AN
So, it has been a long time since I updated this on FFN. I take all the blame, of course. I procrastinated. Even as I kept on writing, I neglected the final FFN versions of chapters, including putting aside the work of my proofreader. I guess things have just been so hectic, it seemed easy to say 'I'll do it tomorrow' or 'I'll have more time between assays, and I'll do it on my laptop.' Stupid excuses. But no point dwelling on them. I'll just try and play catchup.
So, how about a recap?
When we left off, last chapter, Ilena Thanoptis and Annabel Shepard were introduced to their new crop of Eclipse recruits by Corporal Catherine "Catty" Chambers, and the decision was made to focus Eclipse's activities and efforts in the Eagle Nebula, leading up to certain undisclosed XCOM objectives on Korlus. Before that, however, Ilena and Eclipse's command opt to give their new recruits a test. They're about to launch a raid of their own, and hit the slavers of the Batarian Hegemony hard, while their forces are still committed to the ongoing civil war.
(9)
"Daro! My favorite quarian is back!"
"Keelah," the be-suited quarian groaned, held aloft by Eclipse's resident hyperactive asari. Ilena squeezed her in a bear-hug that many krogan would probably consider a prelude to a life or death challenge, spinning the lithe dextro woman around in a happy circle.
"The bucket-head is back!" she sing-songed.
"So is the idiot," Daro drolly replied, tapping the top of Ilena's head with one long finger. "Now let me go. Your irrational exuberance has already worn thin."
"What?" Ilena asked, "Already?"
"It never takes long."
"Fine. Fine."
Letting go, Daro landed easily on her feet and took a moment to brush off her encounter suit, as if too much asari had gotten rubbed into it. Despite the recent alteration of greater transparency and less overt tint in her faceplate, Daro'Xen's suit looked mostly the same as before. Black and white was her preferred color contrast, heavier on the black than the white. A more recent addition, however, was a patch added to her chest just above her left breast: a small bulbous outline of liveship surrounded by stars. It was around the same spot where Ilena had seen humans back on Arcturus wearing patches with strange colors, mostly in the form of bars or crosses.
"Daro'Xen," Shepard greeted the quarian rather more cordially.
She held out her hand, and Daro shook it amiably. "Major." She then also extended a three-fingered hand to corporal Chambers. "Corporal."
"Miss Xen," Chambers replied, shaking the quarian's hand.
"Chambers," Ilena whispered to the human woman. "Go on, give her a hug! Quarians love hugs."
Daro easily overheard the suggestion and nipped any possibility of it in the bud. "I prefer not to be snapped in half, so please don't."
"I'm not big on hugs either," Shepard stated.
"And for that matter, close physical contact is not something quarians as a people take lightly," Daro added with a bit more reproach. "Despite what you may have heard in Fleet and Flotilla."
"Are you saying The Vids have lied to me?" Ilena asked, leaning in close to the quarian engineer.
Daro smirked, an expression no longer hidden behind a tinted visor. "The onus is on fools who believe everything they see and hear, I think."
"We'll see how your tune changes once you get out of that suit," Ilena promised, but quickly leaned back and out of the other woman's personal space. She crossed her arms over her chest. "Now, more importantly: I heard you had guns and killer robots for me. It isn't my birthed-day, but I accept! Let's see what you brought back from the farm!"
"Of course." Daro'Xen was always happy to get right to business, especially when that business was science. Doubly so when that was applied science, or, rather: science applying itself to you …violently. She motioned for Ilena, Shepard, and the more quiet Corporal Chambers to follow her. "This way."
"How was your time in Arcturus-" Chambers posed the question a little cautiously, "-if you don't mind my asking?"
"The humans… you humans… were very friendly," Daro'Xen replied, leading the small group towards a large cargo crate. It was one of a few that had been loaded onto the AML Tevura just recently, along with a small science staff. They were all human, but also currently in disguise. In time, they would all likely either have the full asari disguise administered, or they would use the combination of armor (or clothing) and a VI projection as a mask.
"Friendly?" Ilena repeated, all but begging for a more juicy description of just how friendly the humans had been.
"The research staff in particular impressed me," Daro deftly sidestepped the query and moved onto a topic she preferred. "Doctor Vahlen's experience is truly extraordinary; I took the time to read and study her interrogation techniques and methodology… I believe they could be applied to the geth as well, with a few modifications of my own design of course. I mean, just think of what we could learn by unraveling their distributed intelligence, thread by thread!"
She began to wring her hands together eagerly, as if imagining the geth code fragments already under her tender ministrations.
"Qael and Duyo's theories on geth node specialization could be proven overnight!" She giggled at the prospect.
Giggles from Daro'Xen - it was a little weird.
"But that's a project for another time," the young quarian reminded herself, only then seeming to notice her hand-wringing. Her hands quickly flew apart and returned to rest by her hips. "I know Shepard and Chambers here are familiar with these mechs, but I believe this will be your first time…"
Craning her neck slightly, Daro'Xen puckered her lips and whistled a tune of four notes.
She then held out her hand, as if waiting for something. Ilena craned her neck curiously, blinking, and almost missed a fast moving silver blur that circled wide around the group with hardly more than a gentle hum. Jumping in surprise at the near buzzing, she focused on the shape that had appeared, hovering, over Daro'Xen's extended hand.
It was some sort of robot, about the size of an asari or human torso. It possessed a spherical central pod with strips of neon-blue light crossing over the front to meet in what could only be a glowing eye or some other aperture. Four segmented arms extended out from the body, and at least for the time being, all four extended forward like claws on a hand. They twitched and clicked eagerly in a way that made Ilena just a little bit uneasy. Two more sections extended further back around and past the spherical body, like folded wings, and each one was studded by strange looking nubs and a number of tiny hair-like cilia.
"A bug mech!" Ilena dubbed it.
"This is our modified version of the human's standard drone," Daro'Xen explained, pointedly ignoring Ilena's outburst. "Only two races, to my knowledge, have fielded drones of this size: quarians, before we left Rannoch, and the humans. Eclipse is going to have two faces soon. The first is asari… this goes without question, but the second will be quarian! We will once again make our presence felt through our technology and our technological expertise – something the galaxy has taken pains to forget or bury from the history vids. We will remind them."
Realizing she was close to launching into a new spiel, Daro paused and shook her free hand.
"But that is neither here nor there for now," she said, and went back to the drone. "Since we are still using gravitic propulsion via Elerium, only a miniscule mass effect generator is required. Instead, that space and power is used for other systems, most notably a formidable kinetic barrier. Armor on the original version was cydonium, but here, we're using more conventional metallurgy. This means that it is only lightly armored, should the shields fail."
"The maneuverability and evasion of the original drones is retained," Shepard stated. It wasn't a question; she clearly considered it so important it was non-negotiable on the battlefield.
"Most definitely," Daro assured her. "We've retained as much as we can from the original model."
"Then it still has a plasma weapon?" Chambers asked her.
"No." Daro shook her head. "That was deemed to be too exotic. The weapons instead come in two flavors. The first is a laser system designed to appear as a modified GARDIAN array. As everyone knows, General Area Defense Integration Anti-spacecraft lasers are bulky and burn out due to overheating. Human laser systems do not have the same limitations, but we also don't want to draw attention to this fact. The proposed laser-armed drones would be designed to shoot once or twice and then withdraw or 'play dead,' giving the impression of their only being good for a very limited number of rounds."
"But how would that-"
"But!" Daro cut Chambers off before she could ask her question. "The drones playing dead or withdrawing would then cycle out their IDs and appearance and return to the field moments later, giving the impression of a swarm four or five times the actual size. Sensor spoofing and false EM chatter can easily be used to support this ruse."
"It is an interesting idea," Shepard conceded, nodding her head in approval at the quarian's deceptive scheme.
"It is not without risks, of course," Daro'Xen admitted with a dismissive shrug. "But it is a possibility, especially in mixed formations with standard drones. GARDIAN or laser-type drones might be more easily used as space assets in this way. This little fellow here-" She tickled the underside of the drone with her finger. "-has the more conventional mass accelerator armament."
"Where?" Ilena asked, making a show of examining the floating robot hovering over her friend's hand. "I don't see any gun pods."
"The mass accelerator is integrated into the body of the drone," Daro explained, and pointed to the glowing aperture in the front. "Right here in the middle. Due to the fact that the barrel is so short, the design team ultimately decided against trying to integrate a large mass effect rifle or machinegun into the chassis. Instead, we mated an old quarian weapons proposal – disintegrating plasma generating toroidal ammunition – with a tiny human micro-grenade launcher."
"Disintegrating what now?" Ilena asked, raising a quizzical (painted on) eyebrow. "I consider myself a connoisseur of all things exploding and mass accelerating, but I've never heard of this before."
"The name is self-explanatory," Daro replied, sniggering at Ilena's apparently confusion. "But I will explain, regardless. The theory behind the weapon goes all the way back to before our war with the geth: instead of your typical ammunition, shaved off a block, we use a layered substrate of clustered superconducting toroids. The weapon separates either one or several from each cluster as appropriate and then accelerates it, in our case, at a comparatively low velocity. The toroids shatter on impact, disintegrating, and arcs of electricity flash between the clouds of particles turning them instantly into plasma… and x-rays. But who doesn't like x-rays?"
"So… it's like a cheap-o version of one of the human plasma blasters?" Ilena nodded sagely. "I see."
"A cheap-o version of…?" Daro'Xen growled, only barely calming herself and counting audibly to ten. "The weapons system will prove itself in the field, I assure you. According to what I've been told, damage is virtually identical to the original war-era drones, but with much greater range. I should add that the quarian people have been trying and failing to get a working version of this technology off the ground for almost a century. I expect it to be repatriated… eventually."
"And in the meantime, if anyone investigates our drones they'll just find a quarian drone using a quarian weapons system, perfected by a particularly brilliant quarian," Shepard realized, and smiled approvingly. "I like it."
Daro, meanwhile, seemed to like being called 'a particularly brilliant quarian.'
"Thank you, Major," she beamed, however briefly.
"What about the repair systems?" Chambers asked, hands on her hips. "It isn't a drone in our books unless it can repair other mechs."
"We have retained that ability as well," Daro'Xen promised, and pointed to the folded-in struts on the underside and top-side of the drone. "Here and here. The MELD reservoirs are identical to what you're used to, distributed by a low-velocity concussion charge that releases an aerosol."
"MELD?" Ilena pointed up to her face. "You mean the stuff you guys put in my eyes? You can repair stuff with it, too?"
"That's what drones like this are mostly used for," Chambers told her. "They're repair drones, not really combat drones."
"Really?" Ilena crossed her arms again and tapped her bicep impatiently as she thought. "That's pretty handy, I guess, but… I mean, what is this MELD stuff, anyway? You can put it in your eyes and then shoot it as a broken robot and it'll fix the robot? How does it work?"
Shepard seemed on the verge of answering… when she thought better of it. "I'm not entirely sure myself," she admitted.
Chambers looked a bit bashful, even though her new asari-disguise. "I only know the basics."
"Explaining even what little I know about MELD would take hours-" Daro brought a hand up to her helmet to cover a snicker. "-or in your case, idiot, more than a day."
Ilena stamped her foot. "Hey!"
"But basically," the quarian went on to say, "MELD is a form of synthetic cell or micro-machine. More the former than the latter…"
"So I have GRAY GOO in my EYES!" Ilena cried, hands flying up to her face. "Get it out! Get it out!"
"I'm a little surprised you even know what 'gray goo' is," Daro'Xen observed, waiting a second before sticking out her hand to stop the flailing asari maiden from further freaking out… or at least to keep her from freaking out too close by. "Calm down, you idiot."
"I'm not an idiot!" Ilena yelled, lowering her hands but still holding onto her panic. "I've seen 'The Glob!' The one where quarian nano-machines eat that town!" She pointed back to her face. "I have those in my eyes, buckethead. My eyes."
"MELD cells aren't able to reproduce or multiply," Daro explained, slowly, so Ilena was sure to get it. "There is no possibility of them blowing your eyes out from the inside and then consuming you and growing into an amorphous menace that is only stopped by the onset of winter and a plucky young krogan protagonist and his insufferable asari girlfriend."
"… okay," Ilena lowered her hands again. "That was awfully specific, but okay. Are you sure?"
Shepard coughed, catching the maiden's attention. "Ilena. I have more than ten times the MELD in my body that you do. And Daro'Xen is correct. MELD is incapable of multiplication by itself."
"So where does it come from then?" she asked. "Shepard?"
The human glanced off to the side for just a moment. "It comes from… MELD canisters."
"That's right," Catherine 'Catty' Chambers quickly agreed with her commanding officer. "MELD canisters!"
"Buckethead?" Ilena asked.
"I have no idea." The quarian engineer shrugged in a non-verbal apology. "The humans manufacture it somehow. We were sent here with two canisters of it, 500 milliliters each."
She pointed off to the side, to a pair of sleek pyramid-shaped objects on a hover-trolley.
"MELD can be used for field repairs. Aside from that, why not leave the specifics to the techs?" Shepard suggested, and Ilena warily found herself agreeing.
"I guess…" she said, and turned her MELD-enhanced eyes to the still hovering drone that was now keeping in place next to Daro's left shoulder. "So what else can it do? And what if someone catches one? I thought we needed to be careful with MELD and Elerium and stuff?"
Daro tilted her head towards the friendly drone. "It blows up, too."
"What!"
"Rather spectacularly." Daro cupped her hands together and mimed a huge explosion as her hands flew apart. "It blasted a krogan corpse we had on the test range into little tiny bits. You could fit them in a cup."
Ilena spent a long second or three trying to imagine Daro actually putting little krogan bits into a cup. She couldn't dismiss the fact that the nutty quarian might just have actually done it: making krogan-in-a-cup. She gagged a little.
"The explosion is another feature we retained from the original design," Daro went on to explain. "The default is simply that it self-immolates without hyperwave transmissions refreshing its operational status. Tests have shown that, aside from some residual exotic radiation, no Elerium or MELD survives either self-destruct. We're confident it can be fielded at minimal risk."
"Sounds good," Shepard approved.
"How many do we have?" Ilena asked, and Daro whistled again, sending her pet drone flying up and off to the far end of the cruiser's hangar.
"How many drones…?" Daro'Xen asked in return, turned towards one of the cargo crates, and gestured towards it as it slid open.
Inside the crate was row after row of the little mechs, stacked neatly on pallets.
"Two hundred and fifty," she answered over her shoulder. "And-" the quarian woman smirked again, this time wide enough to show a row of small but rather sharp teeth. "-this is only the beginning. Eclipse and the quarians are getting back into the mech business."
The asari Spectre's boots left tracks on the checkered pink and white marble, her armored form slipping in and out of the shadows of the yawning pillars to her right. Glancing off to her side, Tela Vasir caught a glimpse of a flock of glittering golden dartflies rising up from the serene blue pool that flanked the veranda. The dartflies were a Khar'shan species exported to Mountain and Cloud Caste enclaves throughout the hegemony for their beauty, both visual and olfactory. The golden ones were a genetically engineered breed: their wings fluoresced in the ultraviolet spectrum only batarians could see with any clarity and they left a fragrant (to batarians anyway) scent whenever and wherever they flew.
It was less the dartflies that caught Tela's eye and more the woman they fluttered towards: a pale blue asari in a meager golden dress. Tiny, delicate chains could be seen in gaps in the fabric, including where those fine decorative chains pinched into the woman's skin and flesh. Tela watched as the other asari held up a bowl of sugar-water to feed the decorative insects. They were as much a part of the scenery of the garden as she was, and neither species was free to leave.
The servant woman finally noticed the Spectre and watched her walk by with wide, pleading eyes.
Tela Vasir looked away, instead focusing on the sound of excited yips near the end of the walkway. Her boots clicked against the stone as she descended a series of steps. Up ahead was the kennel.
An excited green varren caught her eye as she rounded the corner of the manse. It was trailing a leash behind it, a leash that eventually ended in the hand of a tall krogan in light armor. The krogan was running at a leisurely pace alongside the varren, holding a long stick in his hand with a bright red bauble at the end. Passing by a plastic and steel mockup of an asarioid, the krogan tapped the dummy with the tip of the stick. Instantly, the varren on the leash spun – the skip in its loping step gone – and savagely tore into the target dummy.
Attack varren: they were ugly things, but krogan and batarians loved them.
Tela continued to walk, utterly nonplussed by either the savage varren on the krogan's leash or by the barking of the dozen brothers and sisters it had kept behind kennel cages. A rainbow of guard varren pawed at their bars and snapped their toothy fishy jaws in her direction, alarmed by the unexpected intruder. Tela put one hand on her hip and the other right next to the grip of her Spectre-custom handgun.
The krogan varren trainer barely turned to acknowledge her existence.
"You're the one?" he asked slowly. Or maybe just cautiously.
"I'm here to see my friend," she told him. "I heard he's around here?"
"He's around," the krogan grumbled with distaste. "With the master of the house. That one is nothing but trouble; the sooner he leaves the better." He turned back to the dark green varren and snapped. "Ya! Ya! Come on now!"
"Thanks for the tip," the Council Spectre quipped, walking past the kennel of killer fishdogs.
The placid back acres of the plantation stretched out before her, and like so many things batarian, it was terraced to represent the castes supposedly inherent in nature. The central mansion was on the highest point, the servants and lesser structures all at least a tier below. A, aged salarian groundskeeper, who had to be pushing forty cycles, glanced up at her for only a moment before setting his eyes back down to the clippers in his hands. He stole one last, quick look at the Spectre before putting the manor's "guest" out of his mind and returning to trimming the razor-hedges.
Tela Vasir ignored him and soon found what she was looking for.
It was the so called "master of the house" that gave his position away, actually. The batarian lordling wore a brilliant white and gold sherwani studded with artificial rubies. He was pleading with a rather less fancifully dressed krogan in scuffed and weathered dark red armor. The krogan had a rust-red crest to match the color of his old armor. It was him.
"Ah, ah, Miss Vasir," the batarian master demurred at her approach, his head lolling side to side as he bowed. "How pleasant. How lovely! Do you see, my friend? You have such esteemed company! Surely there is food for you both inside?"
"Vasir," the krogan rumbled, not turning to acknowledge her appearance or arrival. He held up a rather large snap-trout by the tail. "Was just about to fry up some fish; want some?"
"Sir! Friend!" The batarian lord wrung his hands together like a shy quarian. "Please, that fish is over fifty cycles old! It was a gift to my father from-"
The krogan grasped the sharp-toothed predatory fish by the back of its dangerous head, snapping its neck with an audible crack. The batarian in gold and ruby recoiled at the sound and visibly deflated in dismay.
"From?" the krogan asked, turning slightly; just enough so Tela could see him in profile. "Who was it from?"
The batarian lord balled his fists in impotent rage, turned on his heels, and matched away.
"I pray to every god that our mutual friend sent you to take this beast off my hands," he whispered to Tela as he stormed back to his mansion and his slaves.
"Heh," the krogan scoffed, not even waiting for the man to be out of earshot. He tossed the meaty body of the fish over his shoulder like a sack of fruit.
"Was that really necessary?" Tela felt she had to ask.
"Not really," the krogan admitted with a dark chuckle. "But I enjoyed it all the same."
Burrno Trodox was an influential batarian. Not that his influence did much to keep him out of the Shadow Broker's pockets. In fact, it was just that influence that made him such a valuable pawn. A man with a lot to lose would do so much more to hold onto it… and Burrno had everything in the galaxy to lose if he fell out of the Broker's favor. Death would only be the merciful end of it. The Hegemony's internal security and secret police would see to that.
"Urdnot Wrex," Tela said, and the use of his name didn't elicit a response. "Our mutual friend sent me to pick you up."
"Is that so?" Wrex asked, turning to slowly tromp back to the house to fry up his fish. "What's the deal then, Vasir?"
"Eclipse."
Wrex paused, mid-step.
"Eclipse," he repeated.
"Tell me about them," the Spectre demanded. "Tell me about what happened on the Glorious Harsa. You're the only one to face them and escape alive," she reminded him and he scoffed dismissively. "Why else do you think our mutual friend kept you alive and safe here, in the lap of luxury?"
"You mean it wasn't because of my sunny disposition?" Wrex asked.
"Sorry to break it to you, but no," she replied, "Time to share what you know." Vasir had her hands on her hips, but her thumb brushed by the loop of her pistol. "Is there going to be a problem?"
"No, I don't mind repeating the same story twice," the big krogan answered after a lengthy pause where he almost seemed to be weighing his options. "If you have the credits, that is."
He waved to her with his free hand, motioning for her to follow him back to the rear of the mansion.
"I'll tell you about Eclipse," he promised, heading towards an old outdoor grill. "Does this mean you've picked up my contract?"
"It does."
"For how long?"
"As long as it takes."
"NO! No! No! No!" the girl wailed as a pair of gauntleted hands restrained her, a third hand cuffing her before roughly wrenching the M-4 Shuriken out of her meager grip. Thrown backwards and onto her tailbone, she yelped in pain and scrambled to grab the gun a second time. A cocked fist dissuaded her, knocking her onto her side from the impact of the blow.
The young asari's cheek ended up in a dark cobalt puddle, painting half her face in that terrible color.
"Boss!" "Boss?" "Commander Sederis!"
"Shut up, all of you!" Jona Sederis snapped, slowly rising back up onto her own two feet. "Shut up!" The hardened mercenary's eyes were wide, staring at the much younger asari on the floor with shock. Her kinetic barriers flickered blue, a clear visual indication that they had re-initialized. A second asari, face down on the floor next to the commander, groaned and also started to rise.
"You shot me," Jona said, speaking to the mewling girl on the floor. Two other mercs were holding her down with the heels of their boots. "You shot … me. Me."
Jona Sederis had a particular way of talking. There was a particular tone of voice that she used, probably without even thinking about it: higher pitched than her normal growl; fast, truncated and just a little slurred. It wasn't so much deceptively calm as it was very clearly a moment or two away from exploding, like the first few rumbling tremors that preceded a volcanic eruption. There was a tense, unhinged anger to it that was as clear as day to anyone with half a brain. It was the anticipation of the violence to come, seen from a mile away… that no one could stop. That was the voice she used now, and every merc there knew it and felt it in their bones.
"You shot me," Jona said again, stomping towards the prone asari. "That… was a mistake." She brought back her boot and swung it full force into the girl's midsection with an audible crunch. The young maiden howled in pain and tried to curl into a protective ball.
"That was a big fucking mistake!" Jona screamed, and her boot clipped the girl's face, ripping open a head tentacle. It was a blow that left almost every asari present with a wince. Head-tents didn't have any nerves in them, only a few in the skin, but they never healed if they were damaged. A scar there was a scar for life, and asari lived a long, long time.
"Do you hear me?!" Jona's eyes were wild and murderous. "Do you fucking hear me?!" She kicked the girl a third time, this time right in the chest. Her victim's breath came out as a weak almost inaudible gasp. "The last bitch who so much as scratched me, I cut off her tents and wore them as a hat! Is that what you want?! Huh?! I'll do it! I'll give everyone here a piece!"
Jona Sederis, all five hundred and sixty eight cycles of her, planted her boot across the beaten girl's face. This wouldn't be another kick. This time, she planned to just press down and scrape.
The maiden, more than five hundred and fifty years Jona's junior, dribbled blood and closed her eyes.
"Boss," a small voice interrupted, though every murderous mercenary in Jona's company was terrified into silence even the sternest librarian could envy. "You – uh – you're bleeding, boss."
"I'm what?" Jona hissed, turned as if to strike the fool that had dared to speak up, and suddenly thought better of it. She looked down at her right arm, noticing for the first time the trickle of blue dripping out of a hole punched in her hardsuit there. "Well, fuck me. I am bleeding."
Jona blinked, and took a look at the merc who had spoken up.
"You are, too," Jona stated, and blithely removed her boot from the beaten girl's face. She gave her full attention to the other mercenary, another asari. The one that had been slower getting up.
The one that had saved her life.
"The little bitch nipped us both," Jona realized and laughed, slapping the bloody splotch on the other asari's armor, right beneath her right shoulder. There was a pockmark, too, on the other woman's side where the armor had stopped a round from entering the asari's lung. The other woman winced at having her gunshot wound poked, but still somehow managed to smile.
"Heheh, y-yeah," she agreed and laughed nervously. "Just a scratch! Right?"
"Exactly!" Jona patted the woman more carefully, this time avoiding her wounded side. Firmly grasping the younger asari by her good shoulder, Jona smiled and nodded her head appreciatively. "Exactly. You. You! You saved my life back there, rookie."
"You hear that, you maggots?" Jona snarled at the rest of the silent and staring mercenaries in her crew. They were all standing around the blood-stained bridge of the ship, watching the proceedings with varying levels of amusement and more than a little fear. Jona Sederis thrived on fear.
"Four cheers for the rookie!" Jona's second in command, a scarred turian, pumped his fist. "Huu!"
"Huu!" the group cheered. "Huu! Huu!"
On the floor, the asari girl whimpered, cradling her broken insides. "Mom," she cried softly, reaching with one hand for a bullet-riddled body slumped on its side nearby.
"What a fucking mess," Jona lamented, shaking her head at the sight. She waved to one of the mercenaries standing over the bloody, beaten little girl. "Boc'cha."
The batarian merc nodded. "Boss?"
"Come here, Boc'cha," Jona said, and waved him closer again. He stopped over their raid's sole prisoner and walked up to his boss.
"Boc'cha," the asari commando repeated, this time with some impatience. She pointed to another merc and he tossed the M-4 Shrunken that had almost killed her over. Jona snapped it out of the air without even looking. "Can you tell me something? How did a little maiden half your size manage to get her hands on your gun?"
"Uh." The batarian pirate shifted uncomfortably. "Well, she-"
"One of your comrades here could have been shot, Boc'cha. One of your comrades here could have died," Jona admonished him, like a patient matron would an unruly daughter. "How do you think that makes your comrades in arms feel?"
"Very bad," Boc'cha replied, trembling. "And I feel bad, too. It won't ever happen again, boss. I swear. I swear on the honor of my caste and name. It won't ever happen again." He lowered all four of his beady red eyes and seemed just a moment away from falling to his knees begging. "I'll be more careful! I have no excuse! Please don't-"
Jona gently put a hand on his shoulder.
"I'm glad you feel that way," she said, smiling amiably. The barrel of the M-4 tapped threateningly against the batarian's crotch. "Just don't let it happen again."
"I won't!"
"Trillia," Jona said, and a lightly armored asari commando seized Boc'cha by his shoulders and pulled him away. "You know what to do. Just don't be too hard on the poor boy," she mercenary commander warned her favorite disciplinarian. "That means no damage to his face."
The brutish asari grunted and dragged the softly crying batarian off.
He knew all too well what happened to those Trilla 'disciplined' in the name of The Boss.
"Goddess's tits, it is so much to ask for good, reliable subordinates?" Jona lamented, spinning the custom M-4 SMG around in her right hand and suddenly extending the handle out to her rescuer. "This is yours now, rookie. You've more than earned it."
"Me?" The younger asari commando asked, looking down at the M-4. She gulped and nodded, snapping out of her momentary stupor. "O-okay, sure! And here I was about to write to Athame to ask for a new gun on my next naming day!" she quipped, carefully taking the gun and grinning weakly despite her injury. "Thanks, boss!"
More than a few other mercs in the blood-splattered bridge of the captured transport snickered and laughed, just like they always did when she joked around. One patted her on the back non-too-gently.
"Good job, Thanoptis!" one said.
"Good job!" another echoed.
"Yeah!" "Good job, rookie!" "Looking good, Thanoptis!"
"Y-yeah," Ilena clenched the M-4 in her hands, if only to keep them from trembling. "Yeah. No big deal. No big deal at all."
"Now then! We've got the ship and all the goodies aboard," Jona thought aloud, advancing on the fallen maiden on the ground. She cupped her hands together and cracked her knuckles as the girl began to cry anew. "Which makes me wonder… what should I do with you…?"
"Alright… alright…! Come on, let's do this. Let's do this…"
Ilena took a deep breath, flipped the activate key, lifted her armored fingers from the omnitool display, and grinned up at the hovering vid-cam with her brightest and winningest smile.
"Greetings, you fascinated and faithful fanatics on the extranet!" She leaned in and tapped the lens of the glowing tech-drone. "First of all: I want to thank my fellow sisters in the Republic for supporting referendum NN6067. For those non-asari listening in, NN6067 is an official condemnation of the Hegemony for their latest, greatest, nastiest indiscriminate terror campaign on the Verge, and step one in getting Republic sanctions in place. Just proof that even if you don't know how to handle a gun, or can't biotically cram someone into a shot glass, like yours truly, it doesn't mean you can't fight the good fight too!"
"Second, on behalf of Eclipse-" formally Eclipse Security Solutions "-I'd like to thank all the hard working guys and girls on the extranet that have been running the unofficial site for us. You might be asking yourselves, though: where's Eclipse's local server? Where's our site on the VCS-" Volus Corporate Security "-Registry? All I'll say is 'stay tuned.' When we come out, it'll be in style, I promise you!"
The truth was that Eclipse's top three – meaning herself, Shepard, and Hackett, who really ran the whole thing from the shadows – weren't entirely sure how to 'out' Eclipse on the extranet. They'd been perfectly happy making use of the eager fans on the extranet to spread disinformation and build up mystery, but everyone agreed that it was about time to at least release some official and public information on the rising star of the private security world, especially now that they had their first batch of non-human recruits.
'Terminus Freelancer' was already sending out feelers about putting them on the cover of the next issue and 'Sentient' wanted to take pictures and have an exclusive interview. According to status trackers online "Ilena Thanoptis" was trending at around the tenth most searched name in asari space. Eclipse simply couldn't remain in the dark forever, no matter how much Shepard wanted to play 'boogeyman.'
The humans, though…
Well, they already seemed to have some sort of solution in the works… a side-benefit of something called 'Project Artemis." Frankly, together with this "Project Ares" that no-one wanted to talk about, Ilena was starting to wonder just how many human admirals had secret projects going on in Citadel space.
"In the meantime," Ilena continued, growing a bit more serious, "you can find all the info on us you need from the new Batarian Republic government site. But before you click that link-" She put on a moue face of mock disappointment. "You already did, didn't you? Hey, come on! Pop the video back up. Let me finish!"
She waited a second, wagging her new painted-on eyebrows.
"I've got a treat for all you good little boys and girls," she announced, this time loud enough that she wanted her voice to carry through to the rest of the transport's cargo bay. She cupped a hand to the side of her helmet, roughly where both the human and asari 'ear' would be.
"What's that? What's that special treat?" Ilena asked and snickered as she gestured for the camera to follow. "I'll tell you! How about a first look at some of our new recruits? Not enough to keep you from streaming the next leaked episode of Fleet and Flotilla?" Ilena made a production of cupping her chin and trying to think up some other incentive. Her eyes lit up as it seemingly just came to her.
"I know!" she declared, and her smile took on a vicious edge. "How about some carnage, then, too? How about a little blood and guts? How about the chance to see some scumbags get roasted online?" She held up a submachine gun and licked her lips teasingly. "I bet that got your attention! Here's a little secret: we're headed into combat to crush some slaving pirate scum! My new buddies in the Batarian Republic dropped by not too long ago and reminded me that they had a bounty on slaver scalps. Seems their old scalps got lost in the laundry or something and they want new ones. Being the generous asari that I am, I volunteered my services."
She leaned in close to the camera again.
"What do you guys and girls say? Do you want to see some not-family-friendly justice?" She leaned back again and put on her most predatory and toothy smile. "If so, then stick around. There'll be plenty of gibs to go around."
Ilena stood up in the middle of the transport and surveyed the ranks of killer mercenaries before her.
"Now, let's take a little tour of my killer crew."
Shepard stood out first, of course, and like all of Eclipse's merciless human killing machines they were in the same black and purple psi-armor that had become infamous after the capture of the Glorious Harsa. The slight difference now was that a few were also sporting the asari-disguise as part of the illusion. The idea was less to pretend to be asari openly, but rather to sell the fact that they were asari under their grim, trademark helmets. Seeing the camera drone swing their way, those with the VI-designed asari features or biomod generally lowered their masks and tinted their eye-slits.
Throwing her head back for a moment, Ilena tried to recall Jona, and how she had put on her own act (provided it had been an act and not her genuinely being a psychopath). There was no way she could stomach mimicking the dead mercenary commander, but no one could doubt that there had been a certain nasty charisma and allure to her. Who knows how far she could've gone if she hadn't stupidly made the mistake of double-crossing the supposed 'Collectors.' As far as Ilena knew, she was still a braindead vegetable in a pod on Arcturus somewhere.
"You wouldn't recognize any of these girls, here," she said to the drone as she passed the ranks of masked humans. "Let's just say they're not from around these parts."
XCOM still hadn't decided where to go with the whole 'lost asari colony' angle, so for now it was enough to drop obtuse and deniable hints. Let those who thought the Eclipse core were from Matriarch Dilinaga's lost colony hear what they wanted to hear and let those who thought they were just rogue operatives hear the same. Ilena walked slowly past them, but directed the vid to sweep over the two dark armored squads to her left and right.
"And they're not too big on talk," Ilena continued, not dwelling on the secretly disguised human women any longer than she felt she had to. "What they have to say, they usually say with this-" She pointed to an assault rifle cradled in an armored woman's arms, setup for the designated marksman role. "Or this-" She pointed to the wrist-mounted external interface of her own biotic amp: somewhat like what the humans called a watch.
"And Goddess help you if you end up listening to one of these."
She patted the barrel of a nearby M-76 Revenant LMG, the hefty weapon held aloft by one of the humans as easy as a normal asari might wave around a handgun. Eclipse only had a handful of the (technically illegal) weapons. Originally the first few were looted from mercs and Terminus scum, but after finding a niche for the weapon in their squads more than a few XCOM-Eclipsers had adopted it as a favorite… especially after they found out how to revert the LMG back into a HMG without violating the Fab-rights management.
Though the other day Shepard had gotten her hands on a single confiscated krogan Striker Assault Rifle and declared it a 'handsome gun with just a little bit of kick,' so maybe the M-76 had some competition when it came to overkill. Either way, somewhere out there, a grizzled krogan gunsmith was probably looking at a mind-blowing credit-check and giggling with glee.
"Let's check out some of the new meat!" Ilena enthused, waving the glowing drone along as she weaved past the legs of the two human squads. "We picked gold as the color scheme for the rookies. But what about the Black and Purple I'm wearing, you ask? That has to be earned on the battlefield."
Two extended squads had been picked out to test themselves alongside the black and purple "all-asari veterans." There were still a bunch of asari present – in fact, Eclipse's first graduating class was mostly asari – but it wasn't homogenous. There were lean and hungry turians, slight and enthusiastic salarians, and even a single elcor and a drell among their ranks.
The one race really and obviously missing was krogan… and batarian, but there were special reasons for that last one in no way related to a lack of recruits. Okay, and hanar, but no one ever expected hanar to show up. Or volus, but a volus mercenary was like a spicy snowcone. Sure: you could probably make one, but it'd be weird and how? Why?
"Hmm?" Ilena gave a disapproving snort as a few of the new recruits pointedly lowered their helmet visors. "Looks like we've got a few shy guys here…"
Like the XCOM veterans, their hardsuit helmets were designed to fully conceal their faces and features.
To most of the listeners on the extranet, the reason for this was simple and self-evident: Eclipse spent a lot of time putting holes in charming fellows who'd probably be happy to kidnap your friends or family and introduce them to a little bit of torture with blackmail on the side. Anonymity was a virtue. Privately, Ilena probably would've done the same and hidden her face. Not that she had a choice, thanks to Shepard and her new human friends. As it was, as the very public face of Eclipse, only a particularly crazy bunch of bad guys would go hunting for her family, pissing off not just Eclipse but the amoral Megacorp her parents worked for.
There was something else, too. There was that same mix of awe and fear from before at the training ground. Ilena wasn't sure how much of it was directed at the armor she wore – associated with the group that had single-handedly captured a goddess-damned dreadnaught – and how much of it was just because of her. Ilena Thanoptis didn't hold any (or at least many) illusions. She wasn't the scariest or most intimidating maiden around. Not by a longshot.
But then, Jona hadn't been scary either. Not until you heard the whispers about her. Not until your bunkmate told you how she had smiled while she knifed a turian to death just for a joke she didn't like. Not until you noticed how a nervous krogan averted his eyes every time Jona walked by. Not until you caught on to how everyone tried to make themselves scarce whenever Jona's brows creased into a frown. Not until the guy who boasted he was going to 'bag the commander' ended up screaming for mercy over the intercom.
What did these recruits know about Ilena Thanoptis, except that she was friendly enough on the extranet, but that she led a band of merciless killers that the Hegemony dubbed the "most vicious and dangerous maidens alive?"
It was almost distressingly hard to find one that was willing to meet her eyes.
It had to be the camera, though. At least most of it had to be the camera.
"Ah! Here's someone who looks like he had something to say!" Ilena picked out one of the new Eclipse recruits who made no effort to hide his identity. Stalking over, she gave him ample opportunity to put helmet to head before he ended up identified before the entire extranet and a legion of a thousand facial recognition programs.
The man was turian, with a craggy gray plate tone and green face-paint.
"Got a name to share with us, rookie?" Ilena asked as the turian stood to attention. Actually, his name and other vital information popped up on her personal eye implant, but that wasn't anything anyone could see but her. According to the records he was registered as one of Eclipse's new combat engineers.
"Lilihierax," the turian stated, plainly, the plates around his lower jaw twitching. "And no, Commander, I don't have anything to hide."
"But do you have anything you want to say?" Ilena asked.
"Only that this has been a long time coming," the turian spoke directly to the lens of the camera drone, but he didn't bluster. It was just a statement of what he believed: nothing more and nothing less. He slowly sat back down and rested his Armax Avalanche shotgun across his legs. "We live in a civilized galaxy… sometimes that means kicking in a few uncivilized mandibles to set things right. Slavery is an evil that the Citadel should've stamped out centuries ago."
"Sounds like we've got a crusader in our ranks?"
"I'm just a turian with an opinion," he assured her, adding, "Ma'am."
"Fine by me, as long as you've got the badass chops to back it up!" Ilena fixed the turian with a stare, just like she remembered Jona doing. "I'll be keeping an eye on you out there, rookie."
The turian engineer sucked in a breath and nodded. He sounded like a veteran himself, but then, he was a turian. And now, he wanted to prove himself all the harder. Ilena pulled back and picked out another potential victim.
This one could be interesting…
Walking past two pairs of other Eclipse recruits, Ilena mentally queried her eye implant for a name for their lone elcor. He was seated next to Enyala near the very back of the transport in as much as an elcor could sit on seats made for bipedal races. The alien was so large he took up three or four normal spots; Ilena supposed he could well have been Eclipse's best current equivalent for an XCOM MEC or SHIV. This was exacerbated by the fact that this particular elcor was large, even for his species. The maiden asari barely reached eye-level with him, a disconcerting size difference to be sure, though Enyala at least hardly seemed to care as she ran final checks on her armor. It was likely the older mercenary had more experience with elcor in general.
Ilena knew she was just the opposite. There had been exactly none on the space station she grew up on and the first time she had seen one in the flesh was after her decision to go outside asari space on her sexy mercenary adventure. Even then, she'd never run into any of the military persuasion. The most she'd run into was the occasional night club bouncer.
Grozi was this big fellow's name, according to her new eyes.
Unlike the other Eclipse recruits, he couldn't wear the normal gold hardsuit – a modified version of the Elanus Risk Control's commercially available Guardian armor. Instead, he wore a sort of armored harness over a basic NBC suite. Apparently, he had brought the base version of it with him when he applied for membership. Appropriate for the elcor's size, he had a triple strength kinetic barrier… though things would quickly turn into meat-shield land if that barrier fell.
"Hey there, big guy," Ilena said, tromping up to the seated elcor. "Got anything you'd like to say to your new fans on the extranet?"
Like most all elcor, Grozi had a speckled face and mottled body, at least over his back and upper half. His lip-flaps fluttered at the attention but otherwise – as elcor are elcor – he seemed to give no real impression of suddenly being in the spotlight. This was made even worse by the fact that his black little eyes were concealed behind the projected orange light of a visor.
"Ummm." Ilena waited for the elcor to say something. "Anything?"
The elcor continued to stare at her.
"No?"
"For Athame's sake," the harsh voice of Enyala answered instead, and the drone turned quickly to catch her in the frame. The new Eclipse squad leader stood and elbowed the massive elcor on his front leg. "Enough with the camera-shy schoolgirl bullshit! Just say your name!"
The elcor's lip flaps wiggled again, but this time, a small voice came with along with the motion.
"G-grozi," he rumbled, "With embarrassed nervousness: I am Grozi. My favorite color is light gray. I like garuga flowers, slow roasted zaba, and long walks on the beach. My sign is the covwhale and my blood type is E-positive."
"I said to say your name, not fill out a dating application," Enyala growled.
"With renewed courage: I am Grozi." the elcor repeated. "I kill people." His lip flap twitched again. "With dark humor: I am good at it."
"Much better!" Enyala said with an approving nod.
Grozi promptly reached up, oh-so-slowly, and touched a switch where the visor attached to the side of his head. The orange display quickly snapped out and extended to cover up his face entirely, just like tech-armor.
"Huh." Ilena found herself at a lack for words. Instead, she quickly tried to move on to the other asari who seemed to have a degree of rapport with the big elcor. "And what about you, lieutenant? Anything to tell the galaxy?"
"Not much," Enyala replied, focused entirely on checking the seals on her hardsuit. She clenched a fist and it glowed ominously with blue biotics. "We land. We kill. That's the job."
She glanced over at Ilena with dark, mirthless eyes.
"That's what we're being paid to do… isn't it?" she asked.
"Yeah," Ilena agreed, albeit with a moment's hesitation. She turned to the recording drone and tapped a display on her omnitool, toggling it offline. "That's what we're being paid to do."
Daro'Xen's Personal Log
Entry 9:03:921
Progress continues apace in introducing the new Eclipse recruits to their drone support platforms. Attached is a file including the serial numbers of the recruits that show the greatest familiarity with drone related warfare. I plan to forward this soon after finishing this log entry and after fully composing my own thoughts.
We are basing our current battlefield tactics on those of the Eclipse parent organization XCOM. In my time on Arcturus, learning from the masters there, I came to grasp much of how the humans approach drones in warfare. As expected, their military formations and units are highly automated. They have possessed AIs for some time, though they are very specialized and hard-wired into platforms which they cannot copy or migrate off of. These can and apparently do include mechanized (or cyberized) humans themselves serving as platforms for programs. They call them "digital assistants." I am reminded of some early quarian experiments at integrating Form-Six-Ranno type Geth. This was part of the broader series of self-mechanization efforts quariankind toyed with before the war.
As it is, I have only had some limited exposure to humans of this sort. More widespread is the integration of VIs. It thus came as no surprise to learn that humans use mechs to support and even supplant many roles on the battlefield. It seems that only psionic warfare remains innately a human enterprise. I have called these humans "controllers" or "overseers."
Our Major Shepard, for example, is a human "Overseer."
Her psionic power allows her to control and coordinate not just other humans, but slaved platforms as well. The key to this is in human hyperwave technology, including the key piece: a form of unknown and unusual crystal. The humans have vast stores of these crystals, not just for integration with technology, but somehow as a weapon. There was a store-room in Arcturus with thousands of them loaded into what could only be transport drop-pods of some sort. Hyperwave connects the psionically gifted humans with their technology in a way I am only beginning to understand.
Practically speaking, this means the humans "control their mechs with their minds." This is a crude approximation and guess, but it makes sense given what I have seen and been exposed to. The humans have more than the strange crystals – I have not seem them activate and thus have no idea what they are supposed to do by themselves – they also control more conventional mechanical fare.
There is the Drone, of course, which I have spoken about at length already. These devices have relatively little autonomy, but are used in swarms to support other mechanized platforms and their human overseers. Our adaptation of human doctrine is to use two to four drones as semi-autonomous escorts for each Eclipse engineer in a squad. This is suboptimal compared to how the humans send two to four drones to support every organic asset, but most Eclipse recruits are not blessed with either the skill of a trained engineer or the mind-machine-interfaces the humans enjoy. In time, and with further refinement, it should be possible to attach at least a single drone to every organic trooper in Eclipse, drastically improving our squad-level firepower. Further research will have to be required.
But I am retreading old ground.
The humans also use larger mechanized platforms. There are the stealthy "seekers" whose articulation and agility put any of our most acrobatic geth designs to shame. These seem to be used as a one-for-one substitute for conventional support drones as appropriate. While incapable of repairing other platforms, the "seekers" can vanish using their unique stealth systems and then scout or attack lone targets. The potential for demoralization and terror is obvious.
Then there are the "cyberdiscs." I have been fortunate enough to be present for a most unusual operation involving these machines. Not too long before I left, Doctor Vahlen was kind enough to send me a message to stop by a lab I had not visited before. I arrived promptly, of course, only to behold a number of floating cyberdiscs waiting for me. Momentarily terrified, I turned to flee and bumped into my mentor. Doctor Vahlen quickly calmed me down and "introduced" me to the discs. Together, we walked deeper into the strange lab. There were a great many cyberdiscs present, along with their overseers.
Within that strange lab, I…
I believe I was witness to a birth of sorts.
A cyberdisc was… it could only be called spawning. A second disc was created from within the first, emerging like a seed. I was told later that the infant disc was testing the incorporation of new mass effect technology. I had assumed the discs were manufactured before that day, but now I believe they are all birthed much as organics are. Whether it is an individual parent or a number of them, or even all of them, that design their next generation, I cannot say. Yet these discs appear to be less a mechanical construct and more a synthetic form of life. I do not believe I will ever forget how Doctor Vahlen cradled the young disc, examining it, as the others hummed proudly nearby. Or was it just my imagination? It seems foolish to anthropomorphize a colony of featureless silver discs.
After such a bizarre and otherworldly admission, I can find some comfort in recalling my introduction to the more conventional war machines the humans employ. The first was called a "Mechtoid" and appeared to be an iteration of the MECs I have described before. Where the MECs have human operators, however, Mechtoids use sectoids as an organic core. The impression I had was that Mechtoids were far more disposable assets than their MEC cousins, continuing the servile relationship of the sectoids to humans as a whole. Nonetheless, the actual mechanisms and manufacturing of the Mechtoid battlesuits, like those of MEC battlesuits, was nothing distressingly alien.
I was also privy to a form of Ambulatory or Articulating Tank. It was classified as a SHIV, a 'super heavy infantry vehicle' I believe, but for all that it was still treated as another disposable drone. A large and immensely powerful drone, that is. If and when the Citadel learns of the humans, and their degree of mechanization and self-modification, I can scarcely imagine what their response will be. On the surface, the humans seem very asari-like, and in many ways they truly are, but many of their practices will be anathema to the Citadel. Of late, I have worried over this.
Is it in the quarians' best interest to continue to court the Citadel's forgiveness and to try and re-engage the broader intergalactic community? This has long been the debate within the fleet, along with the unending debate about when and how to retake Rannoch. Moreover, perhaps the debate about re-taking Rannoch has been so persistent within the collective mythology and mind of the fleet because we have nowhere else to go. Either the Citadel forgives us our centuries-old transgression and gives us a new homeland, or, backs to the wall, we try once more to regain our old one. No matter where we look, it seems like a fight waits for us. A fight no one expects us to win or survive.
If the humans are fated to clash with the Citadel as I believe they are, despite their own efforts and intentions, what path is most likely to preserve quarian-kind? There is much to consider.
For the time being, however, I must continue to focus my efforts on Eclipse. As much of an idiot as Ilena is, she is actually a rather adept commando. Ancestors know how, but she is. It may be she is just supernaturally lucky. We have Shepard and the other humans as well. My fate is first and foremost tied to them. As they thrive, so shall I, and as I thrive, so shall quarian-kind.
I will oversee the battle with the slavers tomorrow personally and run diagnostics on every single drone. There must be no mistakes. I have no love for these slavers and predators to begin with, but I must also be sure my drones and my weapons give a proper demonstration of their power.
There is one other thing: the real reason for this entry.
One of our new recruits – a turian – bumped into me just a few of the human hours ago while I was busily compiling my results. He warned me to "keep out of the way" and called me a "suit rat."
A suit rat.
How I loathe that term.
I will admit I was sorely and seriously tempted to see bodily harm done to him for his insult, but that would be short-sighted and unwise. I am not a suit rat. I am Daro'Xen! And before this fool of a turian realizes it, I will be one of the most powerful females in this miserable sector of space. Better he lives to see it. Better he lives to see the day when I stick him in a suit and seal it shut. Let him call me a suit rat then.
