partying like the others. Her unique personality was often used as fodder when teasing her younger sisters back home, although her older sister didn't seem to mind too much. She was always willing to lend a helping hand whenever someone needed help with something technological, whether it be fixing their computer or getting a new printer installed. That being said, the last thing anyone expected her to do was join the military despite having a degree in mechanical engineering; but as far as everyone was concerned, Sakurajima Miho was always the most unpredictable artificial intelligence to ever stand in a biomech and shoe leather. Graduating from Etajima Military Academy with flying colors, she was initially signed up for the Marines, but a chain reaction of catastrophic events during an anti-piracy campaign showed where her true talents belonged: the Navy. She was signed off to the officer staff aboard the same ship she served onboard as a leatherneck, where she immediately made friends with the people aboard the Countdown to Heaven after hearing stories of how the captain once saved the entire crew of a freighter during a boarding action. And since then, the rest was history.
"Anyways," she said, fixating her bi-colored green-and-amber eyes onto the tactical display, "Task Force Alpha copies, they're plotting a course beelining towards the relay. ETA to transit; one minutes, forty seconds."
"Copy," Fujimiya responded as he watched the dots marking the task force inched closer and closer towards the relay. They inched closer and closer to the relay with every passing second, until finally, the relay flashed to life and sent the six destroyers, three light cruisers, and fifteen frigates hurtling away at superluminal velocities across the void of interstellar space. Fujimiya coudn't see the relay doing it's job directly due to the internal nature of the CIC on Alliance ships, but the panoramic viewscreen didnit's job well enough, and besides, he knew all too well how it worked. Also, he was used to such a sight already, having worked on a freighter long before joining the Navy.
"The task force transitioned the relay without any problems," Sakurajima reported, her eyes not leaving the display. "They should be mapping the system now. ETA to return, thirty minutes, forty seconds."
"And leave us hanging, eh?"
"Well, to be fair, without an FTL comm buoy rigged they can't talk to us if they really wanted to, either."
Granted, Mass Relays could be used to send wireless signals across interstellar space just like they did to ships, but their nature meant that an FTL comm buoy had to be rigged up first, the destination relay's location plotted, and the relay itself calibrated for the task. And even then, they could only send transmissions one ping at a time, something that made them impractical for communications nor internet. They can be used for such a purpose, but were hardly practical, given the complexity of such a setup compared to the newer FTL router probes that were dirt cheap to make and maintain as well as send messages a few million pings at a time. The relays were by this point only good for the sake of navigational convinience; FTL drives didn't need to be reliant on the relays for travel and could go basically anywhere. Granted, relays were indeed faster, but the nature of the relays were to send ships like a relay race while FTL drives were basically 'plot course and go' ensured the latter a significant advantage. Jumping from Shanxi to Sol took only a week at most, transitioning through dozens after dozens of relays would take twice as long.
This, however, also meant that the task force was completely isolated from the main battlegroup without any method of communication until the navigators plotted out the place enough to set up a communications router or two. And that could take hours, at best. At worst, weeks.
That wasn't the end of the world, however. The task force's orders were to simply transit the relay and map out the system, before working out a plottable FTL vector and come back through the way they came. They were certainly meant to dig in and hold their ground when attacked, standing orders for a hostile first contact would be to cut it and run. But aside from that? There was absolutely no reason why they couldn't have some fun exploring whatever systems they found along the way...provided they survived.
Zodiac system, Relay 314, 0400HRS
Kara-class destroyer SSV Shigure
"Relay transit in five, four, three, two, one, transit," the Shigure's helmsman reported, counting down the seconds just as the jolt of the relay sending them to hyperluminal velocities on a vector leading directly to the relay on the other end and the relay on the other side deaccelerating them back to standard cruise speed shook the seven-hundred meter destroyer, rattling the occupants slightly in the process of doing so. The jolt itself wasn't deadly; it was merely unpleasant at worst. Most if not all of the forces could be readily countered by grabbing a handrail; some likened it to being on a bus as it left the stop. They'll have to experience the same jolt again, but this time working in reverse, as the relay on the opposite end deaccelerated them back to sublight cruise speed, but the crew was too used to the forces to even care.
For the Shigure's commanding officer, however, that was hardly of any concern. Commander Araki Yoshino was his name, and as soon as the jolt of relay transitioning hit him, he brought the ship back to speed.
"Helm; move us away from the relay slowly; Navigation, confirm out position. Tactical, report. I want a detailed sitrep on our current position by the end of the minute, or I'm clobbering each and every of you on the head!"
The bridge crew broke out into muffled laughter at that, mostly because he had threatened to bop them all on the head by himself if they weren't able to give him a proper report within the next sixty seconds. Nobody had any idea why apart from the ship's XO the Shigure's commanding officer was the only man in the whole CIC crew, but that was neither here nor there. He was still the commander nonetheless.
"Helm reporting, course locked in, heading is good, no issues detected. Drift is steady at roughly thirty thousand kilometers, we are proceeding at standard cruise speed, Commander."
"Navigation reporting. System is currently marked as T-1420, four planets detected, designating as T-1420b through e. One Mercury-sized, two Earth-sized, one super-Jupiter. Gas giant diameter estimated to be around 250,000 klicks, planet also posessess a ring system and four moons. Out of the two Earth-sized worlds, one is a barren planet with almost no atmosphere, and the latter is a runaway greenhouse world with tempuratures rivalling that of a pizza oven. Not a good vacation resort if you think of it."
"Tactical reporting, the system is deserted. Threat board is clear, the whole place's a cementery in the winter."
Commander Araki nodded in approval as he listened to the reports, looking over the data displayed on the main display. It was a lot different from what he was expecting. For starters, it was a pretty big system. A small rocky planet, two Earth-sized ones, one barren and another a greenhouse, and a gas giant with a ring system and four moons. A quick glance at the system map also indicated to him something of interest; the star hosting the system was a G-class meaning that the system was likely habitable and had an abundance of resources nearby. While the only planet(s) in the system that sat within the habitable zone were the barren world and the greenhouse pizza oven, they could be easily terraformed given their mass. More importantly, the system appeared to be devoid of any signs of sentient life whatsoever. Which was exactly what he was hoping for. No alien civilizations to deal with, no warships or pirates to fight against. Just a bunch of rocks and iceballs and a system that needed mapping, before the task force left the place back the way they came like a spy leaving a hotzone.
It looked like everything was going according to plan, which pleased Commander Araki immensely. If nothing else went wrong between now and when the task force returned, then he'd consider it mission accomplished. After all, the objective was to get a look at the system, and then leave. Period. Anything more than that, and it wouldn't be worth mentioning.
But on the flip side, his instincts kept him on edge. Consciously, he knew the place was about as abandoned as a cementry in the winter can be, but subconsciously, he knew better. There had to be something here, and that something he didn't know, but felt. Something that told him that things weren't right. And that was precisely why he ordered his officers to keep alertness levels high throughout the transit, lest anything happen. Because he knew damn well that sometimes, bad news comes in threes.
The old sailor's adage had it this way: If everything's going to plan, then nothing will go to plan. As much as he hated to admit it, the saying held water. Every single time.
He hoped he'd never find out otherwise.
Theta Lyrae system, 0515HRS
Tōkyō-class heavy cruiser SSV Countdown to Heaven
"...it's late," Fujimiya said, furrowing his brows as he stared at the clock hanging from the walls on the starboard side of the CIC.
"Yeah, it's late indeed," Sakurajima replied in the affirmative. "But what does that have in bearing with us?"
"The task force, Sakurajima," Fujimiya said gravely, his face an unreadable mask. "The task force. They're supposed to be here a good half hour ago."
"Some kind of unforseen delay, perhaps?" Sakurajima asked, trying her damnedest not to sound worried herself. She knew full well what happened when someone got delayed. Sometimes, it resulted in a loss of life. Other times, it led to an entire squadron getting destroyed. Either way, delays always cost lives, and she was very keen on avoiding such a situation where possible. Especially since the task force was basically cut off from home with the only means of talking sending a literal folded paper plane across the relay with a note wedged in the center.
"I don't think so..." Fujimiya trailed off, his expression unchanging. "If they had a change in plans and decided to chill for longer than intended, they would've sent a ship back as a courier, not chill 'ut and leave us hanging for a good half hour."
Sakurajima sighed lightly as she pondered his words. That made sense, sure. But the thing was, that sort of behavior didn't match with how Captain Kuroda acted. Even if they did decide to hang out for longer than planned, he'd surely inform them beforehand instead of just leaving them waiting. Or maybe they changed course? Maybe they had to divert towards something important?
Those sorts of decisions were usually reserved for higher ranking personnel anyway, but those were questions for later.
Sakurajima voiced what she wanted to ask first. "So what do we do?"
"We'll try to assess the situation and deal with things from there. Sound a general quarters alarm and bring us to Condition Zulu, have the battlegroup form up and assume standard combat formation. Helm, get a course for the relay ready—"
"Relay's active!" the sensor operator announced, cutting him off. "Contact, contact positive! One ship, destroyer class; wait—friendly IFF. Ship is tagged as SSV Shigure."
"Shigure?" Fujimiya asked, not lowering his guard. "Why one ship? Why not the whole task force?"
"I've no idea, Captain, but the Shigure's drifting—hold on, multiple breaches detected across her hull. She looks like she's through a meatgrinder and a half!"
Fujimiya's eyes narrowed ever so slightly upon hearing that. It seemed that the Task Force was in trouble after all. He turned to Sakurajima who gave a nod of confirmation.
"Shigure's primary engines are dead, Captain; she's limping—"
"Captain," the communications officer cut Sakurajima off mid-sentence; "The Shigure sent us a communications package, I'm putting it up now."
A moment passed while the message was downloaded onto the computer banks before the comms officer spoke once again, his tone tense and shaky. "...message received. Transmitting now."
There was silence for a few moments until finally, a new voice filled the room, the speaker sounding rather shaken.
"...SSV Shigure to SSV Countdown to Heaven, declaring a code-1-8-4. Task Force Alpha has been destroyed; I say again, Task Force Alpha has been destroyed. We're the only confirmed survivors, the rest are gone."
Zodiac system, Relay 314, 0430HRS
Kara-class destroyer SSV Shigure
"Anyways, Helm; set a course for the third planet, prepare to run mapping operations. I know, the place's got tempuratures rivalling that of a pizza oven, but there's gotta be some microbes bing chillin' out in the high atmosphere—" Araki began, before the comunications console buzzing to life cut him off.
"CONTACT! Contact positive, multiple corvette and frigate class contacts! Wait a minute, who the fuck sends a corv—" the transmission cut off before the speaker could finish as a loud bang signalled the end of the ship that hosted the speaker.
"Sitrep!" Araki hollered on reflex just as the transmission cut off, sending everyone scrambling into action. "And sound a general quarters, get everyone to Condition Zulu ASAP! I've no idea what's going on, but I know that shit just hit the fan, and hitting hard!"
The crew at once leapt into action, the alarm klaxon blaring while the lights flashed red as they ran around doing their duties, readying themselves for whatever was coming next. The Shigure's crew had seen enough combat to understand that things rarely went smoothly. Hell, even if things were going well, they expected that something might come along sooner or later and ruin it. So far, however, things had gone well. Too well.
"General Quarters, General Quarters, all hands, man your battle stations. Set alert condition Zulu throughout the vessel; this is not a drill; I say again; this is not a drill."
Once she was done with the public address system, the ship's tactical officer, Halifax, went straight to the threat board with a grease pencil in her hand, the android's eyes shielded behind a pair of round-rimmed glasses that her left hand was busy pinning in place lest they fall. Biting the cap of the writing instrument using her teeth, causing her flowing blue hair to wave slightly in doing so, she began scribbling away at the board furiously.
"Helm, plot a course for the rally point;" Araki ordered, "Comms, try to see if we can raise Bunker Hill and her wolfpack; Navigation, try to spot any place in the system we can fall back to; Fire Control, you're Weapons Hold; and Tactical, sitrep."
"No response from SSV Bunker Hill nor her wolfpack," the communications officer said grimly.
"Navigation reporting; the rendezvous' round the third planet in the system; we can hide behind it and ambush them from behind."
"Tactical reporting, we've lost temelentry. Before loss of signal Bunker Hill reported eleven corvette class contacts and sixteen frigate class contacts, reports are accurate after cross-examination of scattered reports of the other ships in her wolfpack. There's no way she can survive that much firepower, Commander, I believe that by this point Bunker Hill and her attendants Hastings, Constellation, Nantucket, and Arabia to have been lost with all hands, destroyed by hostile forces coming through the relay."
"Any idea who they are? Are they Abyssal, or what?"
"The Abbies don't use corvettes, and no sane admiral would. They're about as fragile as gunboats and chunky as frigates, while a frigate is pretty fast indeed at least frigates have some armor to protect them against weapons fire, corvettes have plating that's about as good as toilet paper; they're little more than target practice in a fleet battle. And they're not pirates, either, no sane raider would pick a military battlegroup for a raiding target. That would be suicide, and they know it."
"...so it's first contact, then," Araki said in a rather satire tone.
"First Contact War, yeah, that's a pretty nice name. Got a good ring to that."
"Status on everyone else? Hopefully the aliens didn't get another wolfpack before they can scramble to general quarters."
"The remaining wolfpacks are a-okay. SSV Aegis Fate, Paris, Andraste, Savannah, and Edurion are at Alert Condition Zulu and returning from the outer system at flank battle speed, frigates Harvest, Last One Out, Tuyuti, Mother of Intervention, and Kakuma are slingshotting around gas giant T-1420g, bound for the rendezvous point. Destroyers Arleigh Burke, Walter Raleigh, Avay, Fletcher, and Velox are maneuvering into formation with us, light cruisers Edelweiss, First Attempt, and Aurora have arrived at the rendezvous point, they're assuming a triple-wedge formation."
"Enemy fleet position and numbers?"
"Nineteen hundred ships, Commander. Most if not all of them however are classed as corvettes or frigates due to their size, reasons unknown. They're deployed at a rough 2:1 ratio for frigates to corvettes, however, sensors do indicate the presence of a light cruiser class contact. They barged in through the relay and laid waste to Bunker Hill and her wolfpack, they're forming up around the relay as I speak. They're waiting for us to make the first move, it seems."
"Damn, I thought we had it bad with the Abbies. Guess we ain't gonna find out what they look like till we meet them face to face...well, technically we already saw what they looked like last time, but still." Araki muttered, "Time to rendezvous point?"
"Five minutes, six seconds, presuming flank speed."
"Copy," Araki said, but he furrowed his eyes at the threat board. The question he wanted to ask was obvious; they were outnumbered, outgunned, and out of position. It didn't take a genius to figure out how badly were the odds stacked against them; it was obvious enough by looking already. Outnumbered nineteen hundred to nineteen; a hundred-to-one odds to contend with; their situation was clear and to the point: fucked.
"Well," Araki stated the obvious, "We're fucked."
The SSV Shigure's repulsor shields merely flashed brilliant gold as another of the enemy's underpowered mass accelerator shots impacted them, flaring brilliant gold for a moment as the enemy projectiles flattened themselves against the barriers. The shields flared brilliant gold for a moment, before the generators recalculated the shaped gravity field that surrounded the seven-hundred meter destroyer to consempate for the damage, the barrier's nature enabling it to effectively nullify nearly half of the damage being taken. The rest of the impact force was splattered against the shaped gravity fields. Another shot slammed into the barriers, but like it's previous brethen, the round flattened itself against the shields, the shot was sucessfully blocked without causing any further damage.
Against the wall of punishment, however, the Shigure was by no means idle. Her twin bow-mounted 130cm/300 caliber coilguns unloaded downrange a fresh salvo, each shell bringing behind them some three-hundred-and-eighty-one tons in both raw kinetic energy and shield-piercing ballistic cap propelled to point eighty-seven of c. Thundering downrange at close to the speed of light, both shots found their mark against an enemy frigate and destroyed it utterly, the enemy's shields penetrated by the munition before the plasma jet generated by the forces of impact compressing the lithium hydride filler inside the shell to nuclear supercriticallity and igniting a fusion reaction all the way up and down the element chain like a supernova fusing all the iron it had left, and went straight clean through the alien ship's kinetic barriers. The alien shields were meant to deflect projectiles and offered almost no protection to energy weapons or shaped charges, and the plasma jet went straight through as a result; tearing and boiling through armor plating, hull, and decks. The plasma jet exited out the other end of the frigate after gutting it stem to stern; the ship then exploded in a fireball of eezo and reactor plasma for the plasma jet had either nicked something important or boiled it to slag entirely.
"Batteries release, mount 1-3-0!" Araki ordered. "Helm, ahead flank. All engines at maximum thrust. I want you to get us out of here!"
"Copy, engines to flank speed!" the helmsman replied immediately.
The Shigure surged forward with her antimatter torches burning plasma blue, her repulsor shields flashing brilliant gold as they absorbed a barrage from another one of the enemy ships, and another barrage came at them from a different direction. As the first shots struck their shields and flattened themselves harmlessly against the barriers, however, the shields' projector cores calculated their trajectory and recalculated the barriers to consempate yet again, the next few hits having close to three-quarters of their impact damage mitigated by the shields. A second salvo slammed into another unfortunate enemy frigate a heartbeat later, hitting it square on the broadside and punched a gaping hole in the side of the frigate, sending it limping and wrecking the frigate's spinal mass accelerator to all hell.
Seconds later, a group of four enemy corvettes and a frigate rushed the Shigure, ganging up and attempting to engage the destroyer in a drive-by broadside match, but about half the shots fired missed in thanks to the Shigure's electronic warfare suite while the rest flattened themselves against the shields, glowing splashes of gold marking where they had one been. In response, the Shigure's battery of 22 broadside 25cm/50 caliber autocoils swiveled into position to meet the threat, the twelve guns that can get the enemy within their firing arc, that is. Ten guns in dual turrets and two in single turrets lit up the enemy with a withering rate of fire, each gun popping off ten-inch shots at a blistering one-hundred-and-twenty rounds per minute. Each shot carried behind them some thirteen tons propelled to close to half the speed of light in both raw kinetic energy and shield-piercing ballistic cap, and they hammered into the corvettes and frigates like a machine gun against armor plate. The corvettes and frigate however kept up their fire, a steady stream of eezo-powered munitions streamed downrange from their broadside cannons flattening themselves against the destroyer's shields just as the Shigure's fire peppered the enemy, both sides hammering away at each other, neither side giving nor gaining ground.
After only three minutes of fighting, the Shigure emerged from the engagement unscathed, her shields glowing bright yellow as she gunned her engines yet again, speeding for the relay. The wreckage of the five enemies that she engaged hung listlessly in the background; the frigate's entire broadside was shredded almost to ribbons while the corvettes were gutted into a thousand pieces as if a giant had botched an attempt to skewer them with a polearm. The enemy's ships were clearly outmatched; the sheer volume of firepower raining upon them made the difference evident even to the untrained eye.
That being said however the enemy kept up their relentless pursuit with happy abandon, the Shigure's inherent superiority in terms of both firepower and shielding compared to the enemy vessels in a direct one-on-one fight massively outmatched by the sheer numerical disadvantage that the task force found themselves against. They commenced an in-system FTL jump as close to the relay as they can get, emerging directly in the midst of their formation like a leatherneck leading a bayonet charge. That bought them some time, but not enough, for the shock of having the task force do a banzai charge through their center and head straight towards the relay wore off soon enough, and the aliens began engaging them anew, this time coming at them from multiple directions at once.
"Damage report!" Araki hollered over the sound of alarms going off as impacts rocked the ship; the port shields had been breached by continious enemy fire. Underpowered indeed were the enemy mass accelerators compared to those found on the Shigure, but their firepower coudn't be underestimated; especially when the enemy had an overwhelming numbers advantage to boot.
"Direct hit to our side plating, breaches on decks four and seven! Affected compartments are sealed off, Smartsteel plating is regenerating there. Portside shield emitters nine through eleven are offline, rerouting other emitters to consempate for the gap. Starboard shields are holding, but bow shields are taking the brunt of the punishment and are failing fast. Shield mitigation ratio is at 55%, with repeated impacts driving it up to 60%."
Araki cursed silently at the news. Shield regeneration (and to a lesser extent, mitigation) rates (and ratios) varied wildly depending on the type of damage taken, and Smartsteel was known for its ability to regenerate quickly as long as it wasn't compromised too much in the process. However, there was only so much that adapting shields and regenerating hull armor could do, and they were starting to fail rapidly now that the Shigure was getting pummeled from all angles. Their defensive capabilities were beginning to falter, and it wouldn't take more than a couple of well-placed salvos from the enemy light cruiser or a massed attack from their corvettes to break through the Shigure's defenses completely, rendering them helpless. "Helm, time until we hit the relay?"
"Seven minutes, forty seconds."
"Make it five, and make it five, for we won't be likely to even survive past that mark!"
Zodiac system, Relay 314, 0515 HRS Citadel Standard Time
Batarian first-line dreadnought BCH Wings of Glory
Sorlak Brab'babar cursed as another of the spirits-dammed overpowered mass accelerator shots slammed into the kinetic barriers of his dreadnought, courstey of one of the three alien dreadnoughts that had been pounding his fleet with overpowered mass accelerator fire, the enemy spitting out firepower far beyond what ships of their size could manage.
It all started when he recieved orders from the Hegemony to activate the dormant Relay 314 and scout out the other side for resources, slaves, territory, or even perhaps all three. He had been given a large fleet—1900-strong, in fact, coupled with a first-line dreadnought to boot. Things were going well even as they headed towards Relay 314—the place was deserted, save for a single turian patrol of six cruisers and three frigates. Said patrol was quickly dispatched via the combined firepower of his fleet, the poor turians didn't even get the chance to get a distress signal out. And with his timing his arrival to the turians' patrol scedules, that meant that the patrol won't be found missing for another good three days, when they failed to return to port for resupply. So far, things were going well, and they went even further, when the relay suddenly activated.
It wasn't his activation signal the relay recieved, per se. The sensor operators had deduced that an alien faction on the other end had chanced across the relay as well, and had activated the relay from their end.
As far as he was concerned, the presence of a new race on the other side of the relay meant only one thing: Resources, teritorry, and slaves. He had been promised a hefty reward in credits if he came back laden with those, and so were the mercenary ships and others laden in his fleet. Twenty freighters had been attached to his fleet, if all came to plan they would be back with their holds full of slaves and cargo. If anything, he thought smugly, he'd have himself a nice little bonus in addition to his normal pay check. It might be small change to him personally, but it added up to quite a sum considering how many people he commanded. In fact, as his fleet transited the relay, they ran smack into a patrol of five alien cruisers, and promptly wrecked them to pieces before they could respond. They didn't even get the chance to raise their shields; the element of surprise did it's job well enough. With his fleet posted at the relay effectively cutting off the enemy's sole means of escape, Brab'babar had announced that this battle would be a piece of cake.
Then everything went downhill from there.
The alien fleet stationed there was on the far side of the system, evidently scouting out the system, but they had grouped up around the third planet in the system and hid behind the planet. Pathetic, he had thought; the enemy had only nineteen ships; his fleet outnumbered them a hundred to one. He didn't pay second thought to the fact that they didn't have any frigates, only sixteen cruisers and three dreadnoughts, but he did raise an eyebrow at the number of capital ships. But he quickly brushed the notion aside; there was only so much three dreadnoughts could do against the odds stacked against them.
He was wrong.
The aliens simply wrecked his plans absolutely from there. The ships conducted an in-system jump straight in as close to the relay as they can get without being wrecked by the relay's jump interdiction field, placing them smack in the middle of his fleet. And before he could order his fleet to surround and crush his oppoments, they had gunned their engines on a Hail Palaven attack, beelining straight for the relay. The initial surprise wore off enough, and he ordered his fleet to surround and crush the enemy from all sides, only to run into his latest roadblock; their weaponry.
The aliens were clearly nuts with their shipbuilding programme, they seemed to be in the habit of mounting onto their ships multiple spinally mounted mass accelerator cannons as opposed to the galactic standard of just one, and the fact that his fleet was pounding them from all directions wasn't slowing down their pummeling of his forces. His own weapons weren't doing nearly as well either, unable to penetrate the enemy shields which were deflecting most of the incoming shots. A few hits here and there were managing to find home, but the vast majority of the attacks landed harmlessly outside the enemy's shields. Worse still, the enemy ships weren't even slowing down in the least. If anything, they were going even faster. As if they knew exactly what they're doing.
And to make matters even worse, whatever shots he could let off that managed to go through the enemy shields was stopped by some sort of spirits-dammed magic-alloy that was regenerating away the damage taken, and to further add salt to the wound, the shields were mitigating the damage somehow. It was almost like the stories told of the 'bogeymen' of the Protheans, hull armor that regenerated against battle damage and shields adapting to enemy fire. Whatever the hell they were called.
"Direct hit to our broadside armor!" the damage control officer called out, just as the Wings of Glory rocked from another impact. "Curse the spirits! Their dreadnoughts are off-the-scale when it comes to firepower!"
"Focus fire on their dreadnoughts!" Brab'babar ordered, shaking his limbs with fury. "I want every single ship to concentrate their combined firepower onto those cursed alien dreadnoughts now; I want them destroyed immediately!"
"...but doing so will disrupt our fomation, if not cause uncounted friendly fire incidents—"
"I don't care about friendly fire, I care about the dreadnoughts that are chewing through my fleet faster than a turian dreadnought through a krogan battlegroup! Do you understand me? Now focus your fire on those damned alien ships, NOW!"
"Walter Raleigh is down, I say again; Walter Raleigh is down, she's venting atmosphere across all decks and her reactor's losing containment. Edelweiss is down as well, the aliens singled her out for punishment almost entirely. Massed fire pounded her to little more than scrap metal, I fear she's lost with all hands. No escape pods have been detected launching, and no lifesigns are found onboard either."
"Shit," Araki cursed at the news, the CIC rocking around him as the Kara-class destroyer SSV Shigure rocked from another hit. Shields were holding, but barely, and there was no way they could last forever under these conditions. And there was only one way to escape, by far, and that was through the relay.
And that meant doing a Hail Mary charge through the center of the enemy fleet, like a Japanese ground formation at Saipan. Or maybe Normandy during World War Two...
"Vampire, Vampire! Missiles inbound, six oversized warheads bearing one-two-seven, engaging with CIWS."
Almost on cue, the destroyer's sides lit up, with the six available twin Oerlikon 57mm close-in-weapon-systems swiveling around and tracking the threats, making sure that a secure weapons lock was established. Then came the missiles themselves, two of them coming right for the Shigure's starboard flank while the rest targeted her bow and stern, each missile carrying a wierd eezo warhead that showed up on the destroyer's sensors well enough, in fact, they showed up as well as a floodlight in the dark.
Once the ranges dropped to thirty thousand kilometers, a hair's breadth in space, the guns all opened fire, sending downrange a hailstorm of six-pounder flak rounds at forty-five-hundred rounds a minute from each gun, filling up the sky with tracer streaks as each gun dumped off a good hundred rounds of lead into the void in the direction of the enemy torpedoes, the skies around the Shigure seemed to explode with thousands of tiny detonations as the flak rounds formed a dense cloud of debris around the destroyer, shredding apart the torpedoes like paper before a shredder and causing them to detonate in clouds of eezo.
"All vampires sucesfully intercepted, Commander," the fire control officer reported, looking up from his console.
"Copy," Araki acknowledged. "Bring us to bear against enemy frigate FF-160, prepare to engage with our bow torpedoes, port canister, tubes one and two. Time their launch with Rapier pods one through forty, target hostiles FF-160 and FF-177."
"Roger, preparing portside quad torpedo launch canister, tubes one and two. Rapier pods are hot and ready. Will engage once torpedoes are ready—"
"SSV Avay is dead in the water, enemy fire broke through her shields and rendered her engines inoperable! We're getting pounded to bits down here, dammit!"
"Shit!" Araki cursed; just as another barrage of fire slammed into the sides of the Shigure. He didn't even need a genius to tell him that the shields were being abused well past their due, either. The ship's rocking motion told him well enough already.
"Torpedoes are armed and ready, engaging, hostiles FF-160 and FF-177!"
Almost on cue, the destroyer's broadside lit up with a firey plume of rediected missile exhaust as the 32-cell missile launch systems opened to release their barrage of 21-inch warheads, volleys of forty warheads from all the pods spaced out one second in between for a total of 1280 missiles all screaming towards the enemy ships—screaming as loud as anything could scream in space, really, for space is a vacumn, after all—over twelve hundred trails of missile exhaust following the warheads as they moved in on their one-way trips towards the two enemy frigates. The missile silo doors closed shortly after allowing their payload off, leaving the autoloaders beneath to do do their job, removing the spent hot-launch missile canisters before feeding in a fresh batch, just like someone feeding a revolver with a circular speed-loader clip. A heartbeat later, the portside missile launch canister opened to reveal two 533cm corrosive warhead torpedoes as well, the canister's cold-launch system ejecting the torpedoes at speed before the latter ignited their thrusters and sped onwards on their kamikaze courses.
The latter two 600-meter frigates detected the incoming munitions immediately and opened up with a wall of defensive point-defense laser fire, but the accurate laser arrays were simply no match for the sheer amount of incoming munitions that formed the vanguard for the duo of oversized cigar-shaped torpedoes that followed, the laser arrays overheated in no time flat and were swiftly overwhelmed. All too soon, the torpedoes struck home, the 533cm warheads both impacting their targets at a good quarter of the speed of light.
In a scene straight from Arpeggio of Blue Steel, the torpedoes detonated, but instead of an explosion of raw uncontained eezo energy, the warheads both spawned balls of glowing, tessellating pentagons and hexagons that made them look almost exactly like a giant holographic soccer ball. The energy field both torpedoes spawned enveloped a significant portion of their respective unfortunate targets' broadsides, teleporting a rather nasty big chunk of the latter to oblivion and then collapsed, leaving both with gaping, ragged holes in their sides as if a giant had taken to them with an equivalently-sized ice-cream scoop.
But the damage was done; neither vessel survived the onslaught unscathed, and within moments of each other, both vessels exploded, the effects of the energy spheres nicking something important made themselves known, signalling the end of both in two balls of raw, uncontained eezo.
Still, could be worse.
"First Attempt is lost with all hands, the aliens singled her out with all their guns. Aurora isin't faring much better, either, she's venting atmosphere across all decks."
"Shit!" Araki cursed, as the Shigure rocked from another hit, sending alarms blaring all across the CIC. Another hit rocked the ship yet again, and this time he didn't need anyone to tell him that the shields were down—the forces of impact told him well enough. Gripping his forehead where the ship rocking from a fresh impact had slammed his head against the console had given him a fresh wound in need of a dressing, he glanced at the statusboard, before a fresh hit sent him scrambling for balance.
"Helm!" He shouted, amidst the chaos that was now the CIC. "Time until we hit the relay?"
"One minute seventeen," the helmsman replied as the Shigure rocked from a fresh hit.
"Fuck, then! Crank up on the engine power, we really need to get outta here!"
"I'm bloody giving it all it's got!" The helmsman roared back at him. "Don't blame me, blame those alien fuckers!"
"Point taken! They're some baddies alright!"
"Frigates SSV Aegis Fate, Paris, and Andraste and destroyers SSV Fletcher and Avay are breaking formation, they're commencing an in-system jump for the gas giant," Halifax reported from the tactical console. "The gas giant's radiation belt should hide them from view of any enemy task force sent to intercept them, there's no way sensors could burn through all that natural jamming system. SSV Fletcher also sent a single encrypted message, text format; Victor Charlie 1970. Presumably they're telling us that they're to engage in hit-and-run ambushes against the enemy's supply convoys, the Viet Cong forces during the Vietnam conflict were famous for constant guerilla hit-and-run ambushes conducted against US forces, after all. With them lagging behind relative to us they've a fat chance of making it to the relay, if at all."
"Well that would make sense, they're the furthrest behind and would be victim to enemy fire for the longest. How's our pursuers?"
"Still pounding us in all directions like we're garlic inside a mashing bowl," Halifax said, the Shigure rocking from a fresh impact emphasizing her point. "But their movements are uncoordinated and sprodiac, they're less of a fleet and more of a gang by this point. Like the Zem mercenaries in Genjitsu Shugi Yuusha no Oukoku Saikenki, or a pirate gang in whatever movie I don't remember."
"Well—"
"Direct hit to our starboard engine!" the damage control officer hollered out as the Shigure rocked from a fresh impact, this time more forcefully than normal. Just as he said those words, however, the Shigure lurched from another impact, the shots tearing fresh, gaping holes in the destroyer's broadside. The ship's propulsion was totalled in the third salvo, and the fourth one was essentially the nail in the coffin, sending the Shigure lurching sideways like a cue ball struck by the pole, sending the CIC crew rolling and tumbling as the G-forces from the impact bled through the inertial dampeners, completely trashing the starboard side.
Araki felt the wind be knocked out of him as the impact smashed him against the CIC table, a sharp pain making itself known in his left arm as the forces pinned his entire body against it like a car crashing into a wall. As the chaos exploded all across the CIC, his ears caught the vague sound of pained cries and blaring alarms, all fainter than usual because the noise of mass accelerator rounds wrecking the ship's whole starboard armor plating and everything underneath was drowning out the cacophony of sirens.
"...we're clear, the relay's hold of us!" he vaguely heard Halifax say, but unconsciousness took over him completely before his mind could get a chance to log it, just as the dull sense of pain coming from his arm and the back of his head began to make themselves known with the wet, slick sensation of blood trickling out from them.
Codex Entry: Humans — The Systems Alliance — Overview
The Alliance, officially the Alliance of Colonized Systems of Earth and her Colonies and often referred to as simply the Systems Alliance, is the primary governing body of humanity and one out of two recognized official states by many other nations across the galaxy. It is the fifth-most populous species-wide government within Citadel space after the Salarian Union, and the most populous state of both the Attican Transverse as well as the Lyrae Therasauia group cluster, of which it is the sole occupant. The Alliance is bordered by, in order, the Turian Hierachy to the galactic north, the Batarian Hegemony to the galactic west, the Geth Collective to the galactic east, and both the Quarian Federation as well as the Empire of Edelweiß. The nation's capital and most populous city is Vienna and its main financial centre is New Alexandria; it's homeworld is Earth, Sol, and it's largest colony is Nürnberg, Eplison Eridani.
Formed after the events of the Second Inner Planets War of 2183, the Systems Alliance is in effect the de facto sole governing body of all of humanity, a supranational political, military and economic union of 37 member states, initially, eventually administering colonies of it's own in further addition to those of it's member states and growing to encompass over 305 independent nation-states over some 925 worlds. As a supranational union of state-level governments, the Systems Alliance is effectively a multinational state, and is responsible for the maintenance of military and policing forces on worlds belonging to it's member states as well as those of independent systems which have chosen to become part of the Systems Alliance in some capacity. It is governed by a High Council of political, military and economic representatives who collectively comprise the Executive Parliament. The Systems Alliance is not a member of the Citadel Council, surprisingly, deciding against it after complications resulting from human policies falling foul of those of the Citadel, namely the Treaty of Farixen, which limited dreadnought construction (differing standards in shipbuilding meant that humanity would have to scrap their entire navy if they were to oblige) the Treaty of Risteria, which banned development and usage of artificial intelligence (humanity not only used AI extensively for a multitude of purposes, they also granted them equal citizen status), the Act on Cybernetic Agumentation, which banned physical agumentations of organics, both mechanically and biologically (humanity made extensive usage of such technology on the genetic level, allowing them a far more effective innume system that does not rely on vaccines or any other similar type of drug to fight off even unknown diseases, as well as making extensive use of neural uplinks to agument their reaction time). They do, however, retain strong diplomatic ties with the Citadel and engage in fairly open trade.
The Systems Alliance remains to this day a major player in galactic politics, and has actively worked as both a peacekeeper and a meditator similar to the asari, notably ending the Geth conflict and bringing about the Treaty of Rannoch, something that even the asari had failed at. In addition, it is one of two recognized human states by most other major interstellar powers, alongside the Empire; in terms of sheer military power, however, it is second only to the combined might of the entire Citadel Council itself.
Flag: Alternating three stripes of red-gold-red, set horizontally
Emblem: Three stars set underneath a triangular arch, with some versions a shooting star or banner flowing across or underneath
Coat of Arms: A globe with two olive branches, and a banner flowing across or underneath
Motto: Per Aspera, Ad Astra
Anthem: Arisen from the Ruins and Ash (2183-present)
Established: July 14th 2183
Capital: Vienna, Austria, Earth
Government type: Parliamentary social democracy
Head of state: Chancellor (current incubent: Andrew Blackwood [appointed 2269])
Second to head of state: Prime Minister (current incubent:Walter Schröder [elected 2267])
Government seat: Parlimanent (Vienna)
Upper house: National Council
Lower house: Grand Assembly
Currency: Systems Alliance pound (£)
Population: est. 990,000,000,000 (2280)
Territorry: 8 system group clusters, 925 colonized garden planets (roughly equal to salarians in terms of raw territory, but significantly outmatches them in industry and population numbers. In terms of raw military power, surpasses even the Turian Hierachy.)
Alliance(s): Szurdok Defense Coalition (Alliance, Geth Consensus, Empire of Edelweiß)
Armed force(s): Alliance Defense Arm
Military intelligence servive: Alliance Intelligence Arm (AIA)
Government intelligence service: Colonial Intelligence Service (CIS)
Internal security agency(s): Department of Investigation (DI), Department of Internal Security (DIS)
A/N:
This story is made in to Death Knight 1993's challenge, which lists the following rules:
—Female, fleetgirl Shepard
—Non turian first contact
—Fleetgirls are unique to humanity (me being a hardcore human nationalist finds this extremely easy)
—Unique, exotic human tech
I also conversed a bit with some Discord friends of mine, and we all added a few more rules to the list:
—Human FTL is non-reliant on the relays
—Two independent human states (Alliance, Edelweiß Kaiserreich bc kaiserbroo)
—Alliance ships are bigger/better than their Citadel counterparts (reversal of canon here lol, human buff)
so...wish me luck folks