Chapter 1: The Beginning
"After the reaper war, the galaxy was in turmoil. Every species had lost countless soldiers, civilians and resources, what the reapers had destroyed were nothing but smoking ruins, what had been left was desolate and run down. Everything had been thrown at the reapers, and it wasn't enough to fully overcome them. Shepard firing the crucible was what saved the galaxy. What that man had done to get there was a testament to his will. They recovered his body, what was left of it at least. Admiral Hackett had made a speech several days later, honouring the commander and the countless men and women that had given their lives to save the galaxy. Things had been peaceful after then. Turians helped asari, salarians helped humans, humans helped turians, and asari helped salarians. Everyone praised the krogan for their help. The turians honoured the quarians, giving them supplies and resources to rebuild their homeworld. Everything was perfect, people were happy. Earth was still largely a ruin, but no one cared, they only wanted to rebuild, to forget that the war had ever happened. The few that had survived rarely spoke of the horror of the reapers. They only ever talked about the day it all changed, when Shepard destroyed them."
-Admiral Anderson (deceased), 2261
"I wasn't even a month old when the Reapers attacked Benning. After the reclaiming of earth, indoctrinated sleeper agents still roamed the galaxy, and more radical extremists looked for opportunities to attack the Council. There was a group, called Gryphon, which made an appearance after the war, as a private protection and logistics corp. They were never a threat; they always worked in the traverse, protecting the colonies. After 10 years, they accounted for nearly 95% of all protection forces outside of council space. They controlled Omega, and had taken over both the Eclipse and Blue Suns. No one cared that they were controlling so much space. No one realised the problems they would cause, no one except the Spectres. They contacted the Alliance and the asari commandos, and warned them of the impending danger. When the colony of Horizon was attacked, people signed up without so much as a thought. People didn't want their peace to be disturbed, a peace that was hard fought for. I was eighteen when Gryphon attacked Horizon. I signed up the day after the attack."
-Retired Newton, 2276
Titan Nebula, 2196
Amanda Newton looked at the display in front of her. They had arrived in this system looking for the remains of the geth fleet, as no other clusters had wielded any results. They hit FTL, flying past the star, until they reached the orbit of Capek. And there it was, drifting aimlessly around the desolate planet. The Trident moved in closer to get a better look, before Amanda said to her communications officer,
"Contact command. Tell them we found it."
The comms officer nodded then walked off. After several minutes she returned and said,
"Captain, command is sending 20 research vessels and five frigates."
Amanda nodded, then walked off to her personal cabin.
Gryphon headquarters, Sanctum, 2197
"I don't see how you building a fleet is going to help my company."
"Please mister Blackburn. Just hear me through."
"No, miss Dalishi, I don't want to hear it. My company is perfectly fine."
Lidorla sighed. She was getting nowhere with this stubborn human.
"Mister Blackburn, we would both profit from these plans. We buy your goods, at 15 per cent below cost, and we offer you protection at 15 per cent below cost. It works both ways."
"We don't need protection. The only problems we get are from small merc packs, but that isn't enough to warrant your protection."
Lidorla reached behind her and pressed a button. After a moment a salarian walked in carrying a datapad. He handed it to Lidorla, who read from it,
"Strange, you say these are only small problems. Says here that you lost; 100 personnel and 200 tons of palladium in just six months. That and your profits have dropped steeply after the attacks. That sounds a lot worse than small merc packs."
Blackburn shook his head. He couldn't believe he was actually being blackmailed into a deal.
"Fine, we'll take your offer, so long as you station ships here. Stop the bastards from even entering the system."
Lidorla smiled and nodded. She negotiated how things would work, before ending the call. Several minutes later someone knocked on her door. She unlocked it and a salarian walked in.
"Pasal, how can I help?"
"Engineering has some excellent news," Pasal said, grinning. "They have successfully built the first working cruiser."
Lidorla stood, and followed him out into the large logistics facility. A squad of human and turian soldiers walked past, talking loudly. As they waited for their coats, Lidorla asked,
"So how many resources do you think we need to build more?"
"Well," Pasal began, "we have almost exhausted our iridium reserves building the weapons systems. The geth didn't hold back on their GARDIAN lasers. We emulated them the best we could, but I'd say we're going to burn too many resources using UV lasers."
"Why use it then?" Lidorla asked.
"More powerful, longer range, lower sustained fire to output compared to infrared, but over heats faster and is much higher maintenance."
Lidorla contemplated this as she followed Pasal through the snow into engineering's hangar. As the secondary doors closed Lidorla looked up. The cruiser was bathed in a reddish light, giving it an even more aggressive look. Engineers rushed around the multiple platforms, checking screens and omni-tools to make sure things were in line. The ship itself was around 400 metres in length, and had two oval shaped engines at the back. It very much resembled a geth ship, but with some salarian and asari design overrides. Pasal looked at the ship and smiled, saying,
"406 metres of engineering excellence right there. 12 broadside canons, and two forward thanix cannons."
Lidorla looked at the ships sleek lines, noticing the red, black and grey colours and the Gryphon symbol painted on the side. She was impressed. She looked at Pasal and said,
"She's an impressive ship, I'll say that much. When can you get it to the Hekate system?"
Pasal scratched his cheek as he answered,
"Hmm, we still have some crew vacancies, but I say we can have it there in a week."
Lidorla nodded. She continued to look at the ship for a while then said,
"We need to get several squads to Ker. I'm trying to get a human mining company on board with us, inexpensive resources and such, and it gives us a major staging area in the Attican. Get some squads put together and load them onto some frigates and get them out there now."
Pasal looked at her and said,
"I'm guessing you want more than the companies resources."
"I want it. The company," Lidorla said quietly, "I want this to be… Big."
Pasal looked at her worriedly, but decided to take his leave. Lidorla stayed in the hangar for a while longer, before retiring to her quarters.
Blackburn Mining Industries headquarters, Ker, Hekate 2197
Status report on all operations in area
4000 tons of iridium
3600 tons of palladium
5300 tons of platinum
110 tons of element zero (found in asteroid belt)
All measurements are estimates, and all resources have been shipped to Gryphon General HQ. Frigate complement has been bolstered to 30, and 2 cruisers have been stationed at L4 stations. All ground forces have received tanks and gunships.
Maurice Blackburn closed his terminal and looked up at his holo screen to see Lidorla staring back.
"The resources have made it through I presume?" Maurice asked.
"They have. Mister Blackburn, may I ask you a question?" Lidorla stated.
Maurice raised an eyebrow.
"How would you like to merge Blackburn Mining with Gryphon? That way, you don't need to pay for the protection, and you get personal input in all matters concerning resources. And we get all the resources you can mine, without the issues of petty greed influencing trades. How does that sound to you?"
Maurice leaned into his hands, and looked out the window. It was an enticing deal, one he couldn't pass up.
"Sounds good to me. I'll have my assistant contact you about possible meetings in the near future."
Lidorla smiled before saying,
"I would be more than pleased to finally meet you mister Blackburn."
Maurice shut off the call, before saying to his assistant,
"Go through my schedule for the next few months, and remove all corporate meetings. I don't see a need to waste time trying to make connections. Also get that email away to miss Dalishi."
His assistant bowed her head then hurriedly left. Maurice poured himself a glass of whisky, as he watched the mining machines move around below his office. He watched them and the slowly setting sun when he heard a knock on his door.
"Come in," he said cheerfully.
A turian marched in, and said loudly,
"Sir, you need to come with me, Blue Suns mercenaries have been spotted in the western most complexes. We need to get you to safety, sir."
Maurice nodded sharply, before following the turian into a hover tank. The driver looked back, before driving off to Maurice's bunker. Alarms started to blare, as Gryphon troops ran around, grabbing weapons and directing personnel. The turian looked at Maurice and said,
"You'll be safe here sir, just don't try and go anywhere."
With that the turian shut the door and ran off. He reached the base just as Blue Suns mercenaries swarmed the loading bays. He looked over to see two dead asari. We jogged over and saw they were miners. He prayed to all the spirits before pulling out his pistol and running into the heart of the facility. Gryphon forces had been caught unaware, and several tanks had been taken out before they could be mobilised. All gunships had made it into the air, but they were too few to overcome the number of tanks on their own. Gryphon marines ran everywhere, grabbing weapons, protecting miners, and manning defenses. After several hours, the Gryphon fleet had reported that all Blue Suns ships had been destroyed, and that the ground forces had no escape route. The Gryphon marines used this to their advantage, using it to wipe the Blue Suns soldiers out completely. After just two hours the entire landing force had been cleared, with no known survivors. Maurice was impressed at the precision of the Gryphon forces.
'This will be a very profitable deal,' thought Maurice as he walked out of his bunker. His assistant handed him a datapad as he hopped into the nearby tank.
Dark Star Lounge, Illium, 2197
Lidorla sat in the dark. She watched as several asari walked in the door, followed by a human man and a turian. The human looked in her direction, and she turned the lights on. He sat down, while the turian stood at the door. She glanced at the soldier, who bowed his head slightly. She then looked the human in the face and said,
"Mister Blackburn, it is good to finally meet you face to face."
"Likewise miss Dalishi, although I would prefer to be called Maurice," said the man.
Lidorla snapped her fingers and a salarian brought a datapad forward. She grabbed it and looked it over. Placing it on the table, she said,
"Since we are introducing ourselves proper, my name is Lidorla. Now I understand that my soldiers successfully repelled a Blue Suns raid on your mining facility, and since then your mining capacity has increased fourfold. How many resources do you think your company could mine in the next five years?"
"My head technician's pumped out a few estimates," Maurice answered confidently, "worst case scenario, we mine around 200,000 tons every year. Best case, upwards of 650,000 tons. The most accurate estimate puts it at around 370,000 and 410,000 tons per year."
Lidorla nodded slowly, thinking. After several moments she said,
"I could get an engineering team out to you to improve machine productivity. Ker doesn't have a breathable atmosphere though, does it?"
"No. That and the proximity to the Terminus are the only drawbacks to mining operations. Of course there are other worlds out there, but Ker is one of the only ones that's so incredibly sparsely populated."
"Once our two companies merge, I'm sure that we will be able to move mining explorations to other regions of the galaxy. Now my engineers have made some projections of the resources that they will need to make a complete fleet. They are huge, to say the least. We have burned through almost all of our iridium trying to make the GARDIAN systems for our cruisers. Also we are running low on platinum, as the geth technology we have dissected relies heavily on it, and it's costing us horribly as almost every rifle needs platinum for its kinetic coils. Those are the reasons behind our merging. We get all the resources you can get us, and you get all the technology you need to find and mine those resources."
Maurice looked at his lap as he thought about the deal. He really liked the idea, all the technology he needed to mine any planet he wanted. He looked up at the beautiful Nos Astra skyline and said,
"It will be a pleasure doing business with you and your company Lidorla."
The two shook hands before they parted ways.
Gryphon Engineering headquaters, Sanctum, 2198
Pasal stared at the readout in front of him, and blinked.
'That can't be right,' he thought as he scrolled through the string of information, 'last time I checked we only had 10,000 ensigns. I'll have a word with Zaeed about this.'
Pasal kept looking at the screen, failing to notice the human woman in front of him. She cleared her throat, startling Pasal.
"Ah, Amanda! Just who I was looking for,"
Amanda smiled before asking,
"I guess you just got the production needs list?"
Pasal nodded.
"Well, we've just made a breakthrough with the kinetic coils. Apparently, the geth only used platinum in the actual coil itself, however we were using platinum in the linkages, coils and also the superconductor. So we revised our blueprints and we are now only using platinum in the linkages and the coil."
Pasal hummed before slowly asking,
"What about the superconductor? We don't have enough copper or graphite to be able to produce them in massive numbers, surely?"
"Well you see," Amanda stated, "we have an excess of palladium as geth technology doesn't rely on it too heavily. So we have begun working small amounts of graphite into a palladium cored superconductor. All we need is a small shipment of graphite, and we could produce enough rifles to supply our entire army."
Pasal beamed at Amanda. This was amazing news, they finally had a use for the massive palladium deposits lying around. Not only that, but they could cut back on the amount of platinum being used. Lidorla and Maurice would be very pleased at this news. Pasal knew he had to tell his two associates as soon as possible. He opened up his omni-tool and typed a quick message. After several minutes the room around him went dark, as two holographic screens lit up.
"Pasal, I understand you have good news?" Lidorla asked in her calm tone.
"Yes," Pasal excitedly, "Amanda here has just figured out how to cut back on platinum use and use more palladium." Pasal looked at Amanda and nodded.
"My team and I revised the weapon blueprints," Amanda stepped forward, "and discovered that the geth were only using platinum for the coil itself, rather than the entire kinetic coil assembly. So we redrew the plans, and we have cut back to platinum in the coil and linkages. For the superconductor, however, it's a little more tricky. We could only seal the palladium core in a thin graphite shield. Problem is, graphite is hard to find outside of earth, so we have to use hydrocarbons. And synthetic graphite made from petroleum products is very expensive."
Maurice scratched his chin in thought, before speaking out,
"I used to now a guy, a batarian, went by the name Gharish Darbanak. He used to dabble in hydrocarbons on a small planet near Blue Suns space. I'll get my team onto trying to track him down and see if he still exists."
Lidorla and Pasal nodded in agreement, while Amanda skeptically asked,
"You sure we can trust him?"
Maurice shot her an annoyed look, and she quickly backed down. Pasal typed at his terminal before saying,
"Maurice, if you don't find him, I can have my engineering team scout nearby systems for hydrocarbon rich planets. We could easily build the required technology here."
"Yes, but the cost would be higher," Lidorla stated, "we should try and find him first. Pasal, have a team survey nearby planets and report back. If we find Darbanak we can escort him and his operation to those planets. If not, well, we bite the bullet and do it ourselves."
Pasal, Maurice and Amanda all agreed. After several minutes only Maurice and Pasal were left talking. They were discussing whether mech based mining would be a possible option, and whether they could modify an Atlas mech to perform the task.
"I don't see why not," Pasal grinned.
"I mean, they are capable of lifting incredible weights," Maurice explained, "but are able to fit into tighter spaces than a crane can. Also their arms are capable of supporting heavy machinery."
"Mm, very true," Pasal hummed.
The too sat in silence before Pasal continued,
"Well I'll have a couple of engineers look at drawing up a few blueprints, and see whether they will work or not."
Maurice smiled, and took a sip of his whisky. Pasal wondered how he could drink such caustic fluid. After a moment, Maurice exclaimed,
"Oh, by the way, we recently found a freighter carrying platinum, and a bunch of old mech parts. We sent it to you after we performed minor repairs."
Pasal was startled by the sudden news, and looked at Maurice quizzically, who further explained the situation.
"You see, one of the scouting frigates found an anomaly on the short range scanners. It went to investigate, found the freighter, and a squad boarded it. They found out that it had been adrift, and so we repaired it, loaded more materials on board and sent it to you. It should arrive in about a week."
Pasal and Maurice exchanged a few more words before ending communication. Pasal stared at the recently delivered Atlas blueprints, and hummed. He forwarded them to Maurice, before carrying on with the large amount of paper work left to him by his engineers.
The Blue Suns head office, Zorya, 2198
Beast, animal. Even monster. All because he was a biotic. But Terius didn't mind. He knew he was the best biotic the turian military had ever had. But as always with Cabal units, they didn't treat their personnel that well. And so he left. Signed up with Gryphon to teach them a lesson. And now, he was stuck on this stupid, merc infested planet. Maurice himself had contacted him to find a batarian by the name of Gharish Darbanak. Terius had always liked Maurice, but had never thought he had done business with a slimy batarian. But Terius didn't care. What the fat cats did to make money didn't concern him. What did was finding Gharish. He scanned the small spaceport through the scope of his rifle, looking for any batarians. After several minutes, his HUD flashed, as his suits VI targeted a nearby batarian. Terius looked at the picture, and back at the batarian, before whispering,
"Gotcha."
"What are you talking about? We had an agreement Darner, that I would get you the natural gas you needed, and then you would give me enough credits to buy passage to the citadel."
"No, you haven't fulfilled your part of the deal," Darner said angrily. This batarian was getting annoying, "You need to still supply nearly 200 tons of natural gas."
The batarian shook his head, then explained in a gruff voice,
"The shipments are still on their way. You know very well that freighters take a long time to travel."
"Gharish, I don't care if the shipment is still on its way. We need that natural gas now! How are we supposed to get those AS-1s online?"
"I know," Gharish muttered, "give me a couple days, and I'll see what I can do."
Darner nodded, and slowly walked away. Gharish watched him walk away, when he heard a voice say,
"Don't move."
Gharish swallowed. He slowly turned around to be faced by a turian. He stared at his cold eyes. After several moments the turian said,
"My boss wishes to see you."
Gharish nodded feverishly. As the two neared the shuttle, Gharish struck out. He hit the turian in the stomach before jabbing at his brow plate. The turian howled in pain. Suddenly he glowed blue, and flung a box at Gharish, who rolled to the side.
Then another box.
And another.
Every box the turian bioticly threw, Gharish ducked underneath. Soon the turian calmed down, and grabbed his pistol.
Terius was furious. He let that… that four eyed bastard get the better of him. So he quickly lashed out, trying to squash him with heavy boxes. After a very intense moment, Terius calmed down, and pulled out a gun. He held it steadily. The batarian snarled back at him. Terius waited, before pulling the trigger.
Gryphon main headquaters, Sanctum, 2198
Maurice leaned back in his seat, trying hard to suppress his anger. He had forgotten Terius' recently poor track record. He looked at the uncomfortable turian. Soon he heard a voice say,
"Maurice, why did you choose Terius here? He may be capable, but he's only recently been released from medical care."
Maurice and terius shared a look, as Lidorla sat down. She looked at Maurice, then Terius, before continuing,
"You know our policy on uncleared soldiers. If it wasn't for the fact that he is personally under your command, he would be gone."
Maurice grimaced, before saying,
"Yeah, I know, but I have always trusted Terius. I'm sure this is just a one off occurrence. Besides, Gharish was obviously involved with the Blue Suns, and knowing him, it will be some deep shit."
"So?" Lidorla asked expectantly.
"So," Maurice said candidly, "maybe it was better to kill him."
Lidorla almost snapped at this. It was totally against their policy to go around killing potential clients. They needed a good name if people were going to trust them. This, this wouldn't
"We can't afford to be killing potential clients! It could ruin us, and more so, make people less trusting of us!" Lidorla almost yelled.
When she looked at the two men, shrinking into their seats, with worried looks on their faces, she began to calm down. As she breathed deeply, Pasal strolled in carrying a datapad.
"Good news! There are about 3 oil and natural gas rich planets in the surrounding systems," Pasal exclaimed happily, seemingly unaware of the two cowering men in front of him. Everyone looked at him, as he asked, "how did the search for Gharish Darbanak go?"
Terius finally croaked to life.
"He's dead."
Pasal stared at the group, as Terius added,
"I… killed him."
Pasal continued to look at everyone, before saying,
"We may be better off without him."
Lidorla shot him a furious look, which he waved a hand at, before saying,
"We have made several blueprints and even a concept for modified Atlas mechs that can be used for mining. Far more cost effective than Gharish's operation would've been."
Maurice nodded in agreement, as Lidorla and Terius simply stared. They continued to discuss the Gharish issue, but slowly everyone awakened to the fact that it would be easier without him. As Maurice and Pasal were leaving, Lidorla held Terius back. Once the others were gone, she said,
"Terius, listen, I want you to become Maurice's personal body guard. I know things have been a little rough for you lately. This will be your opportunity to show some self control."
Terius looked at the ground. He clenched his fists as he said
"I lost control because of… memories."
He glanced away before facing the door. He looked back and said,
"Thanks for the second chance."
Lidorla smiled kindly. She was happy Terius understood the situation.
I hope this helps him pull together, Lidorla thought, we can't afford to lose someone like him.
Terius walked through the snow slowly, trying not to slip.
Stupid snow.
He stumble through the door of his quarters. As the lights dimly lit up the room, he slumped against his bed, crying. His head slowly slumped into his hands. He continued to sob softly, as the door slid open. Maurice looked at the former soldier, now reduced to a crying wreck, and sat down next to him.
"I never told you why I was relieved of duty did I?" Terius said quietly.
Maurice shook his head, as Terius continued,
"About eight months ago, there was a batarian slaver raid on the colony my family was living on."
"Despoina," Maurice muttered.
"Yes. They… they were taken by the slavers. I found out later that they had been killed. That threw me into my drug craze. Hence the reason I was relieved from active duty."
Maurice patted the weeping soldiers back, trying to comfort him. Maurice hated seeing people like this. Especially after his years in the Alliance during the reaper war. The two continued to sit there as Terius sobbed.
Gryphon stealth frigate Shuriken, 2200
"Yo, Gubal, why do you think we're here?"
"Dunno," the salarian replied slowly. The human looked at him and rolled his eyes. He never seemed to know anything. Gubal breathed in slowly before asking,
"Why do you think we're here?"
The human looked out the observation port and said,
"God knows man. For all we know, we could be getting dropped off with a gun and two rounds to kill ourselves. You'd have no idea with those fat cats running everything."
Gubal looked at his associated, then laughed out,
"Shit Lance! You always have such a dark look on things."
Lance looked at Gubal angrily, and opened his mouth to say something when their comms beeped. Both lifted their omni-tools, as the voice said,
"Right boys, welcome to X56-3Q90, or some random planet in the middle of nowhere that the bosses decided to do some crazy assed tests on. Apparently, these tests have gone off the rails, so we have been sent to bring the tests back under control. Or something like that. We move in five."
Gubal and Lance shared a confused look before running to their armour lockers.
5 minutes later.
"these tests were to try creating a brain control altering device thingy," the sergeant said in a gruff southern accent as he pointed at the holo screen behind him, "thing is, is this brain worm was fucked up, and now everyone down there is a rambling flesh eating husk zombie. Sound fun?!"
All the soldiers collectively yelled 'Aye Aye,' and saluted. The sergeant dismissed everyone to the shuttles. But Lance stayed behind. The sergeant looked at him, as he asked with a southern accent,
"Why ain't you in a shuttle son?"
"We are seriously fighting zombies?"
"Yep. Does that scare the little baby? Huh?"
Lance bit his tongue, then said,
"With all due respect Sarge, this just seems like a bad idea."
Sarge laughed.
"When have the bosses ever lied to us?"
It was Lance's turn to laugh.
"They have. Remember when they told us that Terius probably wouldn't end up back in duty, and several weeks ago he's completing top secret missions for mister Blackburn. Or when they said that they would station us on Sanctum for six months, but it never happened. I don't know 'bout you, but it seems like they lie quite often to me."
Sarge grinned at him as he slipped his helmet on. He looked past him at the shuttle, and said,
"Don't matter know, cos we going down there to find out."
Sarge brushed past Lance, and hopped into the nearest shuttle. Lance soon followed, his helmet luckily obscuring his pale skin and sweaty brow.
Why the hell are we doing this? Lance thought to himself, flesh eating husks? Agh I seriously hate this organisation at times.
X56-3Q90 surface
It was almost like a cliché horror movie. It was dark, with clouds obscuring the sky, and volumes of rain fell to the ground. It was still warm, and very muddy. But the clouds weren't obscuring stars, they were obscuring the sun. Lance stared at the angry clouds and swallowed. This wasn't a nice place to be. He looked at Gubal, who gave him a wide grin, revelling in the swampy conditions. Lance blinked at him. They quickly moved on with the rest of the squad. As they neared the research facility, they got their entree to what had happened. A salarian lay under a pile of rubble, with a pained expression, and blood on his face. A couple soldiers moved the rubble, but dropped it suddenly, jumping away. Everyone stared at the sight. The salarian missed his lower half, with a large pool of blood surrounding him, and his organs arranged in a specific order. Everyone looked at the sight, as Gubal said,
"Leave."
"What was that?" Sarge asked loudly.
"Leave. His organs spell out leave in my clans language."
Everyone whispered amongst each other, as they stared at the sight.
"He pulled out his own organs to warn us," Gubal said quietly, "something isn't right here."
"Right men!" Sarge yelled, "get your weapons ready, 'cause if this anything to go by, we're in for some tough shit."
The squad all readied their weapons, and stalked into the open courtyard. Except Gubal. Sarge looked at the salarian warmly, asking,
"You okay there soldier?"
Gubal shook his head, saying, "I've got a bad feeling about this Sarge. And you know that I don't get bad feelings that often."
Sarge looked at the ground. He hoped this would be like all his other bad feelings, just a feeling.
A/N: Please review. If it turns out people like it, then I'll keep it going. Cheers.
King of all Raptors, out!