First Contact War
Chapter 2
What have we done?
It had been a surprise when the galaxy had learned that the Turians had discovered a new species. It was a shock when the galaxy learned that the Turians had then invaded said species. And the galaxy was terrified when they learned that the mystery species was winning. This enigma of a species, that even days later we knew nothing about, had beaten back every attempt the Turians had made to subjugate them at horrific loss to the Turians. Many in the galaxy, myself included, wondered why we were invading these people. Once word got out about the disaster of the first invasion we wondered, would we survive this?
Captain Hackett sat in the virtual theater awaiting the briefing from Achilles. He wasn't actually in a theater, he was sitting in his Captains chair on the bridge of his ship, Bunker Hill with his eyes closed. One might assume he was sleeping but he was actually interacting with his neural lace which provided his mind with the impression that he was sitting in a theater with all the other Captains of 2nd Fleet.
As the single surviving ship from the Shanxi defense fleet, the brass had folded his ship into 2nd Fleet. Fleet Command thought it fitting that the Bunker Hill be involved in the reclaiming of the system.
"Quiet please." Achilles said while appearing on the stage.
The ambient conversations died abruptly as the A.I. Admiral for 2nd Fleet began the briefing. The avatar that Achilles chose was that of an ancient Greek warrior, complete with the classical Corinthian helmet, spear, and Hoplite shield.
"The expected Turian reinforcements have arrived and have resumed offensive operations on Shanxi. Intel gathered from intercepted Turian comms by our Prowlers in system have informed us that the garrison has received the Code 6 pulse from the Prowlers. Garrison forces have disengaged from contact with the Turians and have withdrawn to secure landing zones for when 2nd Fleet makes its push. Message intercepts show this move has confused the Turians and that they are pursuing slowly and cautiously, apparently fearing this to be some type of trap. Credit to the Garrison's ferocious defense for that assumption." Achilles said with a smile.
Achilles had to pause for a moment as cheers and whistles filled the theater. Once it calmed down to a few soft murmurs Achilles continued.
"First in system will be our Battleships backed up by corvettes who will affect entry via relay so as to not tip our hand with our jump drives. The carriers Washington and Napoleon will hold station on the other side of the relay incase our intel on the Turians lack of fighters is wrong. Their mission is to draw the Turian fleet, that has grown to three hundred, away from Shanxi. Once this is accomplished the cruisers will jump in on the opposite side of Shanxi and will immediately deploy their N7's while performing a simultaneous sling shot maneuver which will allow them to flank the Turian fleet. The N7's primary targets will be anti-air so our drop ships will have clear runs at the LZ's. Once the cruisers and battleships have the Turians pinned our carriers and frigates will jump in and provide support to the battle groups. We should have the Turians sufficiently tied up by this point and our transports will have clear runs for Shanxi. Designated squadrons from the carriers will cover the landings and provide air support for the marines. You know the drill for this, airborne are first in to widen and secure the LZ's. Then the galaxy transports to offload our heavy infantry and armor. Dragon and Samurai gun ships will be on station for close air support. 2nd Fleet will be responsible for the elimination of the Turian fleet and to screen Shanxi from enemy reinforcement. Specific ship assignments will be uploaded to your CIC within moments. We move out in three hours…mark. Good hunting and God speed ladies and gents."
All the officers stood and saluted the admiral who returned it before vanishing. Hackett mentally backed out of the lobby and opened his eyes to find himself sitting in his bridge. He shook his head slightly to clear up the vertigo that was always felt when disconnecting from a virtual interface.
"Commander Moltke." Hackett said turning to his XO.
"Sir?" A heavy German accent responded.
"Gather the department heads in the war room, our counter-offensive is in motion."
"Yes sir." He said activating his headset to gather the command staff.
The Citadel
Tevos sat with her fellow Councilors who were trying to make heads or tails of the latest action from these perplexing aliens that they were now at war with. For some reason the aliens had completely withdrawn from all their previous positions across the entire planet. If it was anyone else, she would say that the Turians had finally broken them and that the aliens were routing. Given her experiences from the last week however, she knew that these aliens would never just run. This was either a trap and the aliens wanted them to think they were beaten or this was something entirely new that the aliens were about to unleash on them. Tevos mentally braced herself for the next disaster that she felt was rapidly approaching. So far, every time the aliens had done something like this it had never ended will for them. They were also linked in with General Septimus who was convinced that the aliens were retreating. At least Arterius was finally beginning to respect these aliens and not treat them as incompetent primitives.
"And this pattern is repeating itself all over the planet?" Narsh asked just as lost as Tevos was.
"Yes Councilor." Septimus said smugly.
"And they are gathering in specific locations?"
"Yes Councilor, they seem to be massing at several dozen locations scattered across the zones we control and some where we don't have a presence in."
"What is the terrain like in these places?" Arterius said suddenly tensing up.
And let the countdown to the latest disaster begin in… Tevos thought with a sigh.
"They are all open and relatively flat ground…why?" Septimus said confused.
"Spirits!" Arterius uttered in a whisper.
"What?" Narsh said alarmed.
"This isn't their homeworld."
"How can you tell?"
Tevos actually snorted at that, she had come to that conclusion days ago.
"These places they are retreating to."
"What about them?" Narsh said still not getting it.
"The aliens… are not retreating, they are securing those places…those are landing zones! They're expecting reinforcements! General get your fleet ready to…" Arterius frantically explained before alarms cut him off
"New contacts exiting the relay!" A sensor officer on Septimus's bridge yelled.
"Identify."
"Profile and energy signature matches that of the aliens."
"How many?" Septimus asked confidently.
"Only 75."
"See, nothing to worry…"
"Sir, 10 of them are equal in size to our dreadnoughts!" The Sensor Officer yelled to get the Generals attention.
"What?" Septimus said shooting to his feet.
Visuals began appearing on screens of the presumably true dreadnaughts of the aliens. Unlike the Turian dreadnaughts that were essentially a ship built around a single large gun; the main guns appeared to be rotating turrets mounted on two sets of rows on either side of the roughly oval shaped ship. That meant that the alien ships had much wider firing arcs then their Turian opponents who had to align the entire ship in order to use its main gun.
"Move the fleet to intercept." Septimus ordered.
"The entire fleet?"
"Yes, I'm not taking any chances with them."
"Fleet moving to intercept General."
The Turian fleet moved away from the planet and formed into a standard Turian offensive formation. Tevos held her breath as the two fleets approached each other and wondered how tough these ships would be. Their smaller ships were surprisingly tough given their size so she could only imagine how strong these ships must be. The two fleets opened up on each other and Tevos's fears were confirmed when the alien dreadnaughts shrugged off the hits without any effort.
"75 new contacts above the planet!" A Sensor Officer yelled.
"What! How?"
"Unknown sir, the screen was clear one second and then they were just there the next."
"What are they doing?"
"Unknown…wait…getting footage from the surface."
"The surface?" Septimus said confused.
"Apparently they are dropping…something."
"Put it up."
Another screen opened that showed a view of an empty sky and Tevos was at first confused at what she was supposed to be looking for. She got her answer soon enough as the sky filled with hundreds of fire laced comets. Turian soldiers began running in panic thinking they were meteors being dropped.
"Goddess…they wouldn't drop meteors on their own planet…would they." Tevos said shocked.
"Spirits dam you! Stand your ground you cowards! You are Turians!" Septimus screamed at his men.
Officers somehow got some order restored to the ground forces but chaos was still rampant as Turian morale and discipline had taken a serious hit. Tevos didn't blame them one bit for running. If she was looking an asteroid drop in the face she would be running in blind panic too. The fire surrounding the objects ran out and revealed that these objects weren't asteroids but were in fact pods. Even worse these pods began maneuvering towards specific objectives. Turian anti-air began shooting at the objects and while they did manage to get some of them there were just too many and were too fast and small to target them and almost all made it planet side. Tevos paled when the doors to those pods shot off and all too familiar aliens in jet black armor emerged and started ripping into Turian forces with a vengeance.
"Goddess! They just landed hundreds more of those demons from orbit. How can they land troops from orbit?" Tevos said in equal parts fear and awe.
"Sir! Every anti-air position across the planet is under attack!" A Tactical Officer yelled.
"They are clearing the way for drop ships! Get reinforcements to those sites immediately!" Septimus ordered.
"Sir! Those ships the troops dropped from are using the planet's gravity to accelerate far faster than normal, they are about to flank us!" Another officer yelled.
"How big are they?"
"About the same size as our cruisers."
"Break off a third of our fleet to head them off, we still have numerical superiority so we can afford to split our fleet."
"2nd Talon breaking off to engage second alien fleet."
This proved to be a mistake because as soon as a decent gap opened up between the two Turian battle groups there was a series of bright flashes of light in the gap. From these flashes of light over a hundred alien ships appeared, some of them twice the size of a Turian dreadnaught. For several moments everyone just stared at the screen dumbly as the realization that these aliens didn't use mass relays for interstellar travel settled in.
"Report." Septimus said almost in a whisper.
"1…110 ships have relayed…I mean jump…appeared between our two battle groups…we are surrounded sir." The Tactical Officer said in the most defeated voice she had ever heard from a Turian.
"Sir, small craft are launching from those massive ships. Their profile matches the fast, agile ships encountered on the surface plus some larger variants." Another Tactical Officer said.
"How many?"
"Over a thousand."
Septimus just blinked numbly as the magnitude of what was happening began to overwhelm him.
"New contacts over the planet…30 ships in low orbit."
"What is the total enemy ship count right now?"
"326 sir."
"Spirits save us." One of the helms men said.
"Sir those new contacts are deploying ground troops to reinforce the planet…estimates on size of transports put the number of alien ground troops that they could potentially land at around 30,000."
Emergency messages began pouring in from both the fleet and the surface as the Turians began to be overwhelmed, outmaneuvered, and outgunned on every front. Those small craft were carrying weapons obviously designed to kill ships and were decimating the smaller ships of the Turian fleet. Even the larger ships were starting to explode at alarming rates because the Turians had no counter for the alien's small craft. The guns on the ship were too big and slow to hit the small and absurdly fast and agile craft. The closest Turian equivalent was too big and slow and more importantly they weren't nearly enough of them to counter the massive number of craft.
"All ships, defensive formations!" Septimus ordered.
Not that it would do much good as the Turian order of battle was already broken and it was increasing becoming every ship for itself. Tevos glanced at the screen that was showing what was happening on the surface and she gasped at the sight of the sky filled with large planes disgorging thousands of troops out the back and hundreds of tanks. What looked like fabric of some kind came out of the soldiers backs and inflated which slowed their free fall to a gentle glide before they touched down. On the tanks which appeared to be smaller than the ones witness earlier had jets on the bottom of them that fired just before impact and slowed them down before touching down harmlessly. Tevos began to shake from shock and fear as she watched the Turians being destroyed for their arrogance.
"Goddess…what have we done?" Tevos said collapsing into a nearby chair.
Just before the orbital drops
Sergeant Anderson sat in his pod waiting for the drop and reviewed the mission. While most of the ODT's were tasked with anti-air suppression, his squad along with three others got the honor of hitting the Turian's headquarters. His ready panel went from red to yellow letting him know the drop was thirty seconds out.
"Listen up ladies, you bastards have the honor of being the first counter-attack humanity has ever waged against aliens, the first boots on the ground, and the first to put boot to alien ass. Assuming they have one I expect a dry-cleaning bill from every one of you. The Turians have tasted our Navy, Army, Air Force, and even our venerated N7s. But they have yet to appreciate the horror of ODTs burning into hell feet first. We are about to give them a very extensive education on our particular brand of war. By the end of the day, I want those avian heathens to piss themselves at the mere mention of our glorious name. Once again assuming these horror shows have bowel movements, I want excrement stains on every dead bastard I come across. Do you read me troopers?"
"Yes sir!" They barked in return.
Just then the ready panel turned green and his pod began rotating into launch position.
"Now into the sky!" He yelled.
"To win or to die!" His troopers screamed in return as they rocketed away from the cruiser.