Chapter 2: Blackout
SSV Brussels, 11:55 am
Within the Command Center, minutes before Skyllian Blitz
Admiral Wauters watched from the holotable the view of the mass relay in front of him. His crew was moving around, preparing the ship for the attack Wauters knew was coming. Elysium was by far the most important colony in human history, so it makes sense that it would be the target. He was impatient with his enemy's approach, however, and he feared that they wouldn't show until he gave up on waiting for them.
He smiled when the first few ships popped up. Small frigates with paint jobs of certain mercenary groups covering the hulls came in multitude, but there was nothing his men couldn't handle coming through the relay. However, when the three large dreadnoughts; one larger than the other two, appeared through the relay, Wauters was at pause. The largest of the three had a large cannon on it of unknown design. The admiral shook his head over that. If they didn't know what that cannon could do, they'd be screwed.
"Admiral, you're being hailed by one of the dreadnoughts." Marshall stated.
"Bring it up. I want to look this bastard in the eye."
The image on the table changed to that of a middle-aged man. His dark brown hair was graying, and his beard was fashioned into a goatee. His brown eyes were static, and a large scar hovered over his left eyebrow; a grim reminder of the First Contact War.
"Thomas, it's been far too long. How long has it been since we last met? I'm afraid that being absorbed in my experiments I seem to have lost track of time."
"Liberation of Shanxi. Nineteen years ago, when Admiral Kastanie Drescher lead the fleet to reclaim the colony. You know, I'm disappointed in you, friend. I never thought your discharge could push you to something as irrational as what you're about to perform."
"The Alliance dishonorably discharged me on the case of my ideas on technology we could've used to combat the turian threat. Now, I am the Mastermind of this operation, and Elanos Haliat will get the glory of leading the entire mercenary army to sack the largest human colony in the traverse."
"You're insane."
"Perhaps. But the facts state that my victory is secure. I hold a powerful card in this poker game; the ace in the hole. On the center dreadnought; the Hammer of Dawn, you will notice the large cannon attached to it. Behold the Disruptor; a weapon of unimaginable power. Add to that an army of many vessels, and we outnumber your forces three-to-one."
"Then it is an even fight." Wauters smiled. "It'd be better if you end this suicide invasion plan now. Because of our friendship, I'll even give you the option of turning around and going without a fight."
"Haliat wouldn't stand for that. I'm sorry, but I reject your proposal. Now you will witness the power of the Disruptor. Fire at will, Commander."
SSV Berlin, 11:57 am
Next to the Migrant Fleet
Admiral Parker stared at the two men and the krogan that were with him in his comm center. He had a sense of unease at the sight of them. They were pirate defectors; one being the nephew of a man who plans to attack a colony in the traverse. He had no idea if he could trust them at all.
The krogan just scared him by being so big.
"All right. Talk. What information do you have."
"First, you must know that we can't say everything, but we can say everything you need to know about why this attack is so important." Darsan spoke.
"What do you mean 'Can't say everything?'"
Bardone looked at him. "It means we're only telling you about the Disruptor. It's the only thing they're really using in the fight. There's just other projects even my uncle couldn't build because he admitted they were impossible."
"And why wouldn't you tell us about those?"
"Because despite what the Alliance said about him, he's still an honourable man. If you were to capture him, he'd surrender. Then you could take all of his secret projects. It's not our place to speak of them."
"That explains the pardon for him. What about the instatement into the Alliance? Why is that part of the deal?"
"Anything is better than being a merc," Darsan continued. "and our skills could be useful to your spec ops groups."
"If your information is good, we'll work it out. For now, show us what the Disruptor is."
"Gladly." Bardone stood up and summoned his omni-tool. On the screen in the room, a schematic for the Disruptor appeared, revealing the nature and design of the devastating weapon. "The Disruptor is an electro-magnetic pulse cannon. It has the power to disable a ship or a city's power grid with one burst. Fortunately, it only affects high-powered energy sources, so guns and omni-tools won't be affected."
"But radios and defense cannons could be affected."
"Yes. You'd need to find an alternate power source to power them after a city gets hit."
"What about a ship?"
"If another vessel isn't attacking a disabled ship, they could likely reroute their power systems in a matter of minutes, since the Disruptor takes time to charge. But since a fleet assists the Disruptor, your crews better be prepared to jump ship or jump start faster than the devil himself."
"Maker help us all." Parker muttered. "What are the Disruptor's weaknesses?"
"The weapon has a 2.14 minute recharge time, and it uses the power of the shielding to fire the weapon. It takes twenty-seven seconds to recharge the shields around the Disruptor, but a small ship like the F-51 Trident could hit the venting chamber under the weapon itself. Take the weapon out, and the rest of the ship goes with it."
"Wouldn't that mean your uncle dies?"
"My uncle is on a second flagship from the Hammer of Dawn; the Aegis Fate. It's one of dreadnoughts that provide fire support for the Disruptor. When the Dawn falls, so does their plan of attack. They know that without it, their army will be decimated."
"They'll likely attempt to retreat when that happens." Darsan added. "We'll have to find some way to block off their escape."
Wrex stood up. "You could ask for assistance from the quarian Migrant Fleet. They may be willing to offer you aid in exchange for resources. Their ships need constant repair after all."
"Very well. We need to try and contact Admiral Wauters before the colony is attacked." And pray to God we aren't too late.
Illyria Police Department, 12:00 pm
Captain Kennedy walked to greet the members of Houston Squad at the front entrance of his headquarters. All five of them were dressed in their armor and armed to the teeth, which meant they got the same memo that he got. Slumped on the largest one's shoulders was an unconscious merc in the Blue Suns uniform. In that man's other hand was a case of some kind.
"Houston Squad, I'm Captain Kennedy. I've been asked by the Admiral of the Second Fleet to transfer control of Illyria's police forces to you. The invasion force is apparently already pouring through the mass relay, so my men are dressing in their armor to prepare for the worst."
"Pleasure to meet you, Captain Kennedy." The woman spoke. "I'm Carolina. The others are York, North, Wash, and Maine."
"Those sound like states."
"It's a random coincidence with our names. Maine has a captured merc that has some information. We determine; or perhaps, most of us determine he may have more information. We'll give him to your boys for interrogation."
"Very well. Our boys will take him to an interrogation cell. I'll give you a briefing on the layout of our forces around Illyria."
"Go ahead." One of the soldiers in black and gold armor spoke. "We already know the hornet's nest was kicked. People are starting to become scared. They'll need to know your men are still there to protect them."
"We're setting up patrols around the edges of Illyria and along the most populated areas of the city. They're all armed with rifles, but we have rocket troopers stationed alongside the defense towers; two high-powered GARDIAN laser cannons at each lateral degree of the city. At least one group of towers would be enough to hold off an aerial attack. If a bunch of pirates believe that they can take this city by brute force, they're about to find out they're wrong."
"Sounds like this will be easy then." The soldier in light assassin armor spoke. "I'm just curious as to why Maine has a case."
Maine merely looked at his comrade as the merc was taken by two officers.
"Reports are coming in stating that the invasion force has brought itself to face the Second Fleet in orbit. There will be multiple gunships raining down on us, but we can handle the ground war. That's what you guys are here for."
"I'll need a location with an excellent sniping position within the city." One in purple armor spoke. "I've got a reputation of sniping the head off of a pirate from far distances. Any location that could hold off the threat of a ground war would be preferable."
"We have several large towers that approach the border of the city that could be acceptable for your skills, Mister..."
"Call me North. The one in black is Wash, the one in assassin armor is York, and Maine's the big guy."
"Good to know. I was having trouble wrapping my head around your names." Kennedy then summoned his omni-tool and showed a map of Illyria. "Our large patrols are along the outer part of the city. The outer boundary has a system that can raise an eight-foot wall as a defense against the common M-29 Grizzly. Within the inner part of the city, we have a large guard force protecting the town hall building, as well as the treasury and the embassy building."
"What's the status of the GARDIAN lasers?" Carolina asked.
"The northern tower is undergoing maintenance due to a power fluctuation. As long as any ground attacks that comes doesn't come from the north, and if the rest of the towers can hold their own against the aircraft, we should be good."
Kennedy's radio started going off after he finished his presentation. "Redfield to Kennedy, come in!"
"This is Kennedy. What's going on?"
"Some strange projectile is coming from one of the ships from orbit. It's headed for the center of the city! It looks like a-"
Suddenly, the power went out.
"What the hell was that?" York asked.
"Redfield, come in! Do you read?" He removed his hand from the earpiece. "Damn it! Radios are down."
"So is the power." Wash examined. "Looks like we were hit by an EMP."
Carolina pulled out her pistol. "Our weapon are still working."
"Omni-tools, too." York smiled as he activated it. "We can communicate via omni-tool."
"Yeah, but now we have a problem. If the entire power grid is out, that means that our GARDIAN lasers are out and we can't raise the wall. Illyria will be defenseless."
"Not yet." Maine finally spoke. He placed down the case he carried, opening it to reveal eight square objects.
York bent down and examined the objects. "Fission batteries? What are we supposed to do with these?"
"Power the tower."
"You mean you want to hook this up to a GARDIAN laser cannon to make it work?"
"Not just the cannon. The wall. The gunships. The Grizzly. The mainframe. Eight batteries. Eight things to power."
"It's possible." Wash agreed. "We hook these things up and we can have a reasonable amount of firepower to hold our own against a ground raid. Which tower do you want to power up?"
Maine pointed southeast.
"The southeast tower isn't the most defensible." Kennedy argued.
"Trust me. If Maine says to repower the southeast tower, you'd better do it. He has a way of knowing what to do."
"If you say so."
"We should get the gunships powered up first. That'll make travel easier." North stated.
"We've gotta do a two-hour job in twenty minutes." Carolina looked at Maine. "Any chance your pal Flowers is still in the area?"
"More than a chance." A new voice spoke behind them. The group turned around to see three armored mercenaries; two in blue and one in white, standing behind them. "Butch Flowers, at your service."
"Mercenaries?" Kennedy asked.
"Friends." Maine spoke as he walked forward to shake his friend's hand.
"We got a tip from Maine three days ago that he had a hunch Elysium was open for attack. Since his intuition saved us from a pirate attack as we were delivering cargo to Illium, we owed him a favor, so we came here with everything he asked for."
"We grabbed all the guns out of the armory of Athens base so we offer them to any able-bodied citizen willing to offer help." A British voice spoke behind the white merc's helmet. "We've gotta have a few turians in this city willing to lend a hand."
"Lucius Fox, you son of a bitch." York commented excitedly. "It's been a long time! How've you been?"
"My callsign is Wyoming. I've been keeping my skills sharp behind the scope. You have no idea how many people want elcor dead."
"The other of the group is our newbie. We're currently just calling him Colorado." Flowers stated. "He's a young biotic prodigy."
"He could provide cover for those repairing the gate or the tower, if he could make an effective barrier for us."
"I can." Colorado responded behind the recon hood he wore.
"Lucius and Nolan could team up and watch from the towers with their long rifles and provide cover for the impending invasion force." Carolina suggested.
"Agreed." Lucius nodded. "It'll be good to have some competition for a change."
"Bring it on, British pansy." North challenged.
"York will attempt to power the GARDIAN lasers while Flowers and Colorado get the wall working. Wash and I will work on rounding up any citizen willing to help defend the city. Maine, you and Kennedy will round up the police forces of the city to provide the first line of defense."
"Yes, ma'am." Maine approved.
"I'll have one of my men work on getting the mainframe up while we work on getting the vehicles running." Kennedy added. "We'll send a general warning via omni-tool to all citizens to either converge at the town hall for protection or the police station to arm themselves for attack."
"We've all got our assignments." Wash concluded. "Let's move out."