Chapter 16

Dark The Bunny- Yes, thank you for pointing out that mistake. It should be fixed now.

Alerx09- Yes. It was, at best, a decent film, but the events are still something I can work into this story.

Tau Fleet

When the Batarians open fired at them, the Tau fleet responded by activating their shields, enabling them to withstand the barrage of Mass Accelerator rounds that came at them. When the first barrage ended, Me'lek Shi'kran ordered his fleet to counterattack as it was clear to him that the Batarians will not see to reason. As a result of the order, the Tau fleet opened fire with their Gravitic Launchers and Railgun batteries.

The Tau railgun is perhaps one of the most feared weapon types in the Tau arsenal. Similar in principle to Mass Accelerator used by practically everyone in the Milky Way Galaxy, the Tau railgun propels any type of projectile with electromagnetic attraction and repulsion to propel the projectile with speeds unattainable with any other means. Unlike Mass Accelerators, however, the Tau railgun does not yet use Element Zero to do so, relying instead on a series of powerful electromagnets and super-conductive electrodes to do so. Regardless of that drawback, a Tau railgun is capable of extraordinary damage that surpasses any similar-sized Mass Accelerator with ease and the gap only increased the bigger the railgun is with the railgun batteries mounted on Tau warships surpassing the firepower of Citadel Council Dreadnoughts many times over. The Gravitic Launcher, however, far surpasses anything ever encountered and, according to the Geth, surpasses even the main weapons of the Reaper Nazara.

The Gravitic Launcher is the most powerful starship weapon available to the Tau navy. At first glance, they appear to just be another type of a Tau railgun, but the truth is more complex. Gravitic Launchers are massive railguns where the mass drivers of the guns trigger the initial acceleration before the Tau ship's Gravitic field, a field of energy produced by a Tau starship's FTL drive and is also used as a Tau ship's shields, pulses to push the projectiles toward the enemy at speeds that surpass the speeds produced by typical Tau railguns. This increased the firepower of the projectiles to the point they can, unless they possess sufficient enough defensive systems, destroy anything they hit. To make matters worse, the projectiles typically fired by the Gravitic Launchers are typically missiles that are drone-controlled, giving them accuracy beyond a typical railgun. This combination of firepower and accuracy made them the most feared weapon in the Tau arsenal. When a Turian admiral read about the Gravitic Launcher from the Tau codex, he said that the Council best pray that the weapon's codex entry overexaggerates the power of the Gravitic Launcher because such a weapon will destroy anything it hits within the Turian navy.

Unfortunately for the Batarians, nothing about the Gravitic Launcher was overexaggerated. Same with the Tau railgun as both the railgun batteries and the Gravitic Launchers from the Tau ships ripped apart whatever ships they aimed for. The Batarian fleet numbered over seventy ships and was composed of four Dreadnoughts, twenty-five cruisers, and forty-one frigates. Between the loss of their flagship and those lost from the Tau weaponry, the Batarians were down to just twenty cruisers and thirty-five frigates. All the Batarian Dreadnoughts were destroyed as the Tau knew they were the most dangerous element of the Batarians ships, thus focused fired on them. With the loss of their dreadnoughts and facing overwhelming firepower from the Tau fleet, some Batarian captains considered the thought of retreating but was squashed aside when they remembered that running away was tantamount to suicide for them. To run away was considered cowardice, even if it was for a very good reason, and the Hegemony had only two options when it came to deal with cowards. Neither of them were appealing at all to any of the Batarians. Thus, they choose to stay and fight because the Tau, at least, will give them a quick death. That being said, there's nothing stopping them from retreating in order to conduct tactical repositioning.

With that in mind, the Batarian fleet made FTL jumps away from the Tau and Fehl Prime to prevent further losses. At first, the Tau thought it was the Batarians retreating upon seeing the firepower advantage the Tau possess, but Me'lek Shi'kran knew better. He knew that the Batarians will return, but with a new plan of attack. Thus, he ordered his fleet to still be on standby. He also ordered that a message be sent groundside to inform their soldiers on Fehl Prime that the Batarians have attacked and that they should prepare for an attack just in case. As the message was being sent, Me'lek Shi'kran wondered what attacked the Batarians and who would benefit from a war.

"It cannot be Cerberus." Thought Me'lek Shi'kran as he thought of possible candidates. "It would jeopardize their relations with Shepard, who would see such an attack as sabotaging his efforts to prepare the galaxy for the Reapers. And none of the Council races would ever risk war. So, who would do this?"

Whoever it was, they needed to be found out soon. Otherwise, not only will war be upon them, but there may be a possible enemy that the galaxy will have to deal with in addition to the Reapers.

Meanwhile

Arra'kon

"The enemy fleet has departed, Captain Toni." Said a marine manning the long-range scanners. Arra'kon, upon hearing that, spoke to Toni.

"The enemy will return." Said Arra'kon, causing Toni to nod.

"We agree on that." Said Toni. If there was one thing that he knew about Batarians, it was that they don't tolerate failure, no matter how much the failure was out of their hands. "But before they do, I have to ask what the hell attacked the Batarians. Do we have a recording of what occurred on the Batarian flagship?"

"Yes sir. Relaying it now." Said another marine before showing a video to captain Toni and Arra'kon, revealing what happened to the Batarian flagship. As the two looked at the video, they noticed something. The weapon that attacked the Batarian flagship. Upon seeing it, the two were confused at the weapon. From the looks of it, the weapon appeared to have been a laser-based weapon, but that couldn't be possible. Not with the limitations of laser weaponry at the moment.

While laser-based weapons were perfectly capable of bypassing a ship's kinetic barriers, they were hampered with the fact that lasers lose effectiveness the longer they travel until the point they are harmless to anything. Meaning laser weapons have to be close to a target to have an effect on them. It's the reason that current laser weapons in Citadel Space were limited to anti-fighter roles. Even the Tau laser-based weapons were limited, mainly because they have access to similar energy-based weapons that fill similar roles to laser weapons, like their Ion weapons.

Going back on topic, the two military officers were unsure of how this makes any sense. Current laser weaponry, both Tau and Citadel Council, were not able to destroy a Dreadnought so easily without being detected. To do so, they have to get extremely close to a target and even then, it would take awhile for a ship to destroy a Dreadnought, which are usually heavily armored to withstand punishment. Not to mention they had to have some sort of advanced cloaking system to avoid detection by the Batarians, let alone the Tau ships. And yet there was a ship that accomplished all that and still managed to get away from the small gun fight between the Tau and the Batarians. That was something that both Captain Toni and Arra'kon were unnerved about. As the two were making plans to make a report about this, a human soldier yelled out.

"Sir, the Batarians are back! They're just above the planet's exosphere!" Yelled the soldier, catching the two off-guard.

"What!? Show us!" Yelled Toni. Soon a vid-screen showed the remaining Batarians ships in orbit around the planet's exosphere. "Damnit. With them in the exosphere, we can't afford to have your ships open fire at them. Its too risky for the colony and its surroundings, especially with how powerful your weapons are."

Though Arra'kon wanted to point out that his ships were more than capable of accurately hitting the Batarian ships, that will not solve the major issue of collateral damage. The power of the Tau naval ships were simply too powerful in this situation if they wished to avoid damaging the colony. Even their Ion cannons could do damage to the colony below, which is becoming more and more likely as the Batarian ships got closer to the planet. Though he could fire the Ion weapons at minimal power, he didn't want to risk endangering the colony with debris from the destroyed ships. Realizing that the battle has now changed into a ground war, Arra'kon began relaying his ground forces to prepare for an attack. Captain Toni soon followed suit with his own men. Meanwhile, the Batarians were releasing dropships filled with IFVs and soldiers straight to the Fehl Prime colony. Straight to the Tau ground forces and their System Alliance allies.

James Vega

Fehl Prime

"Vega, the Batarians bypassed the Tau fleet. I need everyone ready asap!" Yelled Captain Toni, catching Vega in surprise. The Batarians managed to slip past the Tau? How? Regardless of how, Vega realized they needed to get ready now for a fight and thus ordered his team to get ready. He then ordered them all to man the walls and thus they all ran towards the colony's defense wall. Upon arriving, they found several other marine squads there along with Tau Fire Warriors, all ready to defend the colony. Meanwhile, the Tau Stormsurges were going outside the walls, escorted by Tau Crisis teams, so they can bring their entire armaments to bear on the Batarians. Soon everyone was in place and waiting for the Batarians to show up. And in a few minutes, they did.

Coming in from the sky, Batarian dropships made their way towards the colony's outskirts so they can land their troops without issue of the enemy shooting them the moment they touch down. Unfortunately, they failed to account the Tau defensive emplacements. Though the Tau typically dislike defensive warfare, preferring to be as mobile as much as possible, they still have a number of static defenses in the event that they need to protect an area from harm. In this case, they had a number of defensive fortifications that they deployed from the fleet that were more than adequate in dealing with the Batarian dropships.

Armed with Tau Railguns, these defensive emplacements soon began aiming at the Batarian dropships the moment they entered the maximum range for the emplacements. Being drone-controlled, these emplacements were accurately bringing down the dropships as they came towards the planet's surface. Each shot scored true, and one shot was all that was needed to destroy a dropship. However, the sheer number of dropships, combined with the small number of defensive emplacements as the Tau disliked relying on static defenses, ensured that the majority of the Batarian ground troops and vehicles arrived safely to the ground. Landing some distance away from the colony to ensure that the Tau or the humans can't open fire on them while they land, the Batarians readied themselves for a fight. The Tau, anticipating this tactic, had their hidden units rally around the Batarians and then attack once they were all present. In half an hour, the Tau Stealth and Pathfinder teams sent across the planet's surface had gathered around the Batarians and their forward operations base. Seeing the Batarians were still building their base, the Tau began to conduct attack the Batarians, hoping to, as the humans put it, cut the head of the snake before it could strike.

As the Batarians were unpacking and establishing a command center for their ground forces while getting ready for an assault against the human colony, Tau stealth suits appeared out of nowhere and began wreaking havoc on them. Prioritizing key elements of the Batarian ground forces, such as officers and IFVs, the stealth teams dealt a critical blow with their Burst cannons or Fusion blasters. The Fusion blaster was the Tau equivalent to an anti-tank weapon. Though short-ranged, Fusion blasters were often equipped to battle suits, who can use either their stealth technology to get close or use their superior agility to due so, making such short-range redundant in most circumstances. And the firepower they provide more than makes up for a Fusion blaster's short-range because a Fusion blaster annihilates virtually anything that it's fired at, which was demonstrated right now with the Tau stealth suits that were targeting the Batarian IFVs, reducing them to slag with their weapons.

And while the Fusion blaster-equipped stealth suits were destroying the Batarian vehicles, Tau stealth suits equipped with Burst cannons were blasting apart Batarians soldiers and officers, using their sudden strike to deal crippling damage to the Batarians before they could retaliate. All the while, Tau Pathfinders, essentially forward scouts of the Tau, were using advanced laser targeting devices to pinpoint the Batarians' base of operations. This data would soon then be used by Tau seeker missiles, their equivalent to artillery, mounted on either their tanks or battle suits to be launched at precise areas of the Batarian base where they can inflict as much damage as possible. Unfortunately, to use those seeker missiles to their fullest potential, the Tau pathfinders must constantly fed data to them, putting them in potential danger from the Batarians. Fortunately, the Batarians were too distracted with the stealth suits to realize that Tau pathfinders were using targeting laser devices on them in order to inflict even more damage than the stealth suits could do.

A full minute passed and the stealth suits were once again cloaking, their element of surprise now gone, and the Batarians have rallied and begun attacking. Cloaking, the Tau stealth teams used their jetpacks to escape from the Batarian base before the Tau seeker missiles can arrive, having been informed by the pathfinders that an artillery strike was inbound.

Cursing the Tau as they retreated, the Batarians looked upon the damage that the Tau had done so far and cursed them further. The Tau had killed off around ten percent of their soldiers and officers while also disabling, if not outright destroying, a good chunk of their vehicles. A crippling blow to both their morale and their ability to fight. This attack, combined with how the fleet fared against the Tau warships, made many of the Batarians consider surrendering to the humans and Tau. Even a few officers were considering it as well.

Before anyone can consider doing so or doing something to prevent such traitorous thoughts, the Tau seeker missiles arrived and began bombarding the Batarian base, taking out key shuttles and vehicles, crippling even further.

The Tau Seeker missile is one of the most destructive weapons in their arsenal. Though not as famous as their energy weapons, the Seeker missiles, nonetheless, was effective anti-tank and anti-fortifications weapon. Capable of both maneuvering itself to avoid point-defense weaponry as well as maneuvering itself to hit the weak spots of enemy fortifications and armor, the Seeker missiles capabilities can only be fully realized if targeting data was acquired from the Tau network. And that data was acquired through the Tau Pathfinders, who used laser targeters to acquire that data for the Seeker Missiles along with other Tau forces if the Batarians decide to attack them after the initial attacks on their forces.

Sure enough, the Seeker missiles barrage ended and what was left of the Batarian forces was just a handful of shuttles, vehicles, and a few dozen men. What was once a force of hundreds was now reduced to a shadow of what it once was. As the Batarians were recovering from the attack, they realized just the extent to which the Tau had damaged their forces. Their attacks had rendered the Batarians' combat ineffective. They had destroyed all of their vehicles and shuttles, killed most of their commanding officers, and destroyed nearly all of their supplies. That included medical, ammunition, and food. Even if the attacks were all that the Tau were willing to do for their human allies, it didn't matter. They had rendered them so combat ineffective that the human defenders can deal with them without assistance from the Tau. Realizing their situation was now hopeless, some Batarians went to their knees in despair, realizing that they were good as dead now. Even if they succeed in achieving victory over this human colony, the Hegemony will still see them all killed for not only losing much of the fleet to the Tau, but also because of the extensive losses they took from just the first hour of landing on the planet. The leaders of the Hegemony will not only kill them but also enslave their families for their failure. Nothing they can do can ever redeem them in the eyes of the Hegemony. As the Batarians wallow in despair with a few even trying to restore morale, through various methods, Tau stealth suits saw the state of the Batarian soldiers and reported it to Commander Arra'kon about it.

Meanwhile

Eldar

On one of the moons orbiting Fehl Prime, the Eldar were performing a ritual on the planet's surface. At least a dozen of their Psykers, including their Farseer, created a circle with the Farseer in the middle. This circle they created was creating a field of Psychic energy, causing tendrils of energy to flow around their immediate surroundings while also causing them to float. What they were doing was a mystery to any outsider, much like most things involving the Eldar. Whatever it was though, it was something that involved their people and their continued survival, which motivates everything that the Eldar do.

In the meantime, other Eldar were setting up defenses and ambush areas around the circle of Eldar Psykers. They knew that the ritual that their Psykers were doing would make them vulnerable to attack, thus they were there to ensure that the Psykers were protected from any harm. That harm being the Chaos Space Marines that they knew would come to investigate their activities.

The Eldar were not fools. They knew the Chaos Marines would come for them upon learning of the disturbances in the Warp, calm as a result of the influence of the Chaos Gods being absent in this galaxy. And, since they knew that the Eldar were here, that would mean they will come here, seeking to slay the Eldar for a variety of reasons. Whether it be for their Gods, to prevent them from interfering with their work, or just plain just to slay aliens, it mattered not. The Chaos Marines will come and the Eldar had to prepare for them and delay them from disturbing the ritual until its completion.

Sure enough, the Chaos Marines did come. While the Tau were finishing off the remnants of the Batarian fleet, a lone Chaos cruiser arrived in the system, far away enough from the Tau to prevent their arrival from being picked up on their scanners, though the Chaos Marines had no idea the Tau were present in the system at the moment. This was because development had been recent enough that the Alpha Legion wasn't able to acquire information about the Farsight Enclaves sending a fleet to protect the human colony in the system from Batarian aggression. It was only through the Chaos Marines' desire to remain hidden to the rest of the galaxy at the moment that they warped in so far away from the Eldar. Not that it would matter in the slightest. The Eldar are still vulnerable and the Chaos Marines were aimed to capitalize on that.

Standing at the bridge of his ship, Ahriman felt the psychic ritual the Eldar were conducting and knew that, if they strike now, they would not only cripple the Eldar's leadership, but also ruin whatever plans they have in the making. Ordering his ship forward, Ahriman began to prepare him and his warriors for battle.