Chapter 27 the Gamer effect (Lord-of-Change)
Barrock had to admit, this post of his was proving highly lucrative for him. Overseeing the mining operations on Poloh Tem in the Satu Arrd system not only aided the Citadel, but also brought in a nifty amount of wealth, something that every Volus strived to get. Currently, he was seated in his cozy little office on board the space station orbiting the planet and in a business discussion with his colleague back on Irune.
"The latest shipment of eezo has already been packed up and ready to be transported back home," Barrock reported, his colleague slowly nodding his head on screen as he considered the news.
"I take it this is a larger shipment than last time, correct?" the Volus on the other end finally asked. Beneath his mask, Barrock smiled smugly.
"Twice the size, to be precise. Had to work overtime, and lost one or two mining robots, but we did it," he said proudly, his colleague whistling in appreciation.
"Damn, that will fetch a nice price on the market," he announced happily.
"Yeah, the demand for eezo has really been skyrocketing as of late, hasn't it?" Barrock commented thoughtfully.
"No doubt about it. Ever since these humans were discovered, every Citadel race plus their grandma has been clamoring for extra protection. Extra protection means more ships. More ship means more eezo. More eezo means…"
"… More profits for us," Barrock finished for his colleague. With the huge technological gap between the Citadel and these humans, everyone has been on high alert, dreading an invasion. Some hardcore generals were even demanding a preemptive strike against these aliens. Needless to say, they did not get that much support yet. The Council seemed adamant to stand by.
"Anyway, I suggest you send that shipment as soon as possible, because I have a group of Salarians who are m…st eag… to…" Barrock was surprised to find that the end of his colleague's sentence was being garbled and distorted, as if there was a bad connection.
"You're breaking up, say again, please," Barrock demanded, but at that point, the connection had been fully lost. He tried calling back, but no signal went through, no matter how many times he tried. Frustrated, he activated the comm system on the space station.
"Someone please check our transmitters. There seems to be a slight malfunction to them," he ordered grumpily. He never liked it when hardware malfunctioned, particularly just when he was using said hardware. Hopefully they could get it fixed in a few minutes.
"It's not just our communication that is not working, sir. Long range sensors are offline as well, and we can barely get our radars to function properly. We're even having trouble controlling our mining robots on the surface," an engineer reported in. A frown marred Barrock's face as he exited his office to check with the other workers. A malfunction this widespread had never happened before, and it worried him. As he entered the space station's bridge, he found it in chaos, as engineers and workers rushed back and forth, trying to find the fault in their system.
"Someone please give me a status report here!" Barrock barked out in anger, prompting a Volus holding a datapad to step forward.
"Sir, we've lost all transmissions beyond the reach of Poloh Tem, and even what little communication we have left is garbled and barely understandable. The sensors and radars are so scrambled that we would see the enemy with our own eyes long before our radars would notice them. The Turian frigates serving as guards are reporting similar problems. They think sabotage is the reason, but they dare not travel too far away from us, as that will sever what little contact we still have with each other," the Volus reported nervously, clearly distressed by the recent events. He was not alone in that.
"Are you telling me that a pirate force could be swooping down on us this very moment, and we wouldn't know of it until they were right on top of us?" Barrock questioned furiously, trying to mask his own fear with anger. The Volus he was questioning swallowed nervously before answering.
"No sir. The entire Krogan and Batarian flotilla could descend on us this very moment, and we wouldn't know of it until they blasted us to smithereens," well, that was hardly reassuring to Barrock. They were essentially blind, deaf and dumb out in space. Worse, everyone on board knew it, and it scared the living daylights out of them. The Volus had never been a combat oriented species, preferring trade and commerce. The Turians on board their ships may hold it together far better, being professional soldiers, but the Volus were terrified at being this vulnerable.
"Sir! Something's happening to our systems!" one of the engineers called out in panic, gaining Barrock's attention.
"What's happening?" he asked. He could see it himself, but it made no sense to him. Strange codes were being written on every screen as every light on board began to flicker on and off.
"Someone's hacking into our systems! I can't stop them!" the engineer shouted, panic seeping into his voice. Suddenly, all screens went black, with a green glowing symbol appearing on them. None of the Volus or the Turians had ever seen a symbol like that, and had no idea of it significance. Had they known those things, they would have been trembling in fear at that moment. For that was the symbol of the Necron army.
The symbol of the Stormlord.
"Greetings, aliens. I am the Stormlord, and the new ruler of this sector," speaking of the Stormlord, his powerful voice boomed across all the space stations and frigates surrounding the planet.
"Some of you may be wondering what has been causing your loss of communication. Well, let me put those speculations to rest by admitting that it is my doing. Why, you might ask? Simple, because you inhabit a system that I now claim as my own. For that reason, you have been sentenced to extermination," that announcement sent a wave of panic and terror through every Volus present.
"Do not even bother with resisting, there is nothing you can do to stop it. Soon enough, all of the Aethon Cluster will be under my control, and every creature foolish enough to stand in my way will be destroyed. But for you, the end comes now," with those ominous words, the Stormlord disconnected from the space station's network, leaving the bridge in total silence. None dared say anything, none barely even dared to breathe.
"He's… he's bluffing, he has to be," Barrock suddenly spoke up, trying to rally his employees, "He's just trying to scare us into submission. There's no way he has the kind of power he boasted about," his employees seemed to take some measure of reassurance from his words. Still a bit jittery, but at least being able to breathe normally again.
"Uhm… sir," one of the Volus standing at the windows suddenly spoke, voice cracking before he could even finish his sentence. It caught the attention of everyone else present, which promptly crushed whatever shred of courage they had left the moment they saw what he had seen. Three ships, the likes of which they had never seen before in size or design, had appeared out of nowhere, and they looked ready to tear them apart.
"Oh my god…" those were the last words uttered by Barrock in this life before all hell broke loose.
….
Patrolling, it must have been one of the most mundane and boring assignments he had been given to date. Commanding his own cruiser, the Interceptor, the Turian captain Gerek watched the vast emptiness of space that his ship sailed through. For weeks he had been patrolling the Aethon Cluster, keeping a sharp eye out for slavers or pirates stupid enough to venture here. So far, no such incidents had propped up, and it left him bored out of his mind.
He felt like there was something greater he could do than waste time guarding against outlaws. What with the humans making their grand entrance to the galactic stage, every known race was in an uproar. Some wanted peace with these new aliens, others wanted war and others were staying neutral. Personally, he felt like going for war.
Like many other Turians, he felt enraged over the massacre that the one called Bazerker inflicted upon their forces, and demanded retribution. So what if the enemy had superior technology? Courage, discipline and strength of arm, those were what won wars, not some fancy toys.
"Sir," his communication officer suddenly spoke up, snapping him out of his thoughts, "We're receiving a transmission from Irune, Priority Alpha," now that sounded both promising and worrying. Priority Alpha meant that whatever had happened, it spelled trouble for the entire cluster, maybe even beyond that.
"Patch it through," he ordered. A few moments later, the screens were occupied by the picture of the local Turian general.
"General Desolas Arterius, sir!" Gerek said as he snapped of a crisp military salute, which the general returned.
"At ease," he said lightly, before his tone got a whole lot darker, "As you've no doubt guessed, something really bad has just happened. We've lost contact with the Satu Arrd system," the general's statement brought quite a bit of confusion to Gerek, along with his crew.
"You mean we've lost contact with the space stations orbiting Poloh Tem?" he asked for clarification, at which the general just shook his head.
"No, I mean that we've lost contact with the whole system. And it's not just communication, scanners are also not picking up the system any longer. For all intents and purposes, it's like the whole system just vanished in a matter of seconds," now that sounded very bad in Gerek's opinion. What could possibly make an entire system disappear? He even voiced that question out loud.
"Well, that's what you're here for now. I'm issuing you new orders; you're to go to the Satu Arrd system, scout it out and find out what the hell happened to it," Desolas ordered sternly. To be honest, Gerek was not surprised by the order. After all, there were few other reasons for the general himself to call him.
"Consider it done, sir," he answered confidently, receiving an appreciating nod from his commander.
"Good, and just so you know, I'm sending four frigates to assist you. We don't know what we're up against here, so it's better to be on the cautious side," with that said, the connection was cancelled, and left Gerek to his own thoughts again. None of them were of the happy kind at the moment.
"Well, I did hope for some action," he muttered quietly to himself before shouting out his new orders, "Set a course for the Satu Arrd system!"
…..
"Sir, we've entered the system now, but we've lost all of our long range sensors," one of Gerek's crewmembers reported on board the bridge.
"What about communication?" he asked, already anticipating the answer, but hoping he was wrong.
"Not working. We're barely maintaining contact with the frigates accompanying us and they can't travel farther away from us or risk losing that connection altogether," someone else reported. An annoyed growl slipped past Gerek's lips. Just as he suspected, the whole system had somehow been cloaked, blocking signals from going back and forth.
"Set a course for Poloh Tem, let's find out what happened to those workers there," he ordered absentmindedly.
"Yes, sir," someone answered, but Gerek barely paid attention to him. His eyes were locked upon the window, staring out into the void as if he expected the answer to his many questions to just pop up in front of his ship at any second. That actually proved more accurate than anyone would have expected, as Gerek received the shock of his life when a gargantuan ship appeared out of nowhere, blocking his small squad's path.
"By the Spirits, that thing is huge," one of the crewmembers commented in frightened awe. Not that Gerek could blame him. That thing dwarfed every Dreadnought he had ever seen in his military career, stretching at least ten km in length. Strange wing-like constructs adorned its sides and its top, while a crescent moon-shaped plate was mounted at the front. What none of them knew, was that they were beholding the Necron Scythe-class Harvest ship Apophis.
"What is that?" someone else asked, a barely detected tremor in his voice. Gerek meanwhile was silent, awestruck by the massive construct taking up the view.
"Orders, sir?" someone suddenly asked, and that served to snap him out of his awestruck stupor. Though he was still apprehensive about the ship.
"Open a channel to it, and hope they can hear us," he said. The communications officer gave a small nod as he went to carry out his assignment. The whole crew waited with baited breaths, dreading what might soon happen.
"They're responding, sir. Audio only though," the communications officer finally announced.
"Very well," Gerek said quietly to himself before he spoke louder, meaning it to be transmitted to the strange ship, "This is captain Gerek of the Interceptor. You have entered Turian controlled space, and we demand that you identify yourself,"
Once again, there was silence, as they waited for the answer from these unknowns. Seconds ticked by without an answer, with some beginning to wonder if they were ever going to receive one. Then, just as they were about to give up, a transmission came through.
"I am the Stormlord, commander of the Necron army. And this system is no longer yours, Turian. It now belongs to me, and so will the rest of this cluster soon enough," but that transmission did nothing to alleviate the tension that had built aboard the ship. Gerek meanwhile felt a sudden anger bubbling to the forefront. How dare this guy march right in and claim Turian territories as his own? A thought concerning the identity of this new enemy suddenly struck Gerek.
"Are you a human?" he asked, struggling to keep the anger out of his voice.
"That I am," the answer was immediate, and it sent the anger across the entire crew skyrocketing. None of them liked humans after what they did at the Relay 314 Incident.
"Well then, I must inform you that you can't just walk in and take territory that belongs to us. Now either withdraw from the system, or we will have to resort to lethal force," Gerek stated confidently. A dark and haunting laugh drifted across the connection in response.
"And what makes you think that your pitiful ships will stand a better chance than those back at Poloh Tem?" the Stormlord questioned mockingly. That set off dreadful warning bells in Gerek's head. The way he said it, it sounded like he had…
"What have you done?" he demanded in equal part horror and anger.
"I killed them. Every last one of them. Currently, we are the only beings who are alive in the system," the Stormlord answered nonchalantly, sounding truly unaffected by the deaths of thousands of Turians and Volus and whoever else who had been on those space stations. For a short moment, Gerek saw red and had the Stormlord been present at the time, he would have strangled him in a murderous rage.
"Those were not military personnel, they were just civilian workers," he stated in fury.
"I fail to see how that would be relevant. They certainly died just the same way a soldier would have," the Stormlord answered, sounding genuinely curious on the matter. That was the last straw, and Gerek exploded.
"You cold-blooded monster! Don't you care about the thousands of innocents you slaughtered!?" he shouted in rage, his crew agreeing with every word he said.
"No, I do not. Their lives had no meaning to me, and neither does any other primitives currently inhabiting the Aethon Cluster. They will all meet the same fate in the end if they persist in keeping those planets," the Stormlord answered.
"We have no quarrel with you! We never did anything to you! So why would you declare war upon us like this!?" Gerek roared across the connection, letting all his anger be plainly heard and seen for all present.
"An ant has no quarrel with the boot that steps on it, and a man does not declare war when he decides to purge his house of cockroaches," the Stormlord answered condescendingly. That was the last straw for Gerek, as he just roared in absolute fury.
"ALL SHIPS! FIRE ON THE ENEMY!" he screamed in rage. The fleet was more than happy to comply, and they let loose with everything they had at the behemoth standing against them. They barely even scraped the pain on it. Their combined fire did absolutely nothing to the ship. When their barrage came to an end, the Turians could do nothing but stare in abject terror at the unblemished form of their enemy.
"My turn," the Stormlord stated over the connection, right before a Particle Whip struck a frigate and incinerated it. Then another frigate was struck with the exact same result, and then a third. The fourth had been smart enough to back up a bit, and so avoided sharing its comrades' fates. Gerek meanwhile realized that they stood no chance and turned to his crew.
"Turn this ship around! We need to…!" whatever else he had planned to say, ended when the bridge and half the ship was obliterated by a Particle Whip. The last frigate saw a lost battle, and so turned tail and fled the system, intent on warning the Turian Hierarchy about this new threat. Apophis did not even try to chase it down, but let it escape.
…..
(Meanwhile)
The alarms blared at full strength throughout the interior of Bismarck's bunker as explosions shook the very foundations. Cursing up a storm, the human commander surveyed his forces on the holographic table in his command center. Or rather, he surveyed what was left of his forces, which were currently being annihilated by this new commander that swept into his territory a few days ago.
"Someone tell me what the hell is going on!" he shouted in frustration.
"All our air units have been obliterated…" one of his robot assistants answered, pausing to regain its balance as a particularly nasty explosion shook the base and caused dust to rain down on them, "… Frontline units are reporting 90% casualties, and our artillery units are being cut down as we speak," Bismarck was all but fuming at that point.
"How in the nine levels of hell did those bastards get to our artillery units in the first place!?" he shouted, spit flying from his mouth and splattering across his robot assistant, who remained completely calm and unaffected in the face of its master's anger.
"Unknown as of yet," it answered monotonously, causing Bismarck to let out a groan of frustration while throwing his hands up in the air in resignation.
"Why do I even bother with you tin cans?" he asked himself.
"Because you cannot command an army of organics," the robot assistant answered logically, completely missing it as a rhetorical question. But before Bismarck could decapitate the robot with his sabre, another explosion rocketed the base, even tearing a few chunks of the roof loose.
"Enemy forces have entered the base. Enemy forces have entered the base. Enemy forces have entered the base," someone announced over the intercom.
"Wonderful," Bismarck grumbled to himself sarcastically as he picked himself up from the floor. His assistant robot had not been as fortunate, as its body was crushed under tons of debris, along with the holographic table. Gunfire suddenly echoed along the hallways outside his command center, so he drew his sabre and his pistol and awaited the enemy, alongside five of his remaining guards.
Then, the door was blown open, and in strode a rather unique batch of robots in Bismarck's opinion. They had a skeletal design to them, with crown-like ornamentations on their heads and wielding swords and shields. Those shields proved highly effective, as every shot that hit the shields simply bounced off, some even hitting Bismarck's troops. The distance between them was closed rapidly, and his last remaining robots were turned to scrap metals by these skeletal ones.
Bismarck tried to sell his life dearly, knowing he will just respawn, but he was disarmed and knocked over with contemptuous ease. They then stepped aside, allowing someone who had been standing in the hallway up until that moment to enter. Wearing a mantle and skull-shaped helmet, he was clutching a strange staff in his hand as he strode up to Bismarck, each step radiating strength and confidence. His green glowing eyes drilled into Bismarck with a deadly intent that would have cowed a lesser man. As it was, Bismarck was not impressed.
"Commander Bismarck, ranked number 20 and feared for your panzer divisions on the field. I must say, I expected more of a fight from you," the enemy commander commented mockingly, making Bismarck bristle. He always had a very short fuse.
"And who are you supposed to be then?" he questioned furiously as he glared at his enemy, who tilted his head slightly in what appeared to be puzzlement.
"Me? I am merely your conqueror this day. But you may call me the Stormlord," he eventually answered. As soon as introductions were done, Bismarck sneered at the Stormlord.
"Well, Mr. Stormlord, do you have any idea how long it's going to take to rebuild my forces now? Especially after you stole all of my planets?" he asked in exasperation.
"I can only imagine," the Stormlord answered, just before he aimed his staff at Bismarck and discharged a single blast that turned the commander into dust. With the enemy crushed here, the Stormlord turned around and headed outside again, followed by his Lychguards.
"Alert the main fleet to prepare for departure. We strike against the Federation commanders next," he ordered across the communications network.
"At once, my Lord. The Void Cloak is already being expanded into their territories in preparation," his trusted AI answered. The Stormlord nodded his head as he walked out into the sunlight again, watching as his army marched through the ruins of what had once been a mighty bastion.
"One by one, they will fall at my feet, each conquered territory adding more strength to my armies," he commented to himself, just before a Night Scythe arrived and picked him up. An hour later, his fleet was on the move again, ready to swallow up yet another commander. Once more, the void that was the Ghost Zone grew larger, removing another few systems from the galactic map.
