The small shuttle dropped through the planet's atmosphere at a startling rate, the heat generated from the air resistance almost overcoming the shielding on the hull. The pilot struggled to keep the craft steady as it hurtled towards its destination. The speed was necessary however to keep ahead of the radar pulses that spread outward from their destination, a small mercenary outpost that had reports of a missing alliance marine unit attached to it.
The five turian crew nervously checked their armor and weapons in an attempt to steady their nerves. All were trained soldiers, but nothing could overcome the sensation that came with making a drop into enemy territory. Their nervous twitches and double checking of their equipment did not go unnoticed by their commander.
Karkin looked over his team and thought about saying something to steady them but thought better of it. Being wary and cautious would probably keep all of us alive down there, he thought to himself. He double checked his equipment as well, making sure he had the desired modifications installed in both his assault rifle and sniper rifle.
He glanced up at his small team and quietly said
"Comm. check on all units"
"Dagger check"
"Check Delta"
"Reaper Check"
"Hazard Check"
Four turian's, four replies, four working suit radios. So far so good, "Shadow check," intoned Karkin finishing the radio check.
"Alright, you all know the mission; we have reports of a missing Alliance Marine patrol at our current destination, spy drone reports indicate that there is a rather large mercenary post in the vicinity of the distress beacon coordinates."
Karkin paused briefly to let this information soak in and then continued.
"Thermal imaging shows several levels to the complex as well as numerous bodies both inside and out, namely 4-5 guard towers around the perimeter of the base as well as several blockades by the entrance. No turrets noted."
As he spoke Karkin passed around the data pad containing the spy drone images of the base complex and surrounding sniper towers. His team looked intently at the images, committing the information to memory. Their ability to remember the locations of all guards, towers and blockades would mean the difference of life or death in a situation.
"Two minutes to LZ Commander!" The pilot shouted into his suit radio.
Karkin motioned for his team to prepare for the coming drop point, helmets snapped into place and armor seals and shields were checked and activated.
Karkin leaned over the pilots shoulder, squinting out of the small windows set in the front of the small craft's cockpit. As they flew low over the landscape all he could see was blue ground rushing by, with mountains in the distance. He thought he could just make out the outline of the mercenary base in the distance when the pilot alerted him of the thirty second mark to the LZ.
Karkin turned and gave a quick signal to his crew to prepare for their departure as soon as the craft touched down. He checked his own seals on his suit and readied his sniper rifle in preparation for the drop. The ship jolted as the air brakes were applied and the craft came in for its landing run. The back of the ship opened and the five man team quickly filed out of the drop ship as it came in low to the ground. They cleared the landing area and spread out as the ship quickly took off and flew into the horizon.
"We will radio for pick-up once the location and status of the distress beacon and marines is confirmed, Karkin out!"
The pilot double clicked his radio in acknowledgment and in confirmation of radio silence that was the norm on all of the missions he ran with Karkin's team.
The team checked their omni-tools as the mission checkpoints came on line, their current position was 2 clicks south of the first checkpoint.
Karkin stood and quietly voiced his orders. "Move out...Reaper; keep an eye on your radar. We have only a brief window here; our orders only give us a few hours to complete this mission. So we go in hard and fast and hopefully rescue any marines still alive if any." Karkin looked over his team, as they readied their weapons and began to move out. He had personally fought beside his squad-mates for two years now and they had an unspoken language developed. He watched them all nod, adjust their grip on their rifles and lope off at an easy gait.
The team started forward towards their objective, each member thinking over his life, remembering their victories, their losses, it was a ritual to them to review their lives, in preparation for death. They all knew that fate could call for them at anytime, and they wanted to be ready for it.
After about twenty minutes of hurried hiking they reached the first checkpoint, the location where the distress beacon had been transmitted. Karkin raised his hand in a fist, his black colossus armor a stark contrast against the landscape. The team halted and spread out weapons raised to shoulders, wary of a trap.
"Reaper, take the cliffs and provide recon and sniper support."
Karkin got a confirmation from Reaper as the turian quickly sprinted towards and elevated position, his talons kicking up clouds of blue dust from the planet's surface.
He turned back to the scene in front of him, looking over the small valley in front of him. His luminescent green eyes scanned over the wreckage of what looked to be two or three M35's or Mako armored attack vehicles, standard Alliance military craft. The wreckage told of a missile attack that quickly disabled the vehicles if not outright destroying them in the first volley. If the vehicles had withstood the initial attack then they were later destroyed, possibly to cover up any indication of an ambush. With the amount of dust kicked up by the amount of wind that would be pretty easy Karkin reasoned.
"Any signs of an ambush or what could have possibly happened" Karkin queried over his suit radio.
"Footprints and spent rocket casings, looks like about ten to twenty men, can't get an accurate count with all of the footprints and the wind messing everything up." replied Delta.
"Confirm use of rocket pods, I have 4 empty launcher tubes over here" confirmed Hazard.
"Tracks indicating several transport vehicles heading towards the merc base commander." this last bit coming from Dagger who was standing near the entrance to the valley.
"Any bodies indicating casualties on either side?"
"No commander, even if there were I'm sure they would be covered by the dust at this point." replied Delta.
Karkin cursed at the situation that confronted him and decided on the next course of action. He knew the likelihood that the marines were alive was slim to none, but if that was true the mercenaries still had to be dealt with. Even though it wasn't a part of the mission guidelines he knew that if he let the mercs continue on this way that they would probably grow more ambitious and possibly civilians would be in danger of attack.
He looked up, feeling all eyes on him waiting for a decision on what to do. He realized he had been standing still for longer than he should have been and shook his head clearing his thoughts.
"Commander?" The question came from Reaper, "What's the plan?"
He stood for a moment, thinking over his options; looking down at the blue ground in front of him he flexed his talons crunching the dust and gravel below.
"Our objectives include eliminating any threat and searching any nearby bases for possible casualties and hostages as well as enemy intel. Move out." Karkin quickly answered and began moving down the escarpment.
Karkin gave one more glance around the valley floor and followed Reaper down towards his squad. He hoped that some of the marines had managed to make it out of the ambush. He along with any other self-respecting soldier in the universe hated mercenaries and everything they didn't stand for as the case may be. Working only for money and profit and doing whatever it took to make a quick credit was unthinkable to the turian society.
Delta, Hazard and Dagger fell in pace with them, listening intently as Karkin laid out a plan, offering suggestions and making sure that all thinkable options were covered. The team flowed as one; a single entity moving across the barren planet. They all knew that time was of the essence, the longer the humans were held hostage the better the chances were that they would no longer be useful and would be executed. The five turians quickly melted into the surrounding darkness, leaving behind the scene of destruction and moving on toward their goal.
The mercenaries milled about on the outside of the base, all waiting for their replacements to get outside so they could be relieved and not have to stand out in the harsh wind and dust. None of them expected any trouble, they weren't being paid that much to worry, half of them were still drunk from the night before, the ambush had gone off perfectly and that in itself was cause for celebration. The fact that they had hostages was just icing on the cake.
One of the tower guards, a hardened man name Isaacs was listening to the lewd jokes and banter between the men below him. He along with the other three men in the towers and most of the guys on the ground all hated patrol duty, with all of the dust and wind on the surface of the planet it was almost unbearable. Almost, but with the copious amount of booze that was available to the men it was tolerable. He thought back to their latest conquest, the ambush they had setup for any alliance patrol stupid enough to check out the distress beacon they had setup. It had almost been too easy, but he wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth.
"Isaacs....ISAACS!" came in over his headset as the base commander radioed him.
"What's up boss?"
"We may have a small problem, radar caught the tail end of a small scout craft coming in about thirty minutes ago, could be surveyors, could be alliance marines, either way keep an eye out. We have too much going on here to be interrupted."
"Roger that commander." Isaacs heard the radio disconnect on the other end and wondered quietly to himself what had put the commander on edge. Granted the shady circumstances under which they had been recruited gave all of the men pause to consider what they were really doing here, but credits were credits and no one really cared that much.
He clicked the frequency that the rest of the men and quickly told them the situation.
"Alright guys, we may have some company coming in, no idea who or what they are, but it could be Alliance marines looking for their missing troops, we still don't know if those green horns got off a distress signal or not so keep your eyes open."
He got acknowledgement from the men on the ground when he heard the first shot ring out from the surrounding cliffs that over looked their base of operations. He only had a split second to register the sound before a high explosive round put an end to his thoughts forever.
"Hold fire until my signal," was the order they had been given, the small turian team had quickly found the mercenaries' base of operations and setup sniping positions, each turian pulling out their custom sniper rifle and finding their target. Karkin had given the instructions not to fire until he had gotten into his overlook position and surveyed the enemy encampment.
"Count is thirteen" he said quietly as he looked down the scope on his rifle quickly scanning the area, "take the four tower guards on my mark, and then open fire on the rest of the ground crew."
Karkin steadied his breathing as he took aim at what looked to be the lead mercenary; it was always hard to tell who was in command because of the informal command structure many mercs used. Normally it was the toughest or the smartest one in the group. The particular one he was looking at had Predator armor on and a nasty looking assault rifle, the others in the group had anything and everything ranging from the lowest level of equipment to some of the cheaper options from decent equipment manufacturers.
He leveled his aim and activated his weapons firing controls; he set the electronic sight on his targets head and quietly whispered "Fire" as he squeezed the trigger with his talon.
Four shots echoed out right after his, all of them finding their mark in their designated target. Karkin briefly saw that one or two of his teammates had elected to use high explosive rounds as larger puffs instantly disintegrated the tower occupants and in one case took the top off of the tower completely.
The rest of the mercenaries on the ground looked around stupidly as their companions started dying around them from accurate and deadly sniper fire. Karkin could only note with grim satisfaction that from start to finish the entire encounter had taken under two minutes to deal with. Standing he slipped his rifle onto his back, pulled his assault rifle and hurried down the hill to survey the damage.
The team quickly stripped the dead mercenaries of any credits, weapons and other gear they could use or sell and piled the bodies under a few of the barricades so a first glance no one would notice anything wrong. Karkin inspected the few bodies that had been hit by high explosive rounds and inwardly smirked at the firepower his team liked to carry.
"So whose handiwork is this?" he asked motioning to a couple of bodies that were nearly unidentifiable from the high explosive rounds that were used.
He heard a couple of laughs over the radio as Reaper piped up, "Sorry boss, just picked them up at our last stop at the citadel, top of the line rounds, felt like giving them a go."
Karkin shook his head, and promptly chastised him for his over zealousness of terminating the enemy.
"Right...next time you decide to terminate someone with extreme prejudice, let me know first...thank your scales that those pressure doors are sound proof on the base otherwise you could have blown the entire operation." said Karkin suddenly becoming serious.
Karkin motioned for the team to finish their gruesome business before taking position in front of the airlock that sealed the main base off from the outside.
Delta quickly hacked the door controls and the team entered the airlock. Once inside they removed their helmets for better movement and sight. Stashing their plundered loot in a nearby container they quickly took up positions near the inner airlock door, Delta and Reaper flanking it, Karkin and Hazard on either side of them.
The door silently opened to a large room typical of the planetary bases, with large crates scattered around the area, mercenaries patrolled around, some looking like they were still drunk from the previous night, evidence of which was scattered around the area, broken bottles and crates littered the ground.
The turian infiltration team spread out in the dimly lit room, quietly entering and closing the door behind them. Hand signals showed the count of visible count of mercs at six in the immediate area, radar showed contacts above and below but without any kind of accurate count.
"Spread out and open fire on my mark..." the rest of the order was cut off as a drunken mercenary stumbled into Karkin and began to ask stupidly "Who are yo..." when Karkin drove a combat knife under the human mercenary's arm, severing several arteries and puncturing his heart. The human died in a gurgle of blood with the rest of the mercenaries noticing finally that there were five turians in serious looking armor brandishing weapons at them...
Karkin's team quickly took cover and opened fire, dropping three contacts immediately. They heard the mercs anxiously yelling into radios for reinforcements and saw doors open both on the upper levels as well as a door near the back of the room and more enemies flood out into the area.
Hazard and Dagger took the left side of the room, flanking the mercenaries who were grouped in the middle, Hazard's assault rifle blazing away at anything that moved while Dagger opened fire on the unsuspecting targets with incendiary rounds from his shotgun.
Reaper moved with Karkin down the right side of the room, pouring rounds into the large Krogan that had stormed into the room after the cry for help had gone out. The shredder rounds in their assault rifles impacted on the Krogan's shields as he returned fire with his shotgun.
Delta was busy near Hazard and Delta, detonating tech-mines to overload weapons and shields.
The mercenaries dropped quickly, their poor quality shields and armor no match for the infiltration team and their top of the line equipment. Shredder rounds ripped through shields and armor, nearly obliterating the hapless mercenaries with concentrated bursts of fire. Delta began moving up the middle of the room his pistol barking as he put round after round into his targets; their shields and guns overloaded from his hacking and electronic skills.
Dagger's incendiary rounds made short work of many of the mercs who were hiding in the maze of crates, nearly vaporizing some of them on impact. Hazard stood behind him concentrating on the few snipers on the balcony above them, the sledge hammer rounds he had equipped slamming many back against the wall and punching large holes in their armor.
Karkin and Reaper had managed to put down the Krogan after nearly overheating their assault rifles from the constant firing at an enemy that refused to die. Finally the Krogan's body had accepted its death as its wounds took their toll, numerous bullet holes riddled its body and armor and the krogan lay in a rather large pool of orange blood.
What seemed like a long brutal assault for the mercenaries was actually a five minute skirmish for the turian infiltration team. Their training and experience let them quickly put down the resistance and finish any stragglers off quickly.
The team quickly regrouped and took assessment of the situation, letting their shields regenerate from lucky hits that the mercenaries had managed to score in their drunken stupor. Their high end colossus armor left little chance of a round actually penetrating.
Delta and Hazard moved upstairs finishing off any stragglers and clearing rooms of mercs, equipment and any computer terminals that were working.
The rest of the team quickly began the task of looting the bodies and containers around them for equipment and credits since military wages didn't provide enough for their high end armor and weapons.
"Hazard, Delta, any information on the computers upstairs?"
"Beginning download now commander" replied Delta, "It's all encrypted and we don't have the equipment to crack it here."
"Alright, hurry up and get back down here, looks like there is a lower level we need to clear."
Karkin paused and surveyed the surroundings, the dim lighting barely showing the blood stains from the variety of enemy combatants, from blue turian blood, to the orange of the lone Krogan to the numerous patches of red that spread out under the bodies that littered the floor.
"Dagger, Reaper, any signs of the missing marines?"
"Negative commander, nothing to indicate that there were any survivors, but any gear could be in one of these crates or stashed down stairs..." was the reply from Dagger.
"Alright, finish your rounds and then regroup at the lower level entrance." Karkin silently walked through the carnage that was the previous engagement. The light reflected off of the black scales that covered his face, his clan markings barely visible in the poor light.
A dying mercenary lay against a crate, a large hole in his chest the source of his problems wheezing faster as Karkin approached. Without looking down Karkin drew his pistol and put a round through the mercenary's head, ending the dying man's life. He took no pleasure in his work, only a grim satisfaction that they had avenged, for the most part, and the marines that had been ambushed in the valley. Karkin held little remorse for men and aliens who called themselves mercenaries, and it showed whenever he and his team encountered them.
Karkin had seen too many atrocities committed by the so-called soldiers of fortune in the name of credits. They had attacked too many colonies and killed too many innocent lives in their never ending pursuit of money.
He ran an armored hand over his head and sighed, pushing the thoughts to the back of his mind, focusing instead on the task before him. Focusing on things long past wouldn't make the present any easier and would only give their enemies a better chance of catching them unawares.
Karkin glanced over at Reaper, who had served with him the longest as he pulled his pistol and ended another dying mercenary's pathetic life.
Reaper was an average turian, brown scales, dark eyes, born and raised on Palaven, sent into military training at 15; he later joined up with Karkin in the Special Forces section of the turian military, a lesser known unit, but a very important one nonetheless. Reaper and Karkin had served together in the standard service, becoming fast friends and teammates. When the opportunity for them had come to join the Special Forces unit they currently served in they jumped at the chance. There they had met Hazard, Delta and Dagger, and became one of the more successful units to operate within the turian military.
At that moment Hazard, Delta and Dagger arrived, grouping up near the door while readying themselves for the next battle, checking their weapons in preparation for what they knew would be another fight.
Moving up to his squad Karkin motioned for them to enter the lower base, "Alright, let's go finish these bastards off and see if there are any survivors from the ambush."
The mercenary commander watched the security tapes from the upper levels, watched as his men were slaughtered mercilessly, watched as his 2nd in command, the Krogan battle master was taken down in a hail of gun fire. He watched as what looked to be the turian in charge shot the dying merc in the head, seeing no hesitation in the action.
He knew at that moment he was dealing with a highly trained and well equipped strike force who was probably coming for any survivors of the ambush they had setup for the alliance marines. Typing quickly he sent an encrypted message to his contact for the group that had hired him to plan and execute the attack on the alliance patrol. He knew that the men who hired him would be very interested in the footage and sent that along as well with the message. That completed he executed the virus program that would completely wipe the computer systems in the building clean and then moved to his personal locker, removing his assault rifle and pistol.
"Alright listen up all of you," he spoke through his radio, "it looks like we have an enemy team incoming through the stairwell, setup ambush positions and wait for them to enter, its either them or us and they aren't taking prisoners."
Immediately the remaining mercenaries gathered their guns and ammo and ran to the stairwell to the surface. They thundered down the hallway towards the lone door at the back of the complex.
Their leader made his way towards the lone prison cell that was housed at the far end, looking in on the lone prisoner they had taken from the wreckage of the Mako ambush. Silver eyes glared at him from the darkness, their fire dimming slowly as he stared back.
"Must be your lucky day, looks like some friends are coming to get you..."
The eyes seemed to glow brighter at the small hope that rescue was possible sunk in.