He continued to hear the panic filled voices to continued to pour out of the radio The general was dead and so was the main garrison. The space port was also gone and from reports the pirates were moving their forces outside of the capital just outside the bridges and their artillery range.
"Sir ... what do we do now?" Carter asked again.
That was a good question indeed. In this moment Izuku should be deferring to the next person in the line of command, however, a lot of officers were in the garrison so now everyone was scrambling to get an idea who was next in line and it was utter chaos. People needed a commander and fast.
"Do we have any idea who survived the bombardment?" Izuku ordered.
"The entire place was flattened sir I doubt anyone survived that. Some officers are declaring themselves commanders but others are saying the opposite" Lucas replied looking at this omni-tool in worry.
They needed a leader, someone who get them all not fight each other. He looked at his men, could they handle the responsibility? Being an N6 meant his words carried a lot of weight and anyone he supported would get the remaining officers to fall in line. But could any of these two handle the responsibility? Sure they were not high ranking but wasn't the issue and experience could supplemented with officers, they were natives of the world and had more knowledge than he ever did on the city.
Or what if they can't. They may have been the general's top soldiers but taking command was not an easy task, it was more than just ordering people around. It meant managing a lot of thing or managing the people meant to do that, making sure everyone was able to work with each other and get as many people out alive.
No, he could not do that to them that too much he was asking from them.
...
Could he—No, that was too far what would everyone else think about it. Their could still be officers alive and they would be furious if he ... well that was saying if there were anything high ranking ones left. If they're weren't that meant he was throwing the fate of the colony on some unlucky sap. Could he do it ... well, better now or never.
Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath he opened his omni-tool and spoke "This is Izuku Midoriya, N6 combat engineer stationed here. Me and my men have already sent a message to the alliance and hopefully the cavalry will arrive soon but we have to hold out till then. Until then I am taking full control unless someone has a better idea."
A few seconds later someone spoke "Commander, our scouts near the bridge are reporting the pirates have formed a base near the bridges. They are bringing in armored vehicles, gunships, and tanks sir."
"How many bridges connect to the capital?" He asked.
"Three" another voice spoke up "There are three bridges that connect to the city"
"And what about our artillery, can we move them closer?" Izuku pressed.
"It will take too long sir. The only thing we can move up now is our anti-air turrets/missiles" said one man.
"Get everyone into the emergency bunkers and have all squads move to the bridges, if they think we will let them take anymore people than they are wrong."
xxx
"Corporal Tom, pleasure to meet you sir. I would offer to show you the colony but well ..." Looking up to the sky they saw fighter craft attacking as their anti-air guns fire in the distant.
"Let's focus on saving the colony first. Tell me about the bridges, how strong are they?" said Izuku.
"They can take artillery rounds if you are asking. Elysium occasionally has earthquakes, not the super dangerous kind if that is what you are thinking. Causes rocks to fall from the mountains into the valley below, never in the city but it makes creating tunnels to risky which is why they went with bridges. Each bridge is high enough where rocks falling on them is not an issue and when earthquakes do happen they can easily endure it."
"And how much artillery rounds do we have left?"
"I'd say enough for continuous fire for 15 minutes straight. But if ration our supplies we can last for a few days" counting off his head "I'll need to double check to be sure."
The group made their way to the base camp and where they meet the remaining officers and other higher-ranking officials. After a brief round of introduction. A hologram of the city appeared as they focused on the bridges.
"The pirates are scared and their strategy are showing it. Before they focused on a blitz like strategy but now that we have informed the alliance they are switching sending massive waves of forces reminisced of Krogan and Turian strategies. They will be sending in small fry before the élite soldiers and their tanks.
My plan is to take out their armor vehicle sections out in one go and using the bridges. We need to hold the line long enough that the pirates are forced to send in their tanks. Once they are one the bridge I want our artillery to blast the support beams and take them out in one few swoop" Izuku explained.
"My men have already set up fortifications, I can have our engineers set up more defenses behind and plant explosives as well" One officer said.
"Do it. Air force, what is our status on our aircraft?" Looking at the women.
"The pirate forces are made up of mantis type gunships. Good for dealing with infantry but too slow for us. With our anti-aircraft turrets they won't be an issue. My people can deal with them but until we finish them off don't expect much air support" she assured.
"And quirk users?"
"Mostly transformation and mutant quirks sir. Most of us are mid-to-short range, we have a few emitter, in the lower double digits, users but we have them at the very back provide long range support."
"Good enough for now" Damn, he was hoping for more emitter quirks than this. Looking at the list he had a few idea on how to use them but looking at what they are capable of that was off the table for now. "Alright folks we don't much time before they reach halfway through the bridge. Let's get going"
Seeing them all go Izuku was left watching the hologram of the city, thankfully the pirate did not destroy their satellites. All he could do was wait and hope everything got ready for the attack. It was the one thing that worried him, not being able to do anything. Looking at the incoming pirate he soon saw the red icons meet with their blue icons.
Someone confirmed that fighting was occurring on all bridges. Their were four walls on each bridge with each one filled with machine guns, automated turrets, rocket drones, and LOKI mechs. Mortar fire from the back also brought aid to. Only when the men reach the third second wall that they received word that they were sending in the tanks.
This was where they had to hold the line as long as possible.
Watching the enemy tank approach was the most nerve wracking thing he did in his entire life. Their were reports of increased casualties and the death count rising. But he received no order for a retreat, only after seeing the last tank get onto the bridge did he give the order.
"Artillery team your good to go" He heard the distant sound of mass accelerator round before the ground rumble as minutes later a terrible groaning sound filled the air and the crash the came from it. Bridge 3 was the first to fall, then after that they got confirmation on bridge 2 falling. Entire fields of enemy units vanished off sight as their men made it back safely. Now they were waiting for bridge 1 to fall.
...
Which should be happening right now.
...
Now
...
"Artillery team what is going on out their bridge one is still standing?" Izuku demanded. The tanks were moving in closer as their forces moved to the last line of defense.
"Enemy aircraft are blocking our view, we can't get our VI to target a clear shot!"
His hands clenched the table tightly as his heart felt like it was gripped by ice. The men would not survive against the pirates, with tanks and armor vehicles rolling they would destroy their defenses.
"All men this Commander Midoriya, regroup at bridge one and do not allow the pirate to make any more head way. And someone get me all the explosives that we have, if we can't blow it to pieces than we do it manually!" Rushing out of the tent his two men followed after as they rushed to bridge 1.
Getting to the bridge it was a complete warzone.
The bridge was littered with craters and dead bodies as the smell of eezo and corpses filled the air. The sound was deafening as artillery and gunfire made it nearly impossible to talk at all. The fortification they had was little more than rags and spilled sand as tank fire reduced it to nothing.
He walked over the corpse of an unlucky soldier he ran over to the sergeant in charge as a shot skidded over his armor. "Sergeant how are things here?"
"I think you can see how it is commander. Damn pirates have us holed up here and they know we can't last long!" Another round striked close to where they were.
"What about explosives, where is it and how many do we have?"
He pointed to a squad a few ways back "There sir, we don't have enough to destroy all the support beams. We can take out a few key ones that in theory should make the bridge fall but we can't get close to all of them. A few are on the other side and we don't have the men to make it their!"
"I can handle that sergeant, you just get everything ready on your side" Izuku replied back as more men started funneling in. "All air forces this is Commander Midoriya and I need air support right now. Can you give me anything to work with!?"
...
"This is Rogers, I can send a squadron of fighter drones to take their attention away from you"
"How long?"
"10-15 minutes"
"Good enough" going over to grab the explosives "Alright start your attack now and try not to hit the left railing." A few seconds later they heard turbines roaring as multiple aerial drones rushed in and started attacking causing the pirate to turn their attention to them. While that was happening Izuku motioned to his men to follow them as they sneaked through the left railing to the other side.
As they made their way through one thing they noticed was that they were not as many soldiers the further they went in. Seemed like they placed everything into the frontal assault. There were four support beams they needed to take out as they made to each beam one by one getting all but one of the beams armed with explosives.
xxx
"Commander I don't mean to sound paranoid but isn't it odd that they don't have any defenses here, you think after we bombed the last two they would have been more alert" Lucas whispered.
"Maybe they lost most of their forces already. I mean we took a huge chunk from each bridge that fell, they may not have enough men left" Carter answered back.
"I guess so but it just doesn't seem right, call it a hunch ok" still unsure about the situation.
Izuku may not have said anything but he did silently agree with his teammate, something was off about this all. Pirates were many things with stupid being included but even an idiot could realized this was an odd response. His radar was picking up no signs still as he went over to the last beams and started to place the bomb.
That was when something appeared on his radar, his teammates turning around and pointing their gun at the person.
Walking out was an asari wearing heavy battle armor, something that made him tense. Asari didn't wear heavy armor, they preferred medium or light armor for better mobility and flexibility allowing their shields to soak up damage. So seeing one of them not following the norm already worried him.
"You must be Commander Midoriya, the one who has costed my master this assault on the colony" the asari spoke.
"I'm surprised you know of me" Izuku replied blocking the bomb with his body. As his omni-tool hovered over it.
"There are few that can hide from my masters sight one they have his attention. You have been an a great inconvenience to him and for that you must die" Her body glowed blue as bullets bounced off her shields. Lucas and Carter grunted in pain as she lifted them off and threw them to side. Neither of them got up right away as they rolled in pain.
Biotics were highly poisonous to quirk users, eezo in general was.
"Poisonous?" Izuku looked at Anderson.
"Yep, ever since we found the mars achieves. Eezo is dangerous for all races without protection but even more so for humans, where others may suffer cancer or radiation poisonings our quirks react violently to it causing us pain throughout our body. On top of that eezo also can damage quirks over time making them weaker as well causing dangerous mutations.
However for other races their is chance that if unborn children are exposed to eezo they will develop special nodes within their brain giving them the power to control mass effect fields. We call them biotics and they are the worst enemies to fight against. I've seen a lot of soldiers forced to drop out thanks to intense eezo poisoning" the man explained.
"Should I be worried?" Izuku asked.
"No, your quirkless kid. That makes you the only human unable to hurt by them ... well not as much as everyone else"
...
"Wait a minute there was something else I read from the codex. Um ... those ... asari!" That was their name, snapping his hand "I heard that all asari are natural biotics. Should I be worried about them to?"
"Not all of them, only a small percentage of them ever get the implants needed to fully use them in combat. If you even fight one of them the important thing you need to know is—"
—Weak eyesight, recover slowly, and tentacles
He hid behind some rubble as a warp sheared off part of the concrete. Tech Armor appeared as he raised his omni-tool at her and a bright beam of light hit her causing her cover them. All asari have weaker eyesight than humans when it comes to bright light, shining something bright will stun them momentary as they slowly adjust to it.
Running up he smashed her face, feeling a weakened barrier absorb some of the damage, and kicking her in the gut he grabbed her head tentacles.
All asari had cartilage based scalp crest that just so resembled like tentacles. Because of that their crest were sensitive to force so grabbing tightly on them was more painful than pulling your hair.
The asari let out a powerful throw launching him away as his men started to get back up. Her shields absorbed the attacks as he ran into cover. Carter used his quirk at the asari trying to take down her shield but the women was too fast for him to hit and the debris in the area made it impossible to land a hit on her. The asari fired back with her shotgun forcing the quirk user to move back to cover.
With three people attacking her it should've been easy killing her. If she wasn't an asari commando ... well no, none of them had any idea if the asari was a commando or not. All they knew was she was skilled and was putting up a good fight. Neither of Izuku's men could do much, they were never trained to fight biotics like he was and it was showing.
Their guns were rendered useless as the women's barriers just ate them up and did not relent. He tried to blind her again but she put made sure to stay in cover and gave him no room to do it. Lucas attempted to bull rush her as she used a pull causing him to suddenly float in the air as the mass effect field canceled gravity. A glow orb of biotics blasted them in his chest, a throw, blasting him away into the support and slumping down.
The asari pulled him and onto the floor next to her. She pointed her gun and his head exploded from the point blank attacks.
"Lucas! You son of a bitch!"
"Wait Carter no—" It was too late as the man tried to blast his quirk leaving himself open. Her biotics lifter him up and she threw him over the edge as his screams died down quickly.
...
"I am surprise you haven't acted in rage yet?"
"They were good soldiers that didn't deserve to die like that. I'll mourn for them after your dead" he called out, rolling a grenade to where she was. He heard the women curse as the explosion went off and the shimmer of her kinetic barriers going off. He fire at her as he saw splotches of blood, a few bullets managed to get into the armor as she returned fire.
Forming an omni-shield to block the attack he fired a Cyro Blast as it hit the gun causing frost to form over it as warning signs blared. A incendiary finished it, the gun shattering into pieces as super heated pieces embed themselves into her hands, crying out in pain. A damping stopped the biotic powers, an electric pulse was sent out as it targeted her nervous system stopping any biotic and quirk attacks for a short.
The last thing the asari saw was the human raising his gun at her and fired relentlessly until it overheated the limiter kicked, turning her head into a pile of processed meat.
Izuku watched as the body twitched a little before staying dead. He knelt over Lucas's corpse and pulled out his dog tag, they would not be able to bury him after the bridge collapses. Not like they could bury a pile of crushed up meat, the least he could do is give them his dog tags. Looking back at the asari he took out the women's omni-tool, she must have been high ranking if she knew who was in charge.
Going over to bomb he primed it as his omni-tool showed him that they were going back to main camp and the tanks would be starting to enter into the city.
He ordered the demolition teams to start the countdown. His bomb starting beeping as it show ten minutes before countdown.
So in ten minutes he had ran halfway through the bridge before it collapses ... joy
xxx
Whoever decided giving soldiers genetic enhancements was a genius and should be given a raise. His could taste his saliva as it thickened as his legs burned demanding rest. Had he been a normal person without a speed quirk this would have been impossible even running at full speed.
With genetic enhancements it was ... doable.
His legs disagreed
And his shields.
Another round bounced off his shield as the mercs started firing at him. Some of the tanks tried to as well but with the fallen rubble he was able to hide from the attacks as they rocked the bridge. The bombs from the backs went off first as it started to rumble and him double timing it. The support beams and rope snapped and crumbled under the increase weight as more pirates either ran to the city to escape or jump off in hope they would survive.
"Come on Midoriya, come on, come on, come on! You're so close! Just—" The frontal support blew up as he leapt onto on the falling cliff edge.
...
...
...
He barely grabbed onto the edge and struggled to stay one. A soldier saw him and helped him up as they made their way back to the camp. They had stopped the pirates from invading
xxx One Week Later xxx
"Anderson, what are you doing here?" Izuku saw the Lendon born man enter his room. It has been a week since the attack on Elysium and the seventh fleet arriving. Like the rest he cheer till his voice became soar, seeing alliance fighters and drones finishing up the remaining enemy gunships and more marines came in to help them finish off the remaining pirate forces in the city.
"Checking how you are doing. You gave me a scare when communications went down. How is the pirate threat here?"
"Last I heard the pirates have broken off from each other and are trying to hide around the planet" That was the problem of planetary warfare you could never raise an army big enough to fully take over a planet.
The best you can do take the capital, manufacturing/living centers, and space ports. After that was reacting to what the native resistance would do and shut it down. In this case it was waiting for the pirates to regroup and attack or hope they take a ship and get out months or years later.
"It could have been a lot worse if you hadn't broken through and sent us that message. I can only hope that we can save the colonist that were captured"
"On that note, has the alliance looked over the data I sent?" Izuku volunteered to be part of the recovery teams as they tried to find dog tags or any other identifications for the dead before burial. His job was to look for any data pertaining to the attack. Most of what he found was nothing, the pirates and mercs were paid grunts that had no idea about the attack.
[The AIC would later use the data found to break into the enemy bank accounts and funnel the money into Elysium's new militia and charities for families who suffered from the attack]
A few bodies did reveal more, some of the higher ranking officers knew that Haliat had bought the info from a third-party to break into their networks and they had coordinates to a few planets they used to hide or vent their ships. The asari omni-tool on the other hand was a treasure trove of information, it showed that Haliat had gotten his information from the shadow broker!
The info showed plans of the attack and where their main targets were. It showed caches where they stored any excess goods as well contact and organizations that helped with the attack. If he had more time he could have learned more but decided to hand it to the AIC.
"We have, the data you brought will instrumental in the counter attack. We originally believed the plan would take months to make but with the data that has been shorten to two weeks. The pirates have moved the colonist to the planet torfan, a well defended moon used by slaver's and pirates" said Anderson as he showed the base through his omni-tool.
It looked like an average moon if you ignored the large fleet of ships orbiting it. Anderson high lighted multiple points on the planet "The planet has hundreds of orbital cannons dotted around, the admirals plan to send small strike forces to a few of these cannons disabling them and giving us an LZ. Once in we will need to break into underground section."
This time the planet was phased out and a labyrinthian maze of tunnels and bunkers appeared.
"What in world is this? It looks like a giant mess of buildings, like an ant colony!?"
"Because it is, torfan has been traded through many hand before the batarians took it over and they all have built on top of existing infrastructure. When the hegemony took over they had tried to make this moon into a battle station or some sort of black ops base until council specters found out about it, some political bullshit later and the moon no longer belongs to the hegemony. Officially at least"
"Any idea where our colonist will be?"
"No damn clue till we land there"
"Alright, count me in sir. There is no way I am sitting out of this attack" Izuku said.
"I wouldn't have it any other way ... N7"