Interloper 2: Chapter 38
The tinkling sound of metal on plates filled the mess hall of the privately contracted frigate, The Prize. Officers of both Cerberus and Alliance mingled as haggard yet relieved work crews finally began to relax again. At the head of the long table sat three captains. Shepard had put on the Cerberus officer dress uniform, noticeably bereft of its hexagonal lapel pins. Beside her sat a much older man with greying hair and beard. He wore an anachronistic greatcoat that would have been old fashioned even back home. The man had the air of an old time sailing captain, but at the table with so many uniformed crewmen he looked scruffy and tired. On his other side sat Jacob in his Alliance uniform. He had unclasped the front panel, which now hung down to reveal the fabric it overlapped. He was deep in conversation with Shepard now, just loud enough to be heard.
"…Just happened to be passing through, Commander. The boys and I were pretty surprised when we dropped into the middle of a battle."
"I guess we're just lucky you picked the right side, hey?" Shepard asked as she took another sip of the dark red wine Jacob had laid out.
"Yeah, you actually have the skipper here to thank for that," Jacob replied, indicating the older man. "I was about ready to write you off as pirate raiders until he pointed out that no freighter went about that heavily armed. Who'd have thought I would have almost put a shot across the bow of the legendary Commander Shepard?" he chuckled to himself.
"Skipper? I thought you were in command of this fine ship."
"Not quite. You see, us Corsairs are Alliance military through and through, but the ship is privately chartered to clean up a lot of messy paperwork. I'm only in command once we reach a combat situation. The rest of the time ol' Wood and Iron here's in charge."
"I wish you wouldn't call me that, Mr. Taylor," the old man spoke with a voice like wetted leather. "But it is true, The Prize is mine, bought her myself. Usually these fine marines don't put her up against freighters what can challenge cruisers, but it is honor enough to come to the aid of a commander such as yourself."
"Wood and Iron, why do they call you that?" I asked, taking a drink of my own wine.
"The skipper fancies himself an old captain from the age of sail," Jacob cut in.
"I'll have you remember that in my youth I did command such a vessel," the captain replied, "H.M.S Victory, world's oldest commissioned vessel and a damn sight more beautiful than anything what come since. 'Course there's not much of the original left in her, s'been so long since she was laid down."
"You were a Navy man then?" asked one of the Cerberus men.
"Royal Space Navy, before the Alliance came and rolled us all up into one big unit," The man said, "Captain Edward Jones, I commanded the H.M.S.S Handforth in the Jupiter Skirmishes and the SSV Talavera in the First Contact War. And now I potter around on the Prize, or at least I did before his lot decided to rouse me from retirement." Jones smiled wistfully.
"Well, I'm glad this ship had you to set them straight," Garrus said, raising a glass of something green.
"Here, here," someone echoed. The room drank a toast and fell into errant chatter again. Jacob leaned in closer to talk to Shepard.
"So how's being dead treating you, Commander?" The question seemed to throw off Shepard's happy temperament.
"Can't complain, I'm enjoying some of the freedoms it brings."
"That I can understand almost left the service myself. All the red tape, you know how it is. Let's say it left a bad taste in my mouth when the top brass rolled you out as their new recruitment tool before even checking the wreckage for your body. I got pretty vocal about it at one point, almost lost my commission. Then the Cerberus recruiters came sniffing." He indicated Miranda, who was trying very hard not to take notice the young Corsair. "Funny thing was I would have jumped at the chance if it wasn't for some aide in Admiral Hackett's office. Anyway, I stayed put. You though, tell me Shepard, how'd you make it out of that attack alive. I've always wondered."
Shepard cleared her throat. "I didn't. The Collectors put me in the ground, but they didn't finish me off. Cerberus brought me back and set me up with another Normandy." Jacob seemed shocked. He almost choked on some greens.
"They brought you back from the dead? Man, If I'd known that was part of the benefits, I might have considered signing up. We don't even get dental. Still, maybe not. Cerberus has done some pretty shady things. Enough to drive an Admiral to treason at the least."
"I'm well aware of what Cerberus has done," Shepard said in a voice that warned the corsair to tread lightly. "I don't like it and its wrecked all kinds of hell on my social life, but without a ship and without support, the Collectors will run freely all across the Terminus Systems. And as you say, it's nice not to deal with the red tape."
"I can accept that, Commander. Hey, listen. If there's something else I can do for you. You're pretty far out of the way here. You ever need a friend…"
"Actually, Lieutenant," Shepard said, demeanor changed all of a sudden. There is one thing. You wouldn't happen to be making a trip out Capek's way, would you?"
"Capek?" Captain Jones asked, "That's pretty far flung. Hahnar-Kedar owned if I remember."
"That's right," Shepard replied. "I need a team delivered there, then hauled back for rendezvous. I'd send a shuttle, but it's at least three days out and another three back."
"Consider it done," Jones said gruffly. "I've been meaning to query a refit I got done a month back anyway. Forward magazine gets a little twitchy during FTL you see. How big a team, I'll see if we can't rig up a berth." Shepard nodded in my direction.
"My deputy will fill you in; he'll be leading the team." I balked at the sudden attention.
"That'll be, um, three? No, five if you include the two mechs."
"Mech's will be no problem, three berths I think I can manage." The captain said, scratching at his beard. "You tell your team to be ready to ship out in an hour. If that's not too soon for you, Commander."
Shepard had no argument. One hour later, I stood at the outer window of The Prize with Zaeed, Liz, and two modified mechs as the Normandy slowly shrank into nothingness. With a brilliant flare its thruster ignited and it streamed off towards the relay. A burst of light and an imagined crackling later, it was gone.
"Set a course, Capek, Haskins System," Jones ordered. "Stow gear for relay jump and strap in."
The Prize sounded different than the Normandy. At first I did not notice it, but as the journey towards Capek went on it started to wear on my ears, the almost imperceptible feeling of wrongness. The hull thrummed at just the wrong tempo, or the crew was just a little louder. All of the little things piled one on top of the other until a weird sense of homesickness came over me. It kept me busy though, every second spent working on something or another was a second the wrong could be ignored. Now, as we made the penultimate relay translation, I had my Mattock opened and was setting to it with a rag and a bottle of cleaning agent I had pilfered from the ship's supply room. The oily smell permeated the room as I scrubbed at the interior carbon scoring. It was repetitious work, but it gave me time to think.
Capek loomed in hologram on the wall across from where I worked. I had made a rudimentary plan based of Hahnar-Kedar blueprints, but without knowing exactly what I would face large holes were left in the plan. Before I would have been able to bank on my knowledge of the game, but these mechs had acted wholly different from what I knew. Would they be hostile? Would they demand Shepard? The mission had too many questions.
Eventually I gave up the cleaning and wandered up onto the bridge. My team had scattered upon embarking, Zaeed seeking the lower decks where he could practice throwing his knives in peace and Liz scampering off to the machine shop to poke around. It had left me with a lot of time to myself. To the bridge crew I was a common sight by now, though few of them ended up talking to me. Most of the time I spent staring into space or hearing Captain Jones tell a tale of his previous service. The man was fascinating, his tales ranging from chasing pirates out of Saturn's rings to fleet actions against the Turians.
Today he was standing on the bridge clutching a thick mug and looking out of the front screen. Ahead, the relay went through its slow rotations and glowed dully.
"Take us in, French. No reason to dawdle," Jones said. He slapped his navigator roughly on the shoulders and turned from the forward view. "Ah, Liddle, good to see you. Won't be long now. You figure out what you're up against yet?" I shook my head.
"Not as such. I figure mechs of various shapes and sizes, but besides that, no clue."
"Mechs, hah. No match for a real soldier. Can't stand them myself, slow buggers with a propensity for going haywire, getting hacked, and falling apart for no good reason. You want my advice; you put that girl of yours on point and have her do a little reprogramming of her own."
The ship shuddered as it passed through the relay. The transition was a little bumpy, but The Prize stayed in one piece. Normal space snapped back into view ahead of us. It wasn't empty.
"Sir, ships ahead!" the navigator yelled. All eyes snapped forward. Ahead of us, the black of space was full of ships, dark against the stars and painted in rough grey. There were dozens of them, fighters, frigates, cruisers. All of them Alliance pattern. "What's an Alliance fleet doing out this far, sir?"
"I don't think these ships are still with the Alliance." Jones stepped forwards and highlighted several ships. Their grey slab sides still held their names. SSV Market Garden, SSV Manzikurt, SSV Innsmouth. "The Innsmouth used to flag Kahoku's Squadron." Jones said simply. We looked out at the silent ships. The Phantom Fleet. The fleet passed by, quiet as ghosts. The radio stood silent, only the faint crackle of the open star field could be heard. The fleet ignored us, either because they did not see us or did not care. Slowly they crawled until we were surrounded by grey starships. They passed, one by one, each making a run on the relay in turn until they were all gone. The bridge sat in stunned silence for minutes afterwards. Jones sat down heavily.
"Steady as she goes, French. Come on now, there's a good lad." The navigator stirred with a sheepish look and put hands back to the control surfaces. The Prize's engines flared and we were back underway.
The bridge crew was still a little shaken when we prepped for the final relay jump. The Navigator, French, was almost convinced that we would find the Phantom Fleet behind this relay as well. Still, the order was given and the crew strapped down. The ship shuddered again and The Prize was catapulted across space. We landed in the Haskins system with an unsettling crump, but since the crew didn't react I supposed it was a common occurrence. Our engines pushed us through space toward the yellowish ball of Capek. The captain turned to me and muttered that I ought to see to my team.
I nodded and left quickly. Liz was easy enough to find, she had rarely left the machine shop for the entire trip and was quickly fished out. Zaeed was another matter. He was not in the mess, nor the boardroom that served as the ship's armoury. At long last I found him swapping stories with Jacob in the hold. It was almost an hour after spotting the planet that my small team assembled and ready. Zaeed had added a few plates to his usual yellow suit and hefted a heavy Mattock of his own. Across his broad shoulders was slung the salvaged Firestorm flame projector from his mission of revenge. Liz stood a head shorter than both the mercenary and the two mechs that flanked her. She was also wrapped in armour plates, a light weight variant of the Normandy's standard issue black carapace.
I paced the steel grille of the cargo hold, nervous to be leading a team so far from the eyes of Shepard. Certainly I had lead men in battle before, but this felt different. I would be without support, without reinforcement. Jacob's men would have to hold back, whatever latitude their position in the Corsairs gave them; it wasn't enough to justify throwing in with what was essentially a Cerberus mission. It would be me, Zaeed, and Liz, with nowhere to fall back to and no one to call in. It was daunting to say the least.
"Alright team," I said after clearing my throat. "We're going in soon. We'll be hitting this facility on the night side of the planet. It's a drone factory, completely automated. It's also the source of the messages someone has been sending to the Commander."
"Is that really why we're here?" Zaeed asked sarcastically. "Seems a waste to send us off after some robot's sending Shepard love letters."
"This mission came down from the Illusive Man himself. Something's got his attention fixed here and I plan to find out what. Our plan of action is simple. The factory's tucked into a nook in the rocks here. We'll move in from the front and sweep the lobby. That'll be our forward base. Liz, you'll set up your rig and try a remote hack. From there we'll push into the facility and approach the control center, located here. If we can cut the hard lines there, we'll put an end to whatever's got a grip here. Understood?"
The girl gave a short nod while Zaeed simply grunted. The plan was ready, now it was time to set it against the enemy. I turned from them to face the lower doors and exhaled slowly as The Prize slowly lumbered into the atmosphere.
The Hahnar-Kedar facility was a forbidding sight. In the dusk of green Capek, the building stood tall and dark. Its face was flat steel hefted up on blocky concrete piles four stories tall. Empty window stared out at us with unlit malice. It was also still. The only sound or movement came from the five of us. The cleft of rock echoed our shuffling footsteps back at us, sounding like the whisper of a marching army. The approach was desolate, decorated only by narrow pinnacles of rock that stood up every five or so feet. The whole area was swathed in curtains of thick lichen and a pale white mist that clung to our boots as we walked.
"Keep it tight?" I ordered quietly. We advanced in a half crouch, loping from cover to cover as we got closer and closer. I began to feel self-conscious as nothing stirred to meet us. The factory stared cold and dark. I kept my head down though, until we were close enough to knock on the door. Liz came forward without a word and matched her Omni-tool to the door's locking mechanism. The bright orange light illuminated the darkness eerily as the program wormed its way into the facility's security.
"Almost… got it!" the door opened a crack, letting out a thin stream of stale air. I rolled the metal back as Zaeed stepped forwards into the darkness. His boots raised little puffs of dust in the empty lobby.
"Looks clear," he muttered back to us. He moved further in, playing a light over the dark interior. We followed about three paces back. The lobby was small, only a small shuttle docking port in reality. Zaeed pressed against the inner doors while Liz slipped the mobile rig from her shoulders.
"This'll just take a second to set up," she assured us. She began dragging parts from the cloth sack and snapping them together. I joined Zaeed at the doors.
"So what's the plan, War hero? We pressing on or are we waiting for your girlfriend?"
"The first one," I shot back. "Liz, lock this door behind us. Keep the mechs warmed up though; I want them as a ready reserve." Liz flashed me the thumbs up. I pushed gentle on the inner door. It rolled shakily on a squeaky runner, as if not used for some time. The inside was equally as black as the outside, but the beams of our torches revealed a much higher ceiling that rose far above the factory floor. On the floor itself, loading crates of white painted metal stood in long rows, almost like a maze. Somewhere up above in the distance, a blue light winked weakly off and on.
"That'll be the command center, I bet," I said quietly. "Now if we proceed forward quietly, with stealth…" I was cut off. Lights sprang on around the room, bathing it in orange light. Rows of glinting white plate arose from kneeling positions, unfolding into the familiar shapes of LOKI mechs. Red lights blinked on until a sea of winking circles scrutinized us.
"Perhaps they're friendly?" I asked Zaeed. Almost in response, the mechs leveled their weapons.
"Well, shit."
The room erupted with fire as the assembled mechs sent tracers after our position. The light of so many muzzle flashes was enough to momentarily blind me as I dove for cover. My helmet's visor automatically darkened enough to stave off further damage, but did nothing to rid me of the flashing afterimage. I fired blindly around the rapidly wilting stanchion, not knowing if I hit or not. Somewhere off to my left Zaeed swore loudly and dumped a pair of grenades over his own cover. They bounced in tandem down a shallow set of stairs before exploding at the feet of a cluster of LOKI.
"Liz, forget what I said about reserves! Send in the mechs now!" I yelled over the comm. link. The reply was muffled by static.
"Can't, something… in systems. …trying to unlock…" More rounds pinged of my cover, signaling the need to move or die. I got Zaeed's attention with a frantic hand wave and gave the signal for communications failure and the sign to advance. Zaeed shrugged and tossed out another grenade, this one incendiary. Using the cover of the flames, he heaved himself over his cover. I followed his example, laying down a screen of grenades before charging forward.
I was first to reach the line of crates. I peeked around and got a face full of metal splinters for my trouble. My barriers took the hit, but it forced me back. Zaeed slammed heavily into the crates across from me. From what I could see, the crates were not in neat rows as I had assumed, but placed in what was clearly a maze. More mechs were boiling out of the structure. They came in ones and twos. Between us Zaeed and I could knock them down but the pressure was steady. Soon we would begin running low on ammo.
I signaled the advance again. We pushed in, one supporting the other. The maze was disorientating. It twisted back and forth, each corner an ideal ambushing spot. We fought through regardless, occasionally getting a status report from Liz. A round clipped my shoulder armour as we made what felt like the seventh turn. Zaeed pushed me aside and rocked the offending mech back with a trio of rounds to the head. The mech went down sparking.
"Not getting lost, are you War Hero?" Zaeed asked sarcastically. The old mercenary was nursing what looked like a nasty cut to the upper arm and was down to his last two clips. I only had one myself, and the end of the maze was nowhere to be see. I turned around, the grasping fingers of panic starting to take hold. By luck, I caught a glimpse of the blue glow above.
"This way!" I shouted, trying to sound commanding. Zaeed chose to follow. Together we burst from the crate to find ourselves at the foot of spindly stairs. The route ahead was mercifully empty. We dashed upwards and threw ourselves into the abandoned offices that hung suspended above the factory floor. The light was just in the next room now, but fire from below kept us pinned down.
"You go shut this lot the hell off!" Zaeed called. "I'll keep this end tied down." I nodded him my thanks and tossed what ammunition I had remaining. I drew my stinger and moved forward carefully. Out on the floor, Liz had finally got her mechs moving. They added their fire to Zaeed's and scattered the enemy. More came though, now in groups of five or more.
The control center was dim apart from the soft blue glue down by the glass openings. I ran to the console, almost tripping in my haste. There were broken mechs here too. I dismissed them as unimportant. All that mattered was shutting down the mechs. I pressed my Omni-tool to the console and searched for any kind of controls. The console went blank. I attempted to pull my hand away, but something held it fast. I struggled, but to no avail. Lights blinked on my Omni-tool signifying a data transfer. For the briefest second, the electronics in my suit went haywire as if the on board VIs were being wrenched out one by one. The suit settled and left me locked in place.
You are not Shepard. The suit said in a distinctly electronic voice. A familiar voice. A female voice.
Author's Note:
Sorry about that folks. My original post was cut off by my word processor. This should represent the full chapter. Hope you enjoy!
-Liddle Out