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"Shepard is heading off to deal with some Turian strays a few hundred miles south of here. Apparently, they decided to play dodge the wrench with a damn Reaper or somethin' and got their asses blown out of the skies." Wrex explained with a dry and vindictive chuckle as the shuttle flew through Tuchanka's long torn skies, shuddering slightly as the wind currents shifted and buffeted along the hull. "We get to head to an old Blood Pack facility for a raid, clear out some… Uncooperative Krogan leftovers of Clan Weyrloc and a couple other minor clans and secure it for Urdnot and the Krogan Coalition."
"Uncooperative?" He had a feeling he knew what the warlord meant, but it was worth asking anyways to be sure.
"Krogans too damn dim to see the way the wind is blowing, and holing up in places I need to fight the Reapers on Tuchanka." The Warlord answered frankly, shrugging and sighing almost tiredly. "In the way, and they won't do a damn thing I say, so we gotta make 'em get out of the way. Permanently."
"You mean that in the 'getting them on your side' kinda way, or the 'buryin' 'em out back' kinda way?" Vega asked, rolling his shoulders with his Katana held against his chest, leg bouncing on his far side from the rest of the fire-team. Nerves before a mission, probably because he knew he'd be fighting the notoriously hard to kill Krogan. But he cracked a cocky smile anyways and asked, "Need to know, hombre lagarto."
"My damn translator works just fine, you know. Damn humans and their damn languages..." Wrex huffed, chuckling under his breath and shaking his great head. Rolling his armored shoulders he gave the ODST a meaningful look for a moment before cracking a wide grin, "You looking forward to gettin' shot again?"
"Hm."
"Heh, no need to act that way, Rook." The Krogan chided gently, barking a harsh Krogan laugh when the ODST simply shrugged and went about checking his armor, pockets and rifle mechanically. "Anyways, what I'm trying to say is that you need to watch out. Vega and I have fought Krogan before, me a few more times than him of course, but still. We know what to expect out of a fight with 'em. Do you?"
"I read the Alliance briefings on Krogan." He shrugged noncommittally, neither claiming to know how to deal with them or saying he couldn't. His higher caliber ballistic barrel should be enough to make the Alliance's recommendation of 'unloading into the crest until it stops moving' work well enough.
"Alliance briefs aren't always the best, Rook." Vega sighed, shaking his head and chuckling. "Good guidelines, yeah, but not the best. Krogan crests are hard to punch through unless you concentrate fire on it, and they'll notice."
"Or just chamber armor-piercing, but yeah, Alliance ideas aren't the best when it come to killin' shit. 'Specially when they make the damn briefings public, and even the dumbest Krogan merc can see 'em and think 'okay, how about helmets'. Or anything else that makes it hard to shoot 'em in the crest." Wrex added with a nod, huffing either in amusement or offense at the stupidity shown by the Alliance. "Stupid Humans don't understand a damn thing about warfare, somehow, after everything."
And the ODST couldn't help but agree completely, there was no reason to make such military strategies publically accessible knowledge. The average citizen would either not need to know it, or enlist and learn it in training, so he couldn't comprehend the decision to make something like that public access. The enemy was bound to find out your tactics and work around them if you broadcast them over loudspeaker to them, that should have been common sense and knowledge both.
"Coming in on final approach, boys and Warlord. Landing site appears clear, expect light infil. Standby." The woman's voice called from the cockpit, crackling over the intercoms around them loudly.
"We land, fan out, kill anyone we see that isn't sporting Urdnot colors or surrenderin'." Wrex summarized shortly, cocking the massive shotgun in his hands and smiling viciously. "Krogan hospitals are built like fortresses, so don't worry 'bout breakin' shit. Rip 'em apart like a Varren with a fresh Salarian in its jaws, heh heh."
A moment later the bright white and blue lighting flicked off, replaced by red backlighting, and their conversation ended. Replacing their words was the sound of rapid clicking, whirring, fists smacking armor to check it, weapons collapsing and extending, and ammo being double checked. A familiar song to the misplaced Shock Trooper, who supposed that the sounds of war would be the same in any universe.
That it comforted him so much was almost certainly telling, and just as certainly not something he would express anywhere near ear-shot of Chakwas.
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The shuttle shuddered under him, his legs bending slightly to compensate with the force of momentum pulling him down the way the shuttle had been moving. He took a breath as the shuttle door raised in front of him, bright and bare sunlight beating down as it did and blinding him for a split second before his visor polarized and compensated for it.
Around them, massive walls of randomly piled and stacked rubble, sharp rock, and roughly hewn and bent metal towered around them forebodingly. A long path made of metal grids, rusted and partially covered in sand, cut through it like a road and about as wide as one. To either side of the stone slab of a landing spot, around its edge and dotting the 'road' intermittently as well, thick metal rods supported heavy burlap or lather canvas with stone slabs in front of them like tables. Or market stalls, given the number and regularity of them, even if they were empty he could imagine it as a busy market place full of customers looking for whatever a Krogan might need on a given day.
Gone now, though, leaving behind everything from weapons stacked on roughly made shelves or laid out in the sun, to meat hanging from hooks, and a few stalls selling scraps of armor. The rubble, according to Wrex, stretched for miles around them and was untraversable, even for Krogan or Varren for almost all of it. The clans had spent decades digging furrows through the stone, steel and other assorted detritus to form roads connecting to old highways and paths or linking to hubs of activity for each clan.
The Krogan warlord took the center and rushed ahead to draw any potential fire, and both Vega and the shock trooper stepped out to either side and sank to a knee, Avengers sweeping the surrounding mountains of rubble for anything that looked out of order. His VISR system pinged across the rubble on his side of the formation to look for heat signatures, nothing but small creatures scurrying away or hiding from them and hotspots shaped obviously like metal or stone left in the beating sun.
Several seconds passed of silence, wind blowing around them and howling through stone and steel around them, before he broke the silence, "Clear right, no targets."
"Clear left, no targets." Vega echoed, rising in unison with the ODST and moving to the Krogan's side as the alien warlord hummed in thought. "What's wrong, Wrex? See something you don't like out there?"
"This is a village, Vega, even if it's the outskirts of one." The Krogan informed him, waving a hand around him as he lumbered forward slowly and they followed. "The clans make thoroughfares and village spaces like these to stay. Unless someone forces' em to pack up and run. And just look, there's fresh meat and weapons out. Krogan would leave a lot of crap behind, but not weapons and certainly not food. I don't like it..."
"You're in command here, hombre." Vega shrugged, voice only partially muffled by the heavy Alliance helmet he wore as he looked around. "Make a call, we got time to look around. No rush on this op, 'least not as far as I know."
"Something happened here, find out what if you can. I'm headed there, for now, see what I can find out on my own." He ordered roughly as they moved, pointing ahead of them at a ruined building that looked to have once been a tower. Most of the top had collapsed and been pulled away, leaving iron spiking into the sky and rough stone piled atop it, but three floors of it were still standing well enough. As he went, he called over his shoulder, "Radio in if you find anything."
"Yes, Sir."
"Got it, hombre lagarto." Vega waved his off hand, turning to look at him and adding, "I'm gonna head back to the 'pad, see if I find anything and work my way up the road. Or whatever this," he nodded at the grating and sand beneath them, "is supposed to be. You look around here and work back to me, then we'll work to Wrex's position. Clear copy?"
"Clear." He nodded, watching the blue-armored man turn and head back the way they came before turning to look around himself.
He started at the weapon stall beside him, looking behind the stone slab laid in front of it for anything odd. A throw rug of thick hide with an overturned stool kicked away made of metal, a leg broken off and missing, but the space was otherwise bare entirely and bore no signs of anything untoward happening other than the kicked over and broken stool. The weapons were in disrepair, of various types, and laid somewhat randomly on the slab and around it, but that was all the stall had.
A rug, a broken stool, and untouched weapons.
That the weapons were left behind, seemingly untouched, meant that there hadn't been an attack. Or, at least, not the kind that he would normally imagine to such a wide reaching string of disappearances. So this was almost certainly not a Krogan clan raiding this clan. They'd have taken the weapons, there'd be bodies and signs of battle, and blood as well if another clan had attacked them outright.
Next was the largest looking food stall, two stalls down from the weapon one and on the other side. It, like the last, had a thick looking throw rug made of hide laid on the bottom of it, but this one's owner had to have been wealthier. A comfortable looking couch made out of some kind of bone and hides, large enough for a single Krogan to sit or lounge comfortably, sat in the back against almost neatly stacked stone. Meat hung at the front, and a small metal stool like the one from the weapon stall sat against the slab, turned to the side slightly.
Beside the couch a heavy red shotgun like Wrex's with an added 'bayonet' the size of his forearm leaned against the arm of the couch. Untouched and, when he knelt and checked, fully loaded with ammunition. A small iron cube with an obvious lock on the front sat behind it as well, closed and untouched.
Hundreds of pounds of still fresh meat, what had to be a safe, a fine enough looking couch and a very well made and customized shotgun.
More things that would have been taken in any kind of military raid, in response to it or by the looters after.
The next three stalls headed towards the landing pad yielded the same results, which was to say nothing at all. The fourth, though, did have something of note beyond basic comments on the life of the average Krogan and the fact it was more sheltered than most with three stone walls instead of the thick canvas tarps. Another sign of wealth or status, he figured, to have more solid stone and iron walls instead of canvas.
A splash of dim orange blood, dried completely by now, splashed across the rug on the floor behind a stone slab. Next to it, beside a smashed metal stool, a broken heavy pistol lay shattered, pointing at the wall in the back corner of the stall.
Lifting the weapon off the floor he hummed in thought, and then laid his rifle beside him and knelt where the stool had been smashed. Behind the stone slab, facing towards the shuttle landing. Raising the hand cannon, he pointed towards it, centering his sights on James where he knelt by a stall down the way. Standing to account for the height difference he turned, but didn't see anything on the wall that would demark bullet holes. And beyond, he knew he'd find the tarp of the other pinned against the wall, several metal rods poking through to anchor the stone doing enough to paint that picture.
Unless…
He laid his fist against it where he saw a slight divot and his eyes narrowed as the stone gave slightly. Pushing the head sized slab, it turned and he blinked in surprise at the large claw marks there, three rough edges hacked into the stone with orange blood inside and trailing down it and cut off at the bottom. Turning the next stone, the trails continued, and he nodded.
Something clawed had attacked this Krogan, and he'd shot it or at least tried to, but it had seemingly smashed his weapon and cut the alien down.
Activating his comm unit, he spoke to his two partners, "I found claw marks, blood, and a broken sidearm. I think I have a suspicion of what happened here, and would like to go through it together before we move on with the mission."
"Rendezvous at the tower, Rook." Wrex answered lowly, sounding tired and angry all at once, "I haven't found a damn thing 'sides the obvious. That being a surprising lack of Krogan or signs of Krogan leaving."
"All I found were a couple ejected thermal clips, in different stall too." Vega reported, the ODST stepping out of his and turning to see him heading his way. When he joined the shock trooper, he added, "This place creeps the hell out of me… Never thought I'd say it, but I think I kind of prefer when the Krogan are around, and loud, and proud, and shooting at me. Or trying to rip me in half, they're a varied bunch of gilipollas."
"Hm." He nodded, and almost agreed. He didn't have much experience fighting Krogan, but even he found the area… Eerie. Enough to dislike it, and almost itch for an actual fight to replace it.
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"It's the same up here, there's almost nothing to even hint at a fight." Standing in a wide, circular room with a half-dozen smashed computer consoles surrounding a raised chair made of stone and positioned like a command chair set onto a raised platform authoritatively. "This is the Chieftain's command room, it would have been defended by the warlord here and his personal bodyguards, not to mention his actual Krant if he felt there was any kind of threat coming."
"It looks like the consoles were all smashed, but…" Vega shook his head, leaning against one with his Katana drawn now instead of the Avenger now they were inside. With that weapon, he gestured at the main entrance. "The barricades are set in place, yeah, but it looks like they just stay there. Guardin' the stairs down to the bottom floor, looks like."
"Normal Krogan defenses." Wrex agreed, the ODST following him as he thumped to the low but thick concrete barricades, ammo boxes behind both along with a couple heavy looking rifles and a heavy shotgun. "More good loot… Krogans would have taken everything, brought it here to sort through, then loaded up the good shit and run off if they were gonna leave."
"No signs of a fight, though. Not that I can see, at least." Vega pointed out while the ODST wandered around the room, rifle held tight against his chest as he scanned the room.
Old bullet holes and cracks riddles the stone walls, smooth and solid surfaces so that meant there wouldn't be any hiding blood behind turned stones up here. Like Vega had said, every single console around the raised dais had its control segments crushed, smashed, or slashed into oblivion. On the raised platform, behind the chair and leaning its handle against it, a heavy looking hammer of some kind was left untouched.
Just like every other weapon so far, aside from a single smashed hand cannon, and a couple scattered thermal clips.
"We should move on to the hospital, unless one of you have a way to bypass the control consoles and see if these consoles have anything good on 'em?" Vega asked, tilting his head slightly to the side with the question to try and convey some kind of curiosity along with it.
"Already did, they've either been wiped or corrupted by somethin', can't tell which." He held up a hand with a grimace, explaining, "My 'Tool has a Salarian auto-hacking program installed on it. The doctor back on the Normandy made it for me, if I was gonna be deploying to the field. Somethin' about 'resource protection', but I didn't really pay much attention to his ramblin' about it."
"Reapers could be doin' it." James suggested with a shrug, "Indoctrination would explain a lot of this. Indoctrinated Krogan wouldn't have fought when the Reapers came to collect 'em."
"Maybe…" He sighed, looking around and drumming his fingers on his rifle absently.
Indoctrinated Krogan explained a lot of this fairly simply, but not the broken weapon or the discharged thermal clips he and Vega had found. Those didn't make any sense if all the Krogan were indoctrinated and went along willingly, and if they weren't all indoctrinated then there should have been more fighting and signs of it than they had found.
"I sent a signal to some of my Krogan I had deployed nearby, told 'em to come in case shit gets bad." Wrex informed him as he rejoined them, gesturing at the door leading down with his heavy shotgun. "They'll be here in an hour, so we're gonna check the old hospital out, see what we find, and rendezvous back here later."
"You sure?" Vega asked cautiously, shrugging when the Krogan gave him an almost shocked look. "You're a VIP, Wrex, like it or not. Shit goes sideways down there, we have to worry 'bout gettin' you out of the fire. Too much at risk to not, but you're in command. So I got your back either way, hombre."
"Shouldn't be nothin' down there, we'd have run into it already. Reapers aren't the brightest bunch, they tend to rush in and hope for the best like young Krogan." He shrugged his great shoulders and barked a harsh laugh of bravado, jerking his head towards the wide door, "Come on, let's get it over with. This is just what Shepard would call a milk run, whatever that means."
"Means it's as easy as runnin' down to the store, which…" Vega trailed off and then shrugged, "Eh, that might not translate over quite right, actually. I feel like Krogans don't go to the store like Humans do."
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The hospital was ancient, made of thick stone and concrete and reinforced at every single doorway and throughout each hall. Massive iron or steel columns riveted along the stone ceiling to hold it up and fortify it, and each door even between normal rooms was constructed like a bulkhead or a bunker. At the bottom of the structure, Wrex had said, would be a long column like a basement where the clan would shelter its important people, children if they had any, and any women present as safely as they could be.
"They'd also mount defences inside the structure, like this." He pounded a fist onto an old, inactive gun emplacement that looked like a shrunken down anti-aircraft gun of some kind. "Make 'em work for it, but nothin' that could destroy the place. Not enough of these, and most of the time, both sides know not to risk 'em."
"Not much point taking a fort if you destroy it in the process, yeah." Vega nodded with a low and dry chuckle.
And while the ODST wanted to argue based on experience, he let it pass. It wasn't that important, and if he talked about the UNSC's own protocols, then that would only bring more questions. Questions he simply didn't care to deal with, and were better left completely ignored.
"Still no signs of any actual fighting, though. Kinda weird, that." Vega added after a second of silence as they descended one of the staircases to the last floor before the massive column at the bottom to look through it. "Any ideas, Wrex?"
"Not really." He shrugged, moving through the hallway while the Humans behind him glanced through each door into the moderately large rooms on the other side to check them for anything. "You two see anything?"
"Negative contact."
"No, just a bunch of medical crap like the other rooms." Vega sighed, moving to the next door and calling out, "Guns in this one, looks like a small armory or somethin'. None of 'em are touched, though, and one's on a bench like it was bein' worked on until... Whatever happened."
"Let's head down then, there'd not a damn thing up here." Wrex sighed, either bored or angry he couldn't tell. Probably a mix of both, knowing him as much as he did, at not being able to find a fight or whatever had happened to 'his people'. "My warriors should be here in ten minutes, they'll be waiting on us, so we shouldn't waste time around here. Somethin' about this is makin' my skin itch."
Descending the last staircase, they came out in the long column at the center of the massive structure, and froze at what they found. The room itself was a hundred feet long long and fifty feet tall, at least according to his VISR range-finding pings, with massive support columns placed regularly with large and bright lights all along it. Massive metal cylinders surrounded them, wired to the roof of the place and from there along it to somewhere he couldn't see without tagging it in his VISR system.
But instead, the massive purple spikes spiring to the ceiling stole his attention, hundreds of them linked to what looked like massive bowled four or five to a piece filled the room. Machinery had been randomly tossed against the wall with scattered scraps of armor and weapons, along with small bundles of-
"Raaagh!" The warlord roared, charging forward past them and smashing through a machine in his rage filled haste. He holstered his shotgun as he went, sliding to his knees and almost seeming to tremble as he reached for a bundle and they followed, hearing him murmuring, "No, not this… No, no, no!"
When they joined him, he choked and rocked back and forth, almost sobbing and cradling the small bundle like it was a precious jewel. The ODST turned and knelt, rifle raised warily while Vega kneeled beside him and spoke as gently as he could, both surprised to see the Krogan in such a state.
"Wrex, what is… Querido dios el cielo, is that a… A baby?" Shocked, the ODST turned, and caught sight of a small leg hanging out of the bundle. Wrex choked again and nodded jerkily, fussing with the cloth vainly, and Vega shook his head, "Oh god, Wrex, are all those bundles… Fucking Reapers!"
The Genophage, the shock trooper knew, meant that almost all births were still born for the Krogan. So children were precious to them, more so than almost anything else from weapons to land and food. Even the most hardened and cruel Wwarlord would hold off an attack if he knew there were Krogan children in an enemy camp. A Krogan child's crying at its birth, from what he'd read on the net, could cause days of celebration that even mortal enemies would partake in or at least recognize and leave the clan be in.
And a hundred bundled Krogan young were cast aside like so much garbage, broken and dead on the ground.
Across the room, something heavy fell and something else hissed loudly, and he rose at the sound, "Wrex, something is here. You need to get out of here, the Reaper presence is-"
"Brute!" Vega's shout was unneeded, everyone in the room heard and felt the creature smash through one of the large, purple machines and barrel towards them. It was covered in a slimy substance, but Vega yanked him to the side before he could look any harder, "Circle right, Rook, I'll go left. Pepper it until it dies, aim for its legs to slow it down and cover Wrex before it-"
"Reaper bastards!" Wrex bellowed, the two soldiers freezing beside him as he audibly crackled in biotic energy and gingerly laid the bundle aside. When he rose, his eyes sparked with energy that arced across his great head, and even the Brute seemed to almost hesitated at the sight. Cackling almost madly, the Krogan Warlord lumbered forward a few steps and cracked his knuckles, flaring blue energy around him as he spoke, "You think you can take Krogan children from us? Think that'll break us, I bet. But it won't, not even close, you vermin!"
"You'll just piss us off!" He roared, shooting off faster than the drop trooper was sure was even possible towards the massive thing and slamming into it headlong.
The creature shuddered and roared, sweeping its great claw into the warlord's side, but Wrex just laughed and pummeled his fists into its head. Blow after blow, augmented with biotic power and Krogan rage, rained down onto the machine-monster's head and shoulders and it staggered under the weight before sweeping its massive claw out from its chest and pushing him back.
In response, the Krogan wrapped its arms around the Reaper and yanked to the side, hurling it through the air and into one of the purple machines. The machine sparked as it exploded, spitting electricity that caught fire along the Reaper and on the consoles around it, and the Krogan leapt as high as he could. The Warlord came down like a cannonball, artillery power in his raised fists as it slammed into the Reaper and crushed it under him.
Weakly, either from injury or simply because Wrex didn't care the ODST wasn't sure, its claw smacked into the Krogan's side and Wrex responded by grabbing it and planting a foot on its chest. With a loud, wet and somehow mechanical still popping and tearing sound, he wrenched the arm free and hurled it to the side with a joyous and victorious roar of challenge. Still the Reaper tried to rise, and he drew his Claymore, sneering imperiously.
"Don't fuck with our kids, Reaper." He said, emptying three rounds into it, reloading patiently between each one as he did. Finally satisfied it was dead, the Krogan stepped off the corpse and moved towards them, sparing a glance to the little bundles as he went before sighing. "My scouts are here, let's go report this to 'em. I want out of this piss hole."
Wordlessly, the two soldiers followed him.
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So, it would seem I am at the popularity level of 'high enough up to be starting to get trolls and flamers'. This will be posted on every story I have for this week, and then removed, as per usual announcement style for me.
I use Jaune, he's easy to mold and make fit, fun to write, and a slew of other various reasons that make him damn useful to an author. If you dislike that, then that is fine. I do have non-Jaune stories. This will be posted on two of them. Yet flamers and trolls seem to think that isn't the case and like to post… I think nine reviews now on just two of the stories?
It's my style, I write what I like, and unless you wanna be a Supporter and request otherwise, then trolls and flamer reviewers don't get input I will register or integrate. You get a singular announcement, your reviews deleted if you do it again, and then wholly ignored.
Critique is one thing, saying 'ugh Jaune' in various ways with nothing to offer is another thing. And for any who may be joking or sarcastic, it's hard to read either of these in text form, and harder still to discern them from the actual trolls and flames, and even further FF has a problem with precisely that right now. So I apologize if you posted one of these in jest.
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Da Orkiest :
This chapter, I fear, my little green friend, lacks much dakka. My sincere apologies, I wanted to take a different bend on the chapter than normal.
Monsieur Mole :
Well, glad you're enjoying it. I aim to please, as ever and always, even if sometimes I could stand to do so better.
Scrub Lord 97 :
XD
Predator 1701 :
Glad you enjoy it, and I do intend to continue.
