Robocops and Robbers 7
Therum hung in space, glowing red and black from the fire and smoke that covered the planet. Above it was one of the largest ships known to Council space, the OCP Order, it along with its twin the OCP Law were two massive dreadnaughts that had been built a few years before humanity and Council encountered each other. The Law and Order were larger than the Destiny Ascension by an order of two, which was a sore point for the Asari.
Murphy was particularly proud of the ships, as they represented exactly how far ahead of the other races (and more importantly, other companies) OCP was. The Ships had been built before Mass Effect technology had been discovered, and were actually part of the research fleet that had orbited Mars after the archives were found. Over the years, both had been upgraded, retrofitted, altered, and all around improved at least six times to make them more impressive.
The main battery of the Order could disable any ship, and knock out the electrical power of half a colony if the shot hit a planet. That was where most of the fear lay when contemplating the terrible might of the Law and Order, not the chance of death, but the inevitability of capture. Long ago, when the first hints of space pirates became known, Murphy had decided that OCP should reflect the image he had been projecting, that of the strong arm of the law.
Thousands of Pirates had been taken captive in the brigs of the Law and Order, and both ships were regarded as better versions of the prison ship Purgatory, that the Blue Sons ran.
All of this was told to the away team that accompanied Murphy, Shepard, and Garrus as they docked and boarded the massive ship. Everyone, even Wrex, was suitably impressed with the massive ship.
"So why is the whole team coming on this little tour?" The Krogan asks, having quickly gotten over the speechlessness that had infected everyone.
"Good question," Murphy waves them all into a tram, which an operator quickly gets moving, "And the answer is that I don't want to carry your stuff as well as mine."
"Our stuff?" Wrex's mouth spreads into a grin as he realizes what that means, revealing all of his teeth.
"I thought you'd appreciate that," Murphy nods
Garrus, seeing that not everyone has gotten what his partner was insinuating, explains, "We're getting outfitted with OCP made gear."
"The heavy duty stuff, too," Murphy tells them as they start to get excited. It was a well known fact that OCP made some of the best equipment available, and their armor had been in feild testing since Robocop first rolled off the production line. After nearly two centuries, the armor could take a blast from a Mako and keep going! The same couldn't be said for the squeeshy people actually wearing the armor, but the armor would act like a very good piece of tuperwear for their liquified remains.
Regardless of Mako blasts, the armor was very good, and the weapons were equally as well made. There were of course the standard issue metal block guns, but then there were the ones that used exotic amunition, like electricity. Those would be fun to play with, and especially effective against Geth.
"Ah, Detective!" Somebody exclaims as the Tram comes to a stop, and there are a collection of turned heads, revealing an Asari Maiden rushing excitedly towards them.
"Doctor!" Murphy exclaims happily, stepping up, "Glad you could join us so quickly, are you ready to go?"
"Oh yes! I've catologued all of my notes for whoever takes charge of the dig after we depart, I've highlighted the more interesting pieces and I've even told the researchers on Mars to start looking for the schematics to something broadly called 'The Device.'"
"Fun, we've got a new ambiguous title," Ash groans, which attracts the attention of the Doctor and drags her away from Robocop.
"Oh! I'm so sorry! My name is Doctor Liara T'Soni," She nearly leaps forward with her hand extended, "A Pleasure to meet you."
"Pleasures all mine Doc," Ash takes her hand, sure that if Asari had not been gifted with perpetually perfect vision, Liara would be sporting very large glasses, "I'm Gunnery Sergeant Ashley Williams, you can call me Ash."
"Then you can call me Liara," The Doctor tells her, "Or 'Doc,' as you called me. I don't mind, I find the human custom of nicknaming fascinating."
"Glad to hear it Liara," Garrus chuckles as he turns her arround to give her a hug, "Good to see you."
"You as well, Garrus," She tells him as she returns the hug.
After they separate, she goes through everyone and gets names and they get her strange brand of enthusiasm. Eventually, he comes to Shepard, and they shake hands. The Commander looks down at her, and forces a smile onto his permanent frown and tells her, "Nice to meet you, Doctor T'Soni, I hope your knowledge can prove invaluable."
"Oh, so do I!" She exclaims, nodding excitedly
"Now, before we go and collect the equipment Murphy arranged for us, I need to make sure," He takes a breath, and then asks, "You are aware that one of the people of interest that we will be hunting down is your mother, correct?"
The enthusiasm seems to bleed out of Liara, and the maiden nods, "I know. I don't know why she joined Saren, or what she hopes to achieve, but we have not spoken in years, so whatever else there to know, I will learn it as you and the rest of the team do."
"Thank you," He tells her, "I'm sorry that I had to ask."
"No, no, it's understandable," Liara tells him, swallowing a lump in her throat, before pulling herself back into her usual mood, "Anyway, I believe we have equipment to collect?"
"Right," Murphy nods, and then waves for the team to follow as he leads them further through the massive ship.
It takes five minutes for the team to reach the Order's armory, and what they find is a new suit of armor in OCP standard black and blues, as well as entire walls of the high end weaponry that was denied to the public and not actually sold to the Alliance for fear that if a bulk sale was made the weapons would fall into the hands of Pirates or Cerberus.
In other words, the team was getting access to the prototype equipment too dangerous for general distribution, and they were loving it. Wrex giddily picked up a shotgun variation, a three pronged affair that even while inactive had small pulses of lightning coursing between them. He collapsed the weapon, and set it down in favor of picking up a different beast entirely.
The massive Krogan hefted an assault rifle that looked like it could have been torn from a tank. A trio of massive spinning barrels, an oversized shield, and a downwards facing handle. With same experimenting, he found that he was meant to attach a prong to the back of his new armor, so that he could carry the weapon underhanded. A few dials told him that he could change ammo types from electric, to inferno, to regular old solid metal. He was sure that if he fired at a wall, the wall would just become a piece of riddled art by the time a minute had gone by.
Everyone else was experiencing much the same joy as the Warlord, though as each hadn't lived as long, they had not gained his immense appreciation for a finely crafted killing machine. Instead, they appreciated the curves, the weight, and the ease with which they could wield their new weapons.
It was while they were donning their new armor that the trouble started, though. There was a feignt rumbling, and Robocop opened a channel to the bridge, "Report."
Having set the audio to speaker mode, the captain's answer was heard by all, "Geth cruiser, sir. It popped out of Light-speed and opened fire. No serious damage, but it looks like they intend to ram us.
"Are the cyber-warfare suites in place?" Murphy asks
"Yes, Sir, we're locked up tighter than a nun's unmentionables."
"Good to hear," Murphy chuckles, "Is the cruiser small enough to fit in one of the detention facilities?"
"If we jettison Grid D, we could fit them into the space?" The Captain half asks, clearly talking partially to his deck crew. After a second, he tells Murphy, "We'll definitely have space, sir."
"Good, disable the cruiser and let it coast in," the cyborg tells the captain, "My Team and I will handle it from there."
Everyone puts on their armor a little bit quicker after that, and soon everyone is adorned in the Black and Blue of the OCP enforcers. Looking at each other, Ashley is the first to speak, "Any way we can get a change in the paint job?"
"What's wrong with these colors?" Murphy asks, looking down at his usual body, "I've been wearing them for two hundred years, and nobody's complained."
"Well not everyone is you," Ash points out, "We don't all rock the Black and Blue with your style."
"Yeah, some of us rock pink," Kaidan notes with a chuckle
"Hey, don't knock the pink," Ashley tells him, "Vikings thought that Pink was a very powerful color, don't you know?"
"I think you mean manly, don't you?"
As the two humans bickered, Tali leaned towards Garrus and asks, "What's wrong with pink?"
The Turian shrugs, never having understood the human obsession with colors. Wrex, too, shrugs after hearing the question. They do their best to ignore the bickering, and they succeed quite magnificently when they figure out how to mute the connection between themselves and the bickering pair.
"If everyone could calm down and open up your mics?" Shepard calls when they reach a particularly large set of doors, "We are about to enter vacuum, buckets on."
There is a collective assemblage of helmets as they fold over everyone's faces, a replication of Murphy's own protective gear, which merely slides into place to cover his entire head rather than just his eyes. All Tali has to do is solidify her visor to a hard purple sheet, rather than a thin clear one.
"Seal check," Shepard calls, and as soon as he gets green lights from everyone, he hits the door release, "Breach!"
They enter the open space when the Geth Cruiser coasted in with guns raised and ready to fire, which they needed to do almost immediately. Two Geth Rocketeers drop from a pair of sniper rounds courtesy of Garrus and Ashley, while a Geth Prime is lifted into from the ground by a double application of biotic forces from Wrex and Liara. It is perforated by Tali and Kaidan while Shepard and Murphy take point.
The Cruiser hung in Grid D, suspended in the empty cube of space by eight clamps, each of the camps being worked on by a team of Geth as they tried to unshackle their ship and escape. A hundred yards down, the solid surface of Grid E lay bare of activity, though if the continued activity of the synthetics was any indication, this would not remain the story for long.
They move in swift procession along the closest clamp, each a deadly mix of skill and awareness, maximized in a team that could not be any more overpowered if it tried. Geth fel by droves as they tried to stop the advancing Spectres, but it took only a single shot from the lightning weapons to render them inoperable.
Two minutes after entering Grid D, the team is standing at an external door to the Geth ship. Murphy, Shepard, and Wrex stand aiming their rifles at the door while Tali hacks through the door and the rest of the team provides cover. Breath is held collectively as the holographic door display starts to blink, and then it opens and a massive Krogan leaps out the door and tackles Wrex.
The two Krogan go tumbling as the doorway clears and dozens of Geth start trying to push out against the humans. The mechanical soldiers are swiftly cut down, but the weapons the team had so eagerly collected proved to be ineffective against the Krogan . Their shots clearly took out the Battlemaster's shields, but either Krogan hardiness or something else was making it impossible to bring him down with their arc guns.
Wrex didn't mind, as the chance to beat down an enemy was always fun to the centuries old warlord. They traded headbuts, kicks, punches, and roars as they fall through the vacuum towards the lower level of Grid E.
"Wrex!" Shepard rushes to the edge of the ship and sees the pair slowly falling towards a distant ground. Seeing that the fall wouldn't kill anyone, and that the lower area was starting to swarm with Geth, he turns back to the team, "Kaidan, Liara, the three of us are going to assist Wrex. Murphy, Garrus, I leave taking the ship to you."
The other two members of his chosen squad nod and as one, they leap from the Geth Ship. The fall gives them time to line up a dozen shots, and they swiftly clear twenty yards around Wrex's soon to be landing site. They watch as the dueling Krogan punch, butt, and swipe at each other to see who will slam into the ground first.
Wrex, in the end, is the victor of that contest, slamming down on the other Krogan with both feet as they connect with the ground. He then launches himself up into the vacuum, the lessened gravity giving him twenty feet of extra height before he starts to fall. In that time he has pulled his massive turret from his back and flicked the dial to equip standard rounds. After only ten seconds of continuous fire, the Krogan on the ground is reduced to a bloody paste, with barely enough left to fill a doggy bag.
Shepard, Kaidan, and Liara land around the Krogan as he laughs in triumph. The jubilation continues as he turns his gun on the advancing Geth, and reduces them to scrap as well. The team hunkers down behind his massive bulk and starts to spread their fire, slowly tearing apart the Geth that surround them. Phasic rounds ding of shields and armor as the Geth press in, but the slaughter is very much one sided.
Shepard picks off flashlight heads left and right, Kaidan launches massive numbers of Geth into the air, and Liara compresses even more into spaces not meant to fit even a single of their number. All the while, Wrex laughs and mulches the synthetics stupid enough to get in front of his cannons.
Far above, Garrus and Murphy look down at Grid E, and the Turian Spectre asks, "Think they're having fun?"