The Red Moon Collection - 1 - Starside

Chapter 10

MSV Hyperion, Batalla System, in orbit over Logasiri

"Orbit established and auto-pilot locked in."

Will was busy tapping away at his omnitool as Shansa's voice came over the ship's intercom. Without pause he activated his comm link to the cockpit and cleared his throat.

"Meet us in the cargo bay. We're gonna have a mission briefing in just a minute."

Tul'Sorrin chuckled from the doorway as he leaned on the bulkhead. "A mission briefing, huh? I wasn't aware this was a military vessel."

Will closed his comm and reached for the rifle that hung inside his locker. "Starting now we are."

"Wow," Eleena teased as she finished up her pre-mission preperations. "Captain Hume taking it up a notch."

He had spent the past hour checking over every inch of his weapon and armor as well as double checking the diagnostic readouts that his omnitool had given him. Will gripped his hands on the Vindicator firmly before collapsing the rifle and reaching over his back to lock it into the weapon holster. The only thing left in his equipment locker now was a dark red helmet with a freshly polished and spotless visor. His gloved hand wrapped around the headpiece and pulled it to his waist as he turned around.

"I owe everyone too much not take this seriously," Will stated defensively.

Eleena closed her locker and slid her SMG into the holster on the small of her back. "Good," she replied as she turned around. "I didn't take this job to die from an incompetent captain."

Will smiled to Eleena as she gave him a reassuring nod before he motioned for the group to follow him into the hall. From the door into the cargo bay Will could see Shansa standing with her arms crossed and head cocked to the side as she stared at the out of sight weapon bench and, presumably, Kallux. Will stepped through the door and stood beside Shansa as he looked over to see the krogan locking the barrel of his cannon into place with a grunt. Kallux turned around as the clunking sound of boots rang out from the metal floor of the cargo bay and nodded to Will. He glanced over to Eleena and Tul as they stood at the side of Shansa and Kallux to form a small circle. Will took a calming breath as he saw the eyes of the others fall upon him.

"I guess I don't need to tell you all why we're here," Will opened to the chuckles and grins of his shipmates. "But we do have a lot to cover before this little party gets into gear. Shansa, I assume you've got the coordinates for the facility punched in?"

The redhead smiled in reply. "Yes. I did a rough topographical scan when we got in range and I've selected a few safe landing zones."

Will nodded and crossed his arms. "Great. Got a favorite?"

Shansa's eyes rolled to the ceiling as she considered the question. "I think so. It's beyond a small ridge which should keep us out of sight and I think it'll also allow me to sneak in below the range of any basic scanners. Only problem is it'll probably take a half hour or so to hike from the ship to the base."

"It's a low-G planet," Tul quickly noted. "The hike won't be too exhausting."

"Alright, sounds like we have a jumping off point," Will stated. "Shansa, as soon as we've hit the ground I want the ship running dark."

She raised a brow. "How dark?"

"Everything that can be picked up on short-range sensors I want dead. If this place has any military-grade equipment they'll start searching the moment they realize we're there. In fact, just cut everything on the ship off but the emergency lights and the cockpit computers." The confidence in Will's voice, despite being mostly feigned, sounded genuine.

Shansa frowned and looked to the others. "If I shut down everything and they find me... they can disable the ship before I even get the thrusters warmed up."

Will bit his lip slightly and nodded. "I know, but I promise you they won't find the ship. We're taking them by surprise and they'll have no idea who is attacking them. They're gonna want to protect themselves, not go looking for the people who dropped us off."

She gave a small nod. "Alright. If you're sure."

"I am," Will reassured her before looking to the other three. "Now as far as the infiltration goes I want them to be unaware of our presence for as long as possible."

Kallux chuckled. "Don't think we make it in and out without waking up some guards?"

"For various reasons ranging from the size of your gun to the volume of Eleena's mouth... no," Will jabbed.

Eleena rolled her eyes with a smirk. "Fuck off."

Will gave her a wink and grinned. "As I was saying... we're gonna stay undetected for as long as possible. The first thing we're going to do is try to find a way into the facility. If this place is big then they'll probably have a series of maintenance shafts or something that we can use to move around out of sight. Once we're inside I wanna find a local terminal as fast as possible. Tul, think you'll be able to get into their network?"

"Of course," Tul replied with unwavering aplomb.

"Good. Get us any information you can find. Facility blueprints, comm traffic, work logs, anything."

"Captain, please." Tul crossed his arms with a chuckle. "You act like this is my first infiltration job."

"Uhh..." Will tried not let his curiosity get he best of him and shrugged. "Right. Sorry about that."

"So what exactly is the plan after we get inside and Masked Hacker does his thing?" Eleena looked down to her helmet as she spoke and wiped a smudge from the side.

Will paused and thought for a moment. "We start searching for answers. A control room or laboratory is priority number one."

Kallux nodded in agreement. "And the rules of engagement?"

"If we have to take anyone out I'd like to do it quietly or even non-lethally. Beyond that... I guess it's kill or be killed." Will clenched and released his fists nervously as he answered.

The others nodded silently. Will looked around the small circle made up of his crew and smiled lightly. Despite the unknown odds they were going into he was confident in their capabilities. For the first time in years he felt that he had a group of people watching his back that he could rely on.

"Shansa," Will began as his gaze fell on her. "Would you be so kind as to jump in the cockpit and get this mission underway?"

She gave a nervous smile in return and nodded. "You got it."

Shansa looked around the circle causing her smile to grow slightly before she turned and darted through the door and into the forward hall. Kallux turned back to the workbench and hauled his cannon off and onto his back. As he came back around to face the others he stepped up beside Eleena and Tul who had already lined up in front of Will at a casual attention.

"Everyone ready for this?" Will asked as he fiddled with his helmet.

"You bet your ass I am," Kallux answered. "And by the way, if we find Ag'aren I'd appreciate it if we managed to take him alive. Higher bounty and all."

Will laughed. "I don't expect him to answer my questions while he's dead so that request goes for everyone. Anything else to add?"

"If I may." Tul raised a finger as he began to speak. "Logasiri is low on gravity and atmosphere so watch your shield levels. Even a minor armor rupture could be catastrophic here."

"Agreed," Will replied. " Now if there's no other business to attend to... we have some work to do."

Will smiled as he lifted his helmet and locked it into place with a small, soothing click and hiss as his suit's atmo-system kicked in. Eleena did the same as Kallux turned and crouched under the table behind him. After rummaging around for a moment he stood back up with his awkwardly shaped, krogan-fitted helmet and slid it over his head. Will waited until everyone was sufficiently prepared and motioned for them to follow as he walked back to the door and into the forward hall. He tapped the control panel beside the airlock door and stepped aside as the others filed into the decontamination chamber. Tul raised his omnitool and made a few quick adjustments before lowering his arm.

"I took the liberty of setting up an encryption for the comm channel," the quarian informed them through their headsets.

"Good thinking," Will commended as he tapped another button to keep the outer airlock door open. "I'm gonna go make one last check in the cockpit."

Eleena gave him a nod as he turned back to the hall and hurried to the open cockpit door. As he ducked in he could see that the ship had already begun its rapid descent to the planet's surface at Shansa's command. The rolling hills and mountains were an eerie mixture of black, blue and purple dirt and rocks that, despite the intensity of the setting sun, almost seemed to absorb the light that touched them. He placed his hand on the back of Shansa's seat and watched closely as she brought the ship down to below the altitude of most of the peaks that they soared past. The ship had noticeably decelerated as they grew closer to the ground and Shansa had quickly found a valley that the ship could coast through without much trouble.

"Are we close?" Will continued to stare through the forward viewport.

"Just another minute or so," she replied calmly, clearly deep in concentration.

His hand moved from the back of her chair and grasped her shoulder gently. Shansa continued to maintain complete focus on safely navigating through the hills and mountains for a moment before one of her hands pulled back from the controls and found his. Despite only being able to feel her fingers in his palm she gave his gloved hand a tight squeeze then quickly placed her hand back on the flight controls.

"Please be careful," she said softly.

Will closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath as he gave her shoulder a gentle pat and pulled his hand back. "I'll be fine. You'll see me in a few hours."

"I'd better," she called as he turned and ducked back through the door and into the hall.

Will stepped into the airlock and tapped the panel on the wall to close the door behind him. Kallux, Eleena and Tul'Sorrin all stood silently in anticipation. Will reached down to his omnitool and with a single command activated his shield generator which prompted the others to do the same.

"We're hitting the ground in fifteen seconds. Landing zone looks clear," Shansa announced through their headsets.

"I'll activate the waypoint for the facility's coordinates," Tul stated as he pulled up his omnitool.

A few seconds later an objective waypoint blinked up on their HUDs briefly before minimizing and popping up as just a decreasing number on the edge of their vision. The Hyperion rumbled fiercely as the forward thrusters blazed to slow the ship's forward momentum. The ship jerked to a halt as the landing gears struck the surface of the planet causing the squad to brace themselves slightly to stop from falling onto one another. After a few seconds the Hyperion's artificial gravity deactivated and Will closed his eyes to calm his nerves as the unsettling feeling of losing half of one's weight washed over them. He opened his eyes and tapped the control panel to open the outer airlock door.

Will looked out as the door slid apart to reveal a hellish landscape of the black and blue hillside littered with rocks ranging in size from his fist to the Hyperion itself. He soil looked like nothing more than lifeless dirt and the complete absence of plant life seemed to indicate the same. The sun was setting behind the stern of the ship which cast long, almost indiscernible shadows across the dark hill and the waypoint to the facility was directly in front of them on the other side. As Will dropped down onto the surface of the planet he looked down to the soil and gave it a small kick.

"How's the surface?" Eleena asked as she and the others stood in the door behind him.

"It's... thin. Almost like ash," Will replied as he stepped to the side.

Kallux jumped down and nodded. "Not thin enough to cloud just from walking."

Eleena and Tul leapt to the surface and the asari reached up to close the airlock behind them.

Will raised his comm to Shansa. "We're out."

"Understood. Going dark."

Will reached over his back to retrieve his M-15 and looked back to his squad. "Looks like we have a hill to climb."

Without another word the group started off up the rocky hillside with Will leading the march. Eleena and Kallux flanked him on either side while Tul took up position directly behind him.

"Walking up a miserable mountainside in the desert really brings back the memories," Kallux stated after a few minutes of silent climbing.

Eleena glanced over to him. "Done this once or twice?"

The krogan let out a small laugh. "I grew up on Tuchanka. When I was a whelp we did this kinda thing for fun."

"Sounds like a hell of a childhood," Will commented.

"It was alright. Sometimes brutal, sometimes exhilarating." Kallux shrugged. "But it was the only childhood I had so it's not like I have something to compare it to."

"Sounds more intense than my childhood," Will said with a laugh. "I spent half of it in school and the rest working the colony's fishing equipment."

"Oh yeah, I think Shansa mentioned that you two were colonists." Eleena paused and narrowed her eyes for a moment thinking she might have seen something in the rocks above them. She chalked it up to shadows and continued on.

"Yep. Ever heard of Arvuna?" Will waited and smirked to himself as no one replied. "Didn't think so. It was part of humanity's first big wave of colonization after entering the galactic community. The little village Shansa and I lived in was one of the moon's biggest fish exporters."

"What caused you to leave?" Tul inquired.

Will's smirk slowly faded as he guided the group around a large boulder. "It's a long story. What about you, Eleena?"

The asari made a mental note of Will's quick deflection of the subject. "Me? I grew up on Cyone."

Will glanced back briefly. "Never heard of it."

"Not surprising. It's pretty important to asari but not to anyone else."

"So is it where the asari train all their dancers?" Kallux grinned.

Will let out a laugh and shook his head. "No no, she said it wasn't important to non-asari."

Eleena gave Will a shove and shot a glare at Kallux. "Actually, jackasses, it's one of our biggest fuel depots."

Will stumbled slightly from the push as he continued to chuckle. "Sorry, sorry." He grinned as he recomposed himself. "But, uh, yeah. Cyone. What was that like?"

Eleena rolled her eyes. "It was fine. My mother worked on one of the orbital platforms as an engineer so I didn't get to see her that much."

"Is that where you picked up your mechanical skills?" Tul asked, having stepped up with the rest of the group.

"Nope. My father was a turian who worked as a starship mechanic on the surface. I spent most of my time with him because my mother was barely around." Eleena smiled softly under her helmet.

"A turian starship mechanic on an asari world? How the hell did he end up there?" Will chuckled as he asked.

"My parents met while serving on a ship together and decided to settle down in a place that would always have work for them. I'm sure having alien residents on a human world is rare, but give it a few decades and you'll see plenty of them on places like Arvuna," Eleena replied.

"Hm." Will looked back to the quarian and nodded. "How about you, Tul? What was it like growing up on the Migrant Fleet?"

"Terrible. There's a reason why I never returned from my Pilgrimage," Tul stated flatly.

Kallux eyed him curiously. "Couldn't have been that bad. I grew up on a radioactive rock."

"I was born on a small ship barely twice the size of yours, the Hyperion, but lived among nearly a hundred people because our captain was too proud to admit that our ship was overpopulated. Everything we did on that ship was for the greater good of the people and never for personal gain. It wasn't until I embarked upon my Pilgrimage that I even realized that one could act for his or herself." Tul's voice was monotone and flat as he spoke. "I was the best computer engineer on the ship and it was easy for me to find work. The first time I was paid it was hard to grasp that, because I was no longer on the Fleet, the money mine. We don't even have currency on the Flotilla."

Will looked over his shoulder. "Is that why you haven't gone back? Greed?"

"Absolutely not!" Tul retorted indignantly. "Unless it's "greedy" to want to live my life as an individual and not just a piece of a seventeen million part machine."

"Hey, I'm not judging you," Will quickly responded. "I didn't mean for it to come out that way."

Tul glanced to Eleena and Kallux who continued to remain silent. "I apologize. I didn't mean to yell. It's just a... sensitive subject."

Eleena glanced over as Tul trailed off. "Don't worry about it. I think the fact you're not ready to bill us for destroying your station is proof enough that you're not driven by greed."

Tul shook his head slowly. "No, the Captain was right. It is greedy of me not to return to the Fleet. But after seeing the galaxy outside of those ships... it's beautiful. I'm not going back."

"I'm sure as hell not gonna try to convince you to," Kallux assured him. "I have problems with my people's culture as well."

Silence fell over the group as they began to circle around another large boulder. Will stopped suddenly and held up his hand as the others came to rest behind him. They had reached the peak of the hill and below them in a small valley was a large facility that bore little resemblance to most mining depots. He crouched down and motioned for the others to move up to his side.

"That doesn't look like any mining operation I've been to," Eleena noted as she crouched beside Will.

"Agreed," he stated.

The gray buildings of the facility were centered around one massive structure that, given its size, Will assumed extended deep underground. The few smaller units surrounding it were big enough to be barracks or a maintenance facility, but none of them rose more than a dozen feet or so off of the ground. Located on the far side of the center building was an enormous landing pad with a pair of Mantis gunships and enough additional room for two ships the size of the Hyperion to dock. Will raised his rifle and activated the scope's zoom optics to give himself a more detailed view.

"I don't see any guards on the surface," he reported to the others.

"They're pretty well hidden," Kallux reasoned. "I doubt they have much to worry about in terms of hostile native life."

"Probably right," Will agreed as he squinted to focus. "Looks like they have some security cameras."

Tul cleared his throat. "I can broadcast some interference on any of the cameras that might spot us."

Will lowered his rifle and looked over to the others. "Good. We're gonna stay behind cover as much as possible going downhill, understood?"

Kallux, Eleena and Tul all gave him a curt nod of acknowledgment.

"Alright." Will flipped off the safety on his rifle. "Let's move."