Chapter 24 – In the Name of the Mother Terra
"Look, Alec. If we we actually knew that Wreta'Kurai ships were gnawing at your coattails we would have helped." Darius claimed, trying to appease the crew of corsairs.
"Like hell you would, birdman!" Beecher scoffed, leaning against the railing that straddled the command pit. "You turians as well as your politically correct, murderous human suck-ups are all nothing more than self absorbed little cun-"
"That's quite enough racism for today serviceman!" Alec shouted, his hand held out authoritatively. "Another outburst and I'll lock you in the engine room like a misbehaving child!"
They were all gathered in the CIC of the alliance ship. The interior of lieutenant Greyjoy's Arsuf class frigate was ultimately pompous and luxury-liner in quality compared to an aging corvette such as the Panera, sporting an ice blue tint, several up to date computers, a full holographic galaxy map, and quite a bit of elbow room for a delightful change. The interior temperature was also slightly warmer than the interior of the Panera, suggesting superior heating systems. Approximately twenty minutes after receiving the informants transmission, Burke, Brooklyn, and Darius were treated to the view of the SSV Jargeau after it exited FTL transit in the Century Omega cluster. An emergency meeting was called, and they promptly attached ships and boarded.
"Those pirate tugboats didn't stand a chance against the Jargeau, anyhow." Martello sat in the navigator's chair, sitting back as his right ankle rested on his left thigh in a relaxed pose. Gardner was the only one who was not making herself at home, as she stood in a military ease style with her hands behind her back. Beecher merely sat in the fiber floor in a safety position, a bitter grimace upon his face.
The crew of the Panera gathered on the far side of the operator areas, where Rodman sat, a blanket draped over her shoulders in a needless attempt to comfort her. Still, the weight of the naval issue blanket somehow allowed her to process the debriefing fluidly, possibly a sensory thing.
"The only thing that matters is that we didn't come out empty handed. Even if Penn and Korolev weren't part of the shipment of slaves we saw, we still know where to find them." Alec seemed to be pacing in a circle about the combat information center. "It's just a matter of how we're going to approach the mining operation on Ble'Gan."
"There's going to be plenty of innocent people that could potentially get caught in a crossfire, skipper." Gardner mentioned. "If we knew the layout, which we don't, we-"
"Don't speak so soon." Burke interrupted, grasping a small encased data disc and tossing it to the corsair. "Try this."
Gardner stared at the trinket, promptly stepping toward the galaxy map hologram and placing it in the auxiliary console. The map shrank into its lensing, a rust red ball expanding out with a green beacon glowing upon the edge of a small crater in the moon's midriff.
"Ble'Gan?" Alec mentioned, walking up to the control pedestal and manipulating the map with his hands, the view of the beacon expanding, which revealed a small cluster of structures. "Where did you get this?"
"The informant we told you about was generous enough to offer it to us." Brooklyn piped. "We burned the digital copy to that kordinite disc."
"Can we trust this mole?" Martello asked, standing up and viewing the map. "I mean, it looks pretty legit, but we don't really immediately put forth trust in anonymous bastards with masked voices."
"This whole thing sounds like it's going to be a bitch and a half." Beecher chuckled to himself.
Alec looked down at the others. "We still have to do it. Even if it means calling for assistance."
"Other corsairs?" Brooklyn inquired.
"Aye." Alec nodded. "It may take a while for them to arrive, however. We need them to evacuate all the slaves there. Anything's better than walking into an ambush."
"Send us in first." Burke interjected, a firm tone in his voice and a stony facial expression to match, this caught everyone's attention.
"Burke?" Brooklyn's eyebrow ascended at such blatant volunteering.
"You don't trust this double agent, but I do. If you send us in the Panera headfirst, we'll have a beachhead down momentarily, and if that doesn't work, we'll still suck up the majority of enemy fire, so it's all good for you." Burke placed his hands on his hips and walked closer toward the lieutenant.
"Burke when did you become an adrenaline junkie?" Darius asked, his distorted turian voice almost breaking.
"Once this whole contract started." Burke retorted, feeling the gazes of his crew members upon his back. Alec merely stood and shrugged, suppressing a boyish smirk.
"And how do you propose you avoid the two air defense turrets and the ground fire?" Martello asked, stepping in between his commander and the privateers with his arms crossed.
"Superior firepower." Darius reluctantly started to play along with the masochist mercenary sheet. "The solution to about nine tenths of all of life's problems. Including ex wives."
"And what kind of armaments is your Broadsword corvette sporting?" Alec questioned.
"One LAMAC cannon, sixteen MES24 "Lobster" homing missiles with depleted uranium warheads, and two M50G "Dauntless" missiles with dual mass effect focal charges.
"Dauntless missiles? The bugger you need those for?"
"The rainiest of days, lieutenant." Brooklyn concluded. Alec merely found himself looking at the hologram some more, focusing on the smallest of details.
"Well it's practically raining cats and dogs. They ever teach you classic dive bombing maneuvers in flight school?" He broke the silence.
"Once or twice." Brooklyn sighed.
"Good, because the best way to take out a Haliat armory AMT-VII turret is by going directly above it and taking a steamer on top of it."
Burke studied the corsair's eye movements as he was hooked to the image. "You mind telling us the entire plan, sir?"
Alec scratched his scalp and moved his ponytail down a few notches. "We need the infantry barracks and motorpool destroyed. You can use your Dauntless missiles for that."
"You know how much those things cost on the black market?" Darius snapped.
"Yes I do. That's why you should put them to good use." Alec cleared his throat. "Now the Jargeau's main gun is a bit on the underpowered side, which means it won't be a sufficient risk of killing civilians if we temporarily bombard the base from orbit."
"But there's still a risk!" Burke shouted.
"A practically negligent one." Alec firmly responded. "You're on my ship, so I highly recommend that you don't cause a scene. My crew really aren't fond of tense moments on a vessel they call home, so pay attention to what you say, lest you just so happen to find your way into the sights of Serviceman Beecher's assault rifle."
Burke merely caught a glimpse of a sneering Beecher as he held his hand behind his back in eager anticipation of a wrong move. The mercenary's cohorts were heard mouthing whispers for him to stop.
"Moving on." Alec cleared his throat once again. "After the base is pummeled enough, I will remain inside the Jargeau and move in and drop our Mako a klik or two outside the mining outpost, carrying serviceman Beecher, Gunnery Chief Martello, with Service Chief Gardner at the helm, and assault it from the east." He pointed slightly downward. "The Panera will land to the south while the amount of attention is polarized in the camp, and-"
"Free your friends for you stay comfy cozy inside your armored fucking assault vehicle, I know how this is going." Darius grabbed his pack after interrupting the commander. "Your plans are all so predictable."
"...And shut down the mining operation. Excellent case of ESP you have there, Mr. Macerdin." Alec stepped off the podium. "I wonder why the Turian military hasn't established a psychic program."
"Because they'd win all the wars." Beecher murmured, standing up and heading toward the ship's garage. Greyjoy was tempted to inquire whether or not there were any questions, but it seemed that the CIC was bustling it terms of movement, hinting that few were interested in offering queries.
"So, Miss Seltzer..." Alec approached Brooklyn as she studied the holo-map further. "Why is your ship named the Panera? Isn't that synonymous for breadbox?"
"That's correct, staff-lieutenant." Brooklyn studied the width between the structures as well as the atmospheric density. She looked him into his voidish iris. "Because all of her crew are chopped the fuck up. Pardon the profanity, and the superfluous metaphor if you will."
"Certainly." Alec responded, his hands on his hips as he stared offside, his lips retracted closer into his mouth in thought. "I'll excuse the fact that I have no idea what that means."
"Lieutenant, permission to speak in private sir!" Martello asked with a salute, not looking in the least bit enthusiastic.
"Sure, chief." Alec spoke, the unease of his subordinate rubbing off on him as he head for the captain's quarters, the gunnery chief following him.
Darius approached Burke as he rummaged through the formerly confiscated equipment that Darius and Alec brought back, picking up his shotgun and inspecting the thermal clip count.
"You excited for this?" The turian asked.
"What do you mean?" Burke compacted the shotgun and placed it on the lower part of his back.
"You get to kill some Blue Suns today." Darius' looked him dead in the eye, his mandibles fluttering. "If that isn't a happy thing to do I don't know what is."
"Kiss my hairy human ass, Darius."
Darius shook his head. "Come on, if anybody wants to get a chance to off some of these psychos, it's you."
Burke placed the pistol he had been fooling with on the table, one hand on his hip as he placed his index finger outward and faced his counterpart. "Darius. I'm quite sure I've told you this before, but since you have the memory span of an elderly milkcow, I'll tell you again: I don't actually enjoy killing people."
"Damn." Darius chuckled. "You remind me of police constables who run crying to a psychiatrist after shooting some armed convicted sex offender."
"You really like taking lives, Darius?" Burke asked, placing on hand on the table and leaning in.
"It's... complicated, Burke." The turian placed his hands behind his back, staring at the chrome ceiling. "I was young and psychotic. I was conscripted into the turian marines, then the Myrmidons, then the Special Echelon for Assault and Recon, and that's when I got my first two kills."
After a bit of silence, Burke decided to continue tooling with his Striker pistol. "Go on."
"I couldn't bloody sleep for two weeks. It was worse than seeing a horror vid." Darius sighed, his head hung low. "But... the more pirates I killed, the more smugglers the more slavers, the more rebels, the more assassins... I just began to realize that this was what I was meant for, no matter how hard it was."
"Ah yes." Burke peeled off the accelerator slide of his sidearm, inspecting its interior integrity. "The tired old, 'I'm good at doing something I hate, so I might as well keep on doing it' excuse."
"I just sometimes think..." Darius scratched his chin. "Maybe death would be pretty interesting..."
"Ah, yes. Your strange fascination with death." Burke holstered his heavy pistol. "I've heard this before."
"Guys. Working before jerking, remember?" Brooklyn stepped in between them. "Are you two going to be okay with this?"
"What do you think he has planned for that mining operation?" Darius quipped, seeing that Gardner had left the CIC and headed below deck.
"All I know..." Burke broke away from the group. "...is that the Council probably doesn't want us to hand over minerals like that to the Alliance."
Brooklyn began to follow. "What are you scheming, Burke?"
Burke leaned over and grabbed his messenger bag that was carelessly thrown on the floor. "You two stay here, I'm gonna take a gander through their armory."
Alec took a seat near his personal computer in the quarters. His neatly made bed was a red ant in comparison to the generally messy room, with papers and files stacked about. His easel held an abstract painting he was working on in his spare time under a large light, filled with several transcendental images spawned from the numerous emotions he kept at bay. The upside was that every time he summoned a crew member to his quarters, they were not artistically savvy enough to interpret such vague and non descriptive imagery.
Martello cleared his throat. "Sir, permission to speak freely."
"Just get to the point, Coulter. We're on a tight schedule." Alec opened a bottle of club soda and dropped a mouthful into his gullet.
"This... Burke Craddock... and Brooklyn Seltzer...they're fugitives. Traitors." Martello sighed, jittery, his head darting around as he rubbed the back of his head anxiously. "He's got the rest of the crew on edge."
Alec stood up, his eyes not making contact with the non commissioned officer as he head toward the painting to inspect it. "Just what do you want me to do about it, chief?"
The gunnery chief opened his mouth, as if to speak, then hesitated for a few seconds. "Just... nab them... after the mission."
"Martello. We simply cannot do that."
"Why the fuck not, sir?" Martello wheezed. "You mind actually telling everyone else why? They're murderers! Turncoats! I don't know about the turian... but the others-"
"Because they're the Citadel Council's umbrella. All three of those piratical stooges you saw..." Alec interrupted, taking one of his paintbrushes and running black oil paint along one of the more hollow areas. "...those traitors, those murderers... they rescued a ship full of volus bankers being held hostage by terrorists from the Attican Traverse. They're heroes in their eye."
Martello stepped closer to him. "They killed Alliance officers, lieutenant. Gardner and Beecher are really nervous about these guys. What are you gonna tell Penn and Korolev about this?"
"Craddock planned and staged the killings, chief. Seltzer had nothing to do with them." Alec corrected.
"But they put extraterrestrial values ahead of human ones!" Martello's face sunk into a frown. "Listen... I respect the council races and most other alien beings. But putting your humanity on the chopping block in favor for-"
"Chief!" Alec slapped his paintbrush in the middle of the color wheel and turned, crossing his arms. "You're going off subject."
He then headed back toward the seat near the computer, sitting down and leaning back, his chin planted upon his fist. "Burke is helping us. We're united against a common foe...
"When the time is right. Once his contract with the council has expired..." Alec took another drink of club soda, closing the cap and slamming it down on the counter. "...I swear on my father's epitaph, I will hunt him down, and bring him to justice. Mark my words, chief."