May 20, 2089
Terminus Systems
Captain Galofit listened to the distress signal again, his four eyes unblinking.
"This is the quarian cargo freighter Kellah Fen, requesting assistance from any nearby ships. Our reactor is dead, and we're drifting on emergency power. I say again, this is the quarian-" Galofit cut it off.
Galofit practically salivated at the money he was about to make. Quarians were fragile little things, but they had hard technical knowhow, to an almost universal degree. The ever-hungry machine of the Hegemony economy always payed a premium price for skilled technicians. It was his lucky day.
He barely had to consider before he made his decision. "Plot a course for the signal."
The batarian vessel matched the quarian vessel's drift and docked with it. When they pulled up, the quarian response was very muted. Obviously, they'd figured out just who had rescued them. Captain Galofit sent a dozen men aboard, led by his first mate Initet. The batarian officer strolled confidently aboard, his men in toe.
"Last two guard the airlock. Everyone else sweep the ship in teams of two." his men hurried to follow his orders.
The batarian fighters swept through the ship, finding nothing and no one. Initet felt uneasy. Nevertheless, he and his men gathered together to enter the ship's bridge. Inside, they found a trio of quarians waiting to meet them.
"Greetings, I am-" the quarian began.
"Don't care. Where the hell are your crew?" Initet butt in.
"This ship started acting up when we and our flotilla were on the way back to our fleet. We were left behind as a skeleton crew, with the intent to take it to Omega for repairs and make our way home from there, Obviously, that didn't work out for us."
Initet sighed. Not quite the haul they'd been hoping for, but three quarian captives were better than none. He keyed his earpiece com.
"Captain, this is Initet, only three quarians aboard." Initet said. He heard nothing but static in response. He turned to point a finger at the quarian.
"Why are my coms down? The hell are you playing at?" he asked gruffly.
The quarian held up his hands. "As I said, the ship has been acting up lately. Probably some coms array going haywire." A sudden noise in the background made Initet's head snap towards it.
"What was that?" he demanded.
"It sounded like the airlock closing. The inner door's been sticking open and shut lately, real annoying." the quarian said.
Initet ignored him. "Biln, Fetrath, report! I thought I told you to guard the door!" No response. Then, a loud noise, as if the ship was detaching from the airlock. Before he could turn around and demand answers, out of the corner of one of his eyes, Initet saw the quarians fiddling with their omni tools. He whipped around and pointed his rifle at the lead one.
"What were you doing just now?" He kicked himself for not confiscating it sooner. "Give me your Omni tools!"
The quarian raised his hand in another placating gesture. "Alright, alright! We were just activating our magnetic boots, I promise."
Initet was genuinely confused. "Wh-" he didn't get to finish. Every air lock on the Kellah Fen opened, and the batarians were sucked out into space. The quarian trio stood in the same place.
"Well," the lead one said over his suit radio to the others. "that went well."
"Initet! Initet, report!" Galofit was concerned when the airlock closed. He got worried when the quarian ship detached. Now, with still not a peep from the dependable Initet, he was afraid. "I want every crewman on this ship armed, on the double." He said in his best "captain's voice". His bridge crew scurried to obey.
"I want fireteams sweeping the ship. We've been boarded." just saying it out loud concerned Galofit. He didn't actually have any proof that there were boarders, but he didn't believe in coincidence. He looked at the quarian freighter on his viewer, and contemplated blowing it up for good measure. Then it activated its engines and burned away at max acceleration.
Galofit stared at it for a moment stupidly, before bellowing "I want us following that ship, now!" His own ship's engines roared to life...and then immediately cut out, accomplishing little more than increasing the speed of his ship's drift.
"Status report!" Galofit ordered.
A nervous bridge officer reported back. "Sir, someone hit the emergency shutoff!"
"Then tell engineering to turn it back on!" Galofit yelled.
"No reply from engineering, sir!" the increasingly nervous officer said.
Galofit closed his eyes, inhaled, exhaled. "I want fire teams sweeping the ship, five men per team, no more, no less. Sweep through the whole damn ship and then converge on engineering." as his orders were relayed, Galofit took another deep breath.
"S-...sir, fireteam 4 has stopped reporting!" the officer cried.
Galofit's eyes snapped open.
Not a good start.
Deleton was less than pleased about being a slave. Krogan slaves were a rarity for the Hegemony, and for good reason. Krogan were too tough, too stubborn, and too few in numbers to make good slaves. Krogan also tended to prefer death to the prospect of slavery. Deleton had felt the same way, but the concussion the batarian pyjacks had given him had taken the choice out of his hands.
How they had managed to knock a krogan unconcious with a blunt force was a mystery that still annoyed Deleton, but his fate was sealed. Krogan didn't typically go for suicide, or at least his particular clan and culture didn't, so the best he could hope for was an honorable death when he inevitably attempted some foolhardy revolt against his would-be masters.
Then, the chaos had started. Deleton didn't know what was causing all of the commotion, but he knew that the batarians had reduced the guard count on the slaves thanks to it. Idiots. He was no spring chicken, but he could still handle two guards. Although his odds for coming out of it without some serious (even by krogan standards) wounds weren't good. He bided his time, thinking over his strategy.
He didn't have much time to think, because one of the doors to the slave hold slid open.
Both of the guards snapped towards the door and opened fire...at nothing. Before their confusion could register, the second door opened and a figure stepped through. Deleton gave it a good look. Seemed like an asari commando to him, although that hardsuit looked like something out of a historical drama.
The commando blew the brains out of the first batarian, and wheeled quickly to the next, but the wily bastard was quicker than he looked, and smacked her rifle aside. The batarian headbutted the asari and went to put a bullet in her.
Not today, buddy. Deleton thought as he hit the batarian like a sky bus. The batarian flew across the (admittedly small) room and slammed against the bulkhead, to the gasps and screams of the other terrified captives. When the batarian groggily reached for his weapon, a bullet splattered his brains against the bulkhead, fired by the asari.
"Not bad-woah!" the asari said, quickly backing up and craning her neck to look at the enormous krogan. Deleton didn't react, but spoke. "So...who are you?" the krogan asked.
"Senior Ranger Maja Kucharski, United Nations Rangers." the asari replied back automatically.
"Uh-huh. So...what the hell are the United Nations Rangers? Some kind of special regiment from one of your asari republics?" Deleton asked, still blank faced.
"Oh, you think I'm an asari! I'm flattered, but..." the asari took off her helmet, and revealed...a very weird-looking asari.
"Ugh...the Chief'll kill me for taking my helmet off in a combat zone, but 'hearts and minds' or whatever." the creature groaned.
"So, you're not an asari then?" Deleton asked, undeterred.
"Do I look blue to you? I'm a human. We're...uh, 'new'." The woman said back, amused.
"Right, right. These...'rangers' of yours...are you hiring?" Deleton asked.
Galofit was on the verge of despair. Every fireteam had gone dark, one after the other, and now they were coming to his bridge. They had to be.
He looked to his handful of remaining crew, his bridge officers. They were terrified. He had to inspire them!
"Men, while we may no longer be in Hegemony space, we are still batarian. And batarians never give in. We will hold this door, or die trying. It's been an honor, gentlemen." He turned to face the door, weapon in hand, his heartened crew behind him. This would be a gl-The door slammed open and everyone in the room holding a weapon had their blood and brains splattered all over the computer consoles.
"Clear!" called the lead intruder.
"Damn, we're gonna need to bleach the whole damn ship again..." said the man to his right.
"Sir, I got a live one!" called the woman to his left. She held the sniveling, blood-drenched form of the bridge officer, who had had the sense to throw down his weapon and cower behind something.
"On the ground, hands behind your back!" the woman ordered through a second-hand quarian omni-tool. The batarian gave no resistance.
The lead ranger walked up to the least blood-drenched computer console and keyed it. "Endil, you're clear."
A quarian voice came from the other end. "Good to hear! That's the third one this month. They never fail to fall for the 'helpless quarian' trick. Idiots."
The leader turned the com off and looked to the man beside him. "He's right. We've been making good progress."
The other man shrugged. "I do wonder how many of these we'll actually even need, though."
It was the leader's turn to shrug. "I don't. It all goes to Spartacus either way."
Ranger School, Earth
Mikhail Petrov looked at the assembled Ranger graduates with pride. Not even twenty-five years ago, his rangers had been a pipe dream. Even when he'd got the funding cleared, he still had to struggle and fight with the brass and the politicians. They didn't want what he was making for them. They wanted special forces. Black-Ops operators. Wetwork. Always wetwork.
But Mikhail had had a dream, a vision for his beloved rangers. He had constructed his training regimen with an almost obsessive attention to detail. He had vetted his instructors ruthlessly, but not for the combat prowess. There was no shortage of grizzled old operators from days past (Mikhail himself was one, after all). What Mikhail wanted were likeminded individuals. Individuals who would share his vision.
He had assembled all of humanity's finest killers, from every organization, both official and unofficial, in the world. Former Navy SEALs and Delta Force Operators worked with old Spetznaz men and former PLA special forces. Ghurkhas and SAS men. Commandoes, black-ops assassins, and every manner of expert killer had gathered together under a single purpose: to train the first generation of international special forces.
What his men knew (and his superiors were less than clear on) was that mere combat prowess was not what Mikhail sought (though he still drilled his rangers relentlessly on it). Any fool can kill, but knowing when and why to kill were something else entirely. What Mikhail drilled into his rangers, and what his superiors were constantly harassing him about, was that he wasn't training killers.
He was training heroes.
Every single ranger that made it through the grueling year of training under Mikhail and his ghosts of the past was a hero. Mikhail didn't just want them to be as good as the special forces of old. He wanted them to be better.
The difference between his rangers and the countless other special operators throughout history was that they didn't serve any one government or ideology or culture. They would not be sent away to kill their fellow men for dubious reasons in questionable wars and then be cast aside when the reality of what they were finally hit broke their psyche.
Every ranger that exited Mikhail's academy understood that they had to be different. While rangers swore an oath of service to the UN when they initially signed on to the Space Force, those who graduate from Ranger School swear another oath of service. One not to any government, but to humanity itself. They vowed to uphold the law, to protect the innocent, to adhere to the rules of war, to defend the basic rights of all sapients.
It was ridiculously naïve. Or, at least, that's what Mikhail's superiors in the UN were always saying to him.
"What if their orders conflict with their oaths?" they always asked.
"Then don't give them unlawful orders." Mikhail would always reply, without fail.
In truth, even Mikhail suspected he was an idealistic fool, especially in the early years. Then his rangers had proved him wrong. Time and again, they selflessly charged into the fire to save their fellow man, and to bring lawbreakers to justice. With every cargo hold full of children rescued from traffickers, every pirate and bandit slain, every life saved, the reputation of his rangers grew.
Soon the propaganda value of the rangers being seen as steadfast warriors for justice taught by the greatest soldiers of the past outweighed their potential usefulness as black-ops and wetwork operators. Mikhail had no doubt that the UN still maintained such operatives, but he cared little. His rangers were pure, of heart and mind. They would throw themselves into the line of fire for humanity, again and again.
As he looked out over his newly minted rangers, Mikhail couldn't help the wave of dread that came over him as he thought of the war. The losses alone might break him. Every ranger body bag brought back to the cemetery outside the school had felt like a physical blow to Mikhail. With the war on, there would be more body bags than ever before. Mikhail knew he could bear that. If only just.
What he couldn't bear, however, was what dwelled in the thoughts that wormed their way into his mind whenever he let his guard down:
In this war, against such a terrible foe, how long could the honor and integrity of his rangers last?
Hey all, shorter chapter to set up the next arc in the narrative. Those of you who've been waiting for a strike back against the batarians will get your chance next time around.
As always, thank you for reading and please leave your thoughts in the reviews!.