T40 minutes to turians reaching the first rocks

T82 minutes to contact with Alliance main force

T66 minute travel time for fighters to reach Turian force

Xingyun Cluster, Da Ling Liu System, Baikonur Orbit, SSV Hamburg, Wardroom, Admiral Julia Hawking, 1132, April 6th, 2157:

The room begins to glow with holographic light, signaling the arrival of the first of the over half dozen personnel on other ships and planetside. Another flash signals the arrival of another, then another, then another. Soon the room is filled with twice as many holograms as physical people, only myself, my temporary aid, Captain Johanson, and his aid compared to the Baikonur leadership and the command officers of all the formations in the 6th.

After the choir of "Ma'am"s is complete, we get to work. A hologram of Baikonur and the nearby area appears on the table we surround, including our forces and those of the aliens, the latter over 200 thousand kilometers away. Also shown are the countless small moons, more asteroids, surrounding the planet, many captured by Baikonur and its larger moons, but most of the small ones instead created through our little stunt. 'Slamming half a dozen small moons together creates a lot of smaller moons.'

They surround the planet like a shroud, ensuring that Baikonur would never be colonizable without time or significant cleanup operations, too much scrap in orbit to keep satellites long term. 'It also ensures the enemy jumping in any closer would be a death sentence.' While inside a solar system, FTL ships move far slower than in the interstellar void. This is due to the increased mass inside systems. An FTL bubble can only cope with so much mass in the way of a ship. If too much has to be displaced in a short amount of time, the bubble "pops", doing very, very bad things to the ship inside.

A part of me hoped that the aliens would bumble into the rocks and be wiped out, but their scouts saw what we were doing the entire time, so there was little hope of that. Nonetheless, the delay gives us one of the most important things: time.

The display alerts us to something, the enemy has started to move, their warships glowing like new stars as their antimatter drives light up. Countless potential vectors generated by the Hamburg's central computer for a combat intercept are shown on the display, quickly amalgamating into two generalized vectors, each with multiple estimated travel times shown in boxes above each.

Each less than useless.' Mass effect has an interesting interaction with ship speeds; a ship's speed is determined less by its actual acceleration, and more by how much charge is running through its eezo core. A ship can speed up or slow down insanely quickly simply through adding positive or negative charges to their eezo core, the only limiting factor being how fast they can add that charge, a short time compared to how long it would take to truly accelerate. This causes some problems.

When assaulting a large world (or generally fighting in orbit of a world), there are only two ways to do it; you can either do lancing attacks, keeping your velocity and using the world's gravity (and some conventional thrust if you want to speed it up) to loop around for repeated attacks, or decelerating and fighting a slugging match. The first was more common, the short engagements and relatively long time between them allowing the attacks to whittle down static defenses while their, typically faster, ships could avoid taking too many losses. The mostly unpowered orbit also allowed the attackers to conserve fuel, a major problem with long distance attacks. Some attackers didn't even use maneuvering thrusters during lance attacks, simply connecting ships with cables that moved erratically to avoid unguided shots, at least until guided railgun rounds became possible. It also allowed the attackers to diengadge easily if they thought they were losing, simply shifting their trajectory a small amount to leave them out of the defender's range.

The problem is that mass effect turns all space combat on its head: allowing ships to accelerate and decelerate far faster and turning fuel from one of the main concerns for any ship into a minor one outside of the longest battles and engagements.

These changes and more turned the premier battle tactics of the pre-eezo battlespace into fools errands. It also made a type of battle more often seen in visual media or occasionally at places like the asteroid belt or lagrange points into the most viable, straight up sluging matches, something few human ships are designed for. Besides the monitors found in Earth-Lunar Space, almost all human ships were designed for lancing attacks before eezo, both around planets and in deep space. The Alliance was lucky, as its late entry by a few years into the space of eezo warships allowed it to avoid the greatest failures of early ships, but our ships still pale in comparison to the alien craft when it comes to combat endurance and close range fighting, making a direct attack problematic.

'At least top effective speeds don't change by much, you can't just pump more power into an inertial compensator and make it take more Gs, and with how fast they are moving an extra G or two won't make much of a difference..'

"They'll reach the first large concentration of rocks in 40 minutes. Once they get close, the cruisers are to start firing at beyond extreme range, aiming for the rocks. It may not do real damage to their large ships, but if they're anything like us, it will be bad for their crews. It will also keep their fighting unlaunched, which will be useful." I look towards Commander Beek. "What is the status of the Hammers?"

Beek quickly glances at his digital pad. "Hammer 1 is in the long burn position. Hammer 2 is too exposed to make it in time, but Hammer 3 is close enough for a short burn to keep them on time."

I nod. "Good, send a message to Hammers 1 and 3 through the com relays, send them the vector data and order them to initiate the burn at the proper time. Is Anvil and the Hounds in position?"

"Partially ma'am." Beek says without delay, likely having already checked while looking up the info on the Hammers. "We can get 8, maybe 10 Anvils in position with hidden burns and RCS trajectory shifts. Another dozen could be activated, but the travel time would be too long for the battle."

"Acceptable." I say, before turning my gaze towards the rest of the officers, my officers.

In a part of my mind, the events shown on the holographic display were replaced by a different scene; the alien squadron instead the eclectic ships of the Io Concordance, their destination, not the verdant greens of Baikonur, but the desolate surface of Ganymede, bright dots glowing on its surface, shining out into the dark void and reminding me what I fought for. Instead of the Alliance, the tattered remnants of the Ganymede Space Guard orbited the world, the rocks surrounding them covered with orbital defenses instead of what we hid among them.

I gaze upon the officers around the display, commanders and captains and aids each fighting for mankind united instead of the squabbling, divided nations we cheered or scorned 20 years ago. The look in their eyes, the respect, reminds me I'm not in the same place either, not a young first lieutenant who knew her rank was gained more for propaganda than her own skill, shoved into an aid position to see if I was worth the annoyance the politicians demanded. Now I am leading those around me, their fates, life or death, held in my hands and bound to my decisions.

"You all know your roles, your duties." Lights fill the shadow of my vision as I say those words, echoing ones I heard so long ago, each born from fire of fusion and antimatter. "I leave you all to it, godspeed."

One by one, each officer is gone, leaving the room or disappearing in a whimper of holographic light.

'And let us hope Baikonur will not be our grave.'

Xingyun Cluster, Da Ling Liu, Baikonur II Orbit, Fighter Alpha-5, Ensign Jacqueline Snord, 1144, April 6th, 2157:

"T-minus 30 seconds to burn, do your final checks boys and girls, wouldn't wanna lose you before we get a crack at those cruisers. The 6th Cruiser Wing got their shots at them and it wouldn't do for the 12th to be outdone."

I tune out the Lieutenant Commander's words as I check my Bident and its attached drone. 'Fusion drives, check, torpedoes, check, "backpack" check, life support, check, mass accelerators, check. All systems are nominal.'

As the time counts down, I get into position, preparing myself for the long burn. When the holographic clock in the corner of my helmet reaches zero, I feel gravity for the first time in hours, though in the wrong direction.

Slowly, a display in my helmet shows my Bident's acceleration climb up/ First 0.1 G, then 0.2, then 0.3, and on and on, small amounts of the new acceleration bleeding through the inertial compensators before they can catch up. Eventually, the Bident 4 G, half of its max acceleration without eezo, but the best it can do with the backpack on. A glance at the fuel meter shows why max acceleration is rarely used, the larger of the two gauges slowly being drained. '4 minutes to go.'

I look out of my cockpit to see the surface of Baikonur II 'above me', the dull yellow of its atmosphere reminding me of the far more vibrant, yet similar one of home. That brought back memories of the endless patrol of Venuse's orbit, when the Republic's regs meant the only thing to pass the time was looking down at home, adopted though it may be. I never understood why people seem to think earth was the most beautiful planet in Sol. An old friend from when me and my family used to live in London tried to explain it, but I've always found it lacking compared to the swirling yellow of Venus.

A beeping sound from the display tells me that the burn is almost over. A quick interaction with the display, while ignoring the LC's transmission reminding the nuggets not to forget, leaves the massive fuel tank that make up most of the backpack drifting in the void, a quick RCS burn from the Bident putting me back on trajectory even as the limited force from the ejection pushes the tanks further away.

Not long after I turn on the Bident's eezo core, lightening the craft to a fraction of its true mass and increasing its velocity greatly. Right now, the core is powered by the Bident's reactor, but that won't last. A ship with an active reactor is a shining beacon in the void, easy to see for even the most basic passive sensors. A ship running off batteries, however, is a far harder target to spot. That is why the second half of the backpack is there, the massive battery currently strapped to the top of my fighter. Cutting power before we come out of the planet's shadow, only powering the eezo core and life support through the battery, and keeping the reactor dead until the last moment should allow us to close in with the alien squadron.

'Should, less than half a century ago a ship could coast towards another with its reactor on and not be seen 'cause the passives were shit. As far as we know, these bastards are two centuries ahead of us and could see the squadron through both the planet and moon and have been laughing at the silly primitives the entire time. But there is no use thinking of that situation.'

I check the display in my helmet. 'ETA 66 minutes, I better get comfortable.'

Xingyun, Da Ling Liu, Mir Orbit, Object Alpha-One (Turian colony ship), Inner Hull, Serviceman Second Class Grif, 1200, April 6th, 2157:

"Seems like we truly aren't that different after all."

"Shut up and help me move this thing."

When I joined the Alliance, I expected to spend a few years in a more active unit, move to an Outpost position or something, and spend my time with more freetime than work.

I didn't expect I would be moving an alien still only a few centimeters from the void.

"Why do we need to move this stupid thing anyways?" I ask Simons angrily, still cursing him in my mind for finding this damn ship. Instead of sitting in my comfortable chair on the ship, I have to scour this damn trash heap for loose objects and damage alongside half the crew.

Even with the hardsuit helmet concealing his face, I can feel Simons' glare. "Because we can't get the ship's inertial compensators working. Anything loose would go flying around, and this thing masses more than you do, an impressive feat, really." I reciprocate his glare after his last, murmured comment.

I grab the still with Simons, the ship's lack of gravity, while annoying in most other situations, makes moving the damn thing much easier. We slowly move it through the gap between the ship's hulls, having to nearly crawl through the somehow both cramped and expansive space. As we reach one of the hatches to the ship's inside, I turn to Simons. "How much longer do we have to do this?"

"Quit your whining. Should only take a few more hours to get everything ready to leave."

"No, I mean how long until we can stop carrying this thing?"

"Oh, we should be able to tie it up in cargo webbing in the cargo bay over here." Simons waves somewhere towards the ship's starboard side. "Although…"

'Oh no.'

"...This could be incredibly valuable for cultural and biological research, so it may be best if we bring it back to the Cabot."

"I hate you."

Xingyun, Da Ling Liu, Baikonur Orbit, SSV Hamburg, Wardroom, Admiral Julia Hawking, 1240, April 6th, 2157:

"All crew to battle stations! Repeat, all crew to battle stations! T-minus 25 minutes to contact, T-minus 25 minutes to contact."

I look towards the bridge's main display and the squadron of alien crafts shown on it even as personnel rush around me to reach their stations, many reaching their displays while many position themselves at the bridge's fire control station, ready to repair any damage to reach this vital part of the ship. The 300 enlisted and officers aboard the Hamburg working in tandem, as was happening across the fleet.

I turn my gaze to the entire bridge, looking upon my crew and banishing the images of the broken, burning Star of Ganymede seen through a hardsuit's helmet getting further and further away.

'Not today. For the Alliance.'

"Prepare the Anvils."