Operation ARROWHEAD
Joint UNSC-Republic-Colonial Task Force
Aboard the Galactica
It'd taken the fleets to synch up their jump drives. Well, no, they did not 'synch them up'. Each fleet carried a different type of FTL and that made it impossible to note when they'd arrive. The Galactica herself would most definitely arrive ahead of the rest of the fleet and promptly be caught with her pants around her ankles until the others jumped in. They'd more-so synched up a way on who would jump first, seeing how close the system was.
The first allied contacts winking off of the DRADIS were the UNSC's Paris-class heavy frigates. Warships designed as support elements for the larger capital-class vessels of the UNSC, the Paris-classes were heavily armed, decently well armored for Frigates and not here to take any crap from anyone. Six frigates entered Slipspace in-synchronization, with a countdown of fifteen minutes appearing on the DRADIS screen, just above the three-dimensional 'orb' that denoted the sensor scans.
The next to leave would be the Republic at five minutes, with their Hyperspace drives. Admiral Thrawn had taken the Chimaera and a squad of support vessels, including the light Arquitens-class cruisers, into this battle. They had fighter support from an added Venator pair. After the alien Admiral had bid them good luck, they departed at the T-Minus 10 Minutes mark.
Adama lifted his com system and spoke, "All crew, readiness report on Condition One. All Alert Vipers and support Vipers, be prepared for fast insertion," then hel istened in to the various decks and crews reporting in and giving the green. Saul looked his old friend in the eyes, to which Adama told him, "Been a while since we've seen some action, I'd say... The Pelicans we got aboard ready?"
"Johnson and his Marines gave the okay just before Thrawn jumped," Tigh responded, leaning on the table and looking at the displays of their scanners on the central map. He told Adama, "This is going to be one hell of a combat jump. We're about to really shake up this Galaxy and I'm not sure we're ready for the repercussions that are gonna come out of this."
"They shot first," Adama replied, holding a hand over the speaker so he didn't broadcast his own words. He stared at his old friend from behind his pair of old glasses as he told him, "If the local Galactic Community has a problem with us simply reacting to an enemy attack, then that's their prerogative. If the enemy surrenders, that's even better for us, but if not? Well, we're still acting in self-defense."
"Yeah," Saul sighed, rubbing his temples, "We're still gonna shake things up, Bill. We ready for the consequences?"
Adama understood where his friend was coming from. All he could reply in this case, however, was, "We've got allies now, Saul. We'll figure everything out as we go," before bracing and watching the clock tick down. At ten seconds, the man spoke over the com, "All crew, brace for FTL Jump. Prepare to launch Alert Vipers as soon as we drop in... Godspeed to all of you."
As the timer ticked down, Gaeta and the others began their preparations, bracing, strapping in, holding onto whatever was closest as they prepared to jump amidst their comrades and engage the enemy. Operation ARROWHEAD was simple:Jump in together, strike at the enemy as fast as possible, destroy their fleet and liberate slaves from the planet below and return as soon as the mission is accomplished.
When it reached one and the vessel did its terrifyingly accurate short-distance jump, the crews braced. This time, however, there was no blue light, no shake, no scare or EMP to disable them. No. The moment they jumped and felt their stomachs momentarily turn inside out, they'd arrived. A fact marked by the DRADIS springing to life, already picking out the various allied warships from the enemy's fleet. DRADIS alerts played across the screen and the distant thumps of the magnetic catapults gave gentle shakes to the hull of the ship. Adama barked, "All weapons, engage! Bring us in with the Adjutant and have our fighters escorting the Republic's and UNSC's bombers in!"
From the portside, with Starbuck and Lee at the lead of the Formation, the Air Group of the Galactica veered into the battle. Already, the emerald and azure flashes of plasma filled their viewports as they formed into a wedge, powering engines to the maximum. Starbuck spoke over the Wireless, "Friendlies in sight!" while watching the Star Destroyer and its Arquitens escort firing their weapons.
Bolts of energy greeted the enemy, followed by the lightning-flash, thunderclap combination of the frigate MACs, projectiles shooting out of the maws of the warships toward the distant enemy fleet. First impacts flashed from the MACs and turbolasers, a couple of enemy Frigates taking the brunt of the fire. Lee ordered, "Apollo to Starbuck, let's form up with the bombers!" before he turned left. Starbuck marked the dozens of allied bombers and fighters on her DRADIS and nodded, then pulled to the left and back, feeling the RCS thrusters kick in.
Pale white clouds of smoke shot out, forming arches in the darkness as the UNSC's warships fired their Archer pods. Coms played in her ear from their allies, the Republic fighters and bombers calling to each-other while the UNSC's Frigates performed screening duties side-by-side with the Arquitens. MACs and missiles supported laser batteries with a seeming show of solidarity.
"Enemy fighters, on approach at our nine o'clock, heading four-five-four, Carom Oh-Oh-Niner," Lee reported, the squadrons forming up with the Y-Wings, ARC-170s and the UNSC's own Longsword and Broadsword starcraft. Starbuck marked the new contacts on the map, noting that two, maybe three dozen enemy starcraft were diving at them at full speed.
She double-checked that the safeties on her weapons were off and said, "Tell us when we're weapons free, Apollo!"
"Mark. Three, two, one," Apollo replied, the incessant tone of weapons lock playing over the com, now a sharp, continuous beep. Starbuck grinned, picked her target and called out in unison with the other pilots, "Fox-2!" before releasing her missiles. Two Archer multi-aspect missiles burst at high speed from the undercarriage of the fighter craft, tracking their intended target:A Batarian strike fighter that was getting too close.
The missiles struck, knocking the Batarian fighter aside and shattering it into pieces as the aircraft tangled in the middle of space between the warships and the planet. In the distance, the scrap-made, pirate-like vessels of the Batarian Navy hovered over a yellowish planet whose pale sun barely brought any light. More MACs flew over the heads of the mothball as Starbuck danced with her target, utilizing her maneuverability to get behind an enemy fighter.
With a grin and her eyes locked on, she squeezed, bursts of the magnetic autoguns laying into the light kinetic barriers. They burst, shattered and gave way for the rounds to pierce through the lightly-armored hull of the raider fighters, some of which were even emblazoned with marks from the planets these fighters must've raided. She took pleasure in watching the rounds crater the poor excuse for armor on the fighter.
It careened left, bereft of its wing and stabilizing engine, before detonating in a flash of azure light. Starbuck then danced with a second fighter, watching one of their own get trailed by two and filled with bolts. The starfighter, however, simply floated, its engines disabled, away from the fight. The girl radioed, "Rescue Raptors, be prepared to retrieve a friendly fighter down at Mark Two-Five-Two!" only to gasp as an ARC-170 flew above her cockpit, its twin cannons ripping a Batarian fighter that was about to fire on her to shreds.
She banked right, then pulled 'up' to join the formation of Fighter-Bombers again and clear a path for them. The allied brawling capital ships closed the distance with the enemy's fleets in the meanwhile. Two MACs struck an enemy frigate to her left. She watched the first collapse the shields and the second rip clean through the hull of the warship into its reactor.
The UNSC Frigate in the lead of the formation pushed forward, its fusion engines burning bright gold, aimed its CIWS at enemy fighters that were trying to join in on the fight and opened up. The twin guns fired rapidly, ripping through the enemy line with explosives and focused fire while the Arquitens moved in. A solo Arquitens took several shots to her shields before her cannons zeroed in on the frigate that fired and laid into it, the plasma bursts shearing through the barriers and boiling through the armor like shaped charges.
The Cruisers powered their engines, however, their black hulls gleaming in the sun as their secondary batteries turned to meet the Arquitens and Paris-class ships. They fired, volleys of kinetic shots striking shielding on both ships, with Starbuck commenting, "Gotta be frakking kidding me, both our allies have shields and we don't even have armor on the Old Girl..." as she pulled up and to the right, avoiding the enemy's point-defense GARDIAN weapons.
The Longsword Fighter-Bombers and their Y-Wing siblings swept in. The Y-Wings let loose ion torpedoes and normal torpedoes in a mix, while the UNSC ships fired non-nuclear Anti-Ship Missiles. Explosions cratered the bows and sides of the enemy ship as it arced with electricity, floating dead in the water as its siblings tried to come and support it, only to suffer similar fates.
IT wasn't down yet. Not completely. As the joint Fighter Squadrons engaged the enemy's remaining complement of support starcraft, the Chimaera moved into weapons range. Thrawn listened to radio communications from the bridge. Callouts for targets, arcs and angles of attack and so on. He spoke, "Bring in the second wave, close to the planet. Sweep the Dreadnought from the side," then he looked at the Cruisers, several of which opened up on the Star Destroyer.
The Imperator-I's shields shrugged the fire off, as did any armor that might've been lightly tapped by the kinetics. Thrawn smiled at that, then spoke, "All starboard cannons, full broadside. Destroy those pieces of scrap and bring us about with our escorts," as several more allied warships jumped into the system. Republic frigates, of course. On the outside of the Star Destroyer, meanwhile, gun batteries began to track targets.
The hex-mount guns on the starboard side aimed, tracked and zeroed in on the Cruisers as their batteries tried fruitlessly to pierce through the shielding. All it took was for the admiral to order them to fire and the full might of an operational Imperator-I Bloc 0 Star Destroyer was unleashed on the unsuspecting enemy. What looked like a wall of turbolaser fire, ion cannon shots and various other small armaments lit the void between the Destroyer and its intended targets.
The bolts cratered through the armor of the Cruisers, boiling steel and ship hull away as the barriers failed spectacularly. The shots struck fiercely in what almost looked like a grid pattern, sweeping fire tearing through the hulls of the Batarian slaver fleet. The first cruiser exploded in a bright-burning, but short-lived second sun. Moments later, the rest of the enemy's medium vessels followed.
The UNSC Frigates and Arquitens flotilla ripped through the enemy's light ships, too. With ease, one might add. Husks remained behind the fast-advancing fleet while bombers and fighters dived down on the Dreadnought and whatever was left of its escorts, pinpricks of light and fire voiding crews and sending the bodies of Batarians floating out into the darkness.
Starbuck laughed mirthfully as she and Apollo dived on the enemy ship together, with Lee quipping, "This is a frakking turkey shoot!" while his autocannons ripped through the top layer of what these Batarian freaks called 'armor'. As they peeled away from the shoot, he called out, "This is Apollo to all fighters, we're RTB, Winchester ammo. Let's leave the cleanup for the Battleships..." only to receive affirmative replies as the entire fighter complement began final sweeps.
Aboard the Galactica, however, Sergeant-Major Johnson hefted his shotgun, racked the pump and started, "Alright, Marines, Collies and Clones! We got a situation down there, so I'mma keep it brief for now! A little bird whispered in our ears and told us there's some enslaved locals from this Galaxy down there that need a rescuin'! Our first order of business as a joint strike force is getting them outta there! Our second priority," he then grinned, "Is kickin' these four-eyed enslavin' bastards asses six-ways from Sunday! No prisoners! You see one of them? YOU SHOOT TO KILL! WE CLEAR?!"
"Sir, yessir!" The entire crew aboard the Pelican the man was in, plus all the others, chorused. Johnson gave an approving nod, then motioned to the Pilot to take off. The Pelican's engines whirred as it lifted off the deck of the Hangar Pod. Floating out, the Pelicans and a couple of supporting Raptors moved out of the way of the fighter craft as they swung in to land, to the sight of the husks of alien warships, dead fighters and debris as the rest of the fleet formed back up.
A smash and grab op to save slaves... Johnson lit a cigar, grinning a little at the thought...
The Normandy
"Your forces managed to disable a Collector ship," The Illusive Man spoke, seemingly both surprised and pleased to hear that the mission had been a relative success. Shepard, meanwhile, sat there with her arms crossed to her chest, staring at the man as if he was really playing dumb about the fact he might have known Ashley was on the planet. Seriously, did he think she was stupid? He continued, "As surprising as the news is, it's good to hear. It may provide us the information we need... How?"
"Republic has something called Ion cannons," She smirked, then shrugged and said, "The captain of the Tribunal told me they use them to fry ship shields and electronics in a few hits," before adding a nonchalant, "Seems Collector vessels are susceptible to them. To nobody's genuine surprise," before staring at him. The man seemed to know the Commander was onto his little lies, then paused as he heard her ask, "I'm not going to find a big arrow pointed at Horizon stating 'Friend of Shepard here' on the Collector ship, am I? Or at least not one with a Cerberus signet?"
"Commander?" He raised a brow, "Hm..."
She sighed deeply and said, "No bullshit, please. Just tell me what I should be looking for on board that damn thing, or send it to EDI. I'm gonna take a detachment of Clones and my team and board it, get the civilians from Horizon out of it, then get the hell out with the information. Shepard, out," And she cut the link. Turning, she looked to see Miranda and Jacob standing in the door and raised her hands, asking, "What? Surprised?" before she walked through the door with them trailing behind her. She told Miranda, "The bastard wanted us to be here."
"You can't be serious, Shepard," The woman protested, "He couldn't have known."
"So Ashley just happens to be on the next world the Collectors attack. The same world The Illusive Man marks as a target," The woman looked back at her, "And it doesn't look a little suspicious to you? I get your trust in the Illusive Man and Cerberus, Miranda, but you have to see the truth here... This isn't just some coincidence," then she lifted up her Omni-Tool as they got to the CIC. She called over the com, "General Tano, if you can ask the Captain of the Tribunal to deploy a contingent of Clones from the 332nd with us on the ship, I'd be happy..."
"They're already on their gunships, Commander. Just waiting for us to give them the all-clear," The girl replied. Shepard smiled at that, then looked at Miranda, to see her seemingly processing this whole set of events. Jacob, meanwhile, remained silent. She dismissed the two with a calm wave of the hand, then walked up to the Bridge through the corridor, past the men and women talking at their stations.
"Tell me what's new, Joker," The Commander then requested... And paused as she saw the ship ahead of them. The massive tubular shape had several holes drilled into it by the turbolasers and bombs of the Republic warship. Said warship slowly flew in overhead, allowing the pilot and Commander to see the underbelly. Her weapons systems also tracked the vessel, trained on it just in case it powered on again, despite the burning fires all across its outer hull.
As the Tribunal settled in ahead of them, Joker told Shepard, "Ship's dead in the water and we're not picking up a whole lot of breathable air in there," before sighing and stating, "I don't like it. Thing feels like it went down a little too easy," then he looked at Shepard. He saw her staring back at him, questioning what he said, before clarifying, "Look, Commander, I'm not the guy who usually looks their gift horse in the mouth, but this is like staring down the barrel of a loaded gun."
"Good thing we have a whole unit of Clones with us now, eh?" She quipped, then saw she hadn't assuaged a lot of Jeff's worries, then told him, "Look, I get what you mean. I'm paranoid now, doubly so thanks to the issues presented by our cooperation with our mutual benefactor," which caused the man to look at her like she was speaking gibberish. Admittedly, she was just doing it to see his reactions, so, she flashed him a grin and told him, "But this might be our best bet at figuring out more about these bastards. EDI, give us entry points, mark them for the Republic's boys and let's move. Have General Tano and Garrus present when I get to the Hangar."
"Understood, Commander..." EDI replied, "We need to speak when you return to the Normandy."
Must've been about that weird 'V' eye symbol Shepard saw when EDI was interfacing with the guns. She replied, "Roger that. Ping me the moment we return," then marched off to the armory to pack her weapons. Once again, it was only moments later that she'd gone down to the Hangar Deck. She saw Jester Squad already in position, with Bold proudly displaying the marking from the beam that cut into his armor on his breastplate. A mark of honor that Fives and Jesse seemed to approve of.
She greeted, "General Tano," as she noted the woman was wearing a full hardsuit, face mask and oxygen tanks, her lightsabers clipped to her belt. She nodded to Shepard, then motioned for the Gunship. Boarding the LAAT, the Commander found herself standing among the Republic's soldiers as the forward hangar hatch opened, the shield used to keep the air inside the ship activating and enveloping the cargo hold.
The gunship took off, with Shepard activating her helmet as Garrus said, "So, let me get this straight. We're going inside a Collector warship our buddies disabled with the support of a battalion of their clone soldiers, all to retrieve some data for a man that probably brought this damn thing in on Horizon by tipping them off about Ashley," as he racked the bolt of his sniper, let it fold up and slid it onto his back, then drew his assault rifle.
Shepard replied with a nonchalant and blase, "Pretty much..."
"Just once, I'd like you to take me somewhere nice, Shepard," Joked the sniper, "You know, a bar on a beach that serves Dextro stuff, too, or some fancy restaurant, not a creepy, disabled alien warship that nearly killed us the first time around," and that got Shepard and the rest of the Clones to laugh. Fives looked between the two of them as he activated his helmet's seals and extra oxygen tanks.
Shepard, meanwhile, noted that Fives was looking at them, but ignored it, replying to Garrus, "Don't worry, Garrus. You can jump into my arms if you're feeling scared. Your Commander'll protect ya," before grinning behind her helmet. Fives, meanwhile, was really trying to ascertain the situation between the two of them. There was Chemistry, so he was thinking it might've been a budding thing. Part of him wanted to just quip about it, but another genuinely didn't know what to do.
He then asked them, "Are you two a thing?" with incredible nonchalance. Both Shepard and Garrus stumbled, the former already stuttering, while Garrus coughed into his helmet and gauntlet, all while Ahsoka and the others laughed. A little levity allowed more calm for the mission. Ahsoka thought so and so did Shepard, but this was a little sudden for both her and her old friend.
"How about we don't unpack that," Shepard asked Fives, who shrugged, still proud of himself for causing such a reaction. The Gunship's pilot called out that they were nearing their landing point, before the Commander cleared her throat and said, "Shepard to Normandy. We're on final approach. Keep the lights on, kids..." before she thumbed the safety off of her Mattock.
The Gunship gently hovered into place at a nearby entry point, its repulsorlifts whirring as the pilot brought them parallel to the ship's outer walls, right next to a rock outcropping that served as a sort of embarkation point. As he gingerly set the ship down, he spoke to his co-pilot, "Keep your eyes on those sensors and make sure we still got Com with the Normandy. Might also wanna ask Helo to help us with Cyberwarfare."
"Already on it," The Co-Pilot gave a thumbs up.
The right-side door slid open, the crews dismounting from the vehicle. The Pilot radioed, "We'll come pick you up at the same point if we can, Commander! If not, give us a call! We'll figure something out!" and watched the woman turn around and give a wave. He saluted, then closed the hatch with the touch of a button and lifted off. Speaking over com, he said, "This is Gunship Oh-Niner Heavy, maintaining orbit and patrol pattern around the enemy ship..." while his HUD marked several other friendly assets, including fighters orbiting the warship and bombers with ion torpedoes ready to overload it again.
The Ground Teams moved in, Ahsoka calling out for the platoons of twenty clones deployed at various entrances to report in and receiving responses. She, Shepard and Garrus lead the team forward as they swept the dark area ahead. The ship was rather obviously built into the rock formations of an old, elongated asteroid, the rock itself still being a major part of this technologically-advanced vessel.
As they scanned the walls, the dark-brown rock mixed with the alien metals that retained the ship's form. Hexagon-shaped lattices appeared through the metal as well, glowing under the white light of their weapon-mounted torches. Alien technology, now dormant, was spread around them, tall spires piercing through the rocks and into distant antechambers, alien lights glinting and flickering as power fluctuated.
"I got a bad feeling about this," Jesse commented, pistols drawn as he scanned the area. "Reminds me too much of a Geonosian hive..."
Bold spoke, "Sir, please, stop bringing the Buggers up," with a quiver in his usually steely, heavy, gruff voice that surprised Shepard. She looked back at the man, while Ahsoka shook her head, holding her Lightsabers out to light the path forward. She paused as they approached an intersection in the corridors were more of those Pods were. Alongside them, there were beams of light coming from another fireteam.
As they passed into the intersection, the group waved to the other Platoon, who waved back as they kept pressing forward. Shepard, meanwhile, looked at the Pods again, noting that a haptic interface console flickered beside them. She spoke, "EDI, can you access this console?" before looking over at the body in the pod next to her. She blanked as she saw it was a Collector...
"I am working on it now, Shepard. Power fluctuations across the ship are interfering with access," The AI replied calmly.
Ahsoka waved her Lightsaber over the corpse, which was marked by blaster fire, then said, "Guess they like recycling..." with a rather dull, quiet tone. She stowed her lightsaber, then looked to Shepard and asked, "What do you think one of their own was doing in a pod-" only to pause as she noticed the pile of corpses next to said pod and the conduit, which didn't look like a power one. No wires, but rather hexagonal yellowish-green glass stained by an odd, black liquid.
Shepard shrugged, "I don't know..." before looking around at the human corpses, too. She walked over to a pile of weapons and searched through it. Nothing of interest beside M8 Avengers, a few Mattocks and a pistol here and there. She sighed and let the weapons be, before looking around as she asked, "EDI? Anything? Because this is starting to creep me out..." as a distant screech echoed.
"... Commander. You might not believe this, but I am... Detecting Prothean DNA in the dead Collector's genetic makeup," EDI spoke, her usual monotony replaced with a surprising amount of emotions. Chief among said emotions was apparently concern, which Shepard understood as he looked back at the Corpse, eyes widening. An indoctrinated Prothean...?
"Commander, General," The leader of a Clone platoon spoke, distraught, over the com, "You all might want to see this..." which took Shepard out of her fugue. She nodded to the others, including the stunned Garrus, then showed them to follow. The group pushed forward, deeper into the ship and through the corridors, only to exit into the center of the vessel. A massive O'Neill Cylinder-like area whose walls were lined with tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of other pods, lining the massive walls.
Two lights glowed at the fore and aft, illuminating the cylindrical center of the vessel, with Shepard murmuring, "We're going to need a lot more people to help evacuate this place," as she stared up. Each pod contained a human being, obvious by the shapes. Each pod also stood, attached to the massive walls. She spoke to EDI, "... Tell the Captain of the Tribunal we've got a situation, EDI. And compile a report for Mordin to evaluate..." though she couldn't even hear the answer, simply staring at the massive ship. The hive. A genuine hornets' nest. She hoped they didn't kick it too hard. Strange hexagonal platforms shifted into place ahead, floating up from the depths... And on them, hostile contacts. Dozens of them.