Imperial War College, Menae, Turian Homeworld of Palaven.
[NOTE: All ranks have been roughly translated to their Systems Alliance equivalents]
The campus is an impressive sight, a maze of academic buildings, barracks, and training areas, interspersed with anti-aircraft towers that have been built since the war. With a history stretching back to when the Hierarchy still thought of itself as an empire, the Imperial War College was the scene of some of the fiercest fighting during the fall of Palaven. Brigadier General Verus leans back in his chair comfortably, looking every bit the scholar-warrior fit to teach the next generation of Turian Soldiers. His office is scattered with trophies and keepsakes, with his desk displaying a rotating model of a Turian Dreadnought.
I think it's rather difficult for Humans to comprehend the Turian mindset at the time of the war. I won't say that none of your kind understood- Shepherd did, certainly, and Admiral Hackett. But most of you didn't fully know the state of disgrace our government was in directly before the war. We were the premier military in the galaxy- we had the best ships, the most disciplined troops- but we had just been humiliated by a backwater power who had barely learned to relay travel.
The First Contact War?
It was a colossal embarrassment to the administration. I believe at least three of the government ministers stepped down afterwards. Do not get me wrong, had the war continued, we would have rolled over your fleets and occupied your homeworld eventually. But to suffer such a setback at the outset- we still use the blunders of the flotilla commanders at Relay 314 as case studies in how not to conduct a war.
But coming out of such a humiliation, straight into another war, this was a chance for the Hierarchy. Not just to fight and win, but regain the sense of national pride that had been so damaged by the Relay 314 incident. The Hierarchy needed victory, yes, but it needed something else even more. It needed heroes. That is why, when the Systems Alliance and the Salarian Union were ordering organised retreats and implementing your Casualty Minimisation programs, the Hierarchy Military was ordered to not give one inch of our space without a fight.
He sighs and looks out the window. Outside, twin hulls of two dreadnoughts are completing construction, hulking engines fitted onto a massive central cannon. The entire campus rumbles as power plants are activated.
I was still in command of the heavy cruiser Vallum at the time. Part of the 106th flotilla, we were gathered in the space around Relay 121 to "stop" the Reaper Force heading towards one of the agricultural colonies. We all thought that we were going to die- that the Hierarchy needed more "heroes" to die in her service, and we were all more than willing. The only thing that gave us pause was that the Hierarchy had attached one of her newest dreadnoughts to the flotilla- the Super-Dreadnought Diatryma. Generally the super-dreadnoughts were reserved for the defense of Palaven, so having one with us did wonders for morale. An Alliance squadron had also answered our call for help- two human frigates and a handful of fighters, though we dismissed them as more or less useless. The flotilla commander assigned them to the end of the line, under my command. I thought it was a little funny, the Alliance vessels which had so humiliated us under the command of a relatively minor officer.
His mandibles flex slightly in a Turian grin.
Some small part of us hoped for the smallest chance that with all that, we would be able to stop the Reapers cold at that relay.
He laughs, though his mandibles do not suggest a smile
Idiots, we were. We were arranged in the conventional way- your people are very familiar with the way our ships deploy.
He motions towards a poster on the wall, a formation of ships displayed in a top-down view. A reverse V-shape, the same formation that had thoroughly broken Alliance Fleet lines at Shanxi.
Do you understand why we deploy that way? To maximize firepower at the center, the Relay where the Reapers were to emerge from. For all the good that formations and planning could do against an enemy like that.
They burst out of that relay like water out of a dam. There must have been dozens of them- they washed over the line like a damn tidal wave. All our firepower- the heavy cruiser Bellator was cracked in half within the first minute of the fight. Diatryma, that beautiful ship with its spinal cannon, didn't even get a chance to fire it once. The Reapers knew our formation, and knew where to fire the instant they emerged from the relay. The Verus only survived because we were at the very edge of the formation, where the fire was least concentrated. Went for eighth in command of the Flotilla to first in command within five minutes.
He barks a short laugh
We fired the main gun at one of the Reaper dreadnaughts, and watched as our rounds bounced off or shattered like water on a window. I'll never forget one of the human frigates- the SSV Rhine- their comms officer calling for an ordered retreat, how we could fight again another day. Very human of them.
But the other frigate- the SSV Yangtze River- she fought like a Turian. I didn't learn of her commander until after the war, that Captain Rachel Guan had commanded the SSV Tigerfish that had downed my brother's corvette over Shanxi. When the Rhine was falling back, my cruiser and the Yangtze pushed forwards, engines full. What a pair of heroes we could have made for the Hierarchy! A good death, by any measure.
He absent-mindedly touches his scalp, where a patch of flesh is clearly freshly grown over an old injury.
My memory of what happened next is a little hazy, you understand. The Vallum was hit by a glancing blow, and I was knocked out. I assume my CO took command and pushed me out. Next thing I knew, I woke up, alone in an escape pod, watching the Vallum and the Yangtze crash into a Reaper together. First confirmed capital ship kill we got in the war, and the Hierarchy got its heroes.
Outside, the engines of the twin Turian dreadnoughts fire. The two of them slowly rise into the air, displays of the Hierarchy's recovery after the war, and the technological prowess that they've achieved because of it. As they rise, I can just make out the names "Vallum" and "Yangtze" etched boldly into their hulls.