xxx Arcturus Station xxx
"Are you sure about this? If the people learn we did this and it turns out to be wrong they will be angry" said one voice.
"And if it is true and that we did nothing the people would be stirred into a mob" a second voice reply.
"Fine" the first barked out "So who should we send? If we send an entire battalion or a fleet no matter how small the batarians may get spook."
"Our N's will be good enough. Small enough for us to insert into the verge colonies but not too much of a threat that will cause people to worry. We can write it up as us sending our N-6 real life experience. If what we've discovered is true they can notify us and we can bring the fleet in" the second voice explained.
The second person sent something to the first's omni-tool.
"I've compiled a list of N6 units we can send to the colonies ... well most of them at least. There is one colony that I have been unsure of. Elysium, a garden world in the skyllian verge and one of the more well defended colony due how close it was to batarian space. I am thinking of sending a certain N6 agent but I'm not fully sure" said the first.
"Who is it?"
"Izuku Midoriya" said the second.
"Isn't that Anderson's student? The kid that got into N-school right out of boot camp?" the first person had heard of the boy. The kid frozen in time and the last quirkless person alive. The only reason he was accepted was through Anderson's own recommendation and the kid proved it in spades. The man has steady climbed the ladder and achieved the rank of N6 in a few short years.
At the rate he was going he was looking to be the youngest N7, ever.
"I can see why you would want to choose him. The man is skilled, knows how to fight, and is one hell of a combat engineer. I don't see the problem of choosing him" first said.
"He's good but he only just got his N6 rank, sending him right away seems risky and I don't want to tell Anderson why his student died on our hands" said Second.
"And your forgetting that kid got trained by the best N7 in the entire alliance. Trust me when I say he is ready for this, anderson wouldn't half-ass his training" assured the first.
...
"Fine, I'll make the call"
xxx Elysium xxx
Elysium the crown jewel of the verge. That was what his dossier said about the planet and so far it wasn't wrong yet. It reminded him a lot of earth with its large mountains, clear blue skies, and green grass. Getting off the transport ship there were a few tram lines ready to take everyone into the massive city nearby.
Not a bad place for forced shore leave if he said so himself.
Rubbing his growing stubble reminded him that he needed to get a shave too. The last shave he had was a month ago, since then he was stationed on the Cruiser Iowa and the little chase they had to deal with. A team of smugglers have been bringing in red sand and they were tasked with shutting down their factories. Problem was that the smugglers were separating the drug to base component before combining them all at sale.
The crew was forced to slowly go through a slough of paperwork to make sure what they were hitting was actually illegal, and fun fact, a lot of components for the drug were very legal in alliance space. The job was not hard just extremely tedious and more than one marine was begging to shot the drug dealers as they headed for court and than a very long time in a prison barge.
It was rather odd for Izuku to learn that he was reassigned to Elysium as well forced to take shore leave. He hadn't done anything worth it to his knowledge but orders were orders. One grav train later and he found himself staying at a local hotel for the time. Everything was already prepared for him. He decided to go to local Japanese restaurant he saw on the way here.
Taking a seat outside he started to think all that happen. For one he finally got his N6 rank meaning he soon would be assigned to real combat scenario soon. To think he and a 75 other people survived the first day at the villa and that was out of hundreds of the people. He was two shots away when he fell onto the finish line.
The last few years were agonizing to say the least. Being under constant stress and shoved into combat scenario to combat scenario nonstop pushed him to his limits. But that wasn't taking in his specialist training. All N-students were to choose a specialist branch they want to focused on whether it was focusing on combat abilities or tech abilities and so on.
For him he choose to focus on Combat Engineer. Ever since he got his omni-tool he has been experimenting with it in his free time, in his time people would have killed for something so universal as an omni-tool and with it being so common to the point everyone had one. For N's they received specials variants that came with advanced combat packages.
It grueling and harsh work but he earned everything he had
xxxxxxxxx
Elanos Haliat enjoyed three things in life.
One, money. Whoever said that money couldn't but happiness was a fool and anyone that believed it was fresh meat for him.
Two, power. There was a certain satisfaction of seeing people do what you tell them to do.
Third, stability. He may have been a bad turian but he was a turian nonetheless, and he enjoyed order as anyone else.
Something that the Alliance was not understanding. Before he gave little care for these humans, so what if they gave a bloody nose to the Hierarchy he stopped caring about them a long time ago. No, it was when the alliance decided to barge into the Attican Traverse with no respect to the local powers already there. The Terminus system already claimed this space as theirs and the batarians have always respected that.
Now if the alliance had gone through 'proper' channels and worked with them this issue would never had happened. That was not the case here.
"Haliat, we will be approaching Elysium in a few hours. Blood pack, Nocturne Waves, Combine Incorporated have kept their promises to bring us ships and aid" his Lt spoke, a beautiful but very deadly asari.
That was good news indeed, the more soldiers they could bring the better this will work. He was not stupid to think he could last a war with the alliance as a whole, no sane warlord would. But careful surgical strikes was doable. Elysium was a crown jewel for the alliance something that they boast to the other species, attacking such a colony would reel back any effort in the area.
But that was his part of the mission, the batarians on the other hand would be attack dozens of fringe colonies hoping to gather as much slaves as possible. He may accept their funding but it always perplexed him with their constant attempt to support slavery, not that he cared mind you as slavery was a very lucrative business, but with such a population and the nature of their government they could have simply enforced mass breeding among the slaves to limit cost as well anger from the citadel or maybe switch over to an automated workforce.
Looking at his screen his plan of attack was rather simple if taken from humans.
A blitzkrieg as the humans say, sending a massive and overpowering force against the enemy for a swift victory. That was the pillar that this attack would revolved on, using the given funds he had amassed a massive ground and naval force and divided them among his top commanders.
He also called in some favors he had with the shadow broker's people to gain access to the Alliances communication protocols. His men had created a nasty piece of software that will prevent anything from leaving the systems comm buoys. It won't last long but it was enough for his goals.
Their fleet was small and too weak to put up a fight with the majority of the fleet sitting in major relay points to their home system. The alliance had a good defense but it was hardy suited for pirate attacks. Once his fleet smashed through it was important that they take the local space ports and allow the mechanized division to land. After that it was launching his forces across the cities, cause as much destruction as possible, and capture a few slaves along the way.
The alliance would learn not to mess with terminus system and become humbled while his backers would gain the satisfaction of dealing a blow to the humans.
Yes, everything was going exactly as planned.
xxxxxxxxxxxx
"How's shore leave treating you kid? Hope you didn't get to soft" Anderson spoke to his protégé.
"It's been less than a day you know. Besides it will only be a few days, better take every advantage I have" Izuku replied back.
"I hope you so. Heard that you finally became an N6, congratulations Midoriya. At the rate you are going you may just become an N7 like you said. God, I still remember seeing you for the second time. You weren't scrawny but you were caked in mud and sweat"
Yeah, not a great time to reintroduced yourself. His team had just finished a training simulation from the jungles in Burma when it was monsoon season. It was meant to simulate the planets that the Hanar tended to colonize due to their aquatic nature. Why the alliance would send soldiers to the hanar colonies was more on the political side. But safe to say if it wasn't for a team member having an aquatic mutations quirk they would have all been dead.
After meeting Anderson the second time in person the man watched him from afar noting his training and how he was faring. Anderson was not fully sure at the time if allowing Midoriya into N-school was a good idea and wanted to personally see if he was worth the effort. And the boy did not disappoint, there were moments he lagged or struggled to catch up with his quirk peers. But with sheer stubbornness he endured and thrived where others fell.
"Thank you Anderson, hopefully I can reach N7 in a month and break your records!"
"Don't get to cheeky son, there's still a big gap between N6 and N7. You haven't gone through the same live fire yet, hopefully not soon with everything that is happening"
"You think we're going to war?"
"Who knows, with the batarians leaving the citadel and recent rumblings in the terminus system it could be anything. But my gut is saying otherwise, you don't live long in this field without developing a sixth-sense for trouble. Just ..—ry ... sa— ... —dori— ... —u ... m—" The screen started fuzzing before turning into static.
"Anderson? ... Anderson do you read me?" Trying different frequencies did nothing. He tried contacting local IT support with no avail, other region networks weren't responding, even trying to contact the local garrison got static. Getting up he saw outside people chatting and pointing to the sky. Looking up there were comets.
Comets that were red hot and coming down fast—
Whatever came next stopped when the building a few blocks away exploded and the ground shock from the impact. Screaming and panicking was the first response as he got up. His omni-tool appeared as large holographic scope appeared in front of his eyes. Zooming them in he could see multiple shuttles coming to the city.
An invasion during shore leave.
Typing in his omni-tool his HUD showed the location the local garrison and how far it was. Running outside he yelled at everyone to either head to the local police station or garrison, a few did listen but with mass hysteria and panic there was nothing that could be done and he doubted anyone would have a voice enchantment quirk around.
Racing between alleyways the first shuttles landed and mercs started pouring out. The most notable being blood packs, a viscous bunch that hired only Krogan and Vorcha. He could see six vorcha lead by a single Krogan and their attention focused on the family in front of them.
Both omni-tools came alive as he fired a Cryo Blast, as super cooled sub-atomic particles slammed into the vorcha closest to the family. As it froze the other turned and fired at him. Before the first one pulled a trigger an orange flash formed Tech Armor over him covering and soaking up the damage. Cracks quickly began to show from the continual fire. He rushed up to them as the armor finally shattered, letting out a powerful pulse wave that knocked them all down.
Ah the benefits of Tech Armor.
He grabbed the assaults rifle out of the nearest vorcha's grip and fired it point blank. A quick tap and his tech armor reappeared. Looking at the gun it was a M-15 Vindicator, a powerful five-round burst rifle very popular with elite mercenaries and high end organizations. And something the blood pack would never buy. Their mode of operation were horde tactics used during the Krogan rebellions. They preferred cheap and durable equipment over quality.
If you had the numbers did it matter what quality your guns were in?
Regardless he gunned down three more vorcha and fired the rest of the magazine into the Krogan before ducking into cover. He could hear the krogan yell at the remaining vorcha. It may have not been in a blood rage but it was still angry enough to focus on him and not the family. Once the gun gave a green light he turned around fire into the remaining vorcha as they fell to the ground.
A Cryo Blast froze the Krogan in place he activated incinerate as a packet omni-gel was superheated into plasma and flung at him shatter the body.
"Are you ok? Did they hurt you by any chance!?" Running over to the family.
"N-No sir, thank you for saving us" said the father.
"Just doing my job. Do you know where the nearest police station is?" The father nodded "Good, take your family and stay there or go the alliance garrison if you think you can make it. Don't make a lot of noise and stay quiet, Vorcha rely more on their hearing than sight and krogan will be staying back most of the time." With that the family bolted as he prayed they would make to safety as he returned to his destination.
An hour later and he was introduced to the sight of the garrison under attacked by more mercenary forces. Hiding behind the larger rubble he was shocked to see a damn Mako of all things firing its cannon at the building. The walls may be reinforced and made with military grade material but constant fire like that would whittle it down in within a few minutes.
Lowering the brightness his omni-tool he waved it at the Mako as the mercs were more focused on breaking into the garrison. A few seconds later it showed a scan of the vehicle. It was standard make but was lagging in cyber-warfare suite as just being able to scan it was proof. Looking at the designs he saw that cannon and turret mechanism could be switch between remote control and manual ... and could be locked in.
The controls the Mako were still manual but he could shut off the generator, the weapons ran on their own power supply.
A fine seconds later the cannon swirled to the side and fired onto its allies as they called out in horror. The turret finished off the stallgers as one of the men in the Mako got out and tried to figure out what was going wrong. A single burst from him left the man slumped over and lacking a head.
Everyone else in the garrison seeing this did not waste time and time and laid fire on the disorganized enemies. The mercs seeing their numbers whittling and their main weapon turned against them fled as some made it but many others were shot before they made it. Coming out of cover the other guards turned their attention to Izuku as he lowered his gun.
"Halt! You the guy that turned their mako against them?" One of the guards asked.
"Izuku Midoriya, N6" Some of the marines looked surprised as others had a hopeful look. He sent his credentials to the man in front of him.
"Well shit, alright then come in" the men parted ways and opened the door for him "Things have gone hell in a handbasket. Communication with the other garrisons have gone silent and with all the mercs flying in we can't organize a full retreat. The general will want to hear about you, let me take you to him."
xxx Elysium Garrison xxx
"Your the first good news in the last hour" the general stationed in Elysium spoke. A dark skin women with two fox ears on top of her.
"Can you give me a sitrep of the situation? Outside of seeing our ships fall out of the sky has anything else happened?" Izuku asked.
"We are assuming the fleet as a whole is gone right now. Communications have fallen as you can see, all attempts in contacting the other garrisons dotted around the planet have meet failure. Our tech's are saying alliance protocols may have been breached, it would explain how the mercs are being able to find where we send our men and forcing us to be trapped here."
The general looked at him with a pleading look "I don't assume you have a solution to this problem but I could really use something right now"
Izuku had to think on that. Even if they were able to get a message through the jamming the enemy could potential intercept it or make it into a garable of useless info. No, they had to go at this another way, something that they wouldn't expect ... wait a minute ... yeah, that could actually work!
"I think I do have an idea general. Your right to assume alliance communications are breached, but not mercenary communications. If we can get into the enemies network we could piggyback off them and send a emergency message to the alliance" The general and her men look surprised but after a few moments the women nodded to his idea.
"Better than what we have right now. I can offer you some of my forces and I know where you can start" she pulled out her omni-tool and showed large satellite array "Built in the early days of the colony, when we were still just getting access to the citadel markets, this was used to communicate with the space station and get access to the galactic markets. Last time I checked it was still on good condition."
"I can offer you two of my best men to go with you" she said
"I think I'll need more than a fireteam to do this" he said back
"Can't, we still need to protect this city and make sure the mercs don't get control of this space port. A smaller team can get in and out without drawing much security" she explained. Izuku nodded and took what she was offering "Good, my Lt will get you all geared up. Good luck soldier."
One of the guards showed him to the armory and brought him some proper weapons and armor. In a few minutes the armor's shield generators sprung to life as he was introduced to his men.
"You two are going with me to the satellite array. We don't have much time so tell me your name, skill, and quirk" Izuku ordered.
"Carter Lie, marine and quirk combat specialist. My quirk is emitter based and allows me to control electricity, I can shot a deadly bolt of lighting at our enemies or create a less powerful pulse to knock out their weapons and armor" Carter introduced himself.
The second marine pulled off his helmet and showed his quirk or in this case his bull head as he brandished his grenade launcher "Lucas Santiago, marine and I specialize in heavy weaponry and explosives sir. As for my quirk it is a bull mutant variant, gives me increase strength and durability."
"Izuku Midoriya, N6 and I am a combat engineer. Don't have any quirk, I am a natural born quirkless. Our job is break into the array and use it to get into the enemies communications, once inside we will be sending a message to the alliance on what is happening and get them out of our networks. Understood?"
"Yes Sir!" said Carter/Lucas. Izuku motioned them to follow as they made their way outside where a soldier was waiting for them.
"The general wanted you to have this" the soldier sent a copy of the sewers "Go down this port hole and follow the map, the sewers lead outside the city and this pathway is the closest you will get to the arrays. After that it will be a half an hour jog to get there. Take care and good luck sir."
Izuku and his team climbed down the porthole as they began moving only stopping when the ground start to shake. No one said anything but they could feel the tension in the air, if they failed their mission it could mean the end of the colony and for the people of Elysium that meant death or slavery. The three of them breathed a sigh of relief when they reached the end, opening porthole they saw familiar grassy ground and small hills.
"Shit, hey you two may want see this" Carter gasped as the other two widen their eyes. It the was the capital of colony on fire, the city glowed orange as they saw burst of tracer rounds fire off periodically at the incoming ships. Izuku saw that his teammates took far worse than he did, it was their home and they were watching it burn.
"Come on, the faster we get the message out the faster we can safe your home!" that shock the two out of their stupor. Grim determination filled them as they followed him to the array.
Half an hour later they saw the array and the small enemy force there.
"The hell!? Why are they here?" Lucas gasped at the sight "We didn't use our omni-tools, everything was by mouth."
"Must have expected this" Using his omni-tool he zoomed in at the scene "Hm, ten guards here ... three on the roof, four outside, and the last three inside. I don't see any heavy weapons one them, all of them seem to be eclipse of all people. Alright Carter, I need you to use your quirk and make a pulse at the guys up top. Lucas, fire at grenade launcher at the people outside at my orders. Understand?"
Both of them nodded.
...
...
...
"NOW"
Carter let loose a bolt of electricity at the mercs and when it hit caused it to transform into pulse as their shields collapse and weapons to screech loudly. Lucas went next firing a volley of grenades onto the enemies below who turned to the commotion above. Explosions ripped the earth as their body parts flew across them.
Izuku got up as he and carter fired on the shieldless enemies above cutting through their armor with ease. They all raced into the control building where they saw the three remaining mercs panic as they saw them entering. They engaged in a brief firefight with them as Izuku ducted into cover, his omni-tool sprang to life before going over to the Cryo Blast power. A quick modification he shot the attack at them as it hit the first guy but it did not stop there, from the explosion blue mist spread out freezing the two men next to him. Their frozen bodies were shattered soon after.
"Looks like nobody is here should we—" a deep baritone voice barked out from somewhere. Looking around the source came from a communicator on the desk, raising a finger to his lips Izuku walked over and grabbed the communicator. He hooked up his omni-tool to it as whoever was there kept barking.
"I repeat Omega team are you there? You cut off their for a moment ... hello? This better not be some kind of stupid prank again marbo because if it is I will skin you slimy hide off! Dammit respond!"
He pointed to frozen Salarian corpse on the ground "Sorry sir about that, we encountered soldiers. Looks like they thought going to the arrays was a good idea. Don't worry we took care of them"
"Hah! Alliance idiots, like we were going to ignore this. Do you guys need any help or are you ok?"
"We're fine just a few marks on our armor. How are thing at your end?"
"Not as good as we hope. Those quirk users are slowing us down and our tanks can't get a hit on them. Too few and too fast for us, I wonder if we can capture these people because I would pay good money for one of them. I wonder what their eyes would look like after Slave masters break them in?"
"Not my problem" he grunted back
"Yeah yeah, alright if that is all than I'll leave. Like I need Haliat on my ass" the voice cut off as Izuku put the device away.
"What was that about captain?" Carter looked the N6.
Showing his omni-tool he replayed the call but this time instead of his voice it was a Salarian's "Simple voice changer, I wasn't sure if it would work but I guess it did after all. What really was important was what I got from the call, while I was talking to him I had another program look at their network. Looking at their networks they're nowhere as secure as the alliance. So really all we have to do is this ... change a few lines ... throw a mutation into the code ... and there we go!"
Going over the arrays control the radio telescopes outside swiveled around as he put in his code.
"There, I sent the message to the alliance now all we have to do is hold tight and hope that they got it"
xxx Arcturus Station xxx
"Does anyone mind explain exactly how a terminus warlord managed to acquire our communication protocols?" Admiral and commander of the alliance navy Ines Lindholm growled. "Ms. Akiko perhaps you can fill in why your department did not find this"
Head of the Alliance Intelligence committee Akiko Yajima coughed into her hand "There is nothing we can really say on the subject as we are not fully sure how this happen at all. However our analyst believe it may have been the shadow broker as he/she is the only one that can really benefit from this as I don't see the council gaining anything from this. It could have been the batarians, they bought alliance protocols from the shadow broker and amassed the strength needed to attacked us."
"The seventh fleet is already on its way to help Elysium as well speak. We will be there in a few hours" said it's admiral as his hologram looked at the rest
"Good, the last thing we need is another Mindoir folks" no replied to that. The disastrous assault was a wound no one wanted to talk about.
"Damn batarians! Why are we still evening letting this go, I say we should to go war and end this damn blight on the galaxy" one admiral spoke in rage his hair lighting in flames as a result.
"And get the council on us? They know the only thing stopping us going at war with them is the council so unless you want to fight turian ships than go ahead" another person yelled back.
"Enough! We will not be going to war with the batarians and that is final. If any data is found we send it to intelligence before letting Udina going crazy on them. But I do agree that we need to do somethin about this, a message perhaps. Something to warn others to not try it again" Ordered Lindholm.
...
"I may have an Idea ma'am" Admiral Hackett spoke up "Torfon, a infamous moon just outside of batarian space known be a haven for pirates and slaver's. It's outside of council reach so we don't need to worry about them. Destroying the moon will put the hegemony back decades at minimum, we're looking a centuries of investment right out the window."
"That could work, it is outside of council jurisdiction and supported by the hegemony. Hm, I would support this plan if we can chart a way to it" the second fleet admiral said.
"Agreed, and we can bring our nuclear weapons since it is just a moon after all" another spoke with with viscous glee.
"One thing at a time people. Let us focus on getting those pirates out of our colony and than we can focus on getting revenge" Lindholm ordered.
xxx Haliat xxx
Elanos Haliat was not a happy turian, not even the slightest "You let them message the alliance!"
The tech in front of him cried in pain as he threw him to the side, blood trailing from the marks of his talon "W-We didn't know until now sir, they piggybacked off our own networks." The tech curled up in fear of further retaliation. Bah! As if this was proper punishment at all ... no, he could not kill the idiot in front of him. He would do it after they escape and he found a replacement.
"Well is it fixed?"
"Y-Yes sir, we had another team go in check it out. They found the teams there dead and no one in sight"
"What about our attacks on the space port?" He could already feel the migraine forming just by looking at the fool in front of him.
"Not good sir, they are making us bleed resources for every block we take and even more from repeated strikes. B-But we have gotten over a hundred thousand slaves!"
"And that is barely enough to buy a frigate!" he rubbed his face plates as he turned to this lieutenant "Go and oversee the troops, get as many people as you can in 8 hours, after that we are leaving. Anyone who can't make will be left. And gunnery, have our frigates target the main garrison and spaceport, if they think I will let them win they have another thing coming!"
xxx Midoriya xxx
"You think the alliance got that message sir?" Lucas asked as they ran through the sewers.
"I know they won't abandon us here private; Plus I sent it to Anderson, if high-command has to listen to anyone it would be from the first N7 ever" Izuku assured his team.
"I pray so sir, I have family here and if they become slaves ..." arcs of electricity bounced off his hand.
"If they are captured we will be getting them back soldier. I promise you we will see them all back home one way or another" he assured them.
"Understood sir ... sorry for the reaction I shouldn't have—"
"—You were worried for you family and that is nothing to be ashamed about. It's a good sign to see you care for them, cherish them as long as they live, I never got the chance in my life and I don't want to see in you, both of you" turning to bull quirk man as well.
...
BBBBOOOOMMMM
SSSHHHRRRRKKK
The ground shook violently and they all feel as rock from above cracked and fell onto the floor. "What in the hell was that!?" Izuku and his teams omni-tools sprang to life and hundred of voices cried out at once.
"Does anyone read me we has suffered a—"
"—Emergency! I repeat *cough* we need immediate help now!—"
"Fuckers fired their ships at us!—"
"—Garrison is down I repeat main garrison is down—"
"—W-Whose in charge now? I repeat does anyone know if the general is still alive or not?"
"The space port is gone people, they blew it up to—"
"—Heads up I am seeing enemy forces moving across the bridge—"
...
...
...
"Sir, what do we do now?" Carter asked.
...
"I have no idea" Izuku answered.