Part 12
The monitors flickered on, dozens of warnings displayed. Easier to count the systems that weren't damaged than those that were. Their warship crippled by nothing more than a few dozen small fighter craft. And that was hardly the worst of it.
They had intercepted the spread of missiles launched with accurate mid-range lasers. While they remained at the edge of the alien, the 'YoRHa', warships for the moment, that would not last. Not that they would be able to tell until they were right on top of them. Both active and passive scanning equipment had been scrapped by the fighter's accurate laser fire. That and whatever exotic projectiles they had been firing.
Their weapons were barely affected by kinetic barriers, as if most of the mass wasn't there, Revanor thought, coming to stand and look about his now panicked command crew. They had not expected such a pitiful force to inflict anything close to this much damage. Their retreating attempt to fire a volley had in turn ended with an interior detonation. Obviously of just fuel, seeing as how their ship wasn't a cloud of debris, but that had left a deck aflame, dozens of Krogan dead or injured, and their engine core forced to undergo immediate shutdown as it had showed instabilities.
It would take hours just to get full measure of the damages, and he honestly didn't yet know if they could repair their engines with the supplies on board, let alone when that might happen. And with the damage to their sensors they wouldn't even be able to tell how far the enemy ships were.
Simply put it was hard to imagine a more awful situation.
"Battlemaster! There's something wrong with our internal comms… they're hacking into our systems!"
Revanor spun around to face the Krogan that had been receiving ship wide damage reports. Chirloc now had an expression of confused fear on his young face. Not even lightly scarred. He'd either been lucky or skilled during his Rite. Either way the terror in his eyes was real now, a confrontation with danger far greater than any he or even the more seasoned crew had ever faced before. This was far beyond what they had expected. I've led them into some uncharted region of space and now we're drifting, no way to fight back or to run. Facing down aliens that outnumber us and use weapons we have no countermeasure for!
"Stay calm! All of you we can still-"
"Attention Krogan. Your ship is damaged and you cannot run. Surrender now and we will care for your survivors."
"They're… they're broadcasting throughout the entire ship using our own comms!"
"Shut it off! Kill the system directly if you have too," Revanor roared out as he slammed the butt of his gun upon the console. Cracking the panel but not stopping the transmission. His eyes widening in sudden realization as he turned to the rest of the bridge crew. "Kill anything wireless! Anything and everything that transmits by any networked signals. Reboot the computer while you're at it and lock the primary systems down. I don't want them shutting gravity off or turning off the vacuum seals on de-pressurized sections."
Despite their frantic efforts, the alien transmission continued, the female voice from the first transmission speaking clearly out of every ship speaker.
"If you choose to fight you will be meet with equal force until defeat."
As the communication channel cut off, the operator manning the system looked up to Commander White. Who nodded briefly as she turned her attention to the image of the damaged Krogan ship again. They were closing in, three ships in total. With their individual flight units, and now likely boarding crews, awaiting their orders. They'd known beforehand that this was a likely outcome. Still she was happy that the causalities had been so low.
"Admiral Hake, are any of the alien visitors willing to be taken here? As it now stands I doubt the Krogan have the means to directly threaten our ships but placing non-YoRHa within an active hostile alien encounter zone is against protocols."
Hake paused, surprised by White's question. Though realization came quickly as he said, "I see… we might have wounded Krogan captured. Assuming they don't scuttle their own ship, we definitely will. I'll have a request made for their assistance and prepare a shuttle and ship to take them from Heimdall. They'll probably be quite helpful once we finish securing the Krogan and their ship."
"You understand my concerns. Even with the information they've provided, trying to render medical care to completely unknown organic beings will be hard enough. Plus I want to have them on hand to offer advice on Krogan behavior once the first interrogations begin."
"You can't trust them to do that," Admiral Carmine said. "We barely know anything about these aliens yet. Language and what could be falsified cultural information. They might even have purposely tailored their stories to acquire our aid."
"In just a few weeks? And from how we found them? You're too paranoid Carmine."
"I agree with her Hake," White said, "at least in part. This will also be a test for them. If they try to purposely sabotage our efforts or we notice errors in their stories and the Krogan's I want to be able to collect that data first hand. Of course that means we need the ship intact and as many of the Krogan alive as possible."
There was a long pause as what White said sunk in.
"I'm not sure that's wise Commander. A boarding action, especially one like this, could easily turn quite deadly. We have no idea what common tactics are or the weapons the Krogan might use. Like Admiral Carmine mentioned, we only have the alien's word to go on."
"You didn't work with YoRHa during the wars Hake. I did," Carmine replied, a slight smile briefly curving her lips at the memory. "Before I ran anyway. Even non-combat focused models like myself should be more than a match for the estimated strengths of these Krogan. A proper combat model should be able to take odds of at least ten to one easily. Even greater in more equitable terrain."
White nodded gravely, glancing to the side as the pilots came into the docking bay for their next briefing and a change of gear. "That is a concern Admiral Carmine. The Krogan will have an advantage knowing the makeup of their ship. And the longer we take the more time is provided for them to prepare countermeasures. Though not being aware of whom they're fighting it is likely most of those will prove… less than effective."
Hake had been convinced, but remained concerned. "We'll have the same problem. Not killing them obviously, but not killing them. We don't really have stun weapons designed for organics, we have no idea what the bio-chemistry is for a Krogan to make a tranquilizer or chemical suppressant. How do you propose we take them alive?"
"I've already thought of that. Luckily I know how the Public Security forces handle their harder cases."
The flight units had been parked along the sides of the bay, and now their pilots and an additional squad stood at the ready. A pair of networked support pods transferring audio and visual to the other two ships. Captain Mosin stood before the assembled team of eighteen and additional twelve watching by the pods transmission.
"Now I'm sure some of you are pissed about the pilots who got shot during the approach. But they're going to be fine. No one went into this mission without backups. Mind you they aren't reactivated yet and won't be on active duty till the required forty-eight hour observation period passes."
Mosin decided now was not the time to state her opinion on such new regulations. She supposed it was preferable to going from combat, to death, to combat and death again in a single day. Even if it toughened some androids up, there was no denying that it had played hell on morale during causality heavy operations during the war.
"I'm reminding you of this fact since we're supposed to take the ship intact and the crew alive. Or at least as many as we can. Maybe they'll be smart and give up. Or too many wounded from the internal detonation to try and fight us off. But if not we'll be using a modified Public Security suppression tactic. Obviously no low power EMP guns or hacker support. Won't do any good against organics."
She reached down, pulling a grey metallic hexagon, only a little more than a centimeter thick, rather wide, and with a large circular hole in the middle.
"Alright, now I'm sure none of you have ever had the misfortune of running into Public Security and resisting arrest. But if you had you might have ended up finding out how these work. Basically they use extremely simple limited NFCS. They affect each other and nothing else." Mosin opened them up and quickly snapped one on each wrist. They glowed slightly along the inside and hung there without moving up or down. "Now with them registered to a local support pod system all you have to do is give the command."
Mosin held her arms out in front of her, about half a meter apart.
"Lock."
And they snapped together, the two cuffs now showing the light halos of NFCS. Despite some attempts to pull her arms apart, they refused to do so.
"Unlock," Mosin said. Her arms free, she pulled the cuffs off and dropped them onto the pile beside her. "They're built to match the amount of strength a combat model can mount from poor leverage. Or the estimated limit anyway. Don't take this as a challenge though. You'll either break them or you'll dislocate your own joints. Either way I doubt the Krogan will be able to break them with their own strength. They aren't hard to hack, but that isn't going to be a problem either."
A few of the soldiers stifled their laughter. They'd had rather little trouble infiltrating the primary shipboard communications systems of the Krogan vessel. Their electronic defenses were not nearly reactive enough to present a significant obstacle and only unfamiliarity of core systems and the capacity and willingness of the Krogan to physically shut down all networked controls kept them from seizing root access to all active systems.
Counter-hacking defenses weren't likely to be an issue for this operation.
"Now the basic organization will be in three unit teams with an individual support pod attached to each. Like what we used for assaulting fortified machine lifeform positions. One will handle defense, raising a barrier program by working with the pod and also providing fire support, medical aid, and communications with Command as needed. Do not neglect the first part of your job. The enemy will be using hypervelocity weapons. You won't be able to deflect or dodge attacks at that speed unless you started before they fired. And those little near-relativistic projectiles will shred through your skin and armor if you let them tag you. They probably won't shoot anything that could punch through their own ship, but a dedicated Element Zero anti-material rifle might only need one good shot to kill or disable. So don't get cocky out there."
"The other two will be equipped for multi-range and close combat engagement respectively. The standard YoRHa battle rifle is out of date, but should shoot through the alien's kinetic shielding as long as you use generated slugs. Sadly Krogan are supposedly quite tough and likely to be wearing heavy armor from our reports. So this will be mostly to keep them pinned down with suppressing fire. This will allow for close combat engagement. Prioritize your own safety in neutralizing threats, but once the Krogan are disabled use the binding manacles to restrain them."
"And one final note; did you all memorize your alien surrender demand?"
Over a dozen voices responded as one, stilted perhaps, but clearly articulate despite the foreign tongue they spoke. "Surrender now or we will use force."
"Good." Mosin stepped down, putting her helmet back. "Now get suited up. We're moving out as soon as Command gives us the order."
The hurried rush of the Krogan from one damaged section to another, still bombarded by the repeated requests to surrender from their own comms, left them in a barely able to conceive of a plan for defense, let alone implement it. The number of already injured as well as those striving to prevent further damages while switching system after system to onsite manual control had gutted the planned boarding defenses. What of them there were. Revanor hadn't gotten his command nor this ship for his rigorous training or strict discipline. And it showed.
Thus it came as a rather little surprise that their troops were so strained only one noticed the airlock cycling open on its own in passing. The Krogan that had seen the lights flash from red to green as the compromised system opened up using his short range radio to call for help, and then just bellowing out down the halls.
A pair of Krogan had just turned to begin racing towards him when the doors opened.
What happened next was a blur of motion, momentum, and pain.
He moved-was moved, forward with great force. His rifle, not yet pointed towards the door as he'd only seen it open from the side of his eye, wrested from his grip with enough strength that the sharp pain of strained or fractured finger suddenly told him that one of the aliens had grabbed his arm at some point. He only saw the ceiling flying past him, the red lights blurring together as his head hit the back wall. He felt his arms pulled together and held there as one of the aliens said '[Lock].'
Followed by his legs a moment later.
"Surrender now or we will use force," one of them said, the Asari dialect understandable by their translators. Their response was the report of the Krogan weapons.
A moment later two cries of pain, guttural and deep came from down the hall. And soon another bound Krogan, seemingly unconscious and bleeding from what looked to be a blow to the jaw that had fractured it and caused a concussion strong enough to leave him stunned, was deposited near the airlock.
More and more of the aliens, suited in black close fitting armor with blue and gold insignias, continued to pour through the airlock. Setting up a defensive perimeter around their entrance and eventual exit.
They spoke briefly among themselves, already prepared to separate into different teams to take the bridge, engine room, and to search the ship section by section for other crew.
The stunning fact was the speed at which that operation moved. At a single unseen motion half a dozen of them blitzed passed his prone form, blurs of motion as they moved to a place of cover further down the hall and checking for any signs of motion.
Even with nothing to do but watch them move, he could still barely keep track of them.
The door slammed shut behind him. Followed by the sound of the present he'd left for their alien guests a moment later. The muffled explosion of the grenades hopefully damaging the door controls enough that they couldn't hack them open.
Drack had already seen how quickly they tore through lines of defense. Luckily he and the rest of his squad had been coming up from the garrison, fully loaded and ready to meet the boarding party when they ran into them. Unfortunately that hadn't worked well. Even though the aliens didn't seem to have kinetic barriers on them, either their armor or their hide was tough enough that low power shots weren't that effective. And they were just too damn fast to sustain a bead on them long enough to wear them down.
Like a varren drugged out on combat stims. His squad leader had managed to surprise one of them by taking a blade through the chest and still firing his weapon in return. But despite what should have been a grievous injury they'd survived to hobble back behind the lines of defense, generated by some short-lived but repeatedly generated biotic shield he wasn't familiar with.
Not before swinging their sword with enough force to cut the full grown Krogan in half though, straight through his armor, leaving both smoking blood and the suit itself glowing at where the cut had been made. However their blades worked, it was clear that it went beyond just being sharp.
Though why they needed it, he couldn't guess. They were fast enough to weave through cones of fire before one could adjust their aim, tough enough to walk off a burst to the gut and keep standing even as their own blood spilled out from the injury, and strong enough to lift a Krogan by one hand and toss them into a bulkhead at the end of their charge.
"At least explosives worked," he muttered to himself, pulling another one out of his satchel. He'd managed to blow one of their legs off while they'd been distracted with a pair of Krogan that had flanked them in the mess area. It had taken someone's varren as well, but Drack had never liked the creature much so he counted that as a bonus. Even then, they weren't dead. Missing half a leg and they still crawled into cover…
Plus, he could have sworn the destroyed limb had looked wrong. But in the panic, the low emergency lighting, and the constant retreat from the pursuing aliens, he couldn't really be sure.
The door behind him buckled a glowing knife edge piercing through the metal. Even if his explosive retreat had damaged the controls they were more than ready to just cut through the barrier. Luckily he had some time before they got through.
Or so he had thought.
Drack fell low and ducked, almost on instinct as the door began to glow. A radiating beam of heat flung bits of molten metal away as three focused laser weapons from the alien's floating mechanical platforms tore through the door and continued down the length of the hallway. Carving ugly wounds into the ship, pipes bursting and sparks showering from mechanical damage.
Well, this is it then, Drack thought. Looking at the grenade in his hand as he armed it. Before a knee slammed into his jaw, he went falling onto his back, and another hand grasped his own. He saw a kaleidoscope of color through the pain, and heard the muffled, distant, demand to surrender as they pulled the grenade from him and tossed it away. Moments later he was bound and tossed into a heap further back.
A humiliating end to what he had intended to be his final stand.
Revanor stood at the bridge, his ship all but taken. Short range radio had been compromised once the aliens boarded. With the comms useless, and silenced after he'd physically destroyed each and every speaker on the bridge, they had no way to communicate with the rest of the crew. Given the extreme speed at which he'd lost control of the ship once the boarding action began, the six Krogan beside him were likely the only ones left alive at this point.
Can't even scuttle the ship now. We had to kill every networked control leading out from the bridge. Unless they're smart enough to do it on their own…
He shook his head, dismissing the gnawing worry in his hump. If they hadn't already ruptured the core and taken them all down then the aliens had probably secured the engine room before they'd had time to even realize how serious their situation was. He supposed it wasn't as depressing a failure as the Krogan forces the Asari had captured, but it still grated on him that his death would be an inglorious one such as this. Simply trying to hand out some small measure of repayment for the deaths of his crew and these alien's interference in the Krogan's war.
"Damn you Okeer." The Krogan Warlord had known! He'd guessed rightly that there was something odd about these new aliens and had led Revanor on to be the test of their military strength. In his defeat another would come, more prepared, with more ships and men. But he would have died as merely a calculated sacrifice…
The rage filled him the more he thought about it. Near blinding, and his hands glowed a darker blue. Biotic powers triggering at his strong emotional reaction.
It was a testament to what little self-control he had that when the doors to the bridge opened, once more hacked by these aliens and their devilish mastery of electronic warfare, he did not charge immediately. Raising a hand to tell his men to hold their fire.
They were matched in numbers, but with the shimmering shields projected by one of the support pods and another waiting in standby the aliens knew that the Krogan would be no threat. Anything that could punch through that would also breach the hull and likely kill the entire bridge crew as a side effect.
One of them stepped forward, standing just at the edge of the barrier. They said, "Surrender now or we will use force."
"Surrender… surrender? Do you think so little of the pride of the Krogan, of Clan Nakmor, that we will simply kneel before you just like that? We are but the first of many, and you will not stand before the Krogan. Like the Rachni before, you will be crushed by the might of the Krogan!" Revanor yelled out his words, screaming them at the aliens before him. It was only that he approached unarmed that kept them from opening fire in his wild motions. But they showed no response, no recognition that they even understood him. "Do you hear me! You 'YoRHa!' You will regret this!"
*Apologies: The [androids] you are speaking to do not have translation software installed. If you wish to discuss the terms of your surrender I can attempt to provide translation.*
Revanor turned his gaze to the small floating box beside what he had surmised to be the alien commander. As the words in the Asari dialect were spoken he felt his rage only double. Not only will they have me surrender to them, but they wish for me to do it to a mere machine?
"No… no, I think I can communicate just fine without your help," Revanor growled out, summoning his biotic powers. Clearing his mind of nothing but the hate and focusing it directly on the one before him. He would die here, that was certain, but he would show them how a Battlemaster does so!
He pulled her towards him, through their barrier and into the air. Their alien weapons fired, passing through his kinetic barrier but not the shield of biotic energy he had raised. Without ground to move on and tumbling through the air the alien's strength and speed were useless. He could have told his men to open fire, but they were afraid to do so while he was so close.
Cowards. We will all die together here. Hold nothing back, Revanor thought as he brought his full might upon the body hurtling towards him. A tearing pain of overdrawing his biotic gift making his mind tremble and time seem to slow down as colors other than a hazy grey bled away from the world. He detonated the biotic warp into the alien's midsection, and saw her fly backwards, a doll with its strings cut.
"Come Krogan of Clan Nakmor! Show these-"
"[Fire… laser…]"
Revanor never saw it hit. He felt the burning heat for a moment before nothing. The beam borrowing a hole through his upper chest and continuing on. The command chair, the consoles, and finally the bridge's left window buckling and breaking. The roar of decompression filled the bridge before the blast shields could close automatically, Revanor's body toppling to the side, nearly cut in half.
The alien he had damaged still stood. Her left hand tightly holding a blade that had sunk into the wall as she flew backwards. A long line cut into the metal from where she had been thrown, sparking along parts and glowing in others even as she dragged herself up to stand. Her right side had pulped inward in places and her arm hung limp. She pulled the sword free from the wall, a sound of metal on metal loudly echoing from the effort, and pointing it towards the six remaining Krogan. Some of which were staring in bewildered awe at the weapon discharge that had drilled a hole through their Battlemaster and everything behind him.
"S-surren-der n-now or we… we will use f-force!"
Her voice was wrong now, distorted like a speaker held too close to a magnet or some battery operated device on its last legs. Combined with the wound she had been stricken with, and the light cast by their commander's still smoldering corpse, it made the experience seem unreal. As if an ancient spirit of the vengeful dead had clawed its way up from the Graves to drag them down.
One by one they dropped their weapons. There was no sense dying against an enemy they couldn't even kill.
