For Ace Combat fans, this chapter might hit hard. It almost made ME cry when I wrote it.

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Chapter Thirty-five

The Normandy, Laboratory

Mordin's brow creased as he looked over the file he'd received from one of his old colleagues. " 'Jano Avyeska found dead. Unusual mechanic of death. Partial indication of large bore weapon. Multiple inconsistencies. Autopsy record follows.' Curious," he muttered to himself.

As a personal favor, his old friend had been tracking down one of the last living Hegemony political figures with ties to the batarian assassin Taniks. But it appeared the man had already been found and terminated. That was mildly troubling insofar that the batarian still had access to impressive information sources.

Of greater concern was the fact that Taniks had absconded with a sonic rifle, yet the mechanism of death was far more energetic than that design was capable of. Skilled assassin and gunsmith though he might be, Taniks was not known to possess the skill to replicate or modify energy weapons.

"Implications disturbing," Mordin commented into his personal recorder. "Indoctrination unknown factor. Possibility of imparting advanced knowledge. Would suggest indoctrination capable of active transfer of information. Hive minded surveillance capabilities? Possible, if not probable. Termination of Avyeska suggests remaining self-control. Personal connections unique." He paused for a moment before continuing on another line of reasoning. "New weapon? Modified? Possible, unlikely. No connections to Alliance. Hegemony Remnant implausible. Lacks current technical expertise. Shadow Broker? Consideration for later."

With a few commands, he turned to face the primary monitor, now displaying the banks of photos and videography from the autopsy and the scene of discovery.

"…been pulling out fragments of cartilage and bone from the mixture of cerebral, skin and muscle tissue. None are above half a square centimeters in size. If not for the lack of bruising in the contiguous tissue, I would have thought this case to have involved a particularly large individual, possibly a krogan, wielding a particularly large blunt object as a weapon. However, fragment trajectory, a lack of weapon marks and the missing bruising indications are almost indicative of an explosion occurring at point blank range, with the contact point being just above the left ear.

"As of this time, I have no idea what weapon could have caused this. Lab sample analysis shows no traces of explosives. And there are no large anomalous pieces from an ammunition block that could account for a large bore weapon, which would be the only remaining alternative that I am aware of. I admit that I do not have the highest level security clearance, so should there be anything of a classified nature in existence, it may very well account for the inexplicable damage this man suffered. Apart from that, I am at a loss."

"…unable to find any forensic evidence. The asari servant who went to the local police was so hopped up on substance that her interviews and testimony are even more unreliable than usual. No one apparently heard anything. Considering the location of the victim and how only he suffered any sort of damage, as well as the asari girl's close proximity at the time, I think that this involved some kind of ranged weapon. With the Medical Examiner's report, we traced a few likely positions for a marksman to fire from. But we found zero evidence of a weapon discharge. No chemical traces, no weapon indentations or scuff marks from the recoil, nor signs of disturbance anywhere…"

The recordings stopped, but Mordin continued to stare at the screen. He didn't care about conjecture of what had transpired. What concerned him was the weapon used. Of course it was a ranged weapon. Taniks was a sniper, and one of the best assassins in the galaxy. The problem was reconciling the damage with the weapon used. Sonic rifles, while a brand new innovation, were incapable of that level of damage. Plasma rifles, laser weapons, geth particle weapons, all those energy weapons inflicted heat damage.

Wait. Mordin blinked as he backtracked. Geth particle weapons. An accelerated stream of particulate matter. It would produce heat due to the continuous series of particle collisions transferring huge amounts of kinetic energy to the impacting surface. But it would also produce shock damage. Much more than plasma. What kind of weapon would produce nothing but shock damage, with no physical evidence other than the victim? The closest analogue was when people died from the blast wave of a large explosion. Tremendous pressure in one direction…

"Concussion weapon?" Mordin whispered in awe. The dream of directed energy weapons. No physical trace, little energy radiated off as heat, nothing more than what would essentially be a beam of pure force. Such a weapon, if properly focused and ramped up, would blast straight through armor and have little to no trace. Like the sonic rifle, the firing position would be untraceable. Theoretically.

Mordin stopped himself from reactivating the recorder. This was something much too sensitive to utter on the ship. He'd probably already said two too many words as it was.

But before he could enter in the next command for his terminal, he was jolted off balance as the ship lurched.

"General quarters! All hands to battlestations! General quarters! All hands to battlestations!"

"Attack?!" Mordin breathed as he straighted up. Someone in the Terminus was straight up picking a fight with a state-of-the-art Alliance warship? Who would be so stupid? "Remnant? No. Little presence around Omega. Syndicates? Can't be. No significant gains…"

"This is Commander Pressly with a sit-rep. We are under attack by unknown Terminus forces. We have friendlies on station, and they're counting on us to provide them with a safe extract. We need to keep the enemy contacts away from the station. Chances are, this is an attempt to either reinforce hostile forces aboard or an exfiltration operation. Top priority is isolating the primary and auxiliary docking stations. We have numbers against us, but we're all used to that. Stay cool and remember your training. This is what we do. Let's show them how we do it!"

Omega, Auxilary Docks

"Well well," Jester called, "the Archangel arrives. Heard you had some fun with Nord on the way over."

Garrus clenched his mandibles inside his helmet, but didn't respond beyond leveling the barrel of his rifle dead center of the human's face.

"And what do we have here?" the dark-skinned human whistled. "The Butcher of Torfan herself. Niiiiiiice."

Shepard scowled, a dirty feeling coursing through her under the man's gaze.

"Two military legends here for little old me? I'm flattered."

"Get over yourself," Shepard snapped. "You're just a highly disruptive psionic. I don't know how you managed to get this strong, but I can figure that out later from your dead body."

"There's that little assuming thing, princess," Jester riposted condescendingly. "You're assuming that you'll kill me. And you know what happens when you assume things?"

"Like I said," Shepard growled, "you're just a highly disruptive psionic. And guess what?" Her body exploded into purple flame. "They trained me to kill people like you!"

Garrus was already moving, rocketing sideways and firing a hail of rounds at the man while Shepard blitzed straight ahead.

The man swung his left arm out carelessly, releasing a flare of green that batted away the relativistic bolts of material. His right arm came up, along with a glowing chunk of the protocomposite ground. Unable to move around it in time, Shepard instead plowed through it, letting it crumble off her purple shroud as she renewed her charge at the strange human.

But that short delay had bought Jester enough time to chamber his left fist before jabbing at her torso. Just as his fist made contact with her aura, another green flare exploded, overpowering her shroud for a split second. And for the first time since her training, Shepard found her psionics being overwhelmed by another force. In the short millisecond-long interval that Jester's power held sway, she found her momentum being completely reversed as she flew backward and skidded on the ground.

She hauled herself back up, ignoring both the astonished gaze of Garrus and her internal organs protesting the sharp reversal of inertia. Her aura reignited, more dense than ever, and she charged forward again with pure murder in her eyes.

Undeterred, Jester instead cackled as he sent a hail of both protocomposite shards and metallic scrap at the angry supersoldier. Then as Shepard managed to close in on him, he summoned a large lump of scrap with his right hand, and swung it at her.

Shepard snarled as she bashed it to pieces with her right arm before focusing her aura into a solid lance around her arm and stabbing with it. But her eyes flew wide in amazement as Jester caught her attack.

With a slight tightening of his left hand over her fist, his green aura crushed her lance. He leaned in with a sinister grin. "Like you said," he noted mockingly, "you're just a highly disruptive psionic. AND GUESS WHAT?" His own form erupted in green energy. "THEY TRAINED ME TO KILL PEOPLE LIKE YOU."

Shepard locked eyes with the psionic madman, feeling the undeniable strength in his grip, so similar to her own, and knowing exactly what she was now dealing with. "Jaeger…" she breathed.

Omega, Alliance Rear Element

"Say what?!" Silva yelped into the comm.

"Those tangos on board likely have reinforcements from space," Pressly replied. "That's why EDI moved most of herself back to the ship. Until we get control over the surrounding space, you're on your own down there. We can't send in the Arkbird or the backup to wait around and evac you guys. They're needed to run interference."

"God damnit, this went pear-shaped in a hurry!"

"Sorry captain. Sit tight until we call back."

"And if you don't?!"

"We will, captain," Pressly assured him. "Just keep your head on straight, marine."

"Fuck," Silva growled as the comm signal cut out. "Okay boys, that was our ride saying there's no more rides because things are getting loud outside the station. They got a job to do, and only they can do it, so we don't need to bother worrying about it. Our orders are to clear out any last bit of resistance from these Triple Threat assholes, and to keep them away from the docks. Stay alive!"

Tali felt more than a little out of place as the marines shouted an acknowledgement before moving off. "What do you want me to do?"

Silva paused. "Take EDI's shell and see if you can't use it to tap into the space battle comms. I'd still like to know how deep in the shit hole we're going to be."

Tali nervously glanced at the deactivated gynoid. "I-I'm not familiar with the hardware though…"

"Kid," Silva snapped, ignoring the quarian bristling indignantly, "right now, you're the best thing to an expert I can spare. All the real experts are either too far into the field, or back on the ship. And no offense, but you aren't cut out for the kind of fighting we handle."

"I'll try, but no promises," Tali warned, smarting somewhat from the 'kid' comment.

Omega, Auxilary Docks

Garrus interrupted the stare-down by jumping in and smashing his baton into Jester's chest, sending the insane human flying backwards. Pausing to make sure that the man would take time to get back up, he shook Shepard by the shoulder. "Hey! You alright?"

Shepard blinked a few times before her scowl returned. "No," she hissed. "I won't be alright until I find out where this fucker came from!"

Garrus yelped and dived forward, rolling out of the way of an engine block ripped from some dock equipment. "Hngh!" Shepard's arms rippled as she caught and halted the momentum of the piece of machinery. "Not looking for spare parts right now," she said, tossing away the slightly crimped engine block with a massive boom.

"Oh you want the whole hog?" Jester replied with his usual shit-eating grin as he stepped out of a dust cloud, "Why didn't you say so?" A large two and a quarter metric ton starter cart sailed in from behind him before shredding itself in mid-air and creating a flying cloud of both heavy and razor sharp metal parts.

Garrus clicked his baton to max power and thumbed the control for his pulse shield. Then he slammed the baton on the ground, adding its own repulsive force to his shield and scattering the lethal rain of metal away from himself.

Shepard merely stood her ground, forming her aura into an impenetrable barrier that even withstood a half-ton alternator smashing itself to pieces at twenty meters per second. But then something else plowed straight through. The purple wall shattered as a suddenly armor-clad Jester bowled Shepard over.

"Shepard!" Garrus called, launching himself high up, shouldering his rifle, and firing several well-placed shots into the scrap serving as armor around Jester's legs.

"Ugh!" For the first time, Jester's smug expression faltered as he stumbled from the pain. He turned to face Garrus. "Time to clip an angel's wings!" he snarled as his right hand glowed green.

Garrus heard two loud screeching sounds from his shoulders. "Aw fuck…" he groaned just before the wing pods were ripped off with psionic force. "Gyaaaah!"

"Hyeagh!" Shepard yelled, taking advantage of the distraction to ram her arm, sheathed once again in a purple drill-shaped aura, into Jester's scrap-clad side.

"Gyeh!" Jester's aura flared, blasting Shepard backward once again and showering her with a rain of scrap metal.

Garrus triggered his armor pulse just before he hit the ground, cushioning his fall a great deal. It still did not prevent the explosion of pain as he landed on a protruding piece of debris with the small of his back. "…ow…" he squeaked in an unusually high pitched voice.

Shepard shook her head, forcing the double images in her vision to solidify after being nailed in the temple with an engine cowling. She had no time for anything else, as the same piece of metal smacked into her from behind. Jester was pulling all the scrap back towards himself, carrying her with it. Caught off guard as she was, she had no time to react before Jester slammed a metal-encased fist deep into her abdomen, driving her straight down into the protocomposite ground.

"You're starting to piss me off," Jester growled, attempting to grind Shepard further into the concrete analogue.

Shepard coughed, spitting a wad of blood into Jester's face. "Funny," she whispered, "you took the words right out of my mouth!"

The Normandy, Bridge

In a stunning display of either suicidal overconfidence or devotion, the large group of new contacts were throwing themselves at the ship. Whether or not the enemy commanders realized exactly who they were picking a fight with, they were succeeding in pushing the ship away, making it more difficult for them to maintain control of the dock areas.

Pressly was glad to see that the enemy was paying quite a heavy price for it. EDI was a genuine artist with her two Firebird drones. He'd lost count of the number of double hits with one shot she'd made. There was a slowly accumulating pile of dead ship hulks as a testament to her superb aim.

There were a surprising number of enemy fighters. That was truly astonishing. Dr. Solus had informed him upon joining him on the bridge that the identification markers pegged these ships as independent mercenaries or members of the big three Terminus gangs. From what he'd heard in the briefings back on the Olympus, he had been under the impression that barely met militia standards. Still, they didn't last very well against the Firebirds or the two Skyrangers.

He frowned. Honestly, he wasn't that happy about deploying the spare dropship for fighter defense, even with the situation being what it was. It placed both at risk. If both Skyrangers were destroyed, he had an entire platoon of Helljumpers plus his commanding officer stranded deep in potentially hostile territory with no easy way of extraction.

"Give me an assessment," he ordered.

"Three of the five cargo transports have been destroyed," EDI reported. "The other two have sustained minor blast damage. Six of the eight gunships are out of commission. The other two are being sheltered by that one frigate analogue. All missile boats have been wiped out. The Skyrangers are taking care of the mine-layer, and…the other frigate is now dead."

"Ship status."

"Well sir, that last fighter sweep with missiles took our shields to thirty percent," Joker called. "Forward pods expended and reloading. Power plant is at eighty-two percent and holding steady. We're still circling out of effective range of these idiots, but I still don't want to get in too close and let that frigate get a shot at us."

"Hey you want that damn thing taken care of? Consider it done!" Chopper announced over the comm.

Pressly rolled his eyes. And there he went again. Lt. Col Davenport was infamous for being a daredevil pilot, having racked up a long string of reprimands that somehow never precluded him from gaining rank. Pressly had talked to his last CO, another flight school colleague, who'd flat out told him that writing him paperwork would just be a waste of time.

"Chopper," Nagase chastised him, "You're taking too many risks!"

"You always say that," Davenport laughed. "Yeahooo!"

Even Pressly couldn't keep a slight smile off his face as he observed the tactical display. A sigh came afterward from Chopper's long-suffering wingmate. The icon for the daring colonel swept into a sharp turn that brought his flight path parallel to the much larger craft. "Oh that looks important!"

"Whoa!" Joker exclaimed.

"Yep, it sure was!" Chopper cackled.

"Jesus, what the hell did he hit?!"

"According to the EMF scans, it seems he caused a catastrophic power overload in the frigate by shooting the section containing the capacitor banks for the kinetic barriers," EDI noted. "The power surge most likely fried the drive core safeties and possibly interacted with the control computer, causing a runaway reaction until failure."

"You see that, Nagase? You catch it?"

"Yes, Chopper," the other pilot replied calmly. "You know that Blaze is going to yell at you again for doing that, right?"

"Ah, it's fine. He can yell all he wants. I'm still alive."

At that moment, the last surviving gunship made a terrifically unlucky shot. A loud boom echoed through Chopper's line.

"Dah! Damn!"

"Chopper? Chopper are you alright?!"

"Agh, well that just rattled me pretty good. Let's see…shit, left side control surfaces are all messed up."

"Chopper, they're not messed up! They're GONE!"

Pressly leaned forward at that as the bridge crew all turned toward the speaker.

"Gone? The hell do you mean they're…oh…"

"Colonel Davenport, your ship is reporting a rapid loss of engine power, and you are drifting towards the station at almost five hundred meters per second. I recommend you eject," EDI called.

"Listen to her," Nagase urged. "Bail out, Chopper! Please, bail out!"

Pressly's knuckles whitened as he gripped the railing with deep dread. The rest of the crew stared transfixed at the speaker, waiting for the man's reply.

"…I can't," he replied with a fatalistic tone. "the electrical system's all messed up. The pod won't blow. Ejection system's probably not working either."

Pressly ran his mind through the only possible escape scenario, knowing that with an approach velocity of 1800 km/h, what little deceleration he might gain from jumping out the back in an evac suit wouldn't make a damn bit of difference.

"Don't give up!" Nagase begged. "Chopper! Keep trying! Chopper!"

"Heh," Lieutenant Colonel Davenport laughed sadly as he made his final transmission, "I'm gonna miss that voice…"

Pressly closed his eyes and bowed his head as the icon for Arkbird II winked out of existence, and the relative silence on the bridge was shattered by a horrified scream. "CHOPPER!"

Omega, Auxilary Docks

The weight on her chest vanished as Jester was sent flying by the shock of the impact. Shepard also found herself being pushed by the blast, only to suddenly be pulled back. In her attempts to grab onto something, she saw the cause of the event.

The auxiliary dock they were next to was gone. The airlocks were obliterated by something smashing into them. Only her distance and the safety mechanisms slamming down were saving the three of them from being sucked into space from the vast quantity of air rushing out. When the gale ended, she climbed to her feet and surveyed the area.

Jester glared at her, slowly pulling out a shard of metal from his left lung, and showing no sign of impairment as he crumpled the industrial grade metal like newspaper.

There were no words now. None were needed. This was a fight that could only end in one way.

Then a loud crack echoed across the way, and Jester was thrown sideways with a second large hole above his aorta.

"…did you forget about me, you prick?" Garrus growled, allowing his rifle to drop from his right hand while his left gingerly caressed his abused back.

Shepard slumped, allowing the tension to bleed out of her with a laugh. It was a bad move as it turned out, bringing a sudden eruption of pain and coughing. "It's always your damn back," she managed in between hacking up globs of blood.

Garrus's pained-yet-amused look turned to concern as Shepard dropped to a knee, clutching her lower abdomen. "You okay?"

Shepard paused to look up with a deadpan stare.

"Right, stupid question."

Faint strained laughter caught both their attention. "…heh, you idiots…don't know anything…"

"The fucker's still alive?" Shepard asked.

"Not for much longer, it looks like," Garrus noted.

"…you dance to their tune," Jester continued weakly. "…heh…we all do. We're just puppets…tangled in…strings."

"Strings?" Shepard asked.

"…guess I should thank you though…" the man said. "…you cut me free…free…"

Shepard's eyes widened as the dying man's body began to glow green one final time. "Get back!" she hissed.

"…I had strings…"

With a display of willpower, Shepard hoisted herself up and grabbed the startled turian by the arm.

"…but now…I'm free…"

"Get to cover!" the red head barked as they dashed away.

"There are…"

Garrus slowed down slightly as he turned to look back in rising panic.

"…no strings…"

The green glow now seemed to be as bright as a sun.

…on me…

One final explosion rocked the area. Garrus and Shepard flew apart and smashed into different piles of debris before being buried in a wave of repulsed scrap.

For almost five minutes, there was no movement. Then Garrus pulled himself out of the pile, groaning as he nursed several sub-armor bruises.

"Shepard? You there? Shepard?" He looked at another large pile and began pulling it apart. Finally, he uncovered the female supersoldier.

"Captain Silva? This is Spectre Vakarian. If you can hear me, get a medic over here now. Shepard is down. Repeat, Shepard is down.

Bekenstein, Hock Mansion

Donovan Hock grumbled to himself as he was pulled out of the air car by his aide and escorted indoors to his private office. Sometimes, he wondered if his job was worth all the little inanities he put up with, dealing with small timers, contractors and all the various Terminus officials who required a price for their silence.

When he opened his office door, he stopped dead, seeing a familiar woman with a troubled expression on her face. He turned and gestured to his aide that he required privacy, which the little man complied with, bowing out of the office and closing the door.

"What?"

"Jester is dead," the woman told him.

Hock blinked, before composing his thoughts. "Who killed him?" he demanded.

"According to our contacts, the Archangel returned to the station, along with Captain Erin Shepard."

"Hmph," Hock snorted. "Of course, it would have to be her."

"Our people are waiting for instructions," the woman continued. "Omega is completely trashed. Aside from Aria T'Loak, who Archangel helped to prop back up, there's a huge vacuum in terms of services offered."

"Well I suppose it's now or never," Hock mused. "Have our people establish themselves now. Seize as much control over the station as they can. With the three gangs wiped out, we should have a near-monopoly on Omega after this. I assume that they were wiped out, Roe?"

"Last I heard," Roe answered hesitantly, "the fleet we 'hired' to back up Jester was annihilated to the last. That new Alliance frigate really is something. But as to the groups on the station, Eclipse is still together, but Sayn is pulling us out. For now, they're writing off Omega. The Blue Suns and the Blood pack on the other hand are already gone. We can thank Archangel for that."

"Well at least we have that going for us," Hock commented with satisfaction. With at least two of the three principal gangs in the Terminus severely weakened, he could extend the control that his organization possessed much deeper into the Terminus, worming his way into places he'd deemed too difficult to acquire beforehand. "Keep me posted,"

"As long as you're paying," Roe smirked before leaving.

Hock waited until the Eclipse commander-turned-double-agent shut the door before he moved to his desk. He entered in a long password from memory, and then took a special chip and slotted it into the computer before accessing a hidden program. The doors locked down and the secondary security system in his office engaged. No one could enter or leave until he shut down the program, and no signals could go in or out except through the hidden QEC unit wired to the terminal.

A new panel on the screen opened up and various indicators turned green until the entire board was green. Then a big logo appeared: a red and black hexagon with an eye on the top and a four-pointed-star on the bottom.

Hock selected a person from the contact list, and waited patiently for five minutes until the line was completed.

"Yes?"

"Hello Petrovsky," Hock greeted. "We have a loose end that needs tying up…"

Codex: Element Zero boosted explosives

The base property of Element Zero, the emission of Dark Energy upon electrical stimulation, has proven to be a great boon in nearly all areas of technological development, not the least of which is military applications.

The practice of adding Element Zero to large explosives can, under certain conditions, increase the efficiency by a factor of three. It is a delicate balance to reach with chemical explosives, however. As it responds to electrical stimulation much faster than the reaction rates of some chemical explosives, too high of a concentration can disperse the explosive before it all begins to react to the detonator.

There are more strategic applications for this: the addition of Element Zero to nuclear weapon designs. While pure fission designs have a maximum theoretical yield-to-weight ratio of only 6 kt per kg of bomb material, thermonuclear weapons are three orders of magnitude greater, sitting at a theoretical ratio of 6Mt per kg. But with the addition of Element Zero to add a tertiary containment force to counter the internal pressure buildup in the pit, or nuclear core, that ratio is further increased twice over, to a final theoretical 600Mt per kg of material.

This ratio falls far short of the sci-fi "planet cracker warhead," but can do wonders for the use of nuclear weapons in space combat. As combat takes place over relativistic distances, nuclear explosions must be quite large in a vacuum to have a significant chance of destroying or damaging an enemy ship.

And now we get our first look into the Exalt rabbit hole.

I came up with the idea for boosted nukes because the scale of space combat and the range of modern nukes always bothered me.

The first two ratios are not made up. That's what I've learned in my own research. I was looking for a percentage reaction efficiency number for different weapon designs, but the only ones I've ever seen is 1.3 percent material reaction for the Little Boy, and 15% material reaction for the Fat Man. The most efficient weapon design in terms of yield to mass is the US B41 design at a theoretical 5.1 kt per kg. The most efficient weapon tested is the US MK 56, at 4.96 kt per kg.

Naturally, when anything new is discovered, the first two things people try to use it for is porn, or weapons. Element Zero should be no different.

The short version: nukes take subcritical material, make it supercritical to create a massive buildup of energy in the form of gamma rays, and try to contain that buildup for as long as possible before containment failure.

The first method of containment is physical. The second is inertial, which is present in implosion-type and thermonuclear type weapons. Element Zero, in a proper design, could substitute for the explosives in the implosion design and generate more force by converting gamma rays to electricity, stimulating a greater release of dark energy, and so on until the containment fails.

Ultimately, the main objective in nuke design is to prolong the containment of the buildup.

Finally, I have gotten some reviews decrying how OP the Alliance is. I admit it. They are OP. They are essentially what you'd get when you mix the logistics and training of the US military with the doctrine and ruthlessness of the USSR. And the Citadel is basically a third-world power.

But I could have made them even more OP. I could have allowed the Alliance to develop Wormhole cannons: guns that could fire through wormholes across interstellar distances with absolutely zero possibility for retaliation fire.

And that would have completely broken the story. The Citadel still does have numbers going for them, and the Reapers will find a way to even the odds. I can guarantee you that.