Chapter 31. Hostile Takeover
02:54 Local Time, 3. March 2401 AD, Mindoir, Killigan's Point Outpost
The man raised the green mug to his lips, taking a small gulp from it before realising just how hot its content really was. In one swift motion the coffee shot out of his mouth and onto his green combat fatigues, causing him to sigh at the realisiation that he'd have to get changed now. He couldn't start his day like that. At least the cup of coffe had woken him up, just not the way he had expected, or as a matter of fact wanted it to. Looking around the armory to confirm that no one had witnessed this rather embarrassing display of self control, he was relieved to find himself as the sole occupant of the room. Good, he hardly needed that one on his card as well. Being the young, promising lieutenant hailing from Terra Nova's best military school he could hardly use another chip on his shoulder, not this early into his career. He undid the buttons of the blouse of his uniform before throwing the now stained piece of cloth into his already opened locker, deciding that no one would really care what he wore underneath his hardsuit as long as it was something. The man began grabbing the pieces of his lighter than usual armor, moving from his feet up towards his chest, clipping the single most important device to his belt as a finishing touch before the colour of the materials surrounding him started to change with the press of a button, adapting to the colony's landscape and allowing him to blend in with his surroundings.
"You're up early," he heard behind him as he spun his helmet around in his hands, the picture of a pretty, blonde woman looking back at him from its position inside the piece of green armor and, as with every time he saw it, filling him with a sense of joy. He turned his head ever so slightly and saw the source of the voice walk into the room and towards another locker, its door engraved with the sigil of their shared unit, a black lighting bolt crossing through a white triangle, obstructing his view of the person the voice belonged to as it was opened. "Couldn't sleep?" it demanded to know.
"Something like that," he replied while his arms dropped, causing the helmet and the picture to disappear from his immediate field of vision as the person behind the locker door threw a backpack onto the desk behind him, the rather large blade at its side held firmly in place by the straps it was attached to. "Just woke up half an hour ago and figured I may as well run the obstacle course a couple of times to stay sharp. No point in sitting around my room until formation," the man added as the new arrival to the room kept pulling things from his locker, a lighter version of the HSA's standardized infantry helmet, lacking an environmental seal and a visor, and a pair of glasses now placed next to the backpack on the desk as the figure behind the locker door also started to put pieces of his armor on while the man himself rotated the helmet in his hand a couple of times.
"Always the shining example," his companion replied before closing the locker door, the adaptive camouflage of his armor slowly starting to colour it from grey to a blend of green and brown, a new pattern crawling from his arms and legs, converging in the center of his torso. Flexing his fingers to confirm that the rather unique technology was functioning as intended, the ASOC operative looked back up. "At least try and not make the rest of us look like slackers, alright?" he went on as he put the shades over his blue eyes, their dark glasses standing in a stark contrast to his otherwise fair skin.
"It's not my fault that you're lazy, Hofmann" he argued as he placed his own helmet on his head, his right hand touching the soon to be filled holster on his leg to control its straps before grabbing the SIS-9, the next generation of military pistol and first complete human mass accelerator weapon, from the desk. It was a heavier than the SIS-8 but it certainly made up for its weight by having a lot more stopping power than the aged, powder-based weapon. He understood why some of his fellow soldiers preferred its predecessor, the 'Phalanx' was neither as sturdy nor as field tested as the SIS-8, but for him the fact that he had more than enough ammunition at any given time without actually having to carry any magazines at all had made the decision between the two easy. "What's your excuse?"
"I'm going for a little hike. And for the record I don't think of it as being lazy, LT, I think of it as saving my strength," Hofmann shrugged as he grabbed his backpack before walking towards a shelf which held several SR-8 rifles. The sergeant grabbed one of the hybrid rifles and slung it over his shoulder, attaching it to the combat rigging of his lighter armor all the while stuffing magazines into several of the pouches attached to his chest, only his allegiance to the army's elite forces allowing him to do so without getting into all kinds of trouble. No matter what regular officers told their grunts, ASOC played by different rules, even when they went 'hiking'.
"For what? An Iffy attack?" the lieutenant chuckled as he inspected his own hybrid rifle on the desk in front of him, finding it as well maintained as he had left it the day before, five magazines holding 30 rounds each neatly placed next to it. "The IFS hasn't been active around here for nearly a decade," he figured. It was true, Mindoir had been devoid of any separatist sympathies for a long time. Ever since the last figure head of the IFS resurgence movement, Andrej Kamarov, had turned out everything the IFS had claimed him not to be, existing cells had either split of the organisation to form their own movements or seen their more moderate members abandon their cause, moving to legal parties such as Terra Firma. While some IFS cells were still around, the separatists hadn't caused any trouble in a long time.
He would prefer it stayed like that.
"There's more out there than separatists," the sergeant offered before leaving the normally restricted area behind the currently unmanned armory chief's counter. "Break a leg, LT," he added with humor before deciding to leave the lieutenant to his own devices.
"Very funny," the officer called after him, only receiving a final wave from Hofmann as he vanished from the room the same way he had entered it, quickly and quietly. The sergeant had a point. While the IFS, an enemy he had learned to hate as he grew up, had been the first thing to pop into his mind, there were other forces out there ready and capable of hurting humanity. Smaller planets of the Fringe Worlds, or as others called this area of the galaxy, the Skyllian Verge, had been the target of effective attacks by slavers, only the HSA's naval superiority, the quick reaction of its forces already deployed to the area and the tenacity of Colonial Watches stopping large, mostly batarian bands from taking over entire colonies, factors the independent worlds that had recently suffered unprecedented raids, causing tens of thousands of people to be captured, had lacked.
As he too left the armory, walking out of the illuminated prefab building and into the darkness of Mindoir's earliest autuum hours, he paused for a moment upon seeing a small, blue flash in the night sky, a ship slowing down from FTL travel. That had to have been a dangerous mistake or a very calculated gamble. If he could see the blue-shift, it meant that the ship was very close, far closer than it should've been. Ships didn't drop out of FTL this close to a planet because even the slightest miscalculation could them to be obliterated through a catastrophic collision with the surface, a collision that would very much have equally terrible ramifications for the planet it occurred on. What reason could any sane helmsman possibly have to risk something like that or going even further, what reason could any sane captain have for giving such an order in the first place?
Deciding that it wasn't his problem, somebody else would get into a lot of trouble for that maneuver either way, he kept walking towards the obstacle course. The first part of it, a simple wooden wall came into sight after roughly five minutes of walking through a forest area, wet, orange leaves of Mindoir's eerily earth-like trees crumbling below his feet as he made his way over the path. Once more making sure that everything was held in place, he came to a halt in front of the first obstacle, taking a moment to crack his knuckles before launching into a sprint like he had done countless of times before. He leapt off the ground and grabbed a hold of the wall's edge, pulling not only his own bodyweight but also his gear over it in one practiced motion. Dropping down on the other side, he began to run again, intending to complete the next obstacle with a similar speed only to come to a halt as not just one, or two, or five but well over a dozen blue flashes caught his eye as they appeared above him. This wasn't normal. He knew that an observatory some kilometers away was manned even during these early hours so he reached out for it. They would know what was going on.
"Essix Observatory, I'm seeing some strange activity above us. Care to take a closer look?" he asked as more blue flashes appeared in the sky, but no answer came back to him. "Essix Observatory, are you receiving me? Over." Apparently they did not. The only reply he got from the compound located on a hill in the distance was the annoying sound of radio static. Maybe whoever was manning it had fallen asleep?
"KP Outpost come in, something's going on above us and Essix Observatory isn't answering. Care to give me a sitrep?" the lieutenant muttered into his radio while rubbing the back of his neck, the event occurring above him causing his instincts to tell him that something wasn't quite right. "KP Outpost?" he asked after a period of silence not unlike the one before.
Nothing.
Unlike Essix Oservatory, KP Outpost was definitely awake.
Switching the channel in an attempt to figure out if the problem was localized, he recalled that Mindoir's terrain tended to mess with radio waves even in this day and age, he dialed into the non-military channel of the town located some thirty minutes away from KP Outpost while walking towards higher terrain. First he decided to listen. Mindoir was one of the bigger planets of the Fringe, while not reaching the population numbers of the core worlds, millions of people lived on its surface so there was bound to be something going on, even in an area as rural as Killigan's Point.
"Killigan's Point, come in, over," he spoke, expecting to hear some sort of explanation for what was going on but again found only static on the other end. While not particularly big, 30.000 souls called the town their home. By all means, someone should be listening to him, even if it was the paranoid old man living in the secluded part of the town who the rest of its inhabitants tended to avoid because he smelled funny. Counting the moments in his head, he undid the device on his chest. Maybe he was the problem after all. Quickly inspecting his radio he confirmed what he already knew. It wasn't broken. The batteries were working, the wiring was in place and there was no visible damage to it. It should be working fine.
Yet he got no reply.
This was starting to get strange. Looking up into the sky, he spotted a faint orange trail breaking through the clouds in the distance, only his keen eye allowing him to realise that it did not look like the small asteroids that occasionally fell onto Mindoir. The dark shape inside the fire wasn't even remotely round, in fact it looked like a bent piece of steel.
"Calling anyone in the area around Killigan's Point, are you receiving me? Over," he asked after increasing the range of his transmission, his eyes tracking the falling object until it impacted in the distance but he only reply his question got was more white noise. Strange was slowly turning into suspicious and the chance of a localized problem was growing smaller with every level he tried to contact.
Once more changing the frequency of his radio, now having dialed into the channel used by the next bigger military installation in the believe that they were bound to reply, he pressed the button that allowed him to sent a message again. Local interference shouldn't reach that far and regional command should have an idea of what was going on. It was their job to know what was going on.
"This is KP Outpost calling the 76th Infantry Regiment, are you receiving me? I'm seeing some strange activity above Killigan's Point and communications are down, over, " the officer explained as his eyes remained locked to the sky above him, even more blue flashes blinking in and out of existence at a rapid pace. He waited for a few seconds before once more speaking into his radio. "76th Infantry, I got dozens of unknown contacts appearing above Killigan's Point. Do you copy? Over." Much to his confusion, the army unit failed to reply as well.
He grew worried as he dialed in another frequency, changing the channel for the final time. This next move may very well get him into a lot of trouble but he had tried everything else. If regional command didn't answer, planetary command was the next, and final, step he could take.
"Mindoir Command, this is Lieutenant Haugen, 3rd ASOC Batallion deployed at Killigan's Point Outpost. Are you reading me? Something's happening in orbit and I can't get a hold of the 76th. Local and regional communication is not working either and I'm seeing debris falling from the sky, over," he spoke yet again only static filled his ears as more orange trails appeared through the clouds. He was about to try again when something came through to him through the white noise after all.
"-ASV Moscow heavily dama-," it sounded through the radio between periods of static. "-nding near Killi-," the voice went on. "-emy is deploying advanced jammers and orbi-" it sounded before white noise once more made it impossible for him to understand Mindoir Command.
"Repeat your last, over," Lieutenant Tore Haugen asked when a much brighter, white flash in the night sky caused his visor to taint itself darker to shield him from the sudden influx of optical input. He wasn't a sailor but even he recognized the explosion of a space ship reactor.
"-lize all forces. Threat condition Sab-" it came through more clearly. While he hadn't figured out what was going on, he was certain that he had just heard the order calling for the complete mobilization of all HSA forces on Mindoir. Threat condition Saber One was the universal order given in the event of enemy forces landing on an HSA planet and the expected reaction of any and all human forces receiving such an order was to start the immediate evacuation of civilians in their area before complying to the overarching order given to Colonial Watches.
Hold until relieved.
He turned on his heel just as even more white flashes appeared in the night sky, cursing that he had decided to take no more than four additional magazines for his rifle in the process. He needed to get to the outpost and alert his superiors, if their communication systems were being jammed, they may not even know that the colony was under attack, they were probably fast asleep. Rushing down the hill, past the obstacle course and through the forest path he had walked on a few minutes ago, his breath grew faster as the first, faint detonation sounded somewhere in the distance. Normally he would've suspected that this was orbital bombardment but a quick look upwards confirmed that this was not the case, no streaks were shooting through the clouds and the only thing 'slowly' falling from the sky were more burning pieces of debris, most likely from the several space installations around Mindoir or the presumably now destroyed HSASV Moscow and its escorts.
As he saw the outpost appear in the distance, he suddenly felt himself being pulled from the path, a strong grip around his neck causing him to both reach for his knife and press his chin against his chest to make it harder for his attacker to choke him. He only barely registered the missile impacting with the prefab building he had been about to enter as he turned the blade in his hand around to jam it into whoever or whatever was holding him.
"Friendly," he heard a familiar voice whisper next to his head just seconds before he executed the attack, causing him to stop moving to avoid any unintended injuries.
"Hofmann," he realised as another missile hit the central barracks of the outpost, the noise of something flying over them making it very hard for him to hear even his own thoughts. "Shit we have to ge-"
"They're gone," the sergeant insisted. He knew what he was trying to do but they still had to make sure. He couldn't leave his team to die in an inferno, what kind of leader would do something like that? If there was even the slightest chance that they were alive, he had to try.
"You don't know tha-" he was interrupted,
"No, Lieutenant Haugen, they are gone. The outpost was evacuated the moment we realised what was going on," Hofmann explained as Haugen only now realised that six familiar faces were lurking in the shadows just behind the sergeant. All of them were devoid of their more advanced gear and in fact the majority of them were wearing nothing but the most basic combat uniform they had quickly grabbed on the way out. And some even lacked that, standing barefooted on the wet forest soil.
"So everyone made it out?" Lieutenant Haugen whispered as he rose from the ground, Hofmann helping him to his feet.
"Yes but we had to scatter because of the flyers. Couldn't risk one large group," the sergeant explained. "And there's a large slaver barge going down four klicks from here and once they've landed, they're gonna be heading to Killigan's Point," Hofmann informed him as his finger shot into the sky, causing Haugen to look up into the direction the NCO was pointing. There, in the distance, he found an ever larger growing shape slowly descending through the clouds. From this distance it almost looked like it was just a box with wings attached to it which, if he had to make an estimation, was slightly bigger than a human frigate. "And we have no idea where the captain went after he gave the order to evacuate. So as things are, you're in charge, Sir."
He nodded firmly as his mind began to process the situation. No one but himself and the sergeant were in any shape to take on a search party, at least not in a direct fight. They lacked armor, stopping power and shielding while their enemy would probably have all of these things and more. How they had found this rather remote outpost wasn't a question he could answer now but he knew that if one of their ships had landed here, they'd go after the actual town of Killigan Point. It was the biggest concentration of people in the area and that's what slavers were after, people.
They couldn't mount a defense and they were in no position to face their attackers in a head-on fight. But they knew the terrain and ASOC wasn't known for picking fair fights. Twenty of them had been stationed in this outpost as a reaction to reports of IFS activity within the area around the town and twenty ASOC operatives could do a lot of damage, even if they found themselves unarmed. He'd find them a target they could apply that damage to.
"We'll ambush them," he began. "They're going to check the barracks, confirm their kills. When they split up, you go after the easy targets," Haugen ordered. "Split in teams of two, get the drop on them and scavenge kinetic barriers and all weapons you can find, Sergeant Hofmann and I will take care of any bigger targets," the lieutenant kept whispering as he pulled his Phalanx from his leg to hand it to the unarmed soldier next to him before giving his knife to another, an action Hofmann repeated the moment he saw the lieutenant do it. "Once we're done with the search party, we'll regroup here, make our way into the forest and take on targets of opportunity," the officer finished before turning to the other armored ASOC operative. "Got anything useful in that bag, Sergeant Hofmann?"
"Medigel, two ropes, some wire, some basic gear, two hand grenades and an additional silencer," Sergeant Hofmann replied as Lieutenant Haugen turned towards him to find the silencer already being handed to him. "Don't ask about the hand grenades."
It would've been an interesting hiking trip for sure.
"If there's anything remotely krogan in that search party I want you to take care it," the lieutenant ordered as he screwed the device onto the barrel of his rifle. This would come in handy.
"Tripwire trap? Say no more," Hofmann agreed.
"Any questions?" Haugen asked as he looked around the small circle for a final time. "Good, let's do this.
He received seven nods from around him before giving one himself.
"They blew up the wrong outpost," the sergeant added to the words of his superior. "Let's teach them a lesson."
To that, he could only agree.
Giving the hand sign that roughly translated into 'scatter', the group spread itself out through the wet forest and alongside the path, slowly creeping towards the now destroyed remains of their former home to wait for their attackers to show up. While it had been a hardened and fortified base, the large hole in its side suggested that the explosive used on it had been tougher. Their enemies were well equipped and if the ever increasing amount of detonations in the distance, both around Killigan's Point and into the direction of the 76th Infantry Regiment was anything to go by, there were a lot of them. He could see several fires burn in the distance as the bright, orange walls lit up the night around them. Kneeling down next to a rock, he threw a glance into the direction of the slaver barge, the noise of its engines now very much audible, electric cracks echoing through the forest as surface-to-air fire impacted with its barriers, the smaller caliber rounds failing to penetrate them but the bigger ones causing visible strain to them. The brownish craft, its large mid-section, somewhat smaller stern and pointy bow now distinctive, was about to touch down as he heard a snap in the distance, the sound of its engines drowned out by a large explosion swallowing one of its wings and causing it to lose its balance. The vessel hovered for another few seconds before suddenly and violently crashing to the surface, the shockwave traveling through the ground reaching him with a slight delay.
The 76th wasn't about to give up without a fight.
Afte the explosion died down, the sound of a tree branch being stepped on caused him to turn his head to the left, to one of the several dirtpaths leading towards KP Outpost. At first he thought it might have been an animal, after all the ship had just crashed and a search party shouldn't have managed to cover that distance in such a short amount of time, but as he focused on sounds other than distant gunfire and explosions coming from the now downed vessel, he noticed the typical whining of a mass effect engine, a gunship with two distinctively empty spots on its wings rising out of the trees and towards the burning wreckage in the distance. Apparently it had carried its own search party.
His breath slowed down as he brought his scope onto the path the sound had originated from and sure enough several batarians clad in polished black armor and carrying assault rifles appeared from it mere moments after he had done so. One, two, three, four, he kept counting the number of foes emerging from the forest until the tenth and final member of the squad stepped into his field of vision.
At least no krogan, that would save their explosives for a later moment.
The all-batarian unit moved towards the burning outpost buildings, their weapons at the ready, and came to a halt in front of the large hole their transport had blown into the barracks. Through his SR-8 he could make out the squad leader, who was wearing an eyepiece instead of a helmet, give orders to his subordinates through the use of handsigns. After he was done, they split up into five teams, two of which simply walked through the burning opening of KP Outpost's biggest prefab while the other three began to patrol around the small base, one team heading towards the communications array, another walking to the burning armory he had been in mere minutes ago and yet another beginning a patrol of the perimeter. He could already see the first couple of ASOC operatives stalk the two hostiles who had most likely been ordered to inspect the small radio tower of KP Outpost.
They could take a couple of batarians, especially if they split up like this.
Slowly moving his scope over the first group of batarians being tracked by two ASOC soldiers, one carrying his own knife and the other having grabbed a rather large rock as a makeshift weapon, his finger crept towards the trigger of his rifle, ready to act should they require assistance. To their credit, the two soldiers did a fantastic job at sneaking up on the batarians, using the generator placed next to the tower as cover right until the patrol came to a halt. Then, as he saw the silver glint of his blade reflect in the little moon light Mindoir's moon was casting during this night just before it was sunken into the soft part connecting the batarian's helmet to the rest of his armor, he was ready to help out the operative with the rock should the remaining slaver turn around, an action that turned out to be unnecessary as the particularly big man smashed the grey piece of stone over the other slaver's head, causing him to drop his rifle and stumble forward. For all their usefulness, kinetic barriers did not protect from the oldest weapon mankind had ever employed, there was something morbidly funny to it really. Not satisfied with his first hit, the ASOC operative jumped onto the dazed alien, proceeding to bash the rock onto his head several times until the his helmet cracked and blood began to leak from the now crushed skull. Since it wasn't exactly a pretty picture and there might be other soldiers in need of his rifle, Lieutenant Haugen decided to search the area with his scope to find another target, losing sight of the scene just as the two soldiers began to scavenge the gear of the two batarians.
Quickly scanning the outpost, he came to a halt one he saw the armory, small explosions caused by the ammunition stored in it still going off sporadically and discouraging anyone from getting to close to it. In front of the grey prefab building he found more dying batarians, another team of the army's elite doing what they were trained to do, killing the enemy. One of the two men was beating the figure lying at his feet with the slaver's own rifle while the other had repurposed the Phalanx Haugen had given to him into a bludgeoning weapon, beating the gun's butt against a batarian's head over and over again, causing the eyepiece which identified this one as the soon to be dead leader of the small search party to break before flying to the ground after a the final hit. When the leader collapsed shortly after, the soldier decided to borrow the knife attached to the batarian's hardsuit and proceeded to finish him off with a series of stabs to the face before grabbing the brown, boxy rifle from the ground. In any other situation he would've argued that the batarian could've possibly avoided this fate had he worn a helmet but as the ASOC operative turned around to deliver a final stomp down on the neck of the already dead leader, he realised that not even a helmet would've saved him from taking on this particular soldier.
His scope lingered on the two operatives for a few more seconds before he decided to check on the final team, failing to locate them and only finding the two corpses they had left in their wake, a pool of blood gathering around one dead batarians sitting against the fence and the head of the other, who looked like he was the first to fall, being twisted at an unnatural and certainly unhealthy angle. Recalling that there should still be two teams of batarians that had walked into the outpost's barracks, Lieutenant Haugen leaned a few inches to the side to give himself a better field of view before focusing his attention on the entrance of the barracks, his HUD informing him that Sergeant Hofmann had positioned himself on a small elevation some fifty meters from him, already waiting to get the drop on the remaining batarians. After resting the rifle against the corner of the rock he used for cover, the ASOC officer pressed his SR-8 against his shoulder once he saw a foot clad in black armor step out of what remained of the outpost's main building. The orange light of the fire burning inside caused the slaver and the three batarians beside him to cast a visible shadow onto the ground in front of them, allowing Haugen to get a good picture of how they would soon leave the building. Normally he would've used the squad intercom to perfectly synchronize his shot with the sergeant but as things were there were still jamming devices in place that prevented him from that.
Luckily the army had trained them even for this event.
As the batarians stepped out in a neat line, most likely wondering just where there comrades had disappeared to, he simply trusted that Hofmann was paying attention, squeezing the trigger of his silenced SR-8 just strong enough for a single round to leave its barrel. The bullet tore through the air and shattered the batarian's barriers before either he or his comrades knew what was going on. Then, out of seemingly nowhere, his head exploded into a pink mist, pieces of his skull and his brain staining the wall of the burning barracks. Just as his comrades turned to look at their now dead ally, the two ASOC operatives continued their onslaught. He fired again and again, shattering another set of barriers just as the batarian at the other end of the formation dropped dead and as soon as the shooting had started, it stopped.
He paused for a moment, lowering his rifle after flicking on the safety, and upon seeing the six now armed but still unarmored ASOC operatives fall back from the perimeter of KP Outpost, he waved into the direction he knew Hofmann to be in, causing a previously almost invisible form to rise and jog over towards him, his camouflage dissolving itself during the trip.
That had gone better than expected.
"-orces near Killigan's Point be advised, large enemy transport group heading towards you-," it came through his radio between a lot of white noise, "-jority of enemy forces moving to your position. Prepare to contai-"
As soon as the words left his radio, a noise above him caused him to look up.
He just had to jinx it, hadn't he?
There, at the edge of the clouds lingering over Killigan's Point, four more slaver barges began to descend, dozens of smaller dots flying around them. Some of them swiftly turned into small orange dots as a mixture of tracer fire and missiles tore their hulls apart but even with the 76th best efforts, he knew that these ships would make it to the ground.
This would be a long night.
04:39 Local Time, 3. March 2401 AD, Mindoir, New Alexandria
"And someone kill that damn sniper," he grunted as a miniscule round jumped of the car in front of him and only barely missing his head in the process, something that only further ruined his mood. Instead of field-testing the new Mako IFV as promised, he and the roughly hundred soldiers he had managed to gather at a moment's notice were currently trying, and failing at that, to keep an enemy force from making their final push into the city. The unit made up of both combat and non-combat personal was making its stand on a highway bridge that would've been full of vehicles in less than one hour, at least the timing of the slavers had been off. A few minutes later and this whole fight would've been even uglier than it already was. Breaking into a sprint to quickly cover the gap between the burned out car he was currently using for cover and the Hammerhead APC he intended to reach, the officer felt a round jump of his shields just before reaching the much more reliable cover of the greenish-brown camouflaged vehicle, leaving behind the damaged family van and the dead people inside it. As things were enemy forces were moving towards the city from the east and the south, the later of which he was currently taking part in defending and in his professional opinion this wasn't as much a slaver raid as it was an invasion.
"What's the ETA on our reinforcements?" he roared towards the specialist taking shelter behind the already damaged armored vehicle, the large backpack standing next to him being the only piece of radio equipment giving a reliable link to Mindoir Command, at the moment the only place on Mindoir able to provide something akin to coordination. The jammers had really done a number on their communications network, something like this hadn't happened in a long time. Some egghead would get into a lot of trouble for this and right about now he had no issue with that.
While waiting for an answer, the officer threw a glance towards the only reason their line was still holding, bracing himself as its railgun fired once more, something violently exploding in the distance once Newton's laws of motion were applied to it. As the maingun of the Grizzly reloaded, its turret turning a few inches to the left in preparation for destroying its next target, the specialist answered.
"They're not coming, Colonel!" the man called over the sound of battle as he clutched the bigger radio to the side of his head, metallic screeches filling the air around them as a heavier mass accelerator focused its fire on their position. Luckily for them, the armor of the Hammerhead seemed to hold for the moment. "The 161st is busy locking down the east side of New Alexandria, the 5th is evacuating people into the shelters and the 76th has their hands full with the main landing force near Killigan's Point."
"Give me that," he simply replied as he took the radio from the specialist, pushing down the talk-button. "This is Colonel Oleg Petrovsky on the southern end of New Alexandria, we need relief and we need it now," he shouted without even pausing to ask who he was talking to. "If you don't send us backup, this line is going to break and once that happens, the batarians will have a literal highway into New Alexandria. Unless that's what you're looking forward to, I suggest you send another battalion to this position!"
"We can't spare anyone at the moment, Colonel," it came back to him in a much calmer fashion.
Nearly eight million people lived on Mindoir and at the moment roughly 30,000 members of the armed forces should be planetside. He didn't believe that there was no one left to send.
"You're telling me that several regiments are all bound fighting a couple thousand slavers?" he asked as he saw the specialist next to him turn out of cover just far enough to take potshots at the advancing wave of vorcha attackers. "If this line falls, they can just walk into the city. At least give us some fire support."
"You're facing a smaller infantry force," sure as hell didn't feel like it from Petrovsky's perspective, "other units require assistance far more than you do. Most of our air assets are trying to clear the sky and our artillery batteries are busy with enemy armor pushing from the east. Other available forces in the area are being sent to deal with krogan and vorcha mercenaries wreaking havoc in the suburbs," the man on the other end of the radio explained as the colonel grew angrier with each word he spoke, even if they made sense. "Everyone other than that is being moved to prepare a counterattack on the main landing site near Killigan's Point. Hold until relieved, Colonel. I'm sorry but Mindoir Command over and out." the voice offered before the line was closed from the other side.
Self control and the knowledge of how invaluable the device was kept Colonel Petrovsky from throwing the radio to the ground out of sheer frustration. They were on their own. He handed the radio back to the specialist as he once more threw a glance at the Grizzly, its machine guns spitting tracer rounds through the early morning darkness, the nightvision in his helmet allowing him to see what the tank was targeting in the distance, small, vorcha-like figures dropping to the ground as the armor piercing rounds tore them apart.
They would hold to the last man, he didn't doubt that, it was just a question if they would be relieved before that. As long as their tank was still in the fight and, more importantly, as long as it still had ammunition, the slaver forces would be kept at bay but Petrovsky knew that the Grizzly would run out of ammunition before the slavers ran out of vorcha, at least that's what the quick look at the series of transports landing in the distance led him to believe. Hearing the electric sound of the railgun preparing to fire once more, he braced himself just in time for the sonic boom to fly past him, something that would be very dangerous for anyone not wearing a hardsuit. Quicker than his eyes could comprehend, one of the transports that had made an approach to land exploded into a mixture of smoke, fire and shrapnel, the Grizzly's round finding its mark. The force of the detonation caused another transport to lose its stability and soon enough another craft came crashing down in the distance, falling right on top of several squads in the process of deploying.
Lucky shot.
But then their luck turned from good to bad just as quickly.
The first explosion was easily warded off by the tank's shields but the one that followed actually managed to collapse the protective bubble, exposing the Grizzly to the third missile. At first its point defense system and more importantly the crew did what they were trained to do, deploy smoke and drive backwards but as he saw another series of missiles approaching the tank he knew what would happen next. Grabbing the specialist by the arm, he began to run.
"Get clear!" he got out of his mouth just as the first missile of the pack exploded mid-air, destroyed by the Grizzly's missile defenses but still unloading its deadly payload above the highway and over the heads of some unfortunate soldiers that hadn't reacted to Petrovsky's orders in time. As they were torn apart by the explosion, the colonel kept running before he heard something fly through the air behind him, time slowing down as he tried to turn his head.
Then he felt himself being thrown forwards as his shields collapsed, a large piece of metal embedding itself in his arm and very nearly cutting the limb off in the process. As he lay on the asphalt of the highway, from the corner of his eye being able to look at the burning wreckage of the MBT, he saw one of its crew members desperately trying to exit the tank before a secondary explosion swallowed him. The colonel was ready to accept his fate, the military mind in him had told him that it was only been a matter of time before the slavers called in an airstrike on a target as annoying as that tank but the optimist in him had hoped that it wouldn't happen because of the predominantly vorcha force they were facing. Not that it mattered, it was not like they had had another option, the Grizzly had to be where it had been to allow the prolongued defense of the highway in spite of the danger it was in. He had known that and the crew had known that, such was the nature of war, sacrfices had to be made to achieve victory.
Not that this knowledge made losing soldiers any easier.
He didn't want the last thoughts in his life to be how much he hated the slavers but as the blackness crept into his eyes, only barely registering the specialist trying to apply medigel to him as bullets tore over their heads, he couldn't help it. They had killed thousands of his people and now they'd kill even more. The highway would fall and they'd walk straight into New Alexandria. He felt himself being carried into cover once more, now facing the way he had come from not an hour ago and decided to wait until a slaver walked up, his hand slowly traveling towards his sidearm.
He wouldn't make it easy for them either.
As the seconds passed, the hope that he'd get a final shot at these monsters was starting to dwindle but then he saw something he hadn't ever expected to be glad to see. Rising from the street below the bridge and quickly becoming more visible as it climbed upwards, a grey APC with a white heptagon printed on its red frontal armor raced towards their position, five barely readable letters he had always associated with the enemy delivering a sense of hope to him once he saw the small canon on its top fire into the direction of the vorcha horde, militiamen clad in either no or only light armor pouring from its back once it came to a stop while similar vehicles with the same abbreviation came into view behind it. He didn't care where they had hidden these things from them and he didn't care what kind of political disaster this would cause in the long run. He only cared that for once, the enemy of his enemy was in fact his friend, no matter how much bad blood existed between the two parties it would seem that right about now they had found some common ground. Seeing one of the figures in lighter armor rush towards him, he dropped the pistol in spite of the five letters engraved on the man's outdated hardsuit.
For the first time in Oleg Petrovsky's life the letters 'IFSDF' were not a reason to open fire.
He would've laughed at the irony of the HSA leaving him and his men to die after nearly three decades of service while the foe he had fought for years came to his aid in his hour of need but before he could do so, he blacked out.
5:01 Local Time, 3. March 2401 AD, Mindoir, Field near Killigan's Point
From his position on a small hill overlooking the clearing the ships had landed in he could see yet another group of unfortunate civilians being herded towards the slaver barges through his scope, discipline and the knowledge that he couldn't help them right now stopping him from putting a hole into the batarian walking behind them. The alien was regularly using a seemingly painful program on his omni-tool to keep them moving through the high grass and with each time he activated it, Haugen felt his finger get closer to the trigger.
"That's a lot of tanks," the ASOC soldier next to him said as the ramp of the transport vessel began to lower itself, revealing rows of Votham tanks in different stages of readiness. "76th is going to be in alot of trouble if they start rolling."
"Come to think of it, why hasn't there been a counter attack yet?" Hofmann asked as he handed his binoculars to the soldier next to him. "We're letting them set up a beachhead nearly uncontested. Sure 76th is busy but there are more units planetside," the sergeant reasoned.
"They probably have orbital superiority. Any large troop movements would be suicide at the moment. The only reason we're not being pounded right now is because slavers don't profit from collateral damage," the lieutenant replied as several dozen missiles began their ascend in the distance, most likely targeting any approaching vessel. "Until we take care of their space assets, there won't be an attack."
He knew that the counter attack was being halted not only because of any potential enemy orbital assets but also because there were already hundreds if not thousands of prisoners aboard these vessels. On their way towards this landing side, the ASOC unit had encountered a group of captured civilians, freeing them after ambushing their guards on the narrow paths leading through the forest. From what the injured soldier who had been part of the group had told him before Lieutenant Haugen had ordered him to hide the civilians in the forest, the situation in Killigan's Point had gone from somewhat under control to horrible really fast. Whoever the slavers couldn't capture, or who they believed not to be worth the effort, they massacred. The forces sent by the 76th Infantry had been overwhelmed after biotics had attacked their position and the rest of their regiment was engaging the enemy's main force, effectively leaving the town undefended. From the look on the corporals face, it was even worse than it sounded. While his group had been making their way to this clearing, the batarians had started to turn Killigan's Point into a ghost town. He didn't believe that the soldier was exaggerating when he had claimed that the slavers had taken just about anyone living there by now.
"Just how many of these things did they cramp into that ship?" he heard another operative ask as he used his scope to take another look at the transport, spotting mechanics buzzing between the tanks, readying them for deployment.
"A lot," he replied. "There's a road leading to the 76th near this clearing. It's the fastest way to the front," the lieutenant added as his scope shifted to allow him a clear line of sight onto the bigger, more developed path. "We've got to stop them from getting there."
"Come again, Sir?" Hofmann asked.
"It'll take some time to unload them," Haugen began as his scope zeroed in on one of the slaver barges, several of its canons pointing directly at the open ramp of the transport and the crews working on the Votham tanks.
"Boarding a ship while its on land?" the sergeant chuckled as he realised just what Haugen was looking at. "Does that make us pirates or car thieves?"
"Don't think of it as boarding, think of it as borrowing," the officer replied as he began to crawl down the hill. "With me, watch your spacing," he added and after the press of a button he disappeared into thin air. While the intangible was as a matter of fact not entirely indomitable, being almost invisible to the naked eye was still an incredible advantage to have. Especially in situations such as this one.
The ASOC operatives did exactly as they were told, not wasting a single minute to question this borderline insane plan, and followed their leader towards the clearing, they all knew what was at stake. The eight soldiers cleared the small part of the hill that wasn't covered in vegetation unnoticed and soon entered the high grass of the clearing, slowly moving towards their intended target in the cover of the night. Tore Haugen came to a halt as he heard and felt another group of feet marching towards him, slowly flicking off the safety of his SR-8 should he be spotted. Slightly behind him and on his left he saw another ASOC operative, his forearms covered in a mixture of dirt and blood from crawling over several sharp rocks, do the same, his eyes darting towards the lieutenant, only able to tell where he was because he knew the small giveaways optical camouflage had.
The footfalls came closer and soon enough he could hear the weeping of children, the ragged breath of adults and the shouting of batarians. By the sound of it a large group was headed for the slaver barges.
"Halt," a deep voice ordered as the group came to a stop not two meters from him. His eyes made out the shape of a young woman wearing red pajamas. She had collapsed to the ground near him, parts of her blonde hair stained with red from a bleeding wound on her head, tears running down her face and dripping towards the ground alongside droplets of blood. "I said get up," the slaver demanded as he stepped just in front of Lieutenant Haugen. The officer saw him kick the woman, hearing her let out a cry of pain once his armored boot connected with her ribcage.
The resemblance made it all the harder to watch.
He shook his hand towards the man on his left as he gritted his teeth, taking care not to move too fast due to the proximity of the slaver. They couldn't risk it and they wouldn't risk it. Both of them wanted to do something about the events occurring mere inches in front of his face but both also knew that breaking concealment would achieve nothing. They couldn't save her right now and if they tried they wouldn't be able to save her later down the line.
"Final chance, get up or I put you down for good," Tore Haugen heard, still restraining himself from putting the source of the commands down for good. His eyes were focused on the parts of the woman he could make out through the high grass and the gap between the batarian's legs, locking onto the pained expression on the her face. He prepared himself to witness her death but as she pushed herself of the ground, weakly rising to her feet, he realised that it might not occur after all. The batarian grabbed her by the wrist, throwing her back into the row before stepping away from the ASOC officer, unaware of how close he had come to the person who'd soon kill him.
"Good, we'll have fun later," the slaver promised before addressing the crowd again, allowing Tore Haugen to etch his features into his mind. Brown and yellow stripes on the side of his head and an ugly shade of brown covering the rest of his face, a face he'd remember. "Move it, vermin!"
They would not if he had anything to say about it.
The group moved past him and he could already see other ASOC operatives make their way forward. Once he was in the clear as well, he too began crawling again, somewhat faster than his allies since he was more than confident in his camouflage's ability to hide him. The dark-brown metal of the foremost slaver barge's hull came closer and closer and soon enough he found himself next to it, its ramp open to 'allow' another group of slaves to walk inside, their batarian guards more than eager to herd them. His HUD outlined his allies as he and the sergeant rose in unison, their near-invisibility allowing them to check the area around them. All of them had made it to the craft in one piece and were now waiting for his sign.
Tore Haugen looked to his left and then to his right and once he spotted no batarian's in the immediate area, he gave the sign for the rest of the unit to rise. The darkness was working in their favour but if the digital clock inside his HUD was any indication, that advantage would disappear in less than an hour minutes. The trip across the field had taken longer than anticipated after all and getting out again might become impossible.
Not that his plan lowered their chances of discovery.
"Two groups," he whispered as he nodded towards Hofmann. "Make your way to the left battery, I'll take the right one. We'll start firing at the same time. If you don't hear from me in ten minutes, start on your own," Haugen ordered before three of the unarmored ASOC operatives found their way to him.
"Execute," he threw a final nod towards Hofmann before taking point.
The lieutenant took a sharp turn around the hull of the slaver barge, entering the ship through its ramp and stepping inside its equally dark-brown inside. The area they entered looked like something out a nightmare. Kneeling in rows, he estimated that there had to be at least 200 people in an area that wasn't even big enough for fifty. The woman wearing red pajamas among them did not go unnoticed by him either. He walked towards the inside wall of the vessel and pressed himself against it just as several of the slavers dragged the uniformed people of the crowd, who by the looks of it had been too injured to resist capture. They gathered the nine servicemen in a circle in front of the captured civilians and a batarian in dark-red armor stepped in front of them, the stripes on the side of his head and the sound of his voice both features that caused Haugen to recognize him.
"Just so you don't get any ideas," he called towards the crowd before his omni-tool lit up orange, a net of some kind shooting from it and latching onto the soldiers who began to scream in pain the moment it made contact with them. "This is called a submission net and there are far more from where it came from," the slaver grinned as his needle-like teeth revealed themselves before he once more walked out of the hanger, most likely to capture another group. The ASOC officer kept moving slowly, the still visible members behind him being even more careful than he was, until he saw a stairway leading up to an open door, something akin to a control room appearing to be just behind it. The group maneuvered through the hangar and the closer they got to the stairs, the heavier a strange feeling in his gut became. Something even worse than slavery was going on here, he just knew it.
"Ready up," he whispered before throwing a glance behind him. The batarians were still busy with tormenting their captives. Now was their chance. "Go, go."
The group swiftly climbed up the stairs as the screams of their comrades drowned out the little sound their footsteps made going upwards. His rifle remained steadily in front of him while his eyes scanned the area around him. It would seem that only a token force had been left behind to process their captives, a choice that would cost them dearly soon. The lieutenant's feet left the final stair and not a moment later he stepped into the open command room, spotting a batarian standing in front of a large window overlooking something ahead of the hangar. The alien wore no armor and was only clad in a grey jumpsuit, this made things easier. He let his rifle down as he pulled the knife from his left shoulder, creeping up on the batarian as he heard the faintest footsteps of soldiers entering the room behind him. The slaver didn't even realise that he had company.
He'd enjoy this one.
His armored gauntlet moved over the batarian's mouth, covering the orange skin of his mouth and pulling his head backwards in the process. As the slaver tried struggling against his unknown and invisible assailant, Haugen's knife drove deep into the throat of the batarian, tearing apart the flesh in its path with ease. Once its hilt touched the batarian's neck, he twisted the blade so its tip pointed towards the window and proceeded to rip the knife out, a fountain of blood staining the window dark-red while he held onto the batarian, waiting for the last signs of life to stop, staring into four eyes filled with fear yet feeling nothing but satisfaction. Once his struggling stopped, the lieutenant sheated his knife, ripping of a piece of the slaver's jumpsuit to clean up the mess he had made on the window to keep any observant batarian from suspecting something. He rubbed the cloth over the blood stains exactly once before dropping it to the ground, a sick feeling creeping up in his gut.
There, beyond the hangar and just below them, several figures in sterile white biohazard suits were performing what could best be described as perverted brain surgery. Several dozen civilians were tied to chairs within the white hall below them, their backs facing towards the ceiling and small streams of blood flowing to drains placed on the floor. He was no expert but as he saw a batarian open up the back of one man's skull before placing a small sphere in it, he realised what they were doing.
He had heard that human captives, not unlike turian ones, were not exactly popular on the batarian slave markets because they tended to be more trouble than they were worth. Apparently the batarians had found a solution to that issue, he didn't know how they had done it but that much was evident. He looked to his right and spotted a human who had just survived the procedure. The man got up, blood now drying on his back, walked a few paces and came to a stop at the end of a row of equally obedient patients, showing no reaction whatsoever to the corpse being shoved into an incinerator next to him, the streams of blood flowing over his feet or the presumably horrible smell inside.
"What the fuck is this," he was torn from his thoughts by an ASOC operative that had come to check on him.
"Cranial implants," he replied dryly. They were jamming small devices into people to turn them into obedient puppets.
"Bastards," the man replied as he began to walk away, stopping when he found Haugen unwilling to move. "Sir?" he asked as the lieutenant remained at the window.
"Change of plans," Haugen finally spoke. "Find a way to close the hangar ramp, kill every slaver down there and save as many of the civilians as you possibly can."
He knew it was an emotional decision but in face of the butchery below him, he had to make it. No more.
"Yes, Sir," the soldier said as he turned to his two equally disturbed comrades. "You heard him, let's put a stop to this."
Raising his rifle, Lieutenant Tore Haugen opened the next door, revealing a walkway and even more slaves below him. The batarian guard downstairs looked upwards to the open door but upon finding no one, his camouflage still hiding the ASOC operative, turned his attention back towards the rows of slaves, presumably sceptical of the means used to keep them in check.
"Resistance is stiffer than expected," he heard someone say, his tone and gear suggesting that he was in some position of power. "Word has it we're pulling out at the end of the day."
"We haven't even been here for a day," another protested. "What is the commander thinking?"
"It's not your place to question our commander," the first batarian reminded his companion as Haugen came closer to the next door, his SR-8 still ready to shoot down anyone who could spot him. "The humans are gathering their ground forces for a counter attack and their fleets are probably being mobilized as we speak. Orbital command says we can't take them in a fair fight and the small flotilla took out our ground guns. When the HSA brings an actual fleet we won't stand a chance either. It's better to pull out earlier. Besides, I'm not liking the chatter about FTL signatures either. Rumor has it their fleet was enroute to this world already."
"The Hegemony wants us to bring in at least 200.000 slaves," the second slaver said as Haugen saw him look up something on his omni-tool. "We just processed a little more than 40.000. If we leave early, we won't get anywhere close to that number."
"When the Vothams are ready to attack the city, that number will climb."
"We still have to get offworld, several barges have already been grounded by precision attacks on their engines."
"Have a little faith, Khalat," the other insisted just as the ASOC operative opened the door, finding two batarian crew members turning towards him in their chairs, attempting to get to him.
They didn't stand a chance.
His SR-8 fired exactly six rounds, the silencer ensuring that he wouldn't be spotted. Each batarian received two hits to the chest and one into the center of their four-eyed faces, causing one of them to fall backwards into the chair he had just gotten up from, red liquid staining the control screens behind him, and the other to fall to the side, hitting the floor with a wet thud as his face remained locked in a surprised expression, the large hole in the back of his head ensuring he'd never take part in something like this ever again. The lieutenant walked over towards the control board and began to work, first and foremost closing the doors behind him to lower the chance of being shot in the back. He received a ping in his HUD just as he figured out what control panel was linked to the guns and wiped the blood of it.
Hofmann was ready and so was he.
Pressing down the button, the guns on the front of the ship began to move, now pointing towards the ramp of the armored transport, the first Votham rolling out of its front just as his fingers touched the trigger, blissfully unaware of his impending death. Tanks were tough but spaceships were tougher and as such even the small mass accelerators cannons attached to the frigate-sized vessel would do a lot of damage to anything that wasn't a spaceship. The first round left the gun's magazine with a deafening roar, the lack of air in space usually preventing this sound from happening. It obliterated the Votham which had began to move, punching not only through it but also digging into the one behind it, reducing the one batarian still working on it into a smear of dark red mush. Haugen fired another shot just as Hofmann began doing his biding on the other side of the ship. The next round drilled through a fuel tank located near the rear of the armored transport's hangar, the flames of its explosion expanding into all directions and setting both mechanics and munitions on fire, triggering an even bigger detonation in the process and tearing out a good chunk of the ship's hangar wall in the process.
Then the lieutenant figured out that the gun he was manning was not just semi-automatic. Pressing down the trigger, mass accelerator rounds meant to be fired against armored space ships found themselves rapidly being used against things which were not nearly as protected as their intended targets. The rounds cut through the transport, destroying Votham after Votham and killing dozens probably even well over a hundred of batarians before the lieutenant shifted his aim towards one of the slaver barges, targeting their guns just as they began turning towards him. He kept shooting, moving towards the engines in the process, disabling the three other ships one after another. Seconds turned into minutes and minutes began blending together as he kept switched guns, expending magazine after magazine into anything remotely batarian. The rage that had built up in him translated into an onslaught, squads of batarians being reduced to reddish mist upon their arrival to the scene as he turned the ship's point defense systems against them. The aircraft they sent to investigate what was going on and why their tanks never arrived suffered a similar fate and finally a slaver barge descending from the sky became the target of his revenge. At some point he stopped counting just how many he had killed, never even considering why orbital bombardment hadn't taken him out yet, the conversation he had overheard before nothing but a blur.
Even as the darkness outside disappeared, Mindoir's sun slowly rising to its zenith being the only indication of just how long he had stood in the control room, he kept looking for targets. The only thought occupying his mind was that of the butchery he had witnessed and that thought only started to dissolve as both Paladins and squads of marines began to be deployed through the use of Kodiaks.
"Sir?" he heard behind him, causing him to turn his head ever so slightly, the sergeant standing in the doorway. "It's done, Sir. The Hawking has arrived and the remaining slavers are making a run for it. We're relieved."
"What about the civilians aboard?"
"They're safe Sir. Traumatized but safe."
"How many?" he asked into the room while dropping back into the empty chair, the batarian corpse now sitting next to him. "How many did they butcher?"
"I don't know, Sir," Hofmann sighed as he handed him a bottle of water, exhaustion only catching up to him after he had sat down.
"Too many," he whispered before borrowing his face in his hands. They'd pay, he'd make sure of that.
Codex: Armored Warfare in the Age of Mass Effect Technology
Whether IFVs, APCs, hovercraft or traditional tracked tanks, every race of the galaxy at one point embraced the concept of an armored ground vehicle capable of leading an attack into otherwise unobtainable territory, a concept several races largely abandoned upon discovering the mass effect and rise of orbital and aerial dominance accompanying it. While APCs, hovercrafts and IFVs remain popular, tanks have become a dying breed in most militaries, being seen as too immobile and too big of a target to be valuable.
While tanks are still very much popular among the less developed regions of the Terminus Systems, only three major militaries in the galaxy still employ them in large numbers, the Batarian Hegemony, the Turian Hierarchy and the Human Systems Alliance, the later of which remains the sole user of the Mechanized Support Combat Suit, Paladin, (See Entry: Paladin Mechanized Support Combat Suit) a system some military strategists believe to be capable of ending armored warfare as a whole should it ever become, or rather be made, usable for non-humans.
While human and turian approaches to armored warfare are remarkably similar, both relying on maneuverability, combined arms tactics and precision, the batarian approach is unique. Instead of opting to not get hit at all, batarian tanks are simply constructed to take more punishment than their opponent. Laybers of sloped armor and powerful kinetic barriers, claimed to be capable of stopping even the rounds of a spaceship-grade mass accelerator by its manufacturer Batarian State Arms, batarian tanks are best described as 'landships', a design philosophy both the human and turian people abandoned soon after experiencing their first tastes of large scale, continuous armored warfare, an occurrence which scale is unheard of in the history of other galactic societies.
However even in face of this apparent inexperience, some of the results can't be argued Votham, the newest incarnation of batarian armor, remains the single toughest armored vehicle in the galaxy, being the only known target to withstand more than two 'Voshal' missiles in rapid succession, the most potent anti-tank weapon in the galaxy. Furthermore its destructive capabilities also make it a force to be reckoned with, the dual mass accelerator canons turning it into a deadly adversary.
It should be noted that prolonged armored combat between human or turian and batarian forces has previously favoured the mobile approach of the two Council members and that the newest generation of Votham tanks, the Votham Mk2, has yet to face either of the two in the field of battle.
A/N:
So chapter 31. Sooner than expected and longer than expected and sadly for a very good reason.
I've been keeping you up to date with some things in my life that might influence the update rate of this story and I will keep doing this so I'm just going to say it. Out of personal reasons (their nature is really a bit too personal to just write them down here) I had to request my discharge from the army, something which sucked.
A lot.
It was also a shock if I'm honest but hey, that's life.
The short taste I got of being a soldier was actually nice, I liked it, the people were cool and there was something about having your first job being the thing you wanted to do growing up.
Yet that didn't change the fact that I had to leave and that I probably won't be coming back again, which of course means I got to set my backup plans into motion now, something that's also going to change the flow of updates Semper Vigilo is going to experience from now on.
But as I said that's life I guess, one door closes another one opens. I'm a big believer in shit happening for a reason, a theme that may or may not have already become evident in Semper Vigilo.
Hence this part of the A/N
Enough of talking about personal issues, that's not what you're here for. I got friends for that shit :p You're here for the story :D
To the chapter.
Did somebody saaay origin story? Because this is basically what Mindoir is for one of the more important characters outside of Shepard's crew. Some who regulary read the codex probably already guessed who he is going to turn out to be as the chapter unfolded, I think its pretty obvious but then again I know who he is, but for those that don't, I'll keep my mouth shut for now. Haugen will come back.
I'll get to writing 32 as soon as I can because until friday, the day my first backup plan is set into motion, there's not a whole lot I can do so who knows, I may get out another chapter sooner than later.
For the record we're at 254 reviews, 449 favorites and 540 follows.
Tell me what you think, this is the biggest chapter up to now, the one after this probably won't be close to its size but hey, this is also really important.
I'm rambling.
See you around next time.
