Spite Ch. 52

September 26, 2168SSV Einstein CV-2, Tasale System, Crescent Nebula Cluster

Task Force Five-One arrived in the Crescent Nebula Cluster five hours after leaving its staging area in the Caleston Rift Cluster.

Rear Admiral Haxci watched the tactical plot as it populated with contacts.

In the immediate vicinity of her task force, crowding around the relay leading to the Eagle Nebula Cluster, were a huge number of Hierarchy vessels. With them were a small cluster of Lystheni vessels. Further in the system, over Illium, the planet's defense force was positioned to defend the planet itself and the system's civilian vessels.

Apparently the turians had cleared them out from around the relay before Haxci's task force had arrived.

"Status?" she asked the bridge at large.

"We're forming up with the turians now, ma'am," Commander Hannah Shepard replied.

Haxci nodded at the report, her eyes still focused on the tactical plot.

Her orders had forbidden her task force from entering the Terminus Systems unless she received a direct order from Prime Minister Chalandri - unlikely - or exigent circumstances forced her hand.

In this case, 'exigent circumstances' meant the imminent loss of a strategic location, such as Lorek or the primary relays, or the discovery of the Nazara's exact location. Anything less serious than that and she had to run it by Chalandri.

It had to be the super-dreadnought, she thought. Before her task force had deployed to its staging area, she and her direct subordinates had received a briefing on the Nazara. It had been more unsettling than the speech she got from her old captain at the start of the First Contact War.

Humans feared the unknown, but Haxci was of the opinion that knowing how outmatched you were was worse.

Haxci knew she hadn't been told the full story, since the briefing had a bunch of warnings that could only come from more intimate knowledge of the subject than what had been presented to a lowly rear admiral. She had been told its likely capabilities, that it was possibly fully autonomous and crewed by an artificial intelligence.

She had assurances that there was only one to worry about. If she did manage to destroy it, she was to strictly limit any recovery of wreckage. In fact, if she couldn't hold position in the system it was destroyed in while 'specialized recovery assets' were en route, she was to ensure that it ended up falling into the local star.

The implications were many and upsetting. She almost didn't want to know where the damned thing had been dug up from.

Even with only what she knew, it presented a number of operational challenges.

Nothing the Coaltion had could catch it if it chose to run and she would take horrendous losses if it chose to stand and fight her task force.

Haxci knew now that the SSV Sicily had discovered it. Its report had been too late to be useful, unfortunately.

By the time the Alliance frigate had delivered it, the Coalition already had more current information on its location.

A Hierarchy wing from Fifth Battle Group had been engaged while it was guarding the Crescent Nebula-Hourglass Nebula primary relay. Before they were forced to withdraw, they were able to send a contact report through a comm buoy.

For the Nazara to appear there, it had to have forced its way through the force Sidil had left to guard the relay on the Hourglass Nebula's side of the connection.

Fortunately, the enemy hadn't had an opportunity to destroy the comm buoy before they left and the Hierarchy wing had been able to report that the Nazara, along with approximately seven hundred Geth ships, had left in the direction of the Tasale System.

Based on that information, Haxci and General Folra had parked their commands almost on top of the primary relay in that system.

Between Third Battle Group, Task Force Five-One and the surprise addition of forty-four Lystheni vessels, they had a near two to one advantage over the Geth forces headed towards them.

That numbers advantage gave Haxci some hope of success. The approach corridor to the relay was well and truly clogged with this number of vessels. If the enemy wanted to use the relay, they'd have to clear a path first.

"Illium's defense force?" she asked.

"No factor ma'am. They're holding position over Illium itself."

It'd be nice to add the two hundred or so vessels to their efforts, but Haxci wasn't sure if they had any way to convincing them to assist.

The Lystheni might, she thought. "Commander, after you get us integrated into the turian fleet network, see if the Lystheni have anything to convince Illium to assist us."

"Aye-aye, ma'am."

General Folra contacted her shortly after to explain his plan. He would be taking a note from Sidil's playbook and use the HNV Frumen to get around the enemy's directional jamming and, if the opportunity presented itself, hit something important with its Thanix cannon.

Between the turian reconnaissance frigate and the EWAR vessels the Lystheni had in-system, he was optimistic about mitigating the worst of the Geth's capabilities during the engagement.

He asked for the Einstein's strike group to focus on neutralizing Nazara, while the line warships slugged it out with the Geth fleet. Based on their understanding of its capabilities, a swarm of smaller craft had a higher chance of success than trying to engage it with the four dreadnoughts they had.

Strike groups from the Third Battle Group's light carriers would service targets of opportunity, clear the way for the Einstein's strike group and supplement the attack on the Nazara.

After the general disconnected, the Lystheni got back to her and said that they had tried to cajole Illium into assisting without success.

Disappointing, but not surprising.

According to their best estimates, they should have had five or more hours to prepare.

Nazara appeared at the edge of the system in only two.

Haxci contacted Folra immediately after it appeared on the tactical plot. She was quickly added to the Hierarchy's command meeting, her console display became crowded with the video feeds for General Folra, nine other turians officers with the insignia for either tribune or lieutenant general on their uniform and one very out of place lystheni commodore.

"It's a hell of a lot faster than we thought," one of the tribunes commented.

Haxci nodded in agreement. Ships could throttle their conventional FTL speed to match the speed of the slowest vessel they were traveling with. There were inefficiencies with doing so and minimums imposed by the size of the drive core used.

Presumably, the Nazara had traveled as slowly as it could to match the Geth's FTL speed and it had still arrived significantly ahead of the Heretic force.

"Yes," the Lystheni commodore replied thoughtfully. "It might be worth splitting our force and attempting to engage it while it is alone."

"The Frumen might be able to cripple it before we commit," a different tribune offered.

"Its barriers are up now," Folra countered.

"Short of sacrificing the Frumen to do it, I don't see it successfully crippling that dreadnought on its own," a different tribune added.

"This is our best chance of neutralizing it with minimal losses," the commodore argued.

Haxci was inclined to agree. If they got lucky, it took the offered fight and was destroyed. Or it tried to run the relay and was destroyed there instead.

If they weren't lucky, it just left the system using conventional FTL. As fast as it was in that context, the Geth still had to worry about discharging their drive cores. The Nazara leaving the cluster in such a way might mean it was out in the wind, but it would be unsupported. It also meant that the Geth in the Hourglass Nebula were a more manageable problem.

Preventing Geth from leaving the cluster was, in her mind, more important than destroying the Nazara right now. Both problems together was more chancy than she'd like.

"I don't agree, Commodore," a lieutenant general replied, "I think our information is underselling the threat of that thing. It'll slash us up and then take us on a chase around the system until its escorts arrive."

"If it doesn't decline an engagement altogether," Folra said. "We were lucky we found it at all. I want it to run headfirst into us. We need to degrade their numbers every chance we get, even if that means taking a difficult fight now. Hit and runs favor the Geth more than it does us."

The turians wanted a decisive engagement. Haxci thought the Geth might actually take that fight with the Nazara in their midst.

And that was the problem.

Even if Folra was right and the Third could prevail, it would mean a lot of dead turians. Not to mention humans.

Was that worth it? Maybe. It wasn't her choice at the end of the day, though. Whatever Folra decided to do, Haxci would do her best to do her part.

Debate continued for several more minutes before Folra made a final decision, "we're going to hold the relay. It's our best chance of coaxing them close enough to neutralize Nazara. All of our efforts during this engagement should be focused towards destroying that dreadnought. The entire Geth fleet with it is secondary to that goal. Understood?"

Once he received an affirmative response from everyone, he dismissed everyone and the meeting ended.

In the following hours, the Nazara didn't move from its arrival point, apparently content to wait for the Geth fleet to arrive.

Meanwhile, Task Force Five-One, Third Battle Group and the disjointed assortment of Lystheni Domain vessels arranged themselves for a pitched battle over the primary relay leading towards the Eagle Nebula Cluster.

In anticipation of the Geth fleet's arrival, the Frumen activated its stealth systems and maneuvered to the likely terminus of an intra-system transit.

***

September 26, 2168HEFV Prekdral Dolma, En route to the Tasale System, Crescent Nebula Cluster

Lord Admiral Sidil was pursuing a fleet that outnumbered his available forces.

It was a potentially poor course of action.

If there was a better one, however, he could not see it.

An overwhelming force had attacked the flotilla he had left guarding the Hourglass Nebula-Crescent Nebula relay. Fleetmaster Ikheth'kogan, the flotilla's commander, had dispatched three frigates to alert the three Hegemony task forces searching the Hourglass Nebula Cluster.

Sidil's task force had been the closest and consequently the first to arrive. The scattered vessels of that flotilla rallied to him while he was recovering the lifepods of the destroyed vessels.

From those survivors, he was informed that the Veil Geth cruiser attached to the flotilla and Ikheth's vessel had both been targeted first by Nazara and destroyed quickly, from well outside of the range of a conventional dreadnought-scale mass accelerator.

Several more vessels were destroyed before a commandant had been able to order an immediate withdrawal.

The deaths saddened him, as they always would - especially after the extended period of smaller engagements sapping his fleet's strength, but he had more pressing issues to address.

Namely, deciding on a course of action.

In the time it took to recover the lifepods, Admiral Dharhem had arrived with his task force, which included the Foldan.

That had given Sidil the impetus to press on through the Hourglass Nebula-Crescent Nebula relay to at least see if he could discern where the enemy had gone from there.

There, he had encountered the largely intact Thirteenth Battle Wing. They shared the enemy's likely destination and confirmed that he was no longer dealing with this breakout attempt alone.

There should be a full Hierarchy battle group and an Alliance task force moving to intercept the enemy at the Crescent Nebula-Eagle Nebula relay.

It was at that point that Sidil recognized this disaster had turned into an opportunity. If the enemy wanted to use the relay to go to the Eagle Nebula Cluster, then they would have to fight through the Coalition fleet gathered there.

The Thirteenth had eagerly fallen in with his task force when he informed them of his intention to pursue.

Now that they had begun the transit to the Tasale System, he had nothing to do but wonder if he had made the correct decision.

His fleet was almost seven hours behind the enemy fleet.

It was possible that his allies could delay them that long.

While Sidil's personal experience indicated otherwise, though he was unsure as to how representative that experience was.

The large battles he had led so far ended quickly because his opponent had left before its conclusion.

He did not believe the Coalition fleet would be so accommodating as to get out of the way, as the two hopelessly outnumbered blockading forces before it had done.