Chapter 10 – All the way to Kansas
January 24th, 2211, 0028 hours – Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 12, Pedestrian Corridor 3C – Elevator G
7 hours and 28 minutes after Outbreak
The doors slid open to reveal a trio of Corpser's milling in the middle of the corridor. In unison they turned towards us and snarled, their angry red eyes flashing brightly as they spotted new prey.
Cade and I both brought our rifles up and each put a burst right between the eyes of two of the Corpsers, snapping their heads back and knocking them dead on their asses. I noted with pleasure that I had been maybe a quarter of a second faster on the draw then my turian compatriot had been. He probably had noticed it as well, if the annoyed glance he shot at my direction was any indication.
Accer put a slightly longer burst from his silenced SMG into the chest area of the last Corpser, but nonetheless succeeded in killing it as well, choosing to fire an additional burst into its head once it had fallen to doubly ensure that it was dead. Soon the Corpsers began to convulse, their stomachs rippling and twisting as their resident Crawlers decided to make their appearance.
Teewin gave a lazy sweep with his Revenant, tearing them to bits and pieces with a long, sloppy burst. Judging from the pin-up girl stenciled onto his chest-plate and the most definitely non-regulation happy-face stickers he used as kill markers adhered to his helmet, the big marine was definitely one of the more laidback Jaegers that I'd had the pleasure of meeting. I bit back a lecture that had sprung up on instinct after witnessing his half-assed mop-up of the Crawlers. If he had been good enough to pass Jaeger training and remain under the command of Captain Murgen, I would give the marine the benefit of the doubt. Murgen had considered him one of his best, and I trusted his judgment.
"We're off the elevator, Percival. We're moving to your location now," I radioed to my friend. Cade gestured for the marines to form up in a diamond pattern while he took point. I fell in behind my friend and readied my borrowed Valkyrie. Teewin and Accer both took our left and right flanks and together we started down the corridor.
"Sounds good, we're at the lounge now and holding it. Marines and civilians are all intact, what's your ETA?" Percival keyed back through his comms. set.
I brought up the maps on my omni-tool and gave them a quick eyeball. "Judging from the schematics, probably less than 10 minutes barring hostile encounters and setbacks," I told him.
"Sounds good, stay safe," he replied.
"Thanks, give Mardinus and Jay our thanks, and tell Galen that he did good."
"Tell Galen we owe him a dance, or ten," Cade chimed in. Like me he had been very impressed with the way the young marine had helped the other two veteran marines distract the Corpsers as we made our escape. He was quick, possibly as quick as Cade, and still young. With a few more years of experience he'd be one hell of a marine, provided he survived this nightmare. I silently resolved to do my best to ensure that outcome.
Teewin chuckled and rolled his shoulder in an attempt to loosen a knot in his upper back. "I know a place back on the Citadel," he suggested.
Accer scoffed and rolled his eyes. "You know like ten places."
"Yeah, he said ten dances man."
"I'll be sure to tell him, remember, don't do anything stupid, Cade," Percival sternly added before signing off.
Cade sighed and muttered something off-radio about a lack of trust or what-not, prompting the two Jaegers to chuckle quietly. To be fair, in combat scenarios I think Cade actually tended to do the least amount of stupid things. The ratio was probably me, then Percival, and then finally Cade, with about a 50-30-20 split. Out of combat was a whole different ballgame of course.
We marched silently down the corridor. Another Corpser suddenly rounded a corner, snarling animalistically and waving its claws at our direction. This time Accer was first on the draw, putting a burst right into its mouth and killing it. He put another quick burst into its stomach while it was still down, killing the Crawlers inside before they even had a chance to appear. Satisfied, he swapped out the heatsink in his N7 Hurricane and slotted a fresh one in.
"You know, with four special forces operators instead of just two this ship became a whole less scary," Cade whispered to me over our channel.
"I don't think we count," I whispered.
"We need some new shit to shoot. Also did you forget you patched us into your private channel earlier? Accer whispered as well. He turned his helmet to glare at us with what I assumed would be a confused look. I couldn't see through his red visor so I couldn't know for sure.
"Can you also explain why we're all whispering on this channel when we're all wearing full-faced helmets with voice dampeners installed?" Teewin added.
"That is a damn good point," conceded Cade.
Thus ended the four-man comedy show. Thank god.
We stayed quiet for a few minutes after that, choosing to remain focused on covering our designated zones. Something about the two Alliance Jaegers made Cade and I feel and act relatively immature compared to our usual selves. Maybe it was because we were all relatively the same age and in the same stages of our lives. Percival was only a few years older than I was, but he had a family and a kid and at times seemed old beyond his years.
With Rake and his crew, we were once again all roughly in the same age group but the sheer difference in experience had made Cade and I feel way older, causing us both to fall instinctively into a mentor-drill sergeant roll with the marines. Unlike the marines, the two Alliance Jaegers weren't that far off from us in skill and we're much more relatable to us than Percival. These factors had probably caused Cade and I to let loose a little bit.
"So, why do you guys have little white figures on your shoulder armor?" Cade asked, referring to the white knights astride white horses with their lances couched that was painted on every Alliance Jaeger's armor. The silence was still unnerving, special forces or not, and his attempt at conversation seemed to underline just how much it was getting under Cade's scales.
"It's an old tradition, dating back to the formation of the Jaegers," Teewin began.
"Yeah, early on Jaeger armor was made completely black to better camouflage against the backdrop of space. Before grab pods were invented Jaegers basically had to spacewalk from their ships to their targets," Accer continued.
"It was designed that way so that enemy fighter patrols couldn't eyeball them in space, or some dude looking out a window couldn't just spot them and sound the alarm," Teewin explained further.
Cade's subvocals thrummed in curiosity as he listened to their explanation. "So nothing to do with the intimidation factor?"
The young biotic Jaeger let out a sigh. "That was the second half of the problem. When the early Jaegers boarded slave ships, captured slaves would sometimes commit suicide when they saw us. Picture it, a bunch of black-armored soldiers with red visors board your ship and start killing slavers indiscriminately—sometimes you're not gonna decide to just stick around and hope you're not on their list," Accer continued with the story.
Teewin gestured at the slightly-chipped image on his shoulder. "So we started adding them to look a little less intimidating to the people we were trying to save. We made it the de facto symbol for the Jaeger program. We put it up on holo-vids, commercials, even posters on a hundred different worlds. Any slave who has seen one of them and sees this symbol would know that we were there to help."
"We also take a hardline against imposters. If a Jaeger sees a non-Jaeger with one, we tend to go apeshit. It's the equivalent of a fake emergency C-sec call," Accer finished.
Cade quietly assimilated what he had learned. "Damn, I wanted one. They look cool," he lamented.
Both the Alliance Jaegers chuckled. "Jaeger boot camp only takes nine months, they'll probably take you even if you aren't Systems Alliance," Accer assured him.
Cade snorted, "Fat chance, I don't think the Turian Hierarchy cleared cross-recruitment for the Alliance Jaegers with the Systems Alliance yet. Besides, I'm technically still in the Blackwatch."
"Damn, you're Blackwatch? But I thought you were like 25!" Teewin exclaimed.
Cade nodded at him. His subvocals were subtly beginning to interlace his words with a low, keening tone. Any mention of Blackwatch and by extension his family tended to put Cade in a melancholic state of mind.
"Turians start basic training at the age of 15 and believe it or not, what family you're from matters just as much as how well you perform when it comes to what branch of the turian military you're thrown into," Cade began quietly.
Both Jaegers had their helmeted heads cocked in Cade's direction, listening with great interest. The turian military was arguably the strongest in the galaxy, comprised of almost 12 full-sized fleets, nearly 50 dreadnoughts and millions of turian marines and soldiers grouped in legions dating back for more than thirteen millennia. If you consider the fact that every turian citizen has at least six months of basic training followed by six months of specialized training, you'll soon come to realize that when it came down to it, the turians could kick serious ass.
Cade swallowed nervously and scratched at the scalloped plates on his neck. I'd heard this story several times over the years and it always amazed me how much stock the turians put into lineage and tradition. Sure, in other militaries you sometimes saw several officers in the same branch sharing the same last name when a family had had a few generations enlist, but only in the Turian Hierarchy did you see huge military dynasties stretching back almost a thousand years. Unbroken lines of military officers or high-ranking officials dating back to their Unification Wars. Fedorian was such a dynasty, as was Victus, Oraka, Corinthus and Kitiarian.
"A Kitiarian assumed command of the Blackwatch during the Krogan Rebellions almost 1500 years ago and was instrumental in winning that war," Cade began. "Ever since, almost every commander of the Blackwatch has been a Kitiarian, and almost every Kitiarian has been a member of the Blackwatch."
"That's damn cool," Accer broke in.
Cade nodded offhandedly in agreement and continued on. "Anyways, after basic training my commanding officers thought good enough to receive further specialized training as a Ghost Infiltrator. Six months of that and I was thrown into the 26th Armiger Legion to begin my full service."
His mandibles flapped once and he blinked a few times before continuing with his story. "I served for maybe two years gathering both front-line and special operations combat experience before being picked for the Blackwatch."
"I was only about 18 at the time, definitely not the normal recruiting age for Blackwatch, but seeing as I was a Kitiarian they let it slide."
"My sister had already been serving in the Blackwatch for some number of years and she had the commander's ear. She put in a good word for me and made sure that I got as much experience operating in a Blackwatch unit as possible."
"I must have been damn good," Cade said with a hint of pride, "Because not long after that I was put into the commander's team. That was just about when the Palaven Rebellions began."
"And Galen mentioned that at some point the Blackwatch commander went rogue right?" Teewin asked him.
"Yeah, he did. And well, the rest of it I'd rather not talk about boys, at least not while sober," Cade finished wryly.
"So why do Barthilus and Verus practically kiss the very ground you walk on, while Mardinus looks at you like you ran over his dog" Accer asked. The dichotomy between the two parties and the way they treated Cade had obviously not been lost on anyone.
"Let's just say that the two things turians cherish more than duty to the Hierarchy is your duty to your family and the word of your commanding officer," Cade cryptically stated. His mandibles flashed once and then retracted tight against his jaw—a cultural expression that indicated that one did not wish to speak any further about a certain subject.
That put an end to the conversation much to the dismay of the two Jaegers. We were likely the first Spectres they had ever worked with, and Cade was probably one of the closest things the galaxy had to a war hero aside from Percival. Factor in that he was a war hero for a whole other species and it was easy to see why the two marines were so curious about the young turian.
Accer turned to me next, "And what about you, Cloud? How'd you end up with being given a Council license to do whatever you want? Were you Systems Alliance?"
I shook my head. "Everyone always assumes that, and my answer is always no," I told him.
"So, you gonna share or what?" He pressed further.
"Some other time," I promised.
Teewin and Accer both turned to direct their curiosity towards me. I withered a bit under their gaze but nonetheless held my mouth shut. Some things were better off not known.
Cade obviously did not feel the way that I did, because next thing you know his big, stupid mouth was open again and flapping away. I could always count on my boy.
"I don't know why you're always so reluctant to share your story," he admonished me, "Take some pride at where you started and at where you are now, Spirits know you've earned the right, my friend."
"So what's his damn story?" Accer asked.
"Percival and I found him on Omega, stripping at Afterlife," he chuckled, referencing the infamous club known across the galaxy as Aria's seat of power—the lawless Terminus' System's very own Citadel and it's council chamber analogue, so to speak.
"Are you serious?" Accer said incredulously.
"You've got to be pulling our leg," Teewin complained.
Cade laughed at their disbelief. "No, I'm dead serious. And that was only half of his part-time job. He used to be a delivery boy for a company that delivers what you humans call 'Pizza'. Percival and I ran into him during one of our missions on Omega, he impressed the hell out of us and next thing you know we had our third musketent"
"It's 'musketeer', and second of all only half of that is true," I corrected.
I could always count on my boy.
January 24th, 2211, 0037 hours – Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 12, Pedestrian Corridor 49F – Lounge 3D
7 hours and 37 minutes after Outbreak
"Alright everyone, back into formation and check your firing lanes. I don't want anything creeping up on us and I most definitely do not want to be sending any letters home," Percival ordered brusquely. Could he be any more lame?
We quietly formed up with the marines at the back and sides, the scientists in the front, and us Spectres on point. I took one more quick glance at the ship's schematics. In about a hundred meters we'd exit this pedestrian corridor and find ourselves in a relatively large room filled with a bunch of machinery and spare parts for the Drive Core. The room itself wasn't as large as the main engine room but nonetheless was at least two decks tall, plus the machinery allowed for plenty of spider holes to jump us from.
It would be the perfect place to get attacked in. In my bones I felt for certain that the saboteurs would have some sort of ambush set up in a last-ditch attempt to keep us out of the main engine room. In the narrow confines of that room, any numerical advantage that we might possess over the saboteurs would be rendered useless. The machinery and the height of the room would allow us to be attacked from multiple elevations and angles, and if any of the creatures were present we'd be virtually forced to fight them at close range.
It was going to be rough.
Percival jammed a finger into his comms. set. "Lieutenant Commander Barthilus, we should be in the main engine room within the hour. What's the sit-rep on the Bridge?"
A few moments of static, then a flanging voice came on through the channel. "We're doing okay, Spectre. A couple of entry attempts but the Jaegers held them off. Captain Farragut is awake though and thoroughly pissed. He's threatening us loudly with all sorts of different treasons, it's starting to unnerve the survivors," the turian officer reported, "What's the status of the mission team?"
"We're green, all assets intact" Percival assured him.
"Kindly remind the captain that the Citadel Council and the Office of Special Tactics and Reconnaissance has granted us the authority to act however we see fit to complete our mission, which can include the murder of annoying Systems Alliance captains," Cade interjected in a tone that betrayed just how fed up he was with the recalcitrant officer.
Percival shot him an angry glance, eliciting a shrug from the frustrated turian. I couldn't blame him seeing as the last thing we wanted was a bunch of survivors to start a mutiny over the way we had decided to conduct our mission. This ship, these things —they all had to be destroyed. Of that there was zero doubt among the competent senior officers.
To his credit the turian bridge officer knew how to play the practical diplomat, unlike my obstinate turian friend. "Will do Spectre, I'll make a point to remind the Captain of the Citadel Charter, Section 13, subsection C, Paragraph 2 and the powers that it gives Council Spectres, Barthilus out."
"Captain's actions problematic, some desperate crew might be swayed to send out a general distress signal, might decide to enact a mutiny," Jaelen sniffed worriedly.
Percival twisted his head and shot the Salarian doctor a look of assurance. "Don't worry Dr. Veers, Captain Murgen and the Jaeger's won't let that happen, I'm willing to bet my life on it," he promised.
"Hope so, wish I'd left them my supply of propofol," Jaelen lamented.
Dr. T'lana scoffed scornfully. "The man's a complete and utter coward. Honestly, I wouldn't blame you Spectre's if you just shot him and let Barthilus assume command. In all likelihood you'd probably be averting a future disaster that could get more innocent crew members killed."
"Rentea, how could you say something like that? You're a doctor" Jaelen half-gasped.
"I took an oath to save the maximum amount of lives when I can and however I can. Besides, you're the one who drugged him. Twice," she reminded the salarian.
"Yes, because he was being an obstinate buffoon and wasting precious time. Drugging him is not the same as killing him in cold blood" he said defensively.
"He turned survivors away from the bridge and got them killed" she argued.
I held up my fist as I spotted something attached to the wall in the dim light. The group immediately fell silent and halted, with the civilians immediately getting low while the shooters all looked around warily. Percival made a 'move-forward' gesture with his hand and Cade and I began to walk towards the object.
Nailed to the wall with a combat knife was a severed turian arm, cleanly cut, just like the appendages we had found before the data archives. A note was also pinned to the palm of the gruesome limb. In curling, letters were the words "come find me", followed by a little heart written in what was obviously a feminine hand. Cade angrily tore the note off, read it, and moved to hand it to Percival who inspected the message.
"She's here, that psychotic bitch is probably waiting to either ambush us in the main engine room or the machine room before it," Cade snarled. His taloned fists opened and closed repeatedly and his subvocals thrummed with anger.
I gently pulled the knife out and removed the arm from the wall. A few meters away lay the body of a turian missing an arm, not dressed in the body armor of one of the ship's security personnel but rather a simple, plain uniform decorated with the patch of the ship's cleaning crew. His plates were relatively dull and a bit cracked, denoting his older age, and I could see that his left leg had been replaced with what I recognized to be a military-grade prosthetic. He had likely lost it in combat, been honorably discharged, and had still requested to remain in service.
I moved over and placed the arm beside the turian. Camilla came up to me and held out a camo sheet that had belonged to one of the marines, the ones commonly carried to cover up any KIA's one might find in the field. I grabbed it and gently draped it over the dead turian, hiding his grievous wounds and his cold dead eyes.
Cade nodded thankfully towards me and dug his talons tight into the barrel of his Vindicator, leaving a pair of scratches on the frame of the weapon. All of us knew that something was waiting for us ahead and all of us began to mentally prepare ourselves for the coming fight. The marines were silent, and while Mardinus was as stoic and silent as ever I could see that the young private flapped his mandibles nervously, his green eyes darting back and forth between shadows.
The doors that led to the machinery room loomed ahead of us. Percival raised a hand and the group halted in its tracks once more.
"As soon as that door opens, anyone and anything in that room is going to know that we're in. Cloud, Cade, stealth and breach first, find a higher vantage point and give us elevated fire support. Radio us when you're in position," Percival ordered the pair of us.
Cade and I both nodded and activated our stealth systems. Immediately we faded from view, nothing but the absolute slightest of electrical shimmers to denote where we were.
The rest of the group moved temporarily into one of the side corridors as we crab-walked over to the doors and activated them. A green light lit up and they slid open with a slight hiss. No gunfire, but I knew for certain that our presence was expected.
Cade and I slid into the room, silent and stealthed. As the schematics had shown, it was a double-tiered room filled with machine parts, large servers, and towering crates. Although it said that the room was only maybe 60 meters long, it was impossible to see from one end to the other if one were to stand at any point on the lower level.
I scanned the room for any careless saboteurs and began to scout for a good place to set up. Luckily for me, a large crate towered far to my left, in the corner of the room. It would allow me to reach the catwalks that ringed the second tier and would give me the elevation that I'd need to cover Percival's team.
I padded over and silently leapt, gripping the top of the crate with just the very tips of my fingers. Thankfully I wasn't too heavy, even in light armor, else this could be a lot harder than it had any right to be. Lightly bracing my feet against it, I pulled myself up as quickly and as quietly as I could. I scanned the top of the crate, checking for any light shimmers that might denote a saboteur's presence on top of the crate.
Satisfied that no one else had decided to pick out my eagle's nest for their own, I carefully lay down and unhooked my Valkyrie from my back, laying it flat directly in front of me. From this position I'd have a relatively decent view of maybe half the room. If I needed to, I could then pull myself up to the catwalk and relocate for a better firing lane.
I opened up a channel to my fellow Spectres and reported in. "I'm in the northwest corner of the room atop a crate, I've got a good vantage point on maybe half the room. Cade, where are you at?"
"Roger that," Percival radioed back.
"I need another thirty seconds" Cade replied.
I counted to thirty in my head before reopening the link. "Done?"
A brief grunt and a light clang sounded through the channel. I shook my head at my friend's sloppiness. For all his vaunted Ghost Infiltrator training, Cade lacked the utter finesse that I would have expected from a member of their elite infiltration corps. Or maybe he was just getting sloppy. In fact, I wouldn't mind brushing up on my stealth skills either. I knew that there was always room for improvement, and the stubborn turian might be more willing to take a training course if I volunteered to take it with him.
"Alright, I'm in position, I've got a vantage point on the full room," Cade reported.
I cocked my eyebrows in confusion. "What? Where are you?" I asked.
"See that heavy loader suspended from the ceiling? I'm in the cockpit," the turian smugly replied
I looked up and saw the loader in question. It was halfway into the room off to the right side and suspended with a bunch of winches and cables high above even the second tier. Below it looked to be some sort of cargo lift that likely led to one of the cargo bays. I had noticed it on my way in, but had dismissed it as too exposed and too hard to get to on short notice. Sure, it granted a full view on the entire room, but anyone who looked up would see you once you started firing.
"How did you even get up there?" I asked incredulously.
"Don't be jealous," Cade responded.
"I'm not. I just hope you know that once you're made you're going to be a god damn bullet magnet. I hope you have a plan for a speedy exit."
"Leave that to me," he said cryptically.
I rolled my eyes. "Whatever. Do you have eyes on any saboteurs?" I asked him.
"No. But from what I see, it's likely the saboteurs are set up on the ground floor. The second-tier catwalks don't have any sort of cover, and the boxes and machines on the first floor make it much easier to flank." Cade assessed.
"Noted. Percival, we're both in position now. Enter when ready," I told the marine Spectre.
"About god damn time, now watch and learn, boys," he simply replied
The doors slid open once again and a large, black-armored figure wrapped in red tech armor sprinted through, emitting a loud, angry war cry, his footsteps clanging loudly on the deck without any regard for stealth or silence.
I watched as a trio of saboteurs suddenly de-cloaked about ten meters away from him, directly in the path of Percival's reckless rush. Judging from the slowness with which they raised their rifles at him and the look that they shared with each other, they had been caught flat-footed by his unexpected maneuver. They had been expecting a group of wary, anxious marines protecting a bunch of civilian scientists moving slowly and cautiously into the room, not a lone, angry, 6'5 230lb Spectre in full battle armor charging directly at them.
Their hesitation cost them a lot more than I'd ever want to pay. The saboteur in the lead managed to squeeze off a burst from his silenced Avenger that merely glanced off of Percival's tech armor right before Percival's shoulder went crashing into his helmet, knocking him flat onto his back nearly four meters away.
Before the other two saboteurs could blink, Percival was upon them. A bright-red omni-blade suddenly sprung up from the barrel of his M-7 Lancer Assault Rifle. He pivoted and drove it deep into the chest of the saboteur on his left, the slow-moving blade bypassing the kinetic shielding completely and biting deep into his chest cavity, killing him instantly. The saboteur's rifle dropped limply out of his hands and I could see his head dip down to the side as the life left his body.
The saboteur that was now behind Percival tried to bring her rifle up to bear but Percival violently yanked his rifle's omni-blade out of the first saboteur and in that same motion elbowed her hard in the chest, sending her crashing into a crate of machinery about two feet away.
I saw her tilt her helmet up just in time to see the shoulder stock of Percival's Lancer go straight into her visor, whipping her head back against the crate. With his victim stunned by his melee attack, Percival ignited the omni-blade in his left hand and drove it deep into her stomach. I could hear her desperate, pained screams even from here.
The screams ended when Percival tore his omni-blade out of the saboteur. Deactivating the gory red blade of light, he brought his rifle up to his shoulder and turned to face the last saboteur who had managed to prop himself up just in time to witness the gruesome end of his two comrades. Desperately, the saboteur began to scuttle away from the Spectre. I couldn't blame him. In the dim glow of the emergency lights, Percival's red tech armor, massive build, and onyx-black N7 armor made him look like a demon straight from hell.
"Damn Percival, you just killed a girl," Cade quipped.
Percival ignored Cade, he simply walked up and put a long burst right into the poor man's face, shattering the faceplate and blowing out the back of the man's head in a burst of red matter.
Half a dozen more saboteurs de-cloaked, all of them stationed on the catwalk above me. In unison, they all opened fire with their Lancers on Percival.
The big ex-marine ducked behind a nearby data server, just managing to avoid the relentless barrage. The server began to hiss and crackle and the torrential rain of bullets began to chew threw its plating and its cabling.
"Marines, now!" roared Percival.
The doors slid open once again and this time Accer and Teewin followed by the two turians moved in. They began firing on the saboteurs up on the catwalk, their combined fire quickly bringing down three of them as the saboteurs stood exposed, completely focused on trying to kill Percival. Once they realized that someone else was hitting them, the remaining three shifted fire onto the marines, Percival being momentarily forgotten as they turned to deal with this new threat.
But Accer was quick on the draw. The moment the barrels of their rifles turned towards the marines, he raised his left hand and a corona of shimmering, blue light encased the group in a protective barrier. The saboteur's rounds impacted harmlessly against the barrier, the respite allowing the marines to move right into cover and begin trading bullets from a more defensive position.
More and more saboteurs uncloaked throughout the room and began focusing on Percival and the marines, who began to trade fire in return from where they had taken cover. Suddenly, four quick bursts dropped two of the three remaining saboteurs up on the catwalks as Cade finally made his move. The last saboteur turned his attention from the marines and shifted fire up towards the loader Cade was currently perched in. I could see bright muzzle flashes erupt from somewhere beneath the loader, indicating that there were also saboteurs firing from somewhere under the turian.
That was my cue. I sprang up from my vantage point and with one quick motion vaulted onto the catwalks directly above me, deactivating my tactical cloak as I did so. The saboteur who had been firing at Cade turned in alarm at the armed intruder who had just appeared from thin air not three meters away from where he had been standing.
My first burst hit the body of his rifle, causing it to explode in a shower of sparks and metal shards. My second slammed into his forehead while my third went right into his tinted visor, spraying the bulkhead behind him in a fine, red mist. Without a sound, he slumped to the ground and I activated my cloak once more, fading from view.
A loud crack caused my head to whip around, trying to pinpoint its source. I watched as a pair of cables keeping the loader suspended in the air suddenly snapped in half, causing the loader to list terribly to one side. Before I could radio a warning to my friend, I saw Cade fire another pair of bursts into the winches holding the last two cables up. With a loud snap they broke as well and the loader dropped nearly twenty meters onto the ground. I could hear a gut-wrenching cry well up as one of the saboteurs began screaming about his leg. Some moments later a third burst rang out and the cry stopped.
"Jaegers, marines, form up on Cade!" Percival ordered. I watched as the group dashed from cover to cover and homed in on Cade's position, which was now off to the side of the room.
I saw many of the remaining saboteurs begin to turn and face the newly consolidated position of the two Spectres and their marine shooters. They now had their backs to me and their right flank to the door we had all come through. Another pair of them fell to concentrated fire from the Jaegers and Percival, but the rest had taken cover and resumed trading bullets with the now entrenched opposition.
"Gunnery Chief Hinzo, move in now," I heard Percival order over the radio.
The door slid open again and I saw the four marines from the SSV Excalibur slip quietly into the room with the scientists and Camilla close by. The saboteurs were still preoccupied with Percival and his team, leaving their arrival and the perfect flanking position that they had taken up completely unnoticed. This was it, we'd break their backs here and finally end them.
Camilla and Jaelen opened up, lobbing a pair of Incineration bolts right into the flanks of the saboteurs, catching three of them in a fiery mess that quickly left a trio of charred, molten corpses on the deck floor before they even found the chance to scream. Rake and the marines cut down another pair with precise rifle fire, thinning down their ranks even further. The remaining saboteurs, now caught between Percival's team and Rake's, found themselves in a precarious position as they found themselves being assaulted on two separate flanks. Rentea threw up a barrier as a few of the saboteurs tried to return fire on Rake and his team, but many of the surviving saboteurs began to retreat, moving towards the doors that led to the engine room.
Any other special forces team might have taken the opportunity to start closing the jaws around the necks of the saboteurs, but Camilla and the scientists weren't trained soldiers and the marines were needed for protection detail. That left the Jaegers, Percival, Cade and the turians, but if they advanced they might find themselves in the line of fire of Rake and his marines on one side and the saboteurs on the other.
Still stealthed in my tactical cloak, I lightly leapt off of the catwalk and landed on the balls of my feet, with one hand braced against the floor. I rose from my three-point landing and produced the pair of Talon combat knives from their sheaths that I had strapped to my lower back. I began to quietly make my way to the nearest source of gunfire that marked a saboteurs location.
I found a saboteur with one shoulder braced against the side of a crate, his rifle raised and exchanging weapons fire with my friends. I moved up behind him and drove one of my knives into the man's armpit area, where there was only the microweave undersuit and no armor plating. My knife went directly into his heart, judging by the swiftness with which he suddenly crumpled. He slumped against the crate that he had been firing against and died without a word.
I moved on to the next source of gunfire. Without breaking out of stealth I wove my way through the mess of machinery and crates, sometimes forced to dodge stray weapons fire from my own allies. I made my way behind a data server to where a pair of saboteurs were currently hiding. One of them was a large man who was firing his rifle on full auto towards my friends while the smaller one was crouched behind him, busy trying to slip a new heatsink into his rifle.
I knelt in front of the man trying to reload and jammed one knife right underneath his chin, killing the saboteur instantly. I could hear his friends calling to him through the radio in his helmet but I couldn't pick out what they were saying. No matter, he wasn't exactly around to respond any longer. The heatsink rolled out of his lifeless fingers and onto the deck. I swiftly ripped my knife out of his chin and turned my head towards his compatriot.
The bigger saboteur hadn't noticed the demise of his friend, preoccupied as he was with returning fire. From where I knelt I jammed my other knife directly into the back of his knee, bringing him kneeling onto the deck with a pained gasp. Like his friend I could hear voices coming from inside his helmet, but this time I could hear them more clearly, yelling at him to fall back. I raised the knife I had killed his buddy with and drew it in a sharp, vicious line against his throat. The kinetic shielding and the microweave undersuit did nothing to stop titanium-carbon blade from cutting through his windpipe. The big saboteur brought his hands up to the ruin of his throat and began gasping loudly.
I moved quickly from the two fallen saboteurs and found the last six of them backpedaling towards the door, laying out a desperate volley of suppressive fire to cover their retreat.
The first one went down as a burst of Lancer fire ripped through his shields and cracked open his chestplate. The next took a bolt from what I recognized to be Camilla's Geth Plasma Shotgun right into her stomach and dropped to her knees, cradling her burned insides. One of her comrades grabbed her by the back of her armor and tried to pull her away but a burst from Cade's Vindicator tore right through his shields and into his helmet, dropping him on top of her.
In that moment I almost felt bad for the saboteurs, even though I also felt that the truth was that they had resigned themselves to this treatment the moment that they had decided to release the virus that had killed nearly a thousand crew members aboard this ship.
Even then I didn't relish the violence. As horrendous the crimes that these saboteurs had committed, I knew that they were still people. They might have families, might have hobbies, likes and dislikes. They might have overcame numerous personal challenges in their lives, triumphed over countless struggles, might have held the door open on their way out for someone behind them, might have had favourite movies, favourite restaurants, foods, songs.
They were still people, and each individual is a complex amalgamation of a countless number of different experiences, thoughts, and actions that have meaning, that have significance, no matter if they had done something to make us consider them "evil" or not.
You'd think that being given a license to kill, Spectres would be encouraged to de-humanize their targets, to make it easier to remove them in the name of galactic safety. The exact opposite was true, at least in the case of Spectres such as Percival, Cade and I. We each knew the value and worth that existed in every single life, be it human, turian, whatever.
Contrary to what one might think it didn't stop us from making the hard choices, didn't stay our trigger fingers when our guns were pointed at those who committed horrific crimes or stop us from sometimes making those hard "one-life-for-a-thousand" decisions that haunt lesser men.
It made the act of taking a life something that wouldn't be viewed callously, but rather as a necessity, and above all it made the act of saving a life all the more valuable. We didn't want to see those that we killed in the line of duty as nothing more than targets, because in doing so we would eventually lose our ability to see the lives we saved as worth saving. They too would just become another target, so to speak. If we did that, then the galaxy would just be filled with numbers rather than people. Everything would boil down to simple arithmetic and we wouldn't be saving people anymore, just a statistic.
"All teams hold fire, I've got the rest of them," I radioed my friends.
The gunfire from Percival and the marines ceased abruptly, causing the saboteurs to look around in confusion. I stepped out from behind the piece of machinery that I was taking cover behind and raised my Predator. I squeezed off eight shots, the first four directly going into the throat of the saboteur on the left, the disruptor ammunition cutting through his kinetic shielding and severing his spinal cord. The saboteur on the right moved in front of the last saboteur, taking the next four directly to his helmet.
The pair of them crumpled to the floor, their smoking rifles still tightly clutched in their hands, where the first proceeded to choke on the blood that I knew was slowly filling their lungs while the other simply lay there while a growing pool of blood spilled from his ruptured visor.
The last saboteur let her rifle fall from shaking hands and dropped to her knees. She ripped her helmet off, revealing a pale, moon-shaped face with tear tracks streaking down her cheeks. She was probably a few years younger than I was. Her lip quivered as I un-cloaked in front of her. Her eyes shifted between the smoking barrel of my Predator in one hand and the blood-stained combat knife in my other, then up to me as I slowly walked towards her.
I couldn't begin to fathom how terrified she must have been, then and there. First having to watch three of her friends be ruthlessly dispatched by a huge figure in glowing, red tech armor, then watching the rest die one by one, and finally seeing this ghost appear out of nowhere and gun down her last two companions, clutching a knife stained with the blood of what must have been her fellow friends.
In an uncharacteristic moment of pity I lowered my pistol. Behind me I could hear the footsteps of my friends as they moved to stand with me. I could hear the rasp that their rifles made as they trained them on the figure kneeling in front of us. It must have only served to terrify her even more, because she let out a loud, wracking sob that I was sure could be heard halfway through the ship.
I sheathed my knife and holstered my pistol, taking a small step towards her. I brought up both hands to my helmet and unsealed it so that she could look me in the face and see that I was a human being, just like her. "Surrender and you'll be granted a right to a fair trial and to an attorney. It doesn't have to end here," I told her.
She sniffled and shook her head, her voice cracking as she began to speak. "It's too late. Please, believe me when I say I didn't want this, didn't want any of this," she whispered.
Her right hand came out from behind her back, a Predator held in one shaky fist. Her arm trembled as she leveled it shakily at my chest.
A rapid set of footsteps moved up behind me. "Put down the weapon, miss," Rake ordered, his Lancer up and trained squarely at the girl's forehead.
The saboteur merely sobbed again, tears flying freely down her face, but otherwise didn't comply with the Gunnery Chief's orders. He barked at her to lower her weapon again, prompting her to cry even harder. The tears that fell to the ground around her weighed more heavily on me than all the blood I had spilled since I had come aboard this ship combined.
I stepped into his line of sight and raised both my hands in a gesture of placation. "Just come with us. Testify against the ringleaders and we can guarantee your safety, maybe even reduce your sentence. Tell us what they're planning, why they started all of this, and what they intend to do next. Help us save lives."
She shook her head again. "No, they'll kill me. There's nowhere that I'll be safe."
Percival tried to move up but she shifted her aim towards him, causing him to step back. "Miss, I promise you that we won't hurt you. Put the gun down and come with us," he said reassuringly.
The saboteur stopped crying then, her grip on her gun ceased to shake and she blinked away her tears to regard us with a clear, steady gaze.
"I just wanted my brother to see them again. I never wanted to hurt anyone, I never wanted any of this, but they told us that it was the only way, that we'd be able to bring them back anyways once we'd figured out how to transcend," she said softly.
"I'm so sorry," she finished. She raised her pistol just as my hand began to curl with blue energy, but before I could put her in stasis the young saboteur pressed the barrel to her temple and pulled the trigger.
I closed my eyes, sparing me from the sight of her ruined head. I heard a light thump as her body fell to the ground and a light sob from behind me as either Camilla or Rentea failed to hold back their feelings.
I opened them again and moved to kneel beside her. I closed her wide, staring eyes and turned back to regard my fellow Spectres.
"She said she was sorry," I said to no one in particular. Cade knelt beside me and pulled out another camo blanket from one of his utility pouches, draping it over her small form respectfully and dipping his head.
"They're not all crazy, like that salarian or that female doctor," Cade rasped, "It sounded as if she was acting somewhat under duress, promised some kind of reward for her involvement but living in fear of what they might do to her if she stopped."
I nodded at my friend and crossed my arms against my chest. My mind went back to the data archives and the neurotic salarian. "Transcend, she spoke of transcendence, just like that saboteur back at the data archives," I said thoughtfully.
Cade tilted his head to look me in the eye. "Any idea what they meant?" he asked me.
I shook my head slowly. "No, not a clue, could be some kind of religious significance?" I haphazardly guessed.
"Maybe, I wish we knew more," he concluded ruefully.
I nodded once more in agreement and stood up.
"Rake, take your marines and do a quick sweep of all the bodies. Grab anything useful —ammunition, grenades, even ration packs or water bottles—and bring them all here. I want us fully prepared for whatever we might find in the engine room," I ordered. The marines all saluted and began to move from fallen saboteur to saboteur, occasionally grabbing something off their utility belts.
I frowned and as an added afterthought signaled to my corpsman. "Fly, check for any survivors," I told him.
The black corpsman nodded to me and booted up the medical scanner on his omni-tool, taking a knee beside the body of one of the saboteurs. I doubted that there were any survivors, but it never hurt to try. If even one of them still lived, perhaps we could find out more about their true motives and minimize the amount of blood that we had to spill.
I turned to the turian marines next. "Mardinus, you and Verus go and guard the door to the engine room," I ordered them, "Camilla, Jaelen, Rentea, go with them. You too Cade"
They all nodded to me and walked off, weapons at the ready. I could hear the marines some distance away, muttering amongst themselves about what the saboteurs could possibly be trying to accomplish.
That left Teewin, Accer and Percival. As I stared contemplatively at the body of the saboteur, the biotic Jaeger moved beside me and clapped one hand onto my shoulder. His helmet was off and tucked underneath his other arm.
"It's never easy, watching someone take their own life," he said sadly as his gaze fixated on the sheet-covered body lying off to the side.
I tilted my head and regarded him curiously. "You sound like you've seen a lot of that," I said to him.
He nodded and sighed. "Not every slaver is a cold-blooded monster. God, I wish they all were, it'd make it so much easier…" he trailed off.
Teewin removed his helmet as well, revealing Puerto-Rican features and a rough, stubbly beard. He cleared his throat and scratched the back of his head. "Once in a while we'll board a ship and find a few kids. Slavers, but they'd be no more than 18, sometimes as young as 13 or 14. They get probably got roped in with the wrong crowd and next thing you know they're aboard a slave ship, in over their heads and with no way out" he explained.
"Slavery is outlawed in all of Council Space. It's a minimum sentence of five years for first-time lighter offences involving maybe a handful of slaves, and up to life-imprisonment or the death penalty for heavier ones or repeat offences," Accer continued. "Sometimes after we've boarded, some slavers would decide that they'd rather die than face a lifetime behind bars," he finished sadly.
Percival and I shared a glance with each other and both shook our heads. Every time a big war finishes, or a terrorist is stopped, or a murderer was found and brought to justice, it was tempting to think that maybe, just maybe the horrors would cease. The reality was that that would never happen.
Murder, rape, kidnappings, and mass terror attacks hadn't stopped with the conclusion of the Reaper War. There wasn't a lasting happily ever after. It was up to the vigilant watch of those brave few such as Accerrimus Burton or Sean Teewin to try and make that happiness last just a little bit longer for the galaxy at large. They had seen things, done things, so that no one else would have to. They had dedicated their lives to keeping that darkness at bay.
They would have made good Spectres.
I looked back at them and nodded. "I promise you, we'll find the ones who orchestrated this. We'll find out why they did this and they'll be made to answer for their crimes. Go get Rake and his team and load up on ammunition, I didn't see any of the ringleaders during our fight so I expect we'll get to meet them soon," I told them.
They nodded and moved away. I took one last look at the saboteur and sighed. I didn't know the first thing about her—I didn't even know her name, but I doubted that I would ever forget her face.