Skies above Nos Astra, Asari Corporate World: Illium, 15-04-2559 GS
Perspective - Hostage of a Terrorist - Terith - Asari Orphan - 20 Years Old
Terith woke up to a throbbing headache accompanied by a sharp pain on the back of her head. It took her some time to remember the last few hours but seeing her lying in the back of a skycar being driven by Teema'Koris quickly brought her back up to speed.
"What the hell is going on Teema?!"
"Ah, good to see you awake, princess," the old Quarian replied; as though he hadn't just knocked her out. "I'm sorry about the roughness; I've had more practice knocking out Batarians than Asari children. I'm afraid so I wasn't sure of the exact amount of force to use."
"Th-that ain't the point damnit!"
The Quarian made a sharp left with the skycar's Holographic Haptic Control Interface, causing Terith to slam into the car's sidewall. If her head wasn't hurting before, it definitely was now. Terith had learned her lesson, and so she quickly put her seatbelt on and cradled her head.
"Sorry about that." The Quarian sounded genuinely apologetic. "I couldn't put your seatbelt on and keep your Police Stalker away at the same time."
"Police Stalker? Ah was followed? No. Ah had checked behind me and there weren't any footsteps, Ah remember. Tell me what's really going on!"
"There's more to avoid being tailed than just 'checking your six', princess. Did you check for Reconnaissance Drones? What about tracking beacons or surveillance equipment on your route? I had cameras all over the alleyway that you never caught on to. What if those had been set up beforehand by the Police? The food you took with you was also laced with tracking nanites that I disposed of. I had never got around to telling you, but… well, I suppose it is a little late now. Hindsight and all that."
It was only now that she noticed that Teema was still holding the "Bayonet" pistol she had trained with in his hand and had his Assault Rifle sat on the seat next to him.
"Ah- Uh, what's gonna happen now? Ah don't know where you're takin' me but Ah'm not dumb enough ta think you need my help with whatever it is. Ah'm just a kid, remember?"
Teema sighed. "That isn't precisely true. You see, there is only last thing that you can help me with that will aid the Quarians immensely. You can think of it as one final… thanks."
Terith was now beginning to piece the picture together. A skycar she knew he couldn't have owned — not with Illium's strict registration/automatic tracking technology — the guns, evading the police and finally a "final thank you." None of it was adding up to anything good.
"Ah- Ah think Ah really, uh, really should be leavin' now. Really, just drop me off anywhere and Ah'll walk home. We can just pretend none of this happened."
Teema shook his head.
"You always were far too smart for your age, Terith."
Teema set the car to auto-flight mode and turned around, training his pistol directly at her.
"You aren't going to leave. The Police are likely already tracking this car's registration and I cannot afford to take the time to pull over and look for someone else. I need to get across town and having you will ensure the police do not immediately start firing on this car when they're first able to. Those are precious minutes I need to get the job done. Once I land, having a companion who is small will make it easier to move around and hold a weapon than finding someone else when I get there. Unfortunately I am not as strong as I once was."
Terith was shaking. Never in both of her lives had someone pointed a gun at her. Her heart beat furiously in her chest at the thought that just one slip was the difference between life and death. What's worse was that it was Teema, someone she thought of as a friend, that was doing it.
'Why is this happening? This wasn't part of the plan! I was supposed to learn useful skills from some Quarian outcasts and cruise through life with ease. This was supposed to be the fast track to an easy life. Why did Teema have to ruin everything?!'
"J-j-just say what ya mean ya sonuvabitch! Ah- ya want me as a hostage! After all Ah've done for ya, you're using me because Ah'm small, Ah'm convenient?!"
She wasn't thinking rationally, she knew that the moment the words passed her lips. When she realized that her words could get her killed right now, she froze up. Perhaps because the Quarian did feel some guilt — or because she was still useful to him — he did not pull the trigger despite her outburst. He turned back around and ignored her. As much as she hated it, she didn't bother resisting. The old man had proven far too sharp for her to consider getting the drop on him… not to mention that trying to seize control of a skycar — a vehicle she had never learned to drive — was probably just going to end with both of them killed.
"You can blame me if you want — hate me even — but that doesn't matter now. All that matters are the lives of the people I've sworn to protect; that has always been what matters, Terith. I don't know what you were expecting: that I would take you and raise you in the Migrant Fleet? Do you think they have the resources for another mouth to feed? Maybe you thought we would continue to live in abject poverty for your convenience."
"No but-"
"I can understand where you're coming from. You were very helpful, and I hope someday the Quarian people will pay you back for your help. However face the facts, you were also convenient, naive, and — whether accidentally or otherwise — you were the cause of this current situation. So-"
He was cut off by loud sirens approaching in the distance.
"THIS IS ILLIUM POLICE! THE OPERATOR OF THE BLUE X1A, PULL OVER IMMEDIATELY! YOU ARE SUSPECTED OF TERRORISM AND ABDUCTION OF A MINOR!"
While Terith was trying to keep from pissing herself in fear, Teema actually had the gall to laugh.
"Well princess, it seems that… what do the vids say… 'the party's just getting started'?"
Terith kicked the back of his seat.
"Th- this isn't a game you bastard! You're going to get us killed!"
Teema just laughed harder.
— AE —
Skies above Nos Astra, Asari Corporate World: Illium, 15-04-2559 GS
Perspective - Terrorist with a Hostage - Teema'Koris vas Sholat - Retired Migrant Fleet Marine - 72 Years Old
He could not help but laugh, he hadn't had this much excitement in 40 years. The moment he took Terith as a hostage, he knew this was it: there would be no going back. It was like a switch being flipped. He would be dying today for his people to escape. The thought was freeing: he would not be dying in bed, just like he always wanted.
It was not a decision he chose lightly but it was the only one the situation afforded him. He had the password Kelor'naa had stolen from one of the Port Authority's IT technicians, but without the encryption codes to the Port Authority IFF Database, he would need direct access. That meant breaking into the well-defended complex with what he could scrounge during his time on Illium: a Kinetic Barrier, some Modular Armor, an Assault Rifle, a Pistol and a dozen Remote-Activated Grenades. If he wanted his sacrifice to be worth something, he would need all the help he could get: and a hostage would hopefully give him the precious advantage he would need.
Not that the poor shaking Asari in his back seat looked like an advantage to anyone at the moment.
"J-just pull over, Teema. Ah don't know what you're plannin' you're only makin' it worse with me around."
Teema had to force himself to stop laughing, he felt insane for even considering the slapdash plan. Then the giddiness he had been feeling before was replaced with a calm feeling of "zen". His focus felt razor-sharp and his worries fell away. He had one singular focus: "I will protect my people."
"THIS IS YOUR LAST WARNING! PULL OVER YOUR SKYCAR OR WE WILL FIRE UPON YOU!"
There were four police cars now, their sirens now only a cacophony of blaring noise directly behind him. If each of their skycars had just a single officer with a mass accelerator rifle, his "commandeered" vehicle wouldn't last a minute under that amount of continuous fire.
'I guess that means I have perform some 'evasive maneuvers' then.'
He put the car into a nosedive, dodging a stream of traffic moving directly below him. He could hear Terith screaming in the backseat but ignored it; it was easy with the horns and sirens going of all around him. He then quickly hanged a left between two skyscrapers and felt the right side of the car scrape harshly against the glass and metal building. Veering back into the midpoint of the two structures, he looked back to see that the police cruisers were still giving chase. As expected, it would take more than some simple car-tricks to outrun the Law. In the rear-view he could see officers hanging their heads out of each of their vehicles. All their weapons were pointed at him.
'I guess that means they're fine with shooting the hostage now,' Teema thought grimly.
Turning back to Terith, he yelled, "Get your head down, NOW!"
Terith was slow to respond. Teema quickly concluded she was most likely still reeling from the minor crash moments earlier.
"Damnit!" Teema bit out as he put the car into auto-flight again and forced the girl's head between her legs.
"Hey! What are ya-"
Not a moment later, dozens of shots from the officer's weapons began pounding the vehicle.
"[Oh my God!] They're firing on us!" Terith cried out, though to Teema much of it sounding like gibberish. She was definitely losing her nerve.
"Keep your head down if you want to live, princess!"
With that Teema brought the car back into manual and took the car back into another nosedive. Just before it could hit the surface, he pulled back up and flew down the narrow streets of the Nos Astra Wards Residential District. With the time of day and the density of the living spaces, there were thousands of people milling about. Just as planned, the police stopped shooting for fear of accidentally hitting the innocents below.
The maneuver bought him a minute or two, but it would not be enough to get the whole way unhindered. He set the car back to auto-flight mode and opened his Omni-Tool and searched the Nos Astra maps for ideas. He first searched for any construction in the area. This wasn't his first car chase and he knew he could use the narrow spaces and cover to quickly hide. With a simple locally-sourced tarp, he could have them searching for hours while he hot-wired another vehicle.
Unfortunately, there were no major construction sites in the area. While there was a lot of development in Nos Astra in recent years, it was mostly concentrated in the city outskirts and not in the city core where he was trying to get to. He knew there weren't many other options where he could hide quickly enough. This was Tuchanka or the urban sprawl of the Batarian Colonies, Nos Astra was too clean and well-organized for quickly dipping out of sight; not when the skycar's tracker would be giving out its position constantly.
'Well… looks like I'll have to take use the dangerous method. I wouldn't have it any other way.'
Leaving the Residential Area, the police began to open fire again. Teema put the car into a steep climb and into oncoming traffic. He swerved in-and-out of the cars to buy more time. Coming out the other side, he afforded himself the few seconds he needed to find his target: the Armali Council Tower. 104 stories tall, its main feature was an enormous mid-air tunnel system which granted skycars access to a number of shopping complexes in the middle levels. Pulling the car into one final climb he entered the tunnel and rolled down the driver-side window.
"Cover your ears princess! It's about to get loud!"
He threw four of his grenades out the window and detonated them into the traffic around him. Behind him there were suddenly skycars crashing left and right creating a massive pileup. Just as planned three of the four police cruisers were caught up in the accident, however the last one still followed. He attempted to shake him by weaving into traffic and causing more crashes and pileups but the last cop was persistent. As Teema exited the tunnel, he angrily pounded the skycar's dashboard.
'Damn, that last bosh'tet made it through… and it looks like I'm out of time…'
Just ahead of him was his destination: the Illium Port Authority Building. Twenty-two stories tall with landing pads and starship docking stations dotting the exterior, it served as the nexus for registering starships coming in and leaving the planet which did not have pre-approved permits. These were typically only for ships going through the Terminus Systems which did not have the correct permit-approval authorities. Most other ships simply created a flight-plan and received a permit through an Illium authority stationed in their home port. Those ships would arrive at one of the dozen Commercial and Civilian Spaceports throughout the city.
As one could expect, explaining even a small aspect of the Illium bureaucracy was complicated.
More importantly, the building housed a vast network of operators working with records acquired from every spaceport in both the Terminus and Council Systems to flag ships as authorized, unauthorized, and hostile based on a verification of the vessel's flight plan. Should a vessel have an unapproved flight plan or drift too far away from its flightpath projected in the plan, the navy stationed in the upper Illium orbit would force the ship to heave-to and commit itself to boarding… or be destroyed should the crew fail to comply. I was because of the latter policies that Teema needed to access the IFF Database. If he jumbled what ships were and were not hostile, and kill all communication to and from the Port Authority's Control and Management System, the ships in orbit would be too confused by the contradictory information not keep track of a few Quarian shuttles making a break for the Relay.
A few pot-shots from the remaining police cruiser behind him brought Teema back to reality. While he could try to fly around a while longer in the hopes of getting the last officer off his tail, it could also cause more of them to join the chase. With the amount of public property damage, the corporate government wouldn't ignore him any longer. Every second he wasted was another second for the military to potentially get involved. He might be a Marine, but he was a far cry from a one-man-army.
Instead he went to land on one of the Port Authority's upper landing pads directly. When he attempted, however, several people began firing on him from the rooftop.
'It appears I was expected… someone must have stayed behind at the settlement and found something. While I kept all my files encrypted, some bosh'tet must have kept sensitive data about my mission somewhere. This is going to be difficult. What do I-'
He had an idea. He grinned. Teema'Koris vas Sholat always has a plan.
He flew by the Port Authority building and brought the car into a wide arc. He opened the hatch to the car's Element Zero Drive Core compartment, undid the Core's latch mechanisms and primed it to detach. Giving himself a few kilometers of room between him and the building, he turned back around, aimed the car at the upper-landing area entrance-way and accelerated as fast as the car could go. Turning on auto-flight mode, he used an additional program to override the safeties on the collision-prevention system.
Unbuckling his seatbelt and stowing away his gear, he turned to his passenger.
"End of the line, Terith. We're leaving."
Terith, however, did not respond and had curled up into a fetal position at some point along the ride.
With the car no longer swerving, the police behind him once again began firing upon him. Under a hail of bullets, he undid the Asari's seatbelt and kicked open the car's canopy which ripped off from the sudden onset of wind. Just as the car was about to crash, he pulled out the Eezo Core he had primed, held onto Terith, and jumped out.
With the Core jettisoned while active, it began rapidly reducing his weight with its remaining charge. While very inefficient, it did not have to work hard to make him and his passenger lighter than air. Like a hot-air balloon, the lighter air around them decelerated the Quarian and his hostage enough to overcome the speed at which he left the car. Before it could begin taking him up into the sky, however, he let go of the Core and crash-landed with Terith onto a mezzanine overlooking the landing pad. Moments later, the Eezo Core fell over twenty stories onto the ground below. It had quickly run out of energy.
Standing up, he surveyed the damage.
The car — having become much heavier without the Mass Effect counteracting its gravity — crashed into the landing pad and entranceway with explosive force, detonating the volatile electrical fuel cells stored inside instantly on impact. It tore through a dozen small rooms and left a gaping hole on the exterior of the building.
"How- how did ya know that would work? With the Element Zero core and the flying. Ah… Ah never knew ya could do that…"
"Let's just say that I did a lot of special operations. The Migrant Fleet isn't known for giving us all the equipment we need and you quickly learn through experience that a hastily-jettisoned Eezo Drive Core retains a bit of power left in it. Still wasn't completely sure that the core would've had enough power to slow us down completely though. Got pretty lucky there."
"What?! But-"
"Time's wasting, princess. The police cruiser will be landing shortly."
He grabbed Terith and pulled her up to his chest with an arm. She tried to squirm away, but while she was unusually strong for her age, she was no match for the 72 year old Marine that didn't understand the concept of "old age".
As he moved, he noticed two security guards who were just finishing to stand up after having just barely dodged his stolen car. He approached. When they saw the determined Armed Quarian headed towards them, the gaurds pulled out their weapons. When their guns pointed in his direction, Terith squirmed harder.
"P-Please don't shoot!" Terith screamed.
"Shit he has a hostage!"
"Quarian! Put the girl down-"
Swiftly, the Quarian threw a grenade with his free arm and detonated it with his Omni-Tool. Instantly, the guards' Kinetic Barriers were down and they were concussed. He then pulled out his Pistol and with three shots each — two in the chest and one final shot in the head — he dispatched the gunman. The "Bayonet" was anything but subtle and the result looked straight out of a horror movie.
For Terith, it was too much. She cried and sobbed into his enviro-suit. To Teema, he could feel nothing. His suit prevented any heat or liquid from penetrating the surface.
"[Oh my God…] b-by the Goddess, ya- ya killed them! Ya just murdered them in cold blood. How could ya do that?!"
'They would have done the same to me and you know it,' he rationalized internally, but did not dare to speak that aloud. It sounded hollow even to him. This style of execution killing wasn't necessary, but it felt warranted. It was not just his life on the line here. If one of the guards survived and killed him with a shot in the back, over one-hundred Quarians would never be able to leave the planet. 'But still… this is no sight for a child — or any civilian — to see.'
"There will be more of this to come. Close your eyes and do not open them for anything."
For whatever reason — a stubborn sense of pride perhaps, or morbid curiosity — Terith did not comply, to her own peril. She was his hostage however, and Teema did not coddle her; he couldn't afford to use his remaining free arm to cover her eyes. Instead, he picked up the two Assault Rifles of the guards and attached them to clamps on his waist and back. He could never be certain when he would need more firepower.
He walked Terith into the carnage wrought by his former skycar and over the unconscious and dead forms of the remaining gunmen who had fired on his skycar earlier. As he approached the entranceway, the grisly forms of at least a hundred government workers and civilians lay strewn about; their bodies mangled and torn to pieces by the debris. He had seen the lineups before on the numerous times he had staked-out the building. Likely these were people lined up trying to get their flight plans approved in person. Just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
As he stepped over the bodies and into the building, Terith continued to sob into his arm.
— AE —
Port Authority Building, Nos Astra Core District, Asari Corporate World: Illium, 2559 GS
***Alert. Alert. All personnel evacuate immediately. Armed assailants detected on level 19. Do not approach. Alert. Alert…***
He did feel pretty bad for Terith, but this was all a necessary evil. As an additional benefit, now that she was all cried out, she now simply hung limply in his arm, which made her much easier to carry.
Making his way down a hallway, he walked up towards the entrance of the 19th floor's primary nexus: an Atrium designed as a waiting area. Unlike the remaining floors, the 19th one was designed with security checkpoints to avoid people arriving for check-in from interplanetary flights to simply walk down a flight of stairs and into Illium. It also meant that it was the only part of the building — except for the indefensible stairways and his destination — that he would absolutely need to go through. As he peered into the room, it appeared that this fact was made obvious to the enemy as well.
"Bosh'tet" he muttered.
"What's wrong?" his hostage asked with dull, monotonic speech.
He didn't need to reply as the two-dozen or so Port Security Officers stationed in the Atrium began firing at him. From somewhere in the back of the group he heard an Asari voice call out.
"Terrorist! Put down the Asari and-"
She was unable to finish her speech as he turned and fled in the other direction. Even for him, fighting two-dozen soldiers at once was too much.
"Damnit! Alright, half of you remain here and the rest will take him down. We only need to wait for reinforcements from the Military. Time is on our side."
'While I want to say it is foolish to give away your tactical plan, their observations aren't wrong in this case… If they surround and capture me, I'm finished. My Kinetic Barriers are weaker than theirs and a significant wound could potentially put me into Anaphylactic Shock, especially at my age now. However, I might be able to use their confidence to my advantage.'
He ran up to the next floor and hid in one of the conference rooms. When he closed the door, he released Terith from his grasp.
"Sorry princess, but for this I'm going to need both hands."
She let out a yelp as he used his Omni-Tool's micro-fabricator to create a set of plastic ties and bound her arms and feet. He had considered this before, but in his experience, the sight of a struggling hostage was more empathetic than a bound one. He needed her to stay put now and once bound, tossed her rather unceremoniously into the corner of a nearby office. Surprisingly, she did not complain. Teema imagined that being stuck in a safe corner was better than being his shield and she didn't want to push her "luck".
He spread out all the equipment he had on a table: eight Grenades, three Assault Rifles, a Pistol, and his Marine Combat Knife. He smirked.
Teema'Koris vas Sholat had a plan.
— AE —
Port Authority Building Atrium, Nos Astra Core District, Asari Corporate World: Illium, 2559 GS
Perspective - Officer out for Revenge - Isara T'Yari - Port Authority Police Lieutenant - 294 Years Old
She cursed to herself as the Terrorist fled away from the Atrium with his Hostage. She had wanted her presence with her 22 subordinates she had scrounged up from the nearby security stations to be a show of force to bring him to surrender, but it hadn't worked as she'd wanted it to. It was not a surprise, but she had hoped there would be some way she could save Terith.
"Damnit! Alright, half of you remain here and the rest will take him down. We only need to wait for reinforcements from the Military. Time is on our side."
She turned off the Voice Amplifier on her Omni-Tool and waited with the remaining 11 guards as the other 11 left in search of the terrorist.
'He has nowhere to run. If he tries repelling from the exterior of the building, the camera I set up earlier will let me know. It would be shooting a fish in a barrel. This way, only method of getting to the Database on the 18th floor is through the stairwell in this room. That gives the guards I sent freedom to capture him while we hold the line. He shouldn't have much in the way of weapons if he had to steal a skycar. A grenade or two isn't going to get through my security's shields yet alone their kinetic barriers.'
She had heard of the terrorist plot from Investigator Anaya an hour after they parted ways at the Commercial Spaceport in the Wards. While she had been concerned that a group was illegally smuggling Quarian Food into Illium, the scope of the Terrorist Plot that had been unveiled was immense: Hostage Taking, Prepared Shuttles extracting Quarian fugitives, taking out the Port Authority Security System and more. It had all the making of an organized Terrorist Attack that could potentially take out their entire Solar-System-Wide tracking system. If that was down, the Quarian Migrant Fleet could then swoop in with their superior numbers to take control of Illium and their Defense Navy would be left to flounder without any communication with the Planet.
The Migrant Fleet's demands from the Council for a new planet had been anything but subtle for the past 150 years. This was just the type of insane scheme the Suit Rats could have come up with.
She did not waste time to inform her superiors, but she quickly found herself stonewalled by bureaucracy. The military would take their time to investigate and only then would it deploy its assets. Instead of waiting, she immediately went to the Port Authority building to maintain a defense, taking along whoever she could find that would listen to her along the way. When she heard and explosion and lost contact with the Security Guards she had sent to scout the rooftop, she knew she had made the correct decision. There was no time to waste.
It was only made worse when she learned that Terith had been taken hostage on top of all that.
'We'll catch the bastard alive and force him to talk.'
Her anger calmed a bit as she thought of the hostage caught up in all this.
'I did consider it before, but I am getting into my Matron years now and whatever the investigation turns up will probably leave me with a lot more time on my hands… If I can prove Terith was innocent in all this and we all get out of here alive, then maybe-'
A female Turian voice came in on her Omni-Tools transceiver.
"All Fireteams, this is Sigma-1, I have movement on the 20th floor. I think the Terrorist is moving towards the north end of the room through the conference rooms. We are perusing-"
The ceiling shuddered from an explosion in the distance.
Isara got on the Comms.
"Sigma-1 this is command, what is the-"
Another Turian voice — this time male — came on the line.
"Command this is Alpha-1. Sigma-1 and -2 are down. Alpha and Bravo are engaging with target in the-"
Shots firing in the background cut him off.
"Shit! Bravo-2 and -3 were taken out from behind! He set up some kind of remote firing system with an Assault Rifle. Looks like he created some remote triggers with Omni-Gel. He must have a schematic programmed. We should prepare ourselves for more of them. They don't look like much, but after the explosion, it just ripped through their shields."
Isara slammed her fist on a nearby wall.
"Damnit! Don't underestimate the terrorist. Regroup back to the stairwell, we're coming in from behind for support."
One of the guards turned to the Lieutenant.
"Are you sure about that sir? If the Quarian gets around us-"
The Asari Lieutenant glared at them in response which caused her troops to straighten up.
"Don't question my orders! We don't have time for this, follow me!"
At that, the 11 of them followed her out of the Atrium and towards the stairs leading up. Still, she felt the need to clarify her subordinate's question.
"He won't get around you if we force a confrontation at the stairwell. If we-"
Another explosion rocked the building. It sounded like an intense firefight broke out and then suddenly quiet.
"All Squads this is command, report!"
The line was silent.
"By the Goddess… damnit! We can't afford to go after them. If we go now, their deaths will be in vain. All it would take it one slip-up and he could get through to the Atrium's stairwell. Everyone, fall back to the Atrium. We just need to wait for reinforcements. From there we'll-"
A grenade fell between them. She barely managed to Push it away from them with her Biotics before it exploded. Not a second later, shots were fired from the stairwell.
"Contact on the stairwell-"
"Fall back to the Atrium-"
"No he's right there we can-"
"Get into cover!"
After the confusion was over, 3 more of the guards were dead but the remaining 9 now held defensive positions around the stairway entrance. Despite riddling the stairwell with holes, however, there was no body to speak of but instead a thoroughly destroyed Assault Rifle. She felt guilty that the thought came with some relief on her part.
'Damnit! At this point, it's ridiculous for me to consider trying to keep Terith alive. 14 of my men are probably dead. If killing the hostage is what it takes, then so be it.'
Still, she knew the Quarian's game plan now. He created remote-triggers using his Omni-Tool on any scavenged weapons he finds then uses that in combination with grenades to sow confusion while the Quarian goes in himself to take them out. That plan might have worked in the narrow rooms and corridors of the 20th floor, but with only the stairway entrance, he was trapped. All she had to do was use her Biotics to throw back any Grenades that came down. Without the confusion and shrapnel weakening them, the remote-controlled weapons would be useless.
There was another explosion. Isara looked around desperately for the source.
'What the hell caused that-'
She was cut off when one of her squadmates was crushed under the weight of the ceiling collapsing. Without even thinking, she fell back on her training and threw up Barriers on her remaining squad. With her remaining Biotic Strength, she did her best to Push the debris off her crushed squad mate and hoped he had made it.
That was when another three grenades fell through the hole.
Her Biotics couldn't handle the force of the explosion, but it kept her squad unharmed. The feedback she felt when her entire Biotic Reserve suddenly failed at once caused her to collapse.
For the next two minutes, she faded in-and-out of consciousness as one of her squad carried her. She tried to push whoever was carrying her away — to get them to leave her dead weight behind and go on without her — but she did not have the energy.
'This isn't possible. He's always one step ahead! Just who is this Quarian?!'
They were forced to retreat back to the Atrium, their last line of defense. By the time they had, there were only 2 other Security Guards with her of the 22 she had started with.
"Where the hell is the rest of the squad?" she asked.
"They… retreated sir."
'They retreated… no, they ran away. I can't blame them either. For a lone terrorist to take down an entire squad single-handedly would make anyone want to run away; but I can't do that. If the Quarian gets through, the whole planet might be in peril.'
They set up a defensive position near the exit to the stairwell leading down. Having had time to recover, she was at least able to wield a pistol and sit behind cover again, although her Biotics were completely shot for the next hour.
A voice called out from across the room.
"The rest of your squad is dead. The rest of you should get out of here. Continuing this fight is suicide."
Isara turned to her two subordinates; both of whom were shaking subtly with fear. She was surprised, however, to find that one of them was Astus Iventus. She thought the Turian would have hated her after all the inspections she performed on his station just to see Terith for the past year.
"Get out of here you two," she whispered.
"Doing that will just mean you'll die instead," Astus whispered back, his voice filled with determination.
The other officer smirked. He was a Salarian she did not know the name of, much to her shame. She never connected well with Salarians, given their short lives.
"Besides, if asking for surrender, must mean we're too hard to kill."
She was stunned to find her squad actually loyal enough to stand by her, but perhaps they were smart enough to realize the stakes just like she was. All of Illium counted on them pulling through here.
The Terrorist called out to them again.
"I'll presume from your silence that you are not going to surrender. Unfortunate."
The Quarian ran into the Atrium from the hallway, but her wasn't alone. Isara had already steeled herself to be forced to fire at Terith in order to get through to the Quarian Hostage Taker, but she did not expect to see the Quarian running at them with the corpse of one of her men.
They fired regardless and get through the dead subordinate's Kinetic Barrier quickly. However, the armor and flesh of their former squad mate proved far tougher to penetrate. After half a second, Isara realized something was wrong.
'It shouldn't be possible to do that without Biotics! A dead body is too heavy to hold in front of you while firing a- Wait, we're not being fired on!'
"Why is he-? Shit! Squad, he is trying to get into CQC, spread out and-"
Even as Isara said the words, she realized she was too late.
The corpse was thrown at her and she was forced to get out of the way. While she dodged, she saw the Marine take out a knife and embed it into Astus' throat. As the Turian gasped and clutched at the wound, the Suit Rat kicked the gun out of the other officer's hands. The Terrorist spun around, using the rotation to both take out the knife from the Turian and slam it into the head of the Salarian. During this time, Isara was only able to get up her pistol and fire two shots before her gun was kicked out of her hand too. The shots did not get through his Shields. With how concussed she had been from the earlier explosion, she could do nothing to stop the Quarian kicking her in the chest and putting a boot to her neck.
She was chocking but was still able to get a few words out.
"Y-you… won't get away… with this suit-rat!"
She gasped for breath, bringing up her arms to try and pull the weight off her throat. As she did so, she looked to see if her subordinates could help her, but they lay unresponsive on the ground.
'Whoever heard of a Quarian CQC specialist… what a joke…'
She glared at the Terrorist.
"T-the military… they are coming… you won't make it… out of here alive!"
The Quarian looked down at her; his blank visor unfeeling and unmoved by her plight. He pulled out a pistol and leveled it at her head.
"I know."
He pulled the trigger.
— AE —
Codex Entry - Mass Effect: Element Zero Drive Core
Transcript from "Element Zero: The Science behind the Mass Effect"
Commonly called an "Eezo Core", "Drive Core", or simply a "Core", an Element Zero Drive Core is possibly the most fundamentally important piece of technology that has ever existed. Like the Wheel, the Telescope, or the Transistor, Eezo Cores are not impressive on their own, but when combined with existing technologies creates powerful innovations which drive the modern world.
There are two key components to any Eezo Core. The Element Zero Containment — as the name suggests — contains Eezo in an Electromagnetic Ion Trap. Larger amounts of Eezo stored in the Containment allow for greater amounts of Dark Energy to be released but also allow for a larger Dark Energy "reserve". The second component is the Mass Effect Field Generator, which converts Dark Energy into a Mass Effect Field. In most cases, any contiguous piece of mass which is in contact with the Generator is affected by the field. This is how it works with skycars or Mass Accelerators. In more specialized cases, the Field can be projected or isolated into a preset area. This is how Cyclonic Barriers or Thrusters function.
When the amount of Dark Energy that can be released by the Containment is smaller than what can be converted by the Generator, the system acts like an electronic Capacitor. This is the typical "Core" configuration. The system is less efficient, but with a circuit managing the Dark Energy output can smooth out irregularities in the Mass Effect Field caused by variations in air-pressure and other environmental effects which can change the system's mass. This allows the average skycar to maintain a smooth ride even in hurricane-like events. It also means that removing such a core while it is still active means some residual charge remains. This is why skycars universally have warning labels encouraging mechanics performing maintenance on skycars to wait 30 minutes before removing a Eezo Core. Unfortunately, the amount of mechanics literally flying into the sky, only to fall to their death when the Eezo Core ran out of charge is still a non-zero number. This might seem impossible because the Core only has a less than a second of charge in it at any given time, but it is important to remember that most modern Generators will account for the amount of total mass attached to it when generating it Mass Effect Field and only create what is necessary. This ensures skycars are energy efficient whether one person or 4 people with luggage are inside the vehicle. This also ensures that even a quarter second of charge can last for seconds or even minutes when detached to a much smaller object.
When the amount of Dark Energy is less than or equal to the amount which can be converted by the Generator, the system does not store any charge and always creates the maximum possible Mass Effect field possible. While not commonly called a "Core" due to its more simplistic design, it functions in the same way. This is what is used in Mass Accelerators to maximize the impact of shots fired without requiring much Eezo to generate the Field. Unfortunately this comes with the downside of greater variations in the Field generated which leads to the "spread pattern" of modern firearms. While it is possible to reduce this spread by making the Containment larger, this also increases the weight, cost and temperature generated from a given shot. This is why weapons can differ greatly in cost, temperature generation, power and accuracy. More Eezo means more cost but it can also mean more power or accuracy depending on how it is used. More Eezo also means more temperature which means larger heat-sinks and more cost as well.
Finally another important consideration — which might be obvious to some — is volume and its effect on the power of Eezo Cores. The Dark Energy created from an Eezo Core's Containment is proportional to the volume of the containment but the inefficiency in the Core is proportional to it's Surface Area. This should make intuitive sense: the amount of Eezo that can be stored in a containment field is also dependent on the volume but the electromagnetic field use to contain it only has to cover the containment's exterior. This is also why all Containment Systems are spherical. With a sphere, every ten times the diameter increases, the amount of Eezo stored increases over five-hundred times yet the amount of expense to keep it contained only grows three-hundred times. What this means is that as a Containment gets larger, the Dark Energy — and therefore the Mass Effect created — grows exponentially in power yet the costs eventually reduce to the cost of the Eezo that is stored at large enough sizes. The is known as the Square-Cube Law.
For example, consider the Eezo Core Containments used for Mass Accelerators. For the tiny Mass Accelerators in conventional firearms 50% of the Core's Containment cost is from the Eezo. This might allow for the tiny projectile to travel at virtually the speed of light, but the energy impact is measured in the order of a mere few hundred thousand Joules. For the Mass Accelerators aboard enormous Dreadnoughts such as the Destiny Ascension, however, the core is 4 million times the size yet the Eezo that can be used is 33.5 quintillion times as much. This makes it capable of sending Clawball-sized solid-iron projectiles to within an order-of-magnitude of the speed of light. The relativistic physics involved forces the projectile to travel less than the tiny metal chips used in firearms, but it impacts with over a sextillion times more energy. Moreover, due to its size, over 99.999% of its cost is simply the Eezo used to manufacture it; an unavoidable expense when creating the Dark Energy needed for the Mass Effect. This makes the core's larger size far more efficient in converting energy into force per credit spent.
This concept is what has driven the navies of the Council's true naval superpowers — the Turians and Asari — to build larger and larger Dreadnoughts as opposed to smaller fighter swarms of the Salarians. While the swarms are effective at delivering significant firepower at close range and supporting a number of disparate special-operations mission on the ground, the lack of Eezo in any given fighter means weak shields and slower movement which are easily penetrated and destroyed by the GARDIAN/Directional Energy Weapons (DEW) systems on most ships of Cruiser size and larger. This is why even scouting vessels are Frigate sized ships; as anything smaller is too slow and too easily destroyed to bring back useful intelligence. In most conventional conflicts, a Dreadnought's shields are impenetrable to almost anything. Even things which could penetrate their Kinetic Barriers such as DEWs are negated by the considerable amount of Armor Dreadnought Drive Cores allow them to have. As of this writing, no Dreadnought ever constructed has been destroyed. Even in the Rachni Wars and Krogan Rebellions they were unstoppable.
As one can see, the Element Zero Drive Core by itself is merely an Element Zero Containment and Mass Effect Field Generator by itself, but it is in its applications that the true capability of the Eezo Core can be seen. From simple skycars to invincible dreadnoughts, we are now only left to wonder what new technology could possibly supplant the Eezo Core's place as the next greatest technology. Whatever it is, it is bound to completely change the Galaxy as we know it.