'Thinking'
"Low gothic"
[Machine talk]
"Talking"
Omega
Quarantine district
"What the hell?" Shepard wondered, a bit stunned by what she is seeing, as she cleared the entranceway to another room. Which unfortunately to her had neither the intern Mordin wanted her to find… nor a exit.
"This is unusual," Miranda noted, her voice echoing from the room as she followed behind Shepard. Leaving Jacob, Ranger and the Magos outside to watch out for ambushers.
"What is it?" Jacob asked from outside. Ranger and the Magos kept silent. They had no intentions of talking more than they need to.
"This room is full of Blue Suns, all dead. But they've also been… categorized," Miranda hesitated. "Humans in one pile, non-humans in the other."
"Don't forget to mention the humans are half naked," Shepard threw in.
"What?" Jacob said in surprise.
"That sounds about right," Ranger said. Jacob gave Ranger a curious look, as if hinting for a further explanation.
"To the categorization of hum—" Ranger stopped as the Magos shut her up with a look and a quick ping to her vox.
She proceeded to turn off her mask's speakers and turned to look forward, away from Jacob and his expression.
Jacob turned his head, unwilling to question any further, moving into the room that Shepard was in. The two Adeptus Mechanicus personnel stayed outside in utter silence.
As he looked around what was perhaps a small storage room and was just as surprised at the amount of bodies crammed into it.
Shepard moved to the pile of half-naked humans, her rifle pointed at it for any surprises, and gave it a hard kick. One of the bodies slid off and landed face up towards her. Miranda ignored it, preferring to examine the pile of dead Blue suns still in armor.
It was the body of a middle-aged brown skinned man, only dressed in what seemed to be brown briefs, a tattoo of the blue suns logo on his right pectoral. The main area of interest however, was the neck and face.
The eyes of the man was slightly bulging out, an expression of fear and surprise on his face, a large bruise wrapped around his neck. Looking closer to it, it resembled what seemed to be rope burn. Though as she looked over the rest of the bodies, Shepard saw some with their necks slit or bending at unnatural angles. She also noted that these bodies were 'fresh', very 'fresh'.
The same can't be said for the other pile. Their deaths were not as clean.
"Can't be vorcha who did this, too clean." Jacobs voice brought her out of her examination. "Not krogan either. They would've had heads caved in or limbs ripped off… Or eaten."
"He's right, Shepard. And take a look at this." Miranda stood over a body of a dead batarian in Blue Suns uniform, a dataslate in her hands. She offered it to Shepard.
She took the data-slate from Miranda, giving it a quick read. There was an recent order that all Blue Suns were to beware of 'children' and to shoot them on sight. The "children" bit caught Shepard's eye, and she thought back to their unknown support from earlier.
"I think we're dealing with child soldiers here…" Shepard relayed blankly.
"Children did this?" Jacob was aghast. "H… How?"
"I don't even know, nor want to," Miranda said. "Though It wouldn't beyond the realm of possibility on Omega." She looked over at Shepard, "It breeds the desperate and despicable."
They were unaware that their conversations were being eavesdropped upon by the two waiting outside.
[I am surprised that they were this effective, It has been less than a few terran hours since we last contacted them. This is a testament of skill to those abhumans... Or the lack thereof with these "Blue suns"] Ranger chatted to the Magos, over her vox.
The Magos did not reply, his mind deep in thought over something, evident due to his posture and the stare he was sporting. Ranger decided to refrain from speaking further.
"Idiots. I told them to avoid being seen." The Magos fumed internally.
"You have been spotted." he quickly berated the the merry band of murderous munchkins over the vox.
He got no reply. The static sounded like shame to him.
Normandy SR-2
Mess Hall
Trooper Private was worried.
No, scratch that. He was absolutely terrified, sitting on a stool by the counter. The room was currently almost empty. The only occupants being the mess hall cook, who gave him a cheerful greeting before turning his attention to mixing some delightfully smelling meal in a pot, and a few crewmembers on break, talking away in their own little world.
He did not mind that, Private was not looking for conversation nor did he want any. Though he couldn't help but feel a bit lonely now, especially since the only other Imperial here he could relate too, Astropath Ezek, was locked in his room resting. And you do not disturb a resting psyker unless you really have to.
He saw some Guardsmen learn that the hard way when they spontaneously combusted.
The cook, Gardner if he recalled correctly from the earlier greetings, passed him a mug of 'caw-fee'. Giving him a look of sympathy before proceeding back to his cooking.
He quickly took a deep drink of the burning liquid. It honestly tasted like a better version of recaff in his opinion, and with the fact that he could add as much sugar as he wanted. Which to be honest, even having sugar is a luxury to anyone in the Imperial Guard, let alone tasting it.
Despite the incredibly liberal amounts he added in his 'distracted' state, he could not taste it. The shame from his negligee had overwritten his taste buds.
Private turned his helmeted head over to the window, only to see it greyed out. The medicae was conducting emergency treatment. This was perhaps the only time he would find himself hating the medicae, and no guardsmen would ever hate the medicae. That would be tantamount to suicide in a warzone.
Alfa was standing guard outside the door, the Lord General's private servo skull floating next to him.
He sighed as he looked forward.
It was an honor to serve the Lord General directly. Not to mention that he was also aware that it was also supposed to be one of the safest positions in the Imperial Guard, along with the longest lifespan. It was his duty and job, albeit a job he never wanted, to serve and protect the Lord General.
He failed in less than three days.
He was positive about what would happen to him if the Lord General died. The nearest commissar being very interested in pointing a bolt pistol at him, if the Lord General had brought any here with him that is.
Although on the bright side maybe he'll live? He was rather thorough with administering the various needles and medicines the cogitator told him. Though granted, no one usually cared if he bungled before on a guardsmen. Merely another number to a long list.
This patient was a completely different matter.
He took another sip. Unaware that he had drained the mug and was sucking air. Placing the empty mug down and looked straight at it. He inwardly prayed to the Emperor, his gloved hands on his chest, clasped in the sign of the aquila, before he noticed someone sitting on the stool next to him.
"You alright there?" She asked, a hint of concern in her voice.
Raising his head and looking over to his left. He recognized the face of one of the crew members he met during the meeting they had a while ago. A Kelly Chambers, if he remembered right
"I'm fine, just worried about the Lord General and all." His omnitool lit up and translated the stream of Low Gothic, as he raised the mug to his lips.
"You seem a lot more than just worried."
"It is nothing much. Just… thinking about things." Private tried to deflect her.
"You're drinking wet sugar from a empty mug,"
He realized the incredibly sweet taste on his tongue as soon as she noted this. No longer distracted in his worry, he felt the sweetness suddenly become unbearable and coughed out.
Kelly passed over a napkin to the coughing Private.
"Thanks," he said as he wiped his lips.
"You want to talk about it?"
"What is there to talk about? The Lord General is in there because of me."
Kelly pursed her lips at this self-hating attitude. "Let's change the topic from him to you. Tell me… How old are you?" She gave him a genuine reassuring smile.
"Eighteen."
"Ah, so you've been serving the Imperial Guard for a few months, I take it?"
"More like a few years."
Kelly blinked at that. "I'm sorry?"
"Yeah, conscripted at fifteen during a 'recruitment drive'." he said with a resigned look, not seeing the need at all to hide this fact. It was common knowledge about the Imperial Guard on Aquarius after all.
"What consists of a recruitment drive?" Kelly dared to ask, a look of horror growing inside her, though she did not show it on her face.
"Well, for me it was during my shift at the algae manuf—"
"You have children working at fifteen? What about school?" Kelly interrupted.
" 'Aquarians learn to scrape and swim before they walk and run' is a phrase we use. Schools for those who can afford it and we're considered adults at fourteen, old age at about late twenties. Frankly, anything over forty is extremely rare unless your of the noble class, or rich."
The psychiatrist massaged the bridge of her nose, her disbelief growing. Shepard might want to hear about this.
"Anyways, my 'recruitment' consisted of a mob of recruiters alongside a platoon of PDF storming in and yelling and hitting us to 'get in the truck outside before I shoot one of you!'. He emphasized the voice with a gruff accent. The omni tool managing to get it surprisingly accurate.
"Did he?" She hoped he didn't.
"He did, shot Algin in the leg when he tried to protest about feeding his parents, and beat him before dragging him off to the trucks, Luckily, it was a las gun on a low setting, so he didn't lose his leg. We listened after that and here I am."
"Is that even legal in the Imperium? To just force dozens of people to go through boot camp? What about your parents?"
"Dozens? Nooo, no no no, I was in one of many manufactorums in the hive. Not to mention that these drafts are of a planetary scale, so a good few million are gathered at a time," Private was in thought, "I haven't seen or contacted my parents since, once your in the Guard you're never going to see your home planet again."
Kelly sat there, her face morphing from disbelief to astonishment and finally horror, as she processed the number of soldiers recruited in this way and the other tidbits of information. She had to know something. "How often does this happen?"
Private was oblivious to the expressions, of her and those around the room, as he explained more and more about what he knew. Nor was he aware of the slowly increasing amount of crew members who were passing by but paused as they overheard his explanations.
"Whenever it was time to pay the tithe, and they don't have enough bodies in the PDF for the Guard. So about every decade or so. It's been going on for a long time, since we joined the Imperium millenia ago."
'But… How… is that even sustainable?' she thought, before forcing on a fake smile, switching the talks to perhaps a different subject.
"How did you manage to become the Lord General's aide?"
"He liked the sound of my name," Private monotoned.
"... That's it? No outstanding feats you done that caught his attention? No special skills?"
"Not that I'm aware of. He just liked the name and decided to make me his aide. Though I only got the job for three days…. And I've failed that." he began to mope.
"What even is a Lord General?" She decided to change the topic once again. Perhaps this answer would be less grim.
"He's the Lord general." he said, a bit puzzled at her question.
"I understand that, but what is the… directive of a Lord General, how is it different from a regular general?"
"I don't know that much to be honest, but all I know from my Imperial Primer is that a general controls a army, the Lord General commands the armies of the Imperial Guard, the resources, entire warzones and planets."
She was quiet for a minute as she processed this.
"... Tell me, how big can these wars get?"
"I don't know. The Lord General would know more, he's been with the Guard longer than I have. I've only fought in one skirmish, but that one encompassed an entire world and took over a year." Private gave a thoughtful look. "Well to be honest, it was a hive world of less then a few billion. So a tiny skirmish."
"Billions? An entire—… How big are the regiments?" Every answer made her gape.
"I'm not really sure, either. It varies quite a bit from here and there, but I've heard that the Guard had over a few million men on that world."
Kelly… was speechless.
Only when Private decided to look over at Kelly, was he surprised by her face of shock, horror and.. pity? Looking around him he saw similar expressions, from Gardner who gave him "caw-fee", over to the now bigger crowd of crew members that simply stared at him.
Private suddenly pondered if he might have made a mistake, the Lord General and the Magos would not be happy about this nor the astropath.
Frak, he forgot about the astropath.
"Can I get a refill?" He smiled nervously.
Omega
Environmental Controls
[This is a lot more resistance than expected.] Magos Nokia grumbled as a missle soared over his head. His las-mechadendrite peaked over the cover like a snake out of a hedge, and replied with a las beam.
A loud boom was heard, along with the sounds of something screaming. A menacing hiss echoed out from one of the vorcha at the end, which his omnitool translated as an extremely vulgar swear even by Imperial standards. Nokia did not know whether to be impressed or disgusted by it.
He had his las-mechadendrite fire another shot and the hissing stopped.
[It's shameful that their missiles are the only weapons that can remotely harm us,] Ranger voxed, her rifle barked a few times at distant targets.
[Are you proposing to let them shoot you? You are welcome to do so.]
[N-no,] she stammered, realizing how she sounded. [I was merely mentioning—]
[While what you say is true, that does mean you can assume fighting these xenos will be forever easy.] A missile exploded against his cover as soon as he ushered the final word, the block of concrete thick enough to handle it… barely, with the shockwave making his robes flutter.
He popped out out of what was left to shoot his Serpenta, an glowing orb of burning phosphorus flew out, at an encroaching flamer in the shins, toppling him, before gunning the tank on its back. The following violent explosion knocked a few vorcha off the railing, their screams fading away as they grew closer to the bottom, those further out stunned by the sudden boom.
The two AdMech took advantage of the explosion, advancing and firing towards any stunned foes, heading to another section of hard cover… A few feet ahead of them.
[This sector of space is fully unknown to us. There may be an aspect of it that we are completely vulnerable to.]
"Hey, Magos, how goes the progress on your fan?" Shepard barked from her comm bead. Her voice sounded frantic.
"Slowly but surely."
"That's a lot better than us; were more stuck than a ripe turnip in harvest season. They must really not want this cure to get out if they have this much manpower here!"
The Magos had a dreading suspicion as to why.
When the group first entered this room. It proceeded as how Francis remembered it from the game, though it was a bit amazing at how all of his memories were now stored digitally: open door, get confronted by vorcha collector fanboys (only for me to force-feed the speaker a las bolt), moving to the main controls to start it up, then proceeding to part ways to take both fans simultaneously.
But by the Ommissiah's skull he did not think there would be this much opposition or even rocket launcher as soon as he shot the first one in the face. Francis wasn't sure if this was a matter of "Game vs Life" or that the ratlings might have tipped the balance of power in the Blood Pack's favor, rather heavily.
However, he knew one thing. He was gonna need help and he had only one option.
"This is Magos Nokia, I demand a response from any nearby ratling teams," The Magos voxed in Low Gothic. He did not have to wait long for a response.
"This be Ratling squad "Little Foot", Reporting." A reply crackled back, somewhat distorted by the sound of gunfire in the background.
"Ratling squad "Quick Finger", Reporting. Other squads are occupied dealing with some xenos scum in other areas."
The Magos sent an order, "My squadmates on the other side of this room are pinned down. Assist them however you can,"
"What's the magic words?" another voice butts in on the vox, sounding a bit too happy for the Magos' liking.
'Seriously? Now?' The Magos thought, annoyance building. "Please and thank you." he mumbled, the annoyance muffled down.
The voice imitated a buzzer buzzing, "Wrong answer." In the background he could discreetly make out the sound of a someone trying to warn the speaker to not piss off the 'Cog-head'.
'Are they standing around and talking when they should be obeying me?' An enraged thought popped up. Francis didn't know where that came from, it felt… odd.
'Fight now, think later.'
"I will shoot you, turn your corpse into a sewer maintenance servitor and have it lick things clean.
"And, donate all your belongings to charity." He emphasized this point, leaning his pistol arm out and firing a searing white ball at the lower region of a particularly brave vorcha. Said vorcha would go out singing soprano, he made sure that the screams would carry over the vox to said ratling.
"We have a winner!" The ratling immediately yelled, fear and desperation obvious. A few seconds later the Magos heard him say, "Have a grenade, you cheeky frakkers!"
There was a loud boom on the other side.
[Move forward!] The Magos ordered, marching out of cover.
A vent overhead, opened up above the vorcha raking cover against Shepard's position. As soon as it swung open, three small metal objects dropped down. One vorcha paused his shooting to stare curiously at one of the strange things that dropped beside him.
It was the last thing he saw before a wave of heat and steel shrapnel shredded him into chunky salsa. The explosion hit those further out, and due to the somewhat narrow path, sending a few of them over the railing. They screamed on their way down to bottom, far below.
"Was that you?" Shepard screamed at Miranda and Jacob. While launching a throw at a stunned vorcha in the chest, having him somersaulting a good distance backwards.
"No," both of them answered with their own respective gunfire as red tracers lit up from all sides. A missle roared past and destroyed a chunk of the concrete railing near Shepard, pelting her with fragments.
A krogan roared to rally or intimidate the vorcha around him to press forward. A familiar cracking sounded shortly after, and the krogan sagged to the ground, missing a portion of the left side of his head.
The krogan dying threw the vorcha into small panic. This was further exacerbated by those who attempted to corral them again, only to end up as targets from further shots.
The Blood Pack's resistance had taken a nosedive.
"Advance now, Shepard! They are in disarray." The Magos chimed over to Shepard. She could easily hear the sound of gunfire and shrieking coming over from his side, and for some reason incredibly high pitch screaming.
Shepard didn't know where this distraction had come from, but she was grateful nonetheless for it. Peering over the cover to see a vorcha crumple to the floor with an echoey bang.
"There, in the vents! Muzzle flashes!" Jacob called out. Shepard glimpsed upwards, just in time to see one go off, illuminating a figure within its dark confines. A rather stumpy figure, easily fitting into the small vents.
"I think it's those kids you were talking about earlier, Shepard," Jacob noted. "Though I'm not exactly comfortable with kids having guns in the first place."
"Can't do anything about that. Now move it!" Shepard yelled.
Jacob and Miranda advanced, spurred into action by Shepard's command. One would pause behind cover to shoot, allowing the other to move forward a bit before doing the same. The occasional shot would hit them, only to be reflected by the barriers. Both of them covered each other as they moved as one towards the fan.
Shepard however was another story. If Miranda and Jacob were like a clockwork mechanism, Shepard was like a rampaging bull… on caffeine. She flew forward in a biotic burst, her fist colliding at FTL speeds into the face of a vorcha as it just peered out of cover. It's teeth were shattered before it was sent flying backwards, its limp body landing on top of a surprised, even wider eyed vorcha.
She didn't bother to look as she fired her shotgun point blank into both of them, her incendiary module lighting the one on top on fire. The flames from the burning bodies, along with the background of dying screams, illuimated Shepard as an angel of wrath.
As the team stormed down the walkway towards the fan units, gunning down any who would get in their way or in Shepard's case, firing pointblank and setting their internal organs into charcoal.
The occasional krogan would charge out of cover, frustrated by the ongoing fight, only to targeted immediately by Shepard's new allies, whittling down the already dismal morale among those left.
As she reached the doorway, it opened up to reveal a vorcha holding a rocket launcher… right in her face. The alien unaware or too stupid to realize that shooting her this close would kill them both.
She quickly reacted, punching its chest with a bioticly charged fist and caving it in. The Vorcha had a face of surprise before it expired, but not before it pulled the trigger as it fell downwards into a heap.
The missle narrowly flew by Shepards head, mere inches away from her. Although muffled by her helmet, it still sounded like a high pitched whistle that had gone off. The projectle soared behind her and between Miranda and Jacob, who were luckily not in its path, as it soared upwards towards the ceiling.
A loud boom was heard from behind them, followed by screaming and cries of pain. Miranda looked backwards, as she guarded the door, and saw where the missile had impacted.
The shot hit directly into one of the vents, or to be more specific, one of the vents that was open.
Shepherd, approaching the console after securing the room, had noticed that the fans on the other side of the hall were activated. Realizing that the Magos and Ranger must've reached thiers before her. She did not hesitate to activate her side.
The machinery soon came to life, pumping vital oxygen and most importantly, the cure for the plague.
Shepard took a deep breath as she relaxed a bit, before deciding to contact the Magos to regroup to leave. "Magos, the fans—" She was cut off by what sounded like a girlish scream on the his end and what sounded like pleas for mercy. "What are you doing?"
"Indulging my curiosity. What is it that you need?" The Magos replied, the sound of something snapping was heard and the pleas stopped.
She decided to not ask. "Regroup with us at the center, we're gonna head back to the clinic."
The two groups met in the room, paying little mind to the carnage they caused. The three humans stopped for a moment at the sight of something wet with orange liquid in the Magos' bloody grasp, Ranger stood by his side.
"... Where did you get that?" Shepard asked, as she stared at the Magos who was currently examining his spoil. The Magos stepped to the side to show a still twitching krogan, its head plate gone and the space it covered spurting blood.
"I wanted to see what a krogan skull looked like. This was in the way." He tucked the plate in his robes. "Shall we head back to the doctor?" He walked off before Shepard or her squadmates could comment.
The three looked at each other and then decided to follow suit. Shepard would have questions to ask after this.
However as Miranda walked beside Jacob, she felt her foot hit something, sending the object skidding with soft metallic tinks.
She paused as she looked at it, walking towards it and bending over to pick it up.
It was a large brass cartridge shell almost the size of her finger and a bit wider. A shell from a gunpowder weapon, something humanity has not used for decades since they discovered Mass Effect technology on Mars. Turning it around, she saw a small skull symbol, partially burned off.
Miranda didn't know what to think of this. How could someone have access to an outdated technology? One that proved to be rather effective against kinetic barriers. Effective as in these rounds seemed to pass straight through regardless.
She pocketed the casing resolving to examine it when she got back on the Normandy.
AN: And here goes another Chapter to our loyal (or not) readers. We hit a SNAFU and quite a few arguments with our Warhammer Fantasy crossover project but it's being worked on as a side now. So in other words we're going to shift our priority to this story until we stop beating each other over the he—
Co-AN: By SNAFU he means we can't figure out the start. We have the middle down pat, and *maybe* the ending, but the start is all whack. There is this weird dynamic where we go through draft after draft after draft on the Fantasy one, yet nothing seems to stick. Yet when we work on 40K, it's a 40Kakewalk!
AN: The Co-author is a liar. We wrote 12 versions of Chap 1 completed, each with different points…. And we just scraped them all. Not arguing about the 40k one, it's more easier for us to do this… and Shame shame on you Co-AN. That pun hurts.
Anyways lets go to the Reviews.
Rehtnapome and "Vanbor the Fire Mage": Thanks for the reviews and we hope to not disappoint you.
(Co-AN: Hnnnng! The compliments of being among/surpassing the best... it's very surprising and touching to see that people actually think highly of this story. Thank you.)
Grudgematch: We have a thing going for the Ratlings, but we're not sure if we should. Only Ranald can tell.
(Co-AN: No midgets on the Normandy)
(An: That's what he thinks.)
(Co-AN: I don't think, I know.)
Seabo76: Thanks, it's a bit difficult trying to balance it in the right ratio.
TubfullOfDishes345: Thanks
Co-AN and AN: Don't forget to review, we like it when people do so
(It makes the Co-AN feel "Special".)