Mass Effect is owned by THEM. You know who THEM are. CANADIANS...
Revan, Thermopile System, Artemis Tau Cluster, 03 May 2175
Author's Note: First off… happy N7 Day! Shep turns... 9?
Second, sorry this took so long. My laptop died. Plus, pretty sure the reader/writer turnout from March 21 on dipped significantly (ahem, Andromeda). I know I indulged.
So... normally I end chapters with author's notes, but for those that finished off Chapter 9 and saw that it seems to be a cutoff of words; no, that was a fuck you moment. That's how people die.
So the Author's Notes for Chapter 9 (because I wanted a fuck you moment)
Doctor Saelon, for those who might need the reminder, was Doctor Heart; Garrus' loyalty mission back in ME 1, organ-cloner and using people to grow said organs in, cutting them out and selling them on the good ol' black market. This kind of plot seemed right up his alley. The whole name that he has (which is suppose to explain place of birth, clan, city and so on) is actually Jaleel Chorban's canon name, the guy who wanted you to run around the Citadel like an idiot scanning Keepers. Only the Vorhen and Saelon are the good Doctor's (and Vorhen was created by me). I don't actually know if any other Salarian had the whole list of seven names like Chorban did. So I stole it.
And onto Chapter 10. Keep reading. We ain't done yet.
Captain Steven Hackett walked through the corridors of the Elkoss Combine Medium Habitation Unit, Atmospheric Regulation Series Model XV700, flanked by Systems Alliance Marines and Naval Security Teams as the Commanding Officer of the Tenth Reconnaissance Flotilla walked onto the fourth floor via a connecting stairway that would have him reach the upper level. On a high-grav world like Revan, the four flight climb was a bit of a cooker, really, and it made the Naval Captain glad that he took PT seriously. On high-grav worlds like Revan, walking was a chore. It wasn't the easiest thing in the world to do cardio on a ship filled with hundreds, but he managed. Climbing up the staircase and reaching the fourth floor had him puffing a little bit, admittedly.
He was getting too old for this shit.
"Set up a perimeter." He looked to his right, where a Marine Lieutenant was leading his platoon of men to secure the facility. What he had seen had him pretty damn impressed, and he was hard to impress. There were somewhere around forty or so bodies of slavers that got the fate they so richly deserved; shot to death with no mercy or qualms. According to some of the team leaders that had taken the lower floors, there were some that were apprehended, cuffed at wrist and ankle, and then the cuffs cuffed together. That was the work of a cop, and not bad work, either. Intel was intel, and the boys at ONI would have fun grilling the survivors for that intel.
It was hard for him to imagine that just four people had done this. He honestly doubted four N's could have done this.
He had gotten a message some ten hours ago over an emergency comms link meant for Alliance Personnel, be it military, law enforcement, colonial, or vessel. The message was directed towards him, so Captain Hackett had read it thoroughly before ordering his Navigator to plot the course for the entire Reconnaissance Flotilla to make way to the Thermopile System at 'fuck-the-engines' speed. They had been at the Macedon System at the time, pulling deep-space reconnaissance missions on the Batarian border, listening with deep-space probes and squadrons of flyers and drones keeping an eye on any that wished to reach into Alliance Space the long way around. The message had pertained to it details on something that Steven feared more than anything else; blacksites of slavers or criminals that had found holes and means into plying their trade with little to no knowledge of any authority of its existence. Slavery was something of a personal vendetta for him; his brother's family had been living on Mindoir when it had been reaved by Batarians, and they had simply disappeared into the black. Never fucking again.
So when he received a message of a massive slavery operation happening in his own fucking backyard, he was fully intending to slam upon it like a metric ton of bricks.
Nine hours later, the Tenth Reconnaissance Flotilla had arrived in the orbit of Revan.
"Lieutenant," the Captain began, talking to the Marine once more now that a perimeter had been established, "I am going to meet an undercover operative whose clearance is higher than your own. Have your men deny access to anyone at the moment while I meet them."
"Aye aye, Skipper." The Lieutenant saluted, asking no questions. Hackett was full of shit, lying out of his teeth. There was no undercover operative, but he had been serving in the Systems Alliance military too long not to have picked up on a few things to know when to ignore certain rules for the sake of all.
Besides, pissing off a SPECTRE was generally not conductive for a long life.
Hackett walked down the corridor, finding the way easily enough, following guidesigns that pointed out the direction of the Administration Wing, where the message told him to meet. He knew better to question its authenticity; the message had been signed by its sender, and he had looked up the name discretely to make sure it was legitimate. Yet the content of the message had his heart sink; if it was only a tenth true, then this colony facility was possibly the worst site in the history of the Systems Alliance, being ran and operated under their Goddamn noses. According to the message, there was help, too; corrupt cops. That had his hackles up and out, the thought of human beings aiding in such a disgusting endeavor boiling his blood, but the thought of those sworn to stop such things aiding the very enemy they were said to protect against disgusted him beyond belief. He was going to get the intelligence now from the source, and then it was going to be time to roll some fucking heads. God, when Grissom heard about this shit, there would be a fucking Inquisition that would make the Spanish one look like a book club.
And then there was the one person who made that difference.
Hackett reached the door that lead to the Administration Office, tapping on it politely to gain access, the door sliding open for admittance. The Captain of the SSV Marco Polo walked into the ten meter by ten meter room to find a variety of people and species filling it. Most of them still alive.
"Centurion Kryik?" He asked, seeing the Turian in Blackwatch-related armor sitting by a makeshift cot that contained a single body, that of a human woman. The Special Forces Warrior looked up from the woman, his green eyes and plated face drawn... worried? There were two others that were armed and guarding the room in a loose manner, an Asari with the look of a Huntress about her, and a Salarian with enough attachments and gismos on him to qualify him as Batman, no doubt STG. Knowing what the Turian was, he didn't doubt the other two were SPECTREs as well. They kept an eye on him, but had immediately ascertain that he wouldn't be a threat. He was only armed with his Springfield Arms XD Service Pistol, which was meant as a firearm for when shit got really FUBAR. He didn't doubt that if he tried anything stupid, that Asari shotgun or that sniper rifle the Salarian was holding would kill him before he cleared leather. They were professionals, and he could respect that. "Captain Steven Hackett, CO of the Marco Polo and Tenth Reconnaissance Flotilla."
"Captain." The Turian nodded, looking down at the woman on the cot for a second before standing up to greet him. Much to his surprise, the Turian stuck out his hand in an effort to shake. Hackett obliged him, wondering how a Turian knew how to do that, or why he'd bother to learn. "I hope I did that right. Only learned it today."
"It is." Hackett answered, his eyes touching the body that was on the cot, a makeshift blanket drapped over it. "I got your message, obviously. You stated that you had hundreds of slaves with the potential of thousands on your hands that needed liberating, and to bring as much medical care and facilities as I could bring. I've got two dedicated hospital ships and one of my destroyers is making room as we speak."
"Good. I think we might have enough." The Turian let off a quite-human sigh. "This facility is a slave farm, Captain. They were breeding slaves here." Hackett felt his heart drop at the confirmation. The message had suggested as such, but he hadn't wanted to believe it. But seeing the human woman dressed in what looked to be the loosest men's clothing with a grossly pregnant belly straining the confines of the shirt, as well as an Asari in the same condition? Shit. "We're talking about two hundred and sixty-four slaves, each and every one of them pregnant, ranging from weeks away from labor to just after embryo gestation."
"Fuck." There was no use deliberating about it. A slavery-oriented baby farm? That was worse than reaving a colony. A colony they could build defenses for, a raid limited only by the population. Having a steady supply of slaves born? The numbers would be astronomical, and untraceable. He looked to the human woman, who looked like she was ready to give birth right then and there, she was so pregnant. "How soon?"
"I... don't know." The woman replied, her voice meek... frightened. "I... just woke up today." The woman sniffled a little. "Is it really 2175?" That had Hackett pause. She had seriously asked the year.
"May Third." The Captain replied, feeling a cold sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.
"Oh God... it was 2170 when..." The woman shivered slightly, almost flinching. "I just want to go home."
"Where's home?" Hackett asked, the year putting another chill in him.
"New Edmonton. It's a colony on..."
"Mindoir." Steven replied, feeling that old rage fill him up once more. He was looking at a Mindoir survivor who somehow missed out on something like four plus years? How the fuck had that happened? New Edmonton what where his brother Brian and his family had lived when... "Are there others here?" That question was directed to the Turian, his mandibles drooping into a frown.
"We don't know. There weren't any names, and we certainly didn't have the facilities or knowledge to care for so many." Kryik admitted, which made sense to Hackett. "We do know that the slavers were using some sort of chemically-induced coma to keep the patients asleep, and that there was a possibility that some of them have been here for some time." The SPECTRE looked to the obvious victims. "They're awake because they were being held as hostages. The rest we left alone because we simply didn't know what else to do but call for reinforcements and medical aid."
"It's a good idea when there were none to be had." Yeah, that must have been a tough decision on the Turian, considering how protective they were of mates and hatchlings. The Salarian, too. "I can have my Marines and Naval Security Team start processing and sending them up to the hospital ships ASAP. It will take time with the numbers you indicate and the conditions of the planet, but it will be done."
"We also need a Doctor." The Turian said finally, looking to the woman on the makeshift bed. "She took a shotgun blast to the stomach. We were able to move a good deal of the shrapnel, but... we don't know human anatomy well."
"Is that her? The one that discovered this whole debacle?" Hackett asked.
"Yes. Deputy Samantha Collins." The Turian dipped his head; a sign of respect, not towards him, but towards her. Interesting. "She tracked the ship, found the base's location, and was a part of this operation every step of the way. More than us." That had the Captain grunt. Damn, that was certainly impressive. "We've stabilized her as best we could, but we reached the extent of our knowledge."
"I understand... and thank you." Hackett told the Turian, looking the alien right in his green eyes. "If what you said is true, then she deserves the best we got. I'll get one of the surgeons down here now to assess what we can do before we move her. If there's a fighting chance in hell for her to make it, then we're going to give it everything we've got."
"Good." That came from the female Turian, whose own swollen abdomen proved her maternal condition. "If it wasn't for her, we'd still be asleep, completely unaware what was happening to our hatchlings. These hatchlings of mine," she rubbed a taloned hand over her swollen belly, "will be born free because of her. And I will forever be grateful." Hackett didn't know what to say to that. He wasn't a fan of Turians, to say the least, but that was a hell of a statement to make. Turians tended to make good on such things.
"Let me get on the conn and see what we can do." Steven promised as he looked to the injured Deputy, lying unconscious. "And then I'm calling Alliance Command. Someone is going to burn for this. For a long time. Very slowly."
"Good." The Asari Huntress said, her tone dark.
SSV Marco Polo, Orbit above Revan, Thermopile System, Artemis Tau Cluster, 06 May 2175
Alliance Frontier Marshal Deputy Samantha Lynn Collins woke up in her medical bed, still recovering from the events of Revan as she laid in conversance in the Medical Bay of the Carrier-Class SSV Marco Polo, which was hovering somewhere at LaGrange Point One high above the toxic world. She had been in and out of consciousness for the past couple of days, having received emergency surgery on her abdomen where the shotgun shrapnel had pierced her kinetic shielding, Devlon Industries' Explorer Light Armor plating, and her own tender flesh. Not only had she received hypervelocity rounds from the Elite Arms' Retaliator Shotgun when Captain Pan'mekk shot at her, but splinters of her own shattered armor had been impaled into her abdomen as well. Three surgeries and a whole host of medical knowledge and expertise later, and Sam had all the foreign debris removed from her stomach. She had unfortunately lost a small percentage of her small intestines, cut out as irreparable and the severed ends rejoined together as abdominal muscles and tissues were carefully stitched together. She was on a high regimen of antibiotics and amino acid beta-protein cocktails to speed up recovery and ensure that any bacterial infections wouldn't set in, which was a common occurrence with gut wounds, as the Deputy understood it. Lieutenant Commander Michael Phillips (M.D.) was the ships' surgeon, and he had spent something like ten hours on her wounds as Navy Corpsmen and Physician Assistants' tended to the ever-growing population of females extracted from Revan. The Marines had come to call it 'the House of Horrors', and to Sam, the name fit all too well.
She had damn near died there, herself.
Collins looked over to the bedside table next to her medical bed, and found the complimentary AppleCorps dPad resting there, its battery by the inductive charger field that ran through the Carrier. She pressed the activation button to see the Alliance News Network Homepage pop up, the highlights being scrolled on a marquee at the top as images with sort blurbs consisted of the updates. The media had been informed of the 'incident' on Revan, and somehow the Turian Heirarchy had gotten involved. Surprisingly, no battle maneuvers had been performed, and no one had shot at each other, so Sam supposed that in the interest of good will, everyone was playing nice. That was good; she had her fill of near-death experiences for the time being, and being stuck on a ship while quarantined in a medical bay did not sound entertaining at all. There was a reason she didn't enlist Navy. She scrolled past the updates related to Revan (she was there, she didn't need to be misinformed) and tried to find out what else was going on. Sadly, it seemed that ANN was blasting the incident, the atrocity de jeur filling the memes and cashing in on the subscriptions and hits. Well, Sam guessed that she really couldn't blame them, considering that it was a social news network, and they were reporting the news. But seriously, would it kill them to perhaps have the EUCC scores more readily accessible? She wanted to see how the New Beijing Hoplites did against the Illyeria Storm the other day.
Being stuck in the Med Bay had Sam bored out of her mind.
Not that the Navy was treating her wrong; quite the opposite! Commander Phillips had a good bedside manner, and the various Corpsmen were all polite and dedicated to their jobs. The food was unfortunately limited to yogurt and nutrient-enhanced paste slushies (which tasted God-awful) due to her stomach surgery, and the surgeon didn't want her intestines trying to pass anything more solid than liquefied anything. Sam knew they were doing what was best, but she hadn't had anything solid to eat in something like three days save for the Asari meal bar Tela had given to her back on Revan. God, she would kill for a burger. Still, all things considered, Collins knew that she was in good hands, the surgeries had all gone well, and she had been assured that she would make a full recovery in less than a weeks' time with the help of a full regiment of antibiotics and amino acid beta-protein cocktails to aid in recovery and recuperation.
Despite all that had happened, and the fact that she had almost died, Sam itched for something to do. And what she wanted to do was work.
The door to the Med Bay opened, and Sam peeled her eyes away from her hunt for anything meaningful on the ExtraNet (a chore as is) to see who was coming in, and was more than a little surprised to see Captain Steven Hackett entering, the Commanding Officer of the Tenth Reconnaissance Flotilla walking into the medical facility with his eyes looking straight at her. Though she had never actually met the Naval Captain before, only knowing of him due to the fact that she had looked up his contact information before leaving to Revan in case she ran into issues, there was no doubt who he was. The man looked to be in his early- to mid-forties, with an old scar running down the side of his face, starting at his cheek and heading towards his chin. His presence and bearing was absolute as he walked into the room, his stride pure military as he moved towards her bed. Collins turned off the dPad and set it down to give the Captain her fullest attention.
"Captain Hackett." The Deputy nodded at the CO, getting one in return. "How are things? I... sorry, you probably get asked that about a thousand times a day." Sam realized out loud, getting an amused look upon the Captain's face. "Things are well, I hope?"
"Yes." Hackett nodding, collecting a contragravity chair and bringing it over to Collins' bed, sitting in it by her bedside. "We've collected all the women from the facility, as well as the children in the transportation vessel. All are doing physically well, though psychologically-wise I doubt any of them will be well for quite some time, I'm afraid." The Deputy agreed with that. Her own dreams, when she slept, were fraught with what they had found down at Revan. "We're still combing the site for intel, evidence, and data, and ONI is having an absolute field day with what they are finding. Revan's orbit is now heavily populated with a couple of fleets' worth of ships with aid and assistance coming from multiple sectors of Council Space. We just didn't have the supplies or knowledge to even begin to care for the Turian women, and we weren't much better off with the others. Turians are flying scouting patrols and long-range defensive postures while we guard some of the non-military oriented Citadel vessels in orbit; supply ships and mobile medical facilities. The women are getting the medical treatment that they deserve, as are the children.
"The... ones that were discovered abandoned in that room," Sam realized that he was doing her a kindness; he wasn't calling them dead children, "are being afforded every dignity we could muster. We've actually let some of the medical personnel on the surface to help us out, since we didn't know the expectations of the other races for such events. We were rather... strained ourselves, with so many." The older man closed his eyes, taking what was obviously a calming breath. Sam didn't doubt that Captain Hackett walked in the very same rooms she had, observed everything with his eyes. She didn't doubt he had the same emotional turmoil that she had, he merely bottled it better with more experience at his side. "I've seen many things in my years in the military, but the callousness of what I found on that planet has disturbed me greatly." Sam couldn't agree more. "I'm glad you caught the fucker responsible, and I wasn't too sad to see most of the Batarians didn't make it."
"The Batarian Captain was the one that shot me." Collins supplied, a gentle hand moving towards her bandaged abdomen. She was well out of the danger zone now, and the medical personnel were just being on the safe side. She would be fit for duty within a day or two, thanks to the medical care and expertise of the military doctors on the Marco Polo. "Captain, I regret to inform you that the Marshal's Office on Therum played a part in this tragedy." Hackett's face went dark with that news. "I don't know how deep, and I don't know how wide, but I do have substantial evidence of Marshal Bart Weather's part loaded on my Omnitool, which also implicated at least some of the other Deputies in my Office." Sam went quiet for a moment. "That's how I first discovered that something was amiss; discrepancies in Customs Logs and empirical data based on the ships' weight, mass, fuel consumption, and the fact that it was claiming to haul iron and nickel when there is no mining being done in the Thermopile System. What was being declared did not match what was being registered when the ship made a Jump through the Knossos Relay."
"That's... going to be a shitstorm." Hackett sighed, shaking his head. "Bart's been the Marshal of Therum for quite some time now, and has a solid reputation. How solid is the evidence?"
"Four years worth of Customs' Logs with his signature on it based upon the very vessel upon the planet." Collins informed the Captain. "I also pulled up a personal message from him to the ship's captain, a Batarian named Pan'mekk. He... he was going to sell me into slavery." The young woman closed her eyes, now truly understanding the horror she had avoided. "God, I would have been a part of that baby farm because of him." Hackett's face went a dark red at that, ugly and raging. "I am in need of a favor, Captain. I need to borrow some Marines and a vessel to clean house. I need to arrest eleven people and fleece the Office for evidence to find out who was in on it, who knew what, and how deep it truly went. At the very least, Marshal Weathers was in the know that there was a full-fledged slavers' operation going on in the very Cluster he was assigned to."
"You'll have it." Captain Steven Hackett promised, nodding his head. "The Artemis Tau Cluster is part of my responsibility, too. It seems that I was hoodwinked good and proper, as were you. While it wasn't our fault due to the nefariousness of others, it is our responsibility to set it right. You did your part by finding the operation. I'll help you amputate the rot left behind. Scaring up a Battle Group shouldn't be too hard, considering how much we've diverted into this system, giving you at least a Company's worth of Marines and a couple teams of Naval Security to help you execute your arrests and make sure that law and order are kept in Therum."
"Thank you." Sam nodded, grimacing. She wasn't going to be arresting anyone from a medical bed, that was for sure. She still had a couple of days in which she was going to be confined to the Med Bay for recuperation and to finish her regimen of antibiotics and recovery medications. It wouldn't do to jump out of bed only to injure herself further, or worse. She was looking forward to that moment, when she could get her answers, to find out just how how bad it had been in the Marshal's Office in Therum. Sam had no idea what the future had in store for her, especially if she went in and arrested everybody in the Office. For Marshal Weathers, she knew she had enough to justify a trial, and evidence that would be pretty damning in court. As for the other Deputies, she had at best very circumstantial evidence, really boiling down to a few words on a message sent to a Batarian. No need to let the others in the office know this was the basis of that line of thought, and it was enough for just cause and to hold someone in jail for an investigation, at least. Sam doubted it was all the Deputies in the Therum Office; likely, it was probably only a couple who had been in office for a few years, or had stumbled upon some portion of the operation somehow. Realistically, this was a job more oriented to the Terran Bureau of Investigations, or perhaps the Internal Affairs Office back on Earth. Any investigation into corruption was generally held out-of-house to avoid bias and obvious conflict-of-interest. At the least, she could arrest Bart Weathers, hold all the Deputies, and preserve as much evidence and as many electronic fingerprints as possible before the appropriate people showed up.
Sam had been stuck in the medical bed long enough to get bored, and she had been researching and making plans in the meantime. If she was going to do what she planned, then she was going to make sure all of her ducks were in a row. It was like a planned assault; she needed to gather as much intelligence as possible before she went through the doors to execute the plan. That mean going through the Systems Alliance Charter, to look upon every law broken for the verbiage, to make sure that when she arrested Marshal Weathers, that she was doing it by-the-book. It simply wouldn't do to have them man getting off due to a technicality or dismissed evidence due to improper procedures.
She had an investigation to conduct. And nothing but time on her hands.
Fine, Arc I
Stay Tuned for Arc II, Therum...
Author's Note: This chapter wasn't my strongest effort; it was more of a link to the next Arc. Which is Therum. Which is where the fun is. I just wanted to hold your hand and convince you that Sam ain't dead yet. Could be worse; look at Fallout: New Vegas.
I have plans for Jondum Bau, whom of all the SPECTREs, I liked the best. And He will be like Batman. Or… more like Tony Stark-suit Spiderman from the Civil War comic book.
EUCC, or Earth Urban Competitive Combat League, is suppose to be something in between football, an obstacle course, and possibly non-lethal combat. The two teams I used are my own creation; New Beijing is a city in Shanxi, and Sam's Alma Mater, and Illyera is actually the capital of the colony Elysium, which is canon. As Shanxi is a Oriental location, much of the colony will be Oriental in culture and development.
LaGrange Points - Certain locations around a planet in space. There are five, and they are 'parking spaces' in which a small object (like a ship) uses two much larger bodies (like a sun and a planet) to create a stable, geocentrifugal orbit. Basically, they are 'gravity wells' in which Newtonian Physics creates a sort of 'flow' in which one is not either constantly falling towards the sun, or towards another celestial object, like Earth. L1 is in between the sun and planet, while L2 is polar opposite, sun and planet on the same side. L3 is the apothesis point, opposite of the celestial object with the sun in between, and L4 and L5 are set at equalateral triangles (or 'trojan points'). See? SCIENCE! I fucking love physics.
And fuck you mechanical dragons. Epic fights, but fuck you. (No spoils)