Chapter Seven: Boom Part 2
Yui tossed the shatter remnants of a Loki mech into a corner of the hold with a dissatisfied growl. The team was on their way to the Krogan DMZ where Long John was gathering a fleet of his allies and mercenaries. They didn't know why, there was no info on the reason for the gathering, but they had decided they didn't need to know to know to know it was nothing good. They did have info on the pirates that were gathering and him and Scarlet had been discussing what Yui knew about them when the council had called in to give them permission to scout the fleet for a real threat assessment. Only thing was the last pirate fleet on the list was one he knew far too well. He had double checked the ships armaments after reading the list, and was as underwhelmed by them as he was the first time. A pair of guardians lasers meant for anti-fighter work more than real combat. Their biggest gun was the torpedo launcher, which only carried ten and was meant for quick strikes surgical strikes. If they were caught then it would be a slugging match not a surgical strike, and he knew that they couldn't even take on single of these fleets by themselves. Whats more SHE would be there. She would never leave that much of her fleet under the command of someone else. That put her personal ship there too which made the mission just that much more dangerous. He knew that they had no choice but to go and check it out, so he had decided to keep this tidbit of info to himself. No need to worry these guys too much. Besides with the stealth systems they should be in and out without anyone being the wiser. What could go wrong?
As they entered into the system Yui shifted into his seat and studied his weapons systems, checking and re checking his station as he waited for them to get into range of the target. It was a bit far out from Tuchanka itself so it would be a couple hours longer. The others began to fidget restlessly as he cleared old beer cans off the console as well. "Keep on your toes, we need to get the stealth systems up and running as soon as we can. If we're caught we're dead. And my ancestors would never forgive me if I got killed in a shitty little Salarian ship by some two bit pirate gone merc. Just wouldn't be right for a Krogan to die like that." A brief glance went around before the team went back to their own stations. He was right after all, any fight would be paramount to suicide here. When they neared the pirate rendezvous Sheldon activated their stealth system and they began to take a look around. They couldn't use active radar, but the lack of regular traffic in system made the pirates willing to leave their own radar up and running so they had plenty of blips anyway. Sheldon was counting quietly as they carefully moved closer trying to get an exact count of the ships when suddenly all hell broke loose across the consoles as warnings went off everywhere.
Yui's voice boomed through cockpit,"THAT HAD BETTER NOT BE WHAT I THINK IT IS SQUISHY." Gogzurah's and Sheldon's hands danced across their consoles as the ship suddenly pitched to the side and missile locks began to light up on the electronics system as the fleet began waking to their presence. Yui prepared his launcher for use and braced himself as they flipped around and punched it for the other side of the system. "We need to get out of here NOW." Gogzurah growled out, "Working on it." and the ship shook as they were clipped by a shot. As the ship did a barrel roll and Sheldon pulled up the active radar and snarled, "Damn it another fleet just entered system on our ass." Gogzurah growled, "Looks like we're gonna have to make a jump into FTL. I'm charging it up now, you guys better pray to the spirits that we don't hit anything on the way." Yui chuckled, "Ya well at least we won't feel it if we do." The ship shuttered as another couple of shots hit the hull and the notification system informed Gogzurah of the FTL coming online. "We've got a couple of hull breaches, we need to get out of here NOW." Gogzurah just grunted and activated the FTL, and they were away.
Yui and the others sat back with a sigh as they moved out of the system. "So" Scarlet began, " we got a destination?" Gogzurah nodded, "There was a minor planet not too far from Tuchanka. Big enough for us to hide out on and send a message off the council anyway." Scarlet nodded, "Sheldon, what kinda damage we take?" The Salarian ran a scan of the ships hull, "We've got some minor hull damage to the crew quarters, looks like the cargo bay sealed itself because of atmospheric venting, and-" The doors to the cockpit hissed open and a womans voice boomed out, "No sudden moves or you're all dead!" As the others frozen Sheldon continued calmly, "-those last couple torpedo hits were actually boarding craft." The crew listened to the sounds of movement as the boarding team took up positions around the cockpit to cover the stations, and a now familiar voice snarled, "Get the pilot to turn us around. Johnson's going to want to question them. Now unless everyone wants to die here and now, you're all going to keep your hands where we can see them, and away from those consoles. If no one plays the hero, you all get to live just that much longer." A grown emerged from the torpedo console and a heavy thump was heard as Yui banged his head against the wall. "Of COURSE it had to be YOU that boarded us. If it wasn't then my day might not have gone to COMPLETE shit." Foot steps walked over behind him as one of the pirates moved closer to him, "Is that who I think it is?" Yui straightened up and spun his chair around to look at the Asari whose face he had never wanted to see again. "Hello Natalya. Long time no see."
The blue alien laughed as she leveled an old battle scared claymore at Yui's head, "Well well, I wasn't expecting to have a prize like you drop into my lap. What rock have you been hiding under all this time?" Yui shrugged, "Wasn't hiding. Just haven't been in your territory is all. Hows the kids?" She smiled, "Why not take a look for yourself?" She nodded over to a couple of the boarders, who removed their helmets. One was covering Scarlet with a Scimitar shotgun, and the other stood behind her mother with a machine pistol at the ready. "Deras, Merix! Its been far too long girls. How have you been? Giving your mother trouble I hope." Neither of them said a word as Natalya scowled at him, "What you can't talk to good old dad now? After all the letters and presents I sent you?" This brought a smile to Natalyas face again, "You mean all that useless shit you sent were meant to be presents? I just assumed you were trying to annoy us, so I've been shooting them out of the air locks." Yui grew still and watched his daughters reactions to this statement. Merix was as calm as she always was, barely a flickering glance at him to give away her feelings about it. Deras on the other hand looked uncomfortable and began shifting from foot to foot. So it wasn't their idea eh, he mused. His eyes went back to Natalya and he felt an anger begin bubbling up in his chest. What right did she have? "Well at least you got my mail." Natalyas grin spread wide as she leaned forward, "You mean the ones where you denied being their father? Called them such horrible names? Do you think they like that?" Yui became completely still. Natalya laughed, "That's right sweety. They got those messages alright."
He was quiet as he stared at her before began the sentence murmuring into the now silent room and growing in strength till filling it with an echoing boom, "You lied to them. You made up new letters didn't you. Wrote them to turn the kids on me. MY kids. YOU tried to make MY kids HATE ME. YOU LIED TO THEM AND HURT THEM JUST TO GET BACK AT ME YOU STUPID FUCKING BITCH. FUCK YOU AND FUCK ALL OF THIS!" His eyesight had gone blood red as went and faster than anyone expected he was up and his foot was lashing out to slam into Natalyas just, sending her tumbling back to come to a stop next to Deras where she shot to her feet and leveled the claymore at him again. The rest of the boarding team glanced around at Yui as he came to the end of the rant, and the team took that as an oportunity to act. Sheldon suddenly dove out of his chair, twisting as he went to put a pair of shots into the pirate covering hims chest. Gogzurah grabbed the arms and gun Asari that was up with him and used them to lever her face first into the console before spinning out his Kestler pistol and putting a round through he skull. Scooge didn't even turn around as he spun his dual pistol out of their holsters to put a pair of rounds into the pirate with him, one through the heart and the other through the head. Scarlet turned around to see the last Merix frozen for a split second before she lifted her gun to shoot her, and spotted Natalya leveling a shot at Yuis head. She decided to take care of them both and used a surge of biotic power to hurl Merix back at her mother. Deras was torn with indecision as she watched Yui try to charge across the room before Natalya got her shot off and stood in the path of her sisters flight to hit their mother, and was caught in between the two of them when Scarlets biotic throw got to her. The three of them shot across the room to slam into the wall, Natalyas shot going wide and hitting the ceiling in the process. She snarled in anger as she shoved the dazed and unconscious children off her, she pushed herself to her feet in time to come face to face with the enraged Yui. With a snarl he tore the gun from her hands with one hand and slammed his fist into her head with the other. She stumbled to the side and lifted her hands to defend herself until Yui slammed the butt of the gun into her guts. He began to beat her over and over with the claymore, the claymore she had stolen from him so long ago, and her bone cracked and shattered under the abuse. Finally when she was nothing more than a broken whimpering rag doll he grabbed her by the throat lifted her into the air and tore head from her shoulders with a triumphant roar. He let the head fall to the ground and stood there breathing heavily as he stared down at the broken and bloody remains of his ex-wife.
After a few time of silence where everyone stared at him, a whimpering from beside him drew Yui out of his trance. Merix pulled Deras close to her and stared at Yui, terrified of the sight before her. He turned and moved towards her and paused when she whimpered louder and tried to back away farther into the wall, dragging her sister with her. He sighed and squatted in front of her and silently began to extract Deras from Merix, he could see blood running down from the side of her head and it worried him. Merix panicked as he tried to do it and grabbed a fallen SMG and pointed it at him. He paused then went back to what he was doing. The gun began to shake and feel from her lifeless hand before she finally surrendered her sister to Yui. He lifted Deras in his arms and stood up, "Follow me. We're going to the medical bay." He glanced at the team before for leaving the cockpit and monotoned, "Don't bother us for awhile unless it's important" before shifted out the door and heading to the med bay. Merix sat there motionless for a few seconds as Scarlet watched her and the rest of the team, except Gogzurah who was working on dropping them out of FTL, began moving bodies out of the way. Finally she pushed herself to her feet and silently followed Yui out.
Yui careful set Deras on the auto-docs table and used it to begin scanning her head. He studied the readings as the doors hissed shut behind him and Merix shifted around him to sit on the far side of the room. She watched him in silence, and his face grew dark as the information came in. Finally he sighed "I'm sorry. About you havin to watch that. She didn't leave me much choice in killing her, but I let my anger get the better of me and..." he trailed off into silence. There was a beep from the monitor that caught his attention and he just stared at what he already knew. He quietly applied medi-gel to her head to prevent the damage from getting worse and careful placed her on a bed. They couldn't do anything help her on this ship. He turned to Merix with a sigh, "Your turn. Just sit on the table and the auto-doc wi-" The med bay was filled with a screech from down the hall and an explosion rocked the ship. Warning lights blared across the ship and Yui was on his feet in an instant striding across the room to lift Deras out of the bed, "I don't know what that was but it sure as hell wasn't good and those are the evacuation warnings. We're going to the escape pods, move it!" Merix scrambled in his wake as he shifted down the hall, pausing at a room to open the door. The Varren inside was sitting in a corner whimpering, and ran over to Yui when he saw him. With a grunt Yui shoved the animal ahead of him to the escape pods and put Deras into a seat. "Merix get your sister into the harness. I've gotta take care of something." As the Asari took care of her sister he moved down the hall and set a 10 second timer for the system to launch all the escape pods on his level. He hauled himself into the pod to find Merix finishing up her own harness, and strapped himself into a pilots seat at the front of the pod. He gave a sharp whistle to the Varren which jumped into his lap obediently. He held on tight as the escape pods doors shut tight and the pod shuttered as they were launched from the ship.
Yui tapped into the control system and checked to see where the nearest planet was and was surprised to see that they had been very close to one already. He couldn't tell what planet it was but it was going to be the one they landed on. The pod shuttered again as something big went up behind them, and a quick check on the console screen showed that it had been ship itself going up. The system detected multiple other emergency beacons around them, more than the ones he had launched. The cockpit must have launched their pods too, which meant the crew was still alive. Or at least they currently were he thought as a pair of beacons went out as the ship that had probably been the one to take out the ship began picking off pods. He sat back and sighed. Nothing they could do now but wait and see if they would make it to the planet alive. If they can do that then everything that comes after would be easy in comparison. So, he mused silently, heres to hoping it has air. And nothing waiting to eat them.
