The Sea of Blood

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"Gentlemen, I need a status report. We've lost communication with the THV Agora, What's going on?" A broad looking turian captain echoed out to his CIC operators. He paced towards the CIC of the vessel and stood tall over the center console underneath the galaxy map station of the CIC. One of the operators looked up saying with a bit of confusion "Unknown sir. I'm taking a look into it as we speak. Still nothing coming through. Probably just a disturbance most likely." The Captain, Kervayus Egon, nodded and went back towards a side room containing a office filled with Hierarchy officials from the planet below. The Operators of the CIC went about their business. With the comms officer working on restoring communications to their sister cruiser, the THV Agora, which is scheduled to rendezvous with them above the planet to transfer the colony's garrison.

Farther down below the ship a group of turians hold a conversation amongst themselves. One of which is a tall and fairly green looking male adorned in a pair of Hierarchy fatigues with a tag reading 'T. Stromunian'. Another appears to be a male ship crew member who's wearing a crewman's uniform with a designation reading 'K. Longius. ENGINEERING.' With the last two turians being a female dressed in a pair of fatigues and a tag reading 'I. Vahlorius' and a male reading 'W. Nosius' "So, Who won in the spar? Was it Vahlori again?" Longius asked. "No. We called it off, Apparently one of the officers from the bridge told us to not wear ourselves out. Something's going on up top that's making the Captain worry." Vahlorius said. She pulled on the collar of her shirt saying "I think the garrison that was suppose to show up is in trouble. Or it's having some problems on the ship. Because it ought to have been here by now." Stromunian chimed in "Maybe they're just late?" Nosius shook his head saying "Rookie, Hierarchy ships don't just show up -late- nowadays. I feel like the Coalition might be behind this." Longius says "Cut it, Nosius, I know you're just fucking with Strom because he's new. We haven't had a skirmish or a battle with the Coalition for a few months now. The worse one was nearly seven years ago." Nosius shrugged saying "Whatever. Look, If we're getting into a fight soon then I'm going to grab something to eat. Last thing I want to do is get caught on a empty stomach." Longius nodded and looked to Stromunian and Vahlorius asking "You two coming along? Might as well get something to eat." Vahlorius shook her head saying "No. I'm going to head down to the observatory and get some reading done. I'll see you all around."

Vahlorius walked off with Stromunian watching her go. He looked to Longius and Longius chuckled saying "Reading. Reading what? More damn fighting books? What about you, Rookie? You coming?" Stromunian shook his head saying "Actually I was gonna uh, Go to the observatory and listen to some music or something. I don't have much else to do around here, Already had my fill of food and the shooting range today." Longius scoffed and shrugged his shoulders. He started to follow Nosius off saying "Okay, whatever. Long as you two aren't caught 'sparring' each other." Stromunian went to say something before Longius rounded the corner of the ship hallway and went into the elevator. Stromunian spoke aloud "Jackass." The Rookie made his way to the observatory and passed up the side that Vahlorius was in. Instead heading into the second observatory next to the other. He sat down in a chair and started to dig around his neckpiece for his wireless earphones.

The Attack music:

The Rookie paused and looked up for a moment. As if he saw something out the side of his vision. He raised a eyebrow and blinked. He stood up from his chair and walked over to the observatory viewport while a intercom rang over the ship "Lunch is now being served, Come and get it before it's gets cold." Stromunian placed his hand against the glass and peered outside quietly. In the distance. He saw a explosion for a moment and tilted his head. It was far on the otherside of the nearby horizon of Petra. He saw some sort of explosion again. Soon he saw what appeared to be a large construct. Some sort of giant ship with moving parts of some sorts. He blinked and used his omni-tool to open up a magnifying program to look further off into the distance. What he saw was seven ships with Coalition markings being attacked by some large ship that was neither Hierarchy or Coalition in design. It was entirely alien to him. Not even of human, asari or salarian design. The ship had constantly moving parts on the outside of it's hull that moved to replace armor as the other ships focused fire. He shook his head and exclaimed "What the hell??" Vahlorius rushed into the room yelling to those down the hall as she entered "Battle stations! Battle stations! Coalition ships! Rookie! What th-" She stopped cold in her tracks as the ship lurched to the side and the kinetic barriers shatter instantly.


Stromunian only had a glimpse to see what exactly happened. He saw the Coalition ships on the horizon in one moment. Blinked, and saw them now in firing range of their ships with two of their vessels being ripped apart in some sort of explosion. The ship he saw before now has disappeared from view. The Coalition ships then started to instantly fire on his own ship as Hierarchy vessels jumped in behind the Coalition formation. Now bringing the battle between two Hierarchy crusiers and a frigate against a Coalition cruiser and three frigates. Vahlorius muttered "Did you see...that?" Stromunian almost turned to face her before he saw a explosion in one of the frigates. A round came right towards the observatory side they were in. He turned and ran out of the room while tackling Vahlorius out of the room as well. With a quick swipe of his omni-tool he threw down the bulkhead for the room as the round impacted. The room exploded and nearly ripped the bulkhead out. The two shared a quick glance at each other before getting to their feet and grabbing a emergency mask off the wall nearby. Vahlorius stumbled into a elevator and called out "Rookie come on! We gotta-" A explosion erupted through the hall and began to fly towards the two as it's flame engulfed the rest of the hallway. Stromunian jumped forward yelling as the flame slammed into his back and engulfed him in a orange blaze.

Vahloris slammed the elevator shut with a quick blast of biotic power before kneeling down next to Stromunian. She flipped him onto his side and checked his back to see his clothes only ablazed with minor fires which she quickly put out. She then flipped him onto his back and shook him awake. Strom blinked lazily and looked up at her saying "Spirits be damned...How the hell did they jump like that so quickly?!" Vahloris shook her head saying "Your guess is as good as mine, Rookie. C'mon." She helped Strom up onto his feet and checked the floor they were heading to. Soon the door opened up and a explosion erupted in front of them. Taking out half the rooms down the hallway. They quickly sprinted down the hallway and arrived to the armory where Nosius and Longius were already in armor and were grabbing their rifles. They sighed in relief with Nosius commenting "Thank the spirits. Thought you two died down there." Vahloris grabbed her gear and quickly stripped down and got into her armor saying in the process "Not yet, Corporal. But we'll all be soon if we don't get to the kodiaks." Strom jumped into his armor as quickly as possible before grabbing his phaeston from the quartermaster. He met up with the three of his friends and secured his helmet on with a reassuring thumbs up when asked by Longius if he had his gear all set. The group then split off into their assigned positions with Strom and Vahloris moving to the kodiaks while Nosius headed to another. Longius stayed behind and went to his post to repair the ship's systems down in engineering.

Just as the three made it to the kodiak hanger the inevitable happened. A round struck through the ship and breached the main hanger where it exploded and ripped the entire floor apart. The three quickly fell back with Strom yelling out "This whole ship is going to explode if we don't get the hell out of here! We don't have any escape routes!" Vahloris looked to the other two and said "Screw it. Head up to the bridge. We're not going to survive landfall here. The bridge is our only hope. Come on!" The three quickly grouped up and headed towards the bridge while seven others who survived the explosion quickly followed them. As they found their way up to the bridge the remaining members of the squad quickly dwindled down to only five left including the original three friends. Finally they reached the bridge where most of the CIC operators have already evacuated or been killed in the explosion. The only one remaining is the Captain who appears to be diverting the ship into crashing planet side. Outside the bridge observatory they could see that the Coalition ships were being ripped apart by the flanking Hierarchy element behind them and were also falling out of orbit.

The Captain turned around and looked at the five soldiers quietly. He said not a word but looked back towards the planet surface as it began to heat up from re-entry. He remarked "I won't survive the crash, But there's a good chance you may all survive. If I were you, I would grab onto something now, soldiers." The squad quickly latched themselves onto the sides of the bridge by maglocking their boots and locking themselves to the handrails nearby. Stromunian looked on as the planet began to reach the surface where he closed his eyes and the world around him went black and silent. Then. A mighty, crashing BOOM.

Stromunian awoke first, the wind blowing into his face from the crack in his visor. He slowly stood up and looked out towards the windows. Seeing that the Turian cruiser was buried halfway into a desert. He limped over and fell to his knees to shake Vahloris and Nosius awake. The two recovered and went to check on their remaining two squad members and the Captain. The two soldiers survived but as the Captain predicted, he did not. As his armor was already heavily damaged by a explosion. The five left the Captain there and quickly went outside to peer over the bridge nearby where they quietly stood experiencing a climax of the bloodiest battle in recent history. The surviving Hierarchy soldiers and Coalition marines charged each other in the sands and broke into open combat with blood spilling from both sides. Stromunian could only fall to a knee from his injury and remark "All this death...Did..Did we even cause this?"

Worthless slaughter:

finished