OSaBC : The Bird of Hermes
Chapter Twenty-six: Unimaginable Vistas
A/N: Sorry I got behind on these, but events happened, and then I got lazy. Eventually I was threatened if I didn't start posting again. As always thanks to EnigmaticOne for typing this up, any mistakes are mine but of course I don't make mistakes...
"What, the stuff that happened after landing on the planet? No...Jay never likes to talk about that too much. He has nightmares. And given what he's seen, that's a little terrifying. I've heard a few things, even hacked some video of the system itself, but whatever went down on the planet itself is something I think only the survivors will ever know about. And none of them are talking. My advice? Stop asking."
- Lady Emilia, recorded conversations with Lord Fordant's Commissar
The Spear of Longinus cruised through the blue-shifted fields of light that accompanied FTL travel. Paul stared out the window as streaks of stars flitted past, his thumbs hooked into his belt, expression blank. The secondary briefing room had been turned into an ad hoc planning room, and now that the Spear was approaching Jeremiah itself, all command personnel and squad leaders had been summoned, lined up near the back of the somewhat crowded space.
"Commander, one hour out from Jeremiah system." Captain Espinoza announced through the wall comms, his voice grim. "Comms just picked up burst traffic – looks like the clowns transited out. Multiple casualties, no details, but confirmed that Sara Ryder is alive."
In the corner, Alec Ryder's shoulders sagged in relief. "Thank God and Victor. And thank you for informing me, sir."
The captain's voice deepened. "Afraid that's the last of the good news. I'll be down in twenty and bring our probe results. Slowing the ship to half accel… this is some ugly shit, Paul."
The commlink clicked off, and Paul turned to the room. "Why am I not surprised? Muy bien, reúnanse. We have some work to do."
He pulled up a display map on the table. "Unlike our usual ops, we don't have clean recon this time. HERMES bought it to the last marine and scientist, and the situation with our deployment being what it is means no advanced scouting, so all we have is reports from Vandefar's Ache Lameo HRT." He smirked as several of the junior officers made jokes about clowns, then silenced them. "We had a few hitchhikers on the hull and they melt real good when you hit them with a few thousand rads, but on the ground the shit is likely to be loco. So stow the chatter and listen up."
"So this is what we know. Jeremiah system. Based on all previous data, an anomalous system. The star is too old, the orbits of the planets are perfect circles, and based on the telemetry we got from Bright, the actual target planet is a deathworld, class nine." He glanced around. "In case you forgot your classes from B-rate training that means the air kills you, the water kills you, the land is toxic and poisonous and the weather is too hazardous for most flier."
Grace smiled. "So, the normal."
The big Hispanic man shrugged. "Now, we're finally getting some data from the Sigma Team, and it is not good at all. Holden isn't exactly my idea of a competent strategic mind – no noble is - but he has more than enough sense to know when to bail, apparently. Per their message, there is a conflict between the things we just got through shooting off the hull and what sounds like some kind of ambulatory... corpse things."
"Inusannon flesh statues, again?" Sloane inquired.
"No, worse. According to his science guy, they're also bio-hazardous." He glanced around. "So. Let's assume that the system is hostile and there is going to be trouble. Space-side, that's not our problem. The Spear has a fighter complement of two hundred and a fucking army of JOTUN mechs. They can handle the shit in space. Landing and the ground assault are the problems. In particular, if Holden's intel is solid, we're going to be coming down hot into what looks like active GTS fire."
"Won't be the first time for that either, of course." He glanced knowingly at Grace. "But that means we do not have the luxury of a controlled drop. System: project tacmap."
The screen displayed a slice of the Jeremiah system: the sun, Rho-19, the four closest other worlds, and a curving line indicating the Spear's intended flight path.
"We'll be coming in from the galactic north, upwards of mark sixty. That's a touch faster than the top-speed salarian frigates, so directed fire should not be a problem. We slingshot using the fifth planet and the sun to do a high-orbital 'scorch skip' – bounce through the atmo."
"Hyperion will be split into teams. Sword will be the heavies, Shield the tactical, and Spear the support. Sword will do full drops in battlesuits to secure a landing zone. Shield DACT will drop in formation 4 while the Spear's fighters handle GTS and cover the landing pinnaces for the rest of Shield and Spear."
Paul took a deep breath "If Sword is destroyed before you can even land, abort. Target the Alchemist at the widest aperture and at full power and the Spear of Longinus will conduct orbital bombardment. Otherwise, land in the secure zone and the engineering cohort will set up field base alpha. Questions so far aside from 'how do I get out of this chickenshit outfit'?"
Stryckland tentatively raised his hand and cocked his head to the side. "Herrero-sama, is there any chance that we could mix our own coffins with drop pods full of JOTUNs – or YMIRs? To lessen the attrition that we are likely to face from GTS?"
"From what Bright sent us as well as data from the Repensum, the local GTS is directed energy beams, not flak, and it seems to target active transmits. We'll seed the drop with Wild Weasel boxes as well, but I need every JOTUN on hand to safeguard the support teams. YMIRS can't be VI-locked and we don't have enough Flesh that Talks to convert them all, so they are staying on the Spear as boarding security." Paul's voice was flat, and Stryckland nodded. He looked back at the map, mumbling a prayer to Victor and the Windsors.
Jaime's finger tapped lightly on the table. "Did Holden provide details about this black fur-corpse conflict?"
"Some. I get the feeling the old boy was not in good shape, he said he was on painkillers due to nearly getting killed. From the details provided the black-furred things are called 'Ysani' and the corpses refer to themselves as the 'Redeemed'. According to AIs they found on the ground, these Ysani are the caretakers, and are keeping the Ythrongi in stasis and safeguarding the planet – except some of them have gone rogue or something. The Redeemed corpse things are the ones working with Ciana to free the Ythrongi."
"If that isn't bad enough news, we've confirmed this is their homeworld – and there may be as many as four hundred million Ythrongi down there, including leadership cadres like the ones in the Griannon legends."
"Do we have guidance on engaging either set of abominations? I assume my plate is enough to prevent infection, but the meat here may be vulnerable, boss." Given how Paul generally ran close herd on Abraham, his presence was tolerated here, although absolutely no one was standing close to the lunatic.
"Good question, Abe. Light on answers. Alec?" Paul looked over to Ryder.
"I've gone over the data SAM – virtual assistant I gave to Bright – transmitted from his findings as well as what little useful information Ache Lameo's team sent." Ryder detailed. "The, uh, Ysani? Appear to be nanotech colonies, adaptive and powered by something. Any exposure turns you into what Bright called a 'vomit zombie' – uncontrolled growths, spewing consumptive black nano and with slow reactions."
Grace visibly perked up at hearing this.
"My advice is flame units and plasma. The corpse things are clean in terms of nano but, as Paul already said, are virulent infectious biohazards. No details yet. We do know that both Bright and Ache Lameo confirmed most guns are useless against the corpses, you need to cut them up to stop them. Problem with that is they're also very fast." Ryder grimaced. "Basically, all the stuff is definitely not clean or safe for most of your marines to get into."
Abraham delivered a grumbling spat of electronic feedback. "So no trophies, then. Shame."
"Esta mierda se pone cada vez mejor." Paul muttered.
Abraham's speakers gave out a ghoulish laugh. "C'mon Paulie, that's what shit does, stack up."
Paul sighed. "Alright. So, tac deploy. Abe, you are my direct backup. We're going in with eight suits, plus ours. Lance One will be under Kennington, Lance Two with Vargas. We will be the leading element. When we land, I want four suits on GTA and four suits on lookaround. Abe and I will engage any local hostiles. For black furs, saboting plasma rounds and for the corpse fuckers, we'll launch a GLAIVE mine. Nephew, you're in tac control since I'll be forward."
He then proceeded to list the assets available to the Shield group (with Sloane and Jaime shaking up officer assignments accordingly)
Nineteen N7s. Seventy five N-Series infantry. Fifty bioaugmented enforcers set to melee specs. Fifty cyber-assassins, again melee specs. Two hundred Omega Response heavy infantry. Fifteen DACT. Ten snipers. Twenty JOTUN units.
Going up against hundreds, thousands, potentially millions of hostiles. Another day in Omega Response.
"Your fireteam lead is Gregory and your chosen secondary lance commander is Strickland. Deus will head up the bio-enforcement teams. I'd strongly recommend deciding how you want to split this force up and what units need to be out front. Grace, you'll have the engineering cohort – fifty strong – and ten science boffins. Alec will also be with your group." Paul glanced at the Commissar standing next to Grace.
"Sloane, for the moment stick with Jaime. You're a pretty good shot and – no offense Jayceon – there isn't another command grade officer in the Shield group. If he dies, regroup and fall back to the landing area."
"I'll endeavor to keep him alive, then, Commander." Sloane replied.
"I'll endeavor not to die, Uncle." Jaime replied.
"I wouldn't want to take command of this, either Herrero-sama." Stryckland showed no sign of feeling slighted.
"That only proves you're smarter than me or my nephew, Lieutenant." Paul gave the knight a slanted grin.
The door opened and Captain Espinoza entered, carrying an OSD. "Te he traído algo de buen porno si te gusta ver a la gente destrozada."
"...Clowns?" Paul asked.
"Complete with honk-honk noise." Espinoza handed it over.
"Impactante, los payasos haciendo el ridículo. Veámoslo, hombre." Paul accepted it without pleasure.
"Share that when you're done boss?" Abraham piped up.
"Do better than that." Paul loaded it to the table. The grainy images displayed looked like orbital shots, from a camera without VI optimizations. But the viewers could make out large masses of hostiles and several sites of interest.
"From what we were told," Espinoza detailed, "Sara Ryder recorded this in orbit of the planet."
"So. HERMES had a number of bases. Most of those it looks like Kinnix wrecked – and given the old boy ain't much of a science boffin, probably blew up any useful data, which is why the Clowns didn't all get killed pursuing mad science down there." Paul observed, as circles on the map lit up.
"Just to be sure, though, we'll take quick looks at those and deploy the Alchemist to clean up. There's a goddamned colonial site down there that the clowns found that's a mess, lots of dead. Why you would deploy a colony on the surface of a deathworld is beyond me, but it has to go too. Holden said they got some data from servers there, so Grace, we'll use black nano there."
"Affirmative." Grace rubbed his hands.
"The main dig site was bombarded from orbit with Kyles and focused, uh, weapons, by the Repensum. Supposedly, that was a very large site. We'll do aerial recon to make sure there is nothing left. The secondary dig site is the only active one and – according to Holden – is a giant, fuckass tomb and maybe storage for artifacts. The entrances have been compromised. Landing zone 1 is far enough away from fuckery that this is where we plan to do our primary drop. LZ2 and LZ3 are dropsites for JOTUN squads to do recon."
"Hey, not right between the two clusterfucks." Corporal Gregory muttered under his breath, seeing how they were placed in the vicinity of two major surface battles.
"What do you mean by weapons there Paul?" Grace piped up. "Not like you to stutter like that in a brief."
"I mean it's above my clearance level, much less yours, Doctor." Paul reproved. "This is our ops plan. We land, secure the zone. Drone and JOTUN Scouting. Set up long-range bombardment arrays at two sites using a mix of Kyle charges and accelerated fuel-air-eezo explosives. At the proper distance, set up the Alchemist to wipe the secondary dig and the colony, then follow up with black nano. Once we're sure we're clear on all evidence, withdraw to landing site and exfiltrate. Once clear of atmo we trigger the bombardments and the alchemist and rendezvous with the Spear for exit. Once clear, we expect that the Celestial Council task force will be onsite."
Paul delivered a slanted wry smile. "This, of course, assumes everything goes well."
Jaime frowned. "And that the Ysani hold off the corpse army." That was a problem, because even if Hyperion did everything right, the Ythrongi could still be set loose upon the galaxy.
Paul cleared his throat. "Yes, well. Next map."
It flicked, showing an entirely new cluster of mayhem.
"Our operational area is only a tiny section of the current mess on Rho-19. If the telemetry is correct, there's over two million active combatants, and most of them are in areas of concern – a big metro area with lots of what look like ships, a city ruin and well... a series of pylons, all square, all over two kilometers tall. If there's data on these locations HERMES and Ache Lameo didn't know about it. We may have to scout these as well."
"With all due respect, we do not have enough firepower to deal with any of these sites..." Sloane protested.
"No fear there, Commissar. CC will handle final, er, cleanup, I've been told." Paul assured her. "We just need to make it look like we just stumbled on it. I mean, we know we didn't and they know we didn't, but we're just going to politely pretend we did."
"Well, that's good at least." Gregory spoke under his breath again.
"...However there is also the possibility that we may be directed Into those sites if needed." Paul's voice turned wry, and Sloane facepalmed.
Gregory suppressed the desire to facepalm as well. "I had to open my mouth, didn't I?"
Stryckland squinted. "If I may ask Herrero-sama, we have any intel what those box things are?"
"We know they're all exactly the same height, perfectly aligned to magnetic north, and the composition would appear to be something like what the boffins told me is positronium." Paul grimaced. "After I looked that up on the Common Knowledge Framework I had several stiff drinks."
Grace paled, and Jaime looked alarmed. "So, uh, don't poke the pylons?" Gregory awkwardly offered.
"My personal opinion is 'That's a no.'" Paul dryly remarked.
"What the actual fuck." Grace blankly uttered. "Paul, it's too late to drink. Why would you tell us that now!?"
Stryckland blanched. "Positronium, if I remember my college physics, is a matter composed of pure positrons. This stuff should only exist in small quantities in neutron stars."
"...Yeah." Paul concurred. "Grace, the Ache Lameo mad science guys think that is the power plant. Did I mention there's heavy fighting there already with half a million combatants on both sides?"
Grace grumbled under his breath, sending relevant notes to others. "Might we be able to uhh, destabilize those if we need a tactical crater creator? Assuming they actually sent you anything worth my time that'd let me figure it out..."
"Per the file Holden sent, the Ythrongi are in stasis – tens of thousands in vaults and thousands of vaults. I suspect if you cut the power, the stasis ends, soo..."
Grace let out a strangled 'ah.'
"No pressure." Paul finished.
"So even if we survive investigating these flash-points, we have basically nil capacity to make a difference." Jaime bemoaned. "Any idea where Ciana Vandefar is in all this?"
"No. The Spear has weapons systems capable of perhaps handling this. But the atmosphere makes targeting tricky so we'd need ground spotters and laser targeting." Paul glanced at Alec Ryder. "Ciana is believed to be in the area of operations… somewhere. If Holden's report is correct, she survived indirect exposure to a Kyle torpedo salvo."
Grace visibly twitched.
Stryckland raised an eyebrow.
Lieutenant Deus coughed profusely. "So we're on the losing side apparently?"
"How in the hot Kentucky Fried fuck does someone facetank a Kyle?" Gregory near-shouted.
"So, like I said." Paul summated, ignoring him. "Our best bet is to go in hard, clean the shit up, and get the hell out as quickly as possible, because fighting these people is so completely not my goddamned way to die."
The older man glanced around the room. "One more thing. Holden said his hacker made contact with some local AI systems. They indicated that whatever Ciana was up to, it was more dangerous than just waking up the Ythrongi, a statement which nearly made me question his sanity as I don't know what could possibly be worse than millions of Ythrongi. However, if true, then neutralizing her becomes the number one priority. If that happens the suits will handle it and the rest of you will fall back to the LZ for evac. Am I clear?"
Jaime firmly nodded. "Loud and clear, sir."
"I mean it, Jaime. If she can down us, you won't be able to stop her. Grace, their hacker is some clown so they can't possibly be as good as you or your own data savants. If we find any active computer systems I'll want access to get some kind of idea just what in the fuck is going on down there."
Espinoza piped up. "And, well. We also got an update from the High Lords. They, uh, made contact with Lord General Kinnix – he says, and the Sigma team confirmed, there is some kind of doomsday device that blows up the planet. Or maybe the star. Or maybe more than that. Probably should get that neutralized."
"Of course. That's what the engineering cohort is for, just casually handling fuckass giant bombs." Grace confirmed with a sour note. "Also, neutralized at all costs or acquired if possible?"
"Good point." Paul observed. "So let me put this out there now. I don't want to acquire anything on this demon-fucked nightmare of a planet. Black nano and Alchemist everything and dust the shit with AO-551 to be sure. Billings, Oso, Cortez, you three will handle the Alchemist for Jaime's team. Grace can deploy the rest with his biohaz spec teams. No trophies. No goddamned 'oops sorry boss' bullshit, or you can stay behind when we dust off."
Grace ducked his head, focusing on ensuring their omnis received Grace's most up-to-date notes for deployment.
"Not to be a downer here," Ryder cautioned, "but I've done a few scramble runs for Vandefar before, worked with the Sigma Team as well. Holden's team is pretty light-weight on paper but all of his people were experienced and tough, and the man himself tries to get people to underestimate him. Sigma could stack up more than well against most elite forces, so I'm assuming that if they survived, these corpse things are less dangerous than the Ysani?"
"Possibly." Paul answered. "The Ysani have gravity weapons and weaponized nanotech. The corpse things have swords and some kind of beam-weapon that nearly blew Holden's arm off. Problem is, most of our teams are not specialized in close combat except the cyber-assassins and bio-enforcers - and they're light on armor and designed for urban or spaceside combat - not open field warfare."
Stryckland folded his arms "Still, Ryder-sama has a good point. I have served - once - with Lord General Kinnix, and if he could survive this world with surely little intel and whatever was in his personal armory, it might not be as bad or he was exceedingly lucky to survive."
"From what I've heard from Reyes, Lord General Kinnix is far too stupid to die, and carries a power-axe you could cut a dreadnought in half with." Paul dryly commented.
"We could utilize those cyber-assassins for lasing purposes, boss. Quite quick, aren't they?" Abraham suggested before going quiet for a moment. "Do we have intel on how these things fight? From the looks of it seems like a kicked-up and altogether fucked up anthill. Could bait them into killzones and have the ship glass them, if they aren't smart enough to break off from the main swarm."
"The Ysani use small teams. Graviton blasts would wreck most of our people since we all use heavy armor. We'll probably need to make heavy use of plasma mortars at range. The corpses will move in rapidly to melee and their sniper-types probably snapshot our own melee users." Ryder spoke up.
"Per Holden, smoke and GOOP Grenades are useful against the corpses. Per Bright, flashbangs are disorienting or damaging against the Ysani. As for tactical, that's Jaime's call. I would recommend a mobile melee fireteam, and maybe putting a few of the cyber-assassins in Grace's team as security."
"I'll have fighters doing ground support and trying to suppress the GTS defenses as well." Espinoza added. "I don't give a shit how tough these things are, I bet they can't tank fuel-air-eezo bombs."
"I seem to remember the mess on Calsi-5, where all reports showed those Griannon ruins as inactive. We all remember how that turned out." Sloane warned.
"...I never liked Johansen anyway." Paul answered.
"I'm sure that was a comfort to everyone when he evaporated. You remain a model of confidence and morale, sir." Sloane stared at him.
Paul tilted his head. "Humor, from you? Wow, shit really is going to hit the fan. Anyway, Captain Espinoza has graciously opened his armory – swap out loads for smoke, flashbang, GOOP, and plasma. Radiation is useless and hi-ex pisses them off. We're using four drop-assault pinnaces. Suits will drop first. DACT will follow us in and deploy the landing beacons. Pinnaces will drop one at a time, with fighters doing GTS interference. Once all four are down, Grace will land in the assault lander with the engineers and JOTUNS."
"I've already got my fighters loaded with GLAIVE mines, drop tanglefields with pyroacidic gel, flashpak shrapnel and plasma bombs." Espinoza followed up. "If things get particularly pissy I can always fire the Lance."
Paul stared. "...At the fucking planet? While we're on it? Me gustaría morir en la cama con una mujer hermosa, no convertirme en vapor."
"Try seducing a Justicar Paul, achieve both in one go." Grace called out.
Paul frowned. "Grace, can we not bring that up again?"
The captain chuckled "I meant at distance - if for example a large ground force is headed your way. Let's just say the Lance is not a 'danger close' rated weapon."
"I can take it, I'm not like the rest of these meat... 'sides you Paulie." Abraham boasted.
The captain smirked. "Your funeral."
"...Yes. Alright. So, other than that, time on target?" Paul asked, waving Abe to silence.
"Forty minutes, give or take." Espinoza calculated. "Based on the weak-ass shit we cleared off the hull, you bombard these Ysani with enough rads and they fall apart like every other fucking pile of nanotech we've run into. So once we transit out of FTL we're gonna drop rad-flash packs in a wide circle around your LZ at five miles out. Gamma bands. I'll tag them with laser beacons, since per Bright, active radio comms attract attention."
"Can we spare a few with decent transmitters as decoys?" Grace suggested. "Drop far enough away with some nasty strategic surprises and we might disrupt stuff. Or at least bait away from us."
"Sure." Paul glanced at Jaime. "Also Jaime, talk to the, uh, engineering team lead. He may have useful toys as well."
Jaime nodded. "I will."
Paul glanced around more broadly. "Jaime, Sloane, prep your people. Grace, I've plain-texted the file we got from Holden, distribute it to your people. Abe, go ahead and get the suits knuckled up. I gotta talk to command. Strickland, you're BDO on this, so make sure you remain in clear comms. Gregory, talk to the ships' quartermaster about swapping grenade loads for the teams. That's all, dismissed."
X-BoH-X
Paul Hererro walked into the secure comms room, all done in black, with a single comm link and display window. "Connect to downlink 44.0-3."
"Please wait…" A computerized voice responded. "Connecting."
"Kholan here."
"Admiral. Paul Herrero. I trust repairs are going well?"
"Not really. A third of the ship is so radioactive only mechs can work there. But you didn't call for that. You're looking to talk to the Sigma Team?"
"Yes. I have questions. I presume they aren't under Black Rendition Lockdown yet?"
Kholan chuckled. "The ship is on its way, ETA is about an hour. I'll comm Holden."
Paul waited, then blinked as the screen shifted to the tired visage of Holden. "Commander Holden? My name is Major of Marines Paul Hererro. I'm attached to Omega Response. The High Lords have instructed me to do cleanup on the Jeremiah operation."
"Then I guess you need some clarification from the AARs then, Major?" Holden asked.
"Not really." Paul shook his head. "Did you communicate directly with Ciana Vandefar at any time?"
"She commed us when we were at the colony site." Holden confirmed.
"I see. Did she indicate exactly why she is doing whatever she is engaged in?"
It was Holden's turn to shake his head. "I tried to fish for details but she responded with 'I'm not here to enlighten you, you Lord of Sol shit,' so no."
"Huh. Interesting data point." Paul's eyes narrowed. "You were given an engineering complement. A couple of those engineers were, ah, special personnel. Do you know if any of those personnel made it?"
"Only one, Carol. She got out with us. Ciana killed the rest when they tried to lift off." Holden answered, recognizing where Paul was going with this.
"I see. If I might make a suggestion, milord? I would very strongly recommend keeping her, ah, status, a secret from your command and... any sponsors you may have. As for the results of your operation, I would appreciate it if Colonel Sahu and Doctor von Alte could copy us on the artifacts you found once analysis is completed."
"Duly noted, as far as R&D is concerned Carol Daniels is a survivor from the Ahaltocob unit that dropped with us. Nothing more. I'll talk to Sahu myself, she owes me." Holden agreed.
"Appreciated. Also, let Sara Ryder know her father is currently with my team as an observer. For obvious reasons we don't have comms capacity but I will try my best to keep him alive. Other than that, I thank you for your time, milord."
Holden smiled. "No problem, for what it's worth good luck Major. I hope your group is as good as they say, you are definitely going to need to be."
Paul killed the signal, then prepared for a less pleasant conversation. "Connect to downlink 0.0.1, highest encryption."
"Connecting… authenticating..."
When the process finished, the face of Prince Maxwell appeared.
Paul bowed his head. "Reporting as ordered, Your Grace."
"Very good, Hererro. Your findings?" Maxwell inquired, his aged features tight with concern.
"Your Grace, Lord Holden does not seem to be aware of Ciana's... parentage or her radically altered personality. He indicated she refused to communicate with him and called him, quote, a Lord of Sol shit, unquote. Other than that his AAR indicates that they lost Rho but that he submitted a sealed report via drone which they forwarded already."
"Very good. Rho is not a concern, his replacement is already being finalized. The Vandefar girl is to be executed, no exceptions. And I trust you remember our previous conversation about the oversights of your predecessor? I expect this operation to be clean and for the Citadel group to find nothing incriminating."
Paul kept his voice calm and level. "Yes, Your Grace. Very clear. You made your point just fine with my brother and my own father. If I might interject, however, I still recommend simply bombarding the surface and having the CC do solar relay immersion. The data we have is concerning."
"After you ensure the Vandefar girl is dead, that is acceptable. I dislike loose ends, Hererro - and she has the potential to be a very irritating loose end and has already laughed off a Kyle torpedo."
"For a man who hates loose ends, keeping a bunch of old Echo Mirage staff deemed too unstable to work with DepAb and giving them to that lunatic Kurgan isn't really a good demonstration of of prudence. Your Grace."
Maxwell sneered. "You are like the rest of your family, I see. Asking questions you really don't want to know the answers to. I've learned killing your kind does nothing, so I will instead point out that you have... other loved ones besides your grand-nephew.'
Paul's face tightened. "...you know I don't have choices here. I'll do as you ask."
"Good. Very good. You have your instructions, I expect them to be carried out. And Herrero? If that Hand of Rourke Commissar gets a conscience, I trust you know what to do?"
"...Yes, Your Grace." Paul's voice was bitter, but Maxwell only smiled.
"Then I will await your success. Dismissed." The signal cut out.
X-BoH-X
The Spear of Longinus finally completed its long FTL push, erupting into real-space at maximum distance from the orbiting planets. The system was, as described, a series of odd planets in unnatural orbits.
That proved to be about the only thing that matched.
"Command ground team, bridge, now." Espinoza's voice over the comm system was nearly a barked shout. Hyperion's command team was in the secondary briefing area, when Captain Espinoza's call came through. The odd dot-blue lights in the ceiling shifted to red, the muted thump of some kind of defensive field rumbles through the ship. The open glassy windows suddenly went dark.
Paul put down his coffee with a grimace. "Lovely. Jaime, let's go. Commissar, ready the men. Abraham, code phrase authorization, Canis Princeps, full use against non-Alliance targets."
Grace slugged back the rest of his energy drink. "Suppose I should join you." The trio made their way to the bridge, hearing the perfect sequential tramp of mech units, as well as running soldiers.
"Captain sounds... shook. You know, he only had that tone with the Hansur." Jaime recalled.
"Grace wasn't here for that one, remember?" Paul reminded his grand-nephew. "Creepy planet. We never found a single body. Clothing, tools, food. NO bodies. Very weird."
"For which you should be thankful, Grace." Jaime assured the scientist.
"To be fair, nephew, Grace has come along with me on some of the more stupid stunts we pulled." Paul pointed out.
"Yes, but that was creepy and stupid." They reached the lift and a soldier punched the controls to go to the bridge. It seemed as a security measure, the lifts on the ship were always manned and would only respond to authorized users.
"Ahora, a ver qué mierda nos espera." Paul declared, as the doors opened onto a fully staffed bridge.
The screens at the front of the bridge were littered with displayed augmented tracks – hundreds of them. Captain Espinoza bent over the CIC tactical table, grimacing and asking his science officer questions in a pointed voice. He half-turned as Paul, Jaime, and Grace approached.
"Hola, vaquero. Hoy va a hacer mucho calor aquí." He gestures almost angrily at the table. "Two of the planets are... active. They are spewing out ships, like giant snakes firing what seems to be some kind of energy that my sensors can't resolve. More ships are coming up from Rho-19 itself, a mix of corrupted copies of the Decca and worm-like mawed ships as well. They are fighting mostly around the gas giant and the upper polar orbital area."
There looked to be over two hundred contacts shown battling in the void. Paul scowled. "Lovely. What are our options, then? I am no space monkey, so the tactics I leave to you."
"Well for one, close air support is going to be a mess. I am certain I can get in close enough to drop your force as planned in three waves. I am almost certain we can even break orbit and evade any pursuit. But hanging around to launch and recover fighters for air cover is going to get me enmeshed in that furball of a fight, and those graviton beams the furry things use are no joke." The captain folded his arms. "Best I can do, probably, is detail off the bombers – they have the ground munitions and GLAIVE mines and all that. I'll need the fighter cover myself – and besides, the fighters are too light to operate in the hellish weather of Jeremiah. Of course, this presumes they don't turn to engage us."
Paul stared grimly at the readout. "Jaime, Grace, ideas?"
This wasn't in Jaime's area of expertise. Partly as part of the accelerated path under Paul's guidance that had brought him into Omega Response, he'd qualified beyond N2 space combat minimums, but his training in space combat against planets that spat out ships was oddly not something covered in N-school. "Any possible way to spoof their sensors and create a fake landing zone?"
"We're gonna launch chaff pods along with the real ones. Should spoof GTS defenses. But as for orbitals, not really. If they have even half-ass sensors they can pick out the fakes from speed alone, no time to weight balance the fakes. I guess I have to keep them busy while we launch." Espinoza cautioned.
They watched as a copy of the Decca was hit by several of the purple energy blasts and exploded violently. "One thing is for sure. If this mess spills into Produga the task force there is going to be fucking butchered in minutes. A damn full squadron wouldn't slow these nightmares down at all. I sent CC the up-alert signal to do solar array immersion if we go down, the second we hit the system."
"Fucks sake." Grace turned to Paul, "Any of the uhhh, artifacts we brought have jamming or stealth effects we can crib?"
"Our loadout was meant for heavy assault and ground use. Off the top of my head, nothing we have would stop space-side sensors." Paul answered.
"Our choices then seem to be as follows – do a southern orbital approach and land en masse, with more pinnaces and shuttles, travel overland to the original LZ, do our shit and leave. Hopefully we won't be attacked. Or do the original planned hot drop right into the LZ. Less time to target, less exposure in theory, but we don't know what the fleets fighting each other will do."
"My science officer says the city down there with heavy fighting is some kind of ship yard, more ships are launching from it. And the two, uh, planets that are… alive, are launching groups of ten ships every thirty minutes. In six hours, the mess will have doubled." Espinoza added.
The weapons officer spoke up. "Enemy targeting sensor sweeps have hit us twice, no acquisition. Of course, we're at the edge of the solar system, but they could still throw missiles or something at us."
"I'm not sure if that is reassuring or just them not bothering because we aren't a threat to them yet." Espinoza remarked.
"Mind if I take a spin on the science console, Captain?" Grace requested. "No offense to your officer of course, from what I saw in Produga she knows her stuff."
"Feel free. Based on what I saw you might as well use a fucking kazoo."
The science console had the same oddly half-melted look as the rest of the ship, but was supplemented by a helpful haptic overlay in cheerful green over the pool of water.
If he had read the results correctly, Grace thought, the Decca copies were made of some kind of carbon substrate and carbon-fiber, enhanced with metal. The other ships, the worm things, were mostly carbon variants, arsenic (?) and boron, with ablative armor. The energy readings from the ships were four times that of an Alliance carrier. The corpse ships appeared to be made entirely out of what Grace belatedly figured to be Ythrongi corpses – although a few showed human remains as well – mixed in with elemental iron, phosphates, and silicon.
All of the defending ships used a mix of gravity-compression beams and something like a mass accelerator, except hurling gravity compressed uranium that decompressed on impact. The corpse ships flung beams of somehow FTL accelerated particle beams. In other words: instant hit weapons that generated a great deal of radiation and heat.
As for the planets, the outer ones looked 'normal', but the four inner planets had layers of corpses, ranging from a few meters to almost a kilometer thick. The interiors had been excavated, but could hide more surprises deep within, beyond scan range. Rho-19 itself seemed to be more outlandish', with 1.02 g, an atmosphere that read like a bad chemistry joke, and basically alpha or beta band radiation across the entire planet.
Continued scans gave him a better feel for the two sides.
The Ysani had fewer ships, but each ship was a lot stronger and could absorb a large amount of damage. Though Decca copies launched Kyles at least an order of magnitude weaker than the real things, Grace realized with horror that they must have been synthesizing neutronium with gravity tech to create the unceasing barrage of Kyles in the first place. Which implied that they might have more powerful graviton tech than the OR scientist even believed possible.
The corpse ships were faster and more agile, and their weapons always hit, but it took sizable numbers of them focusing on a Ysani ship to bring it down.
Really, either sides' weapons systems would completely wreck any Alliance ships in a single shot.
Four main fights raged. Ninety Ysani against two hundred twenty Redeemed craft over the gas giant. Two more took place closer to Rho-19, three hundred versus twelve hundred in total. Tellingly, the corpses were clearly losing the last one in upper orbit over the northern hemisphere, where the Ysani outnumbered them eighty to forty.
Grace relayed this information to the captain and Paul, trying to keep a neutral tone.
"Great. Can we just turn around and have the CCs drag the relay into, I dunno, the nearest black hole?" Espinoza complained.
"After we ascertain all the threats are neutralized. Orders from the top. The very top." Paul sighed. He turned to Jaime. "I'm making this your call, nephew. The suits can drop hot from orbit, but if we go in through the original LZ we have no guarantee something won't shoot at the rest of you on the way down. If we go south, we're risking being on the planet for hours more, plus running into god knows what else. We have no sensor mapping of the rest of the planet after all. Either way, if we go in hot, we do one drop, to minimize exposure."
"I don't think anything we have can fix the mapping issue either. I'm good, but equipment only works so fast. Launching drones or satellites for coverage in this mess seems a good way to get attention anyway." Grace chipped in.
"If we swing south, we can keep the bulk of the planet between us and the mess. I can do a low atmo-orbital pass-through, drop some pentrometer probes and pulse-radar mines ahead of dropping your group off." Captain Espinoza offered. "Not perfect, but you'll have telemetry and a downlink."
Jaime smiled. 'So, ...my first big command decision', he thought.
Fortunately, this one seemed simple enough to Jaime. "Thank you, Captain. I suppose that'll have to do. Frankly, it sounds like getting in the middle of that fight is the last thing we want to do. South it is."
Paul tapped his comm-link. "Abe, tell the suits to knuckle up, slow drop. I want full firepower on all suits, disengage all the safety bullshit and goddamned 'don't do that' locks."
"Copy that boss." Abraham confirmed. "We're getting antsy here. How much longer?"
"Twenty." Paul glanced at the captain. "Captain, I'll leave you to get us in the slot, we'll drop in one. Suits, pinnaces, main shuttle with grace's team and the bots. Minimum airtime exposure. If you have bombers than can land, drop them too with us. Then withdraw to open space."
"Alright. And pickup?"
Paul smiled sadly. "Unless I miss my guess, shit will be hot once we get done. We'll fall back to the original LZ and you'll have to pick us up sub-orbital."
Espinoza grimaced. "So the suits last?"
"You know it." Paul turned to Grace and Jaime. "Get moving, people. I want us on the ground in half an hour."
The captain touched the control panel. "Helm. All ahead flank, set reactors to 110. Weaps, full shieldings and secondary graviton shields to maximum. Tactical, launch all fighter wings and have Bomb Group Hector prep for land ops. Security, set repel boarders and damage control parties. All hands, set condition 1SQ, extreme high-speed close combat. Seal all non-critical spaces and put on your suits."
The approach to Rho-19 was as hectic a flight as anyone on the team could remember. The entire system was alive with ship-to-ship combat vast sweeps of ships slicing through the blackness of space in tides and strands. All manner of energy discharges lit the system, and it looked like strange black-furred pods and bony spikes were tossed back and forth – boarding pods it was determined.
Ships erupted into strange colors or explosions, and twice the flesh-covered smaller inner planets fired beams of hellish red energy kilometers across that obliterated dozens of the Ysani ships in one shot.
They hadn't given this ship to Captain Espinoza on a whim, however. He politely chucked the ship's pilot out of their seat and took her in himself, his XO manning the conn. And as the ship accelerated and rumbled, the passengers watched in awe as the dreadnaught-sized vessel crossed Mark 115, twice as fast as most salarian frigates, weaving in and out of sensor range with the cool ease of a man long practiced in piloting.
"En nombre de Dios, ¿qué es este barco...?" Paul wondered.
"Wrong side of the coin, Major." The XO muttered next to him.
Paul crossed himself as the Spear flashed past the outer orbital battles' fringes. The ship fired a series of dull gray spheres, which exploded into electronic, radio and sensor noise that turned Omega's own sensor gear white with over-saturation. A trio of Decca cruiser-copies gave chase as Espinoza angled the ship down...
"Weapons, launch it!"
A glowing cube erupted from the top of the hull and suddenly the dreadnought came to a complete stop. In a split second, the cube took the appearance of the Spear, breaking off and veering back out to space. The three mutilated cruisers followed it, firing weapons.
The tactical officer exhaled. "Ship is in full stealth, captain. Power reduced to minimal levels for life support, engines and the launch bay. Fighters are ready for close support."
The captain glanced at Paul. "Time to shine, brother. Be safe down there."
Paul turned for the elevator. "No hay seguridad en el infierno, viejo amigo."
X-BoH-X
In the launch bay below, the DACT gathered, checking armor seals and jump packs. The connecting lift opened to reveal Uncle Paul, Jaime, and Grace. The older man looked around, inspecting the troops.
"Hyperion. We are about to launch to the world below. This is now Operation HOPE SCYTHE. Our objectives are simple but difficult to achieve. First, obliterate any sign of human presence on this world. Second, localize, incapacitate, interrogate and execute Ciana Vandefar. Third, deploy the Alchemist and ensure any additional dangers – power systems, planetkillers, whatever - are nullified as best as we can before falling back."
"Per both reports from Lord General Kinnix and Lord Holden, there are no other retrievable human survivors on this planet. There was a small Eldfell colony and some other human units here. They are, if they were lucky, dead. If not, they are sequestrated by the local lifeform we're calling the Ysani."
"In light of that, your ROE is simple: shoot anything non-human. Both Lord Kinnix and Lord Holden supposedly made contact with lifeforms on the planet, that's great. Kinnix is an idiot and Holden had a professional xenoanalyst. We're not diplomats. Unless you are 100% sure an approaching lifeform is non-hostile, down it."
"Grace will be passing out transmit keys to team leads for black nano. There are zero weapons restrictions on this operation, ladies and gentlemen. Full use of deadly and anomalous force is encouraged."
He turns to Jaime. "I'll be forward with the suits. Since I may be out of contact, overall tactical control defaults to Jaime. His XO is Commissar Sloane. In the event they both fall, Lieutenants Strickland and Oso will fall back to Grace and call for immediate evac."
Paul fixed a look to the men in front of their battlesuits, and to Abe. "In that instance your primary objective is to withdraw Hyperion safely. The suits will cover the evac."
The battlesuit pilots took this in calmly, one merely reaching across to put another tally on a stack of marks below the crudely printed words "Suicide Missions."
"Jaime, where in your group is your personal squad going to be?
After a lot of internal debate, Jaime had settled on a tactical setup for Shield. The DACTs would serve as a second batch of mobile scouts behind the battlesuits. Detachments of N7s and N-Series would screen the left and right flanks, hopefully keeping any unexpected surprises at bay long enough for the rest to respond.
The heavy infantry composed the main battle line at the core of the force. Since the corpses seemed to prefer close range, Jaime kept most of the bio-enforcers and cyber-assassins in reserve to counter-charge when needed. The remaining handful he assigned to guard the engineering team, just in case.
"Probably with the main line or the reserve group. I'll have a better idea once we touch down."
"Alright. Oso, Strickland, you're covering the left and right flanks but stay in visual distance of Jaime." Paul instructed.
The two meter plus form of Oso (Spanish for 'bear') shrugged massively, standing next to Strickland. "Sure thing, bosso."
Stryckland saluted. "Yes, Herrero-sama."
"Oso, why can't you be more like Jayceon?" Paul complained.
"Cuz the LT is a proper officer – and a knight - and I grew up in the barrio?" Oso retorted. "Uh, sir?"
Paul looked skywards "Santa María, dame fuerza."
Commissar Sloane almost looked actually amused. "Thank you, Commander. You all know the routine. Full camera logging at all times. You disco your recording unit, you get tossed into hypno-interrogation. No picking up souvenirs. This place is poisonous, nano-hot, toxic, radiated, and there's some kind of virus that makes your corpse dance around and attack people. If you get infected, I will say a prayer to Jesus and Victor before immolating you."
"Alright, final suit checks, boys and girls. Lemme hear if you are hot." Paul announced.
The thunder of 400 marines shook the air. "Hot locked and ready to rock, sir!"
Captain Espinoza's voice rang out over the comms. "All hands, brace for atmoskip. DACT proceed to tube-launch gantries."
The DACT filed into the segmented launcher. Hooks in the ceiling picked each one up by the catch in the back of the suit, as the hull split open to lower the gantry. One of the DACT triggered comms.
"Word to ya moms / I came to drop bombs / I got more rhymes than the Bible's got Psalms…"
"Jump around!"
The ship shuddered as it cut through the border between air and void.
"Jump around!"
The DACT flew out, some laughing, as the team leader screamed across the open mike:
"Jump up jump up and get down!"
Onboard the ship, Paul merely sighed.
The battlesuits arranged themselves into two cross shapes, one centered on Paul and the other on Abe, as the floor below them evaporated and they triggered the landing counter-thrusters.
Sloane seated herself next to Jaime in the primary pinnace, everyone else linked on the comm-net. The comm system was routed through the Flesh that Talks AO. Basically psionic, hooked into regular radio. You would talk as if to a conventional commlink, but the 'signal' couldn't be picked up or intercepted.
She frowned. "You look worried."
"Merely the facial expression of leadership." Jaime wryly commented. "But yes, I also happen to be worried."
Sloane glanced at the pilot as she tapped in the course, and the entire floor of the landing bay suddenly disappeared, the pinnace tilting down. "I see. It has always baffled me how hard it must be to lead without any lockdown of emotional states."
Ahead, they saw streaks of light from the DACT, and more from decoy pods, and green tinted blasts of energy visible on the edge of the planetary horizon. No GTS fire… yet.
"Welcome to non-Commissar life."
Sloane snorted delicately. "The only way I'll get to experience that is in a casket."
Jaime tilted his head. "Isn't there some possibility of retirement? I heard something about that."
"From the Hand of Rourke, it would be very rare indeed." Sloane explained to him. "For more normal assignments, perhaps. The minute our Black Rendition-lead op went bad and my partner was killed..."
"Stuck for good?" Jaime surmised.
Grief stained her words and expression, then blanked as she continued. "...It is unlikely such would come to pass. I'd need the interest of influential parties, and some reason to want to retire that wouldn't result in me staring at a wall in some insane asylum?"
She shrugged. "I suspect we are both bound beyond death to duty. Ironic."
"Yeah." Jaime agreed. "On the bright side, neither of us will be alone."
The voice of the pilot came across the 1MC. "Atmo in ten secs, brace for turbulence, this air looks sus as fuck."
The pinnaces sliced through the air, flanked by falling DACT and battlesuits, in a cloud of decoys and wild weasel drones.
The turbulence was bad, the ride even rougher than coming down on that one Prothean colony with the super-storms. Sensors showed wind speeds of upwards of 120 kph with particulate grit in the 2mm range. Engines flickered as Hyperion dove deeper, parting the bruised sickly yellow cloud cover to reveal a horrific landscape.
Video from the north depicted mostly rocky defiles, scattered ruins, and the like. The south appeared more heavily populated. Below, stretching nearly as far as the eye can see, stood a vast ecumenopolis, shattered buildings rising more than two kilometers into the sky in some places.
Most of it had been wiped out, craters of deformed earth dozens of kilometers wide overlapping everything. Entire forests to the north had been reduced to shattered, splintered tangles, and what looked like ocean ships sat on what used to be the ocean floor.
There were four meter tall, black glossy skinned corpses lying everywhere. And tens of thousands of the animated corpses, harvesting them in vast factory-like lines. Huge arched bone constructions, filmed with heaving, pale white flesh and long strands of mucus like stabilizers, bulged like tumors across the landscape in a dozen places.
Endless lines of deformed corpse-things – little more than four over-sized arms and a pair of stunted legs – hauled corpses into the biological equivalents of dump trucks. The process played out: piles of corpses sorted and dissected, dipped into vats of bubbling black ooze, then piped through a semi-transparent intestine-like line into a giant ruined amphitheater, where they were again sorted… and began to move sluggishly.
More though, were rendered into a goo and sent to the south, where something like a pumping lung slowly regurgitating what the cameras showed to be hundreds of bone spears, swords, and long lance-like rifles.
"So is this normal for this outfit?" Gregory asked aloud. "Landing in a sea of literal corpses, I mean."
"To a degree Corporal." Stryckland replied. "I've fought off an entire legion of ambulatory necrotic S-Mart employees. But nothing to this... scale. This must be hell. A literal Victor blessed hell."
"Madre de dios..." Paul muttered. "There. Those hills. Clear of any of the filth and out of the line of sight. Land there."
The DACT landed in a circle, the battlesuits thumped down a moment later, weapons hot. The pinnaces set down in the middle in a neat square, followed by four bombers.
"Away from the action? We better kill something soon, seeing all this is getting me in the mood." Abraham announced.
"This gets you into a mood?" Stryckland exclaimed. "Shit, remind me to bring you back to House Windsor after this."