A/N: So, we're back on the road again - and the new recruit sees the first proper fight. This chapter ended up being a bit shorter than I would have liked, but hey. We'll get a few later chapters that make up for it...
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Chapter XXVII – Stars and Ships Pt. I
Felix Cartal – Life is a Sine Wave
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"Not bad." I complemented between breaths as I knelt on an old furnace, a meter-long pipe in my lap, grinning as I watched Corra from several meters away. The Asari sat on her ankles, toes pointed back with an equal-sized pipe in her hands. We should have been using katanas, but as she didn't have kinetic plating, it was risky for live practice. Too risky, I figured. Too risky when there was plenty of other stuff to go over.
She was starting to get more comfortable with guns, with movement around a battlefield. Sliding into cover, rolling between cover. She already knew most all of the techniques, but hadn't perfected them past what she had learned in the books.
Corra was still sweating. An hour of sparring throughout the old factory to the west of Nos Astra, just above the ruins. She was smiling, wound up from the pseudo-swordfighting. It was good practice and the Asari had adapted at a remarkable rate. She had the strength to swing and parry, even if her technique was lacking at times. "Thank you."
"Don't try to anticipate someone's next move, though." I noted. "Those were the few times I was able to strike under your defense."
"It was more like five or six." Corra grumbled and chuckled.
"Well, it was a good start." I conceded and stood up, leaving the pipe on the ground before I cracked my knuckles. I said nothing more, but already Corra was better with blades than Sam ever was. Those five or six hits had taken a good amount of work. I glanced up to the roof, sections of sheet metal ripped back and exposing a grey sky above. We were biding time. I tried to mask the distaste in my voice as I noted, "Getting good with a sword is only part of it, though. You ever try to use your biotics for transport?"
"I-" Corra started, surprise in her eyes as she stood up. "You mean like a biotic charge?"
I nodded.
"Forrest, few people have the coordination and nerve to execute charges like that. I may be a biotic, but I'm in no position to be one of those elite."
"Don't count yourself out." I shook my head. "There's a few techniques I might be able to share with you."
"I did not know you were a biotic." The Asari with blue facepaint watched me curiously.
"I used to be." Azarith replied, then lifted the bionic right arm. I knew it was a fucking lie, that the mechanical replacement wasn't the real reason for my absent abilities. "But this happened."
"I'm sorry." Corra glanced down for a second before her eyes returned interested as before. "Were you able to charge before?"
I nodded. "Along with a few other 'elite' techniques, sure."
"And you could 'teach' me this through a simple transfer of memories?"
"That's how I learned."
"Well…" Corra set the pipe down against an air duct, then took a slow step towards me. "I suppose it could not hurt to try."
The Asari took another step forward, so that we were half an arms distance apart and she set her hand on my right shoulder. I was hesitant, knowing that the meld would leave us both vulnerable for perhaps a minute, but then again, we had been crashing around for the last hour with no event so I figured it was safe enough. Corra would be out too, so it wasn't like she could push me off a building. I nodded. A moment later her eyes flashed black.
I stand on the railing of a ship engulfed in a Korlus sandstorm, clutching the rail as I look down the temporary walkway bolted to the hull of an ancient ship. There, forty meters ahead, is the Asari fugitive that we've come down here for. Running. She's almost to the corner, moments from getting away.
Something clicks as I crouch, pull my shoulders back and let my biotics flare, each sequence of motion fluid as I throw my shoulders forward and send myself into a mass field corridor that warps time and distance. I smash into her armored back with my shoulder. We go down in a heap of soon violent punches and grapples.
There's a white flash, a slight transition, before I'm on Illium, standing on the very edge of a plaza, back to the edge and facing a fucking horde of Mk.15s. Five of them. Four blades apiece, they start to lunge at me. I form my biotic blades, parry, drive a blade through one of the augmented faces and duck back just in time to evade another. I block its swing, then drive both of my blades through its chest and sending it crashing back into a third. The fourth lunges, swings. I feel my blade give out, but with the grip of adrenaline I feel no more as I dodge back and go to form another blade. Nothing but biotic wisps around my hand.
Or where my hand should have been.
I stand on a nighttime dock, sky blackened from smoke and lit up only by fires across the way. A frigate is wrecked, shattered, crashed into the dock. Smoldering corpses. My nightmare. I close my eyes, knowing full well what I'll face when I open them. I shake myself, trying to break out…
The slip back to reality was relatively painless. Before I could slip off into false memories that I couldn't get rid of, I was face-to-face with Corra. Well, she was more preoccupied looking down at her hands as she stepped back before letting her biotics flare.
She clenched her fists. Blades formed. Granted, they were fairly weak, but she had no practice, and the form was undeniably there, the clean half-meter blade extending from her forearm, without mass but with a deadly cutting edge. By the time Corra looked back to me, she was grinning and half trying to say something but more focused on moving the fresh blades around.
I nodded, only gesturing to her blades and making no mention of the confusion filling my head. I had exchanged nothing more than information during that meld, practical information with the intent to make her more deadly, but there was a nagging attraction that I pushed away as hard as I could but it still came back. I didn't fall in love that easy. Especially not after the last time – well, that was different. Any feelings for Viola must have arisen from proximity and little more – but it was certainly gone, replaced by the need for revenge. And then Corra. No, there it was something else, something that made me uneasy and yet like her all the more. "See?"
"This is incredible! I didn't know that such techniques existed, much less were still used today."
"They're not, really. I've only run into two people who use biotic blades."
"I hadn't even heard legends of such things… and I sought them out persistently." She laughed, letting her biotics flare once more as she started looking around, finally down a long open stretch. Getting ready to charge.
I would have been eager to watch, had the noise of a distant gunship not caught my attention. "Corra, wait a sec."
She looked back to me with a frown, both her biotics and shoulders slumping in disappointment. "Aww, what is it this time?"
"Gunship." I replied, hopping onto the furnace stack and then balancing my way across an I-beam towards the balcony where the hoverbike was parked. I glanced back at Corra once I had reached the end, and she was still standing there. Watching me. Waiting.
When she knew I was looking back, she broke into a smirk and fired her biotics up again, drew back her shoulders. Then she flung them forward. There was a biotic confluence around the pseudo-commando before she vanished. Right into thin air. No corridor. Nothing.
I doubt five milliseconds passed. I didn't even have time for alarm to rise before a mass effect field sprang to life a meter away on the balcony, the Asari suddenly reappearing, catching the rail and dropping down onto the deck. Grinning. "That was a biotic charge, was it not? I actually – I actually did it!"
I nodded hesitantly. "That's not any charge I've seen before, but… it works. Nice one Corra."
Still beaming, she poked her head out through the door and then suddenly yanked her whole body back into cover on one side of the door while I took cover on the other. In a hissed whisper she explained: "Gunship spotted!"
I nodded, not bothering to look out as I equipped my Mk.25 mask. "Which direction is it coming from?"
"That way." Corra gestured towards the south-east. Made sense, as I recalled there was a dock not far in that direction. Sounded like it was coming right at us too. "It was red and grey."
I didn't need to say anything; Corra and I both knew what that symbolized and why Contractor troops would be coming our direction. The drone got louder and louder, almost to us… and then it veered up, overhead, above the roof before slowing down. Offloading troops. Assassins, infiltrators maybe.
"This time, we're actually going to run." I noted quietly, a touch of cynicism directed at the pseudo-commando. I could tell that she didn't like it, but she nodded anyway before I turned and stepped out onto the balcony where the hoverbike was parked. I wasn't that surprised; the bike had probably been bugged at some point (all of the TIER bikes had beacons on them as well).
Let them chase us, I thought. This time is different.
The red and grey XH450 roared to life as the core and thrusters all fired up and I sat down near the front of the seat, leaving enough room for Corra behind me. She got on. We were off the ground none too late as I heard yelling on the roof. An explosion, metal caving in on the old factory.
All that was behind us. I had tucked down against the tank, wind whipping past as I hung low, darting under a bridge and then between two plazas. Making a fast line for the closest dock only a kilometer away. Seemed like a ways once we had to contend with traffic, erratic shuttles and slow trucks. I nearly grazed off of a Peacekeeper corvette. They only flashed their lights.
With a straightaway ahead and a corner behind, I turned and yelled to Corra so she could hear me over the wind: "I hope you're ready to do something really stupid."
"We're not actually running, are we?"
"They must have come this far in a frigate." I replied, veering around a shuttle that pulled out right in front of me. If the dashboard map was to be trusted, we were getting real close to the dock. "Let's jack it."
Corra was silent for several seconds. I quite wished to have seen the expression on her face, but traffic was too unpredictable to look back. We were going to be taking enough risks as it was. Finally there was only a certain confirmation: "Let's do it."
Visual contact on the dock. Sure enough, there was a Contractor frigate there. A smaller one. Recon, maybe. Just enough to carry a gunship and a few troopers. Small enough we could take it on. Hell, I knew if it had been Rana or Delina, we would have had no trouble devastating a few Contractors. I wasn't sure how Corra was going to hold her own weight. If we were to succeed, she needed to pull her own weight.
We still were under the radar. Still undetected as we charged forward, low and fast as a few Contractor troops milled about. The cargo bay ramp was still down.
"Wait!" Corra suddenly started. "What's the plan?"
"Go in fast and cover each other no matter what happens." I shot back, lining up with the ramp best I could. "Get ready to jump!"
A hundred meters away. One trooper saw us, turned and started to open fire. A few shavings tore into my kinetic plating. I lined the bike up, prepared to bail on impact. Bowl out a few goons on the way in.
"Charging!" Corra warned and then suddenly vanished into a biotic flux.
I wanted to panic, but I didn't have time before I had to bail off the bike. The XH450 decked out three troopers while I hit the deck and rolled several times, coming to my feet stumbling, hands around a dropped Vindicator rifle and I drew a shaky bead on a trooper near the ramp; three bursts took him out before I hopped down and aimed at another trying to work the ramp controls. Down before he could close us out.
I glanced over my shoulder. One Contractor trooper was falling to his knees, two bleeding stab wounds in his chest. A Defender was going to investigate, unaware as Corra phased back right behind him, both biotic blades slashing through his back and dropping him.
She turned towards me and drew her SMG just before charging again and then reappearing right by my side. The Asari nodded. We broke into a sprint, leaping into the frigate as the ramp began to raise. Several Contractors were left stranded outside.
I tossed the rifle aside as we got into close quarters and drew the Shredder. Immediately I had to dive into cover behind a crate as more Contractors opened fire from up in the cargo bay. They had better positions.
Also, they had light machine guns. A few taps and my plating was nearly down. I glanced over at Corra, who took a second to fire blindly over her cover while keeping her head down. Suppressing fire. Something I had only mentioned.
"We need to move up!" I barked. "Take on their right flank and I'll take the left!"
Corra nodded, spinning around, crouching and rousing her biotics. I activated my cloak and decoy, leaving a hologram for the Contractors to shoot at while I lunged forward on tech runners and Corra disappeared into her offshoot charge.
"Watch out! That's just a decoy, you idiots!" A Human Sentinel screamed, trying to keep the rest of the lot from overheating their weapons on a fake target.
Well, too late. I slammed into him with my left blade flashing across his neck and dispatching him without too much fuss but significant amount of blood. I still had the shotgun in my right hand. Five shots into the nearest trooper, the last two tearing into his armor and knocking him back out of cover.
Across the hold, Corra had come out slashing, taking out two troopers at the end of her reach and passing a third, brushing by his shoulder, spinning, then kicking the back of his knee and dropping him as she drove her blade into the back of his neck. A fourth tried to grab her, but she quickly evaded, grabbed the fully-armored merc by his wrist and then drove her shoulder into his elbow. There was a rather loud pop before his arm bent back the wrong way and he went down in a screaming pile.
Another merc came at me with the butt of his rifle. I ducked out the way, the impact only grazing against my shoulder as I spun around and planted my shotgun at the base of his skull before pulling the trigger. That pretty much cleaned the place up.
Corra was standing over the writhing trooper with a broken arm, staring down at him with a distant look on her face, sweat dripping from her nose. I shook my head as I walked her way, towards the stairs to the rest of the ship, and asked, "You're just gonna leave an enemy like that?"
The Asari didn't say anything for a good five seconds, then bowed her head and whispered, "Goddess forgive me."
Then she knelt down and snapped the Contractor's neck.
Neither of us said a word more as we faced each other, both nodding before I took off up the stairs with the shotgun in my hands. A single flight of steep stairs and we were at the upper deck.
I made a mad dash for the nearest console, dropping onto my back and sliding into cover. Well, I would have made it into to cover had the entire ship not lurched. But it did, and I found myself scrambling, along with several Contractors, to get back into cover. One was unlucky enough to be within grabbing range when I was back on my feet – and with no helmet. I grabbed the Turian's fringe, yanked his head forward into my knee. Must have broken something in his face. My kinetics took a hit, but he stumbled back – and a single shotgun blast decked him out. Right then, a heavy projectile hit my chest. Kinetics stopped it. At least I thought so, only to look down at the needle protruding from my chest. I didn't feel it. I hoped it was lodged in my armor. I also realized I had no protection as several other Contractors opened fire. I dove for cover. The longest damn milliseconds of my life passed as I was stuck in the air, aware of every single shaving coming by me as I dove, even more so as they tore into my armor, the hard plating absorbing the projectile but not all of the energy. One pinged off of my Mk.25 mask.
I made into cover, even if a bit shaken. A pause as I let my plating recharge. "The hell – are we moving?"
Several meters away, behind a different bit of cover, Corra was ducking out of cover to fire back on the Contractors. One body slumped on the far side of the room while the Asari pulled herself back as several shots hit her barriers. A nod. Then she rose from cover, launching a throw towards the resistance, a warp explosion and a yelp indicating success; the Asari stayed up and laid down a long burst of Locust fire. Another Contractor might have fallen.
By then, my kinetic plating was back online and I rose from cover with the heavy revolver drawn. There was a moment's delay between pulling the trigger and lining up on a target, but I heard as the shaving hit home, the Contractor stumbling and a needle shot went wild, ringing off the wall not far from its intended target – not far from Corra's head.
A defender was rushing us. The pseudo-commando was still firing, trying to win with the brawn of her SMG.
"Corra!" I yelled. "Hit him with a pull!"
She didn't respond.
"Hit him with a pull!"
Corra snapped back into it, biotics flaring and a moment later the Contractor specialist was without his metal storm shield. An easy shot with the heavy revolver.
We had nearly cleared the ship out. All that was left was the bridge and cockpit, and neither was very big. I glanced over to Corra as I started to move up. She was panting, sweating, and as she tried to hold her right hand steady, trembling. "You're doing great. Hold in there, Corra!"
She nodded weakly, moving in behind me as I continued towards the cockpit. I walked with the revolver in both hands. Ready.
For good reason; a trooper leapt from one of the alcoves along the bridge and opened fire with his vindicator, a single burst tearing into my plating before I fired from the hip, MR13 shaving driving through the merc's head and sending him slumping to the side half laying on the walkway as I continued on.
I didn't see the impact from my side. I only felt the slam into my shoulder, into the kinetic plating with the same amount of force as a hoverbike speed, sending me flying into the opposite wall and slumping to the ground. Pain receptors turned off in milliseconds and I looked up.
The Contractor equivalent of Doomsday armor was standing in front of me, fist still extended, grey frame and a red right arm. Same concept, different design. Less substantial armor, more motor servos. A lighter helmet with slanted crimson-glowing eyes.
My plating was at 20%, having absorbed most of the hit. I rolled out of the way as the machine punched forward with its other arm, denting the floor. I didn't see the kick coming. Not until it was right in front of my eyeports, smashing into my mask. I went careening away, tumbling towards the cockpit as my plating gave out, let out a single nova.
My vision was blurry. Fragments of red coding were springing up all across my view. My arms and legs wouldn't respond properly, flailing about as the Contractor Heavy stepped forward and pinned my shoulder with one hand. Drew the other back.
Right as the motor servos began to activate, a blue slice tore through the Contractor's arm. A scream emitted from the mechanized armor, a female scream of someone who lost her arm. A blue flux behind the mass as it swung around at where Corra had been.
Instead, The Asari phased back right above me, narrowly avoiding stepping on me as she drove both of her blades into the doomsday armor. Right into the pilot. The two concentrations of biotic energy detonated, intentional or not, as Corra spun around and grabbed my right hand and forearm and drug me most of the way back onto my feet.
"Forrest – oh goddess, you're bleeding!" She exclaimed with a trace of panic in her voice and in her eyes.
"It'll buff out." I shook my head, hoping that she wouldn't fuss and worry about it anymore. "Thanks to you I'm not dead."
She nodded slowly, watching me as though she was about to protest further, eyes trailing along the side of the Mk.25 mask.
I took the cue to wipe my glove along the seam, a fair bit of blood smeared onto the camo plating and black microweave. I flicked it off and picked up my revolver. We still had to reach the cockpit.
"I repeat, we fell under attack!" The pilot was nearly screaming at a less-than impressed Turian holo. "Requesting immediate emergency dock and containment. It's a last resort before they -"
A dagger across the neck silenced the Human pilot and I yanked him out of the chair before looking up. Corra shut off the blabbering Turian holo and stood right next to me, just on the other side of the vacant pilot's seat as she too looked ahead into space. We were already reaching Illium orbit. No, we were already in high orbit. No more atmospheric interference. The frigate's kinetics flickered. I stared straight ahead at a section of stars blocked out.
"Is that…" Corra stammered, gaze not shifting. "That's a dreadnaught, isn't it?"
"Uh-huh." I muttered, nodded, and stared at the grey and red ship hulking there in orbit. Massive, really. Probably a kilometer long. Maybe longer. It wasn't modeled after any other species' dreadnaughts either. The front had facets, sharp angles. The ship was long, relatively slender, with a razor running down the back. Ports all along the sides. A massive array of engines at the back, surrounded by four wings that formed a X formation diagonal to the rest of the dreadnaught.
"Shit." I managed one word before dropping into the pilot's seat, activating the main haptic controls and scanning for something, anything, to get the ship turned in a different direction.
Manual control override.
That was the ticket. As soon as I hit the bit of haptic panel, half of the yellow projections went offline and a physical, metal flight controller folded out in front of me. As my hands grasped the helm, I could only remember Hyetiana, deserting the squad in a Contractor fighter. I shook my head back to the present, pulled back and spun the controls to the right, frigate immediately following course. "Corra… Get every comms signal offline. Get everything offline except for main controls, life support and GPS."
"On it!" The Asari replied, dropping into the seat next to me and going to work. There was only a blur over haptic panels.
The dreadnaught was behind us by then, leaving us blind and pointing away. A clear path ahead. I scanned the remaining haptics for one more thing, our ticket away from the luck-forsaken planet that had nearly taken my life and had crushed the heart of the 517th Division Lancers.
A flash of blue above us, parallel with the first dreadnaught. Just out of Illium's orbit. I didn't believe my eyes. I didn't want to. It might have been out of our immediate course, but the sudden arrive didn't bode well for the planet below.
A Contractor dreadnaught. The same as the first.
"You better hold onto something. This is probably gonna get choppy." I warned right before I slammed a sequence of panels that probably had a specific order but all lead to FTL jump.
"Forrest, going into FTL this close to other ships could create unstable electrical field that -"
"We're already dead if we wait to see if there's reinforcements coming in." I reminded, a bit harsher than I needed to have been.
Corra looked up, suddenly seeing a third Contractor vessel come out of FTL. Almost bigger than the first two. A carrier. Still out of our FTL vector. "Oh goddess…"
"Jumping to FTL in three…" I began, sliding a haptic control forward slowly, the ship's eezo core starting to wind up. "Two…"
The jump triggered before expected, smashing me back in my seat as the stars and ships blurred around us, vanished into white lines in space-time.
We made it out alive. We made the jump.
I was shaking, slowly letting go of the helm with my right hand, my left keeping the controls steady, and removed the Mk.25 mask. I could feel again. Feel the blood trickling down the side of my face, my shoulder where my armor was nearly caved in, my chest where a broken-off needle was just scratching the flesh. I stared straight ahead. I didn't really wonder if we had the right coordinates. Illium was done. Behind us. I was glad I made it out alive, but guilt was starting to weigh me down. The rest of the Lancers were unaccounted for.
"We… We made it." Corra mumbled, almost sounding drunk. Not quite like who I had gotten used to over a course of several days. She drug her hand through a haptic panel. "Charge levels are low, core harmonics look…" She trailed off, shook her head. "I don't… I don't feel very good. I think… I think I need some food or…"
The Asari started to stand up. Before I could even put a hand out, she slumped down, crashing right into the deck without a sound more.
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