Chapter 25

"You have to admit, their plan was pretty clever." Khull noted, crouching down as much as possible behind the makeshift cover provided by the wall adjoining the double doors leading to the Facility's exterior. "Use the infiltrating units to flush us out, figure out which way we're going, then overload to that exit."

"Yeah." Marshall agreed, taking a quick, from the hip shot to dissuade any advance from the platoon that had taken up position outside to block their escape. "The gunship was a nice touch too."

"Unexpected development?"

Marshall shook his head, "Not really. I actually expected more than one."

"You were actually anticipating, and planning, for a scenario like this?" Khull asked skeptically.

"Yep." The captain answered, unclasping the buckle of his munitions belt while Khull took over cover fire. "Dani!" Marshall called back, where the quarian and her tiny charges were taking cover in a junction ten meters further down.

With soothing promises that she'd be right back, Dani slinked towards Marshall, using him and the wall for cover. Marshall took a handful of small round objects and stowed them away in a leg compartment, then gave her the belt, and pointed out the grenades linked to it. "Share those with our friends outside once the gunship goes down. Bring everyone forward once Khull pushes forward."

She nodded, then returned to the children, Marshall barely hearing her words of encouragment and promises that they'd soon be somewhere safe.

Khull, on the other hand, hadn't been made aware of his part of the plan. "When I push forward, you say?"

"Yeah. Between the magnetic barriers and your hide, you should be able to take enough punishment for Dani and I to do the rest. How does that sound to you?"

"Do I have a choice in the matter?"

Marshall's reply was borderline whimsical. "No, not really."

That earned him a yahg smile. "Then I love the idea."

"Good."

The banter was interrupted by Chipper, cutting into Marshall's comm. "Captain! I can't extract anyone with that gunship running interference!" She said frantically. "Please advise!"

"Stay on course, Chipper." Marshall replied. "We'll take care of that gunship. I'm going to tap into your navigation and positioning. Whatever you do, stay on course and on time."

"Copy that." The pilot answered, then went silent.

Marshall called up the status of the Yukon, carefully watching the ETA. The entire operation was a full half minute behind optimal schedule, but that was hardly a worry... he normally gave up to three minutes allowance on these sorts of extractions simply because of all the variables. As it was, the Yukon was still forty-seven seconds from the LZ... moving now would still be too soon.

At thirty seconds ETA, Chipper started getting nervous. "Captain... if you're going to do something about that gunship, I suggest you do it quickly, sir."

"Stay on course, Lieutenant." Marshall ordered simply. Twenty five and counting.

At twenty, Marshall made the call. "Khull, go!"

The yahg didn't even give a heartbeat's hesitation, spinning into the doorway and taking five full strides forward, his rifle spraying matter rounds in a wide arc, his barriers holding firm through the first five seconds of concentrated fire he took.

Which was all the time Marshall needed. Taking his Recluse off his back, he rolled through the doorway, then to his feet, gathering the energy for a Biotic Charge... forward and up, the charge placing him two meters above the gunship's cockpit.

He turned forty-five degrees to his left to get the proper alignment as he activated his mag boots, landing directly in front of the canopy, his rifle aimed and firing not even a second later, the impact of the shot killing the pilot, shattering the canopy, and sending shrapnel all around the cockpit.

Marshall disengaged the mag boots as the gunship started spiraling out of control, using a quick burst of biotics to nudge the gunship away from crashing near the LZ as well as give him clearance from the doomed craft. With a double backflip, he aligned himself with the ground, and made another Biotic Charge to close that distance.

He landed just in time for a string of explosions from the grenades Dani had been given. While the effect was fairly devastating, the purpose wasn't so much to clear the area as it was to scatter the Eden Prime forces. With the Yukon now clearly in sight and being to decelerate, Marshall tossed the smoke orbs he had taken from their compartment, forming a fairly neat curtain on both sides of the door and leading to the opening hatch of the Yukon.

Marshall then called back to Dani and their refugees. "Let's go! Move it! Go! Go! Go!"

"Come on, little ones." Dani encouraged, gently nudging the frightened huddle forward. "Quickly! As fast as you can!"

Marshall put away his sniper rifle, and retrieved his sidearm. "Khull, go left! Keep our friends busy! I'll go right!"

"Understood." The yahg answered, diving through the smoke, and opening fire almost immediately.

Marshall followed suit the other way, putting a round point blank into the skull of an advancing trooper the moment he passed through the curtain of smoke. Two more rounds and a quick draw slash rendered three more kills, and effectively got the attention of everyone else rather than try and push through the smoke.

He wasn't exactly trying to pad his kill count, but he knew Khull would try to make a big deal out of it once the smoke had cleared (in both a figurative and literal sense), and so he may have taken a few more intentional kill shots than he probably needed to... enough to give him a more than sizable advantage in the tally.

Chipper was clearly helping with the children, and so with the last two boarding, Marshall ordered, "Khull, break off and get on!"

"Yes, captain."

The yahg steadily retreated, still shooting as he crossed the now dispelling smokescreen, then grabbed the remaining two children in his massive arms before jumping in and landing with such force that it literally rocked the Yukon despite the shuttle's stabilizers. "Captain! We're clear!" He bellowed, startling his impromptu riders and making them squeak in fright.

Marshall didn't even bother with cover fire, breaking into a full sprint and jumping neatly on the tiny amount of space that had been cleared for him. He manually slammed the hatch shut as he said, "Get us out of here, Chipper!"

"Don't have to tell me twice." The pilot answered, accelerating as much as she felt safe to with such occupancy. "Commander, I've got our package. Get over here!"

After getting confirmation, Chipper made a quick assessment of their current situation. "AA guns are still blind to us... Eden Prime is scrambling fighters, but we should be long gone by the time they get near our position. Let's now all hope that Mayes and the Commander took care of the worst of their fleet."

This was actually the unnerving part for Marshall. Everything up to this point he had some control over; now he was helpless as two others, one of which was fresh out of the academy, tried to pull off one of the trickiest extraction maneuvers in the Nimea Military playbook.

There was going to be an ever so brief moment as the Yukon accelerated to near light speed where the cloaking system wasn't going to be able to totally shield the shuttle's emissions, and thus making them vulnerable to a quick shot from an automated targeting system. If it came from a cruiser and its main gun, it was doubtful the Yukon's barriers would be able to redirect a shell of that size and velocity. The hope was that they'd be docked within the Iwo Jima before such a lock could be made.

Marshall really thought it would be a bit of a letdown if this was how the whole thing ended.

He never realized how tense he was until he literally flinched when the Yukon shook, realizing fractions of a second later that it was the docking clamps of the shuttle bay latching onto the shuttle. "Punch it, Mayes! Full speed to anywhere the fuck other than here!"

"Yes, ma'am." The ensign answered, jumping back into FTL before pursuit could full mobilize.

With the present danger finally over, Marshall scanned the crowded, dimly lit interior of theYukon, littered with twenty-two shimmering Quarian eyes all focused on him. Without a word, he opened the hatch, and jumped out, gesturing to Khull to hand down the children the yahg was holding.

"It's okay." Marshall whispered in the child's ear before setting the boy down on the deck. "You're safe now."

With Khull's arms clear, he hopped down and helped the rest of the children disembark. Tolstoy approached, holding up his hands in a non-threatening posture as the children shied away from the armory chief, huddling around Dani's legs.

"Who are these wee ones?" Tolstoy asked Marshall softly.

"Descendants of the survivors of the Tonbay, a quarian live ship seized by Eden Prime." The captain answered flatly.

Tolstoy picked up the subtle hints of ennui in his captain's tone, and quickly reached the proper assumption. "How many were down there?"

"More than we could have saved if we had ten thousand runs at this."

Tolstoy dropped his head, and gave it a morose shake. Meanwhile, Marshall had composed himself enough to make his next orders. "Dani, stay with our guests... do whatever you can to make them comfortable. Chipper, once you get to the bridge, needle us back to Belding. That should give us plenty of time to get our next move in place." Then to the comm, he said, "Smoke, open communication to the Iktomi, get their current location, and let Captain Frenz'Nimmel know that we have some very delicate persons that they are best equipped to care for. Once all that is squared away, have Chipper set a course to intercept."

"Copy that, Captain." Smoke answered. "I take it you need to make a very long and very soul wrenching report to High Command, then."

"Yes." Marshal said, unbuckling his helmet. "I'll be in my quarters."

With the orders made, Marshall finally removed his helmet, but nothing else, instead throwing the headgear with enraged force towards the lockers, making a hellish racket and frightening the already tense crew and refugees before calling for the elevator, and letting the door slide shut behind him.

Marshall heard the man's voice before he ever saw his face.

It was a very deep, very regal intonation, well educated with near flawless enunciation. He was talking with the Hive Manager, and it became clear quite quickly that they were talking about Marshall.

"Who is his dam and sire?"

"His sire is Edwin Brasser." The Hive Manager answered. "Good, strong bloodline, represented himself with highest honors in the last war. Getting a bit long in the tooth, but his genes are still strong. He's produced several top prospects in the last six years; all of them look to make exceptional contributions to the military machine."

"And the dam?"

The Hive Manager seemed more tentative at that question. "As you requested... we added more... intellectual women into the stock. This boy's dam is Gretchen Farha, a noted physicist from New Paris."

"Did she have the empathic sequence I requested as well?"

"She possessed the sequence you asked for, though she showed no signs of any inherent gifts herself." After another pause, the Hive Manager asked, "Your greatness, if I may be so bold, I am curious why you requested these changes to the breeding protocol. It is highly irregular to have such... physically wanting females in the program."

"Because I'm interested in more than simply the biggest brute Sedin can produce." The unidentified man replied sharply. "I can correct the 'flaws' I have introduced. But the elements that these women have I cannot reproduce."

Finally, the man appeared on the other side of the bars of Marshall's enclosure. His posture was straight and well practiced, black hair slicked back tight across his skull. A royal blue Sedin uniform, fairly unremarkable save for the shoulder guards, shaped into golden wolf heads rather than the flat panels reserved even for the highest ranking officers.

The man smiled in approval as he examined his omni-tool, occasionally looking down at the boy on the other side. "Yes... very good. Almost exactly what I am looking for. You have done well, Larrins."

The Hive Manager took a deep bow. "Thank you, your greatness. I am humbled by your favor."

"Now, dispose of this child's dam and sire."

The order stunned the Hive Manager. "My... greatness?"

"You heard me." He repeated coldly. "Kill them."

"But... why?"

The man spun about, and said, "I will have no one replicating my work until I have perfected it. Now, dispose of the parents. If I have to make my own arrangements to do so, you will not like the consequences."

"Yes, my greatness." Larrins said with another deep, respectful bow. "I will not disappoint you again."

"See that you don't. Now get out of my sight."

As the Hive Manager left, Marshall got another good look at the man who would be his tormenter and master for the next nine years.

A man named Heimer Sedin.

Marshall slammed both fists against the elevator doors in fury, then screamed with rage, only grateful that the unbidden memory would replay once he was alone. He had known it would come the moment it became clear to him what Eden Prime had been doing to their quarian prisoners. He not only knew the practices they had been using, he had experienced them first hand.

And that knowledge ripped his heart apart and dropped it into his stomach, knowing the countless number of quarian people who had been subjected, experimented with, and often disposed like trash after the fact. If there was one thing he knew about selective breeding, it was that once the policy starts, it doesn't stop willingly, and the end result is never good for anyone.

Marshall didn't even make eye contact with Smoke as the elevator opened onto the command deck. With a brisk pace and a posture that relayed a message that he was in no mood to talk to anyone, he crossed the rear of the bridge and into his quarters. This was going to be one of the hardest reports he had ever composed...

Later that night, Khull had taken his preferred place in the center of his cell, both amused and glad that the barriers and bars were no longer being used to contain him. Not that they would have been all that much of a deterrent to being with, but Khull found he appreciated the gesture for the symbol of increased trust that it was.

He saw the guards at both sides of the cell turn, then salute, perking Khull's attention when Marshall appeared just outside the cell.

"Greetings, Captain." Khull said, nodding his head, but deciding not to stand. "Have your rampant emotions settled?"

Marshall correctly guessed that Khull had heard his outburst in the elevator. "For the most part."

"Good. You were deeply troubled by what you saw on Eden Prime; for what reason I will not insult you by speculating. Even if you cannot forget, you cannot let what you saw fester... your health, both physical and mental, will suffer for it."

"Any more advice, Doctor Khull?"

"Get stronger cable if you're going to leash Lieutenant Dani'Arah again."

That finally cracked a smile on the captain's face. "Noted."

Marshall flipped a small, reflective object on the palm of his right hand, the object spinning so fast that Khull didn't get a good look at it until the captain tossed it in front of the yahg's crossed legs. Bending over to pick it up, he saw it was a gold tag, two horizontal bars of gold runing the diameter of a circle etched with stars, and a nameplate in the center bearing Khull's name. He quickly recognized this as the insignia attached over the left breast of the crew uniforms.

"What... is this?" The yahg asked.

"Your crew tag." Marshall answered. "In recognition of your exceptional work on Eden Prime. Welcome aboard."