"You think I'll let you run away!?" shouted the girl, her sword dripping in her hand. In front of her, the hardened soldiers were taken aback by the ferocity of her attack. Her body was covered in fluids, some blood, but mostly the hydraulic and cooling that came from inside their mechs. Behind her, one could still see the remains of three of their fellows, torn apart and busted up, with the pilots most definitely dead, or on their way there in the case of one that had been torn clean in half by her hands, and was being left to suffer.
The remaining two continued to run, their hands flying over their controls, trying to milk any bits of speed the units might have left in them. Of course, the girl just smirked at this, as the ponderous foot falls of the destroid style mechs were no where near as fast as her, and she hefted her blade, as long as she was tall, and probably several tons heavier, so that she was holding it like a javelin. Crying out with a war whoop, she tossed the blade forward, hurling it with all the force she could muster.
The blade flew straight and true, impacting against the barriers of the mech that had made it invulnerable to the ship's defenders before this point. That barrier only served as a minor impediment to the great blade, which seemed to dent the defensive field, and then impaling one of the mechs in the back, and causing the pilot to have that one moment of dawning comprehension as he looked down to find himself bisected by the blade, before life left his form.
"Yeah, not gonna happen!" she informed the last remaining combatant, rushing forward. Screaming as he realized what had just happened, the pilot of the mech pushed every button on his control panel related to weapons, and his guns started to fire. Cannon blasts, huge chunks of metal propelled by magnets and mass effect, tore through the air, but never came close to their target as she ran to the side. His gatling gun roared as well, a staccato of fire ripping into the deck plates, but the girl seemed to defy gravity as she shifted to run on the wall, dodging every shot.
The girl then reached him, her hand whipping out to grab her blade's hilt, tearing it free with the sound of grinding metal, and causing the mech to fall apart, as she slashed with it, severing the ends of the arms, and most importantly, causing the weapons to jam. The slugs already flying down the barrels became stuck, and as she landed just behind the mech, the arms exploded into shrapnel and slag, the pilot screaming as the sharp bits of metal tore through his systems. Luckily for him, as he felt back, his cockpit was untouched. Unluckily, he was now staring straight up at the girl.
"Heh, I must admit, it's ballsy of you four eyes to use an old human design for your mechs. But you know, we stopped using destroids for a reason," and with that, she brought her foot down onto the cockpit. The glass in front of him held for a moment, giving the pilot a brief glimmer of hope, maybe he would survive this. Then the glass began to crack. First a small crinkling sound, and a line appeared. After that, a series of cracks, a web design of them began to spread, then, with a final crash, the foot came down, and the batarian's final sight was of a boot heel, before it crushed him flat beneath it.
"Windows are a structural weakness," she said as she withdrew her foot, scraping off the gore onto the mech as she did so. Looking back, she totaled up her kill count, and then pushed a button on her omnitool.
"This is Cadet Shepard, five more targets on deck seven taken out," she said into the device, before a chirp acknowledged her.
"This is Captain Shepard, good work Jane. We're herding the rest into the docking bays, the veritechs can rip these fools apart. Now get down to deck twelve and take an escape pod," came the voice of her mother over the comms.
"Mom," she began, but was cut off by another chirp from her tool.
"That's an order young lady. You're not being sent away just because. The colony needs defenders as well, and you'd be more help down there than up here," explained the captain, and Jane nodded at the logic.
"Acknowledged ma'am. Good hunting," she said, and then rushed towards the gravivators for the deck she was on. Around her, she tried to ignore the signs of battle. Dead batarians in their mechs were one thing, but she saw far too many armored Terrans laying beside them. Most had their armor blown off, and had been the clue that Jane had needed to send a message that somehow, the batarians were locking their shots onto the armor itself. With that bit of info, they'd been able to strip off the armor, and switch to melee weapons to just rip the things apart, especially the veritechs which were large enough to just crush the batarian mechs in their fists.
"Jane? Jane, are you there?" came a new voice from her omnitool, and Jane skidded to a halt in her run, bringing the device to her face, and looking into the eyes of her brother down on the planet.
"Jon, what are you doing on this frequency? We're in the middle of a battle," she demanded.
"Yeah, that's the reason I'm calling you instead of mom. I can't get through any to anyone of rank, and I've got to know what's going on up there, and I have an update from the ground," that brought the girl up short. The ground defenders had been cut off since the start of the battle, so an update would certainly be welcome.
"Well, out with it little brother," she said, and he nodded.
"We've got the batarians mostly contained now. Their infantry seems to have overestimated their new technology, and I designed an overload pulse that just takes them out in one shot," responded Jon.
"Really? How'd you manage that?" she asked.
"Easy, they're using some kind of layered barrier system, but each barrier would need it's own ME generator, which are never light affairs. Taking that into account, and their slow pace, I figured they had to be heavy as heck, probably several hundred pounds a suit, and were using a secondary mass effect field to allow them to move. A pulse that disables only that field leaves them disabled until we choose to pick them up," he said, not really bragging, just explaining.
"I'm guessing that wouldn't work on the destroids they've got, right?" she followed.
"Probably not. The systems in the armor have to be simple, due to space constraints, so the computers can't say, shift one of the layers to make them lighter. Plus, I would expect them to make the mechs light enough to move even with that field disabled. They are however, rather weakly armored in their cockpits, as I've found out. I've been disabling them with a few electro magnetically charged energy chakrams" he answered, and she nodded.
"Good to know. Sounds like you're winning down there. We've just about gotten rid of the boarders up here, so they lost on both fronts," she said, and it was Jon's turn to nod at Jane.
"We've still got the problem of whatever ships launched these things from, however," he informed her.
"What makes you think they launched from ships?" Jane asked.
"No way those knife ships these things landed in were long range, and what reports I have access to say you guys up there were boarded by the same," he explained.
"Well, if they're out there, they're cloaked, how are we going to find them in all of space?" she asked.
"That's easy enough. We know they're projecting one of those fold jamming fields. The one from Armestris was only ten light seconds across, which means they'd have to be somewhere within a light second of your position to get maximum coverage of the planet. What's more, hiding like that implies three things. A mass effect field generator to hide their mass, a heat sink large enough to store vast amounts of heat, and a way to maneuver without being seen. That means they have to be big, and close. A few blind fires of your reflex turrets should force them to show themselves," he threw up a simulation on her screen beside his face so she could watch.
"And then what? If they've got those layered barriers on those ships, we'd be just be able to stare at them impotently, before they start flying circles around us," she countered.
"No, no, they would need to be flying at low power right now. The best heat sink in the universe would still have limits, and they'd what to preserve as much of their combat potential as possible just in case you did find them. That means they'd have to spin up their mass effect fields to combat levels, and that gives you a few minutes to fire every missile in the fleet at them before they can get away," offered the nine year old.
"That would be great, if we had any left. The missiles were drained in a first strike salvo on the knives. They shot them all down somehow," she said, not able to offer more than that it happened, as she hadn't watched that bit of the show, before the mechs had invaded and she'd begun the fight for her life.
"That's news to us down here, but it only delays the counterstroke. If you can't use the missile, you'll need to be the missile," he said, smirking at her in the image, and then getting her to start smirking back.
"And that would work?" she asked.
"It should. The point defense barriers are energy in nature, but backed up by the mass of the ships behind them. It should allow you to direct sufficient kinetic energy into the enemy ships to overcome their barriers, especially if they're using the layered system," he said, and Jane nodded.
"Got it, I'm off to the bridge then. If we don't see each other after this, little brother, you be sure to keep dad safe, okay?" asked Jane, and Jon nodded.
"Of course, you big barbarian," he told her, before signing off. Jane then started towards the gravivators, leaping into the tube without a second thought, and starting to pull herself up towards the bridge section. Luckily, unlike the lifts used in Citadel style ships, Terrans had come up with an easier solution to transport between decks. They just turned off the gravity inside tubes, allowing the user to climb up or down to their floor as fast as they could. It sometimes got cramped, but it was certainly faster than anything the Council had in their ships.
OoOoO
The Conclave Chamber, empty until minutes ago, was awash in light as projections filled the air above the meeting table. Five of the seven members of the Conclave were present, only Exedore and Amalgam having been off station when the news had come in. Another attack, another desperate situation. This one was far, far worse, however. The target wasn't some backwater planet only colonized months ago. It was Rannoch, with over a million quarian citizens, and a hundred times that many geth, caught in the crossfire.
"We have to do something!" shouted Vai'Gerrel at last, her voice dripping with frustration. The news of the attack had reached them less than an hour ago, and for the last five minutes they'd been going over contingencies, back up plans, and every single resource they had at their disposal. It was just, Rannoch was so far off the beaten path, they had no ships able to assist. None of the Flotilla resources were close enough to get there in less than a week of relay hopping. Worse, the anti-fold field around Rannoch was over two light seconds in size. Even at their best speed, it would be hours before Terran ships could get there to assist, and even if they could, this enemy seemed immune to their primary weapons from the reports they'd gotten.
"Conductor, we are considering every approach, but it would seem this assault was well planned. We can't jump in blindly into the situation," said Breetai, as the overhead display updated again. In their view as Rannoch, with everything that could be seen around it. Mostly it was their own fleet, missing several large ships, probably destroyed via the invaders at some point during the battle. Oddly though, there was no massive fleet to match their own, just their ships in space, and on the ground one could see mech units, resembling destroids, firing into the city.
"We understand, Supreme Commander, but it is difficult to watch one's home burning, and being powerless to do anything about it," chimed in Solo, placing one of his hands on Vai'Gerrel's shoulder. Oddly, for some reason, the quarian found comfort in the touch of the geth, more so than she thought she should. Somehow, having someone in the room who understood exactly what she was going through, made a large difference in her own mental state.
"Agreed. We must get forces there, as soon as possible. We need to find out who was behind this attack, and why," said Vai'Gerrel, as everyone poured over the data they had, all trying to come up with some plan. Nothing they did could get forces to the battlezone any faster all they could do was watch from the probes they'd placed at the edge of the jamming field. Even using one of the SDFs would only get them a big gun there, with no one to fire at since, as far as they could tell, there were no ships other than their own.
"If we could just get the Flotilla's ships there faster, we'd be able to do something," commented Grant, and then suddenly Representative Hayes shot up, shouting 'Aha!' at the top of her lungs.
"We can get those ships there faster. Breetai, how many vessels do we have with the Flotilla right now?" she asked, pointing a finger at the blue skinned man.
"Hmm, I believe a few hundred. We decided not to send as many due to the Heavy...I see what you're getting at," he said, snapping his fingers, and then quickly typing in a few new variables into the sim they were watching. Going over the data quickly, he determined what ships were available, and then began to adjust for weight and mass of a fold.
"Yes, that could work. Conductor, we need your authority to execute this, but I believe it would give us ships on site in a few minutes," he said, sliding a hologram through the air over to her so she could look at the data displayed.
"Our ships have fold fields that are larger than the ships themselves. While it would be far more draining than normal, a fold can be executed that would bring another ship along with our own," he explained, and Vai'Gerrel nodded, beginning to type in command codes, even as Breetai did much the same.
"This is Supreme Command Breetai, by my authority as leader of the Federation Fleet, you are to assist our quarian brothers and sisters in defending Rannoch by using your fold drives to get them to the battle as soon as possible," he said to the face as it popped up in front of him.
"This is Vai'Gerrel to Heavy Fleet Command, we need you to perform a sync maneuver with the Terran ships present in the Flotilla. Get as close as you can to them, and allow them to fold you to Rannoch. Time is of the essence here," ordered the Conductor to the helmeted face of one of her own officers.
"It will be done," said the two together, and then quickly logged off, to begin preparations, needing no other orders as the battle was being observed across the Federation. At the Flotilla, the larger Terran vessels broke away from their fleet, as ships of similar classes began to pull ahead of the Flotilla. It would take several minutes for them to be in position, but soon the Federation would have an active force of arms on Rannoch again, and they could begin to try to piece together what was happening. After taking apart those who dared to attack them, of course.