2187 Ubtao

Inside the shuttle, the troopers heard little, but the walls of the fighter bay vibrated as the engines of the Kodiak screamed to life. Its brother craft, two other Kodiaks equally loaded with troops, left their respective docking bays almost in unison.

"Khar'Shan actual, this is Vulture Lead. We're spaceborne and initiating our run."

"Roger that, Vulture. Ladar is clear. You may proceed."

Arrayed around Vulture flight and their silent target was a third of the force amassed to guard the Delta 9 relay, comprised by mixed assets contributed by the quarian-geth fleet, Aria's private force and the Citadel's own navy. That navy was Hackett's legacy, and its founding had been a mere act of protocol. The challenge posed by the Reapers had done a great deal to integrate members of the most diverse species and services into a single cohesive fighting force, molded after the turian doctrine -which was, to be sure, the non plus ultra of military efficiency-. The posterior lack of hostile threats had turned this juggernaut into an armed disaster relief corps, but it had performed on that role as quickly and well as their depleted means had allowed, putting out fires all over Citadel space - and a few times on Terminus worlds, at their own behest. That had resulted into only less than a half of that immense fleet returning to the command of their respective species' governments, with the remainder organized into several Rapid Deployment Fleets flying under the Citadel's own flag.

To the Hades troops it had come as a surprise of sorts to be led by a former Cerberus officer - in this case, the once-lieutenant for the Illusive Man, Ms. Lawson. The briefing had been handled pretty much the same way it had been done on their old agency. Probably whoever had been in charge of setting up that mission had recognized the value of letting them work on their own terms, as opposed to shoving Alliance doctrine and tactics down their throats. They had been outfitted as a Cerberus force alright, down to the engineers packing their deployable turrets.

"Vulture flight, this is Lead, scatter and head in." The station was not particularly large, probably one third of the cruiser that had taken them there; if viewed from above it looked roughly oval in shape, but from the side it appeared to be a cube-like structure with rounded corners. Four likely ways inside had been identified: the first was a large hangar bay, but heavily armored metal doors prevented access for the moment. The second was a dome-like observation deck, and the remaining two appeared to be similar to airlocks.

"This is Vulture 2, acknowledged."

"This is Vulture 3, roger."

Vulture 1 and 2 packed each a mixed platoon of Hades and geth troops, twelve-strong. Vulture 3 did not have as many synthetics -only four, as opposed to seven for the other platoons-, and its remainder was comprised by a mixed troop: two krogan vanguard troops, turian and drell infiltrators, and a quartet of asari.


The lead ship in charge of operations on Andromeda space was the Citadel cruiser Khar'Shan, flanked by the quarian and Omega flagships. Their commanders were on their respective communication rooms, which had all linked with each other to create a virtual CIC where they all could follow the insertion teams as they made their way into the station - and could keep an eye on each other at the same time.

It was a familiar setup for Miranda, who had worked on such an environment during her stint as a Cerberus officer. It was not as familiar for Mikhailovich, T'Loak or Val'Akar, but they all had interests to keep eyes on. Even if, in the case of the quarian, they were not clearly understood. By mutual agreement, the human admiral was in charge of operational matters, with Aria and Val'Akar standing by to "provide advice if needed."

The asari kingpin kept a stony face as usual. She had had time enough to dwell privately on the possibilities. The mere presence of Omega near the relay guaranteed that the commerce flowing through her station would be squared more than once, without her having to spend a single credit on resource surveying or infrastructure development. Still, her help entitled her to mineral rights on a region of her choosing, that region being either a planet or an asteroid field, and she intended to make the most out of those rights. Whether she would use them herself or trade them to someone else, she would decide in the future.

"Actual, this is Vulture 3. Approaching LZ."

"Copy your approach warning, Three. You have green light." Miranda glanced at Mikhailovich.

"Devil flight, keep your eyes on the hangar bay. I don't want surprises today."

"You got that one right, boss," came the scratchy reply. On Miranda's board, the flight of strike craft moved to loiter right underneath the station, their noses and weapons pointed at the still-closed bay doors. If the idea of vorcha fighter pilots had been cause for laughter once, nobody was laughing now.


Aboard Vulture 2, the Hades squad already had unbuckled themselves and awaited the pilot's clearance. Two Phantoms -Tanaka and a similarly small girl, Martinsson- would be their point men and forward scouts. Krauze, the single engineer, packed two deployable turrets on his back, plus another one on a portable case. McGuinness and Bondarenko were their Centurions and heavy weapons specialists, the first one carrying a grenade launcher with a variety of loads, and the second one a recent addition to the Alliance armory: a direct energy weapon based on reverse engineered Collector technology.

The geth were more heavily armed, carrying an impressive assortment of rotary cannons, flamethrowers and anti-materiel rifles. They all were taller and heavier than their organic counterparts. Sachiko knew enough about the geth to tell that these were former Prime units, once hubs that had centralized geth processes - and highly valuable targets. The synthetics had recognized that, and had armed and armored these platforms accordingly. Now they would serve as their snipers and armor.

"Actual, this is Vulture 2," they heard the pilot report. "Approaching LZ."

"Copy your approach warning, Two," Lawson acknowledged. "You are cleared to go."

"That's our call, people," Bondarenko noted as squad leader. "Zero-g status?"

Krauze quickly checked the readouts he was getting from sensors on everyone's armor. "All is green."

"Open her up," the commanding Centurion told the Kodiak pilot. A nod, a few taps on the control panel, and amber warning lights started spinning. 'Alert, alert. Compartment is depressurizing,' a female synthetic voice warned.

The hatch opened. Air whooshed out. Their target was some scarce five meters away. It was a circular hatch door, with twin hexagonal panels set on each side but no visible instruments.

The geth went out first, twisting midjump to land with their feet on the hull around the airlock. Most of them trained their weapons on the closed pressure door, save for one who went to work to find an opening mechanism while the Hades troopers deployed.


Cirron had protested not being allowed to go, but the situation fell under the rules of engagement for first contact events and she could not be exposed so. Now her eyes were glued on the feeds of the troopers' helm-built cams. She held a key on her console and spoke:

"Beta, one of these panels surely is an emergency access hatch for a door release. They should have a switch to open them mechanically."

"Acknowledged." A few minutes later, it turned out to be that there was no such switch, and the plasma torches usually employed on boarding actions were unusually slow to cut through that alloy.

"And that's just a thin panel," Val'Akar mused.

"Akar-commander, the target's hull is polarized," Legion reported. A polarized hull disrupted plasma cutting tools, slowing down forced entry operations. "In all likelihood, our boarding action has been recognized as such and self-defense measures have triggered." This information was quickly relayed to the squads inside.

"Which means that any useful data has already been trashed," T'Loak mumbled with irritation.


Some twenty-odd laborious minutes later, two of the geth forced the inner airlock doors open; they were very heavy and would not budge easily. The engineer inspected the dark corridor that yawned before them. The walls were mostly smooth, save for a few places with mosaic-like metal slabs of different colors and shapes, all geometric ones.

"All teams, be advised we are picking up power surges inside," their commanding officer warned through the radio. "Expect active countermeasures."

"Roger," Bondarenko acknowledged. Three of the geth took point, to cloak and vanish into the darkness a few steps later. Martinsson and Tanaka followed them.

The corridor led into another with several closed doors. The engineer and the geth inspected two of those: they were equally locked with a few small lights turned on on adjacent panels. Krauze turned towards his commander and shook his head. "No way we're going to open these without a blowtorch, sir."

The Centurion queried his HUD for a report on the other teams' progress: they were similarly slowed down. Alpha squad was tasked with locating and securing the station's power source, while Gamma's objective was finding the central control room and the mainframe, if there was any here. Their goal was to secure the hangar and open it to allow for the shuttles to land. "We can deal with these later. Keep going."


They had traversed a few corridors in near-pitch black obscurity when something clicked in the darkness.

The two Phantoms froze on their tracks.

Seeing them stop, Bondarenko raised a bunched fist, and the rest of his squad stopped as well.

The geth on the vanguard advanced into the large square chamber, weapons raised, their steps echoing loudly in the darkness.

Then the hall and the passageways were flooded with searing light, some of the mosaic-like geometric panels snapped open, and the air turned thick with small flyers.

At once, Tanaka jumped backwards, towards the rest of her squad, and raised a defensive bubble, while Martinsson did likewise to protect the geth vanguard. It worked. The things, whatever they were, could not penetrate the shields, and quickly clustered over them like ravenous locusts denied their meal.


"Collector swarms?!" Mikhailovich asked in astonishment.

Miranda was taking pict-captures using the troopers' helm-built cameras. "Not quite," she noted. Instead of a brownish, overgrown flea with wicked talons and two pairs of wings, this flyer resembled a dull silver beetle with monstrously huge fangs-

"What is that?"


Sachiko knew that something was wrong when the swarm of artificial insects took flight to become once again a cloud that filled the room-

-and spiderlike, multiple-legged contraptions appeared on the corridor on the other side of the room. They had no immediately noticeable sensors nor visible lights.

"Krauze, talk to me," Bondarenko demanded tersely. The engineer was running scans on the constructs that approached tersely.

"Picking up dark energy emissions, sir... significant ones..."

Two of the four constructs started climbing the wall, their 'heads' kept pointed at Tanaka's group.

"Prepare to take a shot at them," Martinsson whispered at the geth. "I'm blinking the barrier."

At once, one of the synthetics put a knee to the ground and brought its massive sniper rifle to bear. The Phantom started a countdown on her omnitool... five... four... three... two... one...

As one, the swarm again clustered over the shield. A small panel on the heads of the two spiders facing Martinsson slid upwards, split into two, and revealed a blue-greenish light behind. There was a blinding flash as the flyers on top of Martinsson's shield exploded with a burst of greenish lightning, followed by the cascading blasts of shockwaves: a single scream cut short by a thunderous blast, and the Phantom was sent flying back towards her squad. The synthetics dropped their arms limply to the sides and twitched briefly-

"Synth unit, fire at will!" Bondarenko ordered. Tanaka dropped her shield and their complement of geth stepped forward immediately to form a defensive shield. There was a flash of fire and smoke as one of the flamethrowers turned part of the swarm into charred metal husks. A Widow rifle boomed: one of the spiderlike constructs erupted in a shower of sparks.

Sachiko caught a glimpse of another blue-green flash and readied herself: the construct lobbed a whirling blob of energy their way. She followed the spherical attack with her eyes, took a deep breath, and exhaled quickly as she projected a shockwave of her own that coalesced right in contact with the sphere, causing it to explode into a black hole-like singularity. At once the swarm reacted to keep clear of its pull.

"Good work, Tanaka, keep at it!" The squad spread to the left, towards the writhing Phantom that had been knocked against the wall. The grenade launcher of the other Centurion spat a round with a few sparks, and lightning exploded over the other spider. A few of the tiny fliers dropped to the floor, but the biotic construct was apparently unharmed by the attack.

"Attack ineffective, sir, they resist EM rounds," McGuinness reported coolly. There was another flash of light as Tanaka countered another biotic assault, and riposted with a barrage of her own. The construct turned ablaze with brilliant blue fire.

Krauze quickly realized that Martinsson was not squirming on her own, but her powered armor was triggering every first aid response built into it, including cardiac arrest countermeasures. He queried her suit and implants with feverish speed. She was alive, but unless that arrhytmia got under control they would lose her. "Sir, we need to get her out of here, now!"

Bondarenko took aim and pulled the trigger on his particle cannon. The burning lance of energy vaporized every flyer it touched. The swarm reacted with near-human urgency and clustered protectively around the remaining spider, but to no avail. A violent explosion filled the room with shrapnel. He queried his helm-built HUD for a status report on his squad: McGuinness and Tanaka had taken a couple of scratches, but were otherwise unharmed.

"Commander, the two remaining targets have retreated into the ducts used by the swarms to pour in," one of the geth informed. The gnatlike things also were seemingly vacating the room, pushed back by the geths' flamethrowers.

"How are your... fellows?"

"Platforms are not immediately recoverable."

The Centurion quickly assessed his options. Out of the four men and seven synthetics he had entered the station with, he was down to three troops beside himself and four geth heavies. One third of his strength gone. "Command, this is beta, we're digging in on this corridor. We're going to need heavier numbers if we are to storm this station."

"Acknowledged. Secure the position and stand by for reinforcements."

Then he turned to McGuinness: "Take two of the geth and get Martinsson back to the shuttle ASAP."

"Yes sir."


"They're synthetics, by the looks of it." Bondarenko's camera was focused on the remains of the spider-like construct that had not exploded. It seemed made of mechanical parts alright, and there were neither blood nor fluids around. "Ma'am, this thing is oozing with dark energy."

"I'm seeing the readings." Miranda had watched the fight not so much with apprehension, but with detached interest instead.

Val'Akar mumbled, "Synthetic biotic users..."

"Whoever-whatever they are, they have an understanding of biotics that surpasses anything we know," Cirron commented clinically. "It's been speculated as possible; after all, biotic talents are produced by stimulation of eezo nodules in the brain, but they take many years of training to develop and hone."

"Status on the other teams?" Mikhailovich asked.

"Also holding their positions," the former Cerberus officer replied. Teams Alpha and Beta had both sustained casualties. Team Gamma had made way into the station relatively unhindered, but had been hit in force by the sentries and had been forced to retreat. So far they had not lost anyone, probably because of their heavier biotic strength.

She watched an engineer of Hades Alpha who, assisted by a geth, was cannibalizing a Widow rifle to turn one of his turrets into a stationary anti-materiel gun. The same was being attempted by Beta squad. "Sir, I suggest we send in the N7 teams and Javik's troop."

"Approved," Mikhailovich nodded. "Alert Vega and Williams."


'Javik's troop' was a twenty-strong unit that called themselves the Revenants. As any military unit, the motto was in part intimidating, and it was well deserved in their case: that motley crew was slowly making a name for itself because of their near-suicidal disregard for danger and their absolute ruthlessness. But that name also hinted at their destroyed pasts, since, like all of the Prothean's crew, they had nothing to care for outside the Victory's hull.

The Centurion in command of Hades Beta watched Javik approach and saluted. "Lieutenant Bondarenko reporting, sir."

The Prothean nodded curtly. "We have brought extra loadouts for your troops, lieutenant. Those Mattock rifles you have are inadequate here."

"Right you are, sir... they appear pretty well armored." The weapons were straight out of the Victory's own armory: particle rifles and cannons, and flamethrowers for the geth. Bondarenko hefted a rifle: "Never saw those, sir."

"Save your thermal clips for your sidearm, captain, those weapons do not need them."

He left Bondarenko to the business of rearming his squad and studied the hall. A hundred-odd of the small flyers dotted the floor; a few were still flying around. Slowly he crouched and laid his fingers on the floor. The hall was thick with the tension and dread and vertigo of the brief gunfight, but little else. Time and the environmental systems of the station had destroyed any traces of other people having been there. Then he repeated the operation on the destroyed construct - with identical effect. He glanced first at the corridor on the other end of the hall, then at the ceiling duct through which the insect-like swarm and the larger constructs had retreated. He turned towards the Hades Centurion. "Stay... on your toes. I doubt we've seen the last of those synthetics."

"I couldn't agree more with that, sir," the man nodded.

Then a light flashed on Javik's omni-tool. He tapped it: "Yes?"

"Captain, you may want to press forward ASAP." It was Cirron. "We've just picked up a major surge of dark energy emissions from the lower levels of the station."

The prothean shook his head. "Let me guess. Some sort of self-destruct sequence."

"I can't tell, but if each of the small signatures we're reading corresponds to one of these spider droids, then they're clustering up there."

"Compose a map with those readouts and have it patched through to everyone," he ordered. Then he raised his voice: "Everyone listen up! It appears the enemy is protecting its power source to delay us until it self destructs. We're moving out right now." He pointed at the geth: "You, on the vanguard and the rearguard, in pairs."

"Acknowledged."

They strode forward into the corridor, coming across several sealed doors. "Professor, I need some directions, and I need them fast."

"Oh, sure, captain... there should be a large blast door by the end of that corridor, on the right wall. You open that and it should lead into a stairwell."

"Readouts?"

"None there, captain."

"It's an ideal place to put a sentry gun, sir," the Centurion leader cautioned.

"Not to mention something worse than that."

The blast door seemed thick and heavy alright - very similar to the heavy airlock doors, Javik realized. "Zero-g check, everyone."

Krauze strode forward and got to work on the door. "20 seconds, sir."

The Prothean considered having him put an optic fiber wire through the door to look at the other side, but there was neither time enough for a cautious approach, nor a way to know what the fixed defenses could look like. "Hurry!"

One of the geth switched its flamethrower for a particle cannon and took position at the side of the door while the other stood by to pry it open. Krauze put away his blow torch: "It's a go!"

The prime forced the door open - and it was immediately engulfed by a swarm of scarabs. "PULL BACK! PULL BACK!" Javik bellowed. There was a brief flash of fire before Krauze was overwhelmed by the cloud of flyers, and then they only heard his shrieking. A burst of green light set the bugs ablaze and a shockwave followed it a split-second later, causing a spectacular detonation - but it was too late for the engineer.

The other geth brought again his fire weapon to bear and flooded the corridor with a stream of burning fuel. The gnatlike robots were incinerated, allowing the Revenants and the remainder of Beta squad to witness the grisly fate of Krauze: it had taken mere instants for the things to flay him alive. The geth prime had fared better; its frame leaked white liquid in many places, but was still functional.

"Actual, we have a KIA, ensign Dieter Krauze," Bondarenko reported quietly.

"Understood," Miranda acknowledged from the other side, her voice equally cool.

The undamaged geth walked past the bloody mess into the stairs proper, holding the swarms at bay. Javik took a second to assess the damage sustained by its comrade, and to nod briefly at Sachiko for her quick reactions.

There was another door at the bottom end of the stairs. One of the Revenants got it open, to immediately retreat behind the protection of two geth primes that promptly burned the swarms on the other side to ashes. On their commander's orders, two krogans toting particle cannons followed behind closely, their HUDs slaved to the geths' sensors. There was another corridor, albeit a shorter one-

"Spiders!" one of them warned and loosed a shot. The lance of energy blew the construct to pieces. The remaining three threw up a defensive screen blocking the corridor - or tried to. One moment the other krogan was taking a step backwards, and the next, one of the constructs was being sent flying against the wall as the battlemaster hit it with a biotic charge. A jump, a fist smashing on the floor, and a shockwave threw the other two on their sides. Particle beams and Widow shots dealt with them.

"Door!" Two salarian Revenants rushed to get it open, geth standing by with flamethrowers.

"Cirron!" Javik barked.

"Large room on the other side, by the looks of it... I'm getting many readings clustered together..."

"Too many for a blind heads-on assault..." The Prothean looked at his engineers. "Send out scout droids!"

"Yes sir!"

The krogans latched each on one of the door panels and pulled them to the sides, while the geth stood guard with flamethrowers in hand. The salarians produced spheroidal devices from their backpacks, turned them on, and programmed commands on their omni-tools. The spheroids circled in place twice, then crossed the threshold.

Javik followed their progress on his own omni-tool. It looked awful. The room was not simply large, it was vast. The door led to a gangway overlooking huge devices, pipes and machinery of all sizes; they had to run some ten-odd steps to a stair down, entirely into the open, completely exposed, without cover of any kind. Clouds of flyers went about menacingly. Most of the constructs-

"Those are new." The screen was displaying bipedal droids, armored like the spiders, again with no visible eyes or sensors. Their arms ended in articulated hands wielding heavy long-barreled weapons.

"They appear broadly similar to us, Javik-commander," one of the geth primes judged.


"I wonder what those weapons would do," Val'Akar mused.

"Anti-materiel guns, most likely," Miranda commented. "Biotics on one side, heavy weapons specialists on the other. One disables the target, the other neutralizes it."

"How many are there?"

"There's too much clutter in the hall," Javik replied. "If we can see eight, think there's fifteen or more."

"Finesse isn't going to cut it here." Aria spoke for the first time. "Every moment we dawdle that station inches closer to exploding."

Lawson and Mikhailovich looked at each other. The admiral sighed. "Status on the other teams?"

"Alpha team should be converging on the location, sir."

"Just a few seconds until we get this door open," Ashley reported. "We have four vanguards among us. Javik's team has six. If those readings are correct there's about thirty targets in there."

"Shock and awe is not going to cut it there, chica," Vega intervened. His Gamma team was too far to contribute anything other than tactical advice. "There's those swarms to worry about too."

"My men can handle those," Javik replied. "Reliably."

Miranda considered it. It was going to require extremely tight coordination. With that many biotic-capable droids in there anyone who got their shields down would be dead in the water. "Legion, you're in charge of directing this engagement. Pick individual objectives for each squad member as they are detected and neutralized."

"Acknowledged."

A few instants later: "Alpha team is in position."

"Alpha and Beta, readiness check."

Javik resented being directed by a synthetic, but he could not fault Lawson's reasoning. No organic mind could react to such a complex scenario quickly enough. He made sure his troops were all prepared and loadouts were adequate.

"Hades Beta is ready, sir," he heard Bondarenko report.

"Beta team is prepared to go," the prothean reported in turn.

Something rumbled lowly within the huge room, sending shivers down everyone's spines. "Alpha team is ready."

"Until the engagement is over, you will only heed commands on my part," Legion instructed.

"Roger that," Williams acknowledged.

"Understood," Javik echoed.

Muscles tensed and teeth clenched in anticipation. Then the order flashed on everyone's heads-up display: "Execute."


Sachiko anticipated being ordered to take part on the opening barrage. Singularities appeared all over the room as over a dozen biotics unleashed their power, pinning the bulk of the flayer swarms into place. Then the vanguards attacked, charging at their spider targets and smashing them to bits.

That drew upon them the attention of the androids, who brought their weapons to bear and fired. The weapons in question were portable laser cannons, the kind of thing usually outfitted on the hull of starships as part of their GARDIAN point-defense systems. Only Reaper technology could produce barriers capable of protecting against focused laser beams.

Legion knew that there was no way to tell what the enemy would bring to bear upon them, that being the reason for sending vanguards forward. As close combat specialists their defenses were supposed to withstand extreme amounts of damage, and this was one such case. All the vanguards took laser hits, with the krogan drawing the fire of two simultaneous shooters.

Nobody could withstand that kind of assault for long, but that was where the shooters came to fore. Particle cannons were new tech based on Collector artifacts, and chewed through armor and barriers like they were not there. They performed as expected. A dozen beams lanced through the darkness, piercing through each of their android objectives. Legion's choice of targets meant that some of the particle lances found two androids per shot.

Then, the biotics lit up the targets clustered around the singularities. The Revenants had picked up Javik's lessons and plastered the swarms with unstable and persistent fields of warping energy that ate through them like fire through paper. The resulting explosions sent a hail of flechette-like shrapnel all over the hall. Some of the biotics, suddenly without a target, were directed to countering the assaults of the few remaining spiderlike constructs that remained until they were dealt with.

With a swift swing of her blade, Sachiko stroke the last android down. The whole engagement lasted fourteen seconds.


Mikhailovich did not allow his relief to show. "Casualties?"

Miranda was compiling the reports. "No fatalities. Sixteen wounded. We have to immediately evacuate Kreitmann, Kryszycha and Lemarchand."

"Send a medical detail ASAP. And I don't care how, get that reactor stabilized!"