Relevant Notes will be at the end of the chapter

-000-

Mobile Suit/Mass Effect

Episode 3:

Winds of War

-000-

My machine landed, touching down on the Risima's portside flight deck heavily. We might have gotten out of the battle in better shape, but that didn't mean we didn't take a beating either. I'm pretty sure the technicians are going to have to replace my suit's engines, dodging all those shots and making those extremely aggressive moves had to have taken a toll on it. Blue 3 got the worst of it, having lost his suit's right leg, and taking a pretty nasty hit to his head unit. I shouldn't have been surprised when he insisted on sticking around in the fight. He always had been one of the more... out there... pilots assigned to my command.

Red team got off easy, only having scuffed shields and armor to show they even took some damage. Verns' unit even seemed to come back unscathed, though knowing him he probably gunned his thrusters well beyond safety limits.

The Risima's Starboard flight deck was rendered inoperable after it took a direct hit from the enemy ship. The Monty also took a nasty hit to the rear. Our little formation withdrew into an asteroid cluster to repair what damages we could before heading back to Shanxi.

First order of business was helping Blue 3's unit into his MS scaffold. Given his missing leg, it was better that Blue 2 and I carefully set him in position before letting the technicians lock his suit in place. Only once the heavily damaged MS was secure did I go about retiring to my own scaffold. Taking off my helmet, I let my silver hair loose and wiped off the layer of sweat that caked my face. The temperature regulator on my normal suit had broken during all the excitement somehow, and its thick and layered materials meant the cockpit's air conditioners didn't do much to keep me cool. I'll have to get the technicians to look into it. For now, I unzipped the suit all the way to the belt and tugged at the regulation t-shirt I had wore underneath, letting the cold, air conditioned air cool my body down.

Once I felt sufficiently cooled, I popped open the cockpit hatch and kicked off my seat out into the hangar. It was hectic out there, to say the least. Technicians were already swarming Blue 3's unit, getting ready to replace its busted leg. Derrick floated up to me, passing me a bottle of water as his team started looking over my machine. He didn't know it, but he just did me a real favor.

"Looks like you really pushed this one to the limit, Lieutenant." He commented, before he doubled back when he saw my disheveled condition. "Temp regulator broke?"

I just dumbly nodded as I caught the bottle. I opened the nozzle cap, quenched my thirst with that cool, cool water, before drenching my face with it.

"What gave you that impression?" I sarcastically answered, face straight with an eyebrow raised, icy blue eyes barely holding back from shooting daggers at him.

Derrick, to his credit, didn't take take offense to it, only shaking his head.

"That's the third time it's happened this month, and we're barely halfway through February." He sighed as he guided his floating self into the cockpit. "Might be something wrong with your seat's hardpoint. We'll have to look into it too."

I shrugged and let Derrick get on with his job. The man was probably one of the best flight technicians in the Greater Shanxi Sector. He'll figure it out, I'm sure.

Floating myself to the catwalk leading out of the ship's central hangar area, I found that Blue 2 and 3 had already left for the locker rooms ahead of me. As I was about to follow, Red Team started landing and started settling themselves into their scaffolds. I decided to wait for my fellow team leader, as a matter of courtesy.

Verns quickly and efficiently locked his mobile suit in place before getting out. He had a quick chat with a rather animated flight technician which ended with the technician giving the team leader a hard and hearty pat on the back. The hit knocked the wind out of the team leader's lungs, and despite his goggles I could still make out the surprised eyes on his face. The man shook his head then floated himself to the catwalk I was on.

"What was that all about?" I asked, a little smirk forming in my face.

"Barcus was congratulating me for sinking a battleship." Verns shook his head while rubbing his back where the technician had... congratulated him. "Wish he'd be a bit more gentle about it."

He was still looking back at his team's machines as he settled beside me. My earlier musings were right, Red Team definitely got the better end of the deal. Red 2 and 3 barely took any damage to their machines proper, while the worst damage that Verns' took seemed to be a direct laser hit to his left shoulder armor. It left quite a nasty hit, gouging the plate and scorching the metal around it, but the shoulder joints proper seemed unharmed.

When he was done admiring his team, he finally turned his head towards me, then recoiled in an exagerrated manner.

"You look like someone stuck you in a steamer." He mused, his face showing thinly veiled mirth at my condition.

"Not entirely wrong." I sighed exasperatedly as he laughed at my expense.

The two of us got to the hallway outside the hangar and were about to cross to the pilot prep room on the other side when a procession of medical personnel rushed past us. They had a man covered in bandages on a stretcher, no doubt carrying this injured person to the Risima's medbay. It was only after noticing the man's portly size, and also that Bullow was trailing closely behind did I realize the full extent of what's going on.

"Captain Koda?" I asked, though received no response from the medical crew. The only thing they did was yell at Verns and I to make way, which we quickly did. It wasn't until Bullow reached us that we could finally get answered.

"Lieutenant Bullow, what happened to the Captain?" Verns now asked, sparing one last look as the medical crew turned a corner and moved out of sight. His brows creased, his worry clear on his face.

Bullow grabbed on to a nearby handrail to stop her momentum, straightened herself, then turned to speak to us. She herself had a few minor injuries. Her free hand was covered in stained bandages, while medical tape held a strip of cotton on her forehead. Apart from that and a few minor tears on her uniform, she seemed to have weathered the battle rather well, which begs the question of how the Captain was down for the count.

"Enemy got a lucky hit on the armored citadel." The Risima's XO began explaining, her dark grey eyes darted between us and the corner the Captain disappeared on. "It was some kind of explosive shell. Squash head round, if the Damage Control Team reports are accurate."

Bullow's eyes kept darting to the corner that the medical team turned on. I would've been amused at much she seemed to worry for the captain if I weren't also anxious about his condition.

"How'd he get hurt that badly?" I followed up on Verns' question.

"Shrapnel and armor spalling." Bullow answered, wincing as she raised her injured hand to us. "He took a few hits to the side, should've been nothing critical if he retired to the medbay immediately."

I sighed in relief, while Verns let go of the breath he didn't realize he was holding in. The goggled pilot brought his hand up to rub his temples.

"He always was too stubborn for his own good sometimes." My pilot colleague commented, shaking his head.

"So it's just blood loss? Nothing else too serious?" I asked in turn, my anxiety for my CO slowly melted away after hearing the details.

"Seems to be that way." Dera answered, a bit hastily. It was clear to me that she was still somewhat shaken by the whole thing. "We'll have to wait for the doctors to get a better look at him to know for sure... but hopefully it stays that way."

An awkward silence fell between the three of us Lieutenants. With the Captain out of action for the time being, somebody had to take over. Normally, this would've fallen to Bullow as she was XO... but Verns and I were also Lieutenants. Moreover, we technically had seniority over her since we've both been with the ship for far longer and were more familiar with its crew. While I haven't spoken much with her, what I've seen of her suggests to me that she wasn't yet fully comfortable calling the shots and ordering the Risima's crew around.

I looked to Verns, then to Bullow. They seemed to be on the same page as I was... at least I think they were. I hoped they were. The problem of who needed to take charge had to be addressed.

Seeing as Verns didn't seem to want to broach the subject, for whatever reason. I decided I would.

"With Captain Koda down for now, you're in charge, Bullow." I told her.

She looked down at the floor, contemplating my words -and no doubt her response- carefully.

"I... I-I'm not sure I'm the best person to take command." She eventually said. Bullow had taken to fidgeting with the CSF Officer's Academy ring on her right hand to alleviate her nerves. "Back in the Mors, I was a fleet intelligence specialist. I'm not exactly cut out to command a warship, nor am I familiar enough with the crew to take charge so suddenly."

Before I could respond, Verns had beat me to the punch.

"But you finished your command qualifications, right?" He interjected.

Her posture tightened, like a deer caught between headlights. Was she hoping that we wouldn't home in on that fact? What was it about taking command that had Bullow so agitated? Eventually she seemed to have gathered herself, recomposing her posture to one of a professional Space Force officer. Despite this, I still saw her fidget with her academy ring.

"I did." She answered. Her voice even tempered, calm, even somewhat authoritative. It was a drastic shift from the nervousness she had displayed earlier. Perhaps Verns' words had reminded her of her duties.

"However, as I've said before, I lack experience and familiarity when it comes to running a Chariot Class Cruiser." She continued. So she was still rather nervous about it. "Given what's at stake in this current situation, it may be prudent to have someone more familiar with the Risima's operations take command, while I remain in a secondary role."

I found myself raising an eyebrow at her words. It was well thought out and reasoned. I don't quite understand why she was so adamant at not taking command, but I felt if she couldn't live up to the task then we shouldn't force her to. I would've voiced my understanding of her position, but Verns had other ideas.

"Who exactly would take command?" My pilot colleague said, pointedly. I could feel the intense focus in his eyes as he stared down the XO through his goggles. "Kreusgluck and I are needed down here, to command the mobile suit teams."

A small glint in Bullow's eyes told me she seemed to have anticipated his response.

"Given the reduced state of the enemy squadron, I believe we could keep one team on the bench... for now." She said, voice remaining even and controlled, even as I saw her continue fidget with her ring.

"True, but we don't know if they have reinforcements on the way." Verns countered, his voice level though I could sense a hint of frustration behind it. "It would be wise to have all our mobile suit teams on standby."

I was about to interject, to try and make peace between the two Lieutenants, but Verns decided to continue his barrage.

"Lest we forget, Captain Koda personally chose you to be his XO." He then revealed.

Did the Captain do such a thing? If he did, I wasn't briefed on it... which then makes it more curious how my friend knew of this, while I didn't. Whatever the case, Bullow seems to have been disarmed, or at least taken aback by this.

"The Captain saw something in you, Bullow. I don't know what that is, but I believe in the captain, so I'll believe in you." Verns said, placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder, before pushing himself towards the prep room.

I shook my head at what he said. Verns always was like this. Sometimes he acted like some kind of mysterious man, other times he's both the best and most annoying friend you could ever ask for.

"We've got your back, Bullow." I finally said to her with a soft smile, deciding to follow up on my friend's supportive words. "Don't be afraid to ask for help, we're all in this together, after all."

We bid each other farewell as she went off to the medical bay and I followed Verns to the prep room.

The other pilots were all in various states of undress. Most had slipped out of their thick normal suits, opting to wear their regulation t-shirts and shorts. A few were like me, having unzipped most of their suits and wrapped the sleeves around their waists. They were all lounging about the room, resting, recuperating, and more importantly preparing themselves for a possible second sortie. I floated myself to my locker, pulling out a light snack and my music player. I always felt peckish after sorties and music always helped me calm down after an intense fight... not that it was helping right now.

My mind kept rewinding the events of the past few hours, replaying what happened, reevaluating the situation, reconsidering all our options. Minutes ticked by as I silently snacked and mulled over my thoughts. I came to a rather uncomfortable conclusion.

We were damn lucky with this fight.

If the enemy had known beforehand about our capabilities, I have no doubt in my mind that they'd have overwhelmed us somehow. Even though they were using more... conventional weaponry against us, they were still dangerous. A kinetic shell of the caliber that battleship was firing was just as likely to kill you as a mega particle cannon. Each weapon type had its strengths and weaknesses. Fortune sided with us since they couldn't exploit our weaknesses yet, but that wasn't going to last. These aliens were no doubt smart, like we are. They'll learn. They'll adapt. Soon enough they'll be on par with us. The only way to win was to stay ahead of them, in terms of tactics, and in terms of technology.

The fact that these aliens didn't seem to have the same mastery of energy weapons as humanity did was... interesting, to say the least. My suit's instruments couldn't even detect anything remotely close to a Minovsky energy signature coming from them. The only reasonable conclusion I could come to was that their civilization must've discovered Prothean tech much, much earlier than we did. I would also imagine if humanity's early spacefaring history wasn't so... turbulent, it wasn't impossible for us to find the crashed Prothean ship, the Praxis Infinity in Mars before went all in on Minovsky Technology. Had that been the case, we may very well have been more reliant on Mass Effect and Eezo like these aliens seem to be.

Christ. Aliens. It was only really starting to sink in with me now.

We've just encountered sapient... no, intelligent alien life. Aliens weren't uncommon in the relay network. Animals like the Edenian Gas Bag or the Shanxi Orus Bear were merely two native alien species among the many worlds humanity colonized.

Intelligent aliens, on the other hand... well, apart from the long gone Protheans, their existence were still hotly debated.

Our little expedition just found the answer to that debate... and we blew that answer to kingdom come.

I still wasn't sure how I felt about that.

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Unfortunately, the buoy network Magarius had ordered set up wasn't deployed soon enough to connect to the Galateus. It was, however, activated just in time to coordinate search and rescue operations, to recover lifepods from the destroyed ships, and to rally the surviving -though horribly battered- ships.

The watchpoint captain's frown deepened. So many lives lost, and they've hardly gotten anything to show for it. What was supposed to be a standard first contact intercept mission had gone awry. The Commodore should've been able to deal with it handily, but fate played a cruel game. To make things worse, Trevanian had gone and went down with his cruiser. That Turian was a rising star among the officer corps. There even were rumors that Primarch Lacinius was eyeing him as an addition to the Old Breed faction in the Military Council. Of course, that wasn't happening anymore... considering Trevanian had suffered a most unfortunate death.

That death, no doubt, would be pinned on Magarius somehow.

He had already ticked off Sector Command when he berated those fools, complaining about the lack of military readiness in the sector. Now, his request for an intercept had gotten an up and coming officer killed in action. It didn't matter that Magarius had zero control or ability to intervene in the situation, those bastards whose toes he had stomped on would find a way to make sure he took all the blame.

It was extremely frustrating, not to mention quite hypocritical as well. Many Turian officers sneered at the Salarians and the Asari, who's military structure were viewed as far too vulnerable to petty spats between rival political factions... as if Turian society didn't face similar issues as well. It just so happened that Turians were more willing to set aside their differences to get the job done. After all, the Old Breed and the Reformers were still soldiers at heart, many of which rose from non-commissioned positions before getting sponsored into the officers corps. While their disputes have yet to cause significant damage, it took a fool to see the conflict slowly escalating. Magarius thought it wouldn't be long until the division would start affecting policymaking.

The watchpoint captain shook his head. Political machinations and intrigue would have to wait. He'd have to sort out the current catastrophe first, saving the lives of the stranded sailors and organizing rescue and recovery operations of the crew still stuck in their burning hulks came first. Only then would he start thinking of a way to maneuver around both the Old Breed and Reformers... preferably without getting himself demoted... or forced into a desk job somewhere in Palaven.

"Sir! Deep-Wave sensors are detecting faint eezo readings... they appear to be a blue-shift flash!" A sensors officer's report suddenly yanked the captain away from his thoughts.

Blue-shift flashes... that's the sign of a ship's FTL drive spooling up. Magarius' brow plates tightened to a furrow.

"Can we confirm who and where it's coming from?" He asked.

No, he knew who it was coming from. The aliens, no doubt. They were on the move again. The million credit question, was where were they going?

Magarius tightened his mandibles as he watched the holographic map. That damnable radiation had polluted a significant chunk of the star system by now. The watchpoint's state of the art sensors were rendered near useless, barely able to detect things accurately through all this interference. Normally, conventional space ships could easily be detected while they were moving at FTL speeds. It may seem strange to think so at first -Magarius certainly did when he first started in the navy- but it all made sense when one considered how vast and massive space was. In the astronomical emptiness of space, light could take anywhere from minutes to even hours to reach its destination. FTL travel was no different. Especially considering you couldn't travel in a straight line. Space wasn't empty, not really. Debris, wandering asteroids and comets, even the odd space station, posed massive danger to anyone traveling at such incredible speeds. Safe travel lanes were created and maintained by teams numbering in the thousands, running FTL tugs and other such vessels. Commuting these space lanes was fast, safe, and easy. Traveling in wild space was none of that. One could not maintain full FTL burn flying in wild space, not unless one was already intimate with the course at hand. Common practice of traveling wild space at speed was to make many short FTL bursts, interrupted by maneuvering at high cruising speeds where necessary. Turning around at such high speeds wasn't easy, and it could take a few light minutes to complete a full 90 degree turn. With all that considered, tracking FTL movements wasn't all too difficult. Either they were traveling through safe lanes, making them easy to monitor... or they were running through wild space, firing off multiple blue-shift flashes as they made quick FTL bursts... flashes easily detected even from the other side of the star system.

Traveling in non-FTL speeds was a different matter altogether. Without the telltale signs of a blue-shift flash, it was hard to pinpoint a ship's location. You could potentially hide your movements this way, but once you've entered sensors range, the jig was all up. Any space ship traveling in space is going to generate heat. That heat is going to make that ship appear like a Sur'keshi Fountain Candle compared to the empty void around it.

That's what makes this damned radiation all the more frustrating. Not only was it interfering with long range sensors, that bright Sur'keshi candle was now suddenly surrounded by this alien radiation, making it blend in. Magarius had his men tune the watchpoint's sensors to try and counteract this interference, but the improvements they've made were marginal at best. New, dedicated sensors designed specifically to work with this radiation would have to be invented.

That would have to be left for the future. Magarius had to deal with the present, and presently, the aliens were on the move.

"It's not one of ours!" The sensors officer answered. "We're doing what we can to track the ship's movement..."

A few more minutes passed, each becoming more tense than the one before it. The captain's grip on his command podium had become so tight, he noticed his talon edged fingers had started digging into the metal railings.

"Alien ships appear to be... moving towards Relay 314!"

Magarius let out a sigh of relief. The aliens were vacating the system. That was good... at least in the short term.

"That's good." He said, his grip on the command podium loosening. "Let them leave. It's not like we can do anything about them now. Continue with the search and rescue efforts as planned."

The immediate danger had now passed. The captain let himself slump forwards into the command podium's railings, his image as an officer be damned.

He had weathered one storm. Now, to weather the one to come.

-000-

Author's Notes:

Responding to a few comments:

Why Do Kinetic Barriers Stop Beams? Because otherwise the fights are hideously one sided. I'm trying to set things up to be a bit more even, give the Turians and the Citadel Races more of a fighting chance. This isn't a straight HFY story. It's also a challenge for my writing skills, to not just be biased and take the side of my favorite factions. UC Gundam tech overmatches Mass Effect tech in terms of weaponry hideously. If I let beam shots easily bypass kinetic barriers, even a shitbox like the Zanny or Ball Boy would have an easy time cleaning the floor with the Citadel forces. As it stands, Council forces need all the help they can get (within reason) and leveling the playing field makes writing more fun.

When did Turians start using flak guns? When I decided they would. Mass Effect GARDIAN Lasers very much follow in the steps of IRL laser weapons. That means instant travel, instant hits, and a reliance on RADAR lock. Due to Minovsky shenanigans, this makes GARDIAN turrets significantly less effective. To maintain a credible threat to mobile suits, I gave the Council forces flak guns.

Where are all the fancy crazy late UC tech? In a vault, too expensive to be general issue gear, or lost. I'll get to this eventually in the plot.

I already know where this whole fic is going so I'm going to stop reading! Alright. That's your prerogative. I usually find a story's journey to be more important than the end result... unless that end is so monumentally stupid it makes the journey useless, but I digress. I can't convince people to stick around, but I can point out that people don't normally skip to the final chapter when they pick up a new book. Even if you know where the general plot is going, you're still likely to stick around because the details will differ from other stories, and it's the differences that matter. Who knows? Maybe the author pulls a fast one on you and does something unexpected.

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THIS WORK IS CROSSPOSTED IN FFNET AND AO3