I know, I KNOW! I'll see you at the end of the chapter.
Gray. Vast, seemingly endless expanses of gray, broken only by protrusion of more gray. Titanium A had a very specific gray about it, Admiral Hackett decided. It was darker than your typical gunmetal gray, it had a way of absorbing the light cast by the twinkling stars, whereas the armor of his own flagship, the Kilimanjaro, shone brightly in the darkness of space. It was exceedingly dull, not just in its reflectivity, but in its ability to grab the eye. Titanium A didn't stand out, it didn't invoke fantasies of exciting battles in the far off reaches of space like the white titanium alloys of the Alliance's ships of the line did. But that wasn't Titanium A's job.
"Guardian Lasers charged and ready, beginning phase five of armor tests."
Hackett glanced over at the weapons station responsible for the Kilimanjaro's powerful, if limited, Guardian Laser array and gave a curt nod to the young woman manning it before shifting his attention back to the dull, boring expanse of gray on vidscreen mounted over the CIC's holoprojector.
The ensign tapped away at her holo controls, acquiring her preset targets and confirming the firing solution provided by the weapon's VI program, "Firing, in three, two, one… Firing."
The only dreadnought in the Alliance Fleet equipped with the ultraviolet version of the powerful laser weapons, the Kilimanjaro only gave of mild flashes of light as heat escaped into the void of space as its three starboard Guardian batteries fired.
Dull gray flashed white hot as the first battery struck, then again as the second and third struck along the particular plate they were testing. The color faded quickly, and what little slag there was quickly hardened back into its solid form, leaving behind three mild scorch marks.
"Project Mammoth is reporting 91% plating integrity," the young man at the comms station reported.
Steven Hackett nodded, "Switch to concentrated fire, two guns for this test"
"Aye, sir," the young woman at the weapon's station affirmed, "Switching to concentrated fire, guns two and three, firing in three, two, one… Firing."
Again heat escaped into the void in small flashes of light from the Kilimanjaro's laser batteries, and again dull gray flashed white hot on a single point this time, and again, the color faded quickly, though this time slag had to cool as it drifted away from the armor, having been ejected by force of boiling Titanium A.
"Eighty seven percent integrity, Admiral."
"Concentrate all three guns on a single point, fire until we cut through fifty percent"
The ensign's hands flew over her controls as she fed the target to all three starboard Guardians and confirmed targeting solutions, "Guns One, Two, and Three, firing continual bursts in three, two, one… Firing."
The almost imperceptible shift in artificial gravity signaled the reactor gunning to compensate for the suddenly enormous draw the three ultraviolet lasers now demanded as they poured continuous energy into the unmarred portion of armor plating. The mass effect field quickly stabilized as the reactor plateaued and the Admiral continued his observations unperturbed.
Gray metal flashed white hot and quickly began ejecting slag and vaporized titanium A into the void between it and the Kilimanjaro. Around the white hot target, one might have assumed the surrounding metal would turn red as the heat conducted through the crystalline structure of the metal, but it would appear the ablative properties of the armor plating was protecting itself from any spreading damage.
"Gun three reaching redline," the weapons officer reported, sure enough, on the holo display of the dreadnought, the Guardian turret to the stern starboard was reading maximum heat threshold, "Powering down gun three, gun two reaching redline in six seconds, gun one reaching redline in twelve seconds."
The power output on the midship guardian cut off as it joined its aft twin in a cooldown cycle. Hackett watched the bow Guardian's display intently as the heat accumulated in the turret.
It was four seconds from shutdown when the comms officer cut in, "Project Mammoth reports fifty percent penetration!"
"Shut it down, Ensign," Hackett ordered, turning from the display as the weapons officer followed through with his orders, and turned towards his ship's Captain, Hannah Shepard, Rear Admiral Mikhailovich, and Rear Admiral Kahoku.
"I thought that VI said this Titanium A was supposed to be especially vulnerable to directed energy weapons?" Mikhailovich started the proceedings, "Overloading two of the most advanced Guardian Laser batteries and nearly overloading a third isn't what I'd call vulnerable."
"And it only cut through half of it," Kahoku agreed, "Granted I can't think of a vessel in the galaxy with two and a half meters of armor, but that much concentrated firepower would cut halfway through a turian dreadnought."
Hannah Shepard cut in with her thoughts, "It is ablative in nature, but the plating is designed with sheering strength in mind, perhaps Dot meant in comparison to kinetic strikes?"
The vidscreen in front of the three admirals and one captain showed the results of the previous four weapons tests. The first one had been against fighter grade mass accelerators and missiles. The cannons had barely scratched the plating and the missiles had only left small craters and pockmarks.
The second test had been against ship grade mass accelerators, the Kilimanjaro releasing a full broadside upon it before turning and bearing its main gun upon it. The broadside had inflicted major cosmetic damage, but only upon multiple concentrated strikes had the mass accelerators, capable of matching a cruiser in firepower, had they managed to inflict major structural damage to the titanium A plating. Only the spinal cannon of the dreadnought, equivalent to even the Hierarchy's vaunted dreadnoughts in power, had been able to punch through the two and a half meters of armor, though readings from Project Mammoth suggested that more than ninety six percent of the kinetic energy had been consumed by the armor and the slug would not have gone far if there were an actual ship on the other side of the plating.
The third test was ship grade explosive missiles. The standard, if high yield, explosives had cratered and pockmarked the metal, and after continued bombardment, the plating had even bent and started fragmenting and cracking under the strain, but only after the threshold that would have crippled any other ship in the Alliance had been crossed.
The penultimate test had been against the more unique torpedoes in the Alliance's arsenal. Javelin torpedoes and their rapidly oscillating mass effect fields tore into the titanium A, rending metal with its gravitational fields and easily taking its toll, but again, the plating surprised them. The crystalline structure seemed to easily tear under the mass effect fields, and ejected layers of itself, pushing the danger away and protecting the other two meters of armor.
"We had more success on the kinetic weaponry and Javelin torpedoes than the Guardians," Mikhailovich retorted, "Though calling it success is suspect at best. Not even the Destiny Ascension would survive a full broadside from this ship if its barriers were down."
Hackett suppressed his urge to tell them the directed energy weapons the UNSC AI was talking about were fully realized plasma weaponry, stuff designed to burn continents and boil oceans. Guardian lasers were but a candle before the roaring forest fire of Covenant weaponry.
Dot had briefed the three Admirals, and the Captain as she was the captain of the ship being used in the armor testing, but Steven Hackett was the only one aware of the true nature of the AI playing VI and its origins, and how it was responsible for a lot of technological advancements as of late.
Kahoku was the most familiar with the major tech changes, as his fleet was the first military vessels to be outfitted with the trans-dimensional FTL engine known as a slipspace drive. Building the first one was surprisingly fast and simple, considering all of the physics were easily explained by the foreign AI and the blueprints to build one were already there. Hundreds of autonomous drones were utilized to test the technology and refine it. Where the UNSC Shaw-Fujikawa had a top speed of a few lightyears per day, significantly slower than your average mass effect drive, the data acquired by Dot on that Covenant cruiser had allowed her and veritable teams of physicists and engineers to refine the drive and massively improve the speed.
Admiral Hackett was told the drive itself didn't actually move a ship through slipspace, and that the increases in speed were due to refinements of the quantum tunnel the drive makes allowing for smoother transition. Frankly it sounded like a bunch of space magic, but he lived in a galaxy populated by a race of people who were all blue women and psychic, so that all checked out. The result was a drive capable of nearly four hundred lightyears per day, with the drive being tested for the Normandy would be capable of over five hundred, and the Alliance now had access to regions of space the rest of the Council did not.
Hence why they could afford to construct a vessel fifteen hundred meters long almost entirely out of the newly invented titanium A, and still produce enough that three admirals were now considering refitting ships in their fleet with the new armor plating.
"I don't think retro fitting frigates are justifiable, this armor plating is heavy, and a frigate's number one defense is its maneuverability," Kahoku reasoned, "but this stuff would really increase the staying power of our cruisers and carriers. I know for sure I want the Hawking fitted with this stuff."
Shepard had her own point to make, "Carriers and Dreadnoughts could handle the weight of two meters of this armor plating, heavy cruisers could probably take one and a half, but light cruisers are under powered, stand up fights are not their forte."
"You're both forgetting about fighters," Mikhailovich pointed out, "Only thirty five percent of our frigates losses in both the First Contact War, and actions against pirates since then, are against other capital ships. Fighters have always been the best counter against aggressive wolf pack tactics, its why we have at least one carrier in every fleet."
The Rear Admiral pointed at the vidscreen showing the results for the first test, "This stuff is nearly impervious to modern fighter weapons. These will keep our frigates in the fight, which will help keep our cruisers in the fight."
"You don't have to decide right now, and this is hardly the last showcase the shipyards have for us," Hackett said, putting an end to the current debate, "You may decide you'd rather blow your budget on shiny new MAC guns for your cruisers than armor for your frigates."
"A MAC cannon would also require those new pinch fusion reactors, that's more than a month of drydock for each ship," Mikhailovich shook his head, "No thanks."
Shepard smiled, "You may change your mind when you see what even the 'Light' MAC can do."
…
Emile racked the slide on his shotgun, ejecting a steaming hot thermal clip and loading another one into the heat sink of what Corporal Jenkins liked to call "The Sledgehammer".
BOOM!
A batarian's chest imploded under the awesome power of the eight gauge mass accelerator's tungsten pellets, and his fellow slavers behind him were sprayed with the foul red innards of their friend. Noble Four's shields sparked as a few of them managed to retain enough wits to return fire, but it was too late for them.
The Spartan surged forward, racking another thermal clip as he did so, and shoulder checked a four eyed freak into the steel walls of the prefab shelter serving as the pirate's anti air control. The squint's hardsuit cracked under the force of Emile's shoulder, and the back of his head split when it smashed against the shiny gray surface, denting the steel and staining the wall with blood and gray matter, even as Sledgehammer lined up with its next target.
BOOM!
A barefaced turian's head disappeared into a fine blue mist that spread from his squirting neck to the far wall of the command module.
The final two occupants of the control center were fumbling with their weapons, one batarian was trying to get his rifle to unfold, an effort that was cut short as a wicked, curved knife buried its blade right between all four eyes. The final pirate, a vorcha armed with nothing but a broom and what looked like gun that had its heat sinks removed, charged him with its ineffectual weapons, to which the Merciless Wrath of Noble simply reached out with his right hand, grabbed the smaller alien by the neck, and squeezed.
With his left hand, Emile brought up the controls to the four AA guns surrounding the entrance to the slaver complex on Torfan. What would appear from orbit like a medium sized bunkers protected by some serious firepower had been confirmed by Alliance Intelligence operatives and seismic scans to be an entrance point to a vast complex of tunnels and underground bunkers capable of holding thousands of slavers and pirates, and potentially tens of thousands of slaves.
It wasn't filled to capacity with living merchandise, Emile, Kaidan Alenko, and Richard Jenkins had seen to that on Elysium, though from the news reports through the Alliance you'd have thought the other two weren't even there, but there were definitely enough slaves to warrant the three light cruisers with empty cargo holds in orbit.
Emile had insisted he could board the cruisers and take out the AA guns, and Captain Ryder had agreed that the Spartan certainly could, but for the sake of expediency, Ryder would take his N7 team and board the cruisers, while Emile took one of the brand new SOEIV pods down to the surface and infiltrated the slaver's base. While he was hoofing it the seven kilometers to the base, Ryder had reported that the cruisers were empty of cargo, followed by flashes lighting up the small moon's sky as the 3rd fleet jumped in and promptly tore into the cruisers and their frigate escort.
Even now, the last of the Hegemony ships were breaking up in Torfan's thin atmosphere as the Alliance secured orbital supremacy.
The four AA guns had fairly wide arcs, allowing them to target the ground if they were needed to repel a ground assault, which was one reason Ryder had elected to send Emile on his own rather than allow Major Kyle to land a ground team to assault the entrance. It also happened to be the reason all four guns were able to aim at each other.
Heavy thudding outside the command module indicated the guns opening up, and the following explosions confirming their destruction right as the prefab shelter filled with red light and klaxons started going off.
"Making friends?" his comm crackled to life inside his skull faced helmet.
"Putting my best foot forward, Shepard," Noble Four responded as he checked up on the vorcha in his right hand only to find that the alien had adapted to breathe through flaps in its chest than through its mouth.
The Spartan rolled his eyes as he squeezed his right hand harder and jerked his elbow, the crunch of bone coinciding with his follow up report, "AA guns are offline."
"I see that, I'm bringing Tokyo over target and launching drop pods, you'll be taking command of them. Major Kyle wants you to establish a beach head inside the bunker."
The airlock to the command module cycled and the door opened, revealing a two vorcha, three batarians, and a massive krogan who was roiling in the ebony blue energies of biotics.
"Be advised, ETA on the drop pods is two minutes, might want to hunker down cause I think you're about to get real popular."
The red crested krogan roared and surged forward, sending a ball of blue energy at the Spartan, who intercepted it by flinging the dead vorcha still in his right hand as his left grabbed the handle of his secondary melee weapon.
"I'm always popular, Shepard," Noble Four replied easily as he slipped under an ebon hued fist and head butted one of the vorcha that had been hot on the heels of the large lizard.
The bulletproof glass easily crushed the ugly alien's weird forehead and reminded the creature that all the instantaneous adaptation in the world was useless in the face of a splattered brain. The second vorcha raised its shotgun, some rusted piece of crap that somehow had received enough maintenance to work, and unloaded a shot into Emile's shields. It was instantly rewarded with a back hand that snapped its neck and sent its body into the air and smashing into the two batarians still at the airlock door.
A roar from behind him reminded the Spartan that he still had an angry lizard to deal with.
Eight hundred pounds of scales and fury smashed into the super soldier, forcing him off balance and allowing the krogan to get his biotics ready for another strike. The blue energies sent Emile over the edge and tumbling to the floor, and it was only inhuman grace and athleticism that allowed Noble Four to turn the fall into a roll that saw him come to his feet in time to intercept the krogan warlord's second charge.
The red crest swirled with dark energy as the reptile bore down on the Spartan, bloodlust and eagerness for a good fight rattling around its mind, its dark green eyes focused on the skulled visage of its target. Which was probably why it didn't see the hammer coming.
A battle trophy from Elysium, taken from a truly ancient krogan battlemaster who had, according to itself, sought an end worthy of Aralakh. Emile wasn't sure if it got what it wanted, crying and begging for mercy after having its head plate ripped off and legs shattered didn't seem like a death krogan would respect, but he wasn't the expert on lizard culture.
While its former owner may have died in misery, the hammer was far from miserable in the hands of the superhumanly strong and superhumanly fast Spartan III super soldier.
The biotic krogan's teeth shattered and flew from its wide mouth, its jaw bone powdered under the force of Noble Four's blow, and blood poured from its nostrils, eyes, and ears as the power behind the strike caused blood vessels throughout the creatures head to rupture. By some miracle, it managed to stay on its feet, even if it staggered over to the control console and had to lean on it to steady itself. Confusion born of head trauma caused the krogan to turn around to regard Emile again, something he took instant advantage of, and found that the red headplate was no match for the ancient and powerful hammer.
"Must be your animal magnetism."
Emile snatched The Sledgehammer from the control console and turned it on the two batarians who had only now recovered from having vorcha corpse thrown at them, "It's my first impressions, Commander…"
BOOM!
"I just blow them away."
…
The Sledgehammer thundered again as it filled the tight corridor with ferric tungsten pellets, shredding a vorcha and a turian pirate with ease and splattering their mixed fluids across the rocky surface of the tunnel.
"Corporal, push forward!" Emile barked to the trooper behind him.
Corporal Vega had been one of the ten drop troopers that had helped him secure a beach head inside the bunker. His sergeant had been the first casualty, along with the other corporal, leading to the Spartan needing to rely on Corporal James Vega to help him keep a handle on his squad. Kid had done a good job, but the fighting in these tunnels was brutal, even for the certified badasses who elected to jump from orbit riding a coffin, and casualties had been high, especially after Major Kyle had arrived and they started pushing deeper into the complex.
The thick trooper moved past the Spartan, the three surviving drop troopers following close behind, and stuck his N7 Crusader into the open door, followed by three muted booms as the trooper dropped whoever was in that room.
"Fronts clear!" Vega barked as he pressed deeper into he room.
"Left side clear!"
"Right sid- Oh FUCK!"
Gunfire filled the room and Emile spared a moment to check his motion tracker as he continued to suppress the pirates coming down the hallway. A red marker had appeared on the right side of the room, likely a slaver pretending to be dead or hiding behind something, and had chosen that moment to find its courage and attack the marines.
"Right side clear," Vega shouted, "God Fucking Dammit! Jason's down, four to the chest, ripped right through his barriers."
"Finish clearing and lets press on," Noble Four ordered, "We'll come back for his body but right now we need to push forward."
The remaining three troopers pushed out of the room, adding the fire of their Crusaders to the Spartan's, quickly forcing the squints back deeper into the tunnels. Vega moved to take point with Emile, their shotguns clearing away any resistance in the tight tunnels.
"Keep an eye on our six!" the super soldier ordered the other two troopers, "We don't know if they can circle around us."
Tungsten pellets and hyperdense slugs continued to shred batarians, vorcha, and even the occasional varren as the four man squad continued to press towards their objective, what electronic warfare specialists in the fleet above had designated the leader of these slavers. The orders didn't sit particularly well with Emile, Major Kyle had told him to take the commander of the enemy forces alive, hopefully to negotiate some sort of exchange, the slaves for the commander. That was about as likely to work as asking the Covenant to politely stop glassing human worlds. Pirates and slavers didn't care about their commanders, they only followed a specific commander because they put together the plan and put up the money to get things rolling, once they had their hands on slaves, they didn't care one bit what happened to their commander, or each other, or anything, as long as the slaves got sold and they got paid.
"Corporal, clear that room!" the Spartan barked as he punched the metal slab acting as a door down and turned to eviscerate another four eyed freak as it moved up to try and stop them.
Vega led the other two troopers into the room while Emile kept his eyes on his motion tracker, hoping to catch any further surprises. The four red dots inside the room were quickly reduced to three, though the two holding at the corner of the corridor was about to turn into six. The Spartan set about to fix that second problem, slipping a high explosive grenade from his bandolier, popping the pin, counting to four, and tossing it to the intersection.
Screams filled the air as the explosion died down and Noble Four tucked his head into the room, "What's the problem? Kill that fucking squint and lets go!"
"Commander," Vega replied hesitantly, "I think this is our guy?"
"You think?"
The broad trooper shrugged, his black shoulder pauldrons scraping against his black chest plate with the movement, "I can't tell one squint from the next, but he's wearing Hegemony armor, and he's got the rank of Prefect."
The sound of footsteps brought Emile's attention back to his motion tracker and the swarm of red dots coming their way, "Check his omnitool then, you two, get out here, rifles out!"
Vega threw a right cross to the batarian, slammed his head on the table, and activated the slaver's omnitool. The other two troopers came up, Crusaders folding up on their back and M8 Avengers unfolding in their arms. The super soldier pulled a smoke grenade from his belt at the same time he slapped the Sledgehammer onto his back.
"Thermals."
The red dots were approaching the intersection, though they'd find nothing but a thick cloud of dark smoke in the already dim hallways. And bullets.
The Avengers weren't terribly powerful, or awfully accurate, but they were simple, reliable, and they killed. Two blotchy red shapes went down in a spray of sand grain sized projectiles, the ultra small, ultra light projectiles not depositing much energy into their flesh, but there weren't many organic creatures that enjoyed five needles flying through their body at Mach 20. Except for krogan, but Emile had something special for the one lumbering brute pushing past his falling comrades.
The MA5 Heavy Coilgun drowned out its own electric whine of the electromagnetic coils surrounding the barrel with the thunderous blast of 150 grain .30 caliber steel rounds accelerated to five thousand feet per second. The personal kinetic barrier of the giant lizard stood no chance, as the first two projectiles easily overpowered the mass effect field. The armor might as well have not even been there, as the true advantage of the much beefier bullet plowed through the plating and its greater heft allowed the round to maintain its momentum and shred through the thick scales, tough muscle, hard bones, and vulnerable organs.
The heavy reptile was staggered immediately by the powerful round that had shredded its guts, but krogan weren't galaxy renowned for being tough to kill for nothing, and redundant organs and a massive dose of adrenaline kicked in and the lizard went into a blood rage. Or it would have, if another four 7.62 millimeter rounds punched through the creature's chest and hump, cutting down both hearts and eviscerating all three lungs.
Emile switched his target to one of the few turians to be found amongst the slavers and blew his chest wide open with a three round burst, "Vega, how you doing in there?"
The trooper came out, shoving a cuffed batarian in front of him, "It's him, let's go!"
The Spartan addressed the other two troopers, "Stagger fire, cover each other's retreat, Corporal, I'll take point, keep our VIP low."
"Human scum," the thing tried to say as Vega immediately prostrated the four eyed freak and began pushing him back towards where they came.
"When this is all over, you'll get to live," Emile promised him, "Nice and comfortably, missing all four eyes. This I promise you. LET'S PUSH, TROOPERS!"
The MA5 roared again through the dark tunnels.
…
Shepard rubbed her temples as she tried to make sense of the situation on the ground. Or under it, rather.
"What's happening, Major, the fleet can't support you if we don't know what you need us to do."
The hysterical voice of Major Kyle came through the comms of the Tokyo, Captain Anderson looking on with a frown at the tactical display, "We have to pull out, I need frigates down here to pick us up!"
Keeping the line closed on their end, Jane looked up at her Captain, "Sir, the situation down there in no way necessitates pulling out, we're well within our predicted timetable."
Anderson nodded, "Get the Lieutenant Commander on the line, I want Emile's take on this, I'll handle Major Kyle."
The redhead nodded, "Yes, sir," and slipped on a comms headset and keyed up the Spartan's ID.
Gunfire filled her ears, muffling whatever the Captain was saying to Major Kyle, followed by a few explosions and finally, a grunt, "Commander A239, here."
"Commander, what's your status?"
The thundering roar of what had to be that sweet new rifle of his filled the line again, "Holding the western tunnel, waiting on orders from Major Kyle to push forward, I've got marines scouting out slave pens, causing havoc, keeping the Hegemony forces from regrouping and counter attacking."
"Pirate forces, Commander," Jane reminded the Spartan, though she herself more than agreed with the sentiment, "What's your estimation of the tactical situation, Commander?"
"If we don't push soon, we're gonna lose a lot more people than we need too," came the honest response, punctuated by another burst of gunfire, "but we have the advantage, the… "pirates" are on the back foot, we push them now, they'll route hard. Give them time to put themselves together, they'll dig in and fight a hell of a lot harder."
That was inline with what seismic and thermals were telling them, "Major Kyle just tried to call a retreat, he's asking us to bring in the fleet to pull everyone out."
"Oh you've gotta be fucking kidding me," the muttering came through the headset, "That stupid squint commander he told us to go capture threatened the Major when we brought it to him, started saying the others would gas the slaves if we didn't retreat."
"You think they'll do it?"
"What's it matter?"
"What's it matter? Emile those are innocent people down there in those pens, we're not here to facilitate murder!"
A snort was punctuated by the sound of a grenade going off, "I'm here to kill squints, Lieutenant Commander. So are plenty of other marines here, and I'll do it myself if I have too."
Anderson was waving for her attention, so Jane slipped the headset off, "The Major told me the pirates are planning on gassing the slaves."
"Commander A239 confirmed that, sir," the redhead reported, "He also thinks now is the time to push, that the pirates will route, but if we let them dig in, they'll be that much more difficult root out."
The Captain sighed, "I hate to say this, but the Commander's dead right."
Shepard frowned, "Sir, they'll kill all those slaves down there…"
"They're dead either way, this is the only way to save marine lives. And who knows, maybe the infamous Spartan of Elysium can beat the batarians to the punch," David paused, his eyes looking at something not in the CIC of the Tokyo, and sighed, "This is war, Shepard, casualties are inevitable. Give Emile the order, he's in command now."
In spite of the growing pit in her stomach, Jane slid the headset back on her head, "Commander, Major Kyle has been relieved of his command, you are now in command of all Alliance ground forces."
There was no response over the headset, instead the battlenet lit up as the super soldier started barking orders, "Third platoon you're pushing in! Ripper squad, Falcon squad, your priority is squints, kill the fuck out of them!"
"Ooh Rah!"
"Viking squad, you will secure Ripper and Falcon's six and keep all lines of retreat back to the bunker open."
"Yes, Commander."
"Saber squad you will follow Viking squad, but your priority is the slaves. Squints gonna try and gas em, so helmets on, bring any extra oxygen you got and get as many out as possible. First Platoon will hold this line across both tunnels."
"Sir, yes sir!"
"Eastern tunnel, I'm on my way, ammo check, shield check, nut check, it's gonna be bloody!"
Already the IFF's of the marine's Emile had called out were carrying out his orders. Clearly this was a plan the Spartan had been thinking through even as he was under fire, even communicate it to the Lieutenants of both Third and First Platoon, as well as filter those orders down to the sergeants, or in the cases of some that had suffered casualties, the corporals.
Ripper and Falcon were already splitting off into the two tunnels, pushing against the dozens of red thermal dots trying to give resistance, but Emile had been correct, the slavers were disoriented and on the back foot. They had been gathering themselves, they were moving in squads and fireteams whereas before they had been moving individually and out of order, but they still weren't complimenting each other. When one squad opened up a front against Alliance marines, another squad would blunder in and get caught in the crossfire, where a truly organized force would have had the second squad flank the marines and cut them down.
Viking squad was pushing up behind the two squads, having split into fireteams to keep with both Ripper and Falcon, and were mopping up any surviving pirates from the other two squads' rampage. Saber was already making a push for the slave pens, the way having been cleared by Falcon.
"No gas detected," Saber squad's sergeant said over his team comms, which still routed back through to the Tokyo, "Still, check your seals, we don't know how any gas would get released, or when they might try and release it."
Across the bunker, Second Platoon was quickly forming into lines. The Eastern tunnels had taken heavier losses than the Western ones, thanks mostly to the fact they weren't being commanded by a super soldier who could single handedly lay low entire armies. Now, however, they had the advantage, a true tip of the spear, as the IFF for Commander Emile A239 led the way into the tunnels.
…
The Sledgehammer tore another four eyed freak in half. Emile then shoved the shotguns stock into the gut of another slaver, completely caving the armor there and rupturing the important, but not particularly vital organs there. It was going to take that squint hours to die, broken, bleeding internally, and unable to even stand to get medical attention.
Good.
Another resounding BOOM from the Sledgehammer heralded another eviscerated pirate. Marines poured in around him, mopping up on the squints and the few vorcha left. It had been hard fighting, and a full third of Second Platoon had been wiped out, but the end line wasn't just in sight, they were here. Third Platoon had reported in a few minutes ago that the western tunnels were theirs, Ripper joined Saber in getting slaves out, and Falcon had joined Viking in mopping up and clearing out anyone trying to play hide and seek.
Now Second Platoon had reached the end of the eastern tunnels. Emile had ordered First Platoon to dispatch Razor and Shark squads to reinforce Second Platoon in the clean up efforts, and getting the former slaves out of their pens and up to the surface bunkers.
Speaking of slaves, they were a sorry state. The majority were humans, recently taken in the Skyllian Blitz, but there were a few asari mixed in there. The occasional salarian had been reported, though Emile hadn't laid eyes on one yet, but it was the sight a marine called his attention too that really took the cake.
Female turians, naked, hands and feet bound, bent over and tied to platforms that only had one conceivable use, to force female turians into optimal breeding positions. Looking around the room, these were obviously quarters for some of the turian pirates that the batarians had employed.
"I mean," the marine who had called the Spartan over started, shaking his head, "Where'd they even get them? I've never seen a female turian in my life, except on vids. I can't imagine there were many in Alliance space."
"Fuck," another marine whispered just loudly enough for everyone to hear, "I think one of those sick freaks had a human fetish…"
When the Spartan walked over to where the marine was looking and found a naked human female. Young, in her late teens, maybe early twenties, brown hair, sharp cheeks, full lips, hourglass figure. If it weren't for the claw marks from a depraved turian's talons running down her back and front, she'd belong on a poster in a marine's locker. Unfortunately the only place she could go now, was into a body bag.
"Its not unusual for batarians to do this shit," the first marine said lowly, looking sideways at the Spartan as he took in the room and all its depravity and horror, "I'm sure more than a few human women we freed here today had been raped by the batarians here, but this… they've been kept like this for days… weeks maybe. I had no idea turians even knew that this kind of shit was possible."
Emile left the room, marched over to a squint corpse slumped against the wall of the corridor, and yanked his kukri from its chest. Blade in hand, and with a few flicks of his wrist to clear the blood, the Merciless Wrath of Noble Team marched back into the chambers and swung the wicked blade.
The first female he freed fell to the floor, exhaustion and atrophy keeping the turian woman from being able to stand. She had been bound the longest, likely, and if the Alliance hadn't shown up, likely the next of this group to die.
The second one also couldn't stand, though this time it was grief and agony that kept her from being able to move much beyond a poor attempt at covering whatever parts of her anatomy turians thought private.
The third collapsed as well, though when Emile cut the last of the bindings, rather than flop like a fish, she lunged for the human woman, grabbing the pale, naked body and clutching it closer, only taking her talons off the corpse to rip the gag from her mouth. It was with this motion that the super soldier noticed something draped around the turian's neck, something familiar, something that brought old and painful memories to the front of his mind.
"Maria," the avian alien choked out, no doubt the dehydration combined with the dry gag used on her not helping her speak.
The still naked turian woman pulled the human corpse closer to her, holding the body close and looking down on the bruised and battered face of the dead girl, whatever tears her dehydrated alien physiology could produce and took the beaded necklace off her neck, placed it in the human body's hands, clasped her own talons over them, and began drily whispering.
"Commander."
The Spartan was torn away from an eerily familiar sight to the only drop trooper to have survived the battle, "Corporal Vega, report."
"The gas… uh…" the trooper slowly looked at the three naked turians, "That squint commander wasn't… wasn't bluffing."
Noble Four nodded, even as he heard the turian struggle to remember the words that were coming unbidden to his own mind, "How many dead?"
Vega shook his head, seemingly both to refute his point and clear his head of his shock at the state of the room, "They didn't have time to release it, we were too quick for 'em. If we'd have waited, there'd be a lot more people dead…"
The Hispanic soldier cocked his head at the turian clutching the human woman, "Is that a rosary?"
The avian alien looked up, agony etched upon her face, and rasped at the pair, "Please. The words. Do you know the words? The order? Mariah… she tried to teach me, to give me hope, but… but I can't remember what to do!"
Against his will, or perhaps without his will's knowledge, Emile leaned down and gently held the crucifix on the rosary and words came from his lips as memories from a world that had long ago burned, both from Covenant energy projectors and from the training he had received upon Onyx, danced in front of his mind's eye.
His hand made a sign across his chest and he quietly, but audibly to the alien, the alien, woman next to him, began to pray, "I believe in God, the Father Almighty…"
The words of the Apostle's Creed spilled from his mouth, even as he noticed the turian next to him repeat his words quietly, "Creator of Heaven and Earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord."
Memories of repeating these words on a wooden pew with a kind and warm woman, his mother, he realized, and a stern but caring man, his father, flooded his consciousness, "He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, and born of the Virgin Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried."
The second turian woman he had freed had crawled over, clutching at both the dead woman, and Emile's shoulder pauldron, ignoring the fact it was covered in the gore and viscera of several different species, "He descended to the dead. On the third day, He rose again. He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again to judge the living and the dead."
Both women were shaking as their bodies were wracked by tearless sobs, the one who still held part of the rosary not even bothering to try and repeat the words anymore.
"I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of Saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen."
"Amen," the two turians rasped out as he finished.
In his mind, Emile watched his small, boyish hands move to the first large bead, even as his bloody, gauntleted fingers gently as could be did the same before his eyes, "Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name; Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."
The younger woman leaned her head on his shoulder, her talons moving to touch the bead his fingers were grasping, "Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."
"Amen," all three spoke at once.
Emile could feel his mother's soft skin on his forearm and his father's large hand on his shoulder as they spoke the prayers with him, just as he could feel the pressure through his armor's gel layer the two aliens shake in their grief and pain.
The first of three small beads were next.
"Hail, Mary, full of grace; the Lord is with thee; blessed art though among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death."
"Amen," this time Vega joined in, still cradling his Crusader, but now with his helmet off.
The four worked their way through the rosary, Emile's memories of family long since dead and church long since glassed leading the way, saying the next two Hail Mary's, then speaking the Glory be to the Father, even going so far as to asking Vega what day it was, so they could announce the proper mystery. It was Friday, so the Sorrowful mysteries it was, highly appropriate in retrospect. Then they went through the five decades, the marines outside understanding enough to give the four the silence and distance they needed as they loaded up the first freed turian woman, who was far too out of it to do anything until she received medical attention. By the time they were finished, the two women who had stayed with them, whispering along with the Spartan, had stopped sobbing and shaking, and seemed to have said their goodbyes to the human woman who had clearly made such an impact on them.
As they synchronized their final "Amen", the heavily injured woman closed her eyes and fell limp against the armored form of super soldier. She was breathing, and her heart beat was steady, if faint, so she wasn't dead, but she did need medical attention.
"Get her on her feet," Emile ordered the corporal, "We'll come back for the body."
Standing to his feet, unconscious woman in his arms, for the briefest of moments, he couldn't see how alien she was, how inhuman. All he could see was the frail form of someone who needed help…
…
"You saved a lot of lives down there, kid," Ryder had cornered him in the armory of the Tokyo as the Spartan was stocking up on thermal clips for his Sledgehammer and charging the incorporated batteries the magazines for the MA5 used to power the rails for each bullet in the magazine.
Emile shrugged, the tight fitting fatigues straining to accommodate the movement of the giant human, "Just here to shoot pirates."
The older man snorted with a smirk, "Did a hell of a lot more than that. You kept the ground forces together. Even if they had convinced Major Kyle to push the attack we'd probably be looking at fifty, sixty percent casualties, but with you? We have twenty, maybe twenty five percent casualties? Not perfect, but this was never going to be an easy fight. You did as good a job as any commander could have hoped."
"If you say so, sir."
"I do say so."
The old man looked at him with serious eyes for a few seconds before softening his gaze, "Those three turian women down in the medbay have been asking for you."
"Don't got anything to say."
"Then go listen," Alec said gently.
"That an order, sir?"
"Does it have to be? I know you have bad history with aliens," Emile's green eyes pierced him with a ferocious glare, to which the old N7 raised his hands defensively, "but I heard about what happened down there. You've made a lot of progress today, I just don't want to see you sink back down into that pit of anger again. The turians didn't do anything to you, and certainly nothing to humans on the scale of what the Covenant did."
Superhumanly powerful hands clenched down on the case holding thermal clips, bending and rending the metal of the case, "You don't have a fucking clue what you're talking about… sir."
Uncowed by the vulgar language, nor the clear anger building inside the man who, if he wished, could tear Ryder's head off his body with his bare hands, Alec put his own hand on the padded Kevlar shoulder of the Spartan's fatigues, "Just give them a chance, Emile. Like you gave Lieutenant Alenko a chance, like you gave Corporal Jenkins and Corporal Vega a chance. You might be surprised."
…
Jane was eating with some of the engineering crew, talking through the performances of the Tokyo's new reactor in the orbital battle around mouthfuls of steak and eggs. It was technically morning, according to the ship's clock, but with the battle only having concluded a scant six hours ago, the normal crew shifts were all off. Hence steak and eggs for breakfast.
Apparently the new reactor was getting more out of their mass effect core than they could have ever dreamed. The more efficient and powerful reactors were able to power kinetic barriers on par with a small dreadnought even though their element zero core was half the size, and drastically increased the cruiser's speed in combat. The two months in drydock had clearly been worth it if the cruiser could now keep up with frigates and withstand shots meant for a ship nearly twice their size.
She was just asking about possible uses for the more powerful reactor and how it allowed them to more efficiently use their mass effect core, when the six foot eight inch, three hundred and fifteen pound frame of Commander Emile A239 ghosted along the edge of the crew deck, heading towards the medbay.
As far as Shepard was aware, the Commander hadn't been injured. His armor wasn't exactly impervious, but it was lightyears more durable than even the new Drop Trooper Corps BDU which had set a new standard for frontline soldier's armor and shields. Combine that with nearly perfect combat instincts and battle knowledge and the Spartan was rarely ever hit.
So why was he headed towards the medbay?
Excusing herself, Jane moved towards the door of the medbay after Emile had entered and paused. Was she going to interrupt something private? Was he visiting one of the wounded marines? Maybe he had a checkup scheduled and she'd walk in on him half naked. Of course the thought of that absolute beefcake shirtless nearly had her surging through the door, but modesty held her back still. Steeling herself for something embarrassing, or worse, something incredibly private, she entered, for her curiosity would not be denied.
The giant man was standing in the far corner of the large medbay, past rows upon rows of sleeping or dozing marines who had been injured bad enough down on the surface to warrant their current stay. The three beds he was standing next to were actually in the area reserved for the former slaves that had been in critical condition. Most received triage down in the cargo bay, but some required special care, and perhaps none more so than the three dextro aliens Emile was standing in front of.
They were speaking, or at least, the turians were. Their eyes were shiny, though as far as Jane was aware the avian aliens couldn't cry quite like humans or asari could. One in particular was animated, and the Lieutenant Commander could hear the resonant tones of a turian voice, though her translator couldn't quite pick them up.
Emile must have replied, his lips moved at least, and the youngest, or what Shepard assumed was the youngest, held out something in one taloned hand, which the super soldier took quietly, and with a small nod before turning towards Jane and quickly marching for her.
"You always spy on the patients, Shepard?" he asked quietly as they both turned and walked out the door.
"I saw you walk into the medbay and I knew you hadn't been injured, I was curious," she said as she looked down at his hand and the beaded necklace within, "I didn't know you were into jewelry, but I guess I can see you as a necklace guy."
"S'not a necklace," the huge man murmured, "You're not s'posed to wear it."
The redhead cocked an eyebrow, "Then what do you do with it?"
"It's a rosary, you pray with it."
Jane stopped, her eyes scrunching and her mouth opening slightly, "I didn't know you were religious."
Emile also stopped, if only for the barest of moments, and looked over his shoulder back at the medbay, "Me neither."
…
In the far rim of the Sol system, deep in the Oort cloud where building materials could be easily harvested and easily transported to, a massive titanium structure floated in the void. The one and a half kilometer long beast was completely dark until… suddenly… it wasn't.
Bright lights came on inside, and viewports brightened. Massive fusion drives started a dim, dark blue, before rapidly burning brighter and brighter, until their center was white hot and the rim was a pleasant bright blue. Finally, spot lights along a flat spot on the hull turned on, revealing white lettering.
"Pinch fusion reactor active, power holding steady at three percent. Ladies and Gentlemen, the first Valiant Class Battleship The Biggest Stick, can now start Phase Four of construction."
Yes yes yes, I'm late as fuck. I know. I'm sorry, and I can't promise I'm back for good, but with Infinite coming out, excitement for Halo hit me, and I went back and played Reach and started reading Halopedia and here I am, 8500 words later. What can I say, inspiration struck, even if I actually wanted to write an entire chapter about how I think a proper integration of Halo and Mass Effect technology would work to the benefit of the naval vessels.
I won't divulge all my thoughts, I kind of want to go on a tangent about MAC's vs Mass Accelerators and how halo cruisers appear to generate gigatons of force with their MAC's based on the information given to us about Super Macs and how they can kill three CCS class ships in one shot, but I'll try and do that in story, maybe in the next chapter, maybe not. Maybe I won't write another chapter for another two years. Who knows.
I would like to talk about armor, and about how all armor in ME appears to be useless except against energy weapons and mass accelerators that are not capital ship grade. Like even this super dreadnought the geth have in ME3 is just a sitting duck without barriers, and its not like the cannons the quarian fleet are sporting on their heavy fleet are heavy hitters, but they just zip right through the armor on that super big ship.
The only reason I can think is that when you are using mass effect fields to make your ship move, then you can't afford the mass heavy armor provides, unless you can provide the thrust conventionally to move your vessel the way it needs to. That's why I talked about the new reactors made based on UNSC tech in conjunction with Titanium A. I know ME ships probably won't be able to slap on 2.5 meters of Titanium A and be able to go anywhere, regardless of new and improved reactors making their engines more powerful, but I still think some Titanium A armor would be a major upgrade to just about any Alliance ship, particularly considering that the cruisers the UNSC used were basically impervious to smaller UNSC ships with no shields, just armor. Too bad the Covenant weren't flying in Charon class frigates.
Another benefit of more powerful reactors, would be the greater yield of the mass effect cores of ME ships. I mean Reapers don't appear to have very large mass effect cores, based on the one we see in ME2. I mean it looks smaller than Normandy SR1's mass effect core. So they must be able to get more out of their cores with more efficient and more powerful power generation, which is an advantage the UNSC clearly has over the Alliance and the rest of the ME universe.
So that means more powerful barriers, probably even faster conventional FTL, and maybe, but I don't really know, more powerful mass accelerators.
As far as slip space in this chapter, I want to go deeper into it, but I didn't know how to fit it into this chapter without just a giant text block, which I half did anyway, but I want to avoid as much paragraph exposition as possible. I'm not even a huge fan of dialogue exposition, despite how I used it in the first part of the chapter, especially if all the characters talking should already know that information.
The new MA5 coilgun is not a mass accelerator, it's a true rail gun. I'll describe it more in the next chapter, but basically I hate the description for how ME guns work, because the physics are all off and don't make much sense. So I'm bringing in futuristic versions of UNSC weapons to arm my favorite spartan and the rest of the Normandy crew with.
One question before I'm out of here. Pairing for this story? I'm firmly a Talimancer, she is the best gal in all of Mass Effect. The best gal in just about any sci fi, though The Weapon in Infinite do be looking pretty adorable, even if she is a computer program. But does Emile/Tali make sense? Probably not. I could get this story to that point, but it would take a long time and lots of character interactions before we are there, which isn't a bad thing, but it would be easier to do something like Emile/Femshep, or Emile/Kasumi, or even Emile/Jack.
What do you guys think?